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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
1
ZOE DIDN’T HAVE ONE hint of premonition as she stepped out of her office building and headed for her lunchtime meeting with Drake. Everything seemed wonderful in her world.
At long last.
Five years it had been since she’d come to Sydney from the country, a plump naive twenty-year-old with so many hopes and dreams. What a learning curve that first year had been! Hard to think about some of the things which had happened to her without wincing. Greg was the worst memory. What a louse he’d turned out to be!
Still, she’d survived, hadn’t she? And she’d come through it with even more determination than ever to make a success of her life, to become the woman she’d always wanted to be.
Okay, so it had taken her another four years of driving and depriving herself, of crummy day jobs and endless night schools; of diets and grueling workouts at the gym.
But it had been worth it, hadn’t it? she told herself as she strode down George Street in the direction of the harbor. She looked pretty darned good, even if she said so herself. She had a challenging job, a fab place to live, and best of all, she’d finally landed herself one fantastic boyfriend.
Drake was everything she’d ever dreamed about. Not only was he tall, dark and handsome, he was a success at his job and had money to burn. His most wonderful feature, however, was that he was mad about her.
Sometimes, she could hardly believe her luck.
They’d met four months ago when he’d been selling her boss a plush inner-city apartment. That was Drake’s job, selling apartments in the high-rise buildings which had been mushrooming up all over Sydney’s central business district, capitalizing on the growing number of professionals who wanted to live near the city and didn’t care what they paid for the privilege. Drake had literally made a fortune in commissions and had been able to afford to buy one of those same luxury apartments for himself.
He’d asked Zoe out the very first day they’d met, claiming later it was love at first sight. Zoe had been a little wary at first—once bitten, definitely twice shy—but it wasn’t long before Drake was the main focus of her life. Gone were the long lonely weekends. Gone, the depressing moments when she wondered what on earth she was doing with her life. Gone, the fear that she would never experience the sort of love and romance every girl dreamed of experiencing.
Gone. Gone. Gone!
Zoe glanced at her watch when the lights at the next intersection turned red. Twenty-three minutes past twelve.
She frowned.
It was normally only a ten-minute walk from her building down to the Rocks area and the restaurant where she regularly met Drake for lunch. The Rockery was his favorite harborside eating place, a trendy little bistro on the upper floor of a converted warehouse. He’d said to meet him there right on twelve-thirty today and not to be late, because he only had an hour.
Drake hated being kept waiting, even for a few minutes. Zoe supposed this impatience came from being a perfectionist. And a planner. She was a bit like that herself.
It seemed ages before the lights turned green again. Zoe hurried across the street, her heart racing for fear of being late. But she made it down to the restaurant with three minutes to spare.
Fortunately, Drake had not yet arrived so she made a dash to the ladies’ room for repairs, where her reflection in the mirror showed a perspiration-beaded forehead and wind-ruffled hair.
That was the trouble with walking. Still, it only took a few strokes of her brush and a fluff-up with her fingers to make her hair fall back into its chic auburn-tinted, shoulder-length, multi-layered, face-framing style. She’d had it cut and colored by one of Sydney’s top hairdressers, who charged a small fortune. But the end result was well worth the money.
Admittedly, she had to rise almost an hour earlier every morning to get ready for work these days. Blow-drying her willfully wavy hair straight was not a quick process. Neither was applying the sort of makeup which covered every flaw, looked almost natural and didn’t require constant touch-ups during the day.
Except when you sprinted down George Street on a warm summer’s day.
A swift dabbing of translucent powder over her slightly melted foundation, a refreshing of her lipstick, and she was ready.
Another glance at her watch showed she was now officially one minute late. When she emerged Zoe groaned to find Drake already sitting at their regular table by the window, tapping his fingers on the crisp white tablecloth.
Darn, darn and double darn!
Dredging up a bright smile, Zoe hurried toward him. His head swiveled her way, his dark eyes definitely displeased. Zoe couldn’t help some exasperation of her own. Truly, anyone would think he’d been waiting half an hour instead of a couple of minutes at best.
