by Nicola Marsh
Then the music had started, a familiar tune from Fame sending a chill down her spine as she’d waited for the first kicked-up beat before spinning into her routine.
It came naturally now—the spins, the twirls, the lunges, the dramatic leap and roll at the end.
She’d done the entire audition by rote, eyes closed, feeling the music, feeling the beat, feeling alive.
No matter what she faced, dance was the one constant in her life. It had never let her down—unlike her poor choice in men.
‘Miss?’
Her eyes snapped open to find the conductor looming over her, and she flashed her ticket, sneaked a quick glance out of the window, grateful her stop was coming up.
The sooner she packed her backpack and headed back to Bolero, the sooner she could unwind. She needed a long, hot bath, an extra-strength hot chocolate and a night watching Sex and the City re-runs to clear her head.
She was doing the right thing.
Her life was back on track.
Then why did she still feel seriously derailed?
‘Have you heard from Dad?’
Callum quit staring into his coffee mug, glared at the phone where he had Rhys on loud speaker. ‘Don’t tell me. He rang you to sing my praises.’
‘You and me both, bro. Apparently I’m a disgrace to the Cartwright name. A good-for-nothing lout squandering my life.’
Callum winced. ‘Nice.’
‘The old man’s in top form. So what’s new?’
Callum leaned back, locked hands behind his head. ‘He rang me while I was on Hayman Island. Apparently taking my first day off in fourteen years resulted in the company losing a lucrative merger.’
Rhys swore. ‘Are you serious? Tell me you didn’t buy into his aggressive bull.’
His relationship with Starr was in tatters, he couldn’t concentrate on business, and the corporation had suffered a sizeable loss the last financial quarter, discounting the botched merger.
Serious? He was a walking disaster.
‘Cal? What did you do?’
Rhys paused, astute, assessing, and though they’d never been close Callum had a burning need to unburden to someone before he burst.
‘I stuffed up.
‘With the deal?’
‘And the rest.’
Rhys whistled, long and low. ‘You mucked up things with that hot PA, didn’t you?’
‘That’s putting it mildly.’
No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on business, he couldn’t wipe the image of her shattered expression, her tears, as he’d deliberately pushed her away because of his own failure.
The memory ate at him, leaving a residual ache in the vicinity of his heart.
He didn’t want to have this conversation, didn’t want to acknowledge that with every second without Starr he died a little inside.
‘Lovers’ tiff?’
The instant rebuttal died on his lips as he heard the genuine concern in Rhys’ voice.
‘It’s over.’
‘What happened?’
‘I blamed her. She distracted me. I played hooky for the day. The deal went south.’
Rhys let fly another pithy curse. ‘So you let the old man get to you. You should’ve run, like me, rather than get caught up in his bull.’
‘I’m not doing this for him.’
Rhys sighed. ‘I know, bro, you’re doing it for Archie. But how long are you going to live your life like this? You do nothing but work. You don’t have fun any more. You’re closed off to everyone. You—’
‘You’re not helping.’
‘Just saying it as it is.’
The annoying thing was, Rhys was right. The night Archie had died he’d turned his back on everything he’d ever enjoyed.
No more scuba-diving, parachuting, hang-gliding.
No more parties, dating, drinking.
He’d shut himself off physically, emotionally, and it had taken a wild, sassy dancer with long legs to revive him.
And what had he done?
Shoved her away as hard as he could.
‘Do you care about her?’
He stood, started pacing his office, sending the phone a ferocious glare.
‘Damn straight I do.’
‘Then start grovelling.’
Rhys chuckled, though he found nothing about this situation remotely funny. He needed to swallow a bottle of antacids to douse the anxiety burning him up inside.
‘Come on bro, get off your moral high horse, stop convincing yourself you’re better off without her, and go apologise before it’s too late.’
‘So says the relationship expert.’
‘Hey, when was your last relationship, Romeo?’
‘When was yours?’
Rhys laughed, and Callum managed a wry grin. They never talked like this. He’d been focussed on business, and Rhys had flung himself into his adventurous life overseas. It had been this way for years.
Then it hit him.
While he’d been caught up in Cartwrights, caught up in making up for his mistakes, his younger brother had grown into a man: a decent man. A man who cared enough to ring a brother who rarely returned the sentiment, a man who cared enough to offer advice, a man who just plain listened.
All the good intentions in the world wouldn’t make Archie come back, and he needed to start building bridges with the one brother he had left.
‘I’m sorry I’ve ignored you all these years.’
Rhys paused, cleared his throat, his voice strangely husky when he spoke. ‘Where is my brother and what have you done with him?’
‘Quit it.’
‘Seriously, bro. I’ve never heard you so emotional. You don’t do the broken heart thing well.’
‘Shut up and listen—’
‘It’s okay, I get it. We were devastated over Archie. We handled it in different ways—’
‘It’s more than that—’
‘You’ve got plenty of time to pull the big brother routine on me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll visit Melbourne soon and we can catch up over a few beers? But right now you need to concentrate on getting your life back on track. I know where I’m going. Do you?’
