Echoes of the Heart

by Alyssa J. Montgomery

  The reporter interjected. ‘Viewers will remember that Amanda Bennett is the widow of Lloyd Bennett—lawyer to several underworld crime figures. Mrs Bennett was recently interrogated by the police over her husband’s apparent suicide.’

  She gasped as she saw pictures of her face flashing up on the screen in quick succession. There was a picture of her at Lloyd’s funeral, then video footage of her at Jake’s side arriving at the Circular Quay restaurant that evening. She hadn’t even been aware of the media’s presence.

  ‘Mr Formosa has lost his focus and credibility,’ Whitby continued. ‘I believe the board should sanction his removal as Chairman quickly and decisively at this evening’s meeting.’

  The hateful image of Mr Whitby was replaced by a picture of the reporter standing outside the head office of the Formosa Corporation.

  ‘Has media mogul, Jake Formosa, been bitten by Lloyd Bennett’s black widow?’ The news presenter asked. ‘The Board has convened as we broadcast, and the corporation could well have a new Chairman by the time the meeting ends.’

  The report continued—full of malice. Every nasty rumour about her marriage to Lloyd was raked up. The story put a seedy slant on Amanda’s upbringing and the reporter questioned whether board members would accept Jake continuing as Chairman of the Formosa Corporation now that he was besotted with a faithless gold-digger. A financial analyst predicted share prices for the Formosa Corporation would plummet.

  Her heart clenched in despair. Every hope drained from her as she listened to the negative predictions for Jake’s future in the corporate world.

  That was why Sophie had called.

  Jake’s problem at the office was a full-scale battle and it was all because of his association with—she shuddered as she thought of the title the press had given her—Bennett’s black widow.

  As much as she loved Jake, she couldn’t stay with him if their being together turned his life upside-down. She pressed her lips together to prevent a cry of gut wrenching sorrow escaping.

  Forcing herself to put Jake first she took a deep breath. This was no time to think of herself. Jake must be facing his own private hell. Fight as he might to retain control of his company, it wasn’t fair to put him in that position. She had to think of a way to spare him the public backlash of his association with her.

  As far as she knew, they’d only been photographed together once. They could issue a statement denying any relationship. Nobody knew about his proposal that they live together. He could still emerge from all this bad press unscathed if he denied involvement with her.

  It was the cruellest torture, but she would find the strength to walk away from Jake for his own good. She had to. Besides, he wouldn’t want to stay with her in a relationship, when his corporate reputation was at stake.

  Fiona Bennett’s image on the screen captured Amanda’s attention. The story switched to an upcoming court case to contest Lloyd’s will. Amanda sat in shocked silence, shaking uncontrollably. Her head spun as she realised the truth of her marriage was out.

  What would happen to Irene now?

  An incredible sense of powerlessness engulfed her. A sick, rolling tide of nausea swelled in her stomach. Before she could listen to the full story, she had to dash to the bathroom where she was physically ill.

  Irene! She had to get to Irene and try to explain things. Her aunt had a television in her hospital room and, being unable to hold the newspaper, she usually watched the news on television—the morning edition and this evening bulletin.

  There was no time to lose.

  Fifteen minutes later, a taxi arrived to take Amanda to the hospital.

  ***

  The meeting was over. Now, Jake wanted to get back to Amanda. Security guards accompanied him down to the car park. He’d been informed that a pack of reporters and photographers were crowded outside the front of the building. He had no intention of being swooped on by the starving vultures that were on the scent of carrion. Many of them would be loving the fact that there’d been an internal challenge to his position. Rival newspapers, jealous of his success, would be rubbing their hands together and trying to find the seediest slant possible to the story. He knew they would do anything they could to discredit him and throw fuel on a fire hoping that his company would be reduced to ash around him.

  A gust of cold air hit him as he left the warmth of the elevator and arrived at the basement car park. Then, a camera flash blinded him.

  One of his security team cursed. There was a tousle. The blasted media had camped out in the car park as well. What had happened to building security? A chorus of reporters’ voices taunted him and demanded answers to their questions.

