Echoes of the Heart Read online

  Words froze on her lips when she opened her mouth to protest at his presence in the ladies’ room. All she could manage was some strangled, inarticulate sound as she saw tension etched into each of Jake’s features. His lips were drawn into a thin line and his jaw clenched, causing a tiny pulse to flick above his jawline.

  None too gently, he raised her left hand and stared at the diamond ring and wedding band on her ring finger.

  ‘You married Bennett,’ he stated coldly.

  All she could do was nod.

  ‘Is it really Bennett’s child you’re carrying, or could it be mine?’ Each word was clipped and controlled. There was no inflection, no emotion in his voice, but his stress was palpable.

  Amanda swallowed hard in an effort to ease the constriction in her throat. The thought of carrying Jake’s child made her heart squeeze in her chest. Tears pricked and stung her eyes as she mourned the loss of that fantasy.

  She would never carry Jake’s child.

  Jake was lost to her forever. He belonged to Sophie Hamilton and she was married to Lloyd.

  She pressed her lips together to prevent the whimper of pain from escaping and reminded herself she couldn’t lose something she’d never really had. Jake had always belonged to the other woman.

  ‘Answer me,’ he ground out with ferocity. His hand dropped hers and both his strong hands grasped her upper arms as he gave her a slight shake. ‘Is the child mine?’

  ‘No,’ she gasped.

  She watched in horrified fascination as he paled beneath his tan. For a split second she thought he looked sick, then the dark eyes that burned into her narrowed, and she glimpsed…what? An emotion she couldn’t identify flashed through his expression. The Adam’s apple in his throat worked up and down before the shutters closed on his features. His hands dropped away from her as though she was a piece of contaminated waste.

  His lips curled in revulsion. ‘I was your first lover. The moment we were parted you jumped straight into Bennett’s bed. God, Amanda, you disgust me. The man’s old enough to be your father.’

  ‘Jake, I...’ There was nothing she could say. She was caught neatly in the trap of Lloyd’s lies.

  ‘Obviously he wasn’t as careful as I was about contraception,’ he said. ‘More fool him.’

  He turned away momentarily and she watched in mute horror at the clenching and unclenching of his hands at his sides.

  ‘Congratulations on snaring yourself a wealthy husband,’ he sneered. ‘You’re quite a piece of work.’

  The miniscule amount of food she’d forced down for entrée threatened to re-appear.

  ‘I don’t know who to pity more—you for marrying a man who has a dubious reputation, or Bennett for marrying a scheming gold-digger.’

  ‘Jake…’ She wanted to explain, wanted to defend herself, but she couldn’t talk to him about her marriage. Besides, he was at the restaurant with Sophie Hamilton. How dare he attack her when he was planning marriage to Sophie?

  ‘My father was right about you,’ he said bitterly. ‘You were always in it for the money. You must have thought you’d hit the jackpot when I asked you out.’

  ‘No! I had no idea who you were when we met.’ She denied the claim, forgetting how convenient it had been for Jake to use her when all along he’d been involved with Sophie.

  ‘You knew!’ he declared. ‘You’d hardly give me your sacred virginity unless you thought it would pay handsome dividends. Too bad you didn’t stick around long enough to collect on your precious down payment.’

  The distaste on his features scored into her heart.

  Her gaze dropped to the floor tiles because she couldn’t look at him any longer. It was too hurtful to see his handsome features twisted in vicious condemnation.

  ‘Thank God I was always responsible for contraception, otherwise you might have tried to foist this child on me.’

  His words cut. She wanted to scream out her innocence, to confess the truth to him.

  She wasn’t pregnant. Not with his child or anyone else’s!

  Lloyd was a liar. The fake pregnancy was a smokescreen to hide the real reason behind their hastily arranged marriage. But she couldn’t explain that to Jake. For her aunt’s sake, Amanda had to live through Lloyd’s lie.

  ‘Bennett is welcome to you. You were suitable mistress material, but hardly the sort of woman I’d want as a wife.’

