Page 35 of Prognosis Incompatible

CHAPTER SIX

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Madeline had no ideawhy she was still crying an hour later but it was enough now.

Determinedly, she wiped the tears from her face. She’d given the official end of their relationship its due, grieved for the closing of a wonderful ten-year friendship, because honestly that was what it had been more than anything, but now it was time to stop.

Madeline stared into the rippling water below. From behind her somewhere the soulful beat of modern jazz drifted to her on the breeze, as did the excited laughter of children splashing around at the nearby city beach. The wake of a passing River Cat disturbed the surface and brought her out of her reverie.

She’d been sitting on the low wall that ran beside the Brisbane River at South Bank for half an hour. The waning rays of sunlight reached across the water, glittered on the surface and caused a kaleidoscope of colours to sparkle in the depths of the diamond ring she still held in her palm.

The tears were gone and she knew that to be fully free so she could move forward, the ring had to be gone, too. She looked at the river and smiled. Veronica would be completely horrified at what she was about to do. The only thing the receptionist had thought any good about Madeline’s relationship with Simon was the ring. She’d tell Veronica she sold it, but tossing it into the river had an air of finality she couldn’t ignore.

She closed her fist, lifted her arm, drew her hand back behind her head and flung her arm forward. A fist closed around hers from behind, halting the ring-hurling process.

Madeline got such a fright she nearly fell off the wall.

‘What the—?’ she said, as she quickly turned around.

Marcus.

Her startled heart settled a little when it realised there was no immediate danger to her life but took up a different tempo, a slower, louder throb, as she recognised that this man posed an even bigger danger than that.

He was a danger to her sanity.

A tantalising thought slithered into her brain like the serpent in Eden. Rebound sex.

No. Damn you, Veronica.

He was wearing boardies, which were damp, a button-up shirt worn Marcus-style — unbuttoned and flapping open. He had obviously dried himself hastily. His dark chest hair was still damp and she could see a lone water rivulet tracking its way down his washboard abs. His hair was wet and he had a damp towel around his neck. His feet were bare and sandy.

Rebound sex.

No!

Marcus opened her hand, saw the ring and plucked it off her palm. He looked into her eyes. She’d been crying. Something had obviously happened. ‘You know it’s against the law to litter, right?’

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