One-Click Buy: December 2009 Silhouette Desire

by Susan Mallery

  Josh set down the letter he’d been reading and reached inside the box for the final envelope. He extracted the typewritten note on an early version of Palmer Enterprises letterhead and the company cheque that his mother had never deposited.

  How had Bruce gone from a man devotedly in love to the cold, calculating creature who had sent this letter and cheque? Telling Suzanne to leave and to never show her face again. It just didn’t make sense, but it had made enough sense to his mother that she’d packed her bags and checked out of the boardinghouse where she’d stayed in Auckland, and seen her catch the first bus south.

  He stared blankly at the now rusty staple that still attached the cheque to the letter and idly flipped the paper to look again at the sum of money Bruce Palmer had thought worth getting rid of his mistress forever. A paltry sum in today’s terms, but it would have made a difference for his mother back then.

  It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. Suzanne was dead and no amount of revenge would bring her back.

  Josh went to scoop the letters up and put them back in the box, but something stilled his hand. A niggle in the back of his mind that wouldn’t let go.

  He picked up the letter with the cheque attached and studied it anew.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said to the empty room.

  He hadn’t expected Irene Palmer to agree to see him so easily, but it seemed that whoever was acting as her assistant these days had no idea he was persona non grata in the exalted Palmer Enterprises building. The looks he’d received on his way up to Irene’s office would have made him laugh out loud had he not been so hell-bent on reaching his destination.

  But those looks were nothing compared to the expression on her face when he was shown through to her office.

  “Your ten o’clock is here, Mrs Palmer.” The fresh-faced secretary who’d made his appointment showed him directly into her domain.

  “My ten…” Irene rose from her chair. “You! Call security, Anna. This man should not be here.”

  “I think you’ll find you do want to see me, Irene.”

  Josh slid the typewritten letter and cheque from his pocket and opened it out on the desk in front of her. He could almost have felt sorry for her as the colour drained from her face and she slumped back into her chair.

  “Mrs Palmer? Do you still want me to call security?”

  The younger woman sounded scared. Josh was prepared to lay money on the fact that probably no one had ever seen Irene Palmer at a disadvantage before.

  “No, not any more,” Irene rasped through lips that had turned slightly blue around the edges. “Please close the door on your way out.”

  As soon as the door shut behind her assistant, Irene appeared to summon courage from somewhere. Josh had to admit to a grudging admiration. Not many people could recover from a shock like the one she’d just received with such aplomb. Even seated she managed to convey that she was looking down her nose at him. That he was nothing more than a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her heel.

  “So you’re her son,” she finally said, almost to herself. “Now it all makes sense.”

  Without waiting for her invitation, which he doubted would be forthcoming anyway, he settled his frame in one of the button-back leather chairs that faced her desk. “Just what did you say to my mother to make her leave?”

  “What makes you think I said anything?”

  “Don’t patronise me, Irene. We both know it wasn’t Bruce who sent her away. That’s your signature on that cheque.”

  Irene seemed to shrivel a little under his stare.

  “It was pathetically easy, you know. Mind you, so was she.”

  Josh clenched his jaw against the fury her deliberate insult roused inside him. He took strength in the secure knowledge that her words were a lie. His mother had never been easy. She’d been a devoted mother and she’d been a lady. And if she’d ever craved male companionship after her affair with Bruce, she quelled that craving, putting Josh’s needs ahead of her own every day of his life.

  When he didn’t visibly react to her comment, Irene continued.

  “Bruce and I had difficulty starting a family. After ten years, we’d all but given up hope—the failure created a distance between us. In many ways it was a relief when he turned to her for comfort, and I was always grateful for his discretion. He knew if a scent of his relationship with her leaked out how destructive it would have been to me. No one else ever knew.

  “When I unexpectedly became pregnant I knew I had to fight to keep him and I was determined to win. I hadn’t strived to build all of this,” she gestured across her office with her hand, “with my husband to see it all crumble for the sake of Bruce’s little fling with his secretary.

  “I knew my pregnancy gave me the ammunition to get Bruce to give her up, until I noticed something else. Your mother made all her own clothes and it didn’t take an expert eye to see that she’d begun to slowly let the seams out on her dresses, or to recognise the fragility in her face. I stared at the same weakness in myself every morning.”

  “So you confronted her.”

  “Yes, I confronted her. You think I was going to let her destroy what Bruce and I had created for our own children? Bruce is the type of man who would have stood by her; he would have given her child—you—everything our own boys deserved. There was no way I would allow my children’s birthright to be diluted by her bastard.”

  Irene shoved her chair back from her desk and began to pace.

  “I knew she couldn’t have told him about her pregnancy yet, or Bruce would have made a move by then to leave me, and I wasn’t about to be upstaged. So I went to see her in that revolting boardinghouse where she lived and told her it was over. That Bruce had confessed his affair to me but that he no longer loved her.”

  Irene laughed then, a brittle sound that grated on Josh’s ears.

