by Fiona Lowe
‘I love my wife, Chloe. I’ve only ever loved Anna.’
The softly spoken words shattered her heart into a thousand damaged and jagged pieces. She bit into her fist to stop herself from crying out. What had possessed her to listen to his sister? Why had she gone against her better judgement and ignored what she knew to be true and instead dared to dream?
Foolish, stupid, idiotic Chloe.
His green eyes—racked with a tight tangle of indecipherable emotions—sought her gaze and she let him pull her into his arms.
‘You’re incredibly special to me.’ He stroked her hair. ‘I’m extremely fond of you, and Amber and I want you here with us. Nothing has to change.’
Feeling battered and bruised, her head fell against his shoulder as if she could no longer hold it up on her own. Resting there, in her favourite place, she breathed in his scent of salt, sand and musk and again felt the thud of his heart beating against her breasts—solid, rhythmic, life affirming.
Nothing has to change.
She could so easily continue living here with the two people she loved in just the same way as she had for the last few weeks. A picture of it formed in her mind.
Something deep inside her snapped.
A king wave of long-contained, life-damaged emotions dating back to her childhood washed through her with a deafening roar, strewing and spewing debris until it filled her to overflowing.
Noooooooooooo.
Everything has to change.
Value yourself.
Her very first memory was a look of disappointment on her father’s face. No matter what she’d done or said, it had never been enough to earn her father’s love, and then he’d shunned her in her darkest hour. Her love hadn’t been enough for Jason and now it wasn’t enough for Luke.
Luke’s betrayal hurt the most. He was the one man she’d thought was different. The one man, with the exception of her brother, who had treated her with honour and respect. His many and varied considerate actions—like remembering exactly how she liked her coffee and noticing when she was feeling strung out and insisting she take a break—had combined with a heap of other tiny but thoughtful things to show her that he truly cared for her. Loved her.
How wrong she’d been.
She might have got that wrong but one thing she did know was that she didn’t deserve to be treated like this—like a second-class citizen begging for affection. She deserved so much more.
You’ve never asked for more from anyone.
It’s time to start.
Her shattered heart started cobbling itself together—ragged and bleeding—readying itself to put on the fight of its life.
Luke patted Chloe consolingly on her back in a similar way he did with Amber when she was upset. His mind strained and creaked, feeling as dazed and as confused as it had just after his surgery. He had no idea where Chloe’s unexpected declaration of love had come from, but he was desperately hoping it was an aberration and she’d let it go. She’d told him emphatically that she didn’t commit, that she didn’t want a relationship, which was the only reason he’d had sex with her.
The only reason?
He refused to answer his own question.
Chloe raised her head and stepped out of his embrace. ‘You’re fond of me?’
‘Of course I am.’ He smiled encouragingly. ‘Like I said, you’re incredibly special to me.’
If her eyes had been lasers, he’d have been burned to a crisp. ‘You’re fond of Mr Megat’s satay, Luke. You’re fond of Chester. I am neither one of those things.’
He trod carefully, knowing there were unexploded mines everywhere. ‘I never said you were.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ she said flatly.
Her grim expression didn’t offer him any hope that the fact he hadn’t said the words was a good thing. He ran his hand over his head and sighed. ‘I don’t understand where all this is coming from. I thought we were happy with the way things are.’
‘You’re happy with the way things are.’ Her voice rose, edged with steel, and it carried out into the night air. ‘And why wouldn’t you be? After all, I cook, I clean and I look after Amber. Hell, I’m the housekeeper you get to have sex with.’
A flame of rage licked at the edges of his control. He hated the way she’d just reduced what they’d shared into something mean and squalid. ‘Hey, who’s been doing the cooking and the cleaning and the bulk of the childcare recently while you’ve been at work?’
‘You want a medal or a chest to pin it on?’
‘Now you’re being juvenile.’
She threw her arms out. ‘Am I? I don’t think so. The thing is, Luke, I don’t exist to make your life easier. That is not my sole purpose in life.’
‘I know that.’ He hardly recognised the woman in front of him and he reached for her, wanting to convince her she was very wrong, but she dodged him.
‘Never for one moment have I ever thought that. In fact, I’ve worked hard at making it clear to you how much I appreciate everything you do for us.’
A flicker of something close to sorrow flashed across her face. ‘Yes, you’ve done that extremely well. I’ve felt very appreciated, which is part of the problem.’
‘I don’t understand.’
She gave him a pitying look. ‘I’m a woman with feelings, Luke, and a huge capacity to love.’
Guilt clawed at him like the talons of a bird of prey. ‘I’ve never hidden from you that I love Anna.’
Her chin shot up and he saw regret shining brightly in her eyes. ‘You’re right, you haven’t. I just thought you loved me, too.’
Her pain barrelled into him. ‘I’m sorry, Chloe. I never meant for you to get the wrong impression about us. Anna and I…’ He fought to find the words to describe the love they’d shared. ‘It only happens once.’
She closed her eyes and swayed.
He shot out his hand, closing his fingers around her upper arm to steady her, worried she was going to faint.