She mouthed an apology as she approached and his scowl metamorphed into a marvelous smile, his eyes full of admiration as they raked over her slender gym-honed body, encased that day in a chic black-and-white silk shift dress.
Zoe’s inner tension vanished in an instant. She loved it when he looked at her like that; like she was the most beautiful girl in the world.
Yet she knew she wasn’t. She’d simply worked very hard on her body and learned how to make the best of herself.
Drake, she realized with a sudden flash of insight, was of a similar ilk. Although attractive, he had several physical flaws which he’d learned to hide, or which you didn’t notice once he turned his charm on full wattage, as he was doing now. His dazzling smile and dancing black eyes distracted from the fact his nose was too large and his lips a bit on the thin side. The superbly tailored suits he always wore masked his less-than-perfect frame, providing broader shoulders than he actually possessed. Although he did weights in the gym and was very fit and toned, Drake did not have a great natural shape.
Not that Zoe cared. She would have been the last person on earth to judge anyone by their body alone.
“Now that’s a sight worth waiting for,” he complimented warmly, rising to go ‘round and pull out her chair for her.
“I really was here on time,” she said as she sat down. “But the wind had done dreadful things to my hair.”
“Looks perfect to me. There again,” he added on his return to his own chair, his gaze still appreciative, “you always look perfect to me.”
Zoe laughed. “You should see me first thing in the morning.”
One of his dark brows arched. “But I have, haven’t I? And I can testify you look even more beautiful then.”
Zoe smiled a little sheepishly at this particular compliment. That was because she always crept into the bathroom before he woke up and fixed her face and hair before slipping back into his bed.
Her fear of Drake seeing her at less than her physical best was deep, and probably irrational, given that he truly loved her. But she couldn’t help it. Goodness knew what she would do if he ever asked her to have a shower with him!
“They say love is blind,” she quipped.
“I don’t think so. Not with me, anyway. When I look at you, I know exactly what I see. The perfect woman. You’re beautiful. Smart. Sexy. But best of all, you know what you want in life and are prepared to work hard to get it. You’ve no idea how attractive I find that.” He reached over the table and picked up her left hand, stroking its perfectly manicured fingers. “I’m crazy about you, Zoe.”
Her heart melted as it always did when he told her things like that. “And I’m crazy about you,” she returned softly.
“Then why won’t you move in with me?”
Zoe smothered a sigh. This was the second time Drake had brought this subject up.
The offer was flattering, she supposed, but not what she wanted at this time in her life. Zoe had just discovered dating and romance, and she didn’t want to give it up just yet. She knew what happened when people started living together. Soon, they were taking each other for granted or arguing about the housework.
Alternatively, the girl did everything then resented her boyfriend like mad. Zoe had been an unpaid, unappreciated housekeeper for her father for several years, and once was enough!
But she could hardly tell Drake that. It would sound…selfish.
“Drake, look, I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I love you to death. And I love the time we spend together. But I’d rather leave things as they are for now. I mean…we haven’t known each other all that long, have we? And living with each other is a very big step.”
His lips pressed tightly together and Zoe felt a moment of panic. Was this it? Was he going to dump her, just because she wouldn’t live with him?
Drake eventually cocked his head on one side and smiled a wry smile. “Is this your way of playing hard to get again?”
Zoe blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it took me two months to get you into bed. That’s a record, believe me. I was beginning to think you were frigid.”
Zoe suspected her refusal to sleep with Drake had only made him keener, but she honestly hadn’t been playing a game. The truth was her relationship with the ghastly Greg had left her with a host of insecurities and an appalling self-body image. Despite now having a figure most women would envy, she’d still needed to be endlessly pursued and flattered by Drake before feeling confident enough to expose herself physically to him.
He’d finally succeeded in seducing her, courtesy of two bottles of wine over dinner, two hours of foreplay and umpteen declarations of devoted and undying love for her.
