The Costarella Conquest (11 page)

L
AURA
wished she could have borrowed Eddie's car to tour the streets of Woollahra, looking for the houses that were being renovated, noting them down for further investigation. It would have been the most time efficient way of searching for Jake's current home, but she knew her brother would not have been sympathetic to her quest. Better not to ask. Better to go on foot, however long it took.

When she'd broken the news to Eddie, he'd leapt to the same interpretation of Jake's interest in her as her father, being quite smug about having been right that Laura should never have
gone there
, right about Jake having a mission, too. The latter was impossible to deny, but Laura could not set aside the need to
go there
again.

At least Eddie had taken their mother out today, giving her a break from the wretched tensions at home. It left Laura enough free time to cover a fair bit of ground in her search, though it was now Sunday—no tradesmen's trucks around to mark possibilities. After three hours of walking one street
after another, and feeling somewhat dispirited at her lack of success, she decided to take a break for lunch and give her feet a rest.

Heading up another street that led to a public park where she could sit and eat her home-made sandwiches, Laura could hardly believe her eyes when she actually spotted Jake. He was on the upstairs balcony of a terrace house, painting the iron-lace railings—the same shade of green as the front door and the window frames. It was a rich forest green that looked really good against the old red bricks of the house.

He looked good, too, a fact her heart was registering by thumping painfully. She stood still, staring up at him, wracked by a terrible uncertainty now that the moment of truth was at hand. Was she being an utter fool, coming to him like this? So what if she was, she fiercely argued to herself. A sharp dose of humiliation wouldn't kill her. And she wasn't about to die wondering, either.

His head lifted, his gaze suddenly swinging to her as though some invisible force had drawn it. ‘Laura!' He spoke her name in a tone of angst, jerking up from his crouched position on the balcony, frowning down at her. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I need to talk to you,' she blurted out.

He shook his head. ‘It won't do you any good.' His gaze shot to a van parked on the other side of the street. ‘That's been here since Wednesday. I'd say your father has me under surveillance and he won't
like getting a report of your coming to me. Just keep walking and maybe nothing will come of it.'

Her father's threat jangled through her mind—
you'll pay for it
.

Right now Laura didn't care. Jake had just proved his caring for her. That was more important than anything else. Or was he just trying to get her out of his life again as fast as possible?

‘I have to know,' she said with immovable determination. ‘I won't go until you lay out the truth to me.'

A pained grimace twisted his mouth as his hand waved in a sharp, dismissive gesture. ‘You already know it had to come to an end. Remember it for what it was and move on.'

‘What was it, Jake?'

‘You know that, too,' he shot back at her.

‘No, I don't. You kept me in the dark about what meant most to you. I don't know if it gave you a thrill to have me while plotting to bring my father down, if I was some kind of sweet icing on the cake for you. I want to know that before I move on.'

 

Jake stared at the woman he should never have touched, his mind torn by the deep hurt emanating from her. She was still the most beautiful, most desirable woman he'd ever known, quite possibly would ever know, and he hated having to part from her. It had to be done, but did it have to be done with her mind poisoned against what they'd shared?

He wanted her to have a good memory of him, not a bitter one. Yet how was he to soothe the hurt and protect her from her father's wrath at the same time? The surveillance man was surely watching, taking note of this encounter. The longer it went on, the worse it would be for Laura at home.

‘There's a public park at the end of this street,' he said, pointing the direction as though she had asked for it.

‘I know!' she cried in exasperation. ‘Can't you just answer me?'

He shot a warning look at the van. ‘I'll meet you there when I've finished this painting. Go, Laura. Go now.'

He turned his attention to the work in hand, bending down to the tin of paint again, hoping the intense urgency in his voice would spur her into moving away from him. After a few moments' hesitation that tied his gut into knots, she did walk on, hopefully proving there was nothing in this meeting worth reporting.

He maintained a steady pace with the brushwork, exhibiting no haste to finish the job. It gave him time to think, time to reason out he should keep his answers to Laura short, avoid the tempting impulse to take her in his arms and prove his passion for her had been real, was still real. The ache in his groin had to be ignored. This meeting had to be limited to setting her straight, then letting her go. Anything else
could not be sustained in the climate of her father's venomous animosity.

The narrow alley that ran along the back of this row of terraces allowed him to leave his house unobserved. He would return the same way. A last meeting. No more.

 

He does care for me. He does.

It was like a chant of joy in Laura's mind, making every step towards the park a light one for her tired feet. Jake would have no reason at all to give himself the trouble of meeting with her if she meant nothing to him. If she'd been part of his vendetta against her father, he would have shamed her in the street. He had certainly not been amused by her coming to him nor titillated by his power to draw her. He'd been pained by her presence, reminding him of what they'd shared, what he'd been trying to shut out as finished.

