‘Search me, sweetie. But I do know that if you let this destroy your marriage, then that person has won.’
‘It’s Scott who’s destroyed our marriage,’ Sarah bit out. ‘The bottom line is he didn’t truly love me, or trust me. He jumped to conclusions and didn’t give me the chance to explain. He didn’t care how I would feel because he doesn’t really care about me. I can see now that I was only ever a trophy wife to him. Arm candy to be trotted out at social functions, with the added bonus of sex whenever he felt like it. When he’s home, that is. Which has become less frequent during the last six months. I actually thought he’d cut his business trip short last Friday so that he could be with me on our anniversary weekend. What a fool I was in more ways than one.’
‘Wow. You’re still very angry with him, aren’t you?’
‘You can say that again. Look, I must go. The cleaners would have left by now and I want to be out of the apartment before Brutus gets home.’
‘You’re calling him Brutus now,’ Cory pointed out drily.
‘Yes, well, if the cap fits he should wear it.’
‘You do realise that hate is the other side of love.’
‘Oh, yes. I certainly do. Have to go, Cory. I’ll see you tonight.’
‘I’ll bring home Chinese,’ he offered. ‘And some nice wine.’
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’
Tears pricked at Sarah’s eyes as she hung up. Cory was a dear friend. And so kind. Whatever would she have done without him this last weekend? Sarah didn’t have a lot of friends, her few girlfriends from high school having drifted away after she left school and went to university. The same thing happened after her poor mother died at the end of her first year of university. Unable to study—or grieve properly—Sarah had taken off to go backpacking around the world. By the time she returned to Sydney University two years later, her earlier student friends had also moved on. Her own fault, Sarah accepted, having not kept in touch via social media, depression dogging her footsteps for such a long time, especially during the first twelve months of her backpacking getaway. Europe remained a blur, nothing of the incredible sights she’d seen touching her soul or brightening her life. She’d gone from city to city in a fog.
It wasn’t till she’d reached Asia that the fog had finally lifted. Maybe it was the truly warm, gentle people she’d met there. The children had been especially adorable and the twelve months she’d spent travelling through India and Thailand and Vietnam had banished her depression, plus her bitterness, showing her that maybe it was still possible for her to overcome her wariness where men were concerned and find love. Maybe even get married and have children. Though that had seemed a stretch at the time.
Still, by the time she’d come home to Sydney and resumed her studies, she’d been way more open to at least try to give the opposite sex a chance. Though she’d still had no intention of leaping into bed with anyone in a hurry. It had been an enormous stroke of luck that during her first semester back at Sydney University she had met Cory.
Sarah smiled wryly as she looked back on that time in her life when she’d imagined Cory might just be ‘the one’ to banish her wariness of the opposite sex—and sex—for good. Not only was he fun to be with, he was quite gorgeous to look at. Very sexy with his blond hair, bedroom blue eyes and a buffed body. Whilst she hadn’t been mad for him—she hadn’t known what it was to be mad for a man back then—she had found him attractive. He’d seemed attracted to her as well. The ‘life of the party’ type, Cory had insisted she join the university book club and movie club with him and soon they’d been going out together. It wasn’t till she’d finally decided to take the big step and sleep with him that Cory had been forced to come out and tell her he was gay. Apparently, up till then he’d tried to deny it, even to himself, afraid that his parents would reject him.
But they hadn’t. After that, she and Cory had remained close friends, with Cory dating like-minded men and Sarah eventually becoming resigned to going to her grave still a virgin. Because no way had she been going to go to bed with a man she didn’t truly love and trust; trust being the most important part. In her mind she’d pictured a straight version of Cory. Someone sexy and intelligent and kind.
Unfortunately, she’d never seemed to meet such a man, not even when she’d left university and secured a plum job at a large legal firm that had wall-to-wall men walking around their corridors, men who had showed they found her very attractive. But none of them had done anything for her, not even Phil, who was super handsome and super intelligent and really very nice. Too old, however, at thirty-five. Despite her lack of success so far, Sarah had kept dreaming that one day she would meet Mr Perfect, fall madly in love, get married and have at least two perfect children.
Scott McAllister’s entry into her life had blown apart all Sarah’s misconceptions over the kind of man she imagined falling madly in love with. For starters he looked even older than Phil, yet it turned out he was the same age. He wasn’t traditionally handsome. Neither was he university educated. In fact he’d never even gone to high school, spending his teenage years travelling the outback with his prospector father. Despite that he was obviously intelligent, a self-made mining magnate with perhaps more money than manners; the strong silent type who didn’t waste words, or time. Superbly fit, with the body of a champion boxer, Scott McAllister was a macho man in every way, bulldozing his way into her life with very little subtlety.
She’d never forgotten the moment they’d first met, Scott’s normally icy grey eyes glittering with a raw animal lust as they’d travelled over her from top to toe. Her body had flamed in instant response. And from that moment, she’d been his. It had been just a matter of time. He’d asked her out to dinner within five minutes of meeting her. And she’d been unable to say anything but yes, her body consumed with desires which had been as corrupting as they’d been compelling. How she’d lasted three dinner dates before succumbing to Scott’s constant requests to go home with him afterwards was a miracle.
Of course, he’d been stunned over her being a virgin. But not displeased. In fact, he’d seemed quite taken by the idea, confessing that he’d never been with a virgin before.
Soon, she hadn’t been able to get enough of his big, strong body and his passionate but still considerate lovemaking. She’d adored how safe she always felt in his arms. How truly loved. Feeling truly loved was just as important to Sarah as the physical pleasure she experienced in bed with Scott.
Or so she’d believed, till last Friday night...
‘Don’t think about that night any more, Sarah,’ she lectured herself aloud. ‘You’ll go mad if you do.’
Shaking herself violently, Sarah went in search of her handbag and car keys. Ten minutes later she was heading across the harbour bridge, making a list in her head of what she had to collect from the apartment. Work clothes, of course. She couldn’t call in sick every day. Neither could she go in there wearing the jeans she’d worn all weekend, or one of Cory’s track suits, which was what she was wearing today. She needed toiletries too, of course. And the rest of her make-up. After her argument with Scott last Saturday morning she’d bolted out of the apartment with nothing much. Her going-out clothes could wait till another day, she decided. Sarah couldn’t see herself going out much in the near future.
But what if there wasn’t another day? What if Scott threw her out and changed the locks? It was the sort of thing her husband might do. He was not a man who took kindly to being crossed, let alone betrayed. As much as she hated to admit it, those photos had made her look as if she were having
