The Magnate's Tempestuous Marriage

Scott shut his office door then waved Harvey to one of the two armchairs in front of his desk.

‘So what have you found out?’ he asked straight away, hiding his escalating tension behind a brusque tone.

Harvey’s eyes carried the closest thing to compassion that Scott had ever seen in them.

His heart sank, his stomach swirling with sudden nausea. Slumping into his office chair, he scooped in a deep breath then let it out slowly. ‘From the look on your face, I presume you haven’t any good news to tell me.’

‘No.’

A man of few words, was Harvey.

Scott gathered himself in readiness for the worst. ‘Okay, shoot,’ he said.

Harvey leant forward and placed Scott’s phone on the desktop before settling back into the chair.

‘First things first,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘The phone used to send you those photos was a throwaway. Couldn’t be traced.’

‘I suspected that,’ Scott said. ‘Were they real, though? The photos?’

‘Yes. They weren’t doctored in any way.’

Scott swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. ‘What about the dates and times they were taken?’

‘Also real. I was able to confirm everything by checking the hotel’s security vision. They have cameras set up everywhere.’

‘And what hotel was it?’

‘The Regency.’

Scott’s gut tightened. The Regency was a five-star hotel that was a stone’s throw from the building where Sarah worked. ‘What else have you found out?’ he asked, resigned to more bad news.

‘I spoke to a member of the bar staff who was working last Friday at lunchtime. He remembered Sarah.’

Of course he did, Scott thought grimly. Any man who wasn’t blind would remember Sarah. She was a stunning-looking girl with long creamy blonde hair, big blue eyes and a mouth that would tempt Saint Peter himself. Add to that a slender but shapely figure that was always housed in softly feminine clothes and you had a package that drew every man’s eye—and kept it.

Scott had never forgotten the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. It had been just on fifteen months ago. He’d been in the process of buying a clapped-out diamond mine he’d had a hunch about and had arrived early for an appointment at Goldstein & Evans, a Sydney legal firm he always used for signing business contracts. Sarah had been sent to greet him, acting more like an accomplished hostess rather than the newly graduated lawyer that he’d soon found out that she was. Scott had fallen madly in love at first sight. She’d confessed to him one week later on their third dinner date that she’d been similarly smitten with him.

And he’d believed her. Three months later she’d become his wife. One year later, it looked as if she was about to become his ex-wife.

Scott cleared his throat. ‘What else did the barman say?’

‘He said they looked pretty cosy together. Sat off in a very private corner. Didn’t drink much. Just talked. Then after about fifteen minutes, they upped and left.’

‘Right,’ Scott bit out. They both knew exactly where they’d gone. The photos had told the story. First, the man had gone to Reception and booked a room. Then they’d ridden up in the lift and gone into the room, not emerging till forty-five minutes later.

‘On the plus side, the barman did say he’d never seen her in there before,’ Harvey added.

Terrific. But there were other hotels in Sydney’s CBD. Heaps of them.

‘The guy looked familiar, though,’ Harvey went on. ‘Been there with some other woman on a few occasions. A brunette.’

‘Did you find out who he was?’

‘Yup. His name is Philip Leighton. Mid-thirties. A lawyer.’

‘And he works for Goldstein & Evans.’

‘Spot on. In the family law section. He specialises in divorces. Society divorces mainly. People with money. His own family is wealthy. His father’s a senator. Word is Mr Leighton has his eye on going into politics himself. He’s not married and doesn’t have a permanent partner. Quite the ladies’ man, according to a work colleague of his I spoke to this morning. “A silver-tongued charmer” was the way this chap described him.’

Scott tried to blank his mind out to where that silver tongue might have been, but it was impossible, a black cloud of jealousy descending to darken his mood further. He hated being taken for a fool. And Sarah had taken him for a fool. Her outrage last Saturday morning had all been a sham to deflect attention away from her own guilt. The plain truth was Sarah had allowed herself to be seduced by that smooth-looking bastard.

Maybe if you hadn’t been going away on business so much lately, it wouldn’t have happened...

God, now he was making excuses for her!

Scott sat up straighter in his chair before sending his head of security what he hoped was a composed look. ‘Is there anything else you have to tell me about my wife’s relationship with this Leighton fellow?’