Except it wasn't.

Not for her and not for him.

The connection was too strong to obliterate.

Laura was sure of it.

She found a park bench under a tree and sat down to wait, not bothering to unpack the sandwiches in her handbag. Her heart was too full of other needs for eating to be a priority anymore. Jake would come to her soon—Jake, whom she loved…whom she would always love. Did he feel the same way about her?
Was it only the situation with her father that had driven him to break it off with her?

She had no idea how long she waited. Her mind was obsessed with finding some way to continue their relationship—safe places to meet, secret places, whatever it took for their journey not to end. When she spotted him approaching her at a fast stride she leapt to her feet, barely quelling the urge to run to him and fling her arms around his neck. Talking had to come first, she told herself, though if he wrapped her in his embrace…

He didn't. There was no smile on his face, no joy at seeing her, no sexy twinkle in his eyes. When he reached her he took hold of her hands, squeezing them as though to prevent any other touching. ‘I never meant you to be hurt, Laura,' he said gruffly. ‘I thought we could simply satisfy ourselves with the pleasures we could give each other. None of that had anything to do with your father. It was all about you, the woman I wanted to be with, not whose daughter you are.'

His thumbs were dragging across the skin on the back of her hands, wanting his words to sink in, go deep, expel the nastiness of the motivation that her father had given him. The earnest sincerity in his voice, the blaze of need to convince her in his eyes… Laura believed he spoke the truth. She
wanted
to believe.

‘You should have told me what you were about to
do, Jake,' she blurted out. ‘It wouldn't have been so bad if you'd told me.'

His mouth twisted into a rueful grimace. ‘I didn't want to spoil our last night together, bringing your father into it, bringing my family background into it. And telling you wasn't going to change anything.'

‘It would have prepared me.'

‘Yes. I see that now. I'm sorry. I thought you'd understand. What we had was time out of time, Laura.' He squeezed her hands hard. ‘You must let it go and move on.'

‘I don't want to, Jake. It was too good to let go. You must feel that, too,' she pleaded.

He jerked his head in a sharp negative. ‘There's no way. Your father will see to that and bucking him would make things much worse for both you and your mother. You told me she needs you. And you still have to get your uni degree for the career you want. Any association with me will cost you too much.'

If he was under surveillance… Yes, it would be too risky. The tensions at home were volatile enough already. Yet letting this connection she felt with Jake go… Everything inside her railed against giving it up.

‘What about when this is all over, Jake. Could we pick up again then?'

He shook his head but there was a pained expression on his face as he answered, ‘The process of
indicting your father for corruption may go on for years, Laura.'

‘Is he guilty?'

‘Without a doubt.'

‘Will he go to jail?'

‘He'll be ousted from the industry. It's unlikely that any further action will be taken.'

No relief for her mother. No escape unless…

‘Once I get my degree and hopefully a well-paid position, I'll be independent. And perhaps I can persuade my mother to come and live with me. We'll be free and clear of my father.'

‘Perhaps…' he repeated, but there was no belief in his eyes.

Her hope for at least some distant future with him was being crushed. It begged for a chance to survive. ‘Do you really want this to be goodbye, Jake?'

‘No. But I can't honestly see any good way forward,' he said flatly.

‘You have my mobile phone number. You could call me from time to time, check on how things are going,' she suggested, trying to keep a note of desperation out of her voice.

He wrenched his gaze from the plea in hers and stared down at their linked hands. Again his thumbs worked over her skin. After a long nerve-tearing silence, he muttered, ‘You should close the door on me, Laura. You'll meet someone else with no history to make your life difficult.'

‘I won't meet anyone else like you,' she said
fiercely, every instinct fighting for a love she might never feel with any other man.

He expelled a long breath with the whisper, ‘Nor I, you.' Then he visibly gathered himself, head lifting, meeting her gaze squarely again. ‘I won't call you from time to time. I won't keep any hold on you. When I'm done with your father—however long that takes—I'll catch up with you to see where you are in your life and how we feel about each other then.'

She knew there was no fighting the hard decision in his eyes, in his voice. ‘Promise me you'll do that, Jake. Whatever happens between now and then, promise me we'll meet again.'

‘I promise.' He leaned forward to press a soft warm kiss on her forehead. ‘Stay strong, Laura,' he murmured.

Before she could say or do anything, he'd backed off, released her hands and was walking away. She stared at his retreating figure, feeling the distance growing between them with each step he took, hating it yet resigned to the inevitability of this parting.

He'd promised her they'd meet again.

It might be years away but she didn't believe any length of time would make a difference to how she felt with him.

