‘Of course Lachlan. Who else do you think? Hell, Hamish, someone had to be nice to him. You hardly made the effort.’
But she had coloured. His efficient, cool fiancée was seriously flustered.
‘You were nice to him…as in heading for the sand dunes.’
‘It was just a bit of fun! This is the modern world, you know.’
‘I think I’m old-fashioned.’
‘Well, don’t be. Hell, Hamish, we lead separate lives. That’s the basis of our whole relationship.’
‘What relationship?’
‘We fit,’ she snapped. ‘You know we do. Together we can be a serious team. But not if you’re going to get jealous every time I let my hair down.’
‘I would have thought…maybe you’d want to let your hair down with me?’
‘Oh, come on, Hamish. That’s not what our relationship’s about. We’re a serious team. Does it matter if we get our fun elsewhere?’
And it was as easy as this. He was being let off a hook he hadn’t known he was on until tonight, and suddenly he didn’t even recognise what it was that had snagged him.
She didn’t love him. He didn’t love her. Where on earth had they been headed?
‘I’m in love with Susie,’ he told her, and she paused in shaking her hair to stare at him in incredulity.
‘You have to be kidding.’
‘I don’t think I am.’
‘What on earth do you have in common?’
‘I guess…nothing. Are you in love with Lachlan?’
‘Of course I’m not. I don’t do love.’
‘Including with me?’
‘We’re a sensible partnership,’ she snapped. ‘You know that. We’ve talked about it. You let emotion into your life and it’s down the toilet. If you were on with the widow-’
‘I’m not on with anyone.’
‘But you want to be? With her?’ Disbelief was warring with incredulity that he could be so stupid.
There was only one answer to that. ‘Yes.’
‘She’ll never be a businessman’s wife.’
‘Maybe I’ll be a landscape gardener’s husband,’ he retorted, and she gave a crack of scornful laughter.
‘This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Yes.’
She paused. Regrouped. ‘Let’s talk about this. We don’t need to break up. I want that title,’ she said abruptly, as if it was suddenly the most important factor in the whole deal.
‘I think you can buy titles over the Internet if you pay enough,’ he said cautiously. ‘I’ll see what I can do. It can be a breaking-off-engagement present.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘I’ve come all this way for nothing?’ It was practically a yell. She was no longer flustered. She was out and out furious.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not half as sorry as you’re going to be,’ she snarled.
‘You really think I wouldn’t mind a marriage where my wife trots off into the sand dunes with other men?’
‘This has nothing to do with anything I might have done with Lachlan,’ she flashed back. ‘Has it?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘It hasn’t. But I’ve decided… Marcia, maybe emotion is important in a marriage. Maybe we could both do with some.’
There was a long pause, strained to breaking point.
‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘You want emotion? Let’s see how you deal with emotion, you stupid, two-timing wannabe country hick!’
Sitting in the middle of the table was a vast earthenware casserole containing the congealing leftovers. Marcia removed the lid. She lifted the pot-and she threw the entire contents at her fiancé’s head.
With pot attached.
Tuna surprise!
Susie heard Marcia come in. She heard their soft murmurs in the kitchen. Then the voices were raised. Then came a crash of splintering crockery.
Should she get up and investigate?
Mind your own business, she told herself, and shoved her pillow over her head so she couldn’t try to eavesdrop.
She didn’t want to know.
She didn’t.
Breaking off his engagement had been as easy as that.
Hamish lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and wondered where to take it from here.
His cell phone rang.
It was three in the morning. Was there an emergency back in the office?
‘Douglas,’ he said crisply into the phone, trying to sound efficient, and there was a sigh down the line that he recognised.
‘You’re not supposed to be working.’
‘Jodie?’
‘You remember me?’ His ex-secretary sounded pleased. ‘Nick said you mightn’t answer the phone if you recognised my number. Are you still in Australia?’
