Chapter 22

The first thing that caught Hope's eye as she entered her apartment was the letter propped against the fruit bowl. Stupid, how her parents still favoured snail mail in this age of cyber speed. She'd tried guiding them towards video-conferencing, even simple calling, but the McWilliams stuck to their fancy embossed stationary to connect with their only child a million miles away.

Now probably wasn't the right time to read the letter, considering she'd cried all the way home from Logan's after her sabotaging and his curt dismissal of their short-lived relationship, but she needed comforting and a tenuous connection to her old home might provide that.

She slipped off her shoes, picked up the letter she'd left there since yesterday, and curled up on the sofa. Sticking her finger beneath the flap, she wiggled it a little, then yanked, tearing open the envelope. As she slid the thick sheets of paper out, the faintest waft of lavender tickled her nose. Her mother's signature perfume, and just like that, tears stung her eyes again.

Blinking, she unfolded the sheets, three in total, and started reading. Her parents' letters were always the same. Her mum wrote the first page, her dad the second, and her mum finished off the third. They gave her mundane updates of their life in an English country manor: the housekeeper's grandson had started walking early at ten months of age, the gardener's wife had been caught flirting with the mayor at the pub, winter promised to come early this year.

These trivialities usually annoyed her, but Hope found herself re-reading the letter, deriving some comfort from the familiarity of it all. Some things never changed and her parents' reliance on the traditional made her feel warm and fuzzy this time rather than intolerant and bored.

Interesting, that she'd urged Logan to confront his dad, when she hadn't visited her parents in five years. At her parents continual insistence she visit, she'd give the excuse that she was establishing a business and her students relied on her and why couldn't they visit her. They begged off flying the twenty-four hours from London to Melbourne, yet would happily fly first class around the world on a whim.

She'd taken it as yet another sign they didn't give a fig about her; they never had. But their letters arrived monthly like clockwork and they obviously read her emails by their written responses. They weren't demonstrative and a touch of approval on her head as a child had been the most she could hope for, maybe a hug on her birthday. It made her wonder, was she emotionally repressed too?

She didn't think so. She wouldn't have responded to Logan so openly and wholeheartedly if she were. But there was a world of difference between physical openness and acknowledging emotions.

She'd been more than happy to have sex with Logan but when she had the opportunity to explain herself an hour ago, she'd clammed up and walked away without a backward glance. She could blame her parents' lies, Willem's too, and Harry's ultimate betrayal, but emotional obtuseness was in her DNA.

Every betrayal had changed her in a way, but she'd been more optimistic than her parents…until Willem. He'd been the one to really change her. To shatter her faith in love after following her heart, to then devastate her completely by revealing the truth of her parents' duplicity when she didn't give him what he wanted. She hated him for it.

With her resolve wavering to stay away from Logan, this would be a good time to remind herself of exactly why she couldn't trust those she let into her life.

Sighing, she stood and stretched out the kinks in her back, before padding into the bedroom to get her memory box, her one concession to sentimentality. She hadn't looked at it in years but kept it as a reminder of who she'd been and how far she'd come. The trusting, na?ve young woman had morphed into an independent cynic. She should be proud of how well she'd protected her heart.

So what had gone wrong with Logan?

Standing on tiptoes, she tapped the top shelf of her wardrobe, encountering the long, flat box tucked away beneath a stack of jumpers. She gripped it and slid it forward carefully, until she could grab it with both hands. A little larger and longer than a shoebox, it hardly weighed a thing. Her keepsakes were scarce but meaningful.

Plopping in the middle of her bed, she jiggled the lid of the box until it opened, revealing reminders of a time gone by. A program from a play in Hyde Park, a menu from high tea at a posh London hotel, a matchbook from an overnight stay at a luxurious B&B in Bath.

Willem had been extravagant, wooing her with high-end dates and expensive gifts, inveigling himself into her life as if he'd been born to it. But he hadn't been. He'd used her. Duping her into believing their three-month relationship had been real, only to discover his potent feelings and unwavering attention had been a sham. An elaborate lie perpetuated by an unscrupulous journalist who'd gone to any lengths to get the story he wanted: in her case, an exclusive interview with her parents, the reclusive yet wealthiest gentry in Yorkshire.

He'd wanted a story and hadn't cared how low he had to stoop to get it, unrepentant that he'd hurt her in the process. He didn't care about her and he certainly didn't love her as he'd professed after two weeks into their whirlwind romance. Despite watching people suck up to her parents because of their money her entire childhood, she'd fallen for a swindler regardless. A stupid, gullible fool, taken in by smooth words, a charming smile, and a man who appeared to be her equal in every way.

When she'd lashed out, he'd served up the truth about her trust fund as a parting gift. She hadn't wanted to believe him and had confronted her parents demanding answers. To her horror, they hadn't baulked or shirked the truth. Hell, they hadn't even apologised. In their eyes, they'd been entirely justified in lying to her in order to bend her to their will.

"It's for your own good, dear," her dad had the audacity to say, while her mum looked on, dry-eyed, while Hope crumpled in the face of their deception.

A month later, Harry had recorded her songs and passed them off as his own to the world, cementing what she already knew.

Never trust anybody, ever.

She knew the screw-ups in her past were the reason she pushed Logan away earlier. Seeing the overt poverty of his house had set off something inside her, the thought he may have fooled her too, that everything they'd shared to date might be based on a lie, seemed too unbearable to contemplate.

But what would Logan hope to gain by pretending to be a rich guy? He'd made no moves to gain access to her fortune. He didn't crave a cushy lifestyle. He was a man's man who enjoyed simple pleasures. He'd appeared uncomfortable when she'd taken him to the State Library and the Langham. He'd been more at home at the footy and his favourite pub.

It didn't seem like a ruse, but she'd been duped before.

"Screw this," she muttered, shoving the lid back on the box. Reminiscing about the past wasn't helping her gain clarity about her future.

As she shoved the box back in its spot, she realised something. She had no keepsakes from her time with Logan. Nothing but memories.

It saddened her. She'd have to make do with the studio, and remembering him every time she recorded a song.

She'd never forget him.

That would have to do.