It Started With One Night: The Magnate's Mistress / His Bride for One Night / Master of Her Virtue

Talk about optimism!

Over lunch he also told his father that he planned to stay in Australia more in future and delegate some of the overseas travelling to his assistant.

‘Good idea,’ his father said, nodding. ‘When a man has a family, he should not be away from home too much. I was away from home too much. Far too much.’

When tears suddenly welled up in his father’s eyes, his mother immediately jumped up. ‘I think it’s time for your afternoon nap, dear,’ she said. ‘He gets tired very easily these days,’ she directed at a shocked Max as she wheeled his father off. ‘I won’t be long. Have another cup of coffee.’

Max did just that, sitting there, sipping some coffee and doing some serious thinking till his mother returned.

She threw Max an odd look as she sat down. ‘I’m so glad you stayed. Usually, you bolt out the door as soon as you can. Your becoming a father yourself has changed you, Max. You’re different today. Softer. And more compassionate. Perhaps the time is right for me to tell you the truth about Stevie.’

Max stiffened. ‘What…what do you mean…the truth?’

His mother heaved a deep sigh, her eyes not quite meeting his. ‘Stevie was not your father’s child.’

Max gaped.

‘I thought you might have guessed,’ she went on when he said nothing. ‘After all, Stevie was very different from you. And from your father. He also had brown eyes. Two blue-eyed parents can’t have a brown-eyed child, you know.’

Max shook his head. ‘I didn’t know that. Did Stevie?’

‘Thankfully, no. At least…he never said he did.’

‘So that’s why Dad didn’t love him.’

‘You’re wrong, Max. Your father did love Stevie. The trouble was every time he looked at him, he was reminded of the fact that I had slept with another man.’

‘But I thought Dad was the unfaithful one!’

His mother stared at him. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Years ago, I overheard you telling a friend that you knew Dad had other women, but you just turned a blind eye.’

His mother looked so sad. ‘I’m so sorry you heard that. You must have thought me very weak. Or very wicked.’

‘I didn’t know what to think. I’ve never known what to think about you two. At least I can now understand why Dad treated Stevie differently from me.’

‘He did try, Max. But it was very hard on him. He never seemed to know what to say to Stevie. Or how to act with him. It was much easier with you, because you were like two peas in a pod. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care about Stevie. When he was diagnosed with cancer, your father was terribly upset. His way of coping with his grief was to work harder. He couldn’t bear to see the boy in pain. He knows now that he should have come home to be with Stevie. He understands what it’s like when the people you love aren’t there for you when you’re ill.’

She didn’t look at him directly. Neither were her words said in an accusing tone. But Max felt guilty all the same. He hadn’t been any better than his father, had he? He’d let both his parents down by not being here to help.

‘Your father feels his stroke was a punishment for his letting Stevie down,’ his mother choked out.

Max could not deny that he had entertained similar thoughts himself over the past three years. Suddenly, however, they seemed terribly mean-spirited, and very immature. But he could not find the right words to say and was sitting there in an awkward silence, when his mother spoke once more.

‘Do you want to know about Stevie’s real father, or not?’

‘Yes,’ Max said sincerely. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘I have to go back to the beginning of my relationship with your father so that you can get the full picture.’

‘OK.’

She smiled a wry smile. ‘I hope you won’t be too shocked at me.’

Max could not imagine that anything more his mother could say today would shock him.

‘I’m no saint myself, Mum,’ he reassured, and so she began her story.

She’d first met his father when he parked her car for her one day at one of her own father’s hotels. She’d fallen in love with him at first sight, and had pursued him shamelessly as only a spoiled and beautiful rich woman could do. She confessed to seducing him with sex and playing to his ambitious nature with her money and her contacts. Not to mention her potential fortune. She was her wealthy father’s only child.