‘Yes,’ he said cautiously. ‘Jodie, it’s three in the morning.’
‘Since when did you need sleep? I’ve just seen your photograph.’
‘My photograph,’ he said blankly.
‘Oh, Hamish, it’s lovely.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to call me Mr Douglas?’ he demanded, and her sigh this time was totally exasperated.
‘I’m not your secretary any more. I’m calling as a friend.’
‘Why?’
‘To tell you I think she looks gorgeous. To say the baby looks really cute and the dog’s amazing and I’ve never seen you look so happy. I opened the magazine and got such a shock that I almost dropped my coffee.’
‘What magazine?’
She told him and he gaped into the stillness. ‘How…?’
‘You’re on the beach,’ she told him. ‘The baby’s asleep at your feet. What’s the dog’s name?’
‘Boris,’ he said, before he could stop himself. His mind was racing. A photograph on the beach. Albert and Honey… It had to be Albert and Honey’s photograph. This was Susie’s doing. She’d told them his real name, they’d have done some research, and now the photograph would be splashed across America.
Did he mind?
‘Is she nice?’ Jodie was asking.
‘Um…yes.’
‘One of the girls from the office told me Marcia was following you.’
‘Marcia’s here. Jodie, what business is it of-?’
‘You see, the thing is that I’m pregnant,’ Jodie said, ignoring his interruption. ‘I thought I was last week and now I’m sure. Nick and I are so happy. But I’m so happy that I want everyone else to be. So I’m worrying about you.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me.’
‘I won’t if you end up with the lady on the beach.’
‘She won’t have me,’ Hamish said before he could stop himself, and there was a breathless pause.
‘You’ve fallen in love,’ Jodie said at last. ‘Oh, Hamish…’
‘She won’t have me.’ It was almost a statement of despair. He was in territory here he didn’t recognise.
‘You haven’t asked her to live in your grey penthouse?’ Jodie said anxiously. ‘She doesn’t look the sort who’d live in a penthouse.’
‘Hell, Jodie, it’s where I live. It’s where I work.’
‘I’ve taken a job as part-time secretary in the church that Nick’s restoring,’ Jodie said as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘The pay’s lousy. Not a lot of prestige there. I’m happy as a pig in mud.’
‘I’m pleased for you. But-’
‘Don’t stuff it, Hamish.’
‘Mr Douglas!’ he roared before he could stop himself, and there was a cautious silence-and then a giggle.
‘You’ve got it bad,’ she said on a note of discovery. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased I phoned. Nick said I was butting in where I wasn’t wanted but I so wanted to know, and now I do. I’ll ring you back in a few days and find out the next installment. Don’t stuff it. And don’t shove your penthouse down her throat.’
Where was sleep after that? Nowhere. The castle was almost eerie in its stillness. At five Hamish r
ose and went out into the bushland behind the garden. He walked the trails in the moonlight, calling over and over again.
‘Taffy?’
If he could find her…
He wasn’t sure what that might mean. He only knew that Susie was holding herself under rigid control and he needed to break through it. Somehow. If he could find Taffy, he could offer to buy a house on the coast, commuter distance from work. He could see Susie there, but the loneliness thing was an issue. She’d need a dog.
He could buy her a dog but Taffy would be better.
Taffy was dead.
But there was a tiny part of him that was refusing to accept the pup’s death. It was the logical conclusion and he’d spent his entire life trying to be logical, but he’d just let this tiny chink of inconsistency prevail. Just for now.
‘Taffy…’
He didn’t find her. Of course he didn’t find her. Logic was the way to approach the world. Logic was always right. Emotion…well, it had no place in his life. Did it?
There was a bruise on the side of his head that said emotion was happening whether he encouraged it or not.
Somehow he had to persuade Susie anyway, but by the time he conceded defeat and returned to the castle, he knew he was too late.
