Husband Stay (Husband #2) (11 page)

I’d promised myself
I could still have children. I was only thirty-five. But as I stared at the
happiness in front of me, it became crystal clear to me that wrapped up in my
loss was the fact that I’d wanted my children with Danny, and I’d never grieved
for the fact that my ideal father was gone.

I’d papered over
that loss with anger at his betrayal, reinforced by my girlfriends’ bitterness
toward him. I hadn’t faced the truth of how much I’d lost, and somehow looking
at Lizzie’s pregnant glow was rubbing my nose in it. Hurt was welling up from
deep inside like bubble of gas rising through lava, and I wasn’t sure what
would happen when it burst.

As though by
instinct, Jill looked up at me and her smile faded. “Back in a sec,” she said
and kissed Finn’s cheek. “Secret girlfriend business.”

She jumped out of
her chair and steered me away. Behind us I heard Lizzie say, “No fair! I want
in,” but Jill waved that away as she led me outside. I had a hand pressed over
my mouth, desperate to hold it in, but the bubble burst as we turned the corner
and I started to cry.

In the two blocks
it took to get to the B&B—thankfully in the opposite direction to Jack’s
place—I started sobbing, with my whole body hot and trembling, as if I was in
the grip of a horrible hangover.

Jill had an arm
around me as I stumbled along, and all I could think was that I was ‘making a
spectacle of myself’ (I heard that phrase in my mother’s voice). But it was
true. I never cried in front of people, and I was appalled that I was doing it
in public.

But Jill just led
me into the quaint brick building that had once been a bank, and walked me to
my room which had been retro-renovated in an aqua sixties style. She sat me on the
chenille bedspread of my unslept-in bed and put an arm around my shoulders
while I sobbed my heart out, churning through tissues off the nightstand at a
rapid rate.

“Poor baby,” Jill
said softly, again and again, giving my shoulder a squeeze, but apart from that
she just let me cry.

It took
so
long
to get myself under control, and even then I seemed to be hiccupping sobs for
ages before my breathing steadied and I could properly wipe my eyes and blow my
nose. Then I realized I had no idea what to say, how to explain myself.

Jill got there
first. “Is this about Lizzie being pregnant?”

I nodded, grateful
for the intuition of long-time girlfriends who just
knew
things. I gazed
down at the bundle of tissues in my lap. “I know it’s wrong to be jealous.”

She squeezed my
shoulder again. “You can’t help feeling what you feel. It’s okay.”

I nodded again.

“So what do you
feel?”

“Bad. Sad. I’ve
lost Danny, and I wanted him to be the father of my children.” I sucked in a
shuddering breath, wondering if I’d ever get over losing him.

Jill dropped her
arm off my shoulder and turned to take both my hands. I forced my gaze up and
saw an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face. “So you wanted an
adulterous, lying bastard as the role model for your children?”

I blinked at her, stunned
that she’d put my future children into such a horrible picture. But as we gazed
at each other, something inside me shifted. Her shock tactics worked.

All my married
life I’d fantasized Danny as the perfect father. But that wasn’t right. If I
reframed the picture, I could imagine him as the father he would have been if
he’d never had a vasectomy, teaching his sons by example that it was okay to
cheat on your wife, showing his daughters that they should suffer in silence.
Was that what I wanted?

Jill had been
watching me, and she squeezed my fingers. “I know you’d always want the best
for your children, Ange. And he wasn’t the best. Really, you’re better off
without him.”

All I could do was
shake my head. “But…if I didn’t know Danny was bad, how will I—”

“Sweetie,” Jill
said, gentling her voice. “Do you know what Lizzie told me about her baby?”

I swallowed,
wondering why she was poking the wound. “No.”

“She picked Finn
to donate sperm because he was someone she knew and trusted. She wanted her
children to be gentle and funny and kind, just like him.”

I blinked back
fresh tears, this time of genuine happiness for Lizzie. “She chose well.”

“So did I,” Jill
teased, although she had the grace to add, “Despite being guilty of thinking
bad things about Finn to start with. He’s not bad. But we both know that Danny
is.”

I nodded. There
was no arguing with that.

“So it’s okay to
be jealous of Lizzie. But while you’re focusing attention on her, maybe you can
take a lesson from her as well. Think about the sort of man you want your
children to be like. What traits do you value?”