And she did have things to achieve—her qualifications, building a career and hopefully persuading her mother that there was another life to be led, free of abuse and oppression.

It would not be time wasted.

She would be better equipped to continue a journey with Jake Freedman when they met again—older, stronger, more his equal in everything. She could wait for that.

S
TAY STRONG
…

Laura repeated those words to herself many times as she tried to minimise her father's savagery over the next few weeks, protecting her mother from it as best she could. She had half expected a vicious blow-up about her visit to Jake's house, but that didn't eventuate. Either there hadn't been a surveillance man at all, or he hadn't reported the incident, not seeing anything significant in it.

Strangely enough her mind was more at peace with Jake's promise. She didn't fret over his absence from her life. It was easier to concentrate on her landscape projects than when she was seeing him each week. Knowing what he was doing, knowing why, helped a lot, as did good memories when she went to bed at night. Besides, there was hope for a future with him, which she kept to herself, not confiding it to her mother or Eddie, both of whom would probably see it as an unhealthy obsession with the man.

She spent as much time with her mother as her uni studies and part-time receptionist work would
allow. Nick Jeffries seemed to be finding a lot of maintenance jobs that had to be done, coming to the house two or three times a week. Laura wondered if he knowingly provided a buffer between her parents, giving her mother an excuse to be outside with him, supervising the work. He was a cheerful man, good to have around, in sharp contrast to her father, who was never anything but nasty now.

One evening she was in the kitchen with her mother, helping to prepare dinner, when he arrived home bellowing, ‘Laura!' from the hallway, the tone alone warning he was bent on taking a piece out of her.

Her heart jumped. What had she done wrong? Nothing she could think of. ‘I'm in the kitchen, Dad!' she called out, refusing to go running to him or show any fear of his mean temper.

Stay strong…

She kept cutting up the carrots, only looking up when he announced his entry by snidely commenting, ‘Good sharp knife! You might want to stick it into someone, Laura.'

Like him? He had a smug smile on his face, in no doubt whatsoever that she wouldn't attack him physically. He was the one who had the power to hurt and that knowledge glittered in his eyes. He stood there, gloating over whatever he had in mind to do. Laura waited, saying nothing, aware that her mother had also stopped working and was tensely waiting for whatever was coming next.

‘I've had Jake Freedman under surveillance,' he announced.

The visit to Jake's house! But that was so long ago. It didn't make sense that her father would keep such a tasty titbit until now.

He waved a large envelope at her. ‘Hard evidence of what a slime he is.' He strolled forward, opening the envelope and removing what looked like large photographs, and laid them down on the island bench in front of her.

‘Thought you'd like to see Jake Freedman's steady screw, Laura,' he said mockingly, pointing to a curvy blonde in a skimpy, skin-tight aerobic outfit, her arms locked around Jake's neck, her body pressed up against his, as was her face for a kiss.

It was like a kick in the gut, seeing him with another woman.

‘Meets her at the gym three times a week.'

Every word was like a drop of acid eating into her heart.

The pointing finger moved to the next photograph. ‘Goes back to her place for extra exercise.'

There was the blonde again, the pony-tail for the gym released so that her shiny hair fell around her face and shoulders in soft waves. It was a very pretty face. She was opening the door of a house, smiling back invitingly at Jake, who was paused at the foot of the steps leading up to the front porch.

‘Woman works at a club on Saturday nights,' her father went on. ‘Very handy. Left him free to have
his delectable little encounters with you. Shows what a two-faced bastard he is in every respect.'

She didn't speak, couldn't speak. Sickening waves of shock were rolling through her. It was a huge relief that her father didn't wait for some comment from her.

‘Need a drink to drown the scumbag out,' he muttered and headed off to make his usual inroads into a bottle of whisky, leaving the damning photographs behind to blast any faith she might have in Jake's love for her.

Laura stared at them. It was only a month since her meeting in the park with him—a meeting he hadn't wanted, a meeting to ensure she wouldn't pester him again, coming to his house where she had never been invited. She had accepted his reasoning, believed in his promise, and here he was with another woman, enjoying her company, having sex with her.

Two-faced…

Of course he had to be good at that—brilliant—to fool her father.

Fooling her, too, had probably been a fun exercise in comparison.

A dark, dangerous man… She should have trusted that instinct, should have said no to him, should never have allowed him to play his game with her because it had been
his
game all along,
his
arrangements,
his
rules. She had read into them what she wanted to believe and he had let her with his rotten promise.

