Sounds like a good prospect.”
“You can say that again. Sydney’s moved up a notch in popularity since the Olympics. And why not? It’s the best city in the world. And the most beautiful.”
“You don’t have to sell me on Sydney,” Zoe commented. “I love the place. Just look at that view.” From where she was sitting, Zoe could see the Opera House on her right and the bridge on her left. Straight ahead, a sleek white cruiser was slicing through the sparkling blue waters, its decks filled with photo-snapping tourists.
Zoe was sipping her wine and admiring the view herself when she heard Drake suck in sharply, as though in shock.
Her eyes snapped back to find him staring at something—or someone. She heard him mutter under his breath.
Zoe swiveled ‘round in her chair to see firsthand the object of Drake’s agitation.
She was blond, and she was heading their way.
Zoe didn’t recognize the woman and she would have, if they’d met before. Stunning six-foot blondes with double-D-cup breasts were hard to forget.
“Well, well, well,” the blond bombshell said with a saccharine smile as she stopped beside their table. It took a moment for her impressive cleavage to jiggle to a halt. “If it isn’t Drake Carson, the man of a thousand lines and even more broken promises. Sorry to interrupt, honey,” she directed at Zoe, “but Drake and I have some unfinished business. You did say you’d call, didn’t you, lover? I mean, I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since the conference, but I was beginning to think you hadn’t found me quite so special after all. Surely you aren’t one of those creeps who lie their teeth out to get a girl into bed, the type who thinks they can do what they like when they go away, without any consequences and without the little woman back home finding out?”
Drake glowered at her but said nothing.
Zoe felt like a big black pit had yawned underneath her chair and she was about to fall in. Drake had gone to a sales and marketing conference in Melbourne just two weeks earlier. He’d rung her every night of the three days he’d been away, saying how much he’d missed her.
She stared at him, wanting to believe this woman was some crazed jealous troublemaker intent on breaking them up for her own devious reasons. But the cornered guilt on Drake’s face simply could not be ignored. Or denied.
“Oh, so you are one of those creeps?” the blonde taunted. “Well, I never! Aren’t you lucky I’m not a vengeful bitch like that blond chick in that movie? What was it? Fatal Attraction? I mean, the way I see it, if a guy’s a liar and a cheat, I don’t really want any more to do with him.” She turned back to face Zoe. “Gee, honey, you’re looking a little pale. Don’t tell me you’re the little woman back home. What a shame. And you look real nice, too. Poor you. ‘Bye, ‘bye, Drake. Have a nice day.”
Zoe watched, dry-mouthed, as the blonde stalked back to where a tall, elderly man was waiting for her near reception. He was frowning like he didn’t now what was going on. The blonde whispered something to him, took his arm and they both left.
Drake still hadn’t said a single word, but his eyes told it all.
Zoe felt sick. And stunned. And shattered.
“You slept with her, didn’t you?” she choked out. “At the Melbourne conference.”
“It wasn’t like she said,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.
“Then how was it?” Zoe heard herself ask in a cold flat voice. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her again. She could have sworn that Drake was nothing like Greg; that he truly loved her; that their relationship was not just a cruel joke.
His eyes lifted from the tablecloth. Panicky, pleading eyes. “God, Zoe, don’t look at me like that. I love you, darling. Honest.”
She winced at the darling. “Then you have a funny way of showing it,” she bit out, “making love to another woman.”
“But I didn’t make love to her. You’re the only woman I make love to. It was just sex. It meant nothing. She meant nothing.”
Zoe despised men who said things like that. “She obviously thought she did,” she pointed out tartly, “or she wouldn’t have been so hurt.”
“Don’t bet on it,” he countered, his cheeks flushed with anger. “Some women are right bitches. Believe me, she knew the score. She knew it was just a one-night stand right from the start, and now, for her own warped reasons, she’s pretending it was something else.”
Zoe shook her head which was a bad move. It was already spinning. “How can you possibly be in love with me and go to bed with another woman? How?”
Drake began to look belligerent, as he did when someone expressed an opinion different to his own. “I told you. It was just sex. There’s a big difference. Love and sex don’t always have to go together, Zoe. I thought you’d know that by now. You’re not a baby. You’re twenty-five years old. Hey, Zoe, try to understand.” His hands lifted to rake through his thick black hair. They were actually trembling.
For the first time since that blonde dropped her bombshell, Zoe began to believe that Drake might love her, despite everything.
“I’m sorry,” he went on urgently. “More sorry than you can ever imagine. But it wasn’t like she said. I’m not some kind of serial sleazebag. I was just weak for a moment. You’re the one I love, Zoe. Too much perhaps. I was missing you terribly and wanting you like mad. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and it got me so darned horny. It happened on the last night of the conference. We’d all been drinking heavily.”
“You never drink at all when socializing at work,” she reminded him with a rush of anger, not wanting to be soothed by excuses and explanations. Didn’t he understand what he’d done? He could call it whatever he liked but he’d still been intimate with another woman. And whispered sweet nothings in her ear while he’d been doing it.
Perhaps that hurt even more than his actual physical betrayal. The things he must have said.
“The conference was virtually over,” he continued explaining. “I didn’t have to drive anywhere so I let my hair down for once. Look, she threw herself at me. Followed me into the elevator at the end of the night. Practically ravished me then and there. I hated myself afterward, but what can I say? I’m not a saint. I’m just a man. I made a mistake. I’m so terribly sorry, Zoe. I never meant to hurt you. I never thought you’d find out.”
“Obviously.” She could no longer look at him. All she could think about now was that blonde and him, doing it in an elevator of all places. How tacky!
“Don’t be like that, Zoe. Try to understand.”
“I don’t think I can,” she said wretchedly. Which meant there was nothing left to do but to split up with Drake. She’d vowed after Greg that she’d never put up with a man treating her badly ever again. Which was why she’d been manless and dateless for almost four long years.
Still, the thought of going back to a single lifestyle made her shudder. She didn’t want to be that lonely ever again. She’d thought she never would be. She thought she had Drake. She thought after a couple of years of their being girlfriend and boyfriend, they’d eventually get married
