It had been humiliating. Too humiliating to admit it even now to Ben.
‘Your dad probably got to my letters before you could,’ said Ben. ‘He never approved of me.’
‘That’s not true,’ Sandy stated half-heartedly, knowing she wouldn’t put it past her controlling, righteous father to have intercepted any communication from Ben. In fact she and Ben had decided it was best he not phone her because of her father’s disapproval of the relationship.
‘He’s just a small-town Lothario, Alexandra.’ Her father’s long-ago words echoed in her head. Hardly. Ben had treated her with the utmost respect. Unlike the private school sons of his friends her father had tried to foist on her.
‘Your dad wanted more for you than a small-town fisherman.’ Ben’s blue eyes were shrewd and piercing. ‘And you probably came to agree with him.’
Sandy dropped her gaze and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Over and over her father had told her to forget about Ben. He wasn’t suitable. They came from different worlds. Where was the future for a girl who had academic talents like hers with a boy who’d finished high school but had no intention of going any further?
Underneath it all had been the unspoken message: He’s not good enough for you.
She’d never believed that—not for a second. But she had come to believe there was no future for them.
Inconsolable after their summer together, she’d sobbed into her pillow at night when Ben hadn’t written. Scribbled endless notes to him she’d never had the courage to send.
But he hadn’t got in touch and she’d forced herself to forget him. To get over something that obviously hadn’t meant anything to him.
‘Men make promises they never intend to keep, Alexandra.’ How many times had her mother told her that?
Then, once she’d started university in Sydney, Dolphin Bay and Ben Morgan had seemed far away and less and less important. Her father was right—a surfer boyfriend wouldn’t have fitted in with her new crowd anyway, she’d told herself. Then there’d been other boys. Other kisses. And she’d been too grown up for family holidays at Dolphin Bay or anywhere else.
Still, there remained a place in her heart that had always stayed a little raw, that hurt if she pulled out her memories and prodded at them.
But Ben had written to her.
She swirled the ice cubes round and round in her glass, still unable to meet his eyes, not wanting him to guess how disconcerted she felt. How the knowledge he hadn’t abandoned her teenage self took the sting from her memories.
‘It was a long time ago...’ she repeated, her voice tapering away. ‘Things change.’
‘Yep. Twelve years tends to do that.’
She wasn’t sure if he was talking about her, him, or the town. She seized on the more neutral option.
‘Yes.’ She looked around her, waved a hand to encompass the stark fashionable furnishings. ‘Like this hotel.’
‘What about this hotel?’
‘It’s very smart, but not very sympathetic, is it?’
‘I kinda like it myself,’ he said, and took a drink from his beer.
‘You’re not upset at what the developers did on the site of your family’s beautiful guesthouse?’
‘Like you said. Things change. The guesthouse has...has gone forever.’
He paused and she got the impression he had to control his voice.
‘But this hotel and all the new developments around it have brought jobs for a lot of people. Some say it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the place.’
‘Do you?’
Sandy willed him to say no, wanting Ben to be the same carefree boy who’d lived for the next good wave, the next catch from the fishing boats he’d shared with his father, but knew somehow from the expression on his face that he wouldn’t.
But still his reply came as a surprise. ‘I own this hotel, Sandy.’
‘You...you do?’
‘Yep. Unsympathetic design and all.’
She clapped her hand to her mouth but she couldn’t take back the words. ‘I’m...I’m so sorry I insulted it.’
‘No offence taken on behalf of the award-winning architect.’
‘Really? It’s won awards?’
‘A stack of ’em.’
She noted the convivial atmosphere at the bar, the rapidly filling tables. ‘It’s very smart, of course. And I’m sure it’s very successful. It’s just...the old place was so charming. Your mother was so proud of it.’
‘My parents left the guesthouse long ago. Glad to say goodbye to the erratic plumbing and the creaking floorboards. They built themselves a comfortable new house up on the headland when I took over.’
Whoa. Surprise on surprise. She knew lots must have changed in twelve years, but this? ‘You took over the running of the guesthouse?’ Somehow, she couldn’t see Ben in that role. She thought of him always as outdoors, an action man—not indoors, pandering to the whims of guests.
‘My wife did.’
His wife.
The words stabbed into Sandy’s heart.
His wife.
If she hadn’t already been sitting down she would have had to. Stupidly, she hadn’t considered—not for one minute—that Ben would be married.
She shot a quick glance at his left hand. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but then plenty of married men didn’t. She’d learned that lesson since she’d been single again.
‘Of course. Of course you would have married,’ she babbled, forcing her mouth into the semblance of a smile.
She clutched her glass so tightly she feared it would shatter. Frantically she tried to mould her expression into something normal, show a polite interest in an old friend’s new life.
‘Did you...did you marry someone from around here?’
‘Jodi Hart.’
Immediately Sandy remembered her. Jodi, with her quiet manner and gentle heart-shaped face. ‘She was lovely,’ she said, meaning every word while trying not to let an unwarranted jealousy flame into life.
‘Yes,’ Ben said, and a muscle pulled at the side of his mouth, giving it a weary twist.
His face seemed suddenly drawn under the bronze of his tan. She was aware of lines etched around his features. She hadn’t noticed them in the first flush of surprise at their meeting. Maybe their marriage wasn’t happy.
Ben drummed his fingers on the surface of the table. Again her eyes were drawn to the scars on his hands. Horrible, angry ridges that made her wince at the sight of them.
‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you marry?’
Sandy shook her head. ‘Me? Marry? No. My partner...he...he didn’t believe in marriage.’
Her voice sounded brittle to her own ears. How she’d always hated that ambiguous term partner.
‘“Just a piece of paper,” he used to say.’ She forced a laugh and hoped it concealed any trace of heartbreak. ‘Sure made it easy when we split up. No messy divorce or anything.’
