by Miranda Lee
‘And then what? Scott says sorry and we just go on to live happily ever after? I don’t think so, Cory.’
‘Ah, I forgot. You’re a Scorpio. They never forgive or forget. By the way, has it crossed your mind to wonder who might have sent those photos in the first place?’
Sarah sighed. ‘I’ve thought of little else all morning.’
‘Someone you work with perhaps?’
‘No one comes to mind.’
‘It has to be someone who hates you. Or hates Scott, more likely.’
‘It could be the same person who told Phil those rumours about Scott and Cleo,’ Sarah speculated.
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Cory said excitedly. ‘I told you from the first that it had to be some kind of set-up. Otherwise how could he or she have been at the right place at the right time to take incriminating photos of you and Phil at that hotel? That’s far too coincidental. I think it has to be someone you work with, Sarah, someone who saw you leave together that lunchtime and followed you.’
‘But who?’
‘Search me, sweetie. But I do know that if you let this destroy your marriage, then that person has won.’
‘It’s Scott who’s destroyed our marriage,’ Sarah bit out. ‘The bottom line is he didn’t truly love me, or trust me. He jumped to conclusions and didn’t give me the chance to explain. He didn’t care how I would feel because he doesn’t really care about me. I can see now that I was only ever a trophy wife to him. Arm candy to be trotted out at social functions, with the added bonus of sex whenever he felt like it. When he’s home, that is. Which has become less frequent during the last six months. I actually thought he’d cut his business trip short last Friday so that he could be with me on our anniversary weekend. What a fool I was in more ways than one.’
‘Wow. You’re still very angry with him, aren’t you?’
‘You can say that again. Look, I must go. The cleaners would have left by now and I want to be out of the apartment before Brutus gets home.’
‘You’re calling him Brutus now,’ Cory pointed out drily.
‘Yes, well, if the cap fits he should wear it.’
‘You do realise that hate is the other side of love.’
‘Oh, yes. I certainly do. Have to go, Cory. I’ll see you tonight.’
‘I’ll bring home Chinese,’ he offered. ‘And some nice wine.’
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’
Tears pricked at Sarah’s eyes as she hung up. Cory was a dear friend. And so kind. Whatever would she have done without him this last weekend? Sarah didn’t have a lot of friends, her few girlfriends from high school having drifted away after she left school and went to university. The same thing happened after her poor mother died at the end of her first year of university. Unable to study—or grieve properly—Sarah had taken off to go backpacking around the world. By the time she returned to Sydney University two years later, her earlier student friends had also moved on. Her own fault, Sarah accepted, having not kept in touch via social media, depression dogging her footsteps for such a long time, especially during the first twelve months of her backpacking getaway. Europe remained a blur, nothing of the incredible sights she’d seen touching her soul or brightening her life. She’d gone from city to city in a fog.
It wasn’t till she’d reached Asia that the fog had finally lifted. Maybe it was the truly warm, gentle people she’d met there. The children had been especially adorable and the twelve months she’d spent travelling through India and Thailand and Vietnam had banished her depression, plus her bitterness, showing her that maybe it was still possible for her to overcome her wariness where men were concerned and find love. Maybe even get married and have children. Though that had seemed a stretch at the time.
Still, by the time she’d come home to Sydney and resumed her studies, she’d been way more open to at least try to give the opposite sex a chance. Though she’d still had no intention of leaping into bed with anyone in a hurry. It had been an enormous stroke of luck that during her first semester back at Sydney University she had met Cory.
Sarah smiled wryly as she looked back on that time in her life when she’d imagined Cory might just be ‘the one’ to banish her wariness of the opposite sex—and sex—for good. Not only was he fun to be with, he was quite gorgeous to look at. Very sexy with his blond hair, bedroom blue eyes and a buffed body. Whilst she hadn’t been mad for him—she hadn’t known what it was to be mad for a man back then—she had found him attractive. He’d seemed attracted to her as well. The ‘life of the party’ type, Cory had insisted she join the university book club and movie club with him and soon they’d been going out together. It wasn’t till she’d finally decided to take the big step and sleep with him that Cory had been forced to come out and tell her he was gay. Apparently, up till then he’d tried to deny it, even to himself, afraid that his parents would reject him.
But they hadn’t. After that, she and Cory had remained close friends, with Cory dating like-minded men and Sarah eventually becoming resigned to going to her grave still a virgin. Because no way had she been going to go to bed with a man she didn’t truly love and trust; trust being the most important part. In her mind she’d pictured a straight version of Cory. Someone sexy and intelligent and kind.
Unfortunately, she’d never seemed to meet such a man, not even when she’d left university and secured a plum job at a large legal firm that had wall-to-wall men walking around their corridors, men who had showed they found her very attractive. But none of them had done anything for her, not even Phil, who was super handsome and super intelligent and really very nice. Too old, however, at thirty-five. Despite her lack of success so far, Sarah had kept dreaming that one day she would meet Mr Perfect, fall madly in love, get married and have at least two perfect children.