Being frigid hadn’t been the issue at all.
Of course, Zoe had to concede she wasn’t crash-hot in bed. How could she be when her only other experience had been with a wham-bang-thank-you-ma’am kind of man? Drake’s well-practiced technique in bed had been a real eye-opener. When she’d even had an orgasm that first night, she’d been over the moon.
Unfortunately, once she returned to being stone-cold sober, having a climax during sex became as scarce as chocolate éclairs in her diet.
Not Drake’s fault of course. He was a wonderful lover. Attentive and tender and romantic, always doing and saying the right things. The blame lay entirely with her. Once naked, she always worried too much about what she looked like. Exercise and dieting might have gotten rid of the fat and the flab, but not those wretched old tapes playing in her head.
Thinking negative thoughts about herself was obviously a killer when it came to coming.
When her not having orgasms began to bother Drake, Zoe did the only thing a sensible girl in love could do. She started faking them. After all, why should Drake have to feel guilty or inadequate when the inadequacies were all hers?
And who knew? Maybe one day, when she felt really relaxed and not the result of an alcoholic coma; when all her old doubts and fears had been firmly routed, she would come like clockwork. ‘Til then, Zoe wasn’t going to stress over one small imperfection in their relationship which had nothing whatsoever to do with Drake and everything to do with her own personal physical hang-ups.
“Have you ordered?” she asked, deftly changing the subject away from moving in with him.
“First thing I did.”
The drinks waiter appeared on cue, with a glass of chilled Chardonnay for Zoe and Drake’s usual lunchtime liquid of mineral water. He never drank when he had to return to work.
“I’ve ordered the food, too,” he added when Zoe went to pick up the menu.
“Oh.” Zoe tried not to feel irritated, because once again, she only had herself to blame. During her first half dozen dinner dates with Drake, she’d always deferred to his greater knowledge of wine and food, and now, he often presumed to order for her.
“I couldn’t wait for you to arrive,” he said, perhaps seeing her slight annoyance. “I told you. I don’t have much time. I have to pick up a client at the Hyatt at one-thirty. Businessman from Hong Kong. Wants a penthouse smack-dab in the middle of Sydney. Money no object.”
“Wow. Sounds like a good prospect.”
“You can say that again. Sydney’s moved up a notch in popularity since the Olympics. And why not? It’s the best city in the world. And the most beautiful.”
“You don’t have to sell me on Sydney,” Zoe commented. “I love the place. Just look at that view.” From where she was sitting, Zoe could see the Opera House on her right and the bridge on her left. Straight ahead, a sleek white cruiser was slicing through the sparkling blue waters, its decks filled with photo-snapping tourists.
Zoe was sipping her wine and admiring the view herself when she heard Drake suck in sharply, as though in shock.
Her eyes snapped back to find him staring at something—or someone. She heard him mutter under his breath.
Zoe swiveled ‘round in her chair to see firsthand the object of Drake’s agitation.
She was blond, and she was heading their way.
Zoe didn’t recognize the woman and she would have, if they’d met before. Stunning six-foot blondes with double-D-cup breasts were hard to forget.
“Well, well, well,” the blond bombshell said with a saccharine smile as she stopped beside their table. It took a moment for her impressive cleavage to jiggle to a halt. “If it isn’t Drake Carson, the man of a thousand lines and even more broken promises. Sorry to interrupt, honey,” she directed at Zoe, “but Drake and I have some unfinished business. You did say you’d call, didn’t you, lover? I mean, I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since the conference, but I was beginning to think you hadn’t found me quite so special after all. Surely you aren’t one of those creeps who lie their teeth out to get a girl into bed, the type who thinks they can do what they like when they go away, without any consequences and without the little woman back home finding out?”
Drake glowered at her but said nothing.
Zoe felt like a big black pit had yawned underneath her chair and she was about to fall in. Drake had gone to a sales and marketing conference in Melbourne just two weeks earlier. He’d rung her every night of the three days he’d been away, saying how much he’d missed her.