The trouble was she’d never believed he truly loved her when he married her, and was always besieged by doubts. The arrival of their first-born son—Max himself—calmed her for a while. Her husband seemed besotted, if not with her then definitely with his child. She began to feel more secure in her marriage. But after her father died and her husband started travelling overseas more and more often, all her doubts over his love increased. There was a photograph in a newspaper of him with some gorgeous socialite in London. She flew into a jealous rage when her husband finally came home, accusing him of being unfaithful. He claimed he wasn’t but she didn’t believe him.

Their marriage entered one of those dangerous phases. Ronald started staying away even more and she started going out on her own. She met Stevie’s father at an art exhibition. His art exhibition. He was an up-and-coming artist. She’d argued with her husband over the phone earlier in the evening over his delaying his return home yet again and was in a reckless mood. She drank too much and the rest, as they said, was history.

Perversely, Ronald arrived home the next night, and when she discovered she was pregnant a month later she didn’t know whose baby she was having. When the baby was born with blue eyes, she thought Stevie was Max’s full brother. But by six months his eyes had changed to brown and he looked nothing like Max’s father.

When Ronald confronted her with his suspicions, she confessed her indiscretion and her husband went crazy, showing her at last that he did love her. But the marriage had been irreparably damaged. After that, she suspected her husband was no longer faithful to her when he went away. A few times, she found evidence of other women on his clothes. Lipstick and perfume. She turned a blind eye for fear that he might actually divorce her. She tried to make a life for herself with charity work and society functions but she was very unhappy.

She reiterated that when Stevie was diagnosed with cancer, Ronald had been genuinely upset. Unfortunately, his way of handling such an emotional crisis was to go into his cave, so to speak, and work harder than ever.

‘Stevie might have survived his sickness,’ his mother added, ‘if it hadn’t been for his girlfriend dumping him. That was what depressed him far more than his father not being around. Trust me on that. Stevie and I were very close and he told me everything he felt.’

Max nodded. ‘I can imagine. I’ve never known a boy like Stevie. The way he could express his feelings. I wish I could be like that sometimes.’

‘His biological father was like that,’ his mother said. ‘A real talker. And a deep thinker. A sweet, soft, sensitive man whom you couldn’t help liking. He made me feel so special that night. He didn’t know I was married, of course. He was shocked when I told him afterwards. Didn’t want anything more to do with me. As I said, a nice man.’

‘I see. So he never knew about Stevie?’

‘God, no. No, I never saw him again. Sadly, he died a few years later. Cancer. And they say it’s not hereditary…’

Tears glistened in her eyes as she looked straight at Max. ‘Your father finally forgave me. But can you?’

Not ever being at his best with words, Max stood up and came round to bend and kiss his mother on the cheek.

Her hands lifted to cover his, which had come to rest on her shoulders. She patted them, then glanced up at him. ‘Thank you. You’re a good boy, Max. But a terrible liar. Now, why don’t you sit back down and tell me the total truth about this girl of yours? I’d especially like to know how someone as clever as you could have made the mistake of making her pregnant in the first place. Or was that her idea? You are a very rich man, after all.’

Max walked back to settle in his chair before answering.

‘I have to confess that idea did briefly occur to me. But only briefly. You’ll see when you meet Tara that she does not have a greedy, or a manipulative bone in her body.’

‘Tara,’ his mother said. ‘Such a lovely name.’

‘She’s a lovely girl.’

‘And was it her idea for you to come here today?’

‘Not directly. But she would have approved. The fact is, Mum, I don’t know where Tara is. She’s run away.’

‘Run away! Max, whatever did you do?’

‘It’s what I didn’t do which caused the problem. When she told me she was having a baby, I didn’t tell her I loved her. And I didn’t ask her to marry me.’

‘Oh, Max…No wonder she ran away. She must be heartbroken.’

‘Don’t say that, Mum,’ he said with a tightening in his chest. ‘I don’t want to hear that. I’m just hanging in here as it is, waiting for tomorrow.’

‘What’s going to happen tomorrow?’

