“Luke, I—I’m sorry. Truly. I was just trying to…”

“Protect your mother,” he finished bitterly. “Well, it’s a pity you didn’t think what results your charade might produce. Because no sooner had I started thinking of you as my father’s mistress, than I started wanting you as my own. I was well on the slippery slide to hell long before you started crying and I took you in my arms. I’m in hell now, still wanting you so badly it’s killing me. But it’s not love driving me. It’s lust. Pure animal lust. At least I know the difference. So what am I to do, Celia? You tell me. Walk away like I’ve been trying to do? Or take you to hell with me? You choose, darling. You choose.”

Miranda Lee
A Secret Vengeance

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

CELIA was still half asleep when the phone rang. Lifting one eyelid, she glanced at her bedside clock radio.

Ten past eight. Not all that early, she supposed, but it was Sunday. Celia liked to sleep in on a Sunday. Everyone who knew her well, knew she liked to sleep in on a Sunday.

Which meant whoever was ringing her at this ungodly hour must have a good reason for doing so.

“Probably Mum,” Celia muttered as she threw back her duvet and reached for the receiver.

“Hello,” she said.

“He’s dead,” came a woman’s voice, sounding spaced out.

Celia sucked in sharply and sat up. It was her mother. And Celia didn’t have to ask who he was.

There was only one he in her mother’s life. Lionel Freeman. Sydney’s most awarded architect. Fifty-four years old. Married, with one grown-up son, named Luke.

Celia’s mother had been Lionel Freeman’s mistress for more years than her daughter liked to think about.

“What…what happened?” Celia asked, her thoughts whirling.

“He’s dead,” her mother repeated like a stuck record.

Celia took a deep breath and tried not to panic. “Is Lionel there with you now?”

“What?”

“Did Lionel come to visit you at Pretty Point this weekend?” Celia was thinking heart attack or stroke. The idea that they might have been actually doing it at the time brought a degree of revulsion. But it had to be faced. That was why Lionel Freeman visited his mistress after all. To have sex. And plenty of it, no doubt.

“No. No, he was going to, but then he couldn’t make it.”

Celia was torn between relief and anger. Her mother had wasted nearly half of her life waiting for her married lover to show up.

Well, now her waiting for Lionel was over. For good. But at what price?

“It was on the radio.”

“What was on the radio, Mum?”

“They said it wasn’t his fault. The other driver was drunk.”

Celia nodded. Sounded like an accident of some kind. A car crash. And Lionel Freeman had been killed.

There was little pity in her heart for the man, only for her mother, her poor deluded mother who’d sacrificed everything for the illicit moments she’d spent with him. She’d loved Lionel Freeman more than life itself.

Now he was dead, and his distraught mistress was all alone in the secret love nest where the selfish Lionel had installed her a few years back.

Celia was terrified that, once the reality of her beloved’s death sank in, her mum might very well do something stupid. Celia wasn’t going to let that happen. Her mother had wasted twenty years of her life on Lionel Freeman. Celia wasn’t going to let him take her with him in death.

“Mum, go and make yourself a cup of tea,” she said firmly. “And put plenty of sugar in it. I’ll be with you very soon.”

Celia lived not all that far away, in Swansea. She also drove a zappy little hatchback which could move when she wanted it to.

Celia reached Pretty Point in twenty-three minutes flat. A record, considering it usually took her over half an hour. Of course, there’d hardly been a car on the road. The Sunday day-trippers from Sydney didn’t swarm up in their droves till the seriously warm weather arrived, and summer was still a couple of months off.

“Mum?” she called out as she knocked frantically on the locked back door. “Mum, where are you? Let me in.”

No answer. Celia’s chest tightened like a vice as she raced round to the front of the house which faced the lake. She began imagining all kinds of horror scenarios.

But there her mother was, sitting at a table on the deck which overlooked the lake. The rising sun was behind her, outlining her perfect profile and glinting on her softly curled red-gold hair. She was wearing a silky lemon robe, sashed tightly around her still tiny waist. From a distance, she looked very young and very beautiful.

And, thankfully, very alive.

Celia heaved a great sigh of relief and hurried up the wooden steps which led onto the deck.

Her mother glanced up at her, her usually expressive green eyes worryingly vacant. She’d made the cup of tea, as ordered, but it sat in front of her, untouched.

She was still in deep shock, Celia realised.

“Mum,” she chided gently as she sat down opposite her. “You haven’t drunk your tea.”

“What?”

“Your tea…”

“Oh… Yes… The tea. I’m sorry. I made it but I forgot to drink it.”

“So I see.” Celia decided against making another. Far better to get her mother away from here as soon as possible to a place where someone could watch her twenty-four hours a day for a while.

As much as Celia would have liked that person to be herself, she had a clinic to run and appointments that she simply had to keep this coming week. And the next week too. Maybe, by the end of that week, she could clear her diary somewhat and have some time off.

Meanwhile, Aunt Helen would have to come to the party, whether she wanted to or not.

“Mum,” she said firmly, “you do know you can’t stay here, don’t you? This place belonged to Lionel. No doubt he kept it a secret from his family, but there will be a deed somewhere. Sooner or later, someone will show up and if you’re still here, questions will be asked. You always told me Lionel didn’t want his wife and son to know about you, so…”

“She’s dead too,” her mother broke in. “His wife. Kath. In the accident. They were both killed instantly.”

“Dear heaven. How dreadful.” Celia sagged back against her chair. She’d often wished Lionel Freeman would go take a running jump from one of his tallest buildings, but she’d never wished any harm on his unfortunate wife.

Poor woman, Celia thought.

“Poor Luke,” her mother choked out. “He’s going to be shattered.”

Celia frowned. She didn’t often think of the son, especially nowadays. He was a grown man after all, and not living at home. But now that her mother had mentioned him, she did feel sorry for the man. How awful to lose both his parents so tragically, especially his mother. Still, there was nothing she could do for him. She had her own shattered mother to worry about.

Her mum suddenly looked up, her eyes troubled.