‘Only that she didn’t go to him after she left you on Saturday. He owns a house on the North Shore, and there’s no sign of her—or her car—at his address.’

Was he relieved at this news? He didn’t feel relieved. His gut churned some more.

‘She’s probably gone to stay at Cory’s,’ Scott muttered. ‘He’s her best friend. Sarah met him at university.’

Scott didn’t elaborate, mostly because he didn’t know all that much about the circumstances behind his wife’s close friendship with the young architect. It came to him suddenly that he didn’t know all that much about his wife’s past all round. She’d told him during their whirlwind courtship that her mother was dead and she was estranged from her father and her only sibling, an older brother. There’d been a bitter divorce when she was a teenager, with the brother siding with the father, despite the bastard being unfaithful to his wife. He’d never questioned her further about her past. He’d also never grilled Sarah over her friendship with Cory, mainly because he wasn’t worried about Cory. He rather liked the fellow. And Cory liked him back.

He probably doesn’t like me now, Scott thought. Not after Sarah told him what I did last Friday night. And she would have. She told Cory everything. They were like two teenagers sometimes, laughing and chatting to each other on the phone for hours. Scott would have liked to be a fly on the wall at Cory’s place right at this moment. Though possibly he wouldn’t find out anything. It was Monday, after all, and both of them would be at work.

Suddenly, Scott wanted Harvey gone so that he could make some enquiries of his own. He stood up and strode around his desk where he stretched out his hand.

‘Thank you, Harvey. You have gone over and above. I am most grateful.’ At least he now knew where he stood. Though he still didn’t know everything. And it was eating away at him. Did Sarah love this man? Had she ever loved him? Scott could have sworn she did. But then, he could have sworn she would never have cheated on him.

And she had.

‘My pleasure, boss,’ Harvey replied, rising to take Scott’s hand. ‘Sorry I wasn’t able to bring you better news.’

‘Like our one-time Prime Minister said, Harvey, life isn’t meant to be easy.’ Or love. Because he still loved his unfaithful wife. Lord knew why!

As soon as Harvey was out of earshot, Scott took out his personal phone and brought up the number for Sarah’s workplace. When he found out she wasn’t at work, having called in sick, he wasn’t sure what to think. Sarah never took days off, going into work through thick and thin. She loved her job, especially since being stationed permanently in the firm’s pro bono section, which helped people without the funds to pay for a lawyer. She’d worked on a variety of cases so far, including one of unfair dismissal plus several sexual discrimination cases, most of which she’d won. It certainly wasn’t like her to take a day off work without good cause.

Scott frowned. Clearly, Sarah was still upset. But with him, or herself? Maybe she’d only been unfaithful the once. Maybe she regretted it as soon as she’d done it. Maybe that was what her behaviour last Friday night was all about, her trying to make it up to him for what she’d done.

Suddenly another truly appalling thought occurred to Scott. Maybe she’d run off with this Leighton fellow, taken off interstate or even overseas.

Scott’s heart did a savage somersault, then stopped entirely. ‘Is Mr Leighton in this morning?’ he somehow managed to ask the receptionist, his voice gravelly.

‘Yes, he is, sir. Do you wish to speak to him?’

Relief had Scott quickly pulling himself together. ‘Not right now,’ he said firmly. But he would. Soon. First, he needed to speak to Sarah. Depending on what she revealed, then he would be speaking to Leighton. Though he doubted it would be a civil conversation. Scott could feel his temper rising just thinking of that sleazebag who thought nothing of seducing another man’s wife. There was no doubt in his mind that Leighton would have been the one to make the first move. Sarah simply wasn’t the unfaithful type.

Or was she?

It was becoming clear to Scott that maybe he didn’t know his wife at all!

Shaking his head, he brought up Sarah’s number, expecting that it would be turned off as it had been all weekend. It wasn’t, but it was engaged. Who was she talking to? Cory? Or her sleazebag lover? On top of that, where was she? Still at Cory’s place, probably.

Scott didn’t hesitate, knowing that he couldn’t sit there in his office, stewing over things. It was time to face Sarah again, and to insist on knowing where he stood. Grabbing his suit jacket from the coat stand in the corner, he dragged it on then hurried out to where Cleo was sitting behind her desk, frowning at her computer screen.