  Crushed, tears spilled out of her eyes. But at least she was saved the humiliation of him witnessing her distress. The door clicked behind him as he exited. She crumpled against the wall while he returned to have dinner with the woman who would make him a fitting wife.

  Mistress material. Today, the words he’d uttered still tore savagely at her soul. Self-preservation demanded she find out what Jake wanted and get him out of life as quickly as possible. There was no point in dredging up all that had happened between them.

  She tried to calm herself. ‘The past is better left where it belongs. What do you want?’

  ‘You walked away from me before I was ready to let you go.’ Jake’s voice was steely.

  She shook her head and shrugged. ‘There was no reason to continue seeing each other.’

  ‘I wasn’t finished with you. Not by a long shot.’

  ‘Tell me what it is that Lloyd has of yours, Jake,’ she said wearily. ‘I’ll do my best to see it’s returned to you. Then, I want you to leave me alone.’

  ‘Was lust or the lure of money your primary motivation to be with me?’ His intense regard caused her eyes to skitter away.

  A butterfly captured her attention as it fluttered around one of the wreaths propped against a nearby crypt.

  Once, she’d felt like a butterfly.

  Under Jake’s attention she’d undergone a miraculous metamorphosis from the boring, dull chrysalis she always envisaged herself to be. Gaining confidence with each day in his presence, it wasn’t long before she’d emerged as a butterfly, eager to unfold her wings and fly. Although an inner core of fragility remained, he’d made her feel like the most beautiful, cherished woman on the planet.

  Not only had there been passion thrumming between them, but they’d conversed easily on a wide range of topics. At other times, they would share easy silences while they walked along the beach hand in hand. She’d believed they were soulmates embarking on a precious, lasting relationship. Something that was meant to be.

  She’d been so naive!

  Jake played ruthlessly on her naivety and used her without mercy for his own temporary sexual gratification. What an easy conquest she’d been for him. Totally wrapped up in him, she hadn’t offered a hint of resistance.

  ‘Why did you go to bed with me?’ he demanded.

  She forced her eyes away from the butterfly to look at him. A combination of vulnerability and pride dictated she never let him know how much she loved him.

  ‘It was never about money, Jake.’ She struggled to keep her voice casual. ‘I imagine it was the same reason you went to bed with me. Physical attraction.’

  ‘You were twenty-five. I was your first lover.’

  You were twenty-nine. I definitely wasn’t your first lover and I was far from your last.

  ‘I’m sure you had other opportunities to take lovers,’ he pushed. ‘Why was I your first?’

  ‘Why not you?’ She shrugged with an attempt at nonchalance. ‘You’re extremely good-looking and an experienced lover. Who better to initiate me into the wonders of sex?’

  His fists clenched at his sides and when he spoke, his voice was harsh. ‘So, the whole time we were together…it was just about sex for you?’

  She suppressed the scornful laugh that rose in her throat. He was accusing her of being the one who was only interested in sex? That was rich. They both knew damned well that he’d used her for her body. Still, her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit to her emotional involvement.

  ‘You left me without a word of goodbye,’ he continued, not allowing her to respond.

  ‘What did you
expect me to do? Remain as your bit on the side when you married Sophie?’ she threw back with every bit of venom she could muster.

  His hand snaked out around her wrist. ‘I wasn’t involved with Sophie when we were lovers,’ he bit out.

  ‘Don’t bother lying. You were at the restaurant with Sophie.’

  ‘I’d just flown back into the country earlier that evening. When I left the message asking you to meet me at the restaurant, I told you it was her birthday and that I’d like you to meet her.’

  She recoiled from his words and his fingers tightened around her wrist. Her mind was trying to grapple with two things. He’d left a message she’d never received. Lloyd must have intercepted the message. Knowing Jake was to be at the restaurant, Lloyd must have planned to be there, to introduce Amanda as his wife. It hadn’t been just a coincidence.

  Lloyd had set them up.