The castle was alive with people. Half Dolphin Bay seemed to be there. Kirsty was presiding over the kitchen, issuing orders. A mountain of luggage was piled in the hallway. Susie was behind a mug of coffee, with half a dozen women sitting around her.
She looked up as Hamish entered. Their eyes met-and he saw a tiny flicker of hope die behind her eyes.
‘You didn’t find her.’
She knew what he’d been doing. She wasn’t being logical either. She was still hoping.
Someone had to see things as they were. ‘No.’ He spread his hands, helpless. ‘Susie…’
‘Hamish, can you help Jake load gear into the car?’ Kirsty asked, sounding as if she was annoyed with him, and he met her gaze and knew he was right. She was seriously displeased. ‘It’s like a huge jigsaw puzzle. How we’re going to fit everything in, I don’t know.’
‘Sure.’
‘And what happened to Mrs Jacobsen’s casserole?’ Kirsty asked.
‘I took a dislike to it. Tell Mrs Jacobsen I’ll buy her ten more. Susie, can I talk to you?’
But Susie was no longer looking at him. ‘I’m leaving in half an hour and I have all my friends to say goodbye to,’ she whispered. ‘Hamish, we said everything we needed to say last night. There’s nowhere else to go.’
‘Susie, you’re way over the limit for cabin baggage.’ It was Jake, appearing at the door and looking exasperated. ‘Rose can’t need all these toys.’
‘One’s Hippo, one’s Evangeline and one’s Ted. They’re all too precious to be entrusted to the cargo hold.’
‘You’ll have to repack,’ Jake said, trying to sound stern. ‘Evangeline weighs two kilos. Two kilos for a toy giraffe! It’s either Evangeline or the nappies.’
Susie closed her eyes, defeated by choice. Blank.
She should be crying, Hamish thought, feeling desperate. She should be sobbing. But her face was closed and shuttered. Dead.
‘Please, Susie…’ he started, and her eyes flew open again.
‘Leave me be,’ she snapped, anger breaking through the misery. ‘Hamish Douglas, butt out of what doesn’t concern you.’
If there’d been another casserole to hand he could have been hit twice over. And maybe he would have welcomed it.
He butted out.
Marcia was packing as well. He went out to the courtyard and found her loading her gear into the back of Lachlan’s BMW.
‘As fast as that?’ he asked, and she gave him a vicious glare. Lachlan, looking nervous, stayed back.
‘You don’t want me here. I’ll be back to you about financial details.’
‘Financial details?’
‘This has cost me,’ she muttered, throwing a holdall into the trunk with vicious intensity. ‘I’ve wasted three years of my life organising our future and you mess it up with one stupid widow. If you think you’ll get out of that without a lawsuit, you have another think coming.’
‘You did go to the sand dunes,’ he said mildly. He looked across at Lachlan, who decided to comb his hair in the car’s rear-view mirror.
‘I hate you,’ Marcia told him.
‘You don’t do emotion.’
‘I so do!’ She rallied then, whirling to face him head on, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Tears of fury, frustration and bitterness.
‘You see?’ she snarled, her voice almost breaking. ‘I do “do” emotion. It’s just that I don’t want to. It stuffs up your life. You can’t control people. And I don’t want it, any more than I want you.’ She flung herself into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Unfortunately the window was open and without the engine on she couldn’t close it.
‘Get in,’ she snapped at Lachlan. ‘Let’s get moving.’
‘Sure,’ Lachlan said, and grinned at Hamish. ‘That’s quite a lady you’re losing.’
‘Rich, too,’ Hamish offered.
‘You think I don’t already know that?’
I’m sure you do, he thought as he watched the BMW disappear from view.
Two unemotional people?
No. There were emotions there all right. Maybe they were in the wrong place but they were still there.
As were his. He just had to figure out where to put them.
He still hadn’t figured it out thirty minutes later as he watched Susie climb into Jake’s car. Still with no tears. Still with that dreadful wooden face he was starting to know-and to fear.