“You’re right,” she said in panicky tones. “I can’t stay here. Luke might come. Lionel would die if Luke found out about me.”

Once she realised what she’d just said, her face paled and a strangled sob escaped her throat.

“I doubt Lionel’s son would come here personally, Mum,” Celia reassured her. “But even if he does, you won’t be here. I’m taking you to stay at Aunt Helen’s for a while till I can organise something more permanent for you.”

Her mother shook her head from side to side, tears flooding her eyes. “No. No, I couldn’t go there. Helen didn’t approve of my relationship with Lionel. She hated him.”

Didn’t we all? Celia thought ruefully.

But this was hardly the time to say so.

“She hated what he did to you, Mum,” Celia said gently. “Which is another thing entirely. And the situation’s changed now, isn’t it?”

“But she never understood,” her mother cried, the tears spilling over. “You didn’t either, did you, Celia? You thought I was wicked. And a fool.”

“I never thought you were wicked, Mum.”

“But you thought me a fool. And maybe I was. But love makes fools of all of us.”

Not me, Celia vowed privately. Never! When and if she fell in love, it wouldn’t be with a man like Lionel Freeman.

“I know you think Lionel didn’t really love me,” her mother said brokenly. “But he did.”

“If you say so, Mum,” was all Celia could say to that.

“You don’t believe me.”

Celia neither denied, nor confirmed this truth.

“There are things you don’t know…things I’ve never told you…”

“And please don’t go telling me now, Mum,” Celia begged. The last thing she wanted to listen to was all the lies Lionel had fed his mistress to excuse and explain his two decades of adultery. She’d refused to discuss Lionel with her mother for some years now.

Her mother sighed a long shuddering sigh and, as the air left her lungs, so, it seemed, did her spirit. Her shoulders sagged. Her eyes dulled. Perhaps it was only the sun going behind a cloud, but so did her hair.

Suddenly, the eternally youthful and sensual creature that Lionel Freeman had lusted after so obsessively faded to nothing but a shadow of her former self. Till a moment before, she could have passed for thirty. Now, she looked every second of her forty-two years. And more.

“You’re right,” she said with a weariness that worried Celia more than her earlier shocked state. “What does anything matter any more? He’s dead. Lionel is dead. It’s over.”

Celia gazed anxiously at her mother. This was what she’d been afraid of, her thinking there was nothing left to live for without the man she adored.

People said she was just like her mother, and she was, in looks. But, there, any similarities ended.

Her mother was a romantic, Celia, a realist. Especially when it came to men. Impossible for her to be otherwise after twenty years of watching her mother being so ruthlessly used by Lionel Freeman.

Perversely, there’d been a time when Celia had thought Lionel was wonderful. He’d entered her life when she’d been six, a lonely, fatherless little girl. What lonely little six-year-old wouldn’t have adored the handsome man who’d made her mummy so happy when he’d visited, and had brought such marvellous toys?

It hadn’t been till Celia had reached puberty that she’d taken off her rose-coloured glasses where her mummy’s friend had been concerned. Once she’d realised exactly what Lionel came to visit for, and that he made her mother cry much more than smile, Celia’s love for him had turned to hate overnight.

Outraged as only a disillusioned and disgusted teenager was able, she’d confronted Lionel and had torn strips off him, appalled when her mother had then torn strips off her in return for being out of line. But, after that, the lovers had met elsewhere other than at her mother’s flat. Celia’s mum had still cried a lot in the dead of night, and a distraught Celia had vowed never to grow up and fall in love with any man who wasn’t a genuine Mr Wonderful. Her dream man wouldn’t be afraid of commitment and fatherhood. And he certainly wouldn’t be already married to someone else, like Lionel. He would be decent and honest, brave and reliable, loyal and loving.

Oh, and of course he’d be terribly good-looking and a really good kisser. She’d been only thirteen when she’d conjured up this vision of masculine perfection, after all.

Celia hadn’t found him yet. In fact, she was pretty sure her Mr Wonderful didn’t exist. She’d had quite a few boyfriends since leaving school, but hadn’t found a single one who didn’t eventually disappoint her, both in bed and out.

Maybe she had impossibly high standards. Her girlfriends always said she did. Whatever, her relationships never worked out.

The last one had been a couple of months ago. He’d been a footballer she’d treated for a knee injury, and he had pursued her to death after his treatments had finished, telling her he was simply crazy about her, promising her the world if she would just go out with him.

She had in the end, because she’d actually found him very attractive. She liked tall, well-built men. He was also surprisingly intelligent and seemingly sincere. Naturally, she’d made him wait for sex. She never went to bed with a guy on a first date. Nor a second. Nor even a third. When she finally had, she’d wished she hadn’t. For it had been such an anticlimax.

He’d seemed pretty satisfied, however, which was always the case with men, she’d found. They really weren’t too worried about their girlfriends’ lack of orgasms, provided the girlfriend was coming across. They always blamed the woman, never themselves. And they invariably promised things would get better.

Sometimes, if the guy was nice, Celia hung in there, hoping things would improve. But when the footballer had sensitively informed her during his second go that his previous girlfriend would have come three times by then, Celia had decided Mr Wonderful he wasn’t. Nor ever would be.

She’d dumped him the next morning.

Pity her mother hadn’t dumped Lionel Freeman the morning after all those years ago when she’d found out he was married. But then, Lionel, in bed at least, had been her mother’s Mr Wonderful. Apparently, she did refuse to see him for a little while. But the manipulative devil had wormed his way back into her bed with all those excuses and lies Celia didn’t want to hear about, and he’d been there on a regular basis ever since.

Celia didn’t doubt it was a case of true love on her mum’s part, but she would put a million dollars on it being nothing but lust on darling Lionel’s.

Celia wanted to be angry with her mother for being such a romantic fool all these years but, somehow, she couldn’t. Not today. Not when the poor woman’s heart was already breaking apart.

“Why don’t you go shower and dress while I ring Aunt Helen?” she suggested gently.

Fortunately, Celia’s aunt lived less than ten miles away, over at Dora Creek. Her husband, John, worked at the local power station. Their two sons had long grown up and left home, so they had plenty of spare bedrooms.