  “I told her Bruce wanted her to leave Auckland. She refused, telling me she knew Bruce loved her. Loved her! But I convinced her in the end. I gave her the letter and the cheque and told her to use it to get rid of the baby she was carrying. That night I went home and I told Bruce I was pregnant. He was overjoyed, and the rest, as they say, is history. Oh, he tried to find her, to let her down gently, I suppose, but she was already gone. Well and truly gone, and good riddance.”

  No wonder his mother had never cashed that cheque. It had been blood money. Money for the sole purpose of taking a life that had been conceived in love. That Bruce had loved Suzanne he had absolutely no doubt. He’d read the letters. He’d seen the fear in Irene’s eyes. It was a fear that still ruled her.

  Josh’s hands curled into knotted fists as he sat and listened to Irene’s invective. The woman was poison. She’d played with lives, moving them around as if they were no more than pieces on a chessboard.

  “You sent that letter to me when my mother died, when I tried to let Bruce know.”

  “Of course I did. I’d protected my family for more than eighteen years from that woman. Do you really think I was going to be less vigilant after all that time?”

  “He had a right to know she’d gone. He had a right to know me.”

  “My husband will never acknowledge you as his son,” she stated, her voice as frigid as the Great Southern Ocean.

  “That doesn’t matter to me anymore, Irene, because, you see, even though you thought you’d done everything right to protect your precious family, you—and only you—have sown the seeds of the destruction of what you tried hardest to save.”

  “How dare you! You’re the one. You’re the mastermind behind it all. You even used that poor girl to further your maniacal scheme.”

  “If, by poor girl, you’re talking about Callie, then maybe you should ask yourself why you groomed her for so many years and then let her take the blame when everything turned upside down. What kind of person scouts for the vulnerable the way you did with her, and then lets her believe she belongs—that she has a place in your world? Then, when it no longer sui
ts you, you cast her adrift as if she has no value to you anymore. Is that how you measure everyone in your life? By what they can do for you?”

  Josh closed his eyes a moment to compose himself. To draw on every last ounce of control he had left. “I feel sorry for you, Irene, because when all is said and done you had to cheat and lie to get what you have today—your husband, your business, your entire world. All of it based on lies. You say you’ve done it to protect your family, but you only did what you did out of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of failure. And when the truth comes out, who will stand in your corner then?”

  Twin spots of colour stood stark on Irene’s cheeks, but he could see the fear that now reflected in her eyes. Could see that she feared him and the threat he was to the very fabric of her world.

  “You’re threatening me with the media? I’ll have an injunction slapped on you so fast you won’t know what gagged you. You will not spoil my plan. Palmer Enterprises will recover from your attempt to destabilise us, and when Bruce and I move to Guildara, he’ll be the jewel in their diplomatic crown because I protected him from you.”

  “No. I’m not going to the media. Not any more. Nor am I going to systematically take Palmer Enterprises apart piece by piece. You’re simply not worth the effort. Besides, I think my father and my half brother deserve better than that. But what you decide to do next will be the key to what makes or breaks Palmers and your dreams for the future. And if your entire world falls apart, you will know that you were the only one who could have done anything about it. See how you like playing God with that truth.”

  How he made it out the office and down in the elevator to the entrance to the building he didn’t know, but the moment he stepped free of the Palmer Enterprises building he knew a freedom he had never experienced before.

  Freedom tinged with grief for the ill-fated love affair his parents had shared. For so many years he’d believed his father had been a man to be vilified. Some all-powerful being that had held Josh’s fate, and the eventual fate of his mother, in his hands. Yet all along he’d been a victim of his world. A man who’d been too late—and yes, maybe even too weak—to act when love had been his for the taking.

  Yet, despite that, Bruce had given Suzanne happiness, even if only for a short time. And it said a lot that his mother had never once run his father down. Never once apportioned blame. To her dying day, he knew she must have loved him and that kind of love was a gift, no matter how long you shared it.

  An ache started deep in Josh’s chest. He’d had the chance to know that kind of love. Callie had offered it to him, and he’d cast it back in her face like a handful of bad stock options.

  Josh strode to the nearby taxi stand. He couldn’t afford the time to retrieve his car from the parking lot nearby. Too many mistakes had been made already in the name of greed. He wasn’t about to make another.

  Thirteen

  Callie ignored the demand of her doorbell. She wasn’t in the mood for theological discussion or the latest multibuy bargain card. Not today—not ever.

  Since she’d been summarily suspended from Palmer Enterprises, she’d lived in a kind of limbo—lacking even the energy to bother to dress each day. And underlying her miserable existence lay a sense of loss and pain and “what ifs,” making sleep patchy at best during the darkest hours of the night.

  The door chimed again, and still she ignored it.

  “Come on, Callie. I know you’re in there.”

  Josh? What did he want? Hadn’t he made his position clear enough already? Whatever it was, she wasn’t up for any more emotional abuse. She’d ignore him. Eventually, he’d go away.

  This time when the doorbell rang it was continuous. Her eardrums vibrating with the noise, she pounded down her stairs and flung her front door open.

  “What? Ready to go another round with me? Well, I’m all out of fight so get out of my face.”

  “Last time we talked you wanted to tell me your side of things. I wasn’t ready to listen to you then. I am now.”

