Emma Darcy – The Outback Marriage Ransom (страница 3)

‘I don’t care.’ He slid the photo into the envelope, sealed it, stood up. ‘Negotiate the best price you can.’ He threw her a look of reckless determination as he headed for the door. ‘The bottom line is…I don’t care how much it costs. Just do it.’

‘Right!’ she said, accepting the task without any further questions, though her eyes were full of them.

Ric didn’t care. He could afford a stupid self-indulgence if that’s what it was. It looked to him as though Lara was in a bad situation with Gary Chappel. The photo had been taken at the airport. Had she been attempting to run away from her husband?

Domestic abuse could occur in any household and all too often it was hidden through shame. And fear of more punishment. His own mother had been a victim of it—dying from ruptured kidneys when Ric was only a kid. He’d been too little to protect her, getting beatings for trying. At least his father had gone to jail for it, but Ric had never forgotten the fear of testifying against him in court.

If Lara was living in that kind of fear…

Ric found his hands clenching as he rode the elevator down to the basement car park. It wasn’t his fight. He had no rights in this matter. Nevertheless, he couldn’t ignore it. His heart burned with the need to act. And in his mind flared a wildly wanton exultation in having the power to do it—the power to do anything he chose to do.

He wasn’t a street kid anymore.

He was a rich guy.

With class in spades.

And money to burn any way he liked.

In that respect, he could more than match Gary Chappel.

He was glad he’d dressed in his favourite Armani suit this morning, more for meeting Mitch Tyler for lunch in the city than for business. Barristers always dressed in suits and Mitch was a top-line barrister these days. He’d made it to where he wanted to be. Johnny Ellis had, as well, going platinum on quite a few of his country and western songs. Even after all these years since their time at Gundamurra, the three of them still connected when they were in the same place.

None of them had married.

As Ric got in his Ferrari, he wondered if Mitch and Johnny had the same problem with the women they dated, finding themselves more outside the relationship than in it after a while. The three of them probably understood each other more than any woman could. In fact, he might need Mitch to sort out Gary Chappel if that was what Lara wanted.

He drove out of the car park for the office building at Circular Quay and headed for the Eastern Suburbs. The envelope containing the photograph was on the passenger seat beside him—a major weapon in a war he could wage if Lara wanted to be free.

He knew where she lived. Not that he’d ever kept tabs on her. There’d been a splash of publicity when Gary Chappel had acquired the fifteen million dollar mansion on the harbour foreshore at Vaucluse—a photospread of Lara showing off the refurbishings they’d subsequently done.

The perfect hostess for her station in life, Ric had thought then. He hadn’t imagined for one moment that her station in life might be miserable in private. It had seemed to him she was blessed with everything…and still unattainable as far as he was concerned. No point in manipulating a meeting with her. Leave the past in the past, he’d argued to himself. No good could come of it…only more frustration and defeat.

So why was he butting in now?

Because the picture he’d always had of her charmed life was askew.

What did he hope to achieve by intervention? Who did he think he was? Super-guy to the rescue?

Well, it might turn out as a black joke on him, but Ric knew he wouldn’t rest easy until he knew the truth behind that photograph.

Determination drove him to Vaucluse. Determination took him up to the massively colonnaded front porch and pressed the doorbell. Determination made him endure the long wait for the door to be opened—not by Lara, but by a middle-aged woman. The permed grey hair and royal blue button-through uniform dress instantly cast her as staff in Ric’s mind. Probably the housekeeper.

‘My name is Ric Donato. I’ve come to visit Mrs. Chappel,’ he declared with even more determination.

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Donato. Mrs. Chappel isn’t receiving visitors today,’ came the totally uncompromising statement. But it did reveal Lara was here.

‘She’ll see me,’ he replied grimly, holding out the envelope. ‘Please give this to Mrs. Chappel and tell her Ric Donato has come to discuss its contents with her. I’ll wait for her reply.’

‘Very well, sir.’

She took the envelope and closed the door in his face.

He waited.

