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Joyce hadn’t been surprised when one of the wealthy men who patronised the exclusive jewellery boutique where Tara worked had made a beeline for her. She wasn’t surprised—or even too worried—when Tara confessed that she was no longer a virgin. Joyce had always thought it a minor miracle that a girl with Tara’s looks had reached twenty-four without having slept with a man. After all, her daughter’s many boyfriends must have tried to get the girl into bed.
Tara had always claimed she was waiting for Prince Charming to come along. Joyce’s younger daughter was somewhat of an idealist, a full-on romantic. An avid reader, she was addicted to novels which featured wonderful heroes and happy-ever-after endings.
In the beginning, Joyce had hoped that Max Richmond was her daughter’s Prince Charming. He had most of the attributes. Wealth. Good looks. Youth. Relative youth, anyway. He’d been thirty-five when they’d begun seeing each other.
But in the last twelve months Joyce had come to feel differently about her daughter’s relationship with the handsome hotel magnate. It had finally become clear that Max Richmond was never going to marry his lovely young mistress.
For that was what Tara had swiftly become. Not a proper girlfriend, or a partner, as people sometimes called their loved ones these days. A mistress, expected to be there when he called and be silent when he left. Expected to give everything and receive nothing in return, except for the corrupting gifts rich men invariably gave to their mistresses.
Designer clothes. Jewellery. Perfume. Flowers.
A fresh bouquet of red roses was delivered every week when Max was away. But who ordered them? Joyce often wondered. The man himself, or his secretary?
If Tara had been the kind of good-time girl who could handle such a relationship, Joyce would have held her tongue. But Tara was nothing of the kind. Underneath her sophisticated and sexy-looking exterior lay a soft, sensitive soul. A good girl. When Max Richmond eventually dumped her, she was going to be shattered.
Joyce’s thoughts had fired a slow-burning fury, along with her tongue.
‘Don’t what?’ she snapped. ‘Don’t tell it like it is? I’m not going to sit by silently and say nothing, Tara. I love you too much for that. You’re wasting your life on that man. He will never give you what you really want. He’s just using you.’
Tara refrained from reminding her mother how often she’d been told in this house that she didn’t know what she wanted in life. Joyce had frowned over her daughter not using her arts degree to get a job in Sydney. Instead, a restless Tara had gone tripping off to Japan to teach English for two years, at the same time using the opportunity to see as much of Asia as she could. When she’d returned to Sydney eighteen months ago her mother had expected her to look for a teaching position here. Instead, she’d taken a job as a shop assistant at Whitmore Opals, till she decided what she wanted to do next. Her announcement recently that she was going back to university next year to study psychology had been met with rolling eyes, as if to say, there she goes again.
In a way, her mother was right. She didn’t know what she wanted to be, career-wise, the way some people did. But she knew what she didn’t want. She didn’t want to be tied down at home with children the way Jen was. And she didn’t want to bake cakes every single Saturday.
‘So what is it that you think I really want, Mum?’ she asked, rather curious to find out what secret observation her mother had made.
‘Why, what most women want deep down. A home, and a family. And a husband, of course.’
Tara shook her head. Given that her mother was rising sixty, she supposed there were excuses for holding such an old-fashioned viewpoint.
But the bit about a husband was rather ironic, considering her mother’s personal background. Joyce had been widowed for over twenty years, Tara’s electrician father having been killed in a work accident when Tara was just three. Her mother had raised her two daughters virtually single-handed. She’d worked hard to provide for them. She’d scrimped and saved and even bought her own house. Admittedly, it was not a flash house. But it was a house. And, she’d never married again. In fact, there’d never been another man in her life after Tara’s father.
‘It may come as a surprise to you, Mum,’ Tara said as she removed the popped-up toast, ‘but I don’t want any of that. Not yet, anyway. I’m only twenty-four. There are plenty of years ahead for me to settle down to marriage and motherhood. I like my life the way it is. I’m looking forward to going back to uni next year. Meanwhile, I have an interesting job, some good friends and a fabulous lover.’
‘Whom you rarely see. As for your supposed good friends, name one you’ve been out with in the last six months!’
Tara couldn’t.
‘See what I mean?’ her mother went on accusingly. ‘You never go out with your old friends any more because you’re compelled to keep your weekends free, in case his lord and master deigns to drop in on your life. For pity’s sake, Tara, do you honestly think your jet-setting lover is spending every weekend of his alone when he doesn’t come home?’