Scott McAllister’s entry into her life had blown apart all Sarah’s misconceptions over the kind of man she imagined falling madly in love with. For starters he looked even older than Phil, yet it turned out he was the same age. He wasn’t traditionally handsome. Neither was he university educated. In fact he’d never even gone to high school, spending his teenage years travelling the outback with his prospector father. Despite that he was obviously intelligent, a self-made mining magnate with perhaps more money than manners; the strong silent type who didn’t waste words, or time. Superbly fit, with the body of a champion boxer, Scott McAllister was a macho man in every way, bulldozing his way into her life with very little subtlety.
She’d never forgotten the moment they’d first met, Scott’s normally icy grey eyes glittering with a raw animal lust as they’d travelled over her from top to toe. Her body had flamed in instant response. And from that moment, she’d been his. It had been just a matter of time. He’d asked her out to dinner within five minutes of meeting her. And she’d been unable to say anything but yes, her body consumed with desires which had been as corrupting as they’d been compelling. How she’d lasted three dinner dates before succumbing to Scott’s constant requests to go home with him afterwards was a miracle.
Of course, he’d been stunned over her being a virgin. But not displeased. In fact, he’d seemed quite taken by the idea, confessing that he’d never been with a virgin before.
Soon, she hadn’t been able to get enough of his big, strong body and his passionate but still considerate lovemaking. She’d adored how safe she always felt in his arms. How truly loved. Feeling truly loved was just as important to Sarah as the physical pleasure she experienced in bed with Scott.
Or so she’d believed, till last Friday night...
‘Don’t think about that night any more, Sarah,’ she lectured herself aloud. ‘You’ll go mad if you do.’
Shaking herself violently, Sarah went in search of her handbag and car keys. Ten minutes later she was heading across the harbour bridge, making a list in her head of what she had to collect from the apartment. Work clothes, of course. She couldn’t call in sick every day. Neither could she go in there wearing the j
eans she’d worn all weekend, or one of Cory’s track suits, which was what she was wearing today. She needed toiletries too, of course. And the rest of her make-up. After her argument with Scott last Saturday morning she’d bolted out of the apartment with nothing much. Her going-out clothes could wait till another day, she decided. Sarah couldn’t see herself going out much in the near future.
But what if there wasn’t another day? What if Scott threw her out and changed the locks? It was the sort of thing her husband might do. He was not a man who took kindly to being crossed, let alone betrayed. As much as she hated to admit it, those photos had made her look as if she were having an affair with Phil.
No, she would have to collect all of her things today whilst she had the chance.
Sarah took the exit that would lead her down to McMahon’s Point, her attempts at a more pragmatic mood disappearing with the sight of the tall block of harbourside apartments that she’d called home for the last year. A happy home, she’d thought, despite Scott’s many absences. She did understand that he’d been facing business difficulties during the last few months, with the mining industry not doing well, metal prices at an all-time low. His frequent business trips still irked her, however. But his returns were always extra joyful, last Friday night even more so after what she’d been through that day. She’d woken last Saturday morning with a delicious smile on her face.
Of course, at the time, she’d still been ignorant of the true reason behind Scott’s insatiable sexual appetite. And whilst the memory of some of his demands was slightly shocking, she’d also been secretly thrilled that at last she’d taken a less passive role in their sex life. On top of that, if she was brutally honest, she’d found her husband’s highly erotic lovemaking wildly exciting and extremely satisfying, her many orgasms addictively powerful. So she’d dressed and gone in search of Scott the next morning, already turned on by the thought that they would have the whole weekend together.
She hadn’t been turned on for long...
Sarah groaned, annoyed with herself for revisiting that painful encounter one more self-destructive time.
‘What a bastard,’ she muttered angrily as she drove down the ramp that led to the underground car park, stopping at the bottom to swipe her key card through the machine so that the security gate would rise. It was annoyingly slow, but at last she could drive through. Despite telling Cory confidently that Scott would be at work, she was still relieved to see that his car space was empty. She parked her red hatchback into her own allotted spot, locked it up then hurried over to the bank of lifts that would carry her up to the luxury high-rise apartment that Scott had bought a week before their wedding. Clearly, he’d wanted to impress his new bride. And he had.
It wasn’t the penthouse. But it was only one floor down from the top and was simply huge, its wide wraparound balconies having views to die for. The plate-glass window in the main living room formed a perfect frame for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with the Opera House underneath it in the distance. The same view applied to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the master bedroom. At night, it all looked magnificent.
There were two guest bedrooms aside from the master suite, each with their own en-suite bathroom. Add to this two formal receptions rooms, a home theatre, another powder room, a gym and a kitchen that was large enough to satisfy the caterers Sarah employed whenever they had a dinner party. Which up till now was at least once a month. Sarah could cook but cooking several courses for a large number of guests—their dinner table seated twelve—and trying to play hostess at the same time was beyond her.
After letting herself into the apartment Sarah stood in the spacious marble-floored foyer for a long moment, remembering how impressed she’d been when she’d first seen this place. Despite not having been brought up poor—Sarah came from a middle-class upbringing—she’d been overawed by the size of the rooms, the expensive fittings, the elegant imported furniture. She hadn’t wanted to change a thing.