Her mother shrugged listlessly. “Whatever.”

“We’ll just pack you a small case of essentials for now. I can come back at a later date and get the rest of your things.” There was no real hurry. Under the circumstances, Celia couldn’t see anyone turning up here for ages. She doubted Lionel’s son ever would personally. Seriously rich people had lackeys to attend to such matters. And Luke Freeman was now a seriously rich man.

She stood up, her car keys still in her hand.

Her mother levered herself up slowly before glancing around with sad eyes. “Lionel really loved this place,” she said wanly. “He designed and built it, especially for us.”

Celia didn’t doubt it. The A-framed cabin with its glass façade and large wooden decks overlooking the lake made the perfect love nest. Remote and beautiful in setting, the open-plan interior was filled with all the romantic accoutrements lovers would appreciate. A huge sandstone fireplace, complete with deep squashy sofas flanking a plushly piled cream rug. Upstairs, the loft bedroom was dominated by a king-sized bed, with the adjoining bathroom sporting a spa bath which could easily accommodate two.

No guest room, of course. Lionel had never wanted his mistress to have guests.

Celia had never stayed here overnight. Neither did she drop in on a weekend, unless her mother gave her the all clear. Running into Lionel had been something to be avoided at all costs since she’d grown up, because Celia had known she would have been vicious to him if the occasion had arisen.

But she visited her mother at least once during most weeks. And regardless of the day, she always knew if Lionel had visited the previous weekend. He’d had this distinctive cologne that he’d always worn, and that had lingered long after he’d been gone. She could remember smelling it in her mother’s bedroom as a child, especially when she’d climbed into her mother’s bed in the morning. It always disturbed her to remember how much she’d liked the smell back then. And how much she’d liked Lionel.

“Mum, let’s go,” Celia said brusquely, and took her mother’s arm.

Jessica went quietly, because she knew it was for the best. There were too many memories of Lionel at Pretty Point. Too many ghosts to haunt her at night. Too many bad thoughts waiting to assail her.

She’d always believed Lionel had genuinely loved her, that his passion for her had been more than sexual.

Now, Jessica wasn’t so sure. Often, in the past, when she hadn’t seen Lionel for some time, she’d begin having these terrible doubts. But once he’d arrived and had taken her in his arms again, all her doubts would vanish.

But he would never take her in his arms again. Never make love to her again. Never tell her how much she meant to him again.

Which meant her doubts would never be put to rest. They would fester and grow like some dreadful disease.

Jessica’s heart seemed to disintegrate in her chest under the weight of this appalling prospect. For if she didn’t believe Lionel had loved her as much as she’d loved him, then what had been the point of all the sacrifices she’d made? Never to write to him, nor send him cards. Never to spend Christmas or birthdays with him. Never to go anywhere in public with him.

Never to have his child.

Had it all been a waste of time? Had his love for her been a horrible illusion? Had he really been a deeply sensitive man…or a wickedly selfish liar?

She couldn’t bear to think such thoughts. Couldn’t bear it.

Suddenly, she began to sob, great heaving sobs which racked her whole body.

“Oh, Mum,” her daughter cried and hugged her close. “You’ll be all right. You’ll see. We just have to get you away from here.”

CHAPTER ONE

“IS THAT everything, Harvey?” Luke asked, putting his pen away in his jacket pocket and pushing the papers back across the desk.

“Yes. For now,” the solicitor answered, stacking up all the forms and sliding them into a file.

Luke went to rise from his chair.

“No, wait. There is another small matter concerning your father’s estate which I need your advice upon.”

Luke sat back down and glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to one. He was to meet Isabel downstairs at one for lunch, after which they were going shopping for their wedding rings. “What is it?”

“The Friday before the accident, your father came to see me about a waterfront property he owned on Lake Macquarie.”

Luke frowned. “You wouldn’t be talking about a place on Pretty Point, would you?”

“Yes. That’s the place. Pretty Point. It’s a ten-acre holding, plus a single-bedroomed residence.”

Luke’s frown deepened. “I thought Dad had sold that old place years ago. He’d said he didn’t use it any more because the fishing in the lake wasn’t what it used to be.”

His father had been mad about fishing. He’d taken Luke fishing with him as soon as he’d been old enough to hold a line. By the time Luke was six or seven, father and son would often go away for the weekend together, mostly to the cabin at Pretty Point which had a jetty and a small runabout moored there permanently. Luke’s mother had always stayed home on these occasions. She’d hated everything to do with fish. The smell. The feel. Even the taste.

Luke had loved those weekends, but not because of the fishing. It was his dad’s company and attention he’d loved. In all honesty, Luke found fishing about as fascinating as watching grass grow.

Luke’s discovering basketball in a big way around twelve had finally forced him to confess that he didn’t want to go away fishing any more. He’d wanted to spend his weekends at the local youth club, practising his basketball skills and competing in tournaments.

His dad had been very understanding, as he’d always been understanding. He’d been a great dad. And a great husband too.

Of course, his mum had been a wonderful wife as well, one of the old-fashioned kind who hadn’t worked, and had devoted herself entirely to her husband and son, a woman who’d taken pride in keeping her home spotless and doing all the cooking and cleaning herself, even though they could well have afforded paid help.

Yet she hadn’t been the strongest of women, health-wise, suffering from terrible migraines. Luke could remember as a boy having to be extra quiet around the house when she was having one of her attacks. His father would often come home from work to sit with his wife in her darkened bedroom.

Such a devoted couple.

And now they were both dead, victims of some stoned individual in a four-wheel drive who’d crossed over to the wrong side of the road and had collected his dad’s car, head on.

Come tomorrow, the accident would have happened two weeks ago. It had been on a Saturday night, just this side of midnight. It had happened on the Mona Vale road. They’d been returning from a dinner party at Narrabeen.

They’d only been in their mid-fifties. Hardly old. Talk about life being unfair.

Luke shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. What had Harvey been asking him? Oh, yes…about the weekender at Pretty Point.

