by Karly Lane
Olivia watched as Cash hesitated, before moving to her table and summoning a smile. ‘Hi, Olivia. Can I sit down for a minute?’ she asked, indicating the unoccupied chair.
‘Sure,’ Olivia said, snapping out of her initial surprise.
‘I thought it was you I saw when I drove past,’ she said, and Olivia realised it wasn’t some crazy act of fate that they’d ended up in the same café. ‘I needed some stuff from the chemist but I figured I’d stop and say hi first.’
‘Did you come into town alone?’ Olivia asked, looking outside but not seeing any Callahans.
‘Yeah,’ Cash said and gave a small wince. ‘I needed to get out for a bit.’
‘Is everything okay?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said with a wave of her hand and a somewhat apologetic smile. ‘I love the Callahans, but since we announced the pregnancy, it’s been a little … overwhelming.’
Olivia hid a grin at the woman’s choice of words. She could just imagine Lavinia going overboard with excitement at her very first grandchild. Her smile slipped a little as she suddenly thought about Hadley and how, for a very short time, her baby would have been the first Callahan grandbaby.
‘I didn’t mean that in a bad way,’ Cash hurried to explain, and Olivia glanced up and realised her reaction had been misinterpreted.
‘No, I know. If you’re not used to them, they can be a bit of a force to be reckoned with,’ Olivia agreed with a fond smile.
‘We actually only just found out ourselves. I wasn’t expecting Linc to tell everyone so soon, although it’s nice to know they’re excited. It’s just all still so … new. I’m not sure I’ve got my head around it myself.’
It seemed strange to hear Cash sounding so uncertain. ‘I’m sure things will settle down and you’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head slowly, and staring down at the tablecloth miserably. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready for this kind of responsibility.’
Olivia blinked in surprise at the unexpected admission.
Cash looked up and Olivia saw the sheen of unshed tears welling in the woman’s eyes. ‘I have no idea how to raise a child, Olivia. I barely had a mother when I was growing up—my father was a criminal … What the hell do I know about having a baby?’
The words held such raw, painful vulnerability that Olivia found her own eyes begin to sting. ‘You’ll be an awesome mother, Cash,’ Olivia said gently. ‘I’m really sorry about the childhood you had, but from what I’ve seen you’re nothing like the people who raised you. You’ve got the best family I can ever imagine behind you, ready to give you all the help you could ever hope for, and you’ve got Linc beside you. You two are meant for each other and you’ll be the best parents this baby could have.’
‘That’s just it, though,’ Cash said, and Olivia saw a tear fall, quickly followed by another, ‘Linc’s family are so amazing and so loving … it all comes naturally to them. I feel like I’m going to do everything wrong and be a huge disappointment to everyone.’
Cash reached across for a serviette and sniffled as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I don’t know why I do this—I cry at the drop of a hat nowadays.’
Olivia sent her a commiserating grin. ‘I think it’s hormones,’ she said, watching as Cash blew her nose. ‘You could never be a disappointment to the Callahans, Cash,’ she said once the woman had herself under control. ‘They think the world of you. Everyone does.’
Cash dropped her red-rimmed gaze to the table briefly before raising it to Olivia’s once more. ‘I know you probably still have some reservations about Griff and me, and I know you don’t think very much of me, but, I just wanted to say, there was never anything going on between us, Liv. I hated hurting Griff, but I wasn’t in love with him, even before Linc came on the scene. I feel bad because I should have told him sooner—I should have put an end to everything before it got too far, but I was so desperate to find a nice, normal, caring guy, I guess I was trying to convince myself that the feelings would come eventually. I was so wrapped up in changing my life—changing the kind of men I always seemed drawn to,’ she corrected herself with a self-deprecating smile, ‘that I didn’t realise I was looking at the wrong brother.’