‘Have to go out, Cleo. Things to do. Cancel any appointments I have this afternoon and take the day off. You deserve it.’

Cleo glanced up and sighed. ‘You’re not going to do anything foolish, are you, Scott?’

‘Not today. I did that just over a year ago.’ When he’d married a girl he didn’t really know, a girl who was an enigma in this day and age.

Because Sarah had been a virgin when he’d met her.

As he hurried down to the basement car park Scott began to wonder with some of his old, well-earned cynicism towards the opposite sex if she’d had a secret agenda in keeping her virginity so long. Now that he thought about it through less rose-coloured glasses, how she’d got through high school then university untouched, along with two years backpacking around the world, was beyond credibility. Unless she’d always wanted to marry money, and had seen her virginity as the perfect weapon to ensnare the right rich sucker. Namely him.

Scott had come across quite a few gold-digging females since he’d made it big in the mining world, but none of them had been virgins. Not even close.

He hadn’t questioned Sarah’s inexperience at the time; had accepted her explanation that she’d been wary of the opposite sex for a long time because of her cheating father. He’d also eagerly swallowed the added seductive reason that till he came along, she’d never met a man who’d made her really want to have sex with him.

Not that she’d used the word, sex, at the time. She’d said make love with. Naturally. Nothing crude about Sarah. She was the epitome of femininity, her large liquid blue eyes windows to a soul that seemed as pure as it was incapable of deception.

More fool him. They said love was blind. Well, they were right, he thought angrily as he jumped into his Mercedes and gunned the engine. But he wasn’t blind now. And he wanted answers. Lots of them!

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE YOU SURE you don’t need me to drive you over there, sweetie?’ Cory said. ‘You might need help to carry things. I can easily take the afternoon off work. We have flexible hours here.’

‘Thanks for the offer, Cory, but I would rather do this by myself.’

‘And you’re quite sure Brutus won’t be there?’

Sarah winced at the new nickname Cory had given Scott. Not that it wasn’t appropriate. The man was a brute to do what he had last Friday night, all under the guise of passion. Her stomach curled at all that she had allowed, and enjoyed. That was the worst part. How much she had enjoyed Scott’s ravishing of her entire body. Her face flamed at the memories of the humiliating noises she’d made, the way she’d pleaded with him not to stop.

When she’d found out the next morning that he’d acted out of jealousy and revenge, her shock had quickly changed to fury.

‘You don’t honestly think he wouldn’t have gone to work, do you?’ she said bitterly. ‘Trust me when I say only an atomic bomb landing on him would keep Scott away from his precious office on a Monday morning.’

‘From what you told me, last Saturday morning was a little like an atomic bomb going off.’

Sarah was not a girl who lost her temper easily. But when she did...

‘I can’t tell you how mad I was!’

‘You don’t have to, sweetie. I saw for myself when you arrived at my place. You were spitting chips. Till you started crying, that is. For a while there over the weekend, I thought I might need a life jacket.’

‘Please don’t try to make me laugh, Cory. That man has broken my heart. What he did was unforgivable.’

‘Why? Because he acted like a lot of men might have acted? When I found out Felix was cheating on me I was hotter for him than ever.’

‘But you didn’t love Felix and I wasn’t cheating on Scott!’

‘But it looked like you were...’

Sarah groaned. ‘I know. I know.’

‘I think you should call Scott and explain why you were at that hotel with your lawyer friend. After all, from what you told me those photos were pretty damning.’

‘And then what? Scott says sorry and we just go on to live happily ever after? I don’t think so, Cory.’

‘Ah, I forgot. You’re a Scorpio. They never forgive or forget. By the way, has it crossed your mind to wonder who might have sent those photos in the first place?’

Sarah sighed. ‘I’ve thought of little else all morning.’

‘Someone you work with perhaps?’

‘No one comes to mind.’

‘It has to be someone who hates you. Or hates Scott, more likely.’

‘It could be the same person who told Phil those rumours about Scott and Cleo,’ Sarah speculated.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ Cory said excitedly. ‘I told you from the first that it had to be some kind of set-up. Otherwise how could he or she have been at the right place at the right time to take incriminating photos of you and Phil at that hotel? That’s far too coincidental. I think it has to be someone you work with, Sarah, someone who saw you leave together that lunchtime and followed you.’

