“Honesty,” I said straight up, because that was one of the things that had wounded me so much about Danny’s betrayal. Not so much the vasectomy itself, but that he’d lied about it for over a decade. “Gentleness. Fun—”
“Finn’s taken!” she said, with a mock growl.
And that made me laugh despite the scratchy throat and sore eyes. “Protective.”
“Finn.”
“Generous.”
“Finn.”
“Sexy.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” she warned, but we smiled at each other for a couple of seconds before she said, “So, this Jack—”
I shook my head, letting go of her hands. “He’s completely lacking in humility.”
She tilted her head. “That can be sexy in a guy.”
Then she stared at me until I admitted, “Okay, it was sexy. But can you imagine him as a role model?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
“No.”
“Okay then. The search moves on. And in the meantime, my gorgeous fiancé is expecting the contact details of a certain agent to arrive in his inbox today. So that’s pretty bloody exciting. Not to mention the thousands of YouTube views that my video of last night’s duet has scored.”
“Thousands?” The room felt suddenly as if there wasn’t enough air in it. I shook my head.
“Noah Steele. Come on! Of course it caught people’s attention. With a bit of luck your agent will be able to leverage that into interviews on the morning breakfast shows, and then it’s a hop-skip-jump to a recording contract. That’s what you should be thinking about.”
I stared back at her, feeling anxiety trickle into the place where grief had so recently been. “I’m not sure I want to be a celebrity.”
“After all the magazines you’ve obsessed over?” Jill knew my fangirl past better than anyone.
But I shook my head. “Especially after that.”
Women’s magazines were constantly dishing up dirt, and although I’d followed celebrity news breathlessly, I’d never wanted their problems.
She raised one eyebrow. “So you want to sing. Small time.”
“That’s enough.” She frowned, so I added, “What sort of life would my children have if I was on the road all the time, assuming I was even good enough for—”
“You’re good enough,” she said unequivocally, but that only made me feel more anxious.
“I’ve never wanted that life.”
Well, maybe when I was fifteen, I’d fantasized about being Whitney Houston. But since I’d been a married woman, I’d been happy to sing in the club for a bit of money of my own each week, giving my creative river as dad called it, room to flow. That made me happy.
Not long after I’d started, Danny had talked me out of it, presumably because he’d been jealous of other men looking at me, but that hiatus had resulted in a stagnation that hadn’t suited him: I’d gone shopping and spent way too much on clothes. So Danny had let the river trickle along and I’d always told myself that one day mothering would replace it.
Now, it appeared as if I had a choice, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
“I’m thirty-five.” I shrugged. “My fertility clock is ticking. If I choose singing over mothering…” I was acutely uncomfortable with the fact that there were hundreds of wannabe divas who would kill for this opportunity, but I doubted they were longing to be a mother as much as I was.
“You don’t have a father for your children yet,” she reminded me gently. “And you have to do something to pay the bills. Why not do something you love that will earn you shitloads?”
I stared back into her eyes and didn’t have an answer to that. I certainly wanted to earn money. And it would be fabulous to earn enough to buy a home of my own. I couldn’t stay with Kamal forever, and rent in Sydney was ridiculously priced.
But there were security issues around being a celebrity that unnerved me completed. We’d all heard about actresses being stalked. As a single woman, I felt vulnerable, and if I started down that track of professional singing it would be a runaway train. Yes, potentially lots of money, but also potentially dangerous as well.
“At least think about it,” Jill said, and I nodded agreement to that. Then she squeezed my hands. “And I know you don’t want me to say it, but I’ve got a good feeling about Jack.” I immediately shook my head, but she bulldozed on. “Check out my video on YouTube before your write him off. I caught him in a sweep of the audience, and the way he’s looking at you.” She nodded. “There’s something there.”
“It’s lust.” I said. “He’s told me he wants ‘a sexual arrangement’.”
“Which means?”
“We get together regularly and…experience pleasure.”
