It wasn’t possible. Their heart would burst.
‘She won’t be happy without you, and you will never be happy without her. Think about that before you decide it’s too late. Do whatever you have to do. Get down on your knees and beg if you have to.’
He would if he thought it would make a difference.
‘Right, back to work,’ she said, rising from the sofa. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner. I’ll leave it on the bench when I go. Try to remember to eat.’
***
Ten hours later, the first raindrop fell in the Amazon. Fourteen hours later, when coffee futures had tumbled by 8.3 per cent and he’d reached his target, Josh sold the lot. He dropped his head in his hands, unable to do anything more than shake.
He’d done it.
***
Lily was in for a long, difficult, sad afternoon. Packing the basics to take to Helen’s—her first task—wouldn’t take long. Since she’d barely brought anything with her in the first place, getting together her toothbrush, clothing and art supplies was the work of a minute.
The second part was harder and a whole heap sadder. She had to choose a few special things to keep before the auctioneer came around to start drawing up a full list of items.
How on earth was she going to do that? There was so much in this house, and all of it had some kind of meaning to her. She might have made a few jokes about the kitschy Victorian décor and the need to get rid of a few vases, but she’d never planned a large-scale eviction of the antiques that lived here. This had been their home much longer than it’d been hers.
She didn’t want to lose six generations of family history, but what were her choices? Realistically, she was never going to have somewhere big enough to store all this silverware and china, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford external storage. Even if she could, better that they go somewhere they’d be loved than shoved interminably in some storage locker.
That’s the way she had to think of it. They weren’t being cast out, they were finding a new home. They all were, her and the antiques.
She sighed and headed up the stairs. She’d start in the bedrooms. There was less stuff up there, and she’d feel like she was making progress once she’d managed to complete a room or two.
The bedroom Saxon had used when he was here should be relatively easy—in twenty-five years, she’d barely set foot in it—but as she ran her fingers through the tassels on a pretty cream-coloured lampshade, she realised that even the easy decisions were going to be hard.
She didn’t want to leave. It was so sad. Then again, most everything seemed sad to her at the moment. Might have something to do with Josh.
The anger had faded—she just wasn’t the angry type—but the sadness wasn’t going anywhere. It felt like they’d been through so much and come so far. She had to keep reminding herself that what they’d had wasn’t real, that for almost the entire time they’d been together, she thought she’d been part of a story with some kind of happy ever after, while he’d been reading from a totally different book altogether.
It sure had felt real though.
Enough with the moping already. It’d be okay. Probably. She just needed more time.
Sighing again before she could stop herself, she forced herself to be practical. Of all the things in the house, that cream lamp wasn’t a favourite. Nothing in this room was. Therefore, she had to leave it all. See? Easy.
She left the room to the sound of knocking.
Her heart leapt, and she told herself to keep a lid on it, because it wouldn’t be Josh, and even if it was, they had nothing to say to each other. He was a lying, deceiving, manipulative schemer, who’d taken everything she was, everything she’d given, chewed it up and spat it out.
Maybe she wasn’t as over the anger as she thought she was.
Still, her heart was flipping out as she answered the door. All the stern words to herself didn’t stop it for a moment.
He looked bad. Terrible. Wretched, in fact. His normal healthy glow had washed out to something worse than a greying white sheet. His eyes were red, so bloodshot she was sure he hadn’t slept in days. And was it her imagination, or was he shaking?
‘Hi,’ he said eventually.
‘Hi,’ she said in response. She steeled her heart, and waited.
And waited.
It was not her turn to make the first move! ‘Well, if that’s it, I’ve got some packing up to get back to. Thanks to you.’
Her mistake. She was definitely not over the anger.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Maybe it made her mean, especially with him looking like this, but her door had been open to this man from day one, and he’d trampled all over her.
‘Once upon a time, you stood in the rain at my door, and then told me I wasn’t shutting you down. I listened, when you asked me to hear you out. Won’t you do the same for me?’
Bastard. Sneaky bastard. How could she say no now? ‘You’ve got five minutes.’
He followed her into the drawing room, deposited an envelope on a side table. ‘This is for you.’
‘Another envelope. Great. I wonder what joy this one contains. If that’s it, you can go.’
‘You know it isn’t.’ Josh raked hands through his hair, and she noticed his hands were trembling. It was all so unlike him, that despite everything, she ached to sooth and comfort. ‘Lily, I’m so incredibly sorry. About everything. For everything you’ve had to go through since you’ve come back. I’ve put you through hell. If it’s any consolation, I’ve been there myself too.’
She believed he was sorry. But he could apologise for the entire duration of the ten hours she’d bought them, and it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change the fact that he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. He wasn’t her Josh, the boy she’d used to know with the open, generous heart and integrity in his bones. She’d never find her Josh again. ‘What can I say? I thought you were a better man.’
He flinched, looked down. ‘So did I.’
