Belle's Secret Read online

  “From what I saw with my mom and Amy and Tess, moms and daughters sometimes get on each other’s last nerve. Especially when my sisters were teenagers.”

  “No, it wasn’t a fight.” The memories stacked up like dominoes in her head and with a flick the first one fell, and then the whole lot came tumbling down, clicking and pushing with a gathering force.

  “She told me. She sat me down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and calmly told me that she’d never wanted to be a mother. I was an accident. She was reckless with her choice of men and they were reckless in not using any protection. So I arrived. I was five years old when she told me this.”

  He stiffened. “Jesus, Belle.”

  “When I finished high school, she got in a car belonging to someone called Dave and drove to Darwin, right up north at the top of Australia. I went in the opposite direction. To Melbourne. That’s where I met Maggie. And that’s kind of how I ended up here.”

  “I get it now,” he said quietly, his voice gruff, full of an emotion she didn’t want to put a name to. Please don’t let it be pity, she thought.

  He let go of her, moved back, and she felt empty.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Belle.”

  On hands and knees Harry moved around in front of her and then knelt there, his eyes dark. He brought his hands to her face, gently held her cheeks and leaned in.

  He was going to kiss her and God, she wanted him to. She wanted this. She reached for his arms and tugged him down on top of her, feeling the weight of his body on hers, throwing her arms around him, spreading her legs to hold him close. When he found her mouth she let herself go, deepened the kiss, poured herself into him with a primal urgency.

  “Harry,” she murmured and he suddenly flipped them over so he was on the rug and she was on top of him, kissing, hands stroking her back. And she pulled herself together enough to prop herself up against him, using her hands as levers against his strong chest, which was moving up and down as he struggled to breathe. She felt like someone else in that moment, in the moment she crossed her arms, grabbed the hem of her cotton top and whipped it over her head. Then, with a quick flick and a twist, her bra was off too, and Harry moaned as he reached for her breasts, cupping her, flicking each nipple with his thumbs and the connection was immediate and electric. Her nipples to her core. She was on fire.

  “Belle,” Harry groaned and undid the buttons on his jeans and then she freed him, so hard already, and gripped his length. He leaned up as far as needed so he could whip off his T-shirt.

  “My wallet,” he said, forcing a hand into a crumpled pocket, tugging out a leather wallet and pulling out a single condom. He tore it open and she snatched it from him, sheathed him, before lifting her skirt, pulling her knickers to one side and sliding over him. Quick and dirty. Hard and fast. To the hilt, she opened up and groaned with the exquisite pleasure of being full of him, connected in this most intimate way, and she leaned over him, watching his lips move on a silent curse, kissed the tops of his closed eyelids, then kissed him fiercely; as he parted his lips, their tongues clashed and if they could have swallowed each other whole, they would have.

  She rode him faster and faster. His hands gripped her butt, urging her harder, and then he came on a curse, his hips bucked and he swore and then he said her name on a whisper and she watched him as he shivered and pulsed.

  When he opened his eyes, she was still panting. He pulled her down and kissed her. Slow now, gentle, sated.

  “I remember this,” he said. “I’ve missed the fuck out of this.”

  When she turned and glanced over her shoulder, she saw two magpies eating the cheese and the olives and the crackers. They stared back at her, daring her to do something.

  She didn’t know what to do now.

  *

  “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” There was a long moment of silence. Isabella waited. She was used to this. Sometimes stage fright got the better of people. She glanced up from her leather folder, in which this couple’s traditional vows were clipped.

  The seemingly reluctant bride, wearing a sophisticated cream satin sheath dress and a pillbox hat with a matching net covering her face, cleared her throat and glanced, panicked, from Isabella to her fiancé.

  “You okay, sweet cheeks?” he asked, leaning in towards her.

  The bride waved a hand in front of her face, fanning it. “Just having a hot flush, that’s all. Great bloody timing, isn’t it?” She laughed, finally, and the twenty guests joined in heartily.

