took a deep breath. No way did she want to stay here arguing with this ghastly man. She would just take the unit and the car, sell them, then give the money to charity, as she had all the other money Ralph had settled on her. For how could she ever keep any of it? To do so would vindicate all the implied insults she’d endured over the years.
Not that any of her slanderers knew about her Grand Gesture. Nor Charles for that matter. She saw little point in telling people like him about something they couldn’t possibly understand. They wouldn’t appreciate her motives. They would think her crazy. Her own mother had thought her crazy!
‘Why is he giving me this penthouse now?’ she asked. ‘Do you know? Did he say?’
Charles shrugged. ‘You know Ralph. He never explains his actions. He just gives orders.’
Yes, she thought ruefully. That was Ralph all over.
‘We’ll go here tonight, Salome,’ he would say. ‘Order the prawn dish, Salome’ or ‘Wear the green dress, Salome.’
Most women would have hated his autocratic, bossy nature. But, for reasons which she had not explored deeply enough at the time, Salome had loved it. She had had many long, lonely nights since then to work out why she had acted so submissively. And, while she could appreciate the reasons behind her behaviour, she still wasn’t all that comfortable with it.
‘I see,’ she said tautly. ‘Have you got an address for this unit? McMahon’s Point is just north of the Harbour Bridge, on the Luna Park side, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Yours is penthouse two, in a multi-storeyed circular block called Harbourside Towers, right on the water at the end of Harbour Road. You can’t miss it. I—er—presume you’ll be moving in right away? After all, you can’t really be liking living with your mother.’
Salome picked up the keys and slipped them into her handbag. ‘You’re quite wrong, Charles,’ she said coolly. ‘I won’t be moving in, and I quite like living with my mother.’ But only since Molly seemed finally to have got over the urge to ask every man she dated to move in with her, Salome thought wearily.
She stood up, automatically smoothing down the emerald-green wool sheath over her slender thighs, then, with her free hand, flicking the long mass of tight coppery curls back from her face and shoulders.
A dry-mouthed shock took hold of her when she became aware of how openly lustful Charles’s gaze had grown as it followed each of these movements. Her eyes locked on to his with a sickening jolt inside, but she glared back at him quite boldly, till he was forced to drop his eyes.
Creep! she thought savagely.
‘Please don’t bother to show me out,’ she said, making no attempt to hide her sarcasm. And with that she turned on her black high heels and strode from the office.
It wasn’t till she was alone in the elevator that she realised she was shaking with fury.
* * *
Salome walked slowly through the penthouse, her emotions no more settled than when she had left Charles’s office. Her troubled gaze travelled around the enormous living-room she was standing in, taking in the no-expense-spared décor: the classically neutral colour scheme, the ultra-modern imported furniture, the huge, semicircular plate-glass windows that she’d discovered slid back electronically to allow access to the equally huge balcony.
She wandered out to lean on the high cylindrical railing, and frowned at the view, which stretched across to Darling Harbour on her right, Milson’s Point on her left, and the Bridge straight ahead. The blue waters were cold-looking but beautiful beneath the clear winter sky. A crisp breeze ruffled Salome’s hair, making her realise how cool and refreshing this balcony would be in the summer.
How much was this place worth? she wondered. A million dollars? More?
She sighed. Molly was going to go off her brain when she told her she was going to give it all away too. Just as well Ralph had seen fit to give his young bride’s not-so-suitable mother a house and income of her own when they got married, or she’d never hear the end of it. As it was, Molly often brought up the matter of money and how stupid Salome had been to give it all away, then have to go and work in a dress shop to earn her own living.
Which reminded her. She had still not told Molly that it looked as if she was going to be laid off soon. Sales at the boutique were slumping, along with the economy, the manager not minding at all that Salome had asked for the afternoon off. She’d been looking around for a better job but had found she wasn’t qualified for anything that paid well. To go back to waitressing was too depressing a thought to consider, but she might have to do just that while going to tech and getting herself some marketable skills. Perhaps a typing and word-processing course. That seemed very much in demand.
Meanwhile she would have to face her mother’s exasperation.
Perhaps she wouldn’t tell Molly about this unit at all, Salome mused. Perhaps she would only mention the car. She couldn’t get out of telling her about that, since she had already decided to drive the Ferrari back to her mother’s place at Killara that afternoon, then take it to one of the luxury-car dealers the next morning. There were a lot along the Pacific Highway up towards Hornsby.
But she really wanted to talk to someone about Ralph, wanted a sounding-board for the agony of frustration that she felt building up again inside her. A string of whys had been whirling in her head for too long a time, and now she had another to add to the list. Why had he given her this unit?
But her main questions dealt with the past. Why had Ralph cut her out of his life so abruptly and cruelly? And why, in the light of what had happened, had he married her in the first place? For, to have done what he ultimately had, he couldn’t possibly have loved her, as he’d claimed to.
Salome groaned at the crazed complexity of it all. If sex had been involved it might have made some sense! She was used to men claiming they were in love with a woman till they were firmly ensconced in her bed, only to desert her several months later when their lust had begun to pall. She’d watched them do it to Molly for years!
But her relationship with Ralph had not been a physical one, so sexual boredom—or another woman—could not be blamed for Ralph’s divorcing her.
Suddenly, Salome’s chest contracted viciously, seized by a defiant surge of anger. This was the overriding emotion she was experiencing lately. Anger. A bitter, frustrated anger.
‘Why?’ she screamed out across the water. ‘Why?’
It felt oddly good to give voice to her pain, even if only to empty air. In fourteen long months, Salome had been denied the outlet of actually screaming at Ralph, for he refused to see her, refused to let her get past the blanket of security he had wrapped himself in.
He had moved to his rural property out at Dural, on the outskirts of Sydney, his enormous mansion in Potts Point having been sold within weeks of their separation taking effect. Salome had driven out to Dural several times in vain attempts to gain entrance to see Ralph. But to no avail.
Her letters were returned unopened.
As for phone calls...Valerie always answered the telephone, and there was no denting Ralph’s secretary’s relentlessly negative stance. Not that the woman was rude. She was just totally immovable. Ralph had given orders that his ex-wife was not to be put through to him, and that was that!
Every