“I guess Dad didn’t get round to selling the old place after all,” he said. “He could be sentimental at times. So what did he want to do with it?”

“He wanted to gift it over to a lady friend of his.”

Luke was taken aback. “Who?” he demanded to know.

“A Ms Jessica Gilbert.”

Luke frowned. Who on earth was Ms Jessica Gilbert?

“I don’t recognise the name,” he ground out, trying not to think the impossible, but thinking it all the same.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Luke,” Harvey advised. “You and I both know your father wasn’t that kind of man.”

Luke certainly hadn’t thought so. Till now. He’d hero-worshipped his father, and had always wanted to be just like him, in every way.

“Did Dad tell you anything about this Ms Gilbert?” he asked, his gut tightening.

“Not all that much. He said she was a lovely lady, to whom life hadn’t been very kind, and whom he wanted to help. Apparently, she doesn’t own a home of her own and he’d been letting her live in the place at Pretty Point for the last few years, rent free. He thought it best if he gifted the property over to her and then she’d have a secure roof over her head for life.”

Luke’s inner tension began to ease. His father was well-known for his charitable gestures. But, for a moment there…

“Your father was worried that if he died suddenly and the present rent-free arrangement came to light, your mother might do exactly what you just did: jump to all the wrong conclusions.”

“I feel terrible for thinking the worst,” Luke confessed, “even for a moment.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I had a few doubts myself when Lionel first told me, especially when he asked me to be very discreet and not mention it to a soul. But I only had to think of how totally devoted he was to your mother to know I couldn’t be more wrong. So, shall I go ahead then,” Harvey asked, “and gift the property over to this Ms Gilbert?”

“Yes, yes, draw up the necessary papers and I’ll come back and sign them when they’re ready.”

“I thought you’d say that. Your father would be proud of you, Luke. After all, waterfront properties of that size on Lake Macquarie, regardless of how remote, are worth a bundle these days.”

“I’m only doing what Dad wanted. And it’s not as though I haven’t inherited enough property.” As well as the family home in St Ives, Luke now owned several investment units all over Sydney, some right in the CBD. It seemed every time his father had designed a large block of units, part of his fee had been to keep one of them.

“I must go, Harvey,” Luke said. “I’m meeting Isabel downstairs at one.”

“Ah. The lovely Isabel. What a glorious bride she’s going to make. It’s such a tragedy to have this dreadful thing happen so close to your marriage.”

“Yes. I was going to postpone the ceremony, but things are a bit too far along for that. Isabel’s parents have already spent a small fortune, and they’re not wealthy people.”

“Your own parents wouldn’t have wanted you to postpone a single thing, Luke. Your father was especially delighted you were settling down to family life here in Australia. He missed you a lot when you went overseas to work. He was worried you might marry some foreign girl and never come back.”

“He should have known I would never do that,” Luke said swiftly, and stood up. “I’ll see you and your wife at the wedding, then?”

Harvey stood up as well. “Looking forward to it.”

Both men shook hands across the desk and Luke left, grateful to have at least temporarily finished with the legal and practical problems that had followed his parents’ deaths. There’d been so much to do, so many arrangements, so many decisions to be made. Too many, really.

But being an only child, there’d been no one else. The buck stopped with him.

He hoped he’d done everything well, and properly. He hoped his father was proud of him.

Luke’s mind returned to Ms Jessica Gilbert on the ride down in the lift and he wondered who she was and how his father had come to know her. Had she been an ex-employee? A loyal secretary who’d worked for him during his early days as a struggling architect? Maybe the cleaning lady who’d looked after the place at Pretty Point all those years ago? Luke recalled some local woman had come in to clean up after them.

Or was she some poor unfortunate whose hard-luck story had come to his dad’s attention through one of the various charities he’d given money to? Some elderly spinster who’d never had much, and never would.

Luke thought this last scenario a likely one. His father liked to help little old ladies.

Even so, it was only a guess. He wished Harvey had known more. It was irritating, not knowing the full circumstances behind such a substantial bequest. The weekender at Pretty Point, though small and a bit ramshackle, was sitting on a parcel of valuable land.

Maybe, when the time came, he’d take the gifted deed up to the woman personally. That way his curiosity would be well and truly satisfied, and this tiny but nagging doubt that his father might not have been so perfect after all would be safely banished.

Luke still hadn’t made up his mind on the issue when the lift doors opened and there, straight ahead, stood Isabel, looking classy and coolly beautiful, as usual. She was wearing a simple black dress and her long blonde hair was sleekly up, showing off her elegant neck, and the diamond earrings he’d given her recently for her birthday.

She smiled at him, one of those serene smiles that had a soothing effect on Luke, no matter how stressed out he was. He smiled back as he walked towards her, thinking how lucky he was to have found a woman like Isabel to marry. Not only beautiful, but so sensible and level-headed.

He never had to put up with jealous scenes or possessive demands with her as he had with previous girlfriends. On top of that, Isabel could cook like a cordon bleu chef and actually considered being a wife and mother a career in itself. Just like his mum.

She’d already quit her job as receptionist at the large architectural firm Luke was currently contracted to and where they’d met at last year’s Christmas party. She had no plans to go back to work after their marriage. They were going to start trying for a baby straight away.

Of course, Isabel was thirty, with a whole lifetime of experiences behind her, so she was ripe and ready for settling down, as Luke was himself at thirty-two. Like him, she’d travelled extensively, and admitted to several lovers, something that didn’t bother Luke one little bit.

He liked the fact Isabel was experienced in bed. He liked it that she wasn’t insecure with him. He especially liked the fact she wanted the same things he wanted: a marriage that would last, and a family of at least two children.

Okay, so he wasn’t in love with her, and vice versa. But darn it all, he’d fallen in love a few times in the past, and he hadn’t really liked the feel of it. It wasn’t stable for starters. And it never lasted.

By the time Luke had decided it was time to settle down, he’d concluded romantic love was not a sound basis for marriage. Isabel had reached the same conclusion after a few disastrous love affairs of her own.

