Belle's Secret

by Victoria Purman

  This was not good. There was simply no point in reliving that night, how incredible she’d felt being naked under his body, on top of him, beside him, wet in the shower, asleep by his side. He could see how she was reacting and he was taking pleasure in torturing her, that’s what he was doing.

  Isabella slowly pulled her hand away from his. “Just tell me. Will you do it? Will you keep our secret?” She studied him as he considered her question. He thought about it so long that their dinner was set before them while he was silently pondering. Steak for him, chicken for her. Isabella wondered if both meals might go cold before he answered.

  “Okay, Isabella Martenson,” he said finally. “If you sign the papers during my week down under, I’ll keep your secret.”

  She held out a shaking hand. “Deal.”

  He held hers. “Deal.”

  “Thank you, Harry. I mean it. Oh, wait a minute.” She pulled her hand from his, opened her clutch and took out the ring. She held his fingers open and dropped the ring into his palm. His hands closed over the only thing linking them together.

  Isabella took a huge swig of wine. It was done. They had a deal. In one week, they would be divorced and she could put this whole sorry, stupid, sexy saga behind her.

  Great.

  So why did she feel like this might be the biggest mistake she’d ever made, bigger than marrying him in the first place?

  Chapter Five

  From the corner of his eye, Harry watched as Isabella devoured her chicken dinner. She scooped up every forkful of the fluffy mashed potatoes, the caramelised carrots, broccolini and delicate sauce that was drizzled over the chicken fillet. The whole time, she’d managed not to look at him once. She was exhibit A of self-control.

  He finished his steak quickly, which was easy to do when there was no dinner conversation of any kind. Now that the deal had been done to secure the divorce and her reputation, Belle was acting as if she would rather be anywhere else in the world than sitting at the table next to him.

  Harry decided he wasn’t enjoying this trip to Australia. His attempt to forget all about Belle had gone to hell in a handbasket. He was glad to have been there for Simon and Simon’s family, flying the flag for all their friends from California who hadn’t been able to make the trip across the Pacific. Their closest college buddies had sent their best wishes: Tim had just become a father and Adam was nursing a broken leg, courtesy of a climbing accident in Colorado.

  He wanted this to be over with. Sitting next to Belle, trying not to look at her or smell her perfume or reach out to touch the soft curls of her hair, was like having a bottle of the best wine in the world sitting right there in front of you with no corkscrew. And hardest of all was not asking the questions that had haunted him for almost a year.

  Why did you leave? Why did you disappear? And then, why did you marry me in the first place?

  When he’d found her, he’d been determined to make her feel as bad for disappearing as he’d felt having been abandoned. He’d had a whole year to think of what to say, to plot out revenge in his head. But he didn’t do revenge. Never had. That idea had stuck in his craw for about two days after he’d woken up and found her side of the bed cold and her missing. And then, well, he just wanted answers.

  He’d agreed just now to her deal – to keep the whole thing a dirty little secret – because he knew what it took to keep a business afloat. Sheer bloody-mindedness and energy and backbreaking work. The twenty-four seven kind. It was different when your name was on the business. What had Serenity said Belle’s was called? Wedding Belles? Having your name on something was important, it upped the stakes. He understood that. He knew what that felt like and he knew the fear that kept you awake all night when you thought it might all go up in smoke. Literally. He’d lived that sheer terror the year before, his whole family had, when fall wildfires had threatened their century-old vineyards around Napa. A change in the weather was the only thing that had saved them. If she was as invested in her business as his family was in the winery, he understood.

  But understanding didn’t mean he had to like anything about what he’d agreed to. Or what she’d done the year before.

  His phone buzzed in his trouser pocket. He’d turned it to silent before the ceremony and had forgotten to turn the ringer back on. He slipped it out and with a quick glance at the screen saw it was home. He pressed the phone to his ear.

  “Tess.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Belle pause, ever so slightly, for just a moment, while reaching for her wineglass.