  The groom looked over his shoulder back at their friends and family. “It’s all right everyone. She hasn’t changed her mind or anything. She’s having her own personal tropical vacation, aren’t you, sweet?”

  Isabella wanted to join in the uproarious laughter, but it wasn’t her place. Instead, she let herself have a little smile. These two would last. They’d certainly waited long enough for each other. High school sweethearts, they’d broken up over a teenage misunderstanding and lost touch with each other, until they found each other on social media and had rekindled their love.

  She didn’t have that feeling about every couple she married. Once she’d caught a bride having sex with the best man just half an hour after the ceremony. Sometimes a bride’s tears were more than nerves; they were about being caught up in a dream of an idea that should have ended months, even years, before it got as far as standing in front of friends and family making hollow promises.

  But this couple, both fifty years old, were real and she had a good feeling.

  The bride coughed. “I do!” she announced, her arms spread wide and a loud cheer went up among the guests.

  Isabella turned to the groom. “And do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

  “Too bloody right I do.”

  And a few minutes later, after paperwork was completed, Isabella’s job was done. The couple and their guests sauntered off to The Woolshed for cocktails and canapés, and Isabella collected her folder and her gold pens.

  “Nice.”

  She looked up, but she knew it was Harry before she saw him.

  “Thanks.”

  He was walking towards her, casually, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, the sleeves of his white linen shirt pushed up his arms, his eyes hidden behind those damn shades. He leapt up onto the verandah of the cottage, slipped an arm around her waist, then pulled her in to kiss her. She fell into it, pressed a hand against his chest as their lips held.

  When she pulled back, she searched his eyes. After lunch today, after having sex up at the lookout, they’d packed up and driven back to Wirralong. She’d dropped Harry off in the main street at his B&B, politely declining his offer to have a drink, pleading that she had to rehearse and prepare for this afternoon’s wedding. Which was only half true. She was always prepared well in advance, but after spending the day with Harry, after having sex with Harry, she needed to be alone.

  When she’d pulled up in the main street, he’d turned to her and said, “It’s not over, Belle. You know that, right?”

  She hadn’t said a word when he kissed her then, or when he’d got out of the car.

  And now, another wedding was over, and he was here, and she realised she didn’t want him to go. At least not for today.

  She was still in his arms when she whispered, “Come back to my place.”

  *

  Two hours later, they lay in her bed, the late afternoon sun setting behind the row of gums outside her cottage, crisp white sheets tangled around their legs, her head on his chest, his arm around her shoulders. They’d made love—love, this time, they hadn’t simply fucked—and now his fingers were tangled in her hair and she splayed a hand over his chest.

  God, he loved the feel of her hair, like silk ribbons through his fingertips. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from twisting his fingers in it; chestnut brown and halfway down her back, there was so much to hold.

  He didn’t want to stop touching her,
wrapping her around his little finger. Would he ever stop?

  She stirred in his arms. Harry wasn’t sure if they’d fallen asleep or not, but even the hunger growling in his stomach wasn’t enough to make him want to leave her bed. He looked around the space. He’d often wondered where Belle lived. Her living room was simple and tidy. A small TV in the corner between the window and the open fireplace—filled with pine cones in the heat of the summer—and a single sofa was set in the middle of the room. He figured it would be the perfect place to settle in with a roaring fire in winter. How cold would it get at Wirra Station in winter? He must find out. Is that where Belle spent her winter evenings? With a fire, a glass of wine and a good book? Did she binge watch TV or was she a movie buff?

  Because he simply couldn’t countenance that any other man had spent time on that sofa with Belle. His Belle.

  Fuck. His Belle. She had been his Belle once and he wanted her to be again, didn’t he? Had she guessed it without him even saying it? Did he need to tell her that he was still in love with her or was it obvious? Did it stand out like dogs’ balls, as the Australians say?

  What had she typed on her screen back at her office?

  My heart was forever changed the day you walked into that bar in Vegas and swept me off my feet.

