by Mandy Magro
‘All right then, bossy boots,’ Charlize said playfully. She rapped again, much firmer.
Rapid footfalls approached, followed by a deadbolt being undone on the other side. Charlize frowned. There’d never been a deadbolt there. Had Alistair fixed one to stop her letting herself in? The thought infuriated her and gave her a boost of much-needed courage.
The door swung open, and the woman on the other side smirked—the scent of sex lingering. ‘Oh, Charlize, we had no idea you were coming over. You should have called ahead so we were dressed for the occasion.’ Samantha leant on the doorframe, her loosely tied silk robe revealing ample cleavage adorned by bright pink lingerie—lingerie that matched the pink lipstick smudged beyond her botoxed lips. The woman then eyed Jane. ‘And you brought a friend too, how nice.’
Charlize’s jaw dropped and for a short moment she was speechless, until Jane jabbed her in the side. ‘Oh look, Charlize, Alistair has gone and brought home the hired help now you’re not here to tend to his every whim.’
Damn straight. The bastard hadn’t wasted any time.
Samantha shot Jane a look that could kill and it was all Charlize could do to stop from laughing.
Quickly regaining her composure, she smiled. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry to inconvenience you, Samantha. Would Alistair be about?’
Samantha flicked her hair extensions from her shoulder then turned. ‘Honey, you have a visitor,’ she called out, sashaying back down the hallway as if she owned the place.
Charlize grumbled and Jane placed a protective hand on her back. ‘You okay?’
She nodded assuredly. ‘Other than wanting to slap her smile off her plastic face, yup, never been better. He’s just made this much easier.’
Alistair appeared in the hallway, dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers and seeming very dishevelled. His smile vanished when he spotted Charlize. ‘Oh, wow, hey you.’
Samantha made sure she brushed herself against him as she passed. ‘I’ll be in the shower if you want me.’ Her tone was overflowing with suggestiveness. Charlize wanted to gag—the thought of being intimate with Alistair making her skin crawl.
He shot a wary sideways glance to Samantha then rushed forwards. ‘Charlize, I’ve been trying to contact you for weeks now, but you’ve been ignoring my texts and my calls keep getting the engaged signal from your end …’
‘I blocked your number—’ Charlize held up her hands ‘—so save it, Alistair. I shouldn’t have expected anything more from you than this. You’re a good-for-nothing lowlife cheating son of a bitch, and you’ll never change.’
Alistair threw his hands up in the air. ‘But this is your fault. You’re the one that’s refused to answer my calls or texts—so I gathered we were well and truly over. What was I meant to think?’
‘Always the way with you, isn’t it Alistair, to put the blame on everyone else but yourself.’ She shook her head as she folded her arms across her chest. ‘And to think I resisted making love to the most unbelievable man I’ve ever met just to do the right thing by you.’
Alistair’s disposition changed, his eyes furious. ‘What man? And what do you mean, making love?’ His lips curled into a mocking smirk. ‘Don’t tell me you fell for one of them hick cowboys. Wouldn’t that be more of a holiday fling? You know, a one-night stand? Nothing close to making love.’ He rolled his eyes skywards. ‘Always the drama queen, cherub.’
Quietly pleased she’d gotten to him, Charlize didn’t let his digs affect her. This was the first time she’d laid eyes on Alistair in over a month, and she was finally seeing him for what he truly was—a commitment phobic player. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head with one thing. I did fall for one of them cowboys, and he was a hell of a lot more man than you could ever be.’ She stepped past him, dragging Jane with her. ‘I’m done with you. I’m just going to grab the last of my personal things, and I’ll be out of your hair so you and Miss I’m-so-hot can get back to whatever it is you were doing in our marital bed. Which I think I’ll let you keep when we start dividing things up.’
Alistair grabbed her arm. ‘You’re not stepping foot in here.’
Jane smacked his hand away from Charlize. Her eyes challenged him to try it again. ‘If I were you, I’d let her get her things without any fuss.’
‘Or what?’
