Chapter 25

Twenty-Five

T he drive down the Eastlink Freeway passed in a blur. Tamara had been on auto pilot ever since she’d stormed out of Ambrosia , hellbent on putting the past behind her once and for all.

Ethan was wrong. Dead wrong.

About everything.

Though something he’d said registered: she had no hope of moving forward unless she confronted her past, and that’s why she was here in peaceful, oceanside, Cape Schanck, clenching a rumpled piece of paper in her hand.

She stared at the address written in a woman’s flowing script, her heart pounding as she glared at the beautiful beach house.

Richard had been careful to hide his infidelity from her while he’d been alive but she’d found this scrap in an old wallet in the back of his wardrobe after he died. She’d been clearing out his stuff, donating his designer suits to charity, and had come across it.

At the time, she hadn’t cared what it meant, but later, when she’d discovered his private appointment diary detailing every sordid detail, along with a stack of emails and texts complete with photos, it all made sense.

His beach house in Cape Schanck was a haven for his gold-digging mistress.

And their illegitimate baby.

She blinked several times, determined not to cry. She had to do this, had to get on with her life before the bitterness and anger threatened to consume her again and there was no way she’d go back to living the way she had been before India.

Taking a steadying breath, she strode to the front door and knocked twice, loudly.

As she waited, she noticed the spotless cream rendered walls, the duck egg blue trim, the soft grey shingles. The garden boasted tulips in vibrant pinks and yellows spilling over the borders, the lawn lush like a bowling green, and she swallowed the resentment clogging her throat at the thought of Richard tending this garden, on his knees and hands in the dirt, with Sonja .

She knocked again, louder this time. She’d driven the hour and a half down here, fuelled by anger and the relentless need to forget, yet hadn’t counted on Sonja not being here.

As she was about to turn away, she heard footsteps and braced, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her trenchcoat to stop from reaching out and wrapping them around the other woman’s neck when she opened the door.

The door swung open and she came face to face with the woman who had stolen her life.

Sonja Van Dyke was stunning, a Dutch supermodel that had graced catwalks for years in her late teens and even now, couldn’t be more than twenty-five. She’d taken Australia by storm when she’d first arrived and was rumoured to be making her television debut on a reality show any day now.

Considering how she’d splashed her sordid affair with Richard and their love child all over the tabloids, who knew what gems she’d drop on live TV?

Even though they’d never met, instant recognition lit the redhead’s extraordinary blue eyes as she took a step back, her hand already swinging the door shut.

“Wait.” Tamara stepped forward and wedged her foot in the doorjamb.

With a toss of her waist-length titian hair, Sonja straightened her shoulders as if preparing to do battle. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Well, I’ve got plenty to say to you.”

Sonja’s eyes turned flinty as a smug smile curved the mouth that must’ve kissed Tamara’s husband’s.

The thought should’ve made her physically ill but now she’d arrived, had seen this woman, all she felt was relief.

She’d done it. Confronted her demons. Now all she had to do was slay them and she could walk away, free.

“It’s not a good time for me. Little Richie will be waking from his nap soon.”

In an instant, Tamara’s relief blew away on the blustery ocean breeze, only to be replaced by the familiar fury that one man had stolen so much from her.

Her dignity, her identity, her pride, and she’d be damned if let his mistress steal anything else from her.

“Too bad. You need to hear what I have to say.” Tamara drew on every inner reserve of strength, determined to have her say and walk away head held high. “By making this fiasco public, you’ve guaranteed a media frenzy for a month at least. But keep me out of it. Richard owed me that much at least.”

Sonja drew herself up to an impressive six-foot-plus and glared down at her. “Who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can’t say? As for Richie owing you, you meant nothing to him.”

Tamara ignored the deliberate provocation of the last statement, needing to get through this and slam the door on her past once and for all.

“I don’t give a damn what you say as long as I’m left out of it—”

“Did you know I was six weeks pregnant when Richie died? He was so happy. Thrilled he was going to be a daddy.” Her blue eyes narrowed, glittering with malice. “He was going to leave you, you know. Your empty marriage finished, just like that.” She snapped her fingers, her cold smile triumphant.

Tamara’s resolution wavered as a fresh wave of pain swamped her. Richard had known about the baby, had continued to come home to her every night and play the dutiful husband while preparing to leave her.

Nausea swamped her and she gulped fresh air like a fish stranded on a dock, willing the spots dancing before her eyes to fade.

“As for little Richie, he’s going to be as famous as his mama and daddy. That’s why I waited until now to sell my story and have him photographed.” Her eyes gleamed with triumph. “He had terrible jaundice for the first eight weeks and would’ve looked awful. But now, at four months, he’s absolutely gorgeous. Ready for stardom like his parents.”

Not surprised by Sonja’s shallow self-absorption—she’d had no qualms shacking up with a married man after all—Tamara realised nothing she could say to this woman would get through to her. She’d been a fool to come here, to try and reason with her.

Being confronted by reports and pictures of Richard and Sonja in the newspapers and glossy magazines for two weeks when he’d died had driven Tamara mad and now, the tabloids would have a field day. This could go on for months and she’d hoped by appealing to Sonja she might refrain from fuelling the story.

But she’d been an idiot. There was no reasoning with the woman. Sonja wanted to relaunch her career and was planning on using her affair with Richard and their child to do it.

Tamara would never be free of them, free of the scandal, free of the whispers and pitying glances behind her back.

She had to get out of here, escape.

Like a welcome oasis for a thirsty desert traveller, the image of Colva Beach and the Taj Mahal, shimmered into her mind’s eye.

There was a place she’d never be plagued by her past, continually reminded of her foolishness in trusting a man totally wrong for her. A place linked to her heritage, a place filled with hope, a place she could dream and create the future she deserved.

“Richie trusted me implicitly. He’d back me one hundred percent on this, as he always did. Nothing like the love of a good man to give a woman courage to face anything, wouldn’t you say?”

Sonja’s sickly sweet spite had no effect on Tamara—until the implication of what the bimbo had said hit her.

Tamara had a guy who backed her one hundred percent, who’d travelled all the way to India to do it.

A guy who’d given her courage to start afresh.

A guy who deserved to hear the truth, no matter how humiliating for her.

Walking out on Ethan had been a mistake. A rash, spur of the moment action fuelled by that stupid newspaper article. She’d been living a lie for so long, had thought she’d put the past behind her, only to have it come crashing down around her and rather than tell him everything, she’d run.

How ironic, it took a cheap tart like Sonja to point out what had been staring her in the face.

Without saying a word, she turned on her heel and headed down the garden path towards the car.

“You’re just as spineless as Richie said you were.”

The parting barb bounced off Tamara and she didn’t break stride. Nothing Sonja could do or say could hurt her now.

Coming here might’ve been stupid, but it had been cathartic. She’d soon be free of her past.

Ready to face her future.