Joyce regretted the harsh words the moment she saw her daughter’s face go a sickly shade of grey.
Tara gripped the kitchen counter and willed the bile in her throat to go back down. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mum. Max would never do that.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ Joyce said, but more softly this time. ‘He doesn’t love you, Tara. Not the way you love him.’
‘Yes, he does. And even if he didn’t, I’d still want him.’
Oh, yes, that was one thing she was sure about.
‘I won’t give him up for anything, or anyone,’ she announced fiercely, and took a savage bite of toast.
‘He’s going to break your heart.’
Tara’s heart contracted. Would he? She couldn’t imagine it. Not her Max. Not deliberately. He wasn’t like that. Her mother didn’t understand. Max just didn’t want marriage at this time in his life. Or kids. He’d explained all that to her right from the beginning. He’d told her up front that his life was too busy for a wife and a family. Since his father had been incapacitated by a stroke, the full responsibility of running the family firm had fallen on him. Looking after a huge chain of international hotels was a massive job, especially with the present precarious state of tourism and travel. Max spent more than half his life on a plane. All he could promise her for now was the occasional weekend.
He’d given her the opportunity to tell him to get lost, before she got in any deeper. But of course that had been after he’d taken her to bed and shown her a world she’d never envisaged, a world of incredible pleasure.
How could you give up perfection, just because everything wasn’t perfect?
Tara threw the rest of her toast in the bin under the sink, then straightened with a sigh. ‘If you disapprove of my relationship with Max this much, Mum,’ she said unhappily, ‘perhaps it’s time I moved out of home.’
She could well afford to rent a place of her own on her salary. Her pay as a shop assistant at Whitmore Opals was boosted by generous commission each month. She was their top salesgirl, due to her natural affinity for people and her ability to speak fluent Japanese. A lot of the shop’s customers were wealthy Japanese visitors and businessmen who appreciated being served by a pretty Australian girl who spoke their language like a native.
‘And go where?’ her mother threw back at her. ‘To your lover’s penthouse? He won’t like that. You’re only welcome there when he’s there.’
‘You don’t know that. There again, you don’t know Max. How could you? You never say more than two words to him on the phone and you’ve never invited him here.’
‘He wouldn’t want to come here,’ she grumbled. ‘This house isn’t fancy enough for a man who lives on the top floor of Sydney’s plushest hotel, and whose family owns a waterfront mansion on Point Piper. Which, might I point out, he’s not taken you to, not even over Christmas? Have you noticed that, Tara? You’re not good enough to be taken home to meet his parents. You’re to be kept a dirty little secret. That’s what you are, Tara. A kept woman.’
Tara had had enough of this. ‘Firstly, there is nothing dirty about my relationship with Max. We love each other and he treats me like a princess. Secondly, Max does not keep me a dirty little secret. We often go out together in public, as you very well know. You used to show your friends the photographs in the paper. Quite proudly, if I recall.’
‘That was when I thought something would come of your relationship. When I thought he would marry you. But there have been no photographs in the paper lately, I’ve noticed. Maybe because he doesn’t have time to take you out any more. But I’ll bet he still has time to take you to bed!’
Tara clenched her jaw hard lest she say something she would later regret. She loved her mother dearly. And she supposed she could understand why the woman worried about her and Max. But modern life was very complicated when it came to personal relationships. Things weren’t as cut and dried as they had been in Joyce’s day.
Still, it was definitely time to find somewhere else to live. Tara could not bear to have to defend herself and Max all the time. It would sour her relationship with her mother.
She could see now that she should not have come back home to live after her return from Tokyo. Her two years away had cut the apron strings and she should have left them cut. But when her mother had met her at the airport on her return, Tara didn’t have the heart to dash Joyce’s presumption that her daughter was back to stay with her. And frankly, it had been rather nice to come home to her old bedroom and her old things. And to her mother’s cooking.
But that had been several months before she’d met Max and fallen head over heels in love.
Things were different now.
Still, if she moved out of home, her mother was going to be very lonely. She often said how much she enjoyed Tara’s company. Tara’s board money helped make life easier for Joyce as well. Her widow’s pension didn’t stretch all that far.
Guilt screamed in to add to Tara’s distress.
Oh, dear. What was a daughter to do?
She would talk to Max about the situation, and see what he said. Max had a wonderful way of making things seem clear and straightforward. Solutions to problems were Max’s stock-in-trade. As were decisions. He spent most of his life solving problems and making decisions.