She placed her hands on her hips. ‘Or I’ll be making sure she ruins you when I help her file for financial settlement.’
Alistair flinched as if he’d been struck. He turned to Charlize. ‘A financial settlement?’
‘Yes, Alistair, and I will be making sure I get what’s rightfully mine—which will be half this apartment, amongst other things.’
‘So you’re actually going to file for divorce.’
Charlize shook her head in disbelief. ‘Do you honestly expect me to come back after everything you’ve done? To take it all on the chin like I used to? Well, I won’t be that woman again, Alistair. I’ll never give you everything I am, all I have, all my heart, the way I did. I was so weak. Such a fool. You don’t deserve a woman as devoted and loving as me. In fact, I think you’ve found your match in Samantha—fake, shallow and selfish.’
‘I thought you promised through the good times, and the bad, on our wedding day. Can’t you find it in yourself to forgive me?’
Charlize shook her head. ‘You’re not worthy of forgiveness.’
‘But, I love you. Samantha means nothing to me.’
‘You have no idea what love is, other than loving yourself.’ Charlize turned her back on him she strode towards the kitchen, where she’d forgotten to grab two bowls inherited from her great grandma. She’d split everything else up later down the line, once court proceedings had started. With Jane by her side, she was ready to fight tooth and nail.
‘You’re a pathetic excuse for a man.’ Jane spat. ‘To think you had a beautiful woman willing to live out her days with you, and you threw it all away.’ She spun and followed Charlize into the kitchen.
The bowls collected, they waltzed back past a pale-faced Alistair, out the door and towards the lift.
‘I’ll see you in court,’ Alistair called out just as they stepped inside the elevator.
Jane stuck her arm out and gave him the thumbs-up, as the doors began to close.
Charlize sighed as she leant against the wall for support, her legs shaking from the ordeal. ‘Don’t ever let me fall for a man like that again. The next one has to be everything Alistair isn’t; kind, loving, manly, protective and hopefully very good in bed.’ She grinned at the last part.
Jane wrapped her arm around her shoulder and gave her a loving squeeze. ‘Hon, I think you’ve already fallen for the opposite of Alistair. We just have to find a way to win his trust back.’
‘I think I might have found one.’ Charlize gave Jane a wink.
‘Oh, you didn’t?’
Charlize nodded, a smile tugging at her lips. ‘Oh yes, I did.’
‘Won’t Jasper be pissed off?’
‘Hopefully not once I tell him why.’
Jane sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Ooh, do tell.’
CHAPTER
32
Knocking on Jasper’s office door, Charlize felt her stomach backflip and land somewhere in her throat.
‘Come in.’
Taking a deep breath, Charlize gingerly stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She didn’t want the entire office hearing Jasper yell, if that’s what he was about to do. And there was a fair chance of that happening after she’d gone against his wishes. It took a lot to get Jasper to that stage, and she’d only seen him lose it a handful of times, but she’d really pushed the envelope with what she’d done.
Jasper didn’t look up from his computer. ‘Take a seat.’ His tone was terse.
So she did, remaining quiet until he was ready to talk. He was clearly pissed off. And she couldn’t blame him.
Shutting his laptop with a snap, he sat back in his chair, his usual cheery disposition nowhere to be seen. ‘So, are
you going to explain why you’ve chosen not to include the information Vivien has given us—information we paid a hefty sum for, as you know?’
Charlize sat forward, the speech she’d prepared in readiness now jumbled in her head. She drew in a deep breath and then jumped in headfirst, deciding the best plan of attack was to blurt it all out before Jasper lost his patience, which was evidently already running very thin. ‘Because Vivien could turn around and sue us if we do.’
He took his glasses off. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Vivien could sue us if we print what she said. I have a feeling that’s why she chose to not give us the photos, and why she told me I wasn’t allowed to record her interview. So we have no proof. The woman can’t be trusted.’
Jasper shot to standing, his face reddening. ‘She asked you not to record the interview? Don’t you think you could have told me that before we paid her?’
