to repeat the mistakes of my past. So, thank you for thinking of me, Rafe. But find someone else to photograph, and to take to dinner, because it isn’t going to be me.’
‘Isabel, please…’
‘No, Rafe,’ she said sternly. ‘I realise you have difficulty in accepting that word, but it’s definitely no. Now I must go. Goodbye.’
And she hung up on him.
Swearing, Rafe slammed down his end of the phone. He’d handled that all wrong. Totally abysmally wrong!
Still, perhaps it was for the best. Isabel wanted marriage. Whereas he most definitely didn’t.
But she was wrong about what he wanted from her. It wasn’t just sex.
Oh, come now, the voice of brutal honesty piped up. It’s always just sex you’re looking for these days. All that other stuff you offer a female is nothing but foreplay. The chit-chat. The photographing. The dinner dates. All with one end in view. Getting whatever pretty woman has taken your eye into bed and keeping her there on and off till you grow bored.
Which you always do in the end. Admit it, man, you’ve become shallow and selfish with women, exactly as Isabel said you were. You haven’t been worth two bob since Liz left you. She stuffed you, buddy. Took away your heart. Isabel was right not to get involved with you. You’re a dead loss to someone like her. Go back to work. That’s the only thing you’re good for. Creating images. Anything real is just too much for you.
He stomped downstairs, still muttering. Till he saw Isabel’s shiny blue cellphone on the hall table. How odd that just seeing something she owned gave him a thrill.
Did he dare still take it back to her?
No, he decided. She’d said no. He had to respect that. He’d post it to her on Monday, as she’d asked.
Feeling more empty and wretched than he had in years, Rafe returned to his darkroom and tried to bury himself in the one thing which had always sustained him, even in his darkest moments.
But, for the second time that day, his precious craft failed to deliver the distraction he craved.
ISABEL groaned. She’d handled that all wrong; talked too much; revealed too much.
Alcohol always made her talkative.
She thanked her stars that she’d pulled herself together towards the end—and that she’d had enough courage to resist temptation.
But oh, she’d wanted to say yes. To everything he’d offered. The photography. The dinner date. Sex after wards, no doubt.
Isabel closed her eyes at the thought.
They sprang open again at another thought. Her mobile!
Would he still post it to her after all she’d said to him? Her assassination of his character had been a bit brutal, even if correct. He hadn’t denied a single word. Okay, so the man did have a sweet side. But how much of that was real? Maybe he’d just learnt that you caught more with honey than with salt.
If he was really sweet, then he’d post her phone back. If not?
Isabel shrugged. She couldn’t worry about a phone. If she never got it back, then she’d report it lost and get another one. After all, she didn’t have to watch her pennies any more. She was an independently wealthy woman now. Or she would be soon.
Luke would be as good as his word. That, she knew.
Isabel wandered down the hallway to her mother’s kitchen, thinking about Luke. Was it possible he might change his mind about this Celia? Or was she simply looking for an excuse not to tell her parents the wedding was off when they came home?
Just the thought of their reaction—especially her mother’s—made Isabel shudder. If she hadn’t been over the drink-driving limit, she’d pack up her car right now and make a bolt for the town house Luke had given her. She had her own set of keys.
Unfortunately, as it was, there was nothing but to stay here and face the music.
The music, as it turned out, was terrible. Her father recovered somewhat after Isabel explained Luke was going to recompense them for everything they’d spent. But her mother could not be so easily soothed, not even when Isabel told her what Luke was doing for her in a financial sense. When Isabel repeated Luke’s suggestion that her parents go on their pre-booked holiday to Dream Island, her mother’s face carried horror.
‘You think I could be happy going on what should have been your honeymoon?’ she exclaimed. ‘No wonder Luke left you for another woman. You have no sensitivity at all! I dare say he worked out that you were only marrying him for his money. So he gave you what you wanted, then looked elsewhere for some genuine love and warmth.’
Isabel was stunned by her mother’s harsh words. ‘You think I was only marrying Luke for his money?’
Her mother flushed, but still looked her straight in the eye. ‘You weren’t in love with the man. That, I know. I’ve seen you in love, girl, and what you felt for Luke wasn’t it. You cold-bloodedly set out to get that man. I didn’t say a word because I thought Luke would make a fine husband and father, and I hoped that you might eventually fall in love with him. You played false with him, Isabel. And you got what you deserved.’
‘Dot, stop it,’ Isabel’s father intervened sharply. ‘What’s done is done. And who knows? Maybe it’s all for the best. Maybe someone better will come along, someone our girl can like and love.’
Isabel gave her father a grateful look. But she was close to tears. And very hurt by her mother’s lack of sympathy and understanding. ‘I…I have to go and ring Rachel,’ she said, desperate to get away from her mother’s hostility. Rachel would at least be on her side.
‘What about everyone else?’ her mother threw after her. ‘Who’s going to make all the other phone calls necessary to cancel everything?’
‘I’ll do all that, Mum.’
‘On our phone?’
Isabel closed her eyes for a second. Phones. They were her nemesis today. ‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘I’ll be moving into the town house Luke gave me tomorrow. I’ll make all the calls from there.’
‘You’re moving out?’ Suddenly, her mother looked wretchedly unhappy.
Isabel sighed. ‘I think I should.’
‘You…you don’t have to, you know,’ her mother said, her voice and chin wobbling. ‘I don’t really care about the phone bill.’
Isabel understood then that her mother had been lashing out from her own hurt and disappointment. She’d always wanted to see her only daughter married. And now that event seemed highly unlikely.
Because her mother was right, Isabel conceded. She had set out to get Luke rather cold-bloodedly, and she simply couldn’t do that again. Which left what? Falling in love with another Mr Wrong?
No!