Tears welled up and blurred her vision. She shut her eyes, didn't see her mother move to wrap her in a comforting hug, only felt the arms turning her around, a hand curling around her head and pressing it onto a shoulder. She wasn't strong in that moment, couldn't find any strength at all. She gave in to a storm of weeping until it was spent, then weakly stayed in her mother's embrace, soaking up the real love coming to her from the rubbing of her back and the stroking of her hair.

‘I'm sorry you've been so hurt by this,' her mother murmured. ‘Sorry you were caught up in your father's business, in past deeds you had nothing to do with. So wrong…'

‘I loved him, Mum. I thought he loved me. He promised me we'd meet again when this was all over,' she spilled out, needing to unburden the pain of the soul-sickening deception.

‘Perhaps that was a kinder way of letting you down than telling you the truth. You're a wonderful person, Laura. Even he had to see that, care for you a little.'

‘Oh, Mum! It's such a mess!' She lifted her head and managed a wobbly smile. ‘I'm a mess. Thanks for being here for me.'

Her mother returned an ironic little smile as she lifted her hand to smear the wetness from Laura's cheeks. ‘As you are for me. But please don't think you always have to be, my dear. I want you to have a life of your own, away from here. Like Eddie.'

‘Well, we'll talk about that when I'm through uni. Now let's do this dinner. I don't want Dad to know I've been upset.'

Pride lent her strength again. She snatched up the photographs. ‘I'll just take these up to my room as reminders of my stupidity, clean myself up and be right back down to help. And don't worry about me, Mum. I'll be okay now.'

She dumped the photographs on her bed, bitterly thinking how
easy
she had been for Jake, how vulnerable she had been to his strong sex appeal, how willing to go along with
his
journey, letting him call all the shots. He'd probably had this other woman all along. Even if the pretty blonde was only a more recent acquisition for his sex life, the very fact of her spelled out that he felt no deep attachment to Alex Costarella's daughter.

Washing her face, she wished she could wash Jake Freedman right out of her head.

Stay strong…

Oh, yes, she would. She had to. Nobody was going to wreck her life; not her father, not Jake, not any man. This steadfast determination carried her through dinner, sharpening her wits enough to dilute her father's barbs with good-humoured replies. It also formed her resolution when she returned to her bedroom and was faced with the photographs again.

She scooped them up and shoved them straight back into the envelope her father had left with them.
It was a blank envelope and she wrote Jake's address on it, grimly pleased that the search for his house had not been completely wasted time. She wanted him to know that she knew about his other woman and he would not be sucking up any more of her time.

To underline that fact, she wrote an accompanying note—

No angst in those words. She liked the
whistle
bit. It carried a flippant tone, as well as implying he was just another jerk to be ignored.

Having slipped the note into the envelope, she sealed it and put it in her briefcase to be posted tomorrow. Over and done with. Her life was her own again.

 

Jake sorted his mail, frowning over the business-size envelope with the handwritten address. It wasn't standard practice to handwrite anything that wasn't personal these days. Curious about its content, he slit it open and drew out the photographs and the damning little note from Laura.

A lead weight settled on his heart.

He'd been sucked in by the dancer at the gym. She'd been Costarella's tool. That was bleeding obvious now. He hadn't suspected a set-up when she'd
grabbed at him as he was leaving the gym, expressing what seemed like genuine fear of being stalked and pleading with him to walk her home—just a few blocks to where she knew she'd be safe. It wasn't much to ask, wasn't much to do—a random act of kindness that was coming back to spike him with a vengeance.

Then the embrace of gushing gratitude a week later, an over-the-top carry-on that he'd backed away from, not wanting it, not liking it, certainly not encouraging any further involvement with the woman. But that didn't show in the photograph. It didn't serve Costarella's purpose to give Laura shots of his reaction.

He carried the mail into his house, despondently dumping it on the kitchen bench on his way to the small backyard, which provided a sunny haven from the rest of the world. He slumped into one of the deck chairs he'd set out there, still holding Laura's note that brought their journey to a dead end.

He stared at the words—
I'm moving on
.

It was what he had meant her to do, advised her to do, and most probably it was the best course to chop him completely out of her life. Costarella was not about to tolerate any future connection between them. Even if he explained this photographic set up to Laura and she believed him, Costarella would look for other ways and means to drive wedges into their relationship. It gave him a focus for getting
back at Jake for bringing him down and he'd relish that malicious power.

Definitely best that what he'd had with Laura ended here and now. No future.

He folded the note and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

He'd known all along that this was how it would have to be, but it was still damned difficult to accept. Achieving what he'd set out to do to Alex Costarella felt strangely empty. Like his life after his mother and stepfather had died. But he'd picked himself up then and moved forward. He could do it again.

There should have been warmth in the sunshine.

He couldn't feel it.

The emptiness inside him was very cold.