Charlize looked down to the floor. ‘Yes, I should have. But at the time I had more serious things on my mind.’
‘Like what?’ Jasper’s voice was becoming shriller by the second. ‘You do understand that the big boss could hang me for this, and order me to fire you in the process.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But Jasper, I think I’ve uncovered something a lot juicier than Mick Armstrong being gay.’
Jasper began pacing the office, his face growing redder by the second. ‘Oh do tell, before I spontaneously combust.’
Charlize chose her words carefully. ‘I believe Vivien Hiller had something to do with Mick Armstrong’s accident.’
Jasper halted mid-step, and spun to face her, his eyes now wide. ‘Oh darling, please continue.’ He pulled his chair around the desk so he was facing her. Sitting down, he folded his legs and eyed her questioningly.
‘Well, to cut a long story short, Vivien’s husband, George, died in a car accident forty years ago. When I started looking into it, I learnt that his accident happened in very similar circumstances to Mick’s. Sunny day, no other cars on the road, careening over the same mountain, no extensive skidmarks. That was the first red flag. The investigators put Mick’s crash down to brake failure—he’d accidentally put the wrong fluid in his brake line. I looked into how easily someone could deliberately do that, and it’s apparently a cinch, but not something a man who had always serviced his car, and his wife’s car, and the farm machinery, would ever do. So, I then got a friend of a friend to look into whether Vivien got a life insurance payout from her husband’s death, and she did.’ She held her hands up as if to say, ‘Voila’.
‘Okay, but there’s nothing sinister about that, Charlize. A lot of wives get life insurance if someone dies.’
‘Yes, but don’t you think it’s strange that Vivien took the life insurance out for her husband only three weeks before his death?’ She smirked proudly.
‘Yes, I find that extremely strange.’ Jasper waggled a finger at her. ‘I think you might be onto something here. Have you told anyone about this?’
‘No, well, yes. Jane.’
Jasper waved his hand through the air. ‘You can trust Janey with your life.’ He shot to standing again. ‘Right, so what’s your plan of attack?’ He motioned towards her like a game show host.
Charlize smiled at his liveliness. ‘I want a little more time to try and delve deeper into it, but only on the condition that you run the article the way it is. If and when we uncover anything substantial, we go straight to the police before we even think about making a story out of it.’
‘Deal.’
Charlize shook it, her broad smile fading. ‘What about the big boss, is he going to be pissed off with me?’
‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head. He’s going to love where you’re heading with this.’
Charlize heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God. I’m betting I’ve blown my chances at a promotion, though.’
Jasper shrugged. ‘Who knows with the big boss, but we’ll soon find out because he’s flying in from Melbourne tonight and is going to be announcing who’s getting the promotion at the staff meeting on Wednesday.’
Charlize screwed her face up. ‘I’m really nervous.’
‘Don’t be. I meant what I said about you being the right candidate—it’s not just me being biased because you’re like a niece to me.’
‘Thanks, Jasper, that means a heck of a lot. Is it a bad time to ask what you thought of Hollie’s designs?’
Jasper’s eyes almost rolled back in his head. ‘Not at all darling, they’re divine. Let her know we’d love to do a feature in the new year.’
Charlize sat forward, her legs jiggling excitedly. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Yay! Hollie’s going to be thrilled.’
‘Excellent.’ He clapped his hands together and then waved towards the door. ‘Now off you toddle—and find me some hard evidence that will send this horrible gay-hater before the courts.’
Charlize stood to full alert and saluted as if in the army. ‘Yes, sir.’
Jasper’s phone buzzed from the desk. He snatched it up. ‘Gotta take this, keep me in the loop.’
‘Will do,’ Charlize said as she escaped out of the office, heaving in a few nervous breaths.
She wasn’t sure she’d come up with anything concrete, but at the very least it had bought her some time, and allowed the article to go to print as it was—a beautiful in-depth story about life on the land, with a particular focus on Dallas’s quest for the bull riding championship, the fun of the calendar shoot and the deep undying love Reg had shared with Nancy.
