The connection between them reverberated through every bone in her body; the breathlessness of heart-in-the-mouth excitement was intoxicating. Until last night she’d somehow managed to keep herself partially remote from her feelings for Adam. Now? Now she realised her highly in-control self was totally out of control where he was concerned. And she couldn’t have been happier about it.
‘What are you smiling at?’ Meg’s observation brought Evie back to earth with a thud.
‘I’m just happy you’re okay.’
She didn’t dare risk a look at Adam. She didn’t need to, to know he was watching her. Gazing into the eyes of the man she was hopelessly in love with would bring her completely undone and give them both away.
Though she hated the thought of deception, she and Adam were now accomplices with a guilty secret, one they couldn’t afford to let slip. There were problems ahead for them. Massive problems. And until she worked out what to do, keeping up the charade of non-involvement was the only viable option.
For the time being, suppressing the urge to do a wild dance of happiness had to be her priority.
* * *
Meg’s indomitable high spirits and Cam’s responding banter were undoubtedly entertaining—the way they bounced off each other, it was like they’d known one another forever—but the helicopter flight back to the farm had been pure agony for Adam.
In the confined space of the chopper with Evie seated so close next to him, all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms, plant his lips on that mouth, and whisper things for her ears alone, intimate details of what he’d be doing to her if they were on their own. After a day of keeping at a self-conscious distance, studiously avoiding each other’s eyes, he needed almost desperately to be touching her again. And to be touched by her. Only when he was holding her could he forget the problems facing them.
There’d been no opportunity for quiet conversation or unobtrusive touching since they’d arrived back just on dusk. Neil had had a million questions for them, and Chrissy had made a beeline for him as soon as they’d landed. He’d almost had to pry himself loose from her grip to help Meg inside. Evie’s assumed air of indifference didn’t fool him for a minute; the trace of angry colour in her cheeks gave her away. As if she had anything to worry about from any other woman.
Adam still wasn’t too sure how to read Chrissy. All indicators pointed to her being his so-called perfect mate: she loved animals, the outdoors, good food and sad movies; she appeared to enjoy life on the farm; she wanted children. And she certainly seemed keen on him.
But no one could be more perfect for him than Evie.
While he constantly felt Chrissy’s expectations that he should impress her, with Evie all he had to be was himself. Being around her made him happier, more whole, than he’d ever been before. She was sweet and passionate, tender-hearted and irrepressibly optimistic, strong and resourceful—a woman who’d take the isolation of life here on the farm in her stride.
She was the missing piece of himself he had been looking for when he’d begun this search.
And he loved her.
Suddenly, his heart felt ready to burst with the understanding that keeping the ‘L’ word to himself was no longer possible. It no longer held the terrible connotations it once had for him, and Evie deserved to hear it coming from his lips. First chance he got, he’d tell her.
They still had a lot to learn about each other, but she was ‘the one’. He knew it for a fact.
‘Adam?’ Evie stood at the door to the girls’ bedroom where Adam, Chrissy and Meg were chatting. ‘Could I see you in the lounge room?’ she asked with incredible nonchalance.
Now why hadn’t he thought of that? ‘Sure thing.’ It was all he could do not to take off down the hallway at lightning speed, dragging her with him.
As soon as the door shut, she was in his arms. They kissed in a fevered rush of hot breath, tangling tongues and moving hands that couldn’t even go halfway to expressing the desire growing inside him, a desire over which he had no control. Her body felt so vital, so pliable in his hands, and he wanted to sink into her softness.
The deep-throated groan was involuntary. He felt her withdrawal immediately; she pushed herself from him. ‘I’m sorry. We can’t do this. Not here. Not now.’ She spoke breathlessly.
He let his eyes wander over her lovely face, allowing himself the luxury of gazing into glistening green-brown eyes that told him she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He reached out, caressed her cheek, and she leaned into his touch.
‘Don’t, Adam,’ she pleaded. ‘We need to talk.’
He took her by the waist and pulled her to him once again, silencing her unconvincing protest with his lips. For a few seconds she clung to him, kissing him back with her perfect mouth, and he thought he could never have enough of this. But then she sighed, gathering her reserve once more, and stepped out of his reach.
‘Neil will be here any minute.’ She frantically brushed back some loose strands of her dark ponytail. ‘He’s after the transcripts of yesterday’s interviews.’ She waved a sheaf of papers still clutched in one hand. ‘In case he says anything to you, I’ve told him there was a problem with the lighting during our interview last night and the footage is useless. I haven’t had the time to delete it yet, but I will as soon as I get the chance.’
Adam stared at her, flashbacks of last night’s confessions suddenly broadsiding his brain. How could he have forgotten about the camera still rolling, capturing his dark shame? But then, his mind had been distracted. ‘I’d appreciate that.’
Looking back, everything about last night seemed more dream than real, but the weight off his shoulders today, after a lifetime of silently groaning under its pressure, was definitely not in his imagination. He had so much to be grateful to Evie for. She’d climbed through the window into his inner soul, found the wounded man inside and helped him face fears he’d been unable to give voice to, even within himself. And now he could finally allow the future to rule his life rather than the past. There were still things he needed to sort through; he held no illusions about that. But there was not even a whisper of a doubt in his mind that he could do it. With Evie’s help.
