Fugitive Wife

by Miranda Lee

  She was shaking her head at him. 'Do you wonder why? Oh, God forgive you, Gerard. You're even more wicked than I thought. You'd do anything, anything to achieve your selfish ends, wouldn't you?'

  Her distress reached overload and she burst into tears. When Gerard went to take her into his arms, she struck out at him violently, slapping him around his face, his shoulders, his chest, calling him all sorts of horrible names.

  He just stood there taking it, not bothering to protect himself. Finally the horror of what she was doing sank in. She staggered back, eyes wide on the vicious red marks on his cheeks, the blood oozing from the comer of his mouth.

  'Oh...' she groaned. And, whirling, she fled.

  A startled Enid rose from her desk as Leah raced past. 'Leah, wait!' Enid called out.

  'Let her go, Enid,' Gerard said in wearily defeated tones. 'It's hopeless.'

  But Enid did not let her go. She hurried after her employer's distraught wife, joining her in a thankfully empty lift, pressing the 'close doors' button before Leah could protest.

  'I don't want t-to t-talk to you,' Leah sobbed, tears streaming down her face. 'You lied to me when I rang you the other day. You said Gerard was in Brisbane and he wasn't. He was in Broome. And so was Nigel. That's how Gerard got back here so quickly. Because his jet was parked at Broome airport. You told Gerard I was coming today.'

  'I did lie to you the other day, something which I found very difficult. But you took me by surprise and I really had no option. On top of that, at the time, I thought a little white lie was in your best interests. But I didn't lie to you today. I didn't tell Gerard you were coming. Only the Concorde could have got him from Broome to Brisbane quicker than you could jet down from Darwin. He flew out of Broome just after you.'

  Shock had a way of focusing the attention, and drying tears. Leah sniffled and blinked, frowning her puzzlement. 'Then who told him?'

  'Your boss did.'

  'Alan? I don't believe you. My God, was he paying Alan to spy on me?'

  'No, of course not,' Enid said, exasperation in her voice. 'You really do have an exaggerated opinion of Gerard's dark side. Believe me, I do understand that what he did looks bad. But once he thought of it, nothing could sway him. He's a man, you see. And men are given to action rather than words. He didn't seem to appreciate the pitfalls of such a pretence. He just saw a way of redeeming himself in your eyes and grabbed it with both hands.'

  Leah's curiosity was beginning to override her devastation. 'How did he find out I was in Broome in the first place?'

  'One of your brothers told him. Pete. He rang up one day out of the blue, said it was time you either got divorced or talked things through.'

  Leah sighed. She'd never told her brothers the full story. She simply said the marriage hadn't worked out and she had to get away for a while. She'd made them promise not to tell anyone at all where she was while she was overseas and they'd agreed. They'd probably thought that promise no longer applied once she was back on Australian shores.

  'Once Gerard knew where you were, he wanted to go straight to you, but he was worried sick over how you'd receive him. Then he came up with his famous twin plan. I warned him it wouldn't work but he just wouldn't listen.'

  'He told you his plans?' Leah said with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. It came to her suddenly that Enid was looking a lot smarter these days, not the same dowdy middle-aged woman of six months before. She was dressing better and looking much younger.

  'He did,' Enid admitted.

  'Isn't that a little odd?' Leah said stiffly. Gerard had never been one to give confidences.

  'There's no need to concern yourself about your husband and me, Leah. Gerard loves you and only you. But our relationship has changed somewhat since the accident, I have to admit. There again, he's changed. A lot.'

  'I presume you're talking about the car accident with the truck?'

  'Yes. It happened a week after you left, the day the private investigator reported he'd been unable to find any trace of you. Up till then, Gerard had been hard as nails, pretending to me that your leaving him was just a temporary hiccup in your marriage, putting round a silly story that you were unwell, cancelling social invitations on that pretext. But he seemed to suddenly see that you meant what you said, that you were never coming back to him. He broke down. It...it was quite terrible. You have no idea. I tried to stop him driving home that night. I asked him to come to my place. But he wouldn't He said he had to be alone. To think. According to the accident report, witnesses said he ploughed straight into that truck. It wasn't the truck driver's fault.'