Sarah made her way down the carpeted hallway to the master suite. As she entered what had once been her favourite area in the house Sarah kept her eyes averted from the neatly made king-sized bed, trying desperately not to think of how it had looked last Saturday morning with its tangled oil-stained sheets, not to mention the long blue chiffon scarf that had been draped haphazardly over the black lacquered bedhead. But despite her best efforts, Sarah did think about it, her mouth drying at the memory of how turned on she’d been by Scott binding her wrists like that; how he’d poured body lotion all over her and proceeded to show her exactly how much he knew about a woman’s secret fantasies. When he’d flipped her over and poured more lotion over her entire back, she hadn’t protested. Just pleaded for him not to stop.
And he hadn’t...
Oh, God.
Must not cry over last Friday night any more, she told herself sternly. Just get all your things and go!
Sarah hurried on across the thick cream carpet and into her walk-in wardrobe, where she pulled down the two large cases that they’d taken on honeymoon to Hawaii. She’d been happy then. Very happy. Scott had seemed happy, too.
Maybe that had all been an illusion. Maybe he’d always been a bit bored with her in bed. Sarah imagined most rich men eventually got bored with their trophy wives, which was why they traded them in for newer models a lot, or took mistresses, women who did even more kinky things than what she’d done with Scott last Friday night. Maybe those rumours about Scott and Cleo were right after all.
No—no. She refused to believe that. She hadn’t really believed it then and she didn’t believe it now!
Well, if you didn’t believe it, why did you rush into the hotel bathroom and throw up when the investigator said there was not a shred of evidence of Scott and Cleo having an affair?
The truth was, at the back of her mind, where old tapes from the past were stored, she had believed it. Of course she had. She was programmed to believe that most husbands were cheaters, and their silly wives forgave them much too often. It haunted Sarah to think what she would have done if the investigator had said the opposite. That yes, Scott was having an affair with Cleo. Would she have confronted him? Would she have left him? Was she actually leaving Scott now?
Perversely, the question of her forgiving him would probably never arise. Clearly, her husband believed she’d been unfaithful. More than likely, he would want a divorce. If there was one thing Sarah knew about Scott it was his black-and-white thinking. It was both his strength, and his weakness. Whilst she’d always admired his straight-down-the-line character, plus his total adherence to honesty and integrity, Scott could be slightly one-eyed over things. There was no grey in his thinking. Forgiveness would not come easily to Scott, not if he thought he’d been wronged. And he believed she’d wronged him.
Pushing aside this distressing train of thought, Sarah turned to begin taking some clothes off their hangers when she suddenly caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the back wall of the walk-in wardrobe. Dear God, but she looked a fright. Her hair was awful, having not been washed properly in days. The need to recondition her straw-like locks with her own lovely products suddenly became a necessity. It wasn’t as though Scott was going to come home unexpectedly and catch her, naked, in the shower. She had plenty of time to be out of here before he left his precious office.
But she still hurried, wanting to be out of the place as soon as possible.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN SCOTT DROVE into the underground car park and saw Sarah’s car parked in its allotted space, the frustration he’d been feeling at not finding her at Cory’s house revved up a notch. She hadn’t been sick at all, had she? She’d snuck home here whilst she believed he was at work, no doubt to collect her things, plus possibly anything else she fancied. He’d heard of such things happening to other men who’d come home to find their houses stripped clean.
This furious thought stayed with him during his ride up in the lift, his angry mood lessening once he let himself into
the apartment and discovered that nothing was missing. The artwork was still on the walls and all the expensive knick-knacks still there.
When he called out to Sarah, however, she didn’t answer, leaving him with the sudden far more awful thought that maybe she’d brought her car back—it had been a Christmas present from him—and just left it, then taken a taxi off to Lord knew where. The realisation that Sarah might have done such a thing, that she was leaving him permanently, and that he would never have the opportunity to find out the truth, made him feel sick to the stomach.
It was then that he heard the faint sound of water running somewhere. Recognising the sound, Scott dashed down the hallway to their bedroom, where he noted that the bathroom door was shut. Clearly, Sarah was having a shower. Scott could not deny the relief that flooded him. But there were some other confusing emotions too. Surely he wasn’t hoping she’d come home seeking a reconciliation? Surely she didn’t expect him to forgive her?
Glancing to the left of the bathroom door, he saw that their walk-in wardrobe door was open. Scott marched over to stand in the doorway, his hands curling into fists as he stared down at the two open cases on the floor, his teeth clenching down just as hard. Okay, so she wasn’t looking for a reconciliation, then. Good. All Scott wanted—or so he told himself—was an explanation of her actions.
It had niggled him all over the weekend that he’d been neglecting Sarah lately, leaving her alone way too much, not giving her the kind of attention that she’d obviously been secretly craving. Last Friday night had shown him that, at least. She’d been a different woman in his arms that night. Wild. Wanton. Bold. The kind of woman another man would do anything to get, and whom a husband would never be able to forget.
Scott groaned at the possibility that Sarah might not have been thinking of him when he’d been inside her last Friday night. She might have been thinking of the man she’d been with that lunchtime, whom she’d probably been with every time he went away on business.