Ever since meeting Cash, Olivia had held some kind of warped belief that she was inadequate in comparison. Cash always seemed so together. Outwardly it seemed nothing worried Cash Sullivan. She was beautiful, confident and she didn’t seem to need anyone’s approval for anything. Clearly, that wasn’t necessarily the truth. Even tough, beautiful rebels like Cash had their own insecurities and fears.
‘I’m sorry to dump all this on you, Olivia.’
‘I’m sorry if I ever made you think I didn’t like you. The truth is, I wanted to be just like you.’
‘Like me?’ Cash stared at her as though she’d just grown a second head.
‘Well, yeah,’ Olivia said, sending her a doubtful look. ‘You were so … perfect.’
Cash gave a surprised chuckle at that, shaking her head. ‘Perfect? Are you serious? My life was so far from perfect it was a complete joke. You were the perfect one. Educated, beautiful, you had a great job—you’re successful. I was pretty intimidated by you.’
Olivia was glad to be sitting down, otherwise she was fairly sure she would have fallen over at this admission. ‘You were intimidated by … me?’
The look Cash sent her said, Duh, loud and clear. This was unbelievable. Olivia slumped back in her chair, staring at Cash thoughtfully. She couldn’t believe she’d been so blinded by her own idiotic jealousy and insecurity that she’d completely missed the other woman’s reaction to her. It was funny how seeing something with a new perspective changed it.
Olivia straightened in her seat and reached to take Cash’s hand. ‘You,’ she said, looking the other woman in the eye seriously, ‘are going to be a great mum. And this baby is going to be surrounded by a family who already love it, and you. You can never be a disappointment to anyone, and if you ever feel like you are, I’m going to be right here to remind you that you’re not.’
They both shared a small chuckle as Cash’s eyes spilled over with tears once more.
‘Are you hungry?’ Olivia asked when Cash had wiped her eyes with serviettes.
‘Always,’ Cash said, dropping the crumpled serviettes into her bag. ‘Making up for the last few months of constant throwing up.’
They ordered an early lunch and, for the first time in days, Olivia felt better.
Griff sat alone, on the tailgate of his ute, and let the sounds of Stringybark float around him. He’d needed to get away from everything … and everyone. In the last few hours he’d received more news than he could properly digest and he needed quiet to make sense of all the emotions roiling around inside him.
He wanted to talk to someone about it, share his anger and outrage, but he couldn’t. His first instinct was to turn to Ollie but Hadley’s voice, husky from the tears she’d finally given in to earlier, echoed in his mind. Promise me, Griff, no one else is to know. You can’t tell anyone. Hadley felt betrayed and she was still in shock. Hell, he was still in shock—he could only imagine how much deeper hers went.
Harmony and Mitch? He still couldn’t get his head around it. How could Harmony do something so freakin’ low? To her own sister? But it was when he thought about Mitch that his blood began to boil. The smug bastard. He was just lucky he wasn’t still here. Griff looked down at his clenched fists and could almost imagine how good it would feel to land a few solid blows to that TV-perfect face.
He knew Mitch wouldn’t be stupid enough to come back and face the Callahan clan once the coward realised Hadley had discovered the affair, but for the briefest of moments Griff allowed himself to imagine what would happen if he did return. He felt a glint of malicious delight at the thought. If Mitch made it past their father, he’d have to contend with their mother, and he wasn’t sure which of those two would be scarier. He’d stand a better chance with Griff and Linc. Grif
f’s fantasy came to an abrupt end at the thought of his brother. Linc couldn’t know about Mitch and Harmony. He’d worked hard to deal with what he’d done on New Year’s Eve, and maybe he wouldn’t lose control like that again, but Griff wasn’t going to take that risk. He wasn’t going to allow anything to push Linc over the edge again—certainly not a pathetic piece of shit like Mitch Samuals.