He told her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TARA lay in bed, slowly nibbling on one of the dry biscuits she’d put beside the bed the night before. Hopefully, they would make her feel well enough to rise shortly and go for a walk on the beach.

Yesterday, she’d stayed in bed most of the day before going for a walk. But then yesterday she’d been desperately tired.

Today she’d woken more refreshed, but still nauseous. Hence the biscuits.

It had been good of Kate to give her some, no questions asked. Although there’d been a slight speculative gleam in her eyes as she’d handed Tara the plate of biscuits after dinner last night.

But that was Kate all over. The woman was kind and accommodating without being a sticky-beak, all good qualities for anyone who ran a bed and breakfast establishment. Tara had met her a few years ago when she’d stayed here at Kate’s Place with some of her uni friends. It was popular with students because it had been cheap and conveniently located, only a short stroll to Wamberal Beach.

When she’d been thinking of where she could go and be by herself for a while, Tara had immediately thought of Kate’s Place. Wamberal was not far away from Sydney—an hour and a half’s drive north—but far enough away that she would feel secure that she wouldn’t run into Max, or anyone who knew Max.

So on Thursday night she’d taken a taxi to Hornsby railway station, then a train to Gosford, then another taxi to Wamberal Beach. Rather naively, in a way. What would she have done if Kate had sold the place in the years since she’d stayed there? Or if she didn’t have any spare rooms to rent?

Fate had been on her side this time and whilst Kate had gone more upmarket—renaming her refurbished home Kate’s Beachside B & B—she had still been in the room-renting business, although the number of rooms available had been reduced to three.

Fortunately, all of them were vacant. The end of February, whilst still summer, was not peak tourist season. On top of that she’d stopped advertising, not wanting to be full all of the time.

‘I’m getting old,’ she’d complained as she showed Tara upstairs. ‘But I’d be bored if I stopped having people to stay altogether. And terribly lonely. Still, I might have to give it away when I turn seventy next year. Or give in and hire a cleaner.’

Tara had selected the bedroom at the front of the two-storeyed home, which had a lovely view of the beach as well as an en suite bathroom. No way did she want to have to race down hallways to a communal bathroom first thing in the morning.

True to form, Kate hadn’t asked her any questions on her arrival, although Tara had spotted some concern in the elderly woman’s eyes. She supposed it was rare for a guest to show up, unannounced and un-booked, at ten-thirty at night. Tara’s excuse that it was a spur-of-the-moment impulse had probably not been believed.

But Kate at least appreciated that she was an adult with the right to come and go as she pleased, something Tara wished other people recognised. She was not a child who had to be directed. She did have a mind of her own and she was quite capable of making decisions, provided she was given the time to work out what was best for herself, and the baby.

Impossible to even think at home at the moment with her mother criticising and nagging all the time. Jen wasn’t much better. She seemed to have forgotten how emotional and irrational she was when she found out she was pregnant.

Of course, Tara would not have bolted quite so melodramatically if Max hadn’t been on his way. Max of the ‘we should work this out together’ mode.

Huh! Tara knew what that meant. Max, taking total control and telling her what to do.

From what she’d seen, Max had no idea how to truly work together with anyone or anything. Max ordered and people obeyed.

She’d been obeying him for twelve months.

But not any more.

The time had come for mutiny.

Her first step had been to put herself beyond his reach. Which she had. And, to be honest, taking that action had felt darned good. Clearly, she’d been harbouring more resentment than she realised over Max’s dominant role in their relationship.

Not so good was the niggling remorse she felt over her mother. By last night guilt had begun to override her desperate need for peace and privacy. She would have to ring her mother today. It wasn’t fair to leave her worrying.

And she would be worrying. Tara had no doubt of that.

A firm tap-tap on her bedroom door had Tara calling out that she was coming before gingerly swinging her feet onto the floor and standing up. As she reached for the silky housecoat she’d brought with her, she was pleased to find her stomach hadn’t heaved at all when she got to her feet. Those biscuits seemed to have done the trick.

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