‘It’s not Jake.’
Her hand flew to her mouth as she thought of Beth, the twins…‘What the hell has he done?’
‘It isn’t Jake, Emma…’ Zarios swallowed hard. ‘It’s your parents.’
‘My parents?’ She shook her head. Nothing he was saying was making sense. ‘What are you talking about? I just left them.’
‘There was an accident on the beach road…’
She was already turning for the door, desperate to get to them, only Zarios was pulling her back.
And she knew why—knew as he pulled her into his chest what was coming next. Only she didn’t want to hear it. Struggling like a frantic cat in his grasp, she was desperate to get away, to flee, to run, rather than be held and face the truth.
‘Emma, they were killed outright.’
CHAPTER FIVE
HIS arms were the only thing that stopped her falling as everything in her world went black.
In the horrible shrinking vortex which she’d entered, for a moment there was nothing. No sound, no thought, no gravity. Just a spinning sensation of doom that coated each cell in its rapid black welcome, then expelled her to another side—a side where, no matter how she pleaded and wept to go back, there was no escape.
On the most horrific day of her life he was there beside her, this strong pillar of support. In fact, Emma was so bewildered that she didn’t even realise till much later how much she must have leant on him that day.
And that evening, too.
She had let him drive her back to her parents’ home and there lead her to her bed, where she had woken just that morning when everything had been so normal. He had sat on the chair beside her whilst she had drifted in the twilight zone between rest and sleep to a place of vague awareness, and somewhere between darkness and dawn she remembered.
‘Miranda…’
‘Shhh…’ The loose lips of a liar might once have soothed her, but she was beyond comfort now, beyond pain—beyond anything, really.
‘Are you two back together?’
‘We’ll talk in the morning.’
‘Are you back together?’
The endless silence before he spoke was louder than his words.
‘Emma, it’s complicated….’
‘Yes or no?’
There was the longest pause. ‘Yes.’
Which still didn’t answer her question. It was unfathomable to her that after the most breathtaking lovemaking, after all that had been said, he could within a matter of hours simply walk away.
‘Is she pregnant?’ It was an arrogant question, but it was all she could think of, all that could rationalise such a rapid demise.
‘No.’ Zarios looked her in the eyes and lied. Lied because they had to be over. Lied because he wouldn’t do it to his child—could never let it be said, even to himself, that it was the only reason he was with its mother.
‘Miranda and I have been together a long time—four months,’ Zarios added. And Emma suddenly felt as if her mother was in the room with her, recalling the sun-drenched evening and how they had laughed. The perfect answer was there for the taking, but she chose not to use it. ‘Emma, what happened that morning…’
He closed his eyes; she could see his face screwed up in concentration as he tried to find the words, but rather than wait for his paltry summing up, she found words for him.
‘Was just a bit of fun.’
He frowned before he opened his eyes again. Clearly her response was the last thing he’d been expecting, but Emma was hurting so badly that there was plenty to go around, so instead of humiliating herself, instead of letting him think she’d once wanted him, she told him otherwise. She was more than willing to grate off a piece of her raw bruised heart and let him sample the pain—let him take a sip of the humiliation he’d force-fed her.
‘Emma, you know that’s not the case.’
The acrid bitter taste of humiliation was choking her. She had lost not just her parents that day, but the man she’d glimpsed loving, too.
‘Oh, come on, Zarios, my mother would never have forgiven me if I hadn’t at least attempted to flirt with you.’ She stared through the darkness towards him. ‘The great Zarios D’Amilo, coming to my house for a party. My business almost in tatters. It would have been almost criminally irresponsible for me not to at least try…’ And there it was, the tiniest swallow in his olive throat that told her that maybe, just maybe, he believed her. It was enough to make her go on. ‘So you went back to Miranda—oh, well, you can’t blame a girl for trying. Anyway, you know how the saying goes—rich men are like buses; if you miss one, there will be two more following shortly behind.’