‘Goodbye, Hamish,’ she said, but she didn’t kiss him goodbye.
Her body language said it all. He had no choice.
He stood back and let her go.
The castle emptied, just like that. One minute there’d been a crowd waving Susie off, a confusion of packing and tears and hugs and waving handkerchiefs as the car disappeared down the road.
Then nothing. The inhabitants of Dolphin Bay simply turned and left, went back to their village, went back to their lives. Which didn’t include him.
Hamish went back into the kitchen, expecting a mess, but the Dolphin Bay ladies had been there en masse and everything was ordered. Pristine.
There was a note on the table from Kirsty.
Susie’s organised professional cleaners to go through the place tomorrow. Leave a list of what you want kept. They’ll dispose of the rest. Mrs Jacobsen says one casserole dish will be fine, thank you, but it had better be a good one.
Great.
He walked back out to the hall where Ernst and Eric were looking morose. Guard duty with nothing to guard.
They’d look dumb back in Manhattan, he thought. Could he write a clause into the hotel sale, saying the new owners had to keep these two?
Ridiculous.
The word hung.
Why had Susie thought his proposal ridiculous? It had been a very good offer, he thought. He’d told her he loved her. He’d look after her, keep her safe, make sure she wanted for nothing.
Ernst and Eric gazed at him morosely.
Ridiculous.
‘The whole thing’s ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘Not me. What does she want me to do?’
Whatever it was, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t.
His phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. Jodie. Another lecture.
He flicked it off. Out of communication.
That meant the office couldn’t communicate either.
Good. He needed to not communicate.
‘You are sure you’re doing the right thing?’
‘Of course I am.’ They were outside the vast metal gates at the airport-gates you could only go through as you passed passport control. The days of waving planes off were long gone. Now the gates slammed on you two or three hours before the plane left and that was that.
Susie and Kirsty were in a huddle. Jake
was standing back, holding Rose, giving his wife and her sister space to say goodbye.
‘But you’re in love with Hamish.’
‘He doesn’t have a clue what love is. Leave it, Kirsty. It’s over.’
‘You will come back when our baby’s due?’
‘I promise.’
‘Oh, Susie, I don’t see how I can bear it.’
‘If I can bear it you can,’ Susie said resolutely. She’d expected to be a sobbing mess by now, but the tears were nowhere. She didn’t feel like tears. She felt dead.
‘I can bear it,’ she told her sister. ‘You’ve been the best sister in the world but we’re separate. Twins but separate. You have your life and I have mine.’
Yes, thought Kirsty as she stood and watched the gates slide shut, irrevocably cutting Susie off from return. I have my life. My husband, my kids, my dog, my life. Oh, Susie, I wish you had the same.
What the hell was a man to do?
Hamish paced the castle in indecision. He went back into Angus’s room and looked at the papers scattered over the floor. Yes, they needed to be gone through. There were all sorts of important deeds that couldn’t be left. They represented a couple days’ work.
He’d stay for two more days, and then he’d leave.
He rang the airline and booked his return flight for two days hence. Right. That was the start of organisational mode.
Now sort the papers.
It didn’t happen. His head wasn’t in the right space. The papers blurred.
He went back out into the garden and saw his half-finished path. He’s work on that.
Two spadefuls and he decided his hands were just a wee bit sore to be digging.
He’d go to the beach. He’d swim.
Alone?
He had to do something.
He went to the beach.
The water was cool, clear and welcoming. Before, every time he’d dived under the surface of the waves he’d felt an almost out-of-body experience. It had been as if he’d simply turned off. A switch had been flicked. Here he could forget about everything but the feel of the cool water on his skin, the power of his body, the sun glinting on his face as he surfaced to breathe.
Today it didn’t work. He couldn’t find a rhythm. He felt breathless, almost claustrophobic, as if this place was somehow threatening.
The Heir’s Chosen Bride Page 17