  'Oh, no! You mean he...he...?'

  'No, I don't think it was a suicide attempt. I think he was just...distressed and distracted. Nevertheless, he nearly died from a ruptured spleen.'

  'Nearly died?' The words took a few seconds to sink in, but when they did, Leah went white. The thought of Gerard dead was horrendous...as was the reason behind her horror.

  'You still love him, don't you?' Enid said.

  Everything inside Leah welled up to deny it. But in the end she could not For Gerard was Gareth, and Gareth she did love. Impossible to love one side of a person without loving the other.

  'Yes,' she said resignedly. 'Yes, I guess I do.'

  'Then go back and tell him so.'

  'No!'

  'Leah, don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Gerard has learned a lot from your leaving him. He's a changed man. He even contacted his mother. Er...do you know about her yet?' Enid asked hesitantly.

  'Yes, Gareth tol—' Leah broke off, frowning as she recalled all Gerard had told her as Gareth. She remembered how he'd hoped she would be more understanding of his so-called brother's behaviour after she knew his background. But all she'd done was spout more hatred towards him.

  Leah's heart turned over at the thought of her husband sitting there, listening to her vicious vow never to forgive him. It was no wonder he'd felt she would not listen to any explanations he had to offer as himself.

  'Yes,' she admitted unhappily, 'I know about his mother.'

  'That's good. Well, she flew over straight away with her husband and they had a lovely long stay together. She really opened his eyes, I think, to his many misconceptions about women and love. Whatever, I know for a fact that he's missed you terribly. And he has changed, Leah. Give him a chance to show you how much.'

  Leah looked into Enid's honest face and began to appreciate what she was saying. The fact Gerard had gained his secretary's liking and respect was something. She'd seen the way Enid had once looked at him behind his back.

  'Yes,' Enid said, nodding slowly. 'He's won me over. And he's wept on my shoulder. More than once.'

  Leah's eyes rounded. Gerard...weeping? It was an unbelieveable concept.

  'Not that he'd appreciate my telling you that. But a man who can weep for the woman he loves is a man worth going back to, I think. Not that you should make things too easy for him. You must never let men like Gerard take you for granted.'

  Enid smiled encouragingly at Leah as she lifted her hand off the button which had been keeping the lift doors shut. They whooshed open, still at the top floor.

  Leah hesitated.

  'Go on,' Enid urged. 'Go to him.'

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HE WASN'T in his office. He was in the adjoining sitting room, slumped in a corner of the chesterfield, a glass of whisky cradled in his hands.

  'Gerard,' she said, from where she was hovering hesitantly in the open doorway.

  He didn't look up, just swigged back half the amber-coloured liquid. 'Go away, Leah. I'll give you a divorce. And a generous settlement. But for now, just go away.'

  'No. You wanted the chance to explain. You wanted me to try to understand. Well, here I am, and I'm prepared to listen this time. So damn you, Gerard Woodward, you're going to try to explain!'

  His eyes jerked up to stare at her, his wretched face holding a touching mixture of surprise and hope. 'You really mean that?'

 
; Straightening her spine, she strode into the plushly furnished room, crossing the deep-pile carpet to the granite-topped bar in the corner where she poured herself an even bigger whisky than Gerard was downing. 'You'd better believe it,' she said.

  He frowned when she lifted the glass to her lips. 'You don't like whisky.'

  'How do you know? I've changed a lot in the last six months, I've been a lot of places. Done a lot of things. Tried a lot of things. I've moved on from just Chardonnay these days.' To make a point, she took a deep swallow of the whisky, not flinching when it burnt a fiery path down her throat.

  In truth, she had never drunk whisky before, but Leah agreed with Enid on one score. If she and Gerard had a future together she had to take a firm stand and make him see she wasn't prepared to go back to being the amenable little wife type. Or the silly romantic fool who'd been taken in by his super-sweet super-caring alter ego.