She stared at him, wanting to believe this woman was some crazed jealous troublemaker intent on breaking them up for her own devious reasons. But the cornered guilt on Drake’s face simply could not be ignored. Or denied.
“Oh, so you are one of those creeps?” the blonde taunted. “Well, I never! Aren’t you lucky I’m not a vengeful bitch like that blond chick in that movie? What was it? Fatal Attraction? I mean, the way I see it, if a guy’s a liar and a cheat, I don’t really want any more to do with him.” She turned back to face Zoe. “Gee, honey, you’re looking a little pale. Don’t tell me you’re the little woman back home. What a shame. And you look real nice, too. Poor you. ‘Bye, ‘bye, Drake. Have a nice day.”
Zoe watched, dry-mouthed, as the blonde stalked back to where a tall, elderly man was waiting for her near reception. He was frowning like he didn’t now what was going on. The blonde whispered something to him, took his arm and they both left.
Drake still hadn’t said a single word, but his eyes told it all.
Zoe felt sick. And stunned. And shattered.
“You slept with her, didn’t you?” she choked out. “At the Melbourne conference.”
“It wasn’t like she said,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.
“Then how was it?” Zoe heard herself ask in a cold flat voice. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her again. She could have sworn that Drake was nothing like Greg; that he truly loved her; that their relationship was not just a cruel joke.
His eyes lifted from the tablecloth. Panicky, pleading eyes. “God, Zoe, don’t look at me like that. I love you, darling. Honest.”
She winced at the darling. “Then you have a funny way of showing it,” she bit out, “making love to another woman.”
“But I didn’t make love to her. You’re the only woman I make love to. It was just sex. It meant nothing. She meant nothing.”
Zoe despised men who said things like that. “She obviously thought she did,” she pointed out tartly, “or she wouldn’t have been so hurt.”
“Don’t bet on it,” he countered, his cheeks flushed with anger. “Some women are right bitches. Believe me, she knew the score. She knew it was just a one-night stand right from the start, and now, for her own warped reasons, she’s pretending it was something else.”
Zoe shook her head which was a bad move. It was already spinning. “How can you possibly be in love with me and go to bed with another woman? How?”
Drake began to look belligerent, as he did when someone expressed an opinion different to his own. “I told you. It was just sex. There’s a big difference. Love and sex don’t always have to go together, Zoe. I thought you’d know that by now. You’re not a baby. You’re twenty-five years old. Hey, Zoe, try to understand.” His hands lifted to rake through his thick black hair. They were actually trembling.
For the first time since that blonde dropped her bombshell, Zoe began to believe that Drake might love her, despite everything.
“I’m sorry,” he went on urgently. “More sorry than you can ever imagine. But it wasn’t like she said. I’m not some kind of serial sleazebag. I was just weak for a moment. You’re the one I love, Zoe. Too much perhaps. I was missing you terribly and wanting you like mad. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and it got me so darned horny. It happened on the last night of the conference. We’d all been drinking heavily.”
“You never drink at all when socializing at work,” she reminded him with a rush of anger, not wanting to be soothed by excuses and explanations. Didn’t he understand what he’d done? He could call it whatever he liked but he’d still been intimate with another woman. And whispered sweet nothings in her ear while he’d been doing it.
Perhaps that hurt even more than his actual physical betrayal. The things he must have said.
“The conference was virtually over,” he continued explaining. “I didn’t have to drive anywhere so I let my hair down for once. Look, she threw herself at me. Followed me into the elevator at the end of the night. Practically ravished me then and there. I hated myself afterward, but what can I say? I’m not a saint. I’m just a man. I made a mistake. I’m so terribly sorry, Zoe. I never meant to hurt you. I never thought you’d find out.”
“Obviously.” She could no longer look at him. All she could think about now was that blonde and him, doing it in an elevator of all places. How tacky!
“Don’t be like that, Zoe. Try to understand.”