Max was a very decisive man. A little inflexible, however, Tara conceded. And opinionated. And unforgiving.
Very unforgiving, actually.
‘Look, Mum, there are reasons why Max hasn’t taken me home to meet his parents,’ she started explaining to her mother. ‘It has nothing to do with our working class background. His own father was born working-class, but he…’ Tara broke off abruptly before she revealed things told to her in strict confidence. Max would not appreciate her blurting out the skeletons in his family’s closet, even to her mother. ‘Let’s leave all this for now,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I don’t feel up to arguing with you over Max today.’
The moment she added those last words, Tara regretted them, for her mother’s eyes instantly turned from angry to worried. Her mother was a chronic worrier when it came to matters of health.
‘I thought I heard you being sick earlier,’ Joyce said.
‘It’s nothing. Just a tummy bug. Probably the same thing Jen and her kids had. I’m feeling better now.’
‘Are you sure that’s what it is?’ her mother asked, still looking concerned.
‘Well, I don’t think I’m dying of some dreaded disease,’ Tara said. ‘Truly, Mum, you have to stop looking up those health websites on the internet. You’re becoming a hypochondriac.’
‘I meant,’ her mother bit out, ‘do you think you could be pregnant?’
‘Pregnant!’ Tara was totally taken aback. Dear heaven. Mothers! Truly. ‘No, Mum, I am definitely not pregnant.’ She’d had a period during the weeks Max had been away, which meant if she was pregnant, it had been because of an immaculate conception!
Besides, if there was one thing Tara was fanatical about, it was birth control. The last thing she wanted at this time in her life was a baby. Max wasn’t the only one.
When they’d first become lovers, Max had said he’d use condoms. But after one broke one night last year and they’d spent an anxious two weeks, Tara had taken over the job of preventing a pregnancy. She even had her cellphone programmed so that it beeped at the same time every day, a reminder to take her pill. Six pm on the dot. She also kept a spare box of pills in Max’s bathroom, in case she accidentally left hers at home.
Her mother’s tendency to always expect the worst to happen in life had trained Tara to be an expert in preventative action.
‘There is no sure form of contraception,’ Joyce pointed out firmly. ‘Except saying no.’
Tara refrained from telling her mother that saying no to Max would never be on her agenda.
‘I have to get going,’ she said. ‘The next train for the city is due in ten minutes.’
‘When will you be back?’ her mother called after her as she hurried from the kitchen. ‘Or don’t you know?’
It hit home. That last remark. Because Tara didn’t know. She never seemed to know these days. In that, her mother was right. Max came and went like a whirlwind, often without much information or explanation. He expected her to understand how busy he was at the moment. Which she did on the whole. Didn’t she?
‘I’ll let you know, Mum,’ Tara called back as she scooped up her carry-all and swept out the door. ‘Bye.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d9e65c5c-6838-5192-9239-57de0e9008e0)
HER wrist-watch said three-forty as Tara slid Max’s silver Mercedes into an empty parking space, then yanked the car keys out of the ignition. Ten seconds later she was hurrying across the sun-drenched car park, wishing she was wearing her joggers, instead of high-heeled slip-on white sandals. They were sexy shoes but impossible to run in. She’d found that out on the way to the station back at home.
Missing the train had put her in a right quandary.
Did she wait for the next train or catch a taxi?
A taxi from Quakers Hill to the city would cost a bomb.
Unfortunately, Joyce had instilled some of her frugal ways in both her daughters, so whilst Tara could probably have afforded the fare, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Aside from the sheer extravagance, she was saving this year to pay for next year’s uni fees.
She’d momentarily contemplated using the credit card Max had given her, and which she occasionally used for clothes. But only when he was with her, and only when it was for something he insisted she buy, and which she wouldn’t wear during her day-to-day life. Things like evening gowns and outrageously expensive lingerie. Things she kept in Max’s penthouse for her life there.
Till now, she’d never used the card for everyday expenses. When she considered it this time, her mother’s earlier words about her being a kept woman made up her mind for her. Maybe if she’d been still feeling sick, she’d have surrendered to temptation and taken a taxi, but the nausea which had been plaguing her all morning had finally disappeared. So she’d bought herself some food and sat and waited for the next train, and now she was running late.
Tara increased the speed of her stride, her stiletto heels click-clacking faster on the cement path. Her heart started to beat faster as well, a mixture of agitation and anticipation. With a bit of luck, Max’s plane might not have arrived yet. She’d hate him to think she didn’t care enough to be on time. Still, planes rarely seemed to land on schedule. Except when you didn’t want them to, of course.