  “Ooh, ‘Tess.’ It’s a nice change not to be called brat, but—wait a minute. This is my big brother I’m talking to, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Just checking. I don’t think you’ve called me by my real name since I was ten years old.”

  Harry pushed his chair back a little and turned away from Belle. He had a vain hope that he might be able to keep the conversation private. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing really. Just checking in. I felt like a chat. It’s late here and I wanted to see how everything was going over there. How was the wedding?”

  “Nice. Simon looked really happy and Amanda’s a great gal.”

  “Did he wear the costume?”

  Harry laughed. “He sure did.”

  There was a hoot down the line from California. “I cannot believe that. That is so cool!”

  “It was totally Simon. So they’re heading off on their honeymoon tomorrow and I think I’m doing some wildlife reserve tour with his folks and his brother.”

  “Pat a koala for me, will you?”

  A waiter appeared by his side and offered a plate of something that looked like a small cheesecake with a bright raspberry coulis. Harry waved it away but Belle’s hand shot up as if she was trying to get a teacher’s attention and before he could blink, her fork had plunged in to the dessert.

  “I’ll send you a photo,” Harry told Tess. “Everything good with Amy? Everett?”

  “We’re all great. Have fun. And Harry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Dance with someone, will you? Loosen up. You’ve been a miserable piece of work for a year now. Let go. Have some fun.”

  He ignored that last comment. “Gotta go. It looks like speeches are about to start.”

  “Miss you!” Tess said down the line in a sing-song voice.

  “You too.”

  Harry ended the call and put his phone on the table next to his wineglass. He turned in his chair to face the bridal table across the dance floor.

  The groom got to his feet, a wineglass in one hand. The guests whooped with applause and someone yelled out in a broad Australian accent, “Kiss her, ya mug.”

  Then, all around Harry, people picked up a knife or a fork or whatever was handy and clinked their utensils on anything that made a sound and there was a symphony of clinking in the room. Amanda, laughing, happy, shot to her feet and pulled Simon’s face to hers for a big smooch. He got in on the act by slipping his arms around her and dipping her, which made the guests cheer even louder. When they unlocked lips, Amanda lifted a champagne glass in the air and hollered, “Who’s the luckiest woman in the world today? I am!” And the roar of applause was deafening.

  Man. These Aussies sure knew how to have fun, Harry thought.

  Maggie appeared and presented Simon with a microphone and he tapped it to make sure it was live. “This thing on?” he called to the back of the room.

  “Bloody oath it is,” yelled a man from the back of the room with a voice as big as the Australian sky Harry had seen that morning.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Simon finally began, “We couldn’t be happier that you all are celebrating with us today. It sure means a lot to Amanda and me. To her family, well, it sure has been good to meet you. And to my family, who’ve come from California, thank you. And especially to one of my best buddies, Harry. Thanks, man. I told you this would be a great party, right?”

  Harry lifted a glass to ac
knowledge in the affirmative.

  “When I told my folks that I was going to propose to a gal from down under, they were cool. You know, they’d seen Steve Irwin in The Crocodile Hunter a few times and figured Australians were pretty decent people. Although there was a moment there when they thought I was going to marry Bindi Irwin, but I had to set them straight.”

  Harry heard Isabella’s laugh but he couldn’t look over his shoulder at her.

  “But I have to admit something. At first, I didn’t tell them that we’d met online. They may think they’re pretty cool and all that, but that would have totally freaked them out. They’re a little, you know, old school. I had to bring them up to speed about what it’s like out there these days. Mom, Dad, I said. Not everyone gets to meet the love of their life the old-fashioned way, you know, like in a bar.” Simon’s laugh boomed and it was infectious. Laughter rippled around the tables.

  Harry couldn’t stop himself. He turned to look at Belle. She was staring at him, wide-eyed, her lips parted on an intake of breath. They held that gaze for a long moment.

