‘It’s quite lovely, Max.’ But too late. ‘Unfortunately if you married me you’d be committing bigamy. You’re already married to Bella Lucia.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘Is it? Really?’ She considered trying to explain. That she wasn’t turning him down just for herself, but for him, too. That forcing him to put her first was hurting him as much as always coming a poor second was hurting her. They were bad for each other. But it was too late. She was too tired. And he wouldn’t believe her anyway. Better to keep it simple…‘You did understand what I said on the last occasion you stood me up? You do recall asking for one last chance?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But?’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t bother to answer that, Max. There is no “us”.’
‘If you’d been there…’he said, a little desperately. Then, angry at being backed into a corner, ‘I don’t know what you expect-’
‘I expect nothing from a man who would put business before life.’ Her throat was beginning to ache. The words were becoming harder. ‘Of a man who is incapable of doing anything else.’
It was why she hadn’t leapt in with an eager ‘yes’ the instant he’d asked her to marry him, she understood that now. Some inner sense of self-preservation had come to her rescue. The small, still voice of common sense telling her that, no matter what he said, he could never change. That she would always be waiting for him to turn up. To a party, their marriage, the rest of their lives.
If she’d made a promise to him nothing short of an act of God would have stopped her from delivering on it, but there was no point in telling him that. All that remained now was pride. The need to walk away with her head high.
‘What we had was great while it lasted, Max, but if we’re honest it was just sex. Steamy, memorable sex, but nothing more than the gratification of old desires.’ The casually dismissive words seemed to be coming from someone else. ‘Curiosity satisfied, ghosts laid,’ she said. ‘Now, we can both move on.’
‘No! I don’t want to move on. I love you!’
‘Need, desire…’
Love was something else. Something more. It was because she loved him that she couldn’t stay with him. Knowing that each time he let her down he’d feel more guilt…
Another minute, she begged, enough strength for just one more minute…
She hadn’t needed a ring, or even for him to say the words. The words meant nothing. ‘I love you’ was in what you did, the way you treated someone.
This was how James must have felt, she realised. Maybe she deserved this numbing blow to her heart that, for the moment, left her beyond feeling. She should be grateful for that reprieve, however short. The pain would come soon enough, but it was a familiar heartache. She’d lived with it before. Through all the years when he was out of reach. She could live with it again. For the moment all she asked was the strength to finish it without falling apart and she crossed to the door, opened it, a silent invitation to leave.
For a long moment Max didn’t move. He just looked at her with the bewildered expression of a child who’d been shouted at and didn’t know why.
He just didn’t get it. Never would…
‘Please…’ she said.
It sounded too much like a plea, too weak and in two strides he was beside her. For a moment she thought he was going to seize her, kiss her as he had before when she’d been on the point of walking away. But this time he just stood there, looking at her as if he was imprinting her image on his brain. Or maybe that was her, taking one last look…
‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’ he asked, finally. ‘At six-thirty?’
Business as usual? Was he serious?
It was too much…
‘You will be there?’ he pressed when she didn’t answer.
She shook her head, but he didn’t take it as a refusal, only as an admission that she didn’t know.
‘You’re exhausted,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’ And then he walked through the door she was not so much holding open as clinging to, down the stairs, out of her apartment. Out of her life.
It was all she could do not to call him back but she hung onto her sanity just long enough to hear the street door close. To close and lock her own front door.
It was only when she heard his car start, pull away from the kerb, that all the bottled up emotion shattered and she picked up her answering machine and hurled it at the wall, where it broke in a dozen pieces, along with her heart.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MAX left because she’d given him no other option. Louise had somehow managed to blank herself off from him, put herself some place far beyond the flare-up of temper that would have worked for him. He could have used her passion to break her down, bring her into his arms, but she’d put up a wall of ice to keep him out.
That in her own living room at close to two o’clock in the morning, she’d been wearing high heels, a dress he knew she’d have discarded for the comfort of her wrap the minute she’d got home, told him that it was deliberate. That she was playing a part.
The fact that she was still awake, clearly hadn’t even thought about bed, bothered him more. She hadn’t removed her make-up, and her hair was pinned up in that sexy way that suggested all it would take was one pin to bring it all tumbling down in his hands.
It all suggested that sleep had been the last thing on her mind. That she had more important things to do…
He pulled over, turned in his seat to look back. Her light was still on and for a moment he was tempted to go back, do anything, promise anything…
No.
She’d made it clear that she thought his promises were meaningless, and she was right. He’d been making promises to her all his life and then letting her down.
He needed to think about that. Really think about it before he could go back, attempt to change her mind, convince her that he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. He had to ask himself not what he wanted, but what Louise wanted from their relationship. And why he wasn’t giving it to her.
She’d told him all he needed to know, but, convinced that the proposal was nothing more than formality, he hadn’t bothered to use the information. Analyse it. Hadn’t listened to what she’d been telling him.
What three words would you use to describe yourself…?
Driven. Dumb. Dumped.
Louise went back to her packing. Concentrating on folding, packing. It took a while. She’d need suits as well as holiday clothes for this trip.
The last time she’d gone to Melbourne, she’d been running away from one family, searching for a new one. This time was different. This time she was reclaiming her life from a crippling obsession that had held her in its thrall since childhood hero-worship of Max had changed into something out of reach. Ultimately destructive.
She should have had a husband, children of her own by now, but there was no going back.
She didn’t have a family of her own and it seemed unlikely that she ever would have. But she did have a thriving business and a talented assistant whom she was ready to make a partner.
Gemma could bring in a junior, continue to run the London office. She, in the meantime, would concentrate on expanding her own business. Stop scanning the horizon for something, someone, who would never be there.
Her phone began to ring. It was the airline confirming her seat on the evening flight out of London Heathrow.
That was something her contact at the diary page of the Courier would be interested in, she thought. An unmistakable message that even Max would understand.
And a kindness. In his anger, he’d blame her. She didn’t want him to feel guilty. He was how he was. He