  But the other statement Jake had made...

  ‘You wanted me to dine with the woman you were planning to marry?’ Good grief. What sort of relationship had Jake and Sophie had?

  ‘What are you talking about?’ He sounded genuinely confused and angered. His fingers released her wrist and his hands clasped her shoulders as though he wanted to shake her.

  ‘Sophie. You said you wanted me to meet Sophie. You do remember her, don’t you? She’s the woman you married.’

  Time stretched. Each breath sounded loud in her ears and her stomach performed cartwheels as he continued to hold her gaze. She watched him frown and shake his head, sensed his thought processes clicking over at a million kilometres an hour. The heat from his hands grasping her shoulders threatened to send her into melt-down.

  ‘I’d hardly have wanted you to meet Sophie if I was in a relationship with her. I thought you and I were in a relationship. Where the hell did you get the crazy idea I was planning marriage to Sophie?’

  ‘Crazy? I don’t think so,’ she said, disbelief ringing in her tone. ‘Soon after that night she became your wife. Besides, I overheard two of your friends talking about you and Sophie at the party you took me to.’ Shards of glass pierced her heart and she sucked in a steadying breath as she remembered all she’d learnt. ‘I found out you and Sophie were having a fight and that I was just a holiday fling to you.’

  Jake’s features stiffened and he bit out a curse as he finally released his hold on her.

  Amanda stared past Jake at a statue of an angel that adorned the crypt opposite her. She inhaled a long breath, smoothed her hands over her dress and tried to hold her emotions in check. ‘Later, that same night, I heard your father saying you had to sort out your problems with Sophie and marry her.’ She looked him straight in the eye and kept her voice level as she said, ‘You were cheating on Sophie when you were with me.’

  ‘Sophie and I were not dating when I met you,’ he returned emphatically, his hands cutting through the air in a gesture of denial.

  ‘No, not technically,’ she said with a bitter twist of her lips. ‘You were having a fight and I was a holiday fling until you kissed and made up. And you made up...what? The day after that same party, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jake. After all I heard that night, I’d already decided to end our sordid little fling, but when I heard the news that your father had suffered a massive heart attack and was in critical care, I phoned you and offered to be by your side.’

  ‘It wasn’t possible for you to come to the hospital.’

  ‘Of course not. Not only did your father despise me, but by that stage you had already patched things up with Sophie. I saw the newspaper photo of her leaving the hospital with you. You certainly didn’t need me comforting you when you had her.’

  ‘You sound as though that bothers you.’ His brow furrowed.

  Bothered her? Knowing Jake was planning a future with Sophie while he’d made love to her was like pouring acid on an open wound. Gritting her teeth together she searched for the butterfly as a distraction, but it had left the wreath.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to me and tell me what you’d overheard at the party?’ Jake pressed.

  Amanda hesitated. ‘You know, I was so stupid. Your friends were ripping me to shreds, talking about how unsophisticated I was and how I didn’t fit into your world.’ What his friends said struck a chord with her own feelings of inadequacy about her background. She had wondered how such an incredibly gorgeous, successful male could be attracted to her. ‘I told myself that my background didn’t matter. I even thought they must be wrong about Sophie.’

  ‘They were.’

  She ignored his denial. ‘The saddest thing was that I reasoned that I must be special to you because you were taking me to your parent’s party afterwards to introduce me to them as your girlfriend.’

  The second Jake had pulled into the driveway of his parents’ holiday house, Amanda’s doubts had re-surfaced. She hadn’t been prepared for the blatant wealth of Jake’s world. Their ‘weekender’ on the coast was a feat of architectural genius equipped with every modern convenience. The house, and the expensive European cars lining the driveway, screamed to her that she and Jake were worlds apart.

  ‘Our relationship was built on lies.’

  ‘Lies?’ Jake took a step toward her. ‘I never lied to you.’