In a way, it was blackmail. Lara would know it wasn’t the only copy of the photograph. She would be afraid of what use he might make of it. Fear would open this door to him. Then he would be entering her life again.

For how long he didn’t know.

He thought of it only as…something he couldn’t turn away from.

CHAPTER TWO

LARA sat in the nursery, her feet automatically tipping the rocking chair back and forth in a rhythm that was supposed to soothe, although she knew nothing was going to lift the depression of being imprisoned in this life with Gary. She had to escape it. Had to. But how?

She stared bleakly at the empty cot, the empty pram, the empty everything she’d bought for the baby she didn’t have. Stillborn. She wished she’d died with it. The ultimate escape. Probably the only one. Gary was too watchful of her to let her get away. Watchers everywhere.

All the same, she had to go before he made her pregnant again. She desperately hoped it hadn’t happened last night. That would be unbearable. She’d managed to get a packet of contraceptive pills from a pharmacy in Kings Cross, lying about leaving her prescription at home, promising to bring it in the next day. But she’d only been taking them for two weeks and wasn’t sure they would work yet.

Having a child would trap her in this marriage forever. Impossible to flee. Gary would have the law after her in no time flat, getting custody. Everything within her cringed from the thought of leaving a child in his keeping. That couldn’t be allowed to happen.

Marian Keith appeared at the doorway, holding a large white envelope. She was Gary’s choice of housekeeper, a widow in her fifties who’d run into financial difficulties, having sons who needed helping through university and very grateful for the generous wage she earned here.

All the domestic staff were Gary’s choices and they answered to him, not his wife. Yet occasionally Lara did catch a flash of sympathetic concern in the housekeeper’s eyes. More than anyone else, Marian Keith saw what went on in this house. Not that she saw much. Gary was careful to keep his brand of tyranny private.

‘Excuse me, Mrs. Chappel, there’s a gentleman at the door…’

‘You know I can’t see visitors today, Mrs. Keith,’ she said wearily, rocking on, her gaze drifting to the Walt Disney motifs printed on the wall. Snow White. Lara grimaced. She’d certainly eaten a poisoned apple when she’d married Gary Chappel. And there was no one to rescue her. No one.

‘He was very insistent. A Mister Ric Donato…’

Shock slammed into Lara’s heart. Her gaze jerked back to the housekeeper. ‘Who?’ she asked, not ready to accept what she’d heard.

‘He said his name was Ric Donato.’

Unbelievable after all these years! Her mind spun back to the past. How many times had she looked for him then, hoping he’d turn up, wanting to be with him again, not caring who he was or what he didn’t have. Ric Donato. Ricardo…

A lost dream.

One she’d buried as the years went by with no sight of him, no contact with him. Too late now. Impossible to let him see her like this.

‘He asked me to give this to you.’ Marian Keith came into the nursery, holding out the envelope. ‘He’s waiting at the door. He said you’d want to discuss the contents with him, Mrs. Chappel.’

Lara shook her head but she took the envelope and slit the flap open with her finger, curious to see what was inside. She only half removed the glossy sheet of paper, another more fearful shock hitting her at the sight of the faces printed on it.

Her hand instinctively shoved the sheet back in the envelope to keep it hidden. For several moments her mind froze in sheer terror of the consequences if the photograph was released to any form of the media.

‘What should I tell him, Mrs. Chappel?’

Him… Ric Donato waiting at the door…prepared to discuss the contents…

She had no choice.

It was either see him or…

Her heart fluttered. Her chest was unbearably tight. She sucked in air and made the only decision that might save her from Gary’s rage. ‘Show Mister Donato out to the patio, Mrs. Keith. I’ll see him there.’

Hesitation. Worry. ‘Are you sure, Mrs. Chappel?’

Gary would find out she’d had a visitor. No escaping that. She would have to confess why. Dear God! There was no way out. But better to stop this from going public and take the punishment for causing the scene that had been so graphically captured by someone’s camera.

‘I’m sure, Mrs. Keith,’ she said with far more confidence than she felt.

‘Very well.’ A nod of wary acquiescence and a brisk departure.