Both her eyebrows were up now. “So, not a one-night stand?”
“But I don’t want—”
“Hey!” She cut me off in mid-denial. “If you and I had just eaten a delicious pile of pancakes that not only tasted fabulous but were actually a workout that was making us slimmer…”
Okay. I had to grin at that.
“…and I said to you, let’s do that every weekend?”
“Sex isn’t food,” I said, stating the obvious.
Jill shook her head. “Sweetie, it absolutely is. And you’re starving. Don’t tell me the buffet is bad when we both know it’s fucking awesome. Your mother isn’t watching you. There’s no one to know except you and Mr. Tall, Dark and Sexy. Oh, and me if you share the juicy.”
I shook my head at her audacity. “So, career, babies, and a hot man on the side?”
“Now you’re talking!” She stood and gathered the damp tissues off my lap and deposited them in the bin. “Enough with the past. We’re leaving in an hour, so I expect you packed and dressed in fresh clothes—”
That was as far as she got when her phone rang.
“I’m packing,” I said, and turned to find my overnight bag.
“Poo!” she said into the phone, then she grinned at me as she hit the speaker button.
“Swill,” came the snarky reply. “Your eggs are getting cold.” It had to be Sieu, Finn’s operations manager, who was also Lizzie’s wife.
“I’m coming. And tell that hunky man of mine—”
“Ugh!” Sieu ended the call.
Jill laughed, and looked up at my raised eyebrows. “It’s a form of endearment. We like each other.”
“Right.” I’d only met Sieu once, and she’d been terrifyingly efficient in that super-cool hipster way that twenty-somethings seem to manage so effortlessly, as if they know so much more than thirty-somethings. “I’ll be fine.”
But Jill was looking at her phone, clicking buttons. “Finn says Jack’s at Bohemian asking for you.”
I had a shudder of reaction to that, but before I could formulate a response, she looked me up and down and said, “I’ll tell Finn to get his phone number. You’re not ready. You’ve been crying.”
“I won’t ever be ready. He’s not right for me.”
She shrugged, looking disappointed. “Okay. But plenty more fish, right?”
I conjured an encouraging smile because frankly I was all out of arguments. I just wanted to get changed and packed.
“Good girl.” Jill patted my cast absently, then headed for the door. “Finn wants to leave at ten so you won’t miss your flight.”
“I’ll be ready.”
She’d barely closed the door before my own phone rang. I looked at my handbag apprehensively, but when I retrieved the phone it was my mother.
Not Jack.
That should have been a relief, only…my mother never rang me on my mobile. She always rang Kamal’s landline phone, because the call charge was cheaper. It must be an emergency. Or…
I swiped to answer the call and said, “Mummy-ji.”
“Angela. You are disappointing us today. Call me back.”
CHAPTER NINE
My first impulse was to say Of course and hang up, anxious to know how I could pl
acate her, because the last thing I wanted was daily haranguing. But something about my conversation with Jill had bolstered my confidence, giving me the illusion of control over my life. So instead I said, “I’m very sorry, Mummy-ji, but I’m about to get into a car with Jill and her fiancé, and it would be rude to—”
“Soon then,” she snapped and hung up, angrier than I’d heard her since I was sixteen and Fritha had gotten the four of us into trouble by insisting we all get drunk to celebrate her newly lost virginity. Six drinks later I’d passed out, and luckily Jill’s boyfriend at the time had carried me home, but I’d been grounded for a month and it had been another six before my mother had felt she could ‘raise her head in town’ and had deigned to forgive me.
I had no idea what was upsetting her now, unless… Surely she couldn’t have gotten wind of my one-night stand with Jack?
Cold fear swirled through me then and I had to sit on the edge of the bed. Sweet Shiva. If she knew I’d been promiscuous, I’d never hear the end of it. Literally. Never. There was no chance she’d forgive such a blatant disregard for ‘moral decency’.