If Vivien was responsible for Mick’s death, and her husband’s, she needed to pay for her crimes. Then Dallas might stop blaming himself for his father’s death. Saying a silent prayer to the powers that be, she straightened her skirt, sucked in a breath, squared her shoulders and headed towards her alcove with an agenda to uncover the truth.
CHAPTER
33
Kookaburras sang their merry song from the clothesline in the backyard, and the brilliant sunshine poured through the gap in Dallas’s curtains like a golden river. They were sights and sounds Dallas usually loved and he should have been up tending to his usual jobs hours ago, before the crack of dawn, but there was something more important stealing his focus, a decision he was trying to make that was taking all of his attention.
He groaned as he threw the pillow across the bedroom, barely missing the bottle of Jack Daniels he’d taken a few sculls from last night in his desperation to get some sleep. It hadn’t done the trick, and had instead left him with a smashing headache. Rolling onto his side, he stared down at the newspaper strewn on the floor—the one his mum had come tearing down the paddock with late yesterday afternoon.
As much as he fought it, the title made him smile. His mother had been right. Charlize hadn’t gone all the way and blurted his dad’s secret for all of Australia to know. The article was entirely positive, and the fact she’d made room to tell his grandparents’ amazing love story moved him deeply. As much as he wanted to stay mad at her, credit had to be given. She wasn’t as bad as he’d envisioned her to be.
Her absence had given him time to calm down and roll things over in his mind, as well as talk things over with his gramps and his mum, and the thing he kept coming back to was how he couldn’t imagine his future without Charlize in it. He wasn’t too sure how it would work out, with her being a city girl and him a lover of the country, but if it was meant to be they’d find a way. They just had to. He knew deep down that he was never going to meet another woman like her, and his life would be meaningless without her to share it with.
Finally giving up on sleep altogether, he rose, dressed in his usual cowboy garb and decided to do what he should have done a week ago. He was going to go to the city and get his girl. A rush of adrenaline filled him, followed by a flash of unease. What if she’d gone back to her husband? What if she hated him for judging her so harshly and not giving her the benefit of the doubt?
He shrugg
ed the concerns off. There was only one way to find out, and he wasn’t about to say what he had to over the phone. He needed to look into her eyes when he revealed what was in his heart. Picking the necklace up from the top of his dresser, he smiled as he pushed it into his jeans pocket. It was just by luck he’d found it dangling in the motor of the Commodore. She must have dropped it when she had her head shoved in there, looking for god knows what. He knew how much she loved the ruby earrings her dad had given her, and this looked like the matching necklace—not that he could recall seeing it around her neck. Regardless, he couldn’t wait to see her face when he gave it back.
Clearing the stairs two at a time, Dallas headed downstairs and raced into the kitchen, where given it was smoko time, his mum would most certainly be.
His socks slipping on the timber floor in his haste, he grabbed hold of the kitchen bench to stop himself from hitting the deck. His mum and Gramps smiled back at him from the dining table.
‘Howdy you two.’
‘Morning, Dallas.’ Katherine put the newspaper down. ‘Had a bit of a sleep in, love?’
‘Not really, I don’t think I slept an hour all night.’
Reg playfully tapped his watch. ‘I was going to say good morning but I’m thinking it should be more of a good afternoon.’
Dallas chuckled. ‘Fair play, Gramps.’
‘There’s a plate of bacon and eggs in the microwave if you want to nuke it, love.’
Dallas’s stomach growled with the thought of food, but he shook his head. ‘No time for breakfast.’
Katherine tutted. ‘You’ve got to eat. The work on the new stables will still be there once you’ve finished.’
‘That’s the thing … I’m not going to be able to get any work done today.’
Katherine’s eyebrows shot up. ‘It’s very unlike you to take a day off. What’s up?’
‘I’ve decided to drive to Sydney and see Charlize.’ Dallas tried to act nonchalant by folding one leg over the other, as well as his arms. ‘Just to thank her in person for not going all the way with the article.’