Which meant they were perfectly in tune with each other. They had the same goals, and they never ever argued, which was something Luke valued very highly.

Arguments and disagreements always upset him. Quite a lot. He wanted none of that in his marriage. He wanted peace, and harmony. He wanted what his father had had with his mother.

“All finished?” Isabel asked, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek.

“For the time being,” he returned, his thoughts sliding once again back to the mysterious Ms Gilbert. Frustrating, really. Why couldn’t he forget about her? He opened his mouth to tell Isabel about the woman, then he closed it again. Why, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps because he didn’t want to see that awful doubt about his father in her eyes as well.

Ms Gilbert was just a charity case, Luke reassured himself, some poor little old lady who didn’t have the wherewithal to help herself. To think anything else was untenable.

But the more Luke tried to picture Ms Jessica Gilbert as some poor little old lady, the less he was convinced. His father wouldn’t have been worried about his mother jumping to the wrong conclusions if the woman was elderly. He would only have worried about jealousy if the woman was young. And attractive.

“Is there something wrong, Luke?”

“Would you mind very much if I took a rain check on lunch, plus the ring-buying expedition?” he said on the spur of the moment. “There’s something I simply must do which can’t wait.”

“What, for heaven’s sake?” She wasn’t angry, just puzzled.

“I need to drive up to Lake Macquarie.”

Isabel blinked her surprise. “Lake Macquarie! But why?”

Why, indeed?

“There’s a property up there, an old fishing cabin where Dad used to take me when I was a boy. I haven’t been there for years. I just found out that he didn’t sell it like I thought he had. I know it sounds crazy but I have this compulsion to see it again.”

“And you have to go see it this very day, this very afternoon?”

“Yes.”

He expected her to ask more questions but she just smiled a wry smile. “You’re a lot more sentimental than you think you are, Luke Freeman. Look, why don’t you drive up there and stay the weekend? Have a rest. It’ll do you the world of good. These last two weeks must have been dreadful for you.”

Yes, he could stay the night at least, if he wanted to. He knew where his father had always hidden the key and he doubted that would have changed.

“You wouldn’t mind?” he said.

Isabel shrugged. “Why should I mind? In just over two weeks’ time, I’ll have you for the rest of my life. I think I can spare you for a couple of days’ R and R. But, Luke, I don’t want to put off buying the rings. They might need to be resized. Would you trust me to choose them without you?”

Luke couldn’t think of any other female he’d ever known who was so blessedly lacking in being a drama queen about things. “You are one incredible woman, do you know that? Here. Take this credit card and put the rings on that. And put lunch on it too.”

“If you insist,” she said, smiling saucily as she whipped the card out of his fingers.

“I insist,” he said, and smiled warmly back at her.

Another thing about Isabel that Luke appreciated was the fact she didn’t pretend she didn’t like money. She did. Even before the tragedy, which had turned him into a multimillionaire overnight, Isabel had openly appreciated the fact that he was earning a high six-figure salary, owned a town house in Turramurra, drove a recent-model BMW, and could afford to take her to Dream Island on their honeymoon.

Now, of course, he could afford a whole lot more.

“I’ll call you later,” he promised.

“You’d better.”

“And you’re right. I might stay up there for a day or two.” Depending on what he found once he got there, of course.

“I’ve already told you to.”

“I’ll miss you,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.

“You call that a kiss?”

He laughed, then kissed her on the mouth. Her tongue touched his and Luke momentarily regretted not making love with Isabel the night before. But, at the time, he hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t wanted sex in any way, shape or form since the funerals.

“Mmm.” His lips lifted and he smiled wryly down at her. “I might come back tonight after all.”

“Waste of time, handsome. I’m taking Rachel out to dinner and the theatre tonight, remember? I can’t put it off. I’ve already arranged everything.”

“I wouldn’t want you to put it off,” he told her. Rachel was an old school friend of Isabel’s from her boarding school days. She’d once been a top secretary at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but she hadn’t worked for some years. Nowadays, she spent twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, looking after her foster mother who had Alzheimer’s.

Luke could well imagine how much Rachel looked forward to the one night a month off Isabel organised for her. He’d met her once briefly, and had thought how tired and old she’d looked. Yet she was only a year older than Isabel.

“It’ll keep, won’t it?” Isabel added.

“Sure.” Luke shrugged, the need already fading. They’d never gone through one of those lust-driven stages where they’d just had to have each other, regardless of where they were, or what was going on around them. They’d become friends before they’d become lovers. Some engaged couples Luke knew couldn’t keep their hands off each other, even in public. He and Isabel were never like that.

Which perhaps explained why his father had taken Luke aside at his engagement party and had questioned him on whether he was completely happy with Isabel in bed. Luke had been taken aback at the time by his father’s grilling over their sex life, but he had assured him that everything was fine in the bedroom department.

Thinking of this instance, however, suddenly made Luke wonder if his father had been totally happy with his sex life. To all intents and purposes, Luke’s parents had seemed happy with each other. They were openly affectionate with each other. Always holding hands and hugging. But who knew what happened behind closed doors?

Luke imagined that a man dissatisfied with his sex life might be tempted to stray…

“I think you’d better get going, Luke,” Isabel said drily. “You’ve drifted off somewhere again.”

“Sorry.”

“You were thinking of your father, weren’t you?” Luke stared at her.

“You don’t have to look at me like that. I know what he meant to you. And I know how much you’ll miss him. Much more than your mother. Oh, I know you loved your mother too. How could you not? She was the nicest, sweetest lady. But your father was more to you than a parent. He was your best friend. And your hero. So go and talk to him for a while up at that old place on Lake Macquarie. He’ll be there, I’m sure. And he’ll listen to you, as he always did.”

Luke now wished he’d told Isabel the complete truth about Pretty Point. He hadn’t realised she had such sensitivity. She always seemed so pragmatic about things.

But it was too late now. She’d wonder why he hadn’t been honest with her right from the start. And their relationship might suffer.

But it was a valuable lesson learned. He vowed to always tell his fiancée the truth in future, no matter what.

