Chapter 29.1

She heaved a deep sigh and sat back again, eyeing him almost curiously, giving Tony the uncomfortable sense she was measuring his attraction against her experience with the man she'd planned to marry.

Flynn had lost her, he fiercely reminded himself.

He occupied the box seat now and he was not about to take any backward steps in the winning of Hannah O'Neill.

"I wasn't attracted to him at first," she said musingly. "Jodie pointed him out to me at the party and he certainly had a kind of commanding presence, but my initial impression was he was a bit too full of himself, and I didn't feel inclined to compete for his attention."

A blow to the ego of an A-list bachelor? Tony wondered cynically. A woman as beautiful as Hannah ignoring him?

"Why he chose to come after me, I don't know."

A challenge to be taken up and won, Tony thought.

"It was like he suddenly channelled all his energy into capturing my interest. It was very flattering and after a while, quite mesmerising. He was fascinating, very intelligent, witty, clever, and he exuded the kind of arrogant confidence that comes with knowing he dared more than most men and was on top of his game, which was trading commodities and manipulating international currencies. Somehow it gave him an exciting power."

Her lashes lowered, veiling how much it had affected her. "Anyhow, I fell for it." She took a deep breath and raised her gaze to his, her eyes hard with bitter mockery. "I fell for the whole package. The black Porsche convertible, the apartment at Miller's Point with views of Sydney Harbour, the cupboards full of Armani suits, the glamorous courtship with champagne and roses and being whirled off to luxurious places. I loved it. I loved him. And when he asked me to marry him, I felt I was the luckiest woman in the whole world."

A haunting disillusionment crept in as she added, "And I believed he loved me. I never had any doubt about it. Not about anything. He said he liked the fact that I had such a full-on exciting career. It made me an extraordinary person to him, the kind of woman he wanted as his partner in life. There was never, never any criticism about the hours I had to put in. He worked long hours himself. I thought we were perfect for each other."

"You didn't ever live with him?" Tony asked, thinking that would have been a pertinent test of reality.

She shook her head. "The question never came up. It wasn't as though we had a really long relationship. Only ten months in all. Short in today's terms."

The length of time was irrelevant to Tony's mind. Impact could be immediate and lasting.

"So what happened a week before the wedding, Hannah?" he asked softly.

Her head jerked in anguish. Then her chin set with the determination to finish it for him. The bleakness in her eyes echoed through her voice. "I was bringing home my wedding dress. I'd had it made to my own design. I met up with my three sisters after work. They were picking up their bridesmaid dresses from the seamstress, too. I collected Jodie's as well as mine and invited my sisters back to the apartment to have a bit of a hens' night, spreading out the dresses, trying them on, making sure we all looked right.

It was exciting..."

Her voice trailed off for a moment. Then she scooped in a deep breath and continued. "My sisters were right on my heels when I reached the front door. We were all in high spirits, chatting, laughing. I guess I burst into the apartment and..." She shuddered, reliving the shock, the horror of it draining her voice of any colour as she forced herself to go on. "There they were, on the floor in the living room, in open view..."

"Jodie and Flynn."

She nodded. "Obviously, it had all been too urgent for them to make it to the bedroom, though there must have been some foreplay. Her blouse was hanging apart and..." She swallowed convulsively. "His trousers were down around his ankles..."

"Caught in the act," Tony murmured.

"And no...no hiding it...from any of us. I remember Jodie crying out that they couldn't help themselves. They were mad for each other and just couldn't help it. And Flynn blaming me, yelling if I hadn't been so caught up in my bloody work...and there I was, holding my wedding dress, with my sisters looking on. It was...unbearable. I threw the dress at Flynn and Jodie and bolted."

"Did he follow you?"

"Yes, but by that time I was back in my car. He tried to stop me from driving off. I think I would have run him over if he hadn't leapt out of the way."

"What about later?' The scene smacked of a deliberate set-up by Jodie, who must have known Hannah was due home with the dress.

"There was no later. I neither saw nor spoke to either of them again until today."

No real closure, Tony thought, and that was dangerous. If talking had been done then, she wouldn't be so much on edge now.

"I drove to my parents' home, told them the wedding was off, collected some clothes I'd stacked there, then kept on driving," she went on, her voice gathering the same grim, shut-out purpose that had been activated this morning. "The next day I made the calls I had to make to cancel the wedding, assure my family I was okay, resign from my job which was no great drama since I'd been about to take time off for my honeymoon anyway. I simply... dropped out of the whole scene and left Jodie and Flynn to it."