“Honesty,” I said
straight up, because that was one of the things that had wounded me so much
about Danny’s betrayal. Not so much the vasectomy itself, but that he’d lied
about it for over a decade. “Gentleness. Fun—”

“Finn’s taken!”
she said, with a mock growl.

And that made me
laugh despite the scratchy throat and sore eyes. “Protective.”

“Finn.”

“Generous.”

“Finn.”

“Sexy.”

“Okay, that’s
enough,” she warned, but we smiled at each other for a couple of seconds before
she said, “So, this Jack—”

I shook my head,
letting go of her hands. “He’s completely lacking in humility.”

She tilted her
head. “That can be sexy in a guy.”

Then she stared at
me until I admitted, “Okay, it was sexy. But can you imagine him as a role
model?”

“I don’t know. Can
you?”

“
No.
”

“Okay then. The
search moves on. And in the meantime, my gorgeous fiancé is expecting the
contact details of a certain agent to arrive in his inbox today. So that’s
pretty bloody exciting. Not to mention the thousands of
YouTube
views
that my video of last night’s duet has scored.”

“Thousands?” The
room felt suddenly as if there wasn’t enough air in it. I shook my head.

“Noah Steele. Come
on! Of course it caught people’s attention. With a bit of luck your agent will
be able to leverage that into interviews on the morning breakfast shows, and
then it’s a hop-skip-jump to a recording contract.
That’s
what you
should be thinking about.”

I stared back at
her, feeling anxiety trickle into the place where grief had so recently been.
“I’m not sure I want to be a celebrity.”

“After all the
magazines you’ve obsessed over?” Jill knew my fangirl past better than anyone.

But I shook my
head. “Especially after that.”

Women’s magazines
were constantly dishing up dirt, and although I’d followed celebrity news
breathlessly, I’d never wanted their problems. 

She raised one
eyebrow. “So you want to sing. Small time.”

“That’s enough.”
She frowned, so I added, “What sort of life would my children have if I was on
the road all the time, assuming I was even good enough for—”

“You’re good
enough,” she said unequivocally, but that only made me feel more anxious.

“I’ve never wanted
that life.”

Well, maybe when I
was fifteen, I’d fantasized about being Whitney Houston. But since I’d been a
married woman, I’d been happy to sing in the club for a bit of money of my own
each week, giving my
creative river
as dad called it, room to flow. That
made me happy.

Not long after I’d
started, Danny had talked me out of it, presumably because he’d been jealous of
other men looking at me, but that hiatus had resulted in a stagnation that
hadn’t suited him: I’d gone shopping and spent way too much on clothes. So
Danny had let the river trickle along and I’d always told myself that one day
mothering would replace it.

Now, it appeared
as if I had a choice, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted.

“I’m thirty-five.”
I shrugged. “My fertility clock is ticking. If I choose singing over
mothering…” I was acutely uncomfortable with the fact that there were hundreds
of wannabe divas who would kill for this opportunity, but I doubted they were
longing to be a mother as much as I was.

“You don’t have a
father for your children yet,” she reminded me gently. “And you have to do
something to pay the bills. Why not do something you love that will earn you shitloads?”

I stared back into
her eyes and didn’t have an answer to that. I certainly wanted to earn money.
And it would be fabulous to earn enough to buy a home of my own. I couldn’t
stay with Kamal forever, and rent in Sydney was ridiculously priced.

But there were
security issues around being a celebrity that unnerved me completed. We’d all
heard about actresses being stalked. As a single woman, I felt vulnerable, and
if I started down that track of professional singing it would be a runaway
train. Yes, potentially lots of money, but also potentially dangerous as well.

“At least think
about it,” Jill said, and I nodded agreement to that. Then she squeezed my
hands. “And I know you don’t want me to say it, but I’ve got a good feeling
about Jack.” I immediately shook my head, but she bulldozed on. “Check out my video
on
YouTube
before your write him off. I caught him in a sweep of the
audience, and the way he’s looking at you.” She nodded. “There’s something
there.”

“It’s lust.” I said.
“He’s told me he wants ‘a sexual arrangement’.”

“Which means?”

“We get together
regularly and…experience pleasure.”

Both her eyebrows
were up now. “So, not a one-night stand?”