  Truth was, his heart had been forever changed too and he didn’t want to go back to what life was like before Belle.

  All he had to do now was stop the divorce.

  All he had to do now was convince her to stay married.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “The groom and groom are a little drunk.” Maggie chuckled.

  “Oh, great,” Isabella said as she put two cups of coffee on the wooden table in front of her sofa. Maggie had knocked on her door a few minutes before and taken up position in the living room, using her quiet half hour at the beginning of another busy day to see her best friend. Isabella was glad of it. Her world had been thrown upside down and inside out in the past few days and she needed grounding. This was familiar: two friends, coffee, their shoes kicked off and their legs up on the sofa. A warm breeze blew into the room from the open windows and there was a hint of lavender from the hedge surrounding the verandah.

  “Thanks for this,” Maggie said as she sipped and sighed. “I haven’t had my first cup of the day yet. I was a little too busy first thing this morning and that made me late.”

  Maggie grinned and Isabella knew that meant Max. Maggie and Max. The two words ran together in Isabella’s mind now, MaggieandMax. She really had to come up with a combined name for the two of them, like the tabloids did for celebrities, like Bennifer. Except Maggie and Max would still be Maggie. Or Max.

  “You do good coffee,” Maggie said.

  “Thanks. It’s not like we can walk around the corner and get a coffee to go, can we? Wirralong’s not really walking distance.”

  Maggie relaxed back into the plush sofa. “No. But this place has other virtues, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, plenty,” Isabella replied. They sat quietly for a moment, waiting for the caffeine to do its thing, watching the curtains billow, and listening to the magpies call from the gums outside. It really was heaven on a stick here, Isabella thought. Maggie had created a business and Isabella knew she was a valued part of it. She valued being a part of it in ways she could never explain to anyone. This little stone cottage was everything, even though she didn’t own it, merely rented it for a peppercorn from Maggie. But it was her little place. Her sanctuary. Somewhere she felt safe. It was the only place that had ever felt truly like home to Isabella.

  And with her actions, with letting Harry get under her skin again, she was risking her career and everything she’d helped create at Wirralong. She couldn’t think about that now. The grooms. The tipsy grooms. Talk about that. Distract me from the mistakes of my life.

  “So, exactly how drunk are the grooms?” Isabella checked her watch. It was ten in the morning. It was going to be a busy day for her today with two ceremonies: one at eleven and the tipsy grooms at four.

  “Drunk may have been a tiny exaggeration. Let’s just say they’re extremely happy about getting married.”

  “You didn’t serve up mimosas again for breakfast, did you?”

  “How could I not? It is their wedding day. And if you’re really, really lucky you only ever get to have one wedding, right? They arrived yesterday with a whole bunch of family and friends and they’re determined to celebrate. I think their party has booked out almost every room in Wirralong.”

  Not quite every room, Isabella thought. There was a B&B that was occupied until Sunday.

  “Hey Iz,” Maggie said. “This isn’t too much for you, is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, girlfriend, that we’ve been so busy. I mean, this was our business plan, to have lots of happy couples and their friends and families coming to Wirra Station to get married, but I never stopped to think about factoring in some downtime.”

  Isabella waved away her friend’s concern. “We’ll be missing them when the summer is over and when the rain sets in.” Isabella had experienced one winter in Wirralong and she was thankful she liked frosty mornings, snow on the distant mountains and quiet nights with a book in hand by her open fire. Business would slow down then, she knew. “What’s that expression? Make hay while the sun shines? We’ve got to make hay, Maggie. I think this is the busiest we’ve ever been, right?”

  Maggie held her coffee cup towards Isabella, who clinked hers against Maggie’s for a toast. “Absolutely. We had Star Wars and the other one on Saturday. That teen couple on Sunday. Monday was … help me out here …”

  “The chefs from Melbourne but Callen officiated that one, not me.”

  Maggie slapped a hand to her forehead. “I forgot that wasn’t you. You won’t believe what almost happened.”