‘But who?’

‘Search me, sweetie. But I do know that if you let this destroy your marriage, then that person has won.’

‘It’s Scott who’s destroyed our marriage,’ Sarah bit out. ‘The bottom line is he didn’t truly love me, or trust me. He jumped to conclusions and didn’t give me the chance to explain. He didn’t care how I would feel because he doesn’t really care about me. I can see now that I was only ever a trophy wife to him. Arm candy to be trotted out at social functions, with the added bonus of sex whenever he felt like it. When he’s home, that is. Which has become less frequent during the last six months. I actually thought he’d cut his business trip short last Friday so that he could be with me on our anniversary weekend. What a fool I was in more ways than one.’

‘Wow. You’re still very angry with him, aren’t you?’

‘You can say that again. Look, I must go. The cleaners would have left by now and I want to be out of the apartment before Brutus gets home.’

‘You’re calling him Brutus now,’ Cory pointed out drily.

‘Yes, well, if the cap fits he should wear it.’

‘You do realise that hate is the other side of love.’

‘Oh, yes. I certainly do. Have to go, Cory. I’ll see you tonight.’

‘I’ll bring home Chinese,’ he offered. ‘And some nice wine.’

‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’

Tears pricked at Sarah’s eyes as she hung up. Cory was a dear friend. And so kind. Whatever would she have done without him this last weekend? Sarah didn’t have a lot of friends, her few girlfriends from high school having drifted away after she left school and went to university. The same thing happened after her poor mother died at the end of her first year of university. Unable to study—or grieve properly—Sarah had taken off to go backpacking around the world. By the time she returned to Sydney University two years later, her earlier student friends had also moved on. Her own fault, Sarah accepted, having not kept in touch via social media, depression dogging her footsteps for such a long time, especially during the first twelve months of her backpacking getaway. Europe remained a blur, nothing of the incredible sights she’d seen touching her soul or brightening her life. She’d gone from city to city in a fog.

It wasn’t till she’d reached Asia that the fog had finally lifted. Maybe it was the truly warm, gentle people she’d met there. The children had been especially adorable and the twelve months she’d spent travelling through India and Thailand and Vietnam had banished her depression, plus her bitterness, showing her that maybe it was still possible for her to overcome her wariness where men were concerned and find love. Maybe even get married and have children. Though that had seemed a stretch at the time.

Still, by the time she’d come home to Sydney and resumed her studies, she’d been way more open to at least try to give the opposite sex a chance. Though she’d still had no intention of leaping into bed with anyone in a hurry. It had been an enormous stroke of luck that during her first semester back at Sydney University she had met Cory.

Sarah smiled wryly as she looked back on that time in her life when she’d imagined Cory might just be ‘the one’ to banish her wariness of the opposite sex—and sex—for good. Not only was he fun to be with, he was quite gorgeous to look at. Very sexy with his blond hair, bedroom blue eyes and a buffed body. Whilst she hadn’t been mad for him—she hadn’t known what it was to be mad for a man back then—she had found him attractive. He’d seemed attracted to her as well. The ‘life of the party’ type, Cory had insisted she join the university book club and movie club with him and soon they’d been going out together. It wasn’t till she’d finally decided to take the big step and sleep with him that Cory had been forced to come out and tell her he was gay. Apparently, up till then he’d tried to deny it, even to himself, afraid that his parents would reject him.

But they hadn’t. After that, she and Cory had remained close friends, with Cory dating like-minded men and Sarah eventually becoming resigned to going to her grave still a virgin. Because no way had she been going to go to bed with a man she didn’t truly love and trust; trust being the most important part. In her mind she’d pictured a straight version of Cory. Someone sexy and intelligent and kind.

Unfortunately, she’d never seemed to meet such a man, not even when she’d left university and secured a plum job at a large legal firm that had wall-to-wall men walking around their corridors, men who had showed they found her very attractive. But none of them had done anything for her, not even Phil, who was super handsome and super intelligent and really very nice. Too old, however, at thirty-five. Despite her lack of success so far, Sarah had kept dreaming that one day she would meet Mr Perfect, fall madly in love, get married and have at least two perfect children.