  Maybe there was some of Gareth in the new person Enid claimed her boss to be, but there was still a lot of the old Gerard. A true Gareth-type person would never have perpetrated such a deception in the first place. That was a Gerard course of action.

  'I'm waiting for you to begin your explanation,' Leah said as she prowled around the room, sipping her drink.

  'Then for Pete's sake sit down,' he ordered.

  'No,' came her cool refusal, though she compromised by standing still next to the window.

  'I don't know where to start,' he muttered.

  'Anywhere will do.'

  'You're not making this easy for me.'

  'Why should I?'

  'Don't try to be tough, Leah. That's not you.'

  She stared at him across the room with glacial green eyes. 'If this is going to be your attitude, Gerard, then I'm leaving again.'

  When he said nothing, she placed her glass down on the windowsill and headed for the doorway. He was up and blocking her exit in a flash, his face apologetic, his eyes pleading.

  'Don't go, Leah. If you leave me again, I think I'll go mad.'

  'No more mad than I did when I heard you say those terrible things six months ago! How do you think I felt then, Gerard? I was shattered. And then afterwards...when you came upstairs and I couldn't stop you making love to me..I...I...'

  Leah could feel the tears pricking at her eyes, feel the hurt returning. 'I won't ever be like that again, Gerard,' she stated more firmly. 'If you truly love me, you're going to have to earn my love, not to mention my respect. It won't be given mindlessly ever again.'

  He was looking at her with such feeling, and such remorse that Leah almost weakened. Oh, how she ached to throw her arms around him and rest in the warm haven of his strong male body.

  But she didn't.

  And she was glad she didn't.

  'This isn't going to work,' she went on staunchly. 'It's too soon for me to listen to you with an open heart and mind. So I'm going back to Broome, and if you really want me you're going to have to come after me, but as yourself next time. And you're going to have to woo me and win me all over again. You're going to have to prove to me that you've changed, that you want a partner, not a puppet, that being a husband and father is more important to you than making money.'

  'But it is!' he insisted fiercely, and was on his feet, blue eyes ablaze. 'I've hardly spent any time at work since you left me. Most of the time I was recuperating at home, thinking about you and me, about where I went wrong, about what I was going to do if I was ever lucky enough to find you and get you back. You and your love are worth more to me than all the success in the world.'

  'I find that hard to believe, Gerard. You thrive on your work. You live and breathe being an entrepreneur.'

  'Not so much any more. Ask Enid. She and Steve have practically been running Sunshine Enterprises by themselves this last six months. And very adequately too. I won't promise to give up the business entirely. Or go back to architecture. Oh, yes, that was true. I did train as an architect. But I never did like it much. I only went into it because Dad wanted me to. He had some crazy idea about my designing houses and his building them. We were supposed to become millionaires together...'

  His voice trailed off and Leah's heart squeezed tight with sympathy for his suddenly sad eyes. He really had loved his dad.

  'Anyway, being an architect is not for me nowadays,' he went on brusquely. 'But I can promise you I have my priorities firmly in order. Work will never be first with me in future. That place goes to you, and our children.'

  'That's good, Gerard. But they're still just words at the moment. I'm sorry, but words won't do any more. I need proof. So I'm going now. And I don't want you to try to stop me.'

  His eyes narrowed. They were very Gerard-like eyes. 'No kiss goodbye?'

  'Definitely no kiss goodbye.'

  'When's the earliest I'll be welcome in Broome?'

  'I would leave it a while, if I were you.'

  'How long's 'a while'?'

  She smiled a wry smile at him. 'Gerard. Just come when you think the time is right. And when you're prepared to bare your soul to me as well as your body. Okay?'

  'All right.' And he smiled back.

  It was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do, walking away from him. Even harder than leaving him the first time. But she did it. Leah felt proud of herself. She hoped Gerard felt proud of her too.

  The night spent alone in a motel room not far from the airport gave her plenty of time to think. She couldn't go to sleep for starters, too many thoughts tumbling through her head.