  “To the couple?” Isabella asked.

  “No, to the enormous wedding cake. We almost lost it in the kitchen an hour before the reception. You know that new kitchen hand, Morgan? Thank God for her. She caught it just in time. That didn’t stop the heart attacks all round. If she hadn’t stopped it sliding off the workbench, we would have had to serve up trifle for dessert.” Maggie closed her eyes and shivered at the memory.

  “I’m so glad you don’t let me in on those little secrets.”

  “And that’s for a reason. Your job, Isabella, is to do the marrying, not the worrying about the reception and the guests. That’s strictly my business. So,” Maggie began counting off on her fingers. “The teens, two chefs, and yesterday we had the reunited couple, the ones who found each other on the Internet.”

  Isabella sighed. “Yes. They were so lovely.” That’s not all she remembered about yesterday. Not by a long shot. Which is why she still felt a little brain-fried, body-melted and all-out damned confused. “So, tell me about today’s grooms again?”

  “I think the mimosas began at about eight this morning, so they’ve gone to their cottage to have a little lie down. They should be all set and rested for the ceremony. They were drunk and nervous-excited all at once. So, you’ve got today under control?”

  “Of course. And are you all set for tomorrow?”

  Maggie created a big tick with her index finger in the air above her head. “Friday’s horse has been fed and watered and groomed. Its mane is even plaited, can you believe that? Snowy—that’s the horse’s name—is so gorgeous. Sleek and black and so tall. The bride had a little ride this morning and was only the slightest bit nervous. Why on earth you’d want to arrive at your own wedding riding a horse for the first time in your life …”

  Isabella’s thoughts drifted. In the past year, they’d seen everything. No request had ever been too complex, sublime or ridiculous. They’d arranged Singapore orchids—flown in directly from Singapore. A mariachi band from Mexico via Sydney. The finest French champagne from one particular winery in Côte des Blancs. Well, perhaps there had been one. Isabella had said no to the couple who wanted to ge
t married while hovering in a hot air balloon over Wirralong. She didn’t do heights.

  “Iz?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re a million miles away. I asked where things are up to with Harry.”

  Isabella emptied her coffee cup, giving her time to think of how to put it. “How are things going?” She looked up to the ceiling. “The sex is …”

  “Sex? You and Harry are having sex?”

  Isabella nodded, smiling.

  “Well, you are married, right? It’s perfectly natural for two married people to be having sex.”

  They laughed at how absurd the situation was.

  “I can see by that look in your eyes that it’s good sex. Very good sex,” Maggie said.

  “We just … fit, you know? Our bodies know what to do, even if we don’t. I actually crave him. I’ve got goose bumps just thinking about him. Isn’t that insane?”

  “That is your typical case of deep lust. It’s intoxicating. It’s like a drug.”

  Isabella and Maggie thought that over for a moment.

  “We’ve been so busy having sex that we haven’t actually talked about … the divorce.”

  “Time’s running out, isn’t it? He’s leaving Sunday, Iz.”

  Isabella didn’t need reminding. She was well aware that her time with Harry was running out. In three days she’d have to say goodbye.

  *

  Three quarters of an hour later, Isabella waited in a quiet corridor. Her chair was regulation hospital waiting room plastic, the colour on the walls a pale pink and the artwork anonymous and screwed to the walls. But there was something that set this place apart from every hospital she’d ever visited. It was quiet. There were no loud voices, no code blues alarming through the wing, no rushing staff or clanking trolleys or blaring televisions. Carpeted hallways muffled footsteps and closed doors kept the patients here in private cocoons for their final days. She double-checked to see that her phone was on silent and tucked it back in her briefcase. She swept imaginary dust from the leather folder sitting in her lap. Before leaving her cottage, after she and Maggie had had a second cup of coffee, she’d checked her paperwork and tucked the printed vows into her folder. She didn’t need to check again but she needed to do something with her hands.