  “All I know is that I met my soul mate, thanks to the Internet and a particular Star Wars chat room, and today I’m the luckiest man on earth and in the whole galaxy. And I didn’t blink about flying halfway across the world to make a new life here with my wife. My darling Amanda. Waking up next to you every day will be worth it.”

  Simon leaned down and kissed Amanda sweetly. She threw her arms around him and turned that sweet kiss into something more, which only made the guests laugh and cheer harder.

  Not everyone gets to meet the love of their life the old-fashioned way, you know, like in a bar. Harry heard the words over and over in his head. There were other speeches, but he didn’t take any of it in. And a quarter of an hour later, when the DJ cranked up her music and Simon and Amanda led each other on to the dance floor for their first dance, he did something really stupid.

  He pushed back his chair and held out a hand to Belle.

  She stared at his hand and then his face and then at his hand again.

  “What? No,” she murmured, shaking a hand in front of her.

  “Dance with me, Belle.”

  He’d never had a wedding dance. And he was getting a divorce. In a week, he’d leave Australia and never see Belle again.

  She hesitated. He waited. And then she slipped her hand in his. He led her onto the dance floor. Something slow was playing and he turned to Belle, and when he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her in close, she bumped up against him, the silky fabric of her top sliding against him, the curve of her breasts underneath pressing against his chest. Her scent tantalised him, something sweet and fresh like jasmine, maybe, and for a moment he could find no words. He just wanted to hold her one last time, to feel her skin, to watch the curls of her brown hair fall on her bare shoulders, to imagine her full, hungry lips, so close now, on his.

  For a year, he’d been planning what to say to Belle if he ever found her. But all those thoughts of revenge, all his anger, his raging bewilderment were gone now that she was in his arms again, now that she was real once more, and not a dream he’d had one night in Vegas.

  As he looked into her eyes, he found all his words of regret. All his words to describe what he’d lost when he lost her.

  “We didn’t have a first dance,” he murmured into her ear.

  “No,” she replied, and was he imagining things or did she sound a little breathless as she shook her head?

  “I never got the chance to introduce you to my family and my friends.”

  “I guess not,” Belle said, her gaze across the room, her cheek so close to his that her voice was a whisper in his ear.

  “No tux for me and no wedding dress. No bouquet. No party.”

  “None of those things.”

  “We didn’t even get a photo.”

  “Look on the bright side, Harry,” Belle said, and she shifted to meet his eyes. Her lips formed a sad smile. “We never had the old married couple fights. You know the ones I mean. Toilet seat up or down. Who puts out the garbage. Aussie Rules versus American football. Where we might live, all that.”

  “You’re right,” Harry replied. “Which makes it easier to pretend as if the whole thing never happened.” He pulled her closer. She didn’t fight it. Instead she leaned into him, pressing herself against him in just the way he needed her to.

  “I promised you silence and I won’t break my word,” he said.

  “Thank you. That means more to me than I can ever say.”

  Her eyes glistened in the twinkling lights strung from beam to beam over the dance floor and she relaxed in his arms. Something inside him loosened, too. What had been stone softened. The space that had been filled with anger drained and something else took its place. An ache. An ache for her, something he’d buried so deep in the past year that he thought it had gone. Had hoped it had gone.

  She looked up to him, her eyes soft, her expression sad. “I made a huge mistake in Vegas,” she said. “I’m sorry you got caught up in it. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep what I have here at Wirra Station. No matter what it costs me.”

  He couldn’t tear his eyes from hers, not even to look at her soft, pink lips.

  “Maggie’s important to you. So is this town and what you’ve built here.”

  “Important?” Belle shook her head and sighed. “She’s more than a best friend. She’s like a sister to me. She saved me … I would do anything to save what we’ve built.”