When you love someone and she loves you, anything’s possible. Which reminded him … he hadn’t told her yet how much he loved her. That he wanted them to be together. Forever.
‘Evie, there’s something I—’
Neil barged through the door. ‘There you are! Where are those transcripts?’
CHAPTER
22
Paradise Pearl Farm
April 1
Being secreted in the dark of the editing room in the early hours of the morning was not exactly conducive to a feeling of relaxation.
Evie’s palms were damp and the tension in her neck could have supported the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The thundering pulse in her ears sounded so loud in her head that anyone within a five kilometre radius had to be able to hear it. She darted yet another glance back over her shoulder.
Relieved to find no one behind her, she let out the breath she’d been holding and re-focused her eyes on the screen. The images were discernible but heavily shadowed; the sun had all but gone down by the time Adam had started his confession.
She’d already deleted the recording from the camera’s hard drive and she shouldn’t be watching this download on the computer. She knew that. It wasn’t something any logical person would do. But her usual common-sense thinking seemed to have flown out the window. Once she’d established there was nothing salvageable to show Neil the sensible thing would have been to delete it. Instead, she’d found herself once again losing herself in Adam’s story.
She turned the volume up only just loud enough to make out his words. The torment in his voice was terrible to hear. And the sight of him—every muscle in his twisted face attesting to the torment of the memories he’d just relived in front of her—brought the horror of all he’d suffered back to her in a rush. Her eyes welled and her insides clench
ed with the intensity of her feelings for him and what he’d lived through. She stretched a hand out to touch the screen, wanting to comfort him, to absorb some of his hurt.
Shame. Anger. Embarrassment. It was all there, lacerating her heart over again, leaving her sick to her stomach with grief at the thought of the abhorrent messages Adam’s father had gouged into his son’s psyche. Not all scars had a physical cause. No wonder he found emotion so difficult to deal with.
But his resilience in the face of his father’s sadistic legacy left her awe-struck. Adam had managed to push through the horror he’d been dealt as a child to emerge a strong, decent, gentle man. A man she could see herself with forever. Although the logistics of such a long-distance relationship left a lot to be worked out.
As her hand moved to the key, ready to destroy the final evidence of last night, she paused as she suddenly realised the immensity of what she was about to do. In erasing this footage she was thumbing her nose at everything her mentor had tried to instil in her. If Neil ever found out, it would mean the end of her career—a career that was supposed to earn her the respect of her father, and maybe even an acknowledgement that she was as worthy of his love as Lulu was.
Was she really going to jeopardise that possibility?
She dragged in a ragged breath. Yes. Why was she even hesitating? This was for Adam. For the man she loved she was prepared to risk anything.
Her hand moved towards the keyboard again.
‘What are you doing?’
Evie jumped in her seat, fright ricocheting down her spine. Every hair on her body stood on end.
Neil stood at the door. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
She could feel the heat of the guilt that had to be staining her face. Her tongue was paralysed. ‘Nothing!’ she finally managed to blurt out. Ooh, nice off-the-cuff response. He’ll never suspect a thing. Her insides quivered like an overwound spring.
‘Really?’ Her boss’s tone and the raised eyebrows confirmed the worst. He didn’t believe her. ‘What’s that?’ He gestured with his chin towards the screen.
Nausea knotted her stomach and a wave of weakness washed over her. She’d been caught out. What could she possibly say to defend herself?
She swallowed hard, realising her only real option was the truth. Carefully selected parts of it, anyway. ‘It’s the footage from last night.’
‘You told me it was useless.’
She pulled her best embarrassed look. ‘You know what? I really thought it was but, um, then I, well, I couldn’t sleep …’ True. ‘And I … I started thinking maybe there was something worth, you know, salvaging.’ She was babbling like an idiot but couldn’t seem to stop.
Neil stared at her intently. Feeling her nerves begin to waver at his continued silence she rushed on, not giving herself a chance to think things through, just trying to fix the situation without giving too much away. ‘I was hoping to impress you with my efforts.’ Also true. Maybe not in this particular instance, but true, nonetheless. ‘So I … got up to check it out and I, er, thought I’d try some editing on my own.’
‘Not a good idea.’
She should have known better than to even mention it. Neil was a control freak. Of course he wasn’t going to let her edit anything on her own.
Barely masked guilt was beginning to undermine her. She shifted her eyes to avoid the scrutiny in his, hating the idea of being less than honest with her mentor, but what choice did she have? Her boss would have no hesitation in exploiting Adam’s revelations for ratings and she wasn’t going to just sit by and let that happen. ‘But, anyway, there’s nothing worth saving here.’ Her hand edged towards the keyboard. ‘So I’ll just—’
‘Don’t touch that!’
Her boss crossed to sit in the chair next to her and pulled the monitor around to face them both. ‘Show me what you’ve got.’