He knew.
He just didn’t know what was scarier: the journey or the destination.
Starr wriggled out of her legwarmers and tossed them next to her tap shoes as her mobile rang.
She hated how her heart danced with expectation as she glanced at the caller ID, only to plummet when she registered Kit.
What kind of masochist wanted to talk to a guy who’d banished her from his life without flinching?
Plopping onto the lumpy sofa, she hit the answer button, wriggling to find a comfortable spot that didn’t involve dodgy sagging, loaded springs. This studio apartment was a godsend, but built for comfort it wasn’t.
‘Hey Kitty-Kat. Long time, no hear.’
‘Are you insane? I called you yesterday.’
As she glanced around the tiny studio apartment—and she used the word apartment very loosely—with its shabby, threadbare chairs, pocked floorboards, dingy one-window lighting and total lack of charm, it seemed like a lifetime since she’d heard from her friend.
Her new job might be fabulous, but her new digs were far from it. Every time she closed her eyes she could envisage the cottage: bright yellow walls, gleaming golden floorboards, comfy cushions piled high on squishy sofas, and she wished she could grab her bags, call a cab and head back to Toorak.
‘How’s the job working out?’
Glancing at the flyer advertising the upcoming season of Chicago, she knew things weren’t all bad.
‘It’s great. The cast is talented…’
‘Usual bitchiness?’
‘Yeah, and the girls aren’t too welcoming either.’
Kit’s laughter was as melodious and tuneful as her renowned singing on stage.
‘You’ll be fine. I’ve seen you handle worse.’
The crackling of a chocolate bar being opened tore down the
line, followed by loud munching. ‘Speaking of handling anything—heard from Cal-Pal?’
‘As if.’
It had been two days since she’d vacated the cottage and moved in here—forty-eight long, agonising hours during which she had checked her mobile for messages between rehearsals, and glanced at her watch wondering what he was doing, wishing he would arrive on her doorstep and say it had all been some big mistake.
Crazy, because if he did she’d tell him where to shove his apology, but she hadn’t expected to miss him this much.
Yeah, right, and she’d be starring on Broadway next week.
‘But who cares, right?’
Kit’s faux-innocence brought a reluctant smile to her face. While she might not have told her friend everything about her relationship with the commanding CEO, Kit was astute enough to read between the lines.
‘It’s better this way.’
The decibel of Kit’s inelegant snort had her edging the phone away from her ear.
‘Better for whom? This guy has been good for you. After that slime-bag Sergio—’
‘Can we please not mention his name? It gives me hives.’
‘You sounded happy again, really happy, and it couldn’t have been the boring office job, holed up with Mr CEO twenty-four-seven, so that means you two must’ve done the horizontal cha-cha and—’
‘Think I can get a word in here?’
‘Only if you’re lucky.’
Kit’s chuckles warmed her, as they always did. Her friend was one of very few people she trusted. So why the reluctance to confide? Why hold back when she’d blurted every minute detail of her relationship with Sergio?
Deep down, she knew.
How could she vocalise even half of what she was feeling, the depth of her love, when she didn’t want to acknowledge it let alone analyse it?
She missed Callum.
Missed seeing him sleep-tousled and slightly grumpy in the morning before his double-shot espresso.
Missed casting surreptitious peeks at him while he handled a few million dollars like a practised circus juggler.
Missed his rare but brilliant smiles, his frequent praise, his passion in and out of the bedroom…
‘So what really happened between you two?’
Where should she start?
The fact that she hadn’t been able to keep her hands off him from the first week she’d started working for him?
The fact she’d fallen in love with him so quickly her head still spun?
The fact that it would take her a lifetime to get over him?
She couldn’t say any of those things, so she settled for an excuse.
‘I need my space. I found the job I should’ve got in the first place and moved out. Working and living-in became too cosy.’
‘Bull. Cosy’s what you want.’
Starr tensed, her breathing accelerating at Kit’s unsaid words: some place safe, someone to make you feel safe.
Yes, she wanted that. It was the main reason she’d hung around with Sergio long after the spark in their relationship had died. She wanted that with every breath in her body. But Callum wasn’t the guy she’d thought he was, couldn’t give her what she wanted, and it still hurt. Boy, did it hurt.
‘That job was an interim, you know that.’
‘And Mr CEO? Was he just a stop-gap too? Or should I call him Rebound Guy and be done with it?’
‘He wasn’t a rebound!’
‘My, my, aren’t we defensive?’
Starr rolled her shoulders, kinked her neck from side to side, tried to relax.
She should know Kit by now—know her penchant for winding her up, for teasing the truth out of her by any means. But this time her lips were staying sealed.
‘Kit?’
‘Hmm?’
‘I’ve got to get back to rehearsal.’
Another snort. ‘You’ve made an art form out of running away.’
Staring at the glossy Chicago brochure in her hand, she knew she’d made the right career move in leaving Sydney, even if she’d been bolting rather than running from her past.