  “Oh, so everything is all on your timetable. I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice dripping with a sarcasm that did little to mask the pain throbbing through her at the sight of him. “I don’t have time in my busy schedule of unemployment.”

  “Callie, please.”

  Josh stepped across the threshold, forcing her to back up to avoid the breadth and strength of him. She should feel threatened by his mass, but instead all her traitorous body wanted to do was plaster itself against him. Feel his heat and hardness and envelop herself in it until she felt no pain, only sensation.

  The snick of the front door closing made her take another step back.

  “Tell me,” he prompted.

  There was a note of sincerity in his voice that gave her pause. He wasn’t the kind of man to ask if he didn’t mean it and he also wasn’t the type to leave until he got the answers he sought. With a shrug of resignation, she led him through to her kitchen, where she grabbed her kettle from its stand and shoved it under the tap.

  “Coffee?”

  “If you’re having some.”

  She grunted and dealt with the necessities of getting coffee ready. Instant, not percolated. She wasn’t going to any bother for a man who’d chewed her up and spit her out twice in the past month. And she’d let him. She’d set herself up that second time by going to him. By hoping she could appeal to his better nature. The nature she knew dwelled inside the focussed businessman who dominated his market like some feudal lord.

  Eventually, she pushed a mug across the kitchen table toward him, paying no regard to the brown liquid sloshing over the sides.

  If she’d had any pride left it might have bothered her that her hair was a tangle of unbrushed chaos and that her sleep shorts and tank top had seen better days. Her attire was a far cry from the nightgown she’d worn the last time they’d made love. A tight knot wadded up deep inside her. She didn’t want to think about that night, about what they’d shared. About how they’d given to one another, and taken—both overcome by an insatiable hunger.

  She’d had plenty of time to think about that and she was done thinking. She knew she’d acted foolishly, impulsively. But she’d loved him with her heart, her mind and her body—and he’d taken that love and used it against her.

  “Where do you want to begin?” he asked, taking a sip of the coffee and ignoring the drips from the base of the mug that splattered onto his Armani suit.

  “Why now, Josh? You weren’t interested before,” she hedged. She wasn’t in a hurry to rip the scab off the emotional wounds that had finally healed and been tucked away.

  “Because I was wrong. You were right. I realise that now. I was driven by anger and frustration over something I knew next to nothing about. Something I didn’t even have the maturity to understand. It did twist me up inside and make me bitter and both unwilling and unable to see anything from anyone’s point of view but mine.”

  He put his mug down on the table and sighed.

  “I did what you suggested. I read the letters again. Really read them this time. How I didn’t see what my mother meant to him the first time around I’ll never understand.”

  “You were too lost in your own grief. You can’t be too hard on yourself.”

  “Whether that’s true or not I should never have let it guide my entire life. It turned me into someone I don’t even like anymore.”

  “I still love you.” The words slipped from her mouth before she even realised she’d said them aloud.

  “I don’t deserve your love, Callie. You deserve better than me, more than what I can give you.”

  “Josh, if you could have given me your love in return that would have been enough. I know what it’s like not to have love. My parents never wanted children. When I came along, it certainly wasn’t the unexpected bonus their friends told them it was. They gave me the bare necessities of life, barely tolerated me when I was around. Sure, they made certain I was fed and dressed and sent to school. But they never wanted me
.

  “They loved each other and yet they hated each other, too. Their relationship was symbiotic and destructive at the same time. They both drank, excessively, and they did recreational drugs, too. My mother was the worst. She’d lash out when she was angry and she was angry a lot of the time. When she didn’t get the response, or the respect, from me she believed she was due, she’d change from shouting and verbal abuse to physical violence. My father did nothing to stop her.

  “The day I turned fourteen, she beat me worse than she’d ever done before. They had to call an ambulance, but neither of them came to the hospital with me. When the doctors saw my injuries they called the police, but by the time they arrived at our house my parents had left. No one knew where they had gone. I’m assuming they fled the country. We didn’t have the border control then that we do now.”

  Callie fell silent, remembering the visit from the social worker telling her that she’d now be a ward of the state and remembering her silent vow not to be under anyone’s control ever again.

  “Anyway, as soon as I was well enough I checked myself out of hospital and hit the streets. It wasn’t hard to disappear in the underground community, to learn when to duck and hide and when it was safe.”

  “Social services never looked for you?”

  “They probably did, but it didn’t take long before I became adept at my new lifestyle and it was easier than what had been before. I survived for two years before things got seriously dangerous for me. That was when Irene’s people found me.”

  “More dangerous than living on the street? Callie, you were what by then? Sixteen?”

  She looked at Josh across the table. For all the hardship in his upbringing he really had no idea how gruelling life could really be. At least he’d had his mother.

  “My last winter on the street was more difficult than the previous two. Wetter, colder—just altogether more miserable. There was a guy I was soft on. He didn’t live on the streets but he spent a lot of time there. That should have been a warning to me, but it wasn’t. Anyway, he’d always been out of my league but this one night he actively sought me out and he offered to take me back to his place for the night. I knew exactly what that meant—and I hate to admit it now—but I was so cold, so tired and so darn hungry I would have done just about anything for warmth and clean sheets that night. So I went with him.”