It wasn't simple. It was trauma on an extreme level—a double betrayal completely blowing her mind and everything else it had touched and tainted. She had survived it in her own fashion and Tony admired the way she had gradually restructured her life along different lines. No regrets about it, either. But the clean slate had ghosts that had never been confronted nor exorcised...ghosts that had to be dealt with and banished.

Nothing was ever totally black and white and Tony suspected it was the greys that haunted her, the greys that had never been allowed a voice. They had to be talked about. He had to know how much power Flynn Lovett still held over her heart, and it was better she face it now with him than continue to repress it.

"If Flynn begged your forgiveness, begged for another chance, could you love him again, Hannah?"

"No!" Sharp and emphatic, her eyes flashing instant recoil from the idea.

"You don't feel...he might have been entrapped by Jodie?" Tony probed carefully.

"Oh, I'm sure Jodie would have played her cards artfully but Flynn chose to pick them up," came the bitter truth. "He may well have enjoyed the kick of daring to, right under my nose." Her chin lifted in determined rejection. "I would never be able to trust either of them again."

"So you wouldn't accept any excuse."

"Would you, given the same circumstances?" she flared at him. "Would you forgive and forget, Tony?'

Anger...from deeply wounded pride. But pride could be a shield for far deeper feelings.

"I can't imagine myself doing so, no," he answered truthfully. "But I know from observing other people's relationships that the heart does find ways of accepting the unacceptable, especially if the offender is very persuasive and the injured party is still vulnerable to the love that was given. Infidelities do get forgiven, Hannah, even though they may not be forgotten."

A tide of heat washed up her neck and burned into her cheeks, making the flare of pride in her eyes very green. "I guess I'm no good at swallowing humiliation."

Humiliation beyond bearing... and nothing done— nothing allowed to be done—to alleviate it by the parties who had inflicted it, so it was still as strong as it had ever been.

Tony nodded, fully understanding now why she had wanted to walk off Duchess this morning and not have any contact whatsoever with the Lovetts. But by Hannah's extreme action of dropping out, both Jodie and Flynn had been robbed of any real closure with her, as well. That left the wound still tantalisingly, tormentingly open, perhaps more so to them than it was to Hannah—a running sore in their marriage.

Flynn might not have any chance with her but he was arrogant enough to give it a try, and if he was prepared to humble himself enough...would Hannah's pride crack?

Jodie would certainly do whatever she thought would queer Flynn's pitch.

The Lovetts had three more days in Port Douglas...time enough to find an opportunity to tackle Hannah on her own...unless they were stopped in their tracks tonight.

"Well, I'm sure this will be much sweeter to swallow," he said, smiling to lighten the mood as their waitress delivered the mud crabs to their table.

The business of serving gave Hannah time to recover some equanimity after the stress of her revelations.

"Enjoy," the waitress said as she left them.

"We will," Tony answered, shooting an appealing look at Hannah. "Let me get this straight now. You want Jodie and Flynn to go away and stay away. You want nothing more to do with either of them, regardless of how they might explain their actions, regardless of any appeal for your forgiveness or understanding. Is that where you stand, Hannah?"

"Yes." Her face was still flushed, eyes feverishly bright. "Do you think that's too mean of me, Tony?"

"No. It would be better, for your own sake, if you could feel indifferent to them, and I hope that will happen in time, but since I now understand where you're coming from, I'll simply get rid of them for you."

"Get rid of them?"

He grinned at her shock. "There used to be an Italian Mafia operating up here, extorting money from all the canefarmers. It was called The Black Hand. They cut off people's ears and hands..."

"Tony..." she pleaded frantically.

He laughed. "Relax. I was only teasing. My great-grandfather assisted in driving out The Black Hand decades ago. My family has always stood up to help people who couldn't find help anywhere else, Hannah."

Her tension eased. Her eyes softened. "That's a fine family tradition, Tony."

"Imbued in us from the old pioneering days. You have to look after your own. Which also covers feeding them. So please taste the mud crab. It's delicious."

She laughed.

It might only be from nervous relief but it sounded good to Tony. The weight on his heart lifted. He'd get her over this hump with the Lovetts. He wanted to hear much more of her laughter. He wanted to see her face light up for him and know the shadows of her past were completely gone.

Before they left this restaurant, Hannah O'Neill would be his. That was the hand he intended to play.