No way would she admit how distraught she’d been. How angry and hurt and humiliated.
His jaw clenched. ‘I’m sorry. Did—?’
She put her hand up to stop his words. ‘Thank you. But there’s no point in talking about it.’ She made herself smile. ‘Water under the bridge, you know.’
It was six months since she’d last seen Jason. And that had only been to pay him for his half of the sofa they’d bought together.
Ben looked at her as if he were searching her face for something. His gaze was so intense she began to feel uncomfortable. When—at last—he spoke, his words were slow and considered.
‘Water under the bridge. You’re right.’
‘Yes,’ she said, not sure what to say next.
After another long, awkward pause, he glanced at his watch. ‘It’s be
en great to see you, Sandy. But I have a meeting to get to.’ He pushed back his chair and got up.
‘Of course.’ She wanted to put out a hand to stop him. There was more she wanted to ask him. Memories she wanted to share. But there was no reason for him to stay. No reason for him to know it was her birthday and how much she would enjoy his company for lunch.
He was married.
Married men did not share intimate lunches alone with former girlfriends, even if their last kiss had been twelve years ago.
She got up, too, resisting the urge to sigh. ‘It was wonderful to catch up after all these years. Please...please give my regards to Jodi.’
He nodded, not meeting her eyes. Then indicated the menu. ‘Lunch is on the house. I’ll tell the desk you’re my guest.’
‘You really don’t have to, Ben.’
‘Please. I insist. For...for old times’ sake.’
She hesitated. Then smiled tentatively. ‘Okay. Thank you. I’m being nostalgic but they were good old times, weren’t they? I have only happy memories of Dolphin Bay.’ Of the time we spent together.
She couldn’t kiss him goodbye. Instead she offered her hand for him to shake.
He paused for a second, then took it in his warm grip, igniting memories of the feel of his hands on her body, the caresses that had never gone further than she’d wanted. But back then she hadn’t felt the hard ridges of those awful scars. And now she had no right to recall such intimate memories.
Ben was married.
‘I’m sorry I was rude about your hotel,’ she said, very seriously. Then she injected a teasing tone into her voice. ‘But I’ll probably never stop wondering why you destroyed the guesthouse. And those magnificent gum trees—there’s not one left. Remember the swing that—?’
Ben let go her hand. ‘Sandy. It was just a building.’
Too late she realised it wasn’t any of her business to go on about the guesthouse just because she was disappointed it had been demolished.
‘Ben, I—’
He cut across her. ‘It’s fine. That was the past, and it’s where it should be. But it really has been great seeing you again...enjoy your lunch. Goodbye, Sandy.’
‘Good-goodbye, Ben,’ she managed to stutter out, stunned by his abrupt farewell, by the feeling that he wasn’t being completely honest with her.
Without another word he turned from her, strode to the exit, nodded towards the people at the bar, and closed the door behind him. She gripped the edge of the table, swept by a wave of disappointment so intense she felt she was drowning in it.
What had she said? Had she crossed a line without knowing it? And why did she feel emptier than when she’d first arrived back in Dolphin Bay? Because when she’d written her birthday resolutions hadn’t she had Ben Morgan in mind? When she’d described a kind man, free of hang-ups and deadly ambition, hadn’t she been remembering him? Remembering how his straightforward approach to life had helped her grow up that summer? Grow up enough to defy her father and set her own course.
She was forced to admit to herself it wasn’t the pier or the guesthouse she’d wanted to be the same in Dolphin Bay. It was the man who represented the antithesis of the cruel, city-smart man who had hurt her so badly.
In her self-centred fantasy she hadn’t given a thought to Ben being married—just to him always being here, stuck in a time warp.
A waitress appeared to clear her glass away, but then paused and looked at her. Sandy wished she’d put her sunglasses back on. Her hurt, her disappointment, her anger at herself, must be etched on her face.
The waitress was a woman of about her own age, with a pretty freckled face and curly auburn hair pulled back tightly. Her eyes narrowed. ‘I know you,’ she said suddenly. ‘Sandy, right? Years ago you came down from Sydney to stay at Morgan’s Guesthouse.’
‘That’s right,’ Sandy said, taken aback at being recognised.
‘I’m Kate Parker,’ the woman said, ‘but I don’t suppose you remember me.’
Sandy dredged through her memories. ‘Yes, I do.’ She forced a smile. ‘You were the best dancer I’d ever seen. My sister and I desperately tried to copy you, but we could never be as good.’
‘Thanks,’ Kate replied, looking pleased at the compliment. She looked towards the door Ben had exited through. ‘You dated Ben, didn’t you? Poor guy. He’s had it tough.’
‘Tough?’
‘You don’t know?’ The other woman’s voice was almost accusing.
How would she know what had gone on in Ben Morgan’s life in the twelve years since she’d last seen him?
‘Lost his wife and child when the old guesthouse burned down,’ Kate continued. ‘Jodi died trying to rescue their little boy. Ben was devastated. Went away for a long time—did very well for himself. When he came back he built this hotel as modern and as different from the old place as could be. Couldn’t bear the memories...’
Kate Parker chattered on, but Sandy didn’t wait to hear any more. She pushed her chair back so fast it fell over and clattered onto the ground. She didn’t stop to pull it up.
She ran out of the bar, through the door and towards the steps to the shoreline, heart pumping, face flushed, praying frantically to the god of second chances.
Ben.
She just had to find Ben.
Copyright © 2014 by Kandy Shepherd
ISBN-13: 9781460325735
HEIRESS ON THE RUN
Copyright © 2014 by Sophie Pembroke
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Heiress on the Run (Harlequin Romance) Page 18