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN the idea to go to Pretty Point for the weekend first popped into Celia’s head, she’d immediately rejected it. But the more she’d thought about it, the more she’d realised that Lionel’s love nest was the perfect getaway.

And, brother, did she need to get away.

The last two weeks had left her totally and utterly drained. She’d spent every evening and all the previous weekend over at Aunt Helen’s, either sitting with her almost catatonic mother, or arguing with her aunt over what should be done about her.

Celia wanted her mother to see a psychiatrist, and to get onto some medication for depression, but her sister disagreed.

“Jessica isn’t crazy,” Helen had stated firmly last night. “Just broken-hearted. All she needs is time, and some tender loving care and she’ll come good. You’ll be the one needing medication shortly if you keep worrying about her the way you are. Now, I don’t want to see hide nor hair of you this weekend, Celia. Go out with your friends. Or better still, go away somewhere. Anywhere.”

Celia lent back in the deck chair with a sigh and thought anywhere had never looked so good. What was it about a water view that relaxed nerves and soothed even the weariest soul?

She had to give to Lionel. He’d built his love nest on one superb spot.

He’d also had great taste in wine.

Celia took another sip of the excellent Chablis she’d found chilling in the fridge door and thought how lucky it was that her last appointment had cancelled that afternoon. She always tried to finish up early on a Friday but it was a real stroke of luck to finish at lunch-time. By two o’clock, she’d been packed and on her way to Pretty Point, with only a small detour necessary for some groceries.

And now here she was, mid-afternoon, with a lovely glass of wine in her hands, a million-dollar view to enjoy, and two days of blissful peace and solitude to look forward.

Celia kept on sipping the wine and gradually, the tension melted out of her knotted neck and shoulder muscles till she was leaning back, feeling deliciously mellow. Alcohol, she decided, was proving much more relaxing than all the head rotating exercises she’d been trying on herself every night this week. And infinitely more relaxing than Joanne’s solution.

“What you need, honey,” Celia’s fellow physio at the clinic had said yesterday, “is to get laid.”

Pig’s ear, she did.

Sex never relaxed Celia. Her only feelings afterwards were disappointment, disillusionment and dismay.

But that was just her, she’d finally accepted. Sex was widely accepted as a very pleasurable activity, as well as being touted as mother nature’s sleeping pill. She was the abnormal one.

Her mother had obviously been very partial to sex. With Lionel, anyway.

More than partial. She’d been possessed by it.

Celia wondered what it would be like to experience the sort of uncontrollable passion that turned an otherwise intelligent, independent woman into some kind of mindless sex slave. Had the pleasure of the moments spent with Lionel compensated for her mother’s pain afterwards? Had a weekend of sex and excitement with him been worth weeks of subsequent depression?

Celia had to assume her mother thought it had. Otherwise, why keep on doing it?

Maybe if she was ever swept up in a grande passion—or even a petite passion—Celia might understand her mother’s masochistic behaviour. As it was, from an objective, outsider’s point of view, such an all-consuming passion seemed nothing better than a slow-acting poison. One of those corrosive substances that ate away at one’s insides till there was nothing left but a dying shell.

Her mother had been well on the way to being reduced to such a shell long before Lionel had died. Hopefully, his death had come just in time and Aunt Helen was right: with a bit of tender loving care Celia’s mother might not end up having a complete nervous breakdown, nor going stark raving mad.

On the other hand…

Celia scowled at herself. She really didn’t want to think about her mother’s ill-fated relationship with Lionel Freeman this weekend.

Difficult not to, however, considering where she was. The place still reeked of the illicit lovers. Celia might have cleared all the rooms of her mother’s things, but Jessica’s highly individual decorating touch remained, as did loads of Lionel’s personal possessions. Clothes. Stacks of CDs. Shelves full of books. And bottles and bottles of wine.

Celia sighed. It had been a mistake to come here. She’d been right to reject the idea when it had first occurred to her. What on earth had she been thinking of?

But she was stuck here for now. She’d had too much to drink on an empty stomach to drive anywhere at the moment. Maybe later on this evening, she would go home.

And maybe not.

The bitter truth was she’d end up thinking of her mother at the moment, no matter where she was. Might as well stay here, Celia decided wearily.

Might as well have another glass of wine, too.

Luke was lost. Hopelessly lost. He’d thought he knew the way. But it had been nearly twenty years since he’d been to Pretty Point and, even then, he’d only been a child passenger, not the adult driver.

The relatively new freeway showed no turn-offs to Pretty Point, nor to any other place names he recognised. He realised after sailing past the turn-off to Morisset and Cooranbong that he probably should have taken it. He’d been driving north way too long. Nearly two hours from Sydney. He took the next turn-off to Toronto, drove into the town and bought a local map at a newsagent’s.

After studying it for a while, he made his way back onto the expressway, took the correct turn-off, and fifteen minutes later began to finally see some familiarity in the roads.

Even so, the area had changed dramatically.

Bush had been cleared and housing estates had popped up all over the place, even on Pretty Point. It was certainly no longer a backwater. As he drove down the now tarred road which led to the far end of the Point—and his father’s property—Luke began to appreciate how much ten acres of waterfront land was worth here in the present climate.

Ms Jessica Gilbert, whoever she was, had done very well for herself out of his father’s generosity.

Luke’s tension grew as he drew closer, his eyes narrowing as he glimpsed a building through the trees, a triangular-shaped house with a sloping green roof. He slowed, then braked, then scratched his head. Had his memory played him false? The area looked right, but the house was all wrong.

He drove on slowly, looking for a sign that this was the right place. And there it was, on the big white gum tree with the gnarled branches. His childish message, carved into the trunk all those years ago. LF was here.

Luke’s stomach contracted. The place was right. But the house was definitely wrong. He stared at it again.

It looked almost new, built on exactly the same spot where the old cabin had stood.

If his father had built a new weekender up here, then why hadn’t he ever mentioned it to him?

Don’t jump to conclusions, he warned himself. All will be explained once you meet its occupier in the flesh.