  “She saved you?” He felt his jaws clench at the idea that Belle needed saving from anything. Anyone. “From what? What happ—”

  Belle kissed him. She pressed her lips to his and her grip on his shoulder tightened, as if she was holding on for dear life. She leaned in to him and deepened the kiss, then she turned her head and their lips parted; he slipped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet. Her tongue danced with his and there it was, that same chemistry, the sizzle, the slam-dunk attraction they’d shared before, a need and hunger for each other. It had hit quick and dirty and spontaneously in Vegas, like the explosion of a cork from a champagne bottle. It had started in a bar, worked its way through a wedding chapel, a ceremony, and then his hotel room. And she had been right there, every inch of the way, her lips on his, then stripping naked before he’d even closed the hotel room door and kicked off his shoes.

  And now, in this moment, swaying on a dance floor halfway across the world and a year away from that night, she was back. Her body was reacting to his the way he remembered it had on their wedding night.

  The song ended. Belle tore her lips from his. Her lipstick was smudged. Her eyes were half closed and she could hardly catch her breath. Dazed and confused, her lips were plumped from kissing him and her cheeks were flushed.

  “Belle,” he started, but she cut him off.

  “It’s over, Harry. Have a great life. When the paperwork’s done, you can go ahead and marry that woman.” She paused, bit her lip. “And get on with the rest of your life.”

  “Wait …”

  Belle slipped out of his grasp and disappeared into the crowd of dancing couples. He should have felt happy, right? He was going to be free. He could leave his baggage behind him here in Australia and go home a new man. Maybe find a new woman.

  So why did he feel like an A-grade prick? Where was the satisfying feeling of relief he imagined he’d be feeling right about now, now that he’d got what he thought he wanted?

  And what the hell did she mean when she said he could go home and marry that woman? What woman?

  *

  Belle had already completed one walk of shame in her life. Actually, to clarify, it had been a taxi ride of shame, followed by a flight of humiliation, so the long walk from the wedding reception to her cottage shouldn’t have hurt one bit.

  Oh, but it did. It bit into her like a stone in her shoe, and it ached in her chest like the biggest regret of her life. Each footstep along the lawn across the property towards the dry cr
eek bed, and her cottage on the other side of it, shuddered through her. It was over. She could put her shame and regret behind her now, couldn’t she?

  Her problem was that she couldn’t figure out exactly where the regret lay now. Was it in marrying Harry in the first place? Agreeing to divorce him? Or giving him his freedom to marry this Tess woman?

  Harry was marrying someone else.

  Well, he would be as soon as they were divorced.

  Tess. She’d heard her name plain as day on that phone call during the reception. She’d tried to let it flow over her, had tried not to react, but hearing him say another woman’s name? It had gutted her. And the couple they’d talked about? Amy and Everett? Probably their best friends with whom they did couple-y things like wine tasting weekends and dinners and hiking. Americans always seemed to be hiking.

  She mentally slapped herself. What else did she think would happen after what she’d done? He’d moved on and it was time she did, too. He was a handsome man. Funny. Kind. Gorgeous. Was it any surprise that he would meet someone else? And she was a young woman with a whole life ahead of her too, right? She’d been doing everything in her power to ensure that her next thirty-five years were a damn sight better than the first thirty-five. For the first time ever, she had found a place to call home, a place she loved, filled with people who loved her. It had always been up to her alone to make the pieces of her life fit.

  As Isabella got further away from Harry and the Woolshed, her heels sinking into the grass, the happy sounds of the wedding reception faded. With each step, the faint throb of the music was further behind her, but her heartbeat kept thudding to some invisible beat.

  A traitorous, invisible beat.

  This sure was a strange habit she’d gotten herself into: leaving Harry just when she wanted him more than ever. That kiss just now, that bad idea that had turned into toe-curling lust right there in the middle of the dance floor, had rekindled everything she felt about him. The only man who’d ever looked at her like that—like he would never look away—he was back in the Woolshed and she was going home alone. Her belly tingled, betraying her. She couldn’t want a do-over. She couldn’t wish her wedding night back. And there was no way she could hunger for sex like that again, that roll-off-the-bed-onto-the-floor-and-not-let-go-of-each-other sex. That in-the-shower-up-against-the-tile sex. That oh-my-God-where-have-you-been-all-my-life sex.