“But I don’t
want—”

“Hey!” She cut me
off in mid-denial. “If you and I had just eaten a delicious pile of pancakes
that not only tasted fabulous but were actually a workout that was making us
slimmer…”

Okay. I had to
grin at that.

“…and I said to
you, let’s do that every weekend?”

“Sex isn’t food,”
I said, stating the obvious.

Jill shook her
head. “Sweetie, it absolutely is. And you’re starving. Don’t tell me the buffet
is
bad
when we both know it’s fucking awesome. Your mother isn’t
watching you. There’s no one to know except you and Mr. Tall, Dark and Sexy. Oh,
and me if you share the juicy.”

I shook my head at
her audacity. “So, career, babies, and a hot man on the side?”

“Now you’re
talking!” She stood and gathered the damp tissues off my lap and deposited them
in the bin. “Enough with the past. We’re leaving in an hour, so I expect you
packed and dressed in fresh clothes—”

That was as far as
she got when her phone rang.

“I’m packing,” I
said, and turned to find my overnight bag.

“Poo!” she said
into the phone, then she grinned at me as she hit the speaker button.

“
Swill
,”
came the snarky reply. “
Your eggs are getting cold
.” It had to be Sieu,
Finn’s operations manager, who was also Lizzie’s wife.

“I’m coming. And
tell that hunky man of mine—”

“
Ugh!
” Sieu
ended the call.

Jill laughed, and
looked up at my raised eyebrows. “It’s a form of endearment. We like each
other.”

“Right.” I’d only
met Sieu once, and she’d been terrifyingly efficient in that super-cool hipster
way that twenty-somethings seem to manage so effortlessly, as if they know
so
much more
than thirty-somethings. “I’ll be fine.”

But Jill was
looking at her phone, clicking buttons. “Finn says Jack’s at
Bohemian
asking for you.”

I had a shudder of
reaction to that, but before I could formulate a response, she looked me up and
down and said, “I’ll tell Finn to get his phone number. You’re not ready.
You’ve been crying.”

“I won’t ever be
ready. He’s not right for me.”

She shrugged,
looking disappointed. “Okay. But plenty more fish, right?”

I conjured an
encouraging smile because frankly I was all out of arguments. I just wanted to
get changed and packed.

“Good girl.” Jill
patted my cast absently, then headed for the door. “Finn wants to leave at ten
so you won’t miss your flight.”

“I’ll be ready.”

She’d barely
closed the door before my own phone rang. I looked at my handbag
apprehensively, but when I retrieved the phone it was my mother.

Not Jack.

That should have
been a relief, only…my mother never rang me on my mobile. She always rang
Kamal’s landline phone, because the call charge was cheaper. It must be an
emergency. Or…

I swiped to answer
the call and said, “Mummy-ji.”

“
Angela. You
are disappointing us today. Call me back.”

My first impulse
was to say
Of course
and hang up, anxious to know how I could placate
her, because the last thing I wanted was daily haranguing. But something about
my conversation with Jill had bolstered my confidence, giving me the illusion
of control over my life. So instead I said, “I’m very sorry, Mummy-ji, but I’m
about to get into a car with Jill and her fiancé, and it would be rude to—”

“
Soon then,
”
she snapped and hung up, angrier than I’d heard her since I was sixteen and
Fritha had gotten the four of us into trouble by insisting we all get drunk to
celebrate her newly lost virginity. Six drinks later I’d passed out, and
luckily Jill’s boyfriend at the time had carried me home, but I’d been grounded
for a month and it had been another six before my mother had felt she could
‘raise her head in town’ and had deigned to forgive me.

I had no idea what
was upsetting her now, unless… Surely she couldn’t have gotten wind of my one-night
stand with Jack?

Cold fear swirled
through me then and I had to sit on the edge of the bed. Sweet Shiva. If she knew
I’d been promiscuous, I’d never hear the end of it. Literally. Never. There was
no chance she’d forgive such a blatant disregard for ‘moral decency’.

It was only by the
skin of my teeth that I’d managed to squirm out of her demand that I
come
home this instant
when I’d announced my intention to divorce Danny. She’d
been furious that I’d seen fit to reject the perfectly suitable husband she’d
chosen for me in my graduation year, and clearly intended to find a replacement
who, hopefully this time, I’d keep.

