Chapter 3

Three

T amara lay on her bed, stretched her arms overhead, and smiled.

The rocking motion of the train as it wound its way out of Delhi and the heady aroma of marigolds and masala chai —the delicious tea fragrant with cardamoms, cloves and cinnamon—lulled her while making her want to jump up and twirl around from the sheer rush of it.

For the first time in years, she felt free. Free to do whatever she wanted, be whoever she chose, and it felt great; downright fantastic.

While she’d once loved Richard and had desperately craved the type of marriage her folks had, nothing came close to this exhilarating freedom.

She’d spent months playing the grieving widow after Richard had suffered a fatal heart attack, forced to submerge her humiliation, her bitterness, her pain.

Yet behind her serene, tear-stained face she’d seethed: at him for making a mockery of their marriage, at herself for being a gullible fool, and for caring what people thought even after he was gone.

She hadn’t given two hoots about social propriety until she’d married him, and had laughed at his obsession with appearances. But she’d soon learned Richard craved attention, and with his face plastered all over every newspaper, magazine, social media site, and TV channels on a regular basis, she’d slipped into the routine of being the perfect wife he expected.

While he stashed away his equally perfect mistress in a luxurious beach house at Cape Schanck, just over an hour’s drive from Melbourne’s CBD where they lived.

She sat up, annoyed she’d let bitter memories tarnish the beginning of this incredible journey. Her gaze focussed on the single bed next to hers; the single bed her mum should’ve been occupying.

Adhira would’ve regaled her with exotic tales of Goa and its beaches; particularly Colva Beach where she’d met Tamara’s dad, Adhira’s love at first sight for a scruffy Aussie backpacker. Tales of the Taj Mahal, the monument Adhira had always wanted to see but never had the chance. Tales of an India filled with hospitable people and mouth-watering food, imparting recipes in that lilting singsong accent that had soothed Tamara as a young girl when the nightmares of losing her father would wake her screaming and sweat-drenched.

Adhira should’ve been here.

This was her trip.

Instead, Tamara swiped a hand across her eyes, dashing her tears away. She wouldn’t cry any more. She’d made herself that promise back in Melbourne when she decided to take this trip, and while her heart would break at every turn on the track, at every fabulous place she visited wishing her mum was here to share it with her, she should be thankful she’d taken another positive step in getting her life in order.

Tamara had done enough cringing with shame and humiliation at what Richard had put her through, and was done feeling sorry for herself.

This was her time. Time for a new life, a new beginning.

So what the hell was Ethan Brooks doing here, muscling in on her new start?

Ethan, with his smiling eyes and roguish smiles. Gone was the ruthless business persona. Instead, Ethan the pirate, the player, the playboy, had swaggered along this trip, and while every self-preservation instinct screamed for her to stay away, she couldn’t be that rude.

He’d helped her with the legalities regarding Ambrosia after Richard’s death, and had smoothed the way for her to re-enter the workforce by allowing her to use Ambrosia as a base the last six months. The least she could do was be polite.

But he rattled her. She preferred him business-oriented, when he strutted into Ambrosia juggling a briefcase, a laptop, and barking instructions on a phone, barely acknowledging her presence with an absentminded nod. He virtually ignored her the times their paths had crossed lately, his head always buried in financial statements and yearly projections, and that had been fine with her.

He made her uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with not really knowing him even when Richard had been around.

The shift had been more recent, when she started noticing things about him while she worked. Like the way he cracked pistachio nuts too loudly, flipping them in the air and catching them in his open mouth, how much he loved Shiraz Grenache, sticky date pudding, and the local footy club. Trivial things, inconsequential things that meant little, but noticing and remembering annoyed her.

Now this. Him being here, charming and sympathetic and too gorgeous for his own good, made her nervous. Very nervous.

She didn’t need anyone in her new life, least of all a smooth-talking tycoon like Ethan Brooks.

Though she’d been thinking about him lately, in the wee small hours when she lay sleepless, staring up at the ceiling and contemplating taking control of her meandering life. Irrational, pointless thoughts, wondering what would’ve happened if she’d chosen Ethan rather than Richard that fateful night she’d entered Ambrosia three years earlier.

A waste of time mulling things she couldn’t change.

Time to put the past to rest and concentrate on her future.