  ‘Are you still the chairman?’ The tone intimated that the reporter would be happy if he wasn’t.

  ‘Did you survive the vote of no-confidence, Mr Formosa?’

  ‘Mr Formosa, what’s your relationship with Mrs Bennett?’ one journalist demanded, malice plastered all over his face.

  ‘Have you heard that Lloyd Bennett’s butler is contesting the will?’

  Jake pressed forward with escalating fury. He hated his privacy invaded by the press, and he didn’t want Amanda’s name dragged through all of this.

  ‘No comment.’ His lips compressed into an expression he hoped would warn the reporters of his lethal mood. Anger radiated out from him in waves. The tightness of his features, and the blazing fury he felt blasting from his eyes, must surely scorch the reporters out of his path.

  ‘Are the butler’s claims true?’ someone pressed. ‘Was Amanda Bennett a cover-up bride?’

  Finally, Jake reached the waiting limousine.

  ‘Mr Formosa, is it true you were involved with Mrs Bennett before her marriage?’

  ‘We know it couldn’t have been Bennett who fathered Amanda’s child. You were the father of her child, weren’t you?’ a reporter accused.

  It was the last question Jake heard before the security guard closed the limousine door. The chauffeur wasted no time in driving off. The barrage of questions posed by the reporters clamoured relentlessly at Jake’s brain, but the last accusation demanded an immediate answer. It was a question he’d asked himself. Amanda had denied the baby had been his, but was that the truth of her marriage she was about to confess? She had thought he was engaged to Sophie. He recoiled as it occurred to him that she may have married Bennett not only to help her aunt, but because she didn’t think Jake would want her and their child. The child she had lost.

  ***

  Before he entered the house, Jake took a deep breath and told himself to be calm. Amanda had said they needed to talk. She was prepared to move forward with their relationship and wanted to tell him everything. She would provide answers to all his questions. Everything between them would be settled and there was no point in speculation.

  It had been an emotionally charged evening and he was at the end of his tether. He’d been furious that Whitby, his only adversary on the board, had convened a meeting and moved a vote of no-confidence at the first whiff of scandal. The other board members had howled down the motion and Jake had seized on the opportunity to remove the man from the board—forever.

  Jake was still enraged that his relationship with Amanda had been called into question. It had only been Sophie’s calming presence that had stopped him from leaping across the table and ripping the little weasel to shreds as Whitby had maligned Amanda’s character and painted Jake as a fool for his involvement with her.

  Amanda wasn’t downstairs. He frowned. He’d thought she would wait up for him. A quick check of his watch revealed that it was after one o’clock in the morning. No wonder she’d gone to bed.

  He went to her bedroom.

  It was empty. Every muscle tightened as he relived the devastation he’d felt when she’d cut herself off from him before. He exhaled. Amanda hadn’t left him. She’d agreed to stay. Obviously she’d just be waiting in his bed. They’d already moved forward and she would be waiting for him where she belonged. Relieved,
he walked across the hallway, picturing her naked, her hair spilling across the pillows. Waiting for him.

  All he wanted was to make love for the rest of the night, but it was so late. He might have to settle for just holding her close tonight. Only after they’d said all that needed to be said would he claim her body again, and she may even be too tired to talk now.

  His bed was empty.

  Cold, hard dread leeched through every blood vessel.

  With growing tension, he went downstairs, checking each room and calling her name.

  Bitterness welled within him as he realised that she’d left him. When he’d responded to Sophie’s call, she still hadn’t trusted him.

  Without trust there was no foundation for a relationship.

  Amanda had gone. There was no relationship between them anymore.

  The sound of a car engine and a car door shutting made him go to the window. There was a taxi at the front gates. Amanda was standing on the other side looking at the house as the taxi drove away.

  Jake ran to the nearest telephone and pressed a button to open the gates electronically, then raced outside to meet her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded, simultaneously frustrated and relieved as he pulled her into an embrace and held her tight.

  ‘To see Irene.’

