he looked at this…stranger…sitting across from him, she bore no resemblance to the woman he’d loved. She’d once been a truly beautiful person, both inside and out. Now she was exactly what she looked like: a woman for hire. Cheap, yet expensive. All he felt was confusion, and curiosity.
What did she see in Carl Toombs that she would do this to herself for him?
‘Why, Mandy?’ he asked. ‘That’s all I want to know. Why?’
‘Why? I would have thought that was obvious, darling. I love the man. It’s as simple as that.’
‘I don’t find that thought simple. One minute you were in love with me and then you were in love with him? What was it about Toombs that you fell in love with? From all accounts, he’s an out-and-out bastard.’
She looked uncomfortable for a second. Then defiant. ‘He’s not all bad. You don’t know him the way I do. Sure, he doesn’t always play life by the rules, but he’s the most exciting man I’ve ever known. I…I can’t live without him, Justin. I’ll go wherever he wants me to go; be whatever he wants me to be; do whatever he wants me to do.’
Justin was appalled. The woman was obsessed. But it wasn’t a healthy obsession. It was dark, and dangerous, and self-destructive. The wonderful girl he’d loved, and married, was gone forever.
‘What exactly are you doing here, Mandy?’ he asked, feeling nothing but sadness for her. ‘I don’t understand…’
‘I came here to apologise. In person. The things I said to you the day I left you. I didn’t mean them. Any of them. I was just trying to make you hate me as much as I hated myself that day. You’d done nothing wrong and, despite everything, I still cared for you very much. But I…I just had to be with Carl.’ Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes but she dashed them away. ‘Silly me. Crying over spilt milk. What’s the point? I am what I am now and nothing will change that.’
‘And what are you now?’ he asked, still having difficulty taking in the change in her.
Her eyes locked onto his and they were nothing like the eyes he remembered. These eyes had seen too much. Done too much.
Her laugh made his skin crawl. ‘I’d show you if I had time, and if your lady friend out there wouldn’t have to go to jail for murder.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘When I came in just now she told me if I said anything to hurt you again she’d kill me.’
‘Rachel said that?’
‘That surprises you?’
‘Did you tell her who you are?’
‘Yes. But she already knew. I could see it in her face. I had the feeling she knew quite a lot about me. You didn’t tell her?’
‘No.’
‘Well, she knows everything,’ Mandy insisted. ‘Trust me on this.’
His mother, he realised with a groan. Yesterday. Or possibly earlier. He shook his head in amazement. ‘She never said a word.’
‘Women in love will do anything not to upset their man.’
Justin stared at her. Was she right? Did Rachel love him? Dear God, he hoped so.
‘Did I tell you how fantastic you’re looking, Justin? How handsome? How sexy? I’m a fool. I know I’m a fool. But my fate is sealed, my darling. Just remember…I loved you once.’ She uncrossed her legs and stood up abruptly. ‘Marry your Rachel, Justin. Marry her and have children and be happy. I must go,’ she added when her eyes filled again. ‘I have a plane to catch.’
She was gone as quickly as she’d come, leaving Justin sitting there, staring after an empty doorway. When Rachel filled that doorway he blinked, then saw how worried she was looking.
‘It’s all right,’ he said reassuringly. ‘She’s gone. For good.’
‘But is she really gone for good, Justin?’
He rose, realising that was why Mandy had come. To set him free; free to love again. She’d taken time out from her not-so-good life to do a really good thing.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, she’s really gone. For good.’
By the time he reached Rachel, she was crying. His heart turned over as he realised she had loved him all along. He drew her into his arms and held her close.
‘We’re going to get married, Rachel,’ he whispered against her hair. ‘We’re going to work together, buy a home together and have children together. Oh, and one more thing. I love you, Rachel. More than I have ever loved before. Much, much more.’
Two months later, Carl Toombs’ yacht was lost in a hurricane near the Bahamas. All on board perished.
Ten months later Justin and Rachel were married, with Rafe as best man and Isabel as matron of honour. Alice minded Isabel’s newborn daughter during the ceremony and the baby didn’t make a peep. Alice was duly voted by the wedding party as chief babysitter for all their future children and ordered never to sell her large home with its large back yard.
She didn’t. And Alice’s home was regularly filled with love and laughter for many years to come.
Miranda Lee
‘SO WHAT would you like in your Christmas stocking, Jessie? I’m going present shopping tomorrow. There’s only just over two weeks till Christmas and I hate leaving things to the last moment.’
Jessie stopped applying her mascara for a second to smile wryly across the kitchen table at her elderly friend—and landlady.
‘Do you know a shop which sells men?’ she asked with a mischievous sparkle in her dark brown eyes.
Dora’s own eyes widened. ‘Men? You told me just ten minutes ago that you thought most men were sleazebags and you were better off without one in your life.’
Jessie shrugged. ‘That was ten minutes ago. Getting myself dolled up like this tonight reminded me of when I was young and carefree and didn’t know the truth about the opposite sex. What I wouldn’t give to be that girl again, just for one night, going out with some gorgeous guy on a hot date.’
‘And if that fantasy came true,’ Dora asked, still with a sceptical expression on her face, ‘where would this gorgeous guy be taking you?’
‘Oh, somewhere really swish for drinks and dinner, then on to a nightclub for some dirty dancing.’ After which he’d whip me back to his bachelor pad and…
This last thought startled Jessie. In all honesty, ever since she’d had Emily, she hadn’t missed