She opened her eyes and pulled away from his grasp so fast it was as if his touch had burned her.
‘Chloe, please.’
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘You’ve made things very clear, Luke. You don’t love me so I have to go.’
Panic exploded. ‘I’m not asking you to leave. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, Chloe.’
Her eyes widened beyond what he’d thought possible. ‘Yes, they are.’
‘Yesterday they weren’t.’ He threw out his hands in frustration at her behaviour. ‘Chloe, you can’t just change the rules without notice.’
‘Goodbye, Luke.’
The thought of her leaving gutted him but rising fury took hold. She was being illogical and irrational. She’d just turned their agreement upside down by expecting more. She was the one being totally unreasonable. He lashed himself to his anger—the safest of all his roiling and chaotic emotions—and he fought back. ‘So you’re leaving, just like that? At ten o’clock at night? What about Amber? You said you loved her.’
Pain slashed her face. ‘I do.’
‘Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it. She’s not going to understand why you’re suddenly not here any more. Why you’ve abandoned her. She lost her mother and now—’
‘Don’t you dare lay a guilt trip on me,’ she said, her voice deathly quiet. ‘I’ll explain it to her.’
Incredulity poured through him at the thought. ‘And exactly how are you going to do that?’ he yelled, giving up all pretence at trying to be the calm and logical one. ‘She’s barely two.’
For a moment Chloe looked torn and defeated but then she squared her shoulders. ‘Chester and I will take her for walks on the beach so she can still spend time with us. I’ll ease out gently.’
He didn’t want to think about Chloe and Chester on the beach, playing with Amber, without him. Or about her easing out of his life. ‘And if I don’t allow you to do that?’
Shock and devastation filled her eyes. ‘As
her father you could do that but I hope you’ll be adult enough to set aside how you feel about me and do what’s in her best interests.’
He hated the way she was looking at him as if she loathed him. Damn it, this wasn’t his fault. Did she think she could just turn their lives upside down with no warning and have everything her own way? ‘You do realise this has to go both ways? You know Amber sleeps better at night when Chester sleeps at the end of her bed.’
Chloe bit her lip. ‘I guess there can be access arrangements with Chester. He can sleep over occasionally.’
This is what getting divorced must be like.
The thought skidded across his mind before being buried by his resentment that she was ruining something that had worked so well for both of them. For Amber. For all of them.
She wants my love.
His heart threw off a crazy beat. Could he say it? Could he tell her that he loved her? ‘So all of this angst could have been avoided if I said I loved you?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘And meant it.’
He thought of Anna—the love of his life since he’d been seventeen—and the words died on his lips. ‘I can’t lie to you, Chloe.’
A tremble whipped across her body. ‘I know. I’ve always known.’ She walked briskly to the French doors. ‘Box up my stuff, text me a time when you’re not here and I’ll come over and collect it, and then I’ll leave my key.’
The deck felt like it was tilting under his feet. ‘There has to be another way, Chloe.’
‘There isn’t.’
She stepped inside, picked up her bag and her dog and without a backward glance walked out the front door into the night.
The ensuing silence suffocated him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘I’M CHASING PEOPLE for extra hours, Chloe, and as you’re our most flexible staff member I’m starting with you first,’ Keri said, her expression hopeful.
‘Sure.’ The more hours the merrier.
No, scrub that. Nothing was merrier, but more hours at work meant less time to think about how her life had imploded so dramatically forty-eight hours ago. She was happy to stockpile hours and money because she had less than a month to find a new position. A new job far, far away from the plastics ward.
She’d been up all hours, tweaking her résumé, and had applied for a job in Paediatrics as well as one in the cardiac surgery unit. She really didn’t want to leave Gold Coast City but just in case those two jobs didn’t work out, she’d also applied to the only private hospital where Luke didn’t have admitting rights.
The job of her heart was the paediatric job—her way of being with children—but in the short term she’d take anything on offer because there was no way she was working on the plastics ward when Luke returned from sick leave. She just hadn’t told Keri that yet.
‘Great,’ Keri said, writing on the roster. ‘I’ll slot you in for Friday between five and seven p.m.’
Chloe frowned. ‘Actually, Friday’s the hospital barbecue.’
Keri nodded. ‘And the family carnival, which is why I’m asking you.’
Because I don’t have a family. Her heart, so badly battered and bruised, barely had the energy to react. ‘Actually, I’m taking Chester…’
Keri laughed. ‘It’s designed for children, not dogs, Chloe. He’d run amok in the petting zoo and he won’t be allowed to use the bouncy castle.’
‘No, but Amber will.’
Interest flared in Keri’s eyes. ‘You’re taking Amber?’
‘I am.’ It would be her first visit with the little girl since she’d left the cottage and she couldn’t wait to see her. She bit her lip, not wanting to think about how she and Luke had organised the arrangements via text. Short, sharp, brief, impersonal texts from Luke with the subtext of bitter acrimony.
‘But I spoke to Luke yesterday when I was running through the plastics department’s RSVPs,’ Keri said, her forehead creasing. ‘He told me he isn’t coming.’
