Page 126 of Tuxedos and Tinsel

‘Another fight,’ he said.

She dropped her hands to her sides, again overwhelmed by that urge to comfort him. ‘You were angry and frightened.’

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘All that.’

‘But then you ended up with this.’ She waved her hand to encompass the immaculate art deco pool, the expensively landscaped gardens, the superb house. It was an oasis of beauty and luxury.

‘My fighting brought me to the attention of the police. I was charged with assault,’ he said bluntly.

She’d thought his tough exterior was for real—had sensed the undercurrents of suppressed rage.

‘Believe me, the other guy deserved it,’ he said with an expression of grim satisfaction. ‘He was drug-dealing scum.’

‘What happened? With the police, I mean.’ He’d been seventeen—still a kid. All she’d been fighting at that age was schoolgirl drama.

‘I got lucky. The first piece of luck was that I was under eighteen and not charged as an adult. The second piece of luck was I was referred to a government social worker—Jim, his name was. Poor man, having to deal with the sullen, unhappy kid I was then couldn’t have been easy. Jim was truly one of the good guys—still is. He won my confidence and got me away from that squat, to the guidance of another social worker friend of his down the Queensland Gold Coast.’

‘Sun, surf and sand,’ she said. She knew it sounded flippant but Dominic would not want her to pity his young self.

‘And a booming real estate market. The social worker down there was a good guy too. He got me a job as a gofer in a real estate agency. I was paid a pittance but it was a start and I liked it there. To cut a long story short, I was soon promoted to the sales team. I discovered I was good at selling the lifestyle dream, not just the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. I became adept at gauging what was important to the client.’

‘Because you were observant,’ she said. And tough and resilient and utterly admirable.

‘That’s important. Especially when I realised the role the woman played in a residential sale. Win her over and you more than likely closed the sale.’

Andie could see how those good looks, along with intuition and charm and the toughness to back it up, could have accelerated him ahead. ‘Fascinating. And incredible how you’ve kept all the details away from the public. Surely people must have tried to research you, would have wanted to know your story?’

‘As a juvenile, my record is sealed. I’ve never spoken about it. It’s a time of my life I want well behind me. Without Jim the social worker, I might have gone the other way.’

‘You mean you could have ended up as a violent thug or a drug dealer? I don’t believe that for a second.’

He shrugged those broad street-fighter shoulders. ‘I appreciate your faith in me. But, like so many of my fellow runaways, I could so easily have ended up...broken.’

Andie struggled to find an answer to that. ‘It...it’s a testament to your strength of character that you didn’t.’

‘If you say,’ he said. But he looked pleased. ‘Once I’d made enough money to have my own place and a car—nowhere as good as your hatchback, I might add—I started university part-time. I got lucky again.’

‘You passed with honours?’ She hadn’t seen a university degree anywhere in her research on him but there was no harm in asking.

‘No. I soon realised I knew more about making money and how business operated than some of the teachers in my commerce degree. I dropped out after eighteen months. But in a statistics class I met Jake Marlow. He was a brilliant, misunderstood geek. Socially, I still considered myself an outcast. We became friends.’

‘And business partners, you said.’ He was four years older than she was, and yet had lived a lifetime more. And had overcome terrible odds to get where he had.

‘He was playing with the concept of ground-breaking online business software tools but no bank would loan him the money to develop them. I was riding high on commissions. We set up a partnership. I put in the money he needed. I could smell my first million.’

‘Let me guess—it was an amazing success?’

‘That software is used by thousands of businesses around the world to manage their digital workflow. We made a lot of money very quickly. Jake is still developing successful new software.’ His obvious pride in his friend warmed his words.

‘And you’re still business partners.’

He nodded. ‘The success of our venture gave me the investment dollars I needed to also spin off into my own separate business developing undervalued homemaker centres. We call them bulky goods centres—furnishing, white goods, electricals.’

‘I guess the Gold Coast got too small for you.’ That part she’d been able to research.

‘I moved to Sydney. You know the rest.’

In silence she drank her mineral water with lime, he finished his iced tea. He’d given her a lot to think about. Was that anger that had driven him resolved? Or could it still be bubbling under the surface, ready to erupt?