Silence hissed in the air. Emma knew she had gone too far, but it was too late to attempt retrieval, and right now she simply didn’t care.
‘Just leave, Zarios.’
‘You shouldn’t be on your own.’
‘Then I’ll ring someone I want to have here.’
‘Well—’ his voice was crisp and businesslike, but the contempt in his eyes would surely stay with her for ever ‘—I’m glad we both understand each other.’
‘Me, too.’
It was Zarios who had the final word.
‘I wouldn’t waste your time on your artwork, Emma. After your performance in the summerhouse you should try your hand at acting. For a minute there I actually believed you were different.’
CHAPTER SIX
PRIVATELY Emma had often wondered how Jake would cope in a real crisis—the answer had surprised her.
He had dealt with everything—and not just the practical—had offered endless support as Emma struggled just to function. He had dealt with the rapid sale of her parents’ house when, two days after the funeral, a generous offer had come up to buy it, furnishings and all. And Jake had offered wise counsel when, on a particularly unbearable night, she’d confided to him what had happened with Zarios.
‘You’re best out of it, Em…’ He had held her hand and said all the right things. ‘Whatever he’s got going on with Miranda is just to keep the board of directors happy—it will be over in a few weeks.’
And he had been right.
Two weeks before the board’s decision and Zarios was again in the newspapers—but for all the wrong reasons.
She’d read about him—unable to help herself—with a morbid curiosity, scanning the magazines and newspapers.
D’Amilo Financiers shareholders were bracing themselves for the announcement, its share price hovering as the financial world held its collective breath and awaited details on the company’s new direction. For a while Zarios had managed to behave. Emma had winced at every photo of him walking hand in hand with Miranda, hopping on a plane and joining her in Brazil on a photo-shoot. His spin doctors had been working overtime, almost managing to convince the world that Zarios D’Amilo had changed—that this leopard now wore different spots.
Till last week.
No comment had been offered from Camp Zarios when Miranda had been dumped at the eleventh hour, just two weeks short of his father’s retirement. The papers were ablaze with the scandal, the share price had tumbled, and even the gossip magazines wavered in their dogged devotion to Zarios.
After all, Emma thought, her lips curling in distaste as she’d read on, what reputable magazine could favourably report on a man who would end a relationship when he found out Miranda was unable to bear children?
Zarios, as Miranda had tearfully revealed to the enthralled media, having sold her story for a record sum, had wanted a child, an heir, and had refused to commit to marriage until she became pregnant. Tests had recently revealed that she was infertile, and there were photos of the two of them coming out of the specialist fertility department at a top Melbourne hospital—Zarios looking boot-faced, Miranda in floods of tears.
And, Emma had noticed with loathing, he wasn’t even holding her hand.
Jake had been right—she was best out of it. And then suddenly her brother had changed his mind.
Arriving at her door a couple of nights ago, grey and ashen, suddenly Jake had insisted that she went to Zarios for help.
Emma felt nauseous at the mere recollection of the desperate conversation she had shared with her brother that night.
‘You hit Beth?’ she had asked, appalled at her brother’s confession.
‘I pushed her…’ Jake was as irritated as Emma was horrified. ‘And she fell. I was just trying to get past and she was in the way. Look, Em…’in an attempt to soften her, Jake reverted to her childhood nickname ‘…how can I walk in now and tell Beth I’ve lost the house? She’s already threatening to leave. Surely Zarios owes you after what he did to you? You can sweet-talk him into a loan.’
‘He’s not going to pay off your gambling debts.’
‘Tell him it’s for you! Tell him that your business is in trouble—tell him anything, just keep me out of it. He’d never agree for me. He knows our parents’ house had been sold, that the money’s practically in the bank—it’s just till Mum and Dad’s money comes through.’
‘Even if he did give me a loan, which is highly unlikely, what are you going to tell Beth? How are you going to explain it in a couple of weeks’ time, when you have to pay me back?’