  She was stiff in his arms. Something wasn’t right. ‘Is everything okay with your aunt?’

  She nodded, but didn’t relax.

  He brushed a kiss against her temple, willing her to yield against him. ‘I thought you’d walked out on me.’

  When she lifted her head away from his chest and tilted her head back to look at him, there was indecision in her expression. ‘I don’t know whether it’s in your best interest to be with me. Look at what happened tonight.’ Anxiety laced each word. ‘Did you survive the no-confidence motion?’

  ‘How did you know about it?’

  ‘It’s been all over the news.’

  ‘That figures.’ He ran his hands through the silky curtain of her hair. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. I not only survived, I got rid of the biggest pain in the ass that has ever sat on the board.’

  She let out a relieved breath. ‘It may not be as easy next time.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time.’

  ‘Jake, you live your life in the public arena, and I’m despised by the public. If we stay together, you’ll be tainted by my reputation.’

  ‘None of that is important, Amanda. You’ll be old news next week!’

  ‘You haven’t seen the evening bulletin.’ Stress lines bracketed her mouth.

  ‘No.’ He frowned. ‘I came straight from the office where I was besieged by reporters.’ In his relief to have her back, he’d forgotten that there was one question he needed an answer to. ‘I think we’d better go inside and have that talk. One reporter asked whether I was the father of the child you were expecting when you married Bennett.’

  Amanda’s head snapped back. ‘We do need to talk.’

  Without another word they went into the house. Jake led her into the living room and sat down opposite her on a couch. Steeling himself for whatever she might reveal to him, he felt perspiration break out on his brow.

  Amanda was weary and nervous beyond belief. The strain in Jake’s voice had been unmistakable. His posture and the taut lines of his face told her that he was exerting enormous self-control while he waited for an explanation.

  What could she say? How did she begin to explain the reporters’ comments? Despite all the carefully rehearsed words she’d practised from the hospital to here, she was unable to form words to answer him, yet she still owed him the truth about her marriage.

  ‘Whose baby was it, Amanda?’ The words were grated out.

  Her eyes closed as despair slashed at her. Every second stretched as she tried to formulate her reply, but there was no easy way to tell him. ‘I was never pregnant,’ she half-whispered.

  The thunderous silence stretched her nerves. When she finally found the courage to open her eyes and look up at Jake, his strong, dark features were harshly set.

  ‘So you did lie about your pregnancy to force Bennett into marrying you?’ he assumed in a stern, judgemental tone.

  Her face tightened with misery. ‘I didn’t lie. Lloyd did.’

  ‘What?’ The word was like a gunshot. It ricocheted around the room.

  Clasping her shaking hands together tightly in her lap, she focussed upon her white knuckles. ‘My pregnancy was Lloyd’s fabrication.’ She looked at Jake and willed him to see the truth in her eyes.

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why would he lie about that?’

  A little gesture with her hands conveyed her agitation, her sense of helplessness. ‘He wanted a quick marriage and he fabricated the pregnancy to convince everyone we’d been involved for a while. He said —’

  ‘Had you shared his bed before he offered you marriage?’

  There was a primitive, possessive savagery in the inflection of the question that intensified the tremors running through her, but she had to overcome her anxieties.

  This was her moment of truth, her chance to reveal her marriage deal. For any chance of future happiness, she had to confess everything to the powerful man seated opposite her, and it was all over the media now, anyway. It was just a matter of time before Jake learned the truth. Better that it came from her.

  She took a deep breath to steady her voice, and willed the nervous spasms in her stomach to settle. Squaring her shoulders, she summoned up the tattered shreds of her pride and opened up her heart so it was completely unguarded.

  ‘Contrary to what you believe, I never prostituted myself for Lloyd. I was never the high class call-girl you accused me of being—not until you turned me into one.’

  He flinched hard at her comments. ‘No. But you admitted you married him for his money—for Irene’s sake,’ he argued.

  ‘Lloyd paid for me to become his wife,’ she launched back at him, ‘but his money didn’t buy me into his bed.’