The other girls
didn’t understand why I couldn’t just tell my mother the truth: that Danny was
a cheating bastard who’d had a vasectomy rather than give her grandchildren.
But my parents were close friends with his parents who were genuinely nice
people—I didn’t want to ruin that relationship. Instead, I’d told my mother I
was leaving Danny because we didn’t love each other anymore, and she’d told me
stop being selfish and give her grandchildren.

The irony in her
statement hadn’t been lost on me, but in a rare moment of defiance, I’d told
them
no
, I planned to stay in Sydney. With Kamal. In the end, it had
only been the fact that I was ‘under the care’ of a male member of our family—albeit
one who was ten years younger than me—that had calmed her outrage.

It was completely
ridiculous that I couldn’t be my own woman, make my own decisions and live with
the consequences. I understood Jill’s perspective on that. But she hadn’t grown
up in my household.

My parents had been
in Australia since they were newlyweds, but despite that, they were as
thoroughly traditional as their parents had been in Mumbai. And what was worse,
they expected me and my three brothers to be the same. The fact that I had to
call her
Mummy-ji
was merely the tip of the iceberg of demands for
‘respect’.

It was no surprise
that the boys had taken off early, supposedly for lucrative mining jobs, but in
the end they’d made my mother happy by providing grandchildren who she visited
regularly. I was the abysmal failure—the only girl, and I couldn’t even keep a
marriage together.

As I tucked my
phone back into my handbag, I realized I couldn’t go on like this. While I’d
been married to Danny with the prospect of grandchildren, I’d hoped my
perceived ‘shortcomings’ would be overlooked in my mother’s enjoyment of my
children. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

And if I did
decide to go down the professional singing path and was fortunate enough to
secure a good agent, and—gods willing—a recording contract, I would be going
against everything my mother held dear. I would be choosing work over family.

Jill had only just
argued against that idea, trying to tell me I could have it all, but I knew my
mother. She didn’t believe in working wives, let alone working mothers. My
father had been supportive of my singing, but my mother treated it as showing
off and was vaguely embarrassed by it. She’d never understood how much it meant
to me to please people with my voice, to lose myself in lyrics that felt as if
they were coming out of some deep emotional core inside me.

If I was honest
with myself—brutally honest—my mother had never understood me, full stop. Yet
despite that, I loved her, and so I’d let her have her own way, thinking it was
my daughterly ‘duty’. But as I considered the future, I realized that had to
stop. My desires and her directives were about to clash, and I suddenly knew I wouldn’t
give in.

Her way was
different to Danny’s, but effectively, both of them had ‘managed’ me over my
adult life so I became the Angela that suited them.

I didn’t want that
anymore.

Instinctively, I
knew these changes in me had something to do with Jack, with the terrifying
abandon I’d allowed myself to experience last night. And maybe singing with Noah
Steele as well. Those two things had transformed me. I wasn’t…meek any more.
I’d shown more anger to Jack in ten minutes than I’d shown Danny during our
whole marriage.

Something, or
someone
had given me permission to let my feelings out. And maybe that’s why I’d sobbed
about Lizzie. The carefully constructed Angela that everyone other than Jill,
Fritha and Louella saw, was temporarily—or maybe permanently—gone. In her place
was a woman who suddenly seemed capable of anything.

I glanced at my
handbag again. “Maybe I won’t ring her,” I said aloud, and was astonished at
the very idea. Not ring her back? What would she do? Burst an artery? I shook
my head. I’d never thought about consequences while I’d been busy obeying. And
I wondered if I needed to now?

I stood up and
turned back to my suitcase, feeling as if I was inhabiting a whole new world.
Not
ring my mother back
. I pulled out a toothbrush and clean clothes and got
myself tidied up, carefully reapplying makeup and eye-drops to disguise the
results of my outburst before tucking my hair back into a messy bun.

When I was
finished, the full length mirror showed a casually elegant traveler—or so I
told myself—in low-slung jeans, soft black boots and an orange sweater that
clung to my curves. I topped it off with the new
Ray Bans
Kamal had
bought me for Christmas.

With luck I’d be
busy chatting to Jill and Finn soon. Anything to stop myself thinking about
not
calling my mother and not thinking about Jack. Jill was right: one day I
might meet someone with the values that I was looking for in a father for my
children, but that wouldn’t be Jack with his rampant…desire and
you want me
arrogance.
It was hardly the role modeling I’d want my sons growing up with.