What a mess. Griff leaned back in the tray of the ute and stared up at the endless blue sky. For him, the issue was how he felt towards his older sister right now. How could he pretend he didn’t know what she’d done? He didn’t think their relationship could recover from this, not that they’d had much of a relationship lately. He was still angry that she’d acted like he was the one who’d done something wrong when he’d tried to warn her about Don’s infidelity, way back before Christmas.
A part of him felt a little bad for the way he’d acted around Olivia—he hadn’t meant to bully her into telling Hadley what she knew. He’d been acting on impulse, fuelled by his own anger that yet another of his sisters had been betrayed by the man she’d married. He was furious that he hadn’t been able to do anything about it either time. He hadn’t been expecting Harmony to be the name Olivia had been guarding so fiercely. He’d heard the anger Hadley had unjustly directed at Olivia, but he hadn’t been able to do much about it at the time, seeing as he’d also been in shock. Now, he felt bad for Olivia.
He knew what it felt like to be the messenger that got shot. He thought he’d been helping Harmony by letting her know about the rumours he’d been hearing about Don. Apparently not.
He hated secrets. Always had, and yet he continued to get sucked into everyone else’s drama and forced to keep them. Before her divorce, Harmony had also sworn him to silence about what he’d been hearing about Don. He’d had to sit at family dinners keeping his head down and mouth shut as he listened to Harmony come up with lie after lie about why Don wasn’t there. But, as usual, their mum’s sonar had picked up on the tension between the two siblings and it had got harder and harder to avoid her questions.
Christ. That was when Harmony had been the victim … how the hell was he going to hide how he was feeling now that she was the damn perpetrator? His mother always knew when they were hiding something. She was part bloodhound on the scent of a trail. He felt sick inside at what was to come.
This was going to kill his parents. He wasn’t even sure that was an exaggeration. How many times could they be pulled in opposite directions by their children? He hoped to God they never found out. It would be frustrating as hell to think Mitch and Harmony would get away with something so despicable, but if it meant saving his parents more heartache, he could live with that. Somehow, though, he had a feeling that hiding the affair was only delaying the inevitable, and the longer it remained a secret, the worse the fallout was going to be.
Olivia’s phone pinged as she walked into the house. It was a reminder her job interview was in ten minutes.
She’d prevaricated about doing the interview, but had finally decided she might as well give it a shot—it couldn’t hurt to see if they offered her a position. It didn’t mean she had to accept it.
Seated at the kitchen table, she opened the video conferencing program on her laptop and logged into her account, praying the connection would behave itself today. The call came through and Olivia plastered a smile on her face and clicked the accept button.
On the other end, a man and a woman, both dressed in suit jackets, sat at the end of an intimidatingly large desk, in a conference room with floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking Sydney’s CBD.
After their greeting and introduction, Olivia managed to slide back into corporate Olivia, momentarily forgetting all the dramas happening around her. She answered their questions and was impressed by the thought that had gone into them—these were not the standard, template interview questions she’d been expecting. She’d figured they’d want a detailed look at her career background, but was surprised when the questions they asked seemed to pertain to the industry in broad terms rather than the specifics of the job she had applied for.
‘The thing is, Olivia,’ Marco, the male interviewer, said as they finished their line of questioning, ‘after reading through your portfolio, we actually think you might be suitable for a different role, one that has come up rather urgently.’
‘Your application came along at a very crucial time for us. We actually couldn’t believe our luck,’ Jacinta continued. ‘Your previous experience and your background in corporate accountability, as well as structures, mergers and acquisitions, was almost too good to be true.’
‘We understand that you’re looking for a career change,’ Marco said, ‘however, we’re hoping that you’ll consider a position in your current field, heading up our London office.’
Surely she hadn’t heard that right.
‘Olivia?’ Marco said, leaning forward in his seat slightly.
‘Have we lost the connection? I think the screen’s frozen,’ Jacinta said, her elegant face squinting down at the computer before her.
‘No, no, I’m still here,’ Olivia said, snapping out of her momentary shock. ‘I’m sorry, did you say your London office?’
