by Nicola Marsh
A life now laid bare for the public to see and scrutinise and judge.
It had been hard enough discovering Sonja’s existence, the evidence that not only had Richard been cheating on her, but he’d done it in a house bought and paid for by him too while he’d imposed ridiculously tight budgets on her.
She’d been humiliated at the discovery of the other woman, had told no one, and now her degradation would be seen by everyone, her hopes for a new start dashed.
She fisted her hands, pushed them into her eyes in the vain hope to rub away the haunting image of that cherubic baby picture in the newspaper.
That should’ve been her baby, the baby she’d wanted but Richard had always vetoed, the baby he’d been too busy to have, the baby that would’ve given her the complete family she always wanted.
She’d pushed for a child, had been placated with lousy excuses and now she’d come face to face with yet more evidence of how much her husband hadn’t loved her, how little he’d really thought of her.
Damn him for still having the power to annihilate the self-confidence she’d so carefully rebuilt.
She’d handled his infidelity but this…
Deep sobs racked her body as she bundled the paper into a ball and flung it across the room with an anguished scream.
‘What the—’ Ethan dropped his briefcase near the back door, where he’d entered, and ran for the main restaurant, where he’d heard the most God-awful sound.
He burst through the swinging doors, his heart leaping to his mouth at the sight that greeted him.
Tam, slumped on a chair, her head buried in her arms while great sobs rent the air, her delicate shoulders heaving.
‘Tam?’
He raced across the room, pulled up a chair next to her and reached out to touch her.
‘Sweetheart, it’s me.’
Her head snapped up and the raw pain radiating from her red-rimmed eyes slammed into him like a cast-iron skillet. He opened his arms to her, wanting to comfort her, desperate to slay whatever demon had driven her to this.
She shook her head, hiccuped. ‘He had a baby.’
Who had a baby?
She wasn’t making sense.
With tears coursing down her cheeks, she jerked her thumb towards the floor, where he spied a balled-up newspaper.
He reached it in two strides, smoothing it on the bar, the picture painting a shocking scenario before he sped-read the accompanying article.
Hell, no.
White-hot rage slammed through him, quickly turning to blinding fury as he bunched the newspaper in his fist, searched Tam’s face, seeing the truth in every devastated line.
That bastard.
That low-life, lying, cheating, no good, son of a—He sucked in a deep breath.
He needed to support Tam, not fuel his anger. An anger that continued to bubble and stew and threatened to spill over as he watched her swipe her eyes, her hand shaky, her lower lip trembling.
He’d never seen her so bleak, even when she’d lost Rich, the jerk he’d like to personally kill at this very moment if he weren’t already dead.
‘That baby should’ve been mine.’
He froze. Surely she didn’t mean that?
After what he’d just learned about Rich, about their marriage, how could she have wanted a child by that monster?
‘I wanted one, you know.’
She scrambled in her bag for a tissue, her fingers fumbling as she finally found one and used it to great effect. ‘More than one. I hated being an only child.’
What could he say? That he thought she was crazy for wanting kids with Rich? That now, a year after his death, she shouldn’t be reacting this way to proof that the guy was scum?
Then it hit him.
What he’d been trying to ignore all along.
She still loved him.
He’d kept his distance all these years, had only made a move now because he’d thought she was over him.
But she wasn’t and, despite everything Richard had done, clearly stated in that paper for the world to see, she still wasn’t over him.
His hands balled into instant fists, frustration making him want to pound the table.
It was the reason why he hadn’t rushed her at the start, this fear that she still had feelings for Richard, the fear that he’d just be the rebound guy, no matter how long he waited.
He’d put it down to his own insecurities, had ignored the twinge of doubt, had taken a chance by letting his iron-clad control slip for the first time ever.
He’d made a monumental mistake, just as he’d feared. Losing control, allowing emotions to rule, only led to one thing: disaster.
‘I don’t believe this.’
Her red-rimmed eyes sought his, her expression bleak. But she didn’t reach out to him and he wanted her to. Damn it, he wanted her to need him, to want him, to love him.
As much as he loved her.
The realisation sent him striding from the table to behind the bar, desperate to put something concrete and solid between them.
He’d made enough of an idiot of himself over her without adding an inopportune declaration to the mix.
She didn’t need his love. How could she, when she was still pining for Richard?
She wished her late husband’s girlfriend’s baby was hers.
He couldn’t compete with that. He couldn’t compete with the memory of a dead guy. He didn’t want to.
‘I’m sorry you’re going through this.’ He switched on the espresso machine, needing to keep busy, needing to obliterate the driving need to vault the bar and bundle her in his arms. ‘Coffee? Or a hot chocolate?’
She stilled before his very eyes, her hands steadying as she pushed her chair back, her legs firm as she stood and crossed the restaurant to lean on the bar.
Confusion clouded her eyes. ‘I thought you’d be more understanding about this.’
‘Oh, I understand a lot more than you think.’