In the time it took to breathe, a series of crazy ideas flitted through her head, from physically upending the computer set-up, to fainting at Neil’s feet. Quickly realising any scenario would only stall him momentarily, she stood to place herself bodily in front of the screen.
Her knees felt weak, and short choppy breaths caught in her throat. Was she hyperventilating?
‘Neil, look, I didn’t, um … I didn’t set the camera up properly and, see, well, the … the picture quality is … terrible, so I …’ Her voice trailed away, her mind seemingly incapable of stringing any sensible combination of words together.
‘Move.’ His tone was unequivocal.
Old habits of instant obedience to authority figures died hard. Slowly she sank down onto her chair. The hopelessness of attempting any sort of cover-up brought frustrated tears to the corners of her eyes, made her want to scream aloud with the unfairness of it all.
The scene on the screen showed Adam just beginning to describe the beatings his father had dealt him. His voice was a deep grinding sound. The image, while dark, was still clear enough to make out that he was holding her hand. Evie dared a look at Neil. He sat transfixed.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said at last. ‘Kudos to you, getting him to ’fess up to his secret. I knew you could do it.’
‘It wasn’t like that. I—’
He didn’t let her explain, kept talking over her. ‘You’re right about the picture quality but we can definitely use that audio. We can play it over different footage of our farmer looking pained.’ He gave a satisfied nod. ‘It’ll work.’
This was turning into a nightmare. A thought came to her in a blinding rush. ‘I don’t think we can do that.’ She worked hard to control her features, didn’t want to give anything away. ‘This was made inadvertently. Adam wasn’t aware the camera was running.’
Yet another half-truth. By this stage of proceedings, they’d both forgotten it was still on.
Neil’s response was abrupt and dismissive. ‘Not a problem. The contract he signed gives us permission to use any and all footage made for the program, inadvertent or not.’
‘But what if he doesn’t want it aired? It wouldn’t be ethical without his consent.’ Her voice was wobbly, the tone not nearly as detached as it should be.
‘Ethics have nothing to do with it,’ he said, unperturbed.
The disturbing disregard for other people and their feelings took her right to the edge. ‘When did you become so unfeeling?’ she charged him. ‘This is a man’s life we’re talking about. A man I—we—all of us have come to like and respect. Don’t you care at all?’
Neil shook his head. The accompanying sigh was infuriatingly condescending. ‘I warned you this was going to happen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I told you what this job requires, but you needed to experience the realities firsthand to learn for yourself. I should have known it’d be too much for you.’
‘Feeling someone else’s hurt is wrong?’ She gave a snort of disgust.
‘Feeling it, that’s acceptable.’ He stared at her for a long moment and she thought for one crazy minute she’d got through to him, but then he gathered himself together. ‘Allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by your feelings is not. It’s obvious you’re personally involved, Evie. You’re too emotional and you’ve lost perspective.’
Neil’s reversion to cool detachment stripped away all her self-control. ‘Maybe you’re right, but at least I still have a sense of human decency!’
It was a huge lapse in judgement to challenge him. The look he gave her was withering.
‘It goes with the territory. You get used to it. Now shut up. I want to hear this.’ He turned his stony gaze to the screen.
It had been a terrible mistake to keep the footage; she realised that now. Too late. And now Adam’s secret—a secret he’d kept his entire life—was being exposed. Because of her.
The guilt made her heart hurt.
What was left to her now? She’d said all she could think of to talk her boss into not using the footage, to no avail. Her eyes went to the scene playing out on the monitor—Adam confe
ssing to blaming himself for the way his father had treated him. His body language—the bowed head, the sagging shoulders—perfectly reflected her own feelings of defeat.
His shame, his self-disgust, were palpable. And it was her fault he was going to have to live through confronting the agony of his past again, this time with an audience of hundreds of thousands of people watching. Evie couldn’t turn her tear-blurred eyes away.
A door creaked. Evie stiffened in her seat, every sense jittery with misgiving. Dread coiled in her stomach. The light flicked on and she and Neil spun their chairs around at the same time.
Adam stood in the doorway, squinting against the sudden brightness. ‘What are you two doing?’
Neil leaped up. ‘What do you want?’
‘To point out the bloody obvious, this is my house. If I can’t sleep I get to walk around it if I feel like it, without answering to you.’
‘I’ve asked you to knock bef—’ Neil stopped at the warning hand Adam abruptly held up.
His glance had moved past them both to fix on the computer screen. Evie watched the expression on his face transform from mild confusion to a chilling stare as he took in what they were viewing. And as it registered, his anguish became more pronounced in the brows drawn darkly together, the trembling line of his usually full-lipped mouth, the muscles working his jaw. Stunned disbelief rolled off him in an almost visible wave.
Wordlessly, Evie stretched a hand towards him. He jerked back hard, as if her touch could burn him, even though they were too far apart for any physical contact.
For long seconds, silence enveloped the room as he turned his stare on her. She read the unspoken question in his haunted eyes: how could you do this to me? Unable to bear the pain in his expression, not trusting her voice to speak, she had to look away.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked finally, his voice devoid of emotion.
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