to say. To find closure once and for all.
‘It’s been five years since I stood here,’ she said to the man buried there. ‘Five long, incredibly difficult years. I’ve come here today to tell you that you didn’t win, Darko. I have survived.
‘Time does have amazing healing powers and I finally found the will to go on, a will much stronger than I ever believed I had. I have taken my life in my hands. My hands,’ she repeated quite forcefully as those same hands gripped her handbag in front of her.
‘I’ve remarried, Darko. Yes, you heard me. I am now another man’s wife. How you must be turning in your grave to hear that,’ she bit out between clenched teeth.
‘Of course, I did not choose a love match. Would I be so foolish as to marry another man who loved me? But we like and respect each other, Reece and I. Best of all, Reece doesn’t try to own me, or control me. He trusts me and wants me to be happy. He doesn’t mind if I go out with my girlfriends. He doesn’t mind if I wear sexy clothes. He even buys them for me. He bought me the suit I have on today. It’s the kind of outfit you would have ripped off me. But Reece loves me to wear clothes like this.’
With a defiant tilt of her head, she spread her arms wide and turned around, showing off her eye-catching figure, encased that day in a cream silk suit that had a short, tight skirt and a figure hugging jacket with a deep V neckline.
‘Did I mention that my husband is a very rich, very handsome man?’ Alanna went on. ‘Very sexy, too. He might not be crazy in love with me, but he wants to make love to me almost every night. To satisfy me. Which he does. Do you hear me, Darko?’ Alanna threw at the headstone in a challenging tone, which didn’t totally mask the underlying hurt and pain that twisted at her heart.
Tears threatened but she dashed them away. The time for tears had long gone.
‘One final thing before I go,’ she continued more calmly. ‘Reece and I are going to try for a baby. Not every man is like you, Darko. Reece won’t see a child as competition. Or something else to be suspicious of. Or jealous over. Reece doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body.
‘You will say that means he doesn’t care about me. But you know what? I don’t want to ever be cared for the way you cared for me. And you’re wrong, anyway. Reece does care for me in his own way. And I care for him. He makes me feel good, something you never did for all your supposed loving.’
Alanna scooped in a deep breath before letting it out slowly, relieved to find that the churning in her stomach had finally subsided. ‘My mother said I should forgive you, that there were excuses for your behaviour. But I can’t do that. What you did was unforgivable. I am going now, Darko, and this time, I am never coming back. You are now firmly consigned to the past. And I will do my best not to think of you any more.’
CHAPTER ONE
THE organ player breaking into the wedding march signalled the bride was ready at last. She was only fifteen minutes late, Reece realised as he glanced at his gold Rolex. Long enough, however, for the groom next to him to get fidgety.
‘It’s showtime!’ Reece said, smiling over at Richard who’d gone ramrod straight at the change of music, his hands clasped tightly in front of him.
‘Have you got the rings?’ Richard whispered out of the side of his mouth.
Reece patted the right pocket of his black dinner jacket. ‘Of course. Relax, Rich,’ he said, and reached out to touch him reassuringly on the arm. ‘I’ve done this before.’
‘So has he,’ Mike muttered under his breath from the other side of Reece.
Reece’s head whipped round to throw him a reproachful glare. Mike was a good bloke at heart, but his eternal cynicism over romance and relationships could be exasperating. It was also out of place today. Blind Freddie could see that Richard and Holly were deeply in love. This would be a much better marriage than the one Richard had had with Joanna, who, quite frankly, had not been Mrs Perfect.
Reece would never forget the night she’d made a play for him, something he’d never told Richard, but which had bothered him greatly at the time.
He’d avoided Joanna after that.
When she’d been killed in a car accident a couple of years back, he’d felt very sorry for Richard. But Reece sometimes wondered if it was a case of fate being cruel to be kind.
Whatever, Richard’s first marriage was past history. Today was a new day and Reece finally felt optimistic for his best friend’s choice for his second wife.
Despite an initial concern that Holly, at twenty-six, was too young and naive for a man of Richard’s age and status—Richard was thirty-eight and the CEO of a merchant bank—Reece could now see that Holly was exactly what Richard needed after Joanna. She was a genuinely sweet, caring, loving girl. Very pretty, too.
She was going to make a lovely bride.
Reece’s eyes narrowed as he peered down to the back of the church, curious to see what the girls were wearing. But the church doors were open and the late-afternoon light was streaming in. All he could see were silhouettes.
The first bridesmaid eventually came into view, looking elegant in a long, straight red dress and carrying a bouquet of white roses. She was tall, with auburn hair, a nice enough figure and an attractive face.
Reece didn’t know her. She was a florist friend of Holly’s. In her thirties. And married, Alanna had told him last night.
Reece hoped happily so, given she was being partnered by Mike today.
Reece glanced to his left at Mike, who was looking surprisingly debonair, a far cry from his usual dishevelled self. Amazing what a haircut, a shave and a tuxedo could achieve. Most days, Mike looked as if he’d walked out of a spaghetti western. Acted like that, too. Very tough and gruff.
Strangely, some women seemed to fancy him like that. Lord knew why. Reece thought Mike’s clean-cut image today was infinitely more attractive. But what was one woman’s trash was another woman’s treasure, he supposed.
On Mike’s part, he went for any good-looking female who made the chase easy for him and who agreed with his rules, his rules being he would take her out for one reason and one reason only. Sex. There would be no real relationship. No romance. The only promise he gave was not to be a two-timer.
But when it was over—meaning when he got bored—it was over.
Mike was an obsessively compulsive computer genius with a very low boredom threshold. His last girl friend…an exotic dancer…had lasted all of a month.
It still never failed to astonish Reece just how many takers Mike got. And how many of his ex-girlfriends remained friendly with him, afterwards. Damned if it made sense to him.
‘Behave yourself with your partner today,’ he whispered in Mike’s direction. ‘She’s married.’
‘That never seems to stop them,’ Mike returned drily. ‘But don’t worry. I avoid married women like the plague. They’re nothing but trouble.’
‘Sounds like you’ve had some experience.’
‘Only once. It was a close call, but I managed to escape.’