  As she lay there, looking back over the last few days, the whole thing seemed so incredible! Yet Gareth being Gerard explained so many of her instinctive reactions to him, not least her instant and intense desire. Her eyes and mind might have been fooled but not her body. It had known its mate instinctively. She'd never stood a chance of holding out on 'Gareth'.

  And Gerard had known that. My God, she'd confessed her sexual vulnerability to him to his face, had told him everything! She'd virtually handed herself to him on a silver platter from that moment.

  As for all those sneaky answers he'd given to her many questions...

  He'd deviously played with words and the truth. Of course he hadn't had a wife hidden back in Brisbane. She'd been sitting right in front of him! And of course Gerard would never have dared ruin Gareth's business, when they were one and the same!

  For a while Leah was stirred by feelings of anger and chagrin over being made a fool of, but gradually any feelings of distress over what Gerard had done gave way to a reluctant admiration. What boldness he had! What daring! What a man!

  Perhaps he had changed, as Enid had said. Perhaps he did really love her. Love was blind, wasn't it? For, let's face it, Leah reasoned. Perpetrating such a deception was an act of manic desperation. Anyone with a brain in their heads could see it had been heading for disaster from the word go. The old Gerard would have relied on his silver tongue to talk his way out of trouble, not plunged in with a mad plan to pretend to his wife to be his own twin brother!

  Leah couldn't help it. She started to laugh.

  By morning she almost went back to see Gerard, stopping herself just in time. Enid was right. Things came to men like Gerard too easily. If she gave in without making him fight for her, he might soon forget to value her love, might start taking her for granted again. That would never do, not after all she'd gone through.

  Still, she had to literally force herself to catch the early-morning flight to Darwin, then the connecting flight to Broome, a slight depression descending by the time she arrived. Already she missed him.

  Missed him?

  Leah frowned as she walked from the small iron-roofed terminal. Which 'him' did she miss? Gerard? Or Gareth?

  Both, she finally accepted. She loved them both.

  She smiled a drily amused smile. Not too many women could say they'd had an affair with their own husband. Yet she had. And she'd enjoyed every exciting and highly erotic second! When Gerard succeeded in winning her back—and Leah didn't doubt he wo
uld—that was one aspect of her marriage which was going to be irrevocably changed. She had no intention of being Gerard's sex-toy wife ever again. They were going to be partners in every aspect of their life, the bedroom included.

  'You're looking pretty satisfied with yourself,' was the first thing Alan said when he picked her up at three-thirty. 'I presume things went well in Brisbane?'

  'Much better than I thought, actually.'

  'You mean the nasty old ex agreed to a divorce without kicking up a fuss?'

  'Well, yes, he did, actually, but...er...um...'

  'Look, there's something I have to tell you before you find out.' Alan interrupted her dithering before she could think of a way to explain the impossible situation. 'I had to tell Gareth where you'd gone. He was out on the point looking for those stupid dinosaur prints when I drove back from the airport. When he saw you weren't with me, he was like a dog with a bone till he got the truth out of me. Sorry.'

  'It's all right, Alan. Gareth was bound to find out sooner or later, believe me.'

  'Yeah, well, that's what I thought. You seeing him later tonight?'

  Leah hesitated. Alan was going to think they were crazy if she told him the truth. Perhaps it would be better if Gareth just quietly disappeared from the scene, to be just as quietly replaced by Gerard when he showed up. 'Er...no, I'm not,' she said. 'Gareth's going back to Brisbane, Alan. It...um...didn't work out between us.'

  'Oh, blow it! I thought you and he looked real good together. But I did warn you, Leah. You should have told him the truth. You know what they say... 'Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!''

  Leah couldn't agree more, though this 'tangled web' was beginning to be a fraction funny. Yet revealing all at this point in time was beyond her. She just couldn't face any more drama today. It had been a long two days. 'Would you mind if we didn't talk about Gareth any more tonight, Alan?' she said wearily. 'I'm pretty tired.'

  'It's just as well we only have the one chap for the cruise tonight, then. He booked a private party, just for himself. Some people have more money than sense, don't they?'