“I don’t think I can,” she said wretchedly. Which meant there was nothing left to do but to split up with Drake. She’d vowed after Greg that she’d never put up with a man treating her badly ever again. Which was why she’d been manless and dateless for almost four long years.
Still, the thought of going back to a single lifestyle made her shudder. She didn’t want to be that lonely ever again. She’d thought she never would be. She thought she had Drake. She thought after a couple of years of their being girlfriend and boyfriend, they’d eventually get married and have kids and live happily ever after.
A sob broke from her throat, tears stinging her eyes.
Drake groaned. “Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry. If you forgive me,” he urged, reaching over the table and grabbing her hands, “it won’t ever happen again. I promise.”
A sudden and overwhelming wave of bitterness had Zoe yanking her hands away from his. “And what happens the next time you’re at a conference, and some sexy-looking blonde with big boobs throws herself at you?”
“I’ll know what I’m risking if I go with her, so I won’t.”
Zoe stared at him with pained confusion in her eyes. “But you’d still want to?”
He groaned again. “For pity’s sake, Zoe. I’m only thirty years old. I’m a normal red-blooded male in his sexual prime. Loving you doesn’t mean I won’t ever be physically attracted to another woman ever again. That’s unrealistic and unnatural. But I give you my word, I will never act on any such attraction ever again.”
Zoe stared at him. She wanted to believe him. She really did.
But then she thought of that blonde and what she had said in parting.
Poor you.
“I think,” she said tautly, “that I’ll skip lunch and go for a walk. I need some fresh air. And time to think.”
“Please don’t do that, Zoe. Stay and talk to me.”
Zoe shook her head then bent to pick up her handbag. Staying and talking to Drake was the last thing she should do. He was too good a talker. Too good a salesman. Perhaps too good a liar.
“We can work this out, Zoe,” he insisted. “Truly we can. I don’t want to lose you, darling. I love you. And I know you love me.”
She glared at him. “Yes, but your idea of love and my idea of love are poles apart. I know I would never have done what you did. Never, no matter what the circumstances.”
“Isn’t there anything I can say to make you understand?”
“Not right now.”
“What about later?”
“Leave it for today, Drake.”
“I can’t. I’ll call ‘round tonight after you get home from work.”
“If you must.”
“I must. I won’t let you go, Zoe. I mean it.”
“I know you do,” she said. Which was another reason why she needed to get away from him. Because she feared Drake would talk her into forgiving him without her ever understanding what had happened, and why? Love was a very weakening emotion. In a woman, anyway.
She stood up just as the waiter arrived with their meals. For a split second, Zoe was tempted to stay and shovel every morsel of the delicious-looking food down her throat.
Misery always made her hungry.
But being overweight had made her even more miserable, so she knew there would be no comfort for her there. No comfort in Drake’s presence, either. She wanted to strangle him for doing this to her, for spoiling everything, for being a typical male.
She’d thought he was different. Deeper.
But he wasn’t.
“I have to go,” she said raggedly, and fled.
2
ZOE DIDN’T GO for a walk. When she felt more tears threatening, she headed straight back for the office, making it to the downstairs lobby of the multi-storyed building in six minutes flat. She kept a tight grip on herself in the ride up in the elevator, since she wasn’t alone, but could feel her control slipping by the time the doors whooshed back on the twelfth floor.
Unfortunately, the rooms which housed Phillips & Cox, Attorneys at Law, were right down the end of a corridor along which more people were coming and going. It was lunchtime, after all.
Crying was not an option ‘til she had total privacy.
Clenching her jaw to keep her chin from quivering, Zoe launched herself down the gray-carpeted hallway, delivering a plastic smile whenever she passed an acquaintance.
Finally, she made it, only to find that June, their receptionist, was eating lunch at her desk, instead of in the café downstairs, as she usually did.
“What are you doing back so early?” June probed when Zoe walked back in. “Weren’t you supposed to be having lunch with the boyfriend down at the Rockery?”