  ‘You deceived me about who you were. You told me you were a management executive for a media group. I had no idea your parents were the owners of the biggest media corporation in the country. As soon as I saw them I realised who they were, and I realised that the Sophie I’d heard about was none other than the famous Sophie Hamilton.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re still claiming you didn’t know who I was?’

  ‘How could I know? You appeared in the papers in social columns I didn’t read, but you hadn’t taken over your father’s company at that stage. You didn’t have the notoriety that you have now.’

  Jake ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. ‘I didn’t lie to you.’

  ‘When you introduced me to your famous parents, I knew you hadn’t been honest with me about a lot of things. I also knew our backgrounds were poles apart. It was time to end it.’

  ‘I don’t believe you ran away because our backgrounds were so different. Why would you do that when you married Bennett to better your social position?’

  Her shoulders slumped. ‘I was totally out of my depth in your world,’ she said in a defeated voice. ‘Your father guessed how I felt. He could see I would never fit into your lifestyle.’

  Jake looked away for a second, running his gaze along a stone of the crypt behind her. She wondered if he remembered the awkwardness of her introduction to his parents as clearly as she did. His mother’s smile had been warm and welcoming but his father had looked at her with distaste, rudely ignoring the hand Amanda extended. Jake had seethed beside her as his father subjected Amanda to an uncomfortable interrogation into her background. It was five minutes before he led her away from his parents without causing a scene, and apologised to her for his father’s behaviour.

  ‘Your father did his best to illustrate the fact that I didn’t belong at that party or by your side,’ she recalled bitterly. ‘He saw me as the gauche girl in the second-hand dress—and he was trying to get you to see that girl too. I overheard what he said. It was a conversation that reinforced everything I was beginning to understand.’

  The man she loved was completely out of her reach.

  ‘I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth. I was taunted at school because my faded uniform was a couple of sizes too big, and because I was being raised by my aunt. But being poor never mattered until I met you.’

  Why had she fallen in love with the son of a famous multi-billionaire?

  ‘Is that the reason you married Bennett?’ Jake asked her. ‘Was that your way of freeing yourself from your past and attaining the wealth you desired?’

  ‘Damn it all, Jake. I didn’t want money. That was what your father wanted you to believe!
’

  Hot tears stung her eyes as she turned away from Jake and crossed her arms over her chest—a feeble attempt to hold herself together. With gritty determination she tried to sound out the long, foreign-looking name on the crypt rather than dwelling on Mr Formosa’s words, but each hateful word of the conversation was recorded on an audiotape in her mind and it kept playing.

  ‘I’m surprised you brought her here, son,’ Jake’s father had told him. ‘It was a mistake becoming involved with her. She’s out of her depth.’

  ‘Dad —’

  ‘Having sex with her is one thing, and I can understand that because she’s beautiful. I just hope you’re being responsible about birth control. Girls like that will conveniently forget to take their pill. Next thing, they’re knocking on your door nine months later with a little bundle of pink or blue and claiming half your trust fund.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re being such a snob. You know nothing about Amanda,’ he argued.

  ‘Not true. I saw you with her on the beach the other day, and since then I’ve had her investigated.’

  ‘What?’ The single syllable was full of outrage.

  ‘This girl lives with her aunt in a run-down fibro housing commission home in western Sydney. Her mother was an alcoholic who abandoned her at birth and died of liver failure ten years ago. Her father is unknown. The aunt —’

  ‘I know all this,’ Jake grated.

  ‘Then face it, son. She’s a legal secretary who’ll never earn a fortune. What girl in her position wouldn’t look at the lifestyle you can provide and make a grab for it?’

  ‘Amanda isn’t —’

  ‘In the same class,’ his father finished. ‘What you need to do is patch things up with Sophie. She’s the girl you’ve always been close to. Amanda is just a rebound affair because you’ve had a fight with her.’

  Amanda had heard enough. She raced to the toilet and locked herself in. She pressed herself up against the wall and tried to stop herself hyperventilating as she faced the shocking truth. Her only role in Jake’s life was for temporary amusement. His future was with Sophie Hamilton.