Silently cursing his hasty response, he turned away and busied himself with getting cups ready.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, he swivelled to face her, trying not to slam the cups onto the bar.
‘I’ve never seen you this upset, even after he died.’
He had time to swallow his words, clamp down on the urge to blurt out exactly what he was thinking. But nothing would be the same after this anyway, so why not tell her the truth? Go for broke?
‘Yet here you are, wishing that child was yours.’
He shook his head, poured milk into a stainless-steel jug for frothing to avoid looking at her shattered expression.
‘I don’t get it. I’ve just learned the guy I thought I knew had a mistress he shacked up with whenever he could and he had a kid with her, yet here you are, still affected by him. Makes me wonder why.’
When she didn’t respond, he glanced up, the emerald fire in her eyes surprising him. She’d gone from quivering victim to furious in a second.
‘Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what you think? You seem to have done a pretty good job until now.’
He didn’t deserve her anger—Rich did, and somehow the fact that she’d turned on him when she should’ve turned to him lit a fuse to his own smouldering discontent.
‘Fine. You want to know what I think?’
His palms slammed onto the bar as he leaned towards her. ‘I think Richard left a lasting legacy. I think you’re so hung up on the guy you can’t get past him, maybe you never will. And I think as long as you let your past affect you this way, you won’t have the future you deserve.’
Derision curled her upper lip, her eyes blazing, but not before he’d seen the pain as he scored a direct hit.
‘What future is that? With you?’
She made it sound as if she’d rather change that baby’s diapers for a lifetime than be with him and he turned away, anguish stabbing him anew.
He had his answer.
&nbs
p; She’d just confirmed every doubt he’d ever had—that he’d never live up to King Richard in her heart.
‘You know, this place has been a safe haven for me lately. Not any more.’
Her heels clacked against the floorboards as she marched to the table, scooped up her bag and headed for the door.
He watched her in the back mirror, his heart fracturing, splintering, with every step she took.
He could’ve called out, stopped her, run after her.
Instead, he watched the woman he loved walk out of the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE drive down the EastLink Freeway passed in a blur. It was as if she’d been on autopilot ever since she’d stormed out of Ambrosia, hell-bent on putting the past behind her, once and for all.
Ethan was wrong. Dead wrong. About everything.
Except one thing: she had no hope of moving forward unless she confronted her past and that was why she was here in the peaceful ocean retreat of Cape Schanck, clutching a crumpled piece of paper in her hand, staring at the address written in a woman’s flowing script, her heart pounding as she slowly looked up at the beautiful beach house.
Richard had been careful to hide his infidelity from her while he’d been alive but she’d found this in an old wallet in the back of his wardrobe after he’d died.
She’d been clearing out his stuff, donating his designer suits to charity and had come across it. At the time, she hadn’t cared what it meant but later, when she’d discovered his private appointment diary detailing every sordid detail, along with a stack of emails complete with pictures, it had all made sense.
Cape Schanck. Haven for gold-digging mistresses. And their illegitimate babies.
She blinked several times, determined not to cry. This wasn’t a time for tears. She had to do this, had to get on with her life before the bitterness and anger threatened to consume her again; there was no way she’d go back to living the way she had been before India.
Taking a steadying breath, she strode to the front door and knocked twice, loudly.
As she waited, she noticed the spotless cream-rendered walls, the duck egg blue trim, the soft grey shingles. The garden was immaculate, with tulips in vibrant pinks and yellows spilling over the borders, the lawn like a bowling green, and she swallowed the resentment clogging her throat at the thought of Richard tending this garden, on his hands and knees in the dirt, with her.
She knocked again, louder this time, feeling foolish. She’d driven the hour and a half down here, fuelled by anger and the driving need to forget, yet hadn’t counted on Sonja not being here.
As she was about to turn away, she heard footsteps and braced herself, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her trench coat to stop herself from reaching out and wrapping them around the other woman’s neck when she opened the door.
The door swung open and she came face to face with the woman who had stolen her life.
Sonja Van Dyke was stunning, a Dutch supermodel who had graced the catwalks for years in her late teens and, even now, couldn’t be more than twenty-five.
She’d taken Australia by storm when she’d first arrived and was rumoured to be making her television debut on a reality show any day now.
Considering how she’d just splashed her sordid affair with Richard all over the tabloids with gay abandon, heaven help her, for who knew what gems she’d drop on live TV?
Even though they’d never met, instant recognition lit the redhead’s extraordinary blue eyes as she took a step back, her hand already swinging the door shut.
‘Wait.’ Tamara stepped forward, wedged her foot in the doorjamb.
With a toss of her waist-length titian hair, Sonja straightened her shoulders as if preparing to do battle. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’
‘Well, I’ve got plenty to say to you.’
Her eyes turned flinty as a smug smile curved the mouth that must’ve kissed her husband’s. The thought should’ve made her physically ill but now she’d arrived, had seen this woman, all she felt was relief.