Meanwhile, Luke clung to the hope that the new place had originally been built as an investment property—possibly when he’d been living in England. Maybe his father had intended to sell it, but then had generously allowed this Ms Gilbert to live there, once he’d heard her hard-luck story.

Luke directed his car down the gravel driveway which wound a gentle path through the tall trees and up towards the back porch of the A-framed dwelling.

A sporty white hatchback was parked next to the steps.

Not a car that an elderly spinster would drive.

Luke tried not to keep jumping to a not-very-nice conclusion, but it was increasingly hard.

He climbed out from behind the wheel and rather reluctantly mounted the long back porch, all the while frowning down at the pine decking, then up at the pine logs which made up the entire back wall of the house.

One of his father’s favourite woods had been pine.

Luke knew then that his father had not just had this place built, he’d designed it himself. Had designed and had built it without telling him. Without telling his wife as well, Luke warranted.

Clenching a fist, he rapped on the door. There was no doorbell, of course. His father had hated doorbells. He’d hated phones as well. He’d hated anything that made irritating interrupting noises.

Luke knocked again. Louder this time.

Twenty more seconds ticked by. Twenty more silent tension-twisting seconds.

Why didn’t the woman answer? Was she deaf?

Suddenly, Luke hoped she was just that. Deaf. Elderly people were often deaf.

The door was reefed open and she stood before him.

In the flesh.

She wasn’t old. Nor deaf.

She was young. And beautiful. With full lips, slanting green eyes and glorious red-gold hair.

It was up. But not like Isabel wore hers up, all neat and smooth and confined. This hair defied order, rebellious curls easily escaping their loose prison to kiss the skin on her slender neck and rest lightly against her smooth, pale-skinned face.

“Ms Gilbert?” he demanded to know, his voice curt, his stomach churning. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she was a friend. A welfare officer. A community nurse, even.

And maybe he was the next winner of the Nobel prize for architecture. If there was one.

“Yes,” she admitted, and Luke finally knew the answers to every question he’d been asking himself since he’d first heard her name.

CHAPTER THREE

CELIA stared up at the dark haired and very handsome man standing in the doorway, her memory trying to place him. His face was familiar, and so were his eyes. Almost black, they were. Long lashed and very deeply set.

She was frowning into their inky depths when recognition struck.

“Dear heaven,” she said, her hand tightening on the door knob. “You must be Luke. Lionel’s son.” She kept on staring at him. Impossible not to. It was like seeing Lionel, twenty years ago.

“Right in one, Ms Gilbert.”

The fact that he knew her name took a moment or two to register. As did his simmering anger.

Clearly, Luke Freeman hadn’t come to claim or inspect an inheritance. Somehow, he’d found out about his father’s extramarital affair with her mother, and had come charging up here, far from happy.

But what did he want? To hear first hand all of the sordid details? To confront his father’s mistress personally? To tear strips off her for corrupting his precious parent?

Over my dead body, Celia vowed. Her mother had suffered enough at the hands of one Freeman man. She wasn’t about to let the son finish off what the father had started.

She crossed her arms and gathered herself to do battle. “I don’t how you found out,” she said through gritted teeth, “but I presume you know everything.”

“About your affair with my father, you mean?” he returned in a voice that would have cut diamonds. “Oh, yes, I know. Now. But I suspected the truth as soon as you opened the door. To give my father credit, he had taste. You are one beautiful woman, Ms Jessica Gilbert.”

Celia was too shocked to be even mildly flattered by this back-handed compliment. My goodness! He thought she was his father’s mistress!

She opened her mouth to tear strips off him, but then slowly closed it again, her mind racing to put this puzzle together. If he thought she was his father’s bit on the side, then he actually knew very little. Just a name. Not the woman in question’s age. Nor anything else about her. He certainly had no idea Ms Jessica Gilbert was a forty-two-year-old single mother with a twenty-six-year-old daughter. He definitely had no idea how long the affair had been going on.

Celia could say anything she liked and Lionel’s son would probably believe it.

She thought of her mother and knew what she had to do.

Celia sighed, uncrossed her arms and stepped back out of the doorway. “I suppose you’d better come in,” she said with a wave of her hand, all the while wondering what approach she should take for the part of Lionel’s secret mistress.

His son was no fool, so best stick to the truth as much as possible so that she didn’t slip up. She would simply bring the affair forward twenty years and put herself in her mother’s place.

It would be difficult to pretend she’d loved the ruthless Lionel, let alone made love with him.

But she’d manage.

Somehow.

Luke tried to get a grip on his anger as he accepted her reluctant invitation and stepped into his father’s secret love nest.

He failed wretchedly. But who, exactly, was he angry with? His father, for not living up to his hero status? Or this creature, this incredibly sensual creature of the captivating and cat-like green eyes?

Luke strode across the large open-plan living room, his eyes taking in at a glance the simple yet elegant beauty of the place. The extensive use of wood had his father’s hand stamped all over it, though not everything was made of pine inside, only the kitchen and the walls. The polished wooden floors were boxwood and the high panelled ceiling looked like various types of cedar. The dining room table was made in a rich walnut, the finely carved chairs fashioned in the same wood, with dark green velvet cushions. The huge sofa facing the sandstone fireplace was also covered in the same dark green velvet.

As Luke walked past it, he couldn’t help thinking about what might have transpired on that sofa between his father and his mistress. And on the plush-pile cream rug stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace. He could see her red-gold hair now, spread out and glowing in the fire light. He could almost feel the warmth of the flames on her pale skin, and practically taste the siren sweetness of her lips, drawing her married lover down, down into the hell-fires where lust ruled and faithfulness was totally forgotten.

Luke wrenched out one of the dining chairs and plonked himself down sideways in it, one elbow on the table, his other on the back of the chair. No way was he going to sit on the sofa. Nor make himself too comfortable. This was going to be a very brief visit.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked politely after shutting the door. “Tea? Coffee? A glass of wine?”

“No, thanks.” No politeness in his voice. It was rough and gruff.