‘Melbourne suits me. You’d see for yourself if you ever visited.’
‘Three more months, babe, and I’m there.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’
‘And, hun?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Maybe my visit will coincide with your nuptials?’
Cackling at the curse Starr let fly, Kit hung up before she could respond, leaving her contemplating a scenario so far from comprehension it belonged right up there with dreams of winning a Tony award or starring alongside Hugh Jackman in The Boy from OZ.
Never going to happen.
Not that she hadn’t dreamed about tying herself to Callum for life on the island. She had tied herself up into deliciously anticipatory knots at the thought.
But, as she knew better than anyone, her romantic dreams had turned to nightmares.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AFTER making a few discreet phone calls, Callum finally had the information he required.
His first instinct was to high-tail it to Starr’s new address as fast as humanly possible and do what he had to do.
But if they were to have any kind of future he had some unfinished business to take care of first.
Wiping his sweaty palm along his trousers, he picked up the phone, dialled, knowing he should have done this a long time ago.
‘Frank Cartwright.’
‘Dad, it’s me.’
‘Hope you’ve got some good news for me after that merger fiasco.’
The words shove it prodded, begged to be said, but he needed to have this conversation for his peace of mind so he swallowed them.
‘This isn’t about business.’
‘Then what? I don’t have time to make chit-chat—’
‘We need to talk about Archie.’
Frank swore. The curse was nothing he hadn’t heard a hundred times growing up, when he’d never lived up to expectations in his father’s eyes.
‘Just leave it the hell alone.’
Propping himself on the side of his desk, Callum rubbed his chest where a constant ache resided: for the loss of the brother he’d adored, the loss of his youth and, more recently, the loss of the woman who was everything to him.
‘No. You don’t have to say a damn thing, just listen.’ Anticipating Frank’s comeback, he added, ‘And don’t think about hanging up. If you do, I’ll quit.’
It wasn’t an idle threat. If his father didn’t give him the opportunity to have his say after all these years, he’d walk.
‘What’s all this about?’
Frank’s gruff tone was underlined with steel, but at least he’d conceded.
‘I’m done trying to make up for Archie’s accident. You don’t give a hoot what I’ve done for the company, how much I’ve put in. The only time I ever hear from you is to berate me. Something I’ve put up with through my own guilt, but not any more.’
‘What are you going to do?’
His father’s sneer rolled off him. The condescending bitterness was something he’d lived with almost all his life.
‘Tell you how it is.’
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, hoping to stave off the headache building.
‘I didn’t ask for this job, didn’t want it. The only reason I’m at Cartwright is to preserve Archie’s memory. You blame me? No more than I blame myself—and being a part of your precious company reinforces that guilt every single day.’
He took a deep breath and continued, needing to get this off his chest before it festered any longer.
‘It doesn’t matter that you were so busy building your almighty business you ignored Rhys and me growing up. It doesn’t matter that nothing I did or said got your attention. And it sure as hell doesn’t matter that I’ve worked my ass off for the last fourteen years, giving two hundred percent in the hope you’d cut me some slack.’
Standing, he strode across his office, looked out of the
window. Glimpsing the cottage through the immaculately trimmed trees, he was spurred on to finish this once and for all.
‘What does matter is how I’m going to run things from now on. No more working around the clock for your conference calls from London. No more working fifty-two weeks a year. And no more calls like the one on Hayman Island. From now, I do this my way.’
A small part of him wished for an apology, some small semblance of affection, any indication that his father had once loved him, had ever loved him.
But he’d given up on futile dreams a long time ago, the night he’d held Archie’s hand in hospital as he’d taken his last breath and wished he could take it all back, so he knew Frank would never acknowledge him in the way he’d always wanted.
‘Just keep those profit margins up,’ Frank growled, his tone devoid of any sentiment bar avarice.
‘That’s all you have to say?’
‘Goodbye, son.’
As the dial tone hummed in his ear, he stared at the phone, disbelief warring with relief.
He’d said his piece.
He was about to instigate major changes in his life—all for the better.
But what shocked him the most was Frank calling him ‘son’ for the first time ever.
He might not have received the recognition he wanted, the recognition he deserved, but from the narcissistic world of Frank Cartwright, Callum hearing him acknowledge he had another son was a start.
Maybe there was hope for the old reprobate yet.
Starr gritted her teeth and forced a smile for the umpteenth time that evening, wishing she’d never agreed to take this jazz ballet class.
Standing in for a sick teacher was one thing. Having to kick her legs and swing her arms and look happy about it in front of a bunch of teenagers was another.
What was it with the kids of today? They were taller and gutsier and far more astute than she’d ever been at that age. Fifteen going on fifty, the lot of ’em, and if she had to field one more smart-ass question she’d make them shimmy across the splintered floor on their pierced flat bellies.
‘Excuse me, miss?’
Inhaling deeply, she fixed a semblance of a pleasant smile on her face.