It was only by the skin of my teeth that I’d managed to squirm out of her demand that I come home this instant when I’d announced my intention to divorce Danny. She’d been furious that I’d seen fit to reject the perfectly suitable husband she’d chosen for me in my graduation year, and clearly intended to find a replacement who, hopefully this time, I’d keep.
The other girls didn’t understand why I couldn’t just tell my mother the truth: that Danny was a cheating bastard who’d had a vasectomy rather than give her grandchildren. But my parents were close friends with his parents who were genuinely nice people—I didn’t want to ruin that relationship. Instead, I’d told my mother I was leaving Danny because we didn’t love each other anymore, and she’d told me stop being selfish and give her grandchildren.
The irony in her statement hadn’t been lost on me, but in a rare moment of defiance, I’d told them no, I planned to stay in Sydney. With Kamal. In the end, it had only been the fact that I was ‘under the care’ of a male member of our family—albeit one who was ten years younger than me—that had calmed her outrage.
It was completely ridiculous that I couldn’t be my own woman, make my own decisions and live with the consequences. I understood Jill’s perspective on that. But she hadn’t grown up in my household.
My parents had been in Australia since they were newlyweds, but despite that, they were as thoroughly traditional as their parents had been in Mumbai. And what was worse, they expected me and my three brothers to be the same. The fact that I had to call her Mummy-ji was merely the tip of the iceberg of demands for ‘respect’.
It was no surprise that the boys had taken off early, supposedly for lucrative mining jobs, but in the end they’d made my mother happy by providing grandchildren who she visited regularly. I was the abysmal failure—the only girl, and I couldn’t even keep a marriage together.
As I tucked my phone back into my handbag, I realized I couldn’t go on like this. While I’d been married to Danny with the prospect of grandchildren, I’d hoped my perceived ‘shortcomings’ would be overlooked in my mother’s enjoyment of my children. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
And if I did decide to go down the professional singing path and was fortunate enough to secure a good agent, and—gods willing—a recording contract, I would be going against everything my mother held dear. I would be choosing work over family.
Jill had only just argued against that idea, trying to tell me I could have it all, but I knew my mother. She didn’t believe in working wives, let alone working mothers. My father had been supportive of my singing, but my mother treated it as showing off and was vaguely embarrassed by it. She’d never understood how much it meant to me to please people with my voice, to lose myself in lyrics that felt as if they were coming out of some deep emotional core inside me.
If I was honest with myself—brutally honest—my mother had never understood me, full stop. Yet despite that, I loved her, and so I’d let her have her own way, thinking it was my daughterly ‘duty’. But as I considered the future, I realized that had to stop. My desires and her directives were about to clash, and I suddenly knew I wouldn’t give in.
Her way was different to Danny’s, but effectively, both of them had ‘managed’ me over my adult life so I became the Angela that suited them.
I didn’t want that anymore.
Instinctively, I knew these changes in me had something to do with Jack, with the terrifying abandon I’d allowed myself to experience last night. And maybe singing with Noah Steele as well. Those two things had transformed me. I wasn’t…meek any more. I’d shown more anger to Jack in ten minutes than I’d shown Danny during our whole marriage.
Something, or someone had given me permission to let my feelings out. And maybe that’s why I’d sobbed about Lizzie. The carefully constructed Angela that everyone other than Jill, Fritha and Louella saw, was temporarily—or maybe permanently—gone. In her place was a woman who suddenly seemed capable of anything.
I glanced at my handbag again. “Maybe I won’t ring her,” I said aloud, and was astonished at the very idea. Not ring her back? What would she do? Burst an artery? I shook my head. I’d never thought about consequences while I’d been busy obeying. And I wondered if I needed to now?
I stood up and turned back to my suitcase, feeling as if I was inhabiting a whole new world. Not ring my mother back. I pulled out a toothbrush and clean clothes and got myself tidied up, carefully reapplying makeup and eye-drops to disguise the results of my outburst before tucking my hair back into a messy bun.