Scott McAllister’s entry into her life had blown apart all Sarah’s misconceptions over the kind of man she imagined falling madly in love with. For starters he looked even older than Phil, yet it turned out he was the same age. He wasn’t traditionally handsome. Neither was he university educated. In fact he’d never even gone to high school, spending his teenage years travelling the outback with his prospector father. Despite that he was obviously intelligent, a self-made mining magnate with perhaps more money than manners; the strong silent type who didn’t waste words, or time. Superbly fit, with the body of a champion boxer, Scott McAllister was a macho man in every way, bulldozing his way into her life with very little subtlety.

She’d never forgotten the moment they’d first met, Scott’s normally icy grey eyes glittering with a raw animal lust as they’d travelled over her from top to toe. Her body had flamed in instant response. And from that moment, she’d been his. It had been just a matter of time. He’d asked her out to dinner within five minutes of meeting her. And she’d been unable to say anything but yes, her body consumed with desires which had been as corrupting as they’d been compelling. How she’d lasted three dinner dates before succumbing to Scott’s constant requests to go home with him afterwards was a miracle.

Of course, he’d been stunned over her being a virgin. But not displeased. In fact, he’d seemed quite taken by the idea, confessing that he’d never been with a virgin before.

Soon, she hadn’t been able to get enough of his big, strong body and his passionate but still considerate lovemaking. She’d adored how safe she always felt in his arms. How truly loved. Feeling truly loved was just as important to Sarah as the physical pleasure she experienced in bed with Scott.

Or so she’d believed, till last Friday night...

‘Don’t think about that night any more, Sarah,’ she lectured herself aloud. ‘You’ll go mad if you do.’

Shaking herself violently, Sarah went in search of her handbag and car keys. Ten minutes later she was heading across the harbour bridge, making a list in her head of what she had to collect from the apartment. Work clothes, of course. She couldn’t call in sick every day. Neither could she go in there wearing the jeans she’d worn all weekend, or one of Cory’s track suits, which was what she was wearing today. She needed toiletries too, of course. And the rest of her make-up. After her argument with Scott last Saturday morning she’d bolted out of the apartment with nothing much. Her going-out clothes could wait till another day, she decided. Sarah couldn’t see herself going out much in the near future.

But what if there wasn’t another day? What if Scott threw her out and changed the locks? It was the sort of thing her husband might do. He was not a man who took kindly to being crossed, let alone betrayed. As much as she hated to admit it, those photos had made her look as if she were having an affair with Phil.

No, she would have to collect all of her things today whilst she had the chance.

Sarah took the exit that would lead her down to McMahon’s Point, her attempts at a more pragmatic mood disappearing with the sight of the tall block of harbourside apartments that she’d called home for the last year. A happy home, she’d thought, despite Scott’s many absences. She did understand that he’d been facing business difficulties during the last few months, with the mining industry not doing well, metal prices at an all-time low. His frequent business trips still irked her, however. But his returns were always extra joyful, last Friday night even more so after what she’d been through that day. She’d woken last Saturday morning with a delicious smile on her face.

Of course, at the time, she’d still been ignorant of the true reason behind Scott’s insatiable sexual appetite. And whilst the memory of some of his demands was slightly shocking, she’d also been secretly thrilled that at last she’d taken a less passive role in their sex life. On top of that, if she was brutally honest, she’d found her husband’s highly erotic lovemaking wildly exciting and extremely satisfying, her many orgasms addictively powerful. So she’d dressed and gone in search of Scott the next morning, already turned on by the thought that they would have the whole weekend together.

She hadn’t been turned on for long...

Sarah groaned, annoyed with herself for revisiting that painful encounter one more self-destructive time.

‘What a bastard,’ she muttered angrily as she drove down the ramp that led to the underground car park, stopping at the bottom to swipe her key card through the machine so that the security gate would rise. It was annoyingly slow, but at last she could drive through. Despite telling Cory confidently that Scott would be at work, she was still relieved to see that his car space was empty. She parked her red hatchback into her own allotted spot, locked it up then hurried over to the bank of lifts that would carry her up to the luxury high-rise apartment that Scott had bought a week before their wedding. Clearly, he’d wanted to impress his new bride. And he had.