“I think, perhaps,” she murmured in her sweet siren’s voice, “I could do with one.”

He watched her walk over to the galley-style kitchen, his gaze sweeping down her body then up again.

She was mistress material all right, with curves in all the right places. And she dressed for the part. Long, floaty wraparound skirt in a deep burgundy colour. A black knitted cardigan top with a deep scooped neckline and easy-to-undo buttons. No bra. Bare feet.

Luke estimated it would take a man less than twenty seconds to strip her naked, if she made no objections.

The image of his father sweeping through that door and immediately doing just that brought a flood of fierce feelings within Luke. More anger. A degree of disgust. And a perturbing amount of jealousy!

She poured herself a glass of white wine from a bottle in the fridge and came round to slide up on one of three pine stools which faced the kitchen counter. But she didn’t face the kitchen counter. She faced him, her green eyes thoughtful.

“What do you want, then?” she said as she crossed her legs and lifted the glass to her lips.

When her skirt fell slightly apart to show more than a tantalising glimpse of shapely leg, Luke struggled to banish the X-rated images that zoomed into his mind.

“I just want to talk to you,” he replied, pleased that his tone was a bit more businesslike and less angry.

Her delicate eyebrows arched cynically, and Luke wondered if his father had told her he only wanted to talk to her when they’d first met.

The image of his father as a ruthless womaniser didn’t sit any better with Luke than the image of him as a seduced fool.

He’d thought he’d known all the answers when she’d opened the door, but that wasn’t true. The physical reality of Ms Jessica Gilbert now raised a hundred more tantalising questions. But one stood out amongst all the others?

“Did you love him?” he asked abruptly, and watched her reactions.

Her lovely eyes rounded, her nostrils flaring in and out as she sucked in sharply. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she bit out.

“I think it is, Ms Gilbert. My father visited his solicitor the day before he died,” he went on. “His intention was to gift this place over to you. But he was killed before he could see to the transfer. He revealed that he’d been letting you live here rent-free for the past few years, but that he wanted you to have security for life.”

“I see…”

Her green eyes glittered with contempt. But for whom? Luke puzzled.

“You think I was sleeping with your father for what I could get out of him,” she stated coldly.

“It did cross my mind,” he admitted.

“I’m sure it did. I presume you won’t be signing this place over to me, then, will you?” she added drily.

“That depends,” he said, and watched a speculative interest replace the contempt in her eyes.

“On what?” she asked carefully.

The moment she asked that question in that fashion, Luke at least knew one of the answers he’d been looking for. She hadn’t been in love with his father. She had been in it for the material gain all along.

It made brutal sense. Why else would a girl as young as this be having an affair with a man as old as his father?

Luke wondered how much she’d already gleaned from him in cash during their liaison. Not to mention presents, the sort of presents rich older men gave their beautiful young mistresses. Clothes. Jewelry. Perfume. Lingerie.

She’d look incredibly sexy in black lace…

“On what does it depend?” she demanded to know and, immediately, another X-rated image raised its ugly head, rattling Luke with the power this female had to both arouse and tempt him without seemingly doing a thing.

Luke stared at her and tried to imagine what she would say if he offered her this place in exchange for one weekend being his mistress, giving him everything she’d given his father. And more.

Oh, yes, he’d want more. He was only thirty-two years old, a man in his sexual prime, a man who hadn’t made love to his fiancée in…

Guilt consumed him as his train of thought ended with Isabel: the woman he was going to marry in a fortnight’s time, the woman he’d vowed always to be truthful with in future.

What was happening to him here?

Not that he’d actually done anything. A man could not be hung for his thoughts, especially when in the presence of the temptation sitting before him. Did she have any idea how sexy she looked, swinging her prettily painted toes in front of him, that slit in her skirt falling further and further apart till he could practically see the entire side of her left leg? And all the while she was sipping her wine and watching him over the rim of the glass like a hunter quietly watching its prey.

Luke began to understand why his father had fallen victim to her wiles. She was the devil in disguise.

At the back of his mind, Luke knew he should get the hell out of there. But his curiosity far overrode his common sense.

“It depends on your telling me all about your affair with my father,” he said brusquely.

Her left leg slipped off her right knee, bringing her skirt back to a more modest arrangement. When she put her glass back down, Luke saw that her hand was shaking slightly. “All? What do you mean by…all?”

Luke liked seeing her agitated. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because he didn’t really want her to be a cold-blooded money-grubbing bitch. Luke was afraid that if she was, he might find himself in deep trouble here. For if she’d sleep with a man old enough to be her father, strictly for material gain, then what would she be capable of with him?

Never in Luke’s life had he felt the pulling power of his dark side this much. Sure, during his years at uni, he’d sometimes acted foolishly in the sexual sense. Even recklessly. He’d been a bit of a lad over in London too, perhaps because he’d been away from his father’s supposedly good influence for the first time.

But ever since he’d come back to Australia two years ago, he hadn’t wanted wild sexual thrills any more. He’d wanted a more safe, secure and settled life. He’d wanted what his father had had.

Luke stared at his father’s sexy young mistress and realised ruefully his dark side still wanted what his father had had. The nice little woman at home, and this, waiting for him at weekends.

His heart raced just thinking about it.

But they were still only just thoughts, he told himself firmly. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t act on them, no matter how tempting. He would hate himself for ever if he did.

But he still wanted to know everything about his father’s affair, to try to make sense of it all.

“Exactly that,” he bit out. “I want to know how and when you met my father? Who made the first move and why? How often you met and where? I want to know if he truly loved you, or just wanted you for sex. Tell me the whole rotten truth, Ms Gilbert, and this place is yours.”

CHAPTER FOUR

FOR a split second Celia wanted to lash out at him. But then she saw the pain behind Luke’s anger, and sympathy for him washed into her heart.

It was never nice, being confronted with a parent’s fallibility, especially in matters of the flesh. Even more upsetting, at this time in his life, so soon after both his parents’ tragic deaths.

“You’re very angry with your father, aren’t you?” she said softly.

He didn’t move a muscle, except for the one twitching in his jaw.

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