Maybe she should have let him go then, should have stopped when they both had their dignity at least semi-intact. But she just couldn’t help herself. ‘Why? Why did you lie to me like that? Why did you let me believe in you? In everything? You must have hated me so much.’
He looked up at her, distraught. All the feelings he’d ever hidden were there in his eyes. ‘I could never hate you. I love you. I always have and I always will. You said it wasn’t real, but if the way I love you was any more real it’d kill me. I love you so much it used to terrify me, because there’s no limit to what I wouldn’t do for you. Now what terrifies me is losing you.’
He never spoke his heart, and then that came out. She couldn’t speak.
‘I didn’t understand forgiveness until you showed me. You taught me what it was. It’s love. It’s pure love. And I don’t know how it is that life works out like this, and I know it’s not fair to ask, because you’ve already given so much—you’ve already given everything—but I’m asking you to give even more. I have to, because I need you, Lily. I need you to forgive me.’
Too much. He asked too much.
‘Forgive me, Lily. Please.’
She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
‘That’s your five minutes up.’ Part of her was crushed to hear those words out of her mouth, because it wasn’t what she was feeling. But feelings were not her friends, and she was supposed to be looking out for herself for once.
He bowed his head for a moment, then flicked his finger to indicate the envelope he’d brought. ‘Open this before you do any more packing.’
The front door closed behind him with a soft thud.
Do not go after him. Steel your heart.
But it didn’t feel steely, as she paced and wrung her hands and faced the reality of her feelings. She didn’t want him to go.
Could she forgive him? Keep her heart open to yet another break? Could she trust herself and their love? Or was she just retreating in
to a fantasy world again? She didn’t know. If only she had some kind of sign …
Needing to do something, she grabbed the envelope and ripped it open, expecting another letter from his property group. But it wasn’t a letter. She stared at the contents in stunned silence. It was a bank cheque, for five-hundred and twenty-thousand dollars, in her name. She’d wanted a sign that his love was real, but she hadn’t expected cold, hard cash.
Where the hell had Josh got this much money? Did that have something to do with his messed-up appearance? She stared at the door he’d just walked though. She wasn’t supposed to run after him, she was supposed to be steeling her heart.
Stuff that.
She ran from the room, and almost collided with him as he came bowling back in the front door. They stood staring at each other, chests rising and falling like they were sharing the same lungs. Like they were sharing a single heart.
He dropped to his knees. She let out a strangled sob.
‘My mother’s idea. If all else failed.’
She looked at him, in front of her on his knees, and held the envelope up in front of her. ‘Where’d you get the money?’
‘Coffee.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I cashed out everything I owned and took a crazy chance that it’d rain in Brazil. Doubled my money—your money—in three days.’
Oh God. The man for whom financial security was king had sold everything for her. Then risked it all, double or nothing. It must have almost killed him. She looked again at his weary, wretched face. It had almost killed him.
He’d done that for her. Her cautious, risk-averse Josh had done that for her. Her Josh. This was her Josh, right in front of her. And they didn’t make men much better than him.
Coffee, of all things. She let out a low laugh. ‘And I thought I was supposed to be the crazy one.’
‘Not anymore. You’ve got some competition.’
‘I have?’
‘Yeah. I’ve been thinking. Your ideas for a maze and a fairy dell are pretty good, but what this place really needs is a rollercoaster and a built-in jumping castle. I also like the idea of a helicopter landing pad, and a beanstalk going up to the clouds.’
Steeling her heart? Stealing her heart more like it. ‘Josh?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you going to get up?’
‘Not a chance.’
Well, if Muhammad wasn’t coming to the mountain… She dropped to her knees in front of him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and before she knew it, he’d surrounded her. In pure love. ‘Josh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You still owe me ten hours.’
***
The pure, poignant tones of a bellbird. Their old signal.
She came to their bedroom window, looked down to where he stood in the garden below. She smiled and waved, and he leaned back against the oak tree and waited for her in the pre-dawn radiance.
It was incredibly early. About the right time for a farm boy to get up. And why wouldn’t he be up early? After all, he had ten hours of Lily in front of him. Again.
When she emerged through the French doors, his first thought was that his wife was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. They’d been married six months, in the second Mirabook wedding. Since they’d tied the hay bale race, they’d had to flip a coin for the prize—who got married here first—and Saxon the lucky bastard had won. Josh still wasn’t convinced the coin had been fair.
His second thought was what on earth was she wearing? Like a cross between Willy Wonka and Annie Hall. But so pretty, especially with their baby in her belly growing bigger every day.
She came to him, smile more radiant than any dawn, and he took her hand as they walked off towards the sunrise. She was going to haunt him forever, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks for reading No Place Like You. I hope you enjoyed it.
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ISBN: 9780857992581
Title: No Place Like You
Copyright © 2015 by Marnie St Clair
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Level 4/132 Arthur Street, North Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2060.
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