  ‘You went willingly?’ His jaw slackened, his tone was incredulous.

  ‘No!’ she denied, shaking her head vehemently and swallowing down the emotion that threatened to clog her throat. ‘Lloyd wanted me as his bride, but he didn’t want me in his bed.’

  Jake shook his head in disbelief, and his mouth twisted in a cynical smile. ‘No man could marry you and not take you to his bed.’

  The irony of his words made her lips tighten. ‘You flatter me,’ she replied without any pleasure. Choosing her words carefully, she studied his expression as she dropped her bombshell. ‘I take it by ‘man’, you mean heterosexual man?’

  Jake’s powerful frame jerked back as her words detonated. When he spoke, each word was a clipped after-shock. ‘Are you telling me Bennett was gay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted on a sigh of relief.

  The truth shall set you free. The adage was correct. Now she’d admitted the truth to Jake she felt she was partway to freedom. Like a dove whose wings were unfolding for the first time, she was ready to leave the shackles of the earth behind her and soar.

  Jake’s brows drew together, unconvinced. ‘Why would he marry you if he was gay? What was in it for him?’

  She placed her palms together in front of her in a brief, subconscious gesture of prayer. The truth of her marriage was stranger than fiction. Would Jake believe it?

  ‘Lloyd desperately wanted to be a judge,’ she said in a rush. ‘He’d been passed over a couple of times and he was sure it was because of rumours of his sexuality.’

  ‘There are a couple of well-known and damned good gay judges in the Supreme Court,’ Jake pointed out. ‘He wouldn’t have been discriminated against.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘I heard from Hugh that Lloyd’s failure to be appointed was nothing to do with his rumoured sexual preference and everything to do with suspicions that he was corrupt.’

  Jake rubbed his jaw with his hand. ‘He represented a few underworl
d figures and won their cases against all the odds. There were whispers of jury tampering. My journalists were investigating that.’

  ‘I inadvertently overheard a telephone conversation of Lloyd’s and from what he said, I’m sure those rumours were true,’ she agreed. ‘But Lloyd was clever and covered his tracks. He remained convinced he was being victimised because of his sexuality. He was sure if he married, he would be appointed as a judge.’

  ‘He married you —’

  ‘As a smokescreen,’ she completed. ‘He told everyone I was pregnant to lend more credibility to our relationship.’

  ‘None of this makes sense. If Bennett thought he was being victimised, why didn’t he sue for discrimination? If it had been true, he probably would’ve won.’

  She sighed. ‘He didn’t want to go public because he was afraid he’d be ostracised by his colleagues.’

  ‘I could list dozens of well-known legal professionals who are gay. None of them have been ostracised,’ Jake argued. ‘In this day and age, the whole idea of Bennett marrying to cover-up his sexuality is crazy.’

  ‘Yes,’ she affirmed quietly. ‘It was crazy but Lloyd couldn’t see that, and at first, caught up in my own misery, I didn’t see that Lloyd was mentally ill. I didn’t realise until after he committed suicide that Lloyd suffered from manic depression.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  She nodded. ‘His behaviour and mood swings were erratic. When he was in the manic part of his disorder he was brilliant—a scintillating conversationalist, but he’d also be easily distracted and aggressive with some delusional ideas. He tore his opponents to shreds in the courtroom, but he was also quite impulsive and he’d prowl the house for hours at night, unable to sleep. Other times he’d become paranoid and depressed over little things. He wouldn’t want to eat or leave the house.’

  ‘Was he diagnosed?’

  ‘He didn’t discuss it with me, but he must have been because he was on medication. After his death, I found a bottle of unused Lithium and some other drugs. I researched them and learned they were mood stabilisers,’ she sighed. ‘I found out his butler, who was also his lover, used to make sure Lloyd took his medication. The thing is, they separated not long before Lloyd’s suicide. When the butler moved out, Lloyd must have stopped taking the tablets. In retrospect I can see that Lloyd’s behaviour spiralled downward from that point. He was in a state of deep depression and paranoia. At the time, I thought it was because he was upset his lover had gone.’