She’d done it. Confronted her demons. Now all she had to do was slay them and she could walk away, free.
‘It’s not a good time for me. Little Richie will be waking from his nap soon.’
Just like that, her relief blew away on the blustery ocean breeze, only to be replaced by the familiar fury that one man had stolen so much from her.
Her dignity, her identity, her pride, and she’d be damned if she stood here and let his mistress steal anything else from her.
‘Tough. You need to hear what I have to say.’
She drew on every inner reserve of strength, determined to get this out and walk away head held high.
‘By making this fiasco public, you’ve guaranteed a media frenzy for a month at least. Just keep me out of it. Richard owed me that much at least.’
Sonja drew herself up to an impressive five-eleven and glared down at her. ‘Who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can’t say? As for Richie owing you, you meant nothing to him.’
She ignored the deliberate provocation of the last statement, needing to get through this and slam the door on her past once and for all.
‘I don’t give a damn what you say as long as I’m left out of it—’
‘Did you know I was six weeks pregnant when Richie died? He was so happy. Thrilled he was going to be a daddy.’
Her blue eyes narrowed, glittering with malice. ‘He was going to leave you, you know. Over, just like that.’
She snapped her fingers, her cold smile triumphant.
Tamara’s resolution wavered as a fresh wave of pain swamped her. Richard had known about the baby, had continued to come home to her every night and play the dutiful husband while preparing to leave her.
Her belly rolled with nausea and she gulped in fresh air like a fish stranded on a dock, willing the spots dancing before her eyes to fade.
‘As for little Richie, he’s going to be just as famous as his mama and daddy. That’s why I waited until now to sell my story and have him photographed.’
Her eyes gleamed with malice. ‘He had terrible jaundice for the first eight weeks and would’ve looked awful. But now, at four months, he’s absolutely gorgeous. Ready for stardom, like his parents.’
Just like that, she realised nothing she could say to this woman would get through to her. She’d been a fool to come here, to try and reason with her.
Being confronted by reports and pictures of Richard and herself in the newspapers and glossy magazines every day for a fortnight when he’d died had driven her mad and now the tabloids would have a field day. This could go on for months; she’d hoped by appealing to Sonja she might refrain from fuelling the story.
But she’d been an idiot. There was no reasoning with the woman. She wanted to relaunch her career and was planning on using her affair with Richard and their child to do it.
She’d never be free of them, free of the scandal, free of the whispers and pitying glances behind her back.
She had to get out of here, escape.
Like a welcome oasis for a thirsty desert traveller, the image of Colva Beach, the Taj Mahal, shimmered into her mind’s eye.
There was a place she’d never be plagued by her past, continually reminded of her foolishness in trusting a man totally wrong for her.
A place linked to her heritage, a place filled with hope, a place she could dream and create the future she deserved.
A place she would return to as soon as possible.
‘Richie trusted me implicitly. He’d back me one hundred per cent on this, as he always did. Nothing like the love of a good man to give a woman courage to face anything, wouldn’t you say?’
Sonja’s sickly sweet spite fell on deaf ears—until the implication of what she’d said hit her.
She had a guy who backed her one hundred per cent, who’d travelled all the way to India to do it.
A guy who’d given her courage to start afresh.
A guy who deserve
d to hear the truth, no matter how humiliating for her.
Walking out on Ethan had been a mistake. A rash, spur-of-the-moment action fuelled by that stupid newspaper article.
She’d been living a lie, had thought she’d put the past behind her, only to have it come crashing down around her and, rather than tell him everything, she’d run.
How ironic—it had taken a cheap tart like Sonja to point out what had been staring her in the face.
Without saying a word, she turned on her heel and headed down the garden path towards the car.
‘You’re just as spineless as Richie said you were.’
The parting barb bounced off her and she didn’t break stride. Nothing Sonja could do or say could affect her now.
Coming here might’ve been stupid but it had been cathartic. She’d soon be free of her past.
And ready to face her future.
Ethan stepped out of the limo in front of Ambrosia and dropped his travel case at his feet.
He’d thrown himself back into business since Tam had walked out on him four days ago, making flying visits to Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns.
Facilitating meetings, presenting figures, convincing investors, he’d done it all in a nonstop back-to-back whirl of meetings but he was done, drained, running on empty.
Earlier that week he’d landed back in the country, had lost the woman he loved on the same day and buried his head in business as usual to cope; little wonder he could barely summon the energy to step inside.
He stood still for a moment, the slight chill of a brisk autumn evening momentarily clearing his head as he watched patrons pack his restaurant to the rafters.
Intimate tables for two where couples with secretive smiles held hands, tables filled with happy families squabbling over the biggest serving of sticky date pudding, tables where businessmen like himself absentmindedly forked the delicious crispy salt and pepper calamari into their mouths while shuffling papers and making annotations.
He loved this place, had always loved it. It was his baby, his home.
Then why the awful, hollow feeling that some of the gloss had worn off?