‘That’s right.’ Because I am. She bit her lip to stop the threat of tears that permanently threatened to spill and she picked up the fluid balance charts to shut out the bewildered look he’d worn on his face when she’d left him.
You caught him unawares. He’d believed you when you’d said you’d never love again.
She stomped on the temptation to feel guilty. She couldn’t afford guilt if she was to stay standing.
‘I guess he has another appointment.’ Keri sounded disappointed.
‘I guess so. I offered to take Amber because she likes bouncy castles.’ She wanted the conversation over. ‘I can fill in on the roster for any other days in the next two weeks. Email me the dates and times.’
It was bad enough that Luke couldn’t love her. She wasn’t adding to her pain by disclosing to anyone at the hospital how much of a fool she’d made of herself. No, she was keeping the whole sordid episode to herself.
It wasn’t sordid. They were the best weeks of your life.
Right up to the moment he told you he couldn’t ever love you.
The ache that had become part of her burned again.
She swallowed against it, reminding herself that the alternative to staying with Luke while knowing that he didn’t love her would be worse than this.
How is that possible?
She didn’t know the answer to that. All she knew was that she had to value herself, because if she didn’t, no one else would. If Luke couldn’t love her then they couldn’t be together. She just had to get through these first dark days. She was a survivor and she’d keep doing what she needed to do by taking one step at a time. She’d get through one hour, one shift, one day and one entire night—one long, lonely and excruciatingly empty night at a time.
She’d already got through two. Just.
Thank goodness for her beloved dog. Only he too was sad, desperately missing Luke and Amber and whimpering at night while she silently cried. He’d stare at her with a puzzled look in his big, brown eyes and then lick her tears. She’d broken all the rules, and Chester now slept on her bed as she stared at the ceiling and told herself she’d done the right thing. Was doing the right thing.
Giving herself a shake, she made a decision. Tomorrow she’d ring Nick and Lucy and offer to mind the twins so they could have a date. The babies would keep her so busy she’d have no time to think about Luke, Amber and everything she’d lost.
It was worth a shot.
‘Night-night, Amber,’ said Luke, tucking his daughter in.
‘Where Clo? Want Clo.’
Luke sighed. This conversation had become his nightly routine since Chloe had left. ‘You’ll see her tomorrow.’
‘Chester?’ Amber asked hopefully.
‘And Chester.’
The house was so quiet without the antics of the puppy that Luke had actually gone online earlier and typed ‘Child-friendly dog’ into a browser after he’d heard himself call Chester to come for a walk. Hell, he’d even asked Chloe for an opinion on an issue concerning the foundation before realising she was no longer in the cottage.
If he hadn’t seen a recent MRI of his brain, he’d be convinced he was losing his mind.
He kissed Amber. ‘Sleep tight, blossom.’
For the first time in two nights Amber snuggled down without further delays.
As he quietly closed her door, relief trickled through him that things might be finally getting back to normal.
What’s normal? Things haven’t been normal since Anna died.
But they’d been normal with Chloe.
He struggled with the thought. How could that be? He still missed Anna. Granted, it wasn’t the same desperate loneliness it had been at the start when half of him felt like he’d died too, but he still felt her absence.
He walked into the laundry and smoothed out some clothes for Amber to wear tomorrow, justifying that within the hour they’d be crushed, so there was no point in ironing them. The truth was he didn’t have the energy. All the domestic tasks he’d got such a sense of
satisfaction from doing these last few weeks were suddenly chores.
That’s because you did them with Chloe.
Now she’d gone and the house was dismal. Why the hell had she fallen in love with him and ruined something that was working so well? He’d been asking himself that question over and over since she’d left.
Because you told her you didn’t love her.
He hated the answer and a fizz of anger stirred.
There’s no crime in loving my wife.
He did a desultory toy tidy-round as much to shut out his unwanted thoughts as to avoid an injury to his feet. He picked up a board book and as he rose he came face to face with Anna’s photo. He picked it up and her blue eyes stared out at him as if she knew everything about him.
She did.
They’d grown into adults together. Made two five-year plans together, dreamed of having four children and enjoying a long and happy future, only to experience a vastly shortened version of it. ‘It should have been longer, Anna.’
She didn’t reply. She never did, and now the memory of her voice in his head was muffled and barely discernible. In all their years of being a couple, they’d never had a conversation about one of them dying young, or what either of them thought the remaining partner should do in that event. Why would they? They’d expected a lifetime together, and he’d never pictured his life with anyone else.
He returned the photo to the side table where it sat next to a specimen vase containing a single strand of pink and white Singapore orchids.
Chloe.
It was a typical, caring, Chloe gesture. She was truly amazing and it wasn’t that he didn’t value her or care for her deeply—he did—but he couldn’t switch love on and off and it was unfair of her to expect him to do that.
He dumped the toys into the basket and noticed the three spherical sand spinifex grass heads Amber had collected on the beach the day Steph had visited. He would have made Amber leave them at the back door but Chloe had brought them inside and placed them on the bookshelf. It was a simple decorating touch—connecting the indoors to the outdoors—and their golden colour contrasted perfectly with the dark, polished wood, adding warmth to the cottage.