When I was finished, the full length mirror showed a casually elegant traveler—or so I told myself—in low-slung jeans, soft black boots and an orange sweater that clung to my curves. I topped it off with the new Ray Bans Kamal had bought me for Christmas.
With luck I’d be busy chatting to Jill and Finn soon. Anything to stop myself thinking about not calling my mother and not thinking about Jack. Jill was right: one day I might meet someone with the values that I was looking for in a father for my children, but that wouldn’t be Jack with his rampant…desire and you want me arrogance. It was hardly the role modeling I’d want my sons growing up with.
So I zipped my suitcase shut with the decisiveness of a woman who knows what she wants—and who she doesn’t—but that didn’t stop the tiny voice of truth—which sounded suspiciously like Fritha—saying You’ve tasted the buffet. You’ll want to go back.
And in some ways that was close to the mark. I’d tasted lots of things in the last twenty-four hours, and many of them Jack. But I hadn’t had the courage to…taste that. And this new version of me wondered if I ever would, with any man.
I’d read enough magazines to know that men liked it, and if it was anything like Jack’s mouth on my clitoris, it would be amazing. Not only for him, but for me to know I could have such power over him. Because sweet Shiva, he’d had all the power last night. I’d been absolute putty in his hands, molded to the shape of the pleasure he’d wanted to bestow.
Could I do that to him?
It might be the perfect way to find out if I liked it, because I wouldn’t be self-conscious with Jack. We’d already stripped away the majority of my inhibitions. And if I didn’t want to see him again afterwards, I could simply call it quits.
A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts, and Jill’s “Ready?” set me in motion. I followed them out to the car.
“Here’s Jack’s number,” Finn said, and handed over a card.
I swallowed and took it out of his hand. “Thanks,” I said softly, but Jill caught my eye with a smirk that said, You know you want to.
I had to look away, because as complicated as it might make my life, I did want to. But I shelved those thoughts to chat with Jill and Finn on the drive to the airport. Finn was full of plans for the wedding but Jill was suspiciously silent. I knew she wanted to get the birth o
f Lizzie’s baby out of the way first, but I wanted her to forget that and concentrate on Finn.
So I was distracted when they dropped me off, and it was only when the airline desk clerk said upgrade a second time that I registered surprise.
“Upgrade?” I parroted, wondering what on earth he was talking about.
“Your seat allocation has changed. You’re now at the front of the plane. More legroom.” He handed over the ticket.
“But doesn’t that cost more?” I didn’t have any loyalty points, unless…the last thing Finn had said as he’d handed over my suitcase in the drop-off parking area was You’re a celebrity now. Don’t forget to wear your sunglasses indoors.
Jill had laughed as she’d hugged me goodbye, wishing me a good flight, and that probably explained it. Finn must have a gazillion loyalty points. He’d been all over Europe with work, trying to get over Jill the last time they’d broken up, before she’d proposed. He must have upgraded me.
Which was sweet.
I took the ticket without further questions and headed for the departure lounge, glad to have some luxury at the end of a confusing weekend. While I waited for my flight to be called, I followed the link in Jill’s text to her YouTube video of Since I fell for you, which now had over thirty thousand views!
I stared at that number on my phone for several seconds as goose-bumps broke out across my body. Then I put on my headphones so I could listen to the audio without inflicting it on the waiting passengers around me, and I hit play, watching the shy Indian girl smiling out at the audience, not able to look at the superstar at her side, as the opening bars of the song swelled.
The camera panned around the audience, and I saw Jack watching me with an intensity that seemed out of place with the expectant smiles around him. I remembered him saying, When I saw you singing with Noah Steele, I wanted to pull you out of his arms and fight him for the right to be with you. And I’m not like that. I could see that warring on his hard, handsome face and it confused me because it seemed a world away from his brash demands of this morning.
Husband Stay (Husband #2) Page 10
