“Because …because you couldn’t have children of your own?” Jane answered weakly, sounding unsure and confused.
“That was what I told Leonard.” The words were laced with utter contempt for his belief in her act of deceit. “The truth was I didn’t want to spoil my figure with a pregnancy. Having a great body and giving him great sex was how I’d got Leonard to shed his first wife and marry me. I wasn’t about to let some other cow take him from me the same way, but you never know with men. So I needed to tie him up with children, ensure that if he ever thought of dumping me it would cost him bigtime. And to find now, it’s all been for nothing …” She gnashed her teeth in disgust.
“Hardly nothing. You do get four million dollars,” Sally reminded her, feeling a huge tide of disgust herself. All these years … she and Jane had been nothing but an insurance policy to the woman who had adopted them. Not daughters. Just assets to be cashed in if her marriage didn’t last the distance. No doubt they were now liabilities to be shed.
“Peanuts!” Her eyes glowered a warning at both of them. “And I’ll need every cent of it to set me up and look attractive to another man of means.”
No grown-up daughters in that scene! And no financial support would be forthcoming for either of them. “I imagine a fashionable apartment in Sydney would be a first step,” Sally put forward, testing for a fuller picture.
“Yes,” her mother snapped, chin lifting in scornful pride. “I wouldn’t have stayed on this country property anyway, now that Leonard’s gone. But I can pretend it’s still mine with you here, Sally. Jack Maguire has played right into our hands. And when you have him by the balls, you can remunerate me for all I’ve given you over the years.”
My father gave it, not you, Sally thought. You only ever put on a show of mothering us in front of him. And that’s gone. An overwhelming sense of emptiness made her voice completely flat as she said, “I’m not like you. I’ll never be like you. I have no intention of getting Jack Maguire by the balls. I’m just going to fulfil my contract with him.”
“Don’t be such a naïve fool! You’ve got an open door opportunity to secure everything you’ve had up until now. More!”
Sally shook her head. “I won’t do it that way. I won’t deceive him and I won’t play your game of deception, either. This place is his, fair and square, and I’m glad to have a job because I know I can’t expect any support from you, Mother. Jane and I have served your purpose. We’ve been your mannequins in a show to keep our father tied to you, but that’s over. We are now expendable, aren’t we?”
“Sally, what are you saying?” Jane cried, frightened of where this was leading.
Sally squeezed her shoulder in quick reassurance. “Don’t worry. You’ll always have me.”
“You ungrateful little sod!” her mother screeched. “You were nothing before I gave you a home. You’ve had every privilege any girl could want. Both of you! And what do I get in return?”
Sally refused to be shamed into backing down. “We played your game. That’s what you got in return,” she shot back at her mother, hating the sense of having been acquired as a weapon in the war for wealth. She could have been adopted by someone else, someone who would have really loved her—loved Jane.
“If you had any sense you’d be still playing it,” her mother jeered.
Sally answered with steely pride. “I won’t be your pawn anymore.”
“You stupid, stupid girl! Don’t you realise my advice could turn you into a queen?”
“It’s not what I want.”
That was the truth of it. She wanted to love the man she had a baby with, wanted him to love her back, both of them loving parents to their child. All the money in the world couldn’t buy that.
“You want to spend your life mucking out stables?” her mother demanded in towering scorn.
“At least it’s honest muck. It doesn’t hurt anybody,” Sally flashed back at her.
She snorted. “Don’t tell me Leonard got hurt by what I did. Nor you and Jane, living in the lap of luxury.”
It has hurt Jane, Sally thought grimly, knowing her sister had never felt emotionally secure in this home. Not me so much because I had the horses to escape to. But most of all. “It hurt Jack,” she said, knowing that was irrefutable—a little boy robbed of his father, replaced by two girls born to other people.
“Dear Jack.” Venom dripped off her mother’s tongue. “He hurt so bad he became a billionaire. You expect me to feel sorry for him?” Her eyes glittered with malice. “You mark my words. You’ve walked into his trap, signing this contract, and he’ll take you down. The only way to beat that is to take him down first.”
“I guess that’s what you did all those years ago, Mother. Do you think taking him down served your best interests in the long run?” Sally challenged. “Seems to me he beat you in the end.”
Her face twisted with rage. “We’ll come out on top if you do what I say.”
“I won’t do it,” Sally threw back at her determinedly.
Her mother charged across the room in a fury, arm swinging out to hit. Sally barely had time to twist aside and raise her own arm to block the blow before it struck.
“Run to the kitchen and get Graham, Jane,” she yelled at her sister. Then to her mother who was completely out of control, attacking with frightening persistence. “You’d better stop this right now because we’re not going to take any more abuse from you.” Her sister was still scrunched up like a mesmerised bunny. “Jane, go!”
She finally snapped into action, scrambling off the chesterfield and pelting out of the room.
“You want to be charged with assault, Mother? I’ll do it. I promise you I’ll do it,” Sally asserted fiercely, frantically fending off more blows. “Graham will come and do what I say because Jack Maguire employs him now. Under my management. I’m the boss, not you. How will it look to your wealthy friends if you get charged with assaulting your daughter?”
That got through to her.
She lowered her arms to her sides, hands clenched into tight fists, her chest heaving with frustration, her eyes wild with killing fervour. “Some daughter you are!” she spat.
The dutiful daughter had died in this room. It was one more grief adding pain to the load in Sally’s heart. “You never really made me feel you were my mother,” she said sadly.
It evoked a vicious reply. “I hope one of your damned horses throws you and tramples you to death.”
The last thread of any sense of loyalty broke. There was no room left for smoothing over this ruction. Sally steeled herself to draw a final line under it. “I suggest you pack up and go to wherever you feel good about yourself, because staying here is not going to work for you.”
Graham charged into the room, Jane hovering nervously behind him. “You need some help, Sally?” he asked, looking belligerently at his former employer.
Sally grimly made the call. “I think