The contrariness of life.
Once inside the arrivals terminal, Tara swiftly checked the overhead information screens, groaning when she saw that Max’s plane had landed, although only ten minutes earlier. The exit gate assigned was gate B.
Surely he could not be through Customs yet, she told herself as she hurried once more, her progress slightly hampered by having to dodge groups of people. Gate B, typically, was down the other end of the building.
Most of the men she swept past turned for a second glance, but Tara was used to that. Blondes surely did get more than their fair share of male attention, especially tall, pretty ones with long, flowing hair and even longer legs.
Tara also conceded that her new white hipsters were on the eye-poppingly tight side today. She’d been doing some comfort eating lately and had put on a couple of pounds since she’d bought them at a summer sale a fortnight ago. It was as well they were made of stretch material. Still, lord knew what the view of her was like from behind. Pretty in-your-face, no doubt.
Her braless state might have stopped traffic as well, if she’d been wearing a T-shirt or a singlet top.
Thankfully, she wasn’t wearing either. The pink shirt she’d chosen that day did a fair job of hiding her unfettered breasts.
In her everyday life, Tara always wore a bra. But Max liked her braless. Or so he’d said one night, soon after they’d starting seeing each other. And, being anxious to please him, she’d started leaving off her bra whenever she was with him.
But as time had gone by, she’d become aware of the type of stares she’d received from other men when Max had taken her out in public.
And she hadn’t liked it.
Nowadays, when she was with Max, she still left her bra off, but compromised by never wearing anything too revealing. She chose evening gowns with heavily beaded bodices, or solid linings. For dressy day wear, she stuck to dresses and covering jackets. For casual wear, she wore shirts and blouses rather than tight or clingy tops. Tara liked the idea of keeping her bared breasts for her lover only.
Her nipples tightened further at the mere thought of Max touching them.
She would have to wait for that pleasure, however, till they were alone in Max’s hotel suite. Although Max seemed to like her displaying her feminine curves in public, he was not a man to make love anywhere but in total privacy. And that included kissing.
The first time he’d come home after being away, she’d thrown her arms around him in public and given him a big kiss. His expression when she finally let him come up for air had been one of agitation, and distaste. He’d explained to her later that he found it embarrassing, and could she please refrain from turning him on to that degree when he could not do anything about it?
He had added later that he was more than happy for her to be as provocative and as assertive as she liked in private. But once stung by what she’d seen as a rejection of her overtures—and affection—Tara now never made the first move where lovemaking was concerned. She always left it up to Max.
Not that she ever had to wait long. Behind closed doors, Max’s coolly controlled façade soon dropped away to reveal a hot-blooded and often insatiable lover. His visits home might have become shorter and less frequent over the last few months—as Tara’s mother had observed—but whilst he was here in Sydney, he was all Tara’s. They spent most of Max’s visits in bed.
Her mother would see this as conclusive evidence that she was just a sex object to Max. A kept woman. In other words, a mistress.
But her mother was not there when Max took her in his arms. She didn’t see the look in his eyes; didn’t feel the tenderness in his touch; or the uncontrollable trembling which racked his body whenever he made love to her.
Max loved her. Tara was sure of it.
His not wanting to marry her at this time in his life was a matter of timing, not lack of love. Max had never said that marriage was never on his agenda.
And as she’d told her mother, she was in no hurry to get married, anyway. What she was in a hurry for was to get to gate B, collect Max and take him back to the Regency Royale Hotel, post-haste.
Fate must have been on her side, for no sooner had she ground to a breathless halt not far from gate B than Max emerged through the customs exit, striding purposefully down the ramp, carrying his laptop in one hand and wheeling a black carry-on suitcase in the other.
Tara supposed he didn’t look all that much different from dozens of other well-dressed businessmen there at the airport that day. Perhaps taller than most. More broad-shouldered. And more handsome.
But just the sight of him did things to her that she could never explain to her mother. She came alive as she was never alive when she wasn’t with him. Her brain bubbled with joy and the blood fizzed in her veins.
Tara conceded not every twenty-four-year-old girl’s heart would flutter madly at Max’s more conservative brand of handsome, or his very conservative mode of dressing. Tara rarely saw him in anything but a suit. Today’s was charcoal-grey. Single-breasted, combined with a crisp white shirt and a striped blue tie.
All very understated.
