MARRY him…
Megan felt her jaw drop in sheer shock. Incredulity blanked her mind for several seconds.
Her heart rocketed around her chest in some stupid manic excitement until the words that had preceded Johnny's proposal hit home, firing up a surge of anger that lifted her right out of her father's chair to hurl a furious rejection at him.
'You think I'd marry you for your money?'
She didn't wait for a reply, so totally incensed by the suggestion, she flew straight into attack. 'How dare you lump me with the kind of women who hang off you for what you can give them?' Her arms scissored a dismissal of absolute disgust. 'Which just goes to prove how tainted your thinking is by the life you lead. Buy a woman here. Buy a woman there. Have one in every port of call.'
Her mocking hands landed on her hips, planting themselves there in a belligerent flaunting of her own femininity which wasn't for sale. 'Well, not at Gundamurra. Not even if I was reduced to eating dirt would I join that queue for your favours.'
He had the gall to look amused, his eyes twinkling unholy mischief at her as he observed, 'So, you see me as some indiscriminate sex machine, churning through women at a rate of knots, probably not even remembering their names.'
She glared back at him, wishing she hadn't let her tongue loose on this theme.
He strolled towards her, gesturing an open invitation to continue. 'I'd like to hear what evidence you have that formed this picture of me.'
'Oh, don't pretend there haven't been swarms of groupies after you,' she snapped, folding her arms across her chest to contain herself against the strength of his attraction as he came at her. 'Anyone in a sweet shop gets tempted to taste,' she fired to pull him up short.
It didn't so much as make him pause. He hitched himself onto the other side of her father's desk, bringing his eye level down to a very direct line with hers, holding her gaze with a mocking intensity that squeezed her heart, making it thump in painful protest.
'Did you ever make these comments about me to your father, Megan?'
'No. Why would I? I'm sure he understood where you were at, Johnny,' she returned with acid emphasis.
'Yes, he did. He took the time to understand exactly where I was at when I was sixteen.'
'Sixteen.' She rolled her eyes. 'You weren't a huge star then.'
'No. I was a street-kid, whose only knowledge of how life worked was firmly planted in being used and using back, perpetuating a system of abuse.'
She frowned, not relating to this picture at all. 'I remember you as always being a happy person.'
He shrugged. 'I'd learnt that a smile could ward off many evils, as well as hide what no-one wants to know about.' 'Huh!' she pounced. 'I knew the legendary charm was all a pose.'
The satisfaction in her voice drew a quizzical look from him. 'It began as a survival tactic. But now I like to make people feel good. Is that so wrong to you?'
'It's deceptive.'
'Deceptive?' he repeated critically, goading her into ignoring a defensive caution.
'It draws people into thinking they're special to you and they're not. They don't really touch your life at all.'
'Every person is special, Megan.' His eyes bored into hers, rattling her deep box of resentments as his voice gathered an emotional vehemence. 'Didn't your father teach you that? Didn't your father show, by example, that he believed it? And lived by it?'
His gaze moved to the chair she had vacated in her anger, and the look on his face—the raw anguish of wanting to see her father there and knowing he never could be again—made her realise how offensive it had been to him to find her sitting in it, assuming a place that was irreplaceable in his mind.
He nodded to the chair. 'Patrick taught me to value my own individuality. He explained why I shouldn't let myself be used, why I shouldn't accept any more abuse, how allowing it diminished the person I could be, and if I held on to a strong belief in the music I personally loved and trod my own path, I could climb out of the belittling pattern of use and abuse which had been my life for as long as I could remember.'
Abuse… She hadn't thought about his life before he came to Gundamurra. Mitch had said something about her not appreciating where Johnny had come from. Had he suffered a traumatic childhood? But that was so long ago. He'd become so successful, it couldn't still shadow his life…could it?
He turned a fierce glittery look back to her. 'So I am who I am, Megan. I don't have to belittle anyone else to make myself bigger. I don't abuse the position I have by taking what is offered to me for all the wrong reasons. Far from being tempted by the sweet shop, I feel sorry for the people who populate it because they have never learnt to value themselves. They think if they get a piece of me, it will make their lives better. But it won't. Any change for the better has to come from within.'
It was an impressive speech, forcing her to reassess how she'd painted his life in her mind. Okay, he'd stepped away from continuing a cycle of abuse. Yes, she could see her father's hand in that. But rejecting every attractive 'freebie' that came his way?
'I don't screw my fans, Megan,' he went on, obviously reading the doubt in her eyes. 'But they do touch my life and I try to touch theirs through the lyrics of my songs, which carry the same set of values that your father taught me.
Patrick knew that. I don't know why you think otherwise.'
Oh, great! Now it was Saint Johnny, as well as the king of charm. 'You're a man!' she flashed at him, unable to swallow such a pinnacle of nobility. 'As for your songs, isn't it simply clever commercialism to tap into the dreams people nurse for themselves? That's street smart, Johnny.'
His eyes raked her derisively. 'And you want to put me back in the gutter where I belong. Is that it, Megan?'
'No. You're perfectly welcome to the brilliant heights of Hollywood.'
'As long as I leave Gundamurra to you. To an embittered woman who'd rather let it die than accept the help of a man.'
The sudden counterattack shocked her into hot denial. 'I am not an embittered woman!'
'What happened to you? Did you feel used by a man?
Did he only want sex from you instead of the whole package?'
'That's none of your business!'
'Oh, yes, it is, Megan. You've made it my business by the way you treat me, giving me the low-life status of a rutting animal that doesn't care what body he uses for sexual release.'
'Okay! So you don't do that,' she granted, though some defence was called for. 'You can't blame me for thinking it. Pop-stars are notorious for taking what they can.'
'Except I don't have that reputation. Yet you lumped me with it anyway. Because I'm a man?'
'Because you're Johnny Charm,' she jeered, hating the way he was turning the tables on her, digging into her life. 'And you can't deny that draws a lot of women to you.'
'But not Megan Maguire,' he mocked. 'She won't be one of the herd. She'll stand aloof and scorn his company.' That was too close. Far too close. She lashed back.
'What's the matter, Johnny? You can't stand not having everyone worship you?'
He bored in again. 'Why have you been so ready and willing to give me feet of clay, Megan? I haven't used you or abused you. Did the guy you fell for at agricultural college turn out to be a womaniser, charming his way into one bed after another?'
'Why haven't you married if you're not a womaniser yourself?' she retorted, fighting for any foothold that would exonerate her attitude.
He grimaced, his expression changing to an inner musing. 'There wasn't anyone I could bring here. Not one in all these years.' He shook his head, shifted off the desk, a wry look on his face as he turned away from her and strolled back towards the chess table. 'Ric had no hesitation in bringing Lara here…'
Megan couldn't see the relevance. Lara had needed a safe refuge. What better place than an outback sheep station?
'…Mitch brought Kathryn…'
He picked up the black king she had laid down on the chess table, his thumb running over the carved wood as though he wished he could bring it to life. Was he remembering that her father had played chess with Kathryn, as well as Mitch?
'They understood about Patrick.