‘Yes. We want you to take over as the department head in our London branch,’ Marco repeated with a smile on his face. ‘We know this must come as a bit of a shock,’ he continued.
A bit of a shock was when the toast jumped out of the toaster when you weren’t expecting it to. This was more in the league of relaxing in a bathtub only to have a great white shark suddenly jump up at you.
‘But you really are overqualified for the position you applied for. This job, on the other hand, would be a feather in your cap.’
‘Yes, it would,’ she agreed, nodding her head and trying to school her features into some kind of professionalism. Heading a department? In London? Holy crap.
‘We understand we’ve thrown this at you without any warning, so please take some time to think it over. We do, however, need an answer before the end of the week. Meanwhile, we’ll email you through the job description and salary package, which I think you’ll find is very generous, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to give us a call.’
They signed off and Olivia couldn’t actually recall if she’d managed to say goodbye or not.
They wanted her to head up the London office. You wanted adventure and travel, a little voice piped up, well, here it is. What was there to think about? This was a change. Maybe not the career change she had been originally thinking about, but … hello? London! Part of her was already packed, while another part dragged her feet.
A job, overseas … it didn’t get better than that, but she hadn’t even been thinking of anything remotely like this. A change of job was one thing, but she’d been planning on being within flying distance of her parents while her father recovered, not to mention Griff. A commute to and from Sydney was fairly doable, but it was a long flight home from London. She wouldn’t be able to come home at the drop of a hat like she did now. And yet this was the opportunity of a lifetime. What would Hadley do? a voice asked, and she knew—Hadley would have said yes as soon as they’d offered her the damn job. She could use a pep talk with Hadley right about now. Instantly she felt bad. Hadley. She couldn’t dump all this on her … and she shouldn’t be thinking of abandoning her at a time like this.
But it was London.
Twenty-six
Olivia frowned as Hadley’s phone switched to voicemail without ringing again. She’d given her a day without calling, time to let things settle, but it seemed Hadley wasn’t taking calls. She needed her best friend now more than ever. She’d just done something either uncharacteristically brave or incredibly stupid—she’d resigned from her old job.
Olivia dialled the Callahans’ home number, and after a few rings Lavinia picked up.
‘I’m trying to get hold of Hadley but she isn’t answering,’ Olivia said cautiously, trying to gauge the atmosphere. From La
vinia’s chirpy tone, she suspected the bombshell hadn’t dropped yet.
‘That’s probably because her phone’s turned off during the flight. She wouldn’t be home yet.’
‘Flight?’ Olivia found herself echoing dumbly.
‘She flew home this morning. As usual, a big story came up,’ Lavinia said in a weary tone. ‘She didn’t tell you?’
‘Oh. Was that today? I thought she meant … tomorrow,’ Olivia said vaguely, trying not to feel hurt that her best friend had left without a goodbye.
‘I don’t know what to do with that child of mine,’ Lavinia said mildly. ‘One of these days she’s going to settle down and stop all this running around.’
Personally, Olivia thought that current circumstances might make her do a lot more running. They said their goodbyes and Olivia tried to find something constructive to do. Earlier that morning the Callahans’ second header had come over and started on their last paddock. It would take a load off Ollie’s shoulders, but it left her with nothing particular to do out there. Even the bookwork was up to date. Maybe it was a sign. If she wasn’t needed here any more, then she really had no excuse not to take the job offer.
Was she needed? Her thoughts turned to Griff. She knew he wanted her to stay, but could she give up this chance and be okay with that decision?
You love him.
She did. She always had, but something told her that if she didn’t take this chance, she’d always regret it. She’d be left wondering what if. Could she live with that? Besides, Hadley had thought she loved Mitch too, and look where that had got her. What if she pinned all her hopes on a relationship with Griff and it didn’t work out?
Griffin parked outside the Dawson house and let out a long, slow breath. He’d just got back from driving his sister to the airport and he wasn’t sure how he was feeling.