So I zipped my
suitcase shut with the decisiveness of a woman who knows what she wants—
and
who she doesn’t
—but that didn’t stop the tiny voice of truth—which sounded
suspiciously like Fritha—saying
You’ve tasted the buffet. You’ll want to go
back.

And in some ways
that was close to the mark. I’d tasted lots of things in the last twenty-four
hours, and many of them Jack. But I hadn’t had the courage to…taste that. And
this new version of me wondered if I ever would, with any man.

I’d read enough
magazines to know that men liked it, and if it was anything like Jack’s mouth
on my clitoris, it would be amazing. Not only for him, but for me to know I
could have such power over him. Because sweet Shiva, he’d had all the power
last night. I’d been absolute putty in his hands, molded to the shape of the
pleasure he’d wanted to bestow.

Could I do that to
him?

It might be the
perfect way to find out if I liked it, because I wouldn’t be self-conscious
with Jack. We’d already stripped away the majority of my inhibitions. And if I
didn’t want to see him again afterwards, I could simply call it quits.

A knock on the
door interrupted my thoughts, and Jill’s “Ready?” set me in motion. I followed
them out to the car.

“Here’s Jack’s
number,” Finn said, and handed over a card.

I swallowed and
took it out of his hand. “Thanks,” I said softly, but Jill caught my eye with a
smirk that said,
You know you want to.

I had to look
away, because as complicated as it might make my life, I did want to. But I
shelved those thoughts to chat with Jill and Finn on the drive to the airport.
Finn was full of plans for the wedding but Jill was suspiciously silent. I knew
she wanted to get the birth of Lizzie’s baby out of the way first, but I wanted
her to forget that and concentrate on Finn.

So I was
distracted when they dropped me off, and it was only when the airline desk
clerk said
upgrade
a second time that I registered surprise.

“Upgrade?” I parroted,
wondering what on earth he was talking about.

“Your seat
allocation has changed. You’re now at the front of the plane. More legroom.” He
handed over the ticket.

“But doesn’t that
cost more?” I didn’t have any loyalty points, unless…the last thing Finn had
said as he’d handed over my suitcase in the drop-off parking area was
You’re
a celebrity now. Don’t forget to wear your sunglasses indoors
.

Jill had laughed
as she’d hugged me goodbye, wishing me a good flight, and that probably
explained it. Finn must have a gazillion loyalty points. He’d been all over
Europe with work, trying to get over Jill the last time they’d broken up,
before she’d proposed. He must have upgraded me.

Which was sweet.

I took the ticket without
further questions and headed for the departure lounge, glad to have some luxury
at the end of a confusing weekend. While I waited for my flight to be called, I
followed the link in Jill’s text to her
YouTube
video of
Since I fell
for you
, which now had over thirty thousand views!

I stared at that number
on my phone for several seconds as goose-bumps broke out across my body. Then I
put on my headphones so I could listen to the audio without inflicting it on
the waiting passengers around me, and I hit play, watching the shy Indian girl
smiling out at the audience, not able to look at the superstar at her side, as
the opening bars of the song swelled.

The camera panned
around the audience, and I saw Jack watching me with an intensity that seemed
out of place with the expectant smiles around him. I remembered him saying,
When
I saw you singing with Noah Steele, I wanted to pull you out of his arms and
fight him for the right to be with you. And I’m not like that.
I could see
that warring on his hard, handsome face and it confused me because it seemed a
world away from his brash demands of this morning.

Then the camera
swung back to the stage as I started singing, and a few seconds later I pressed
fingertips against my lips as my heart soared and my throat tightened.

I’d expected to be
objective, even critical if necessary, but despite the amateur camera work, my
performance was breathtaking. I’d never heard myself sound so strong and pure,
and Noah’s rumbling harmonies in and around me were the perfect counterpoint.

It was magical,
and I felt as if I was looking at someone I didn’t know, some…star who was so
at ease with Noah Steele’s arm around her shoulders, it seemed impossible that
she wasn’t already selling records and making music videos.

For all the years
I’d been singing, I’d had my father’s praise, and more recently I’d had Bernie’s
paychecks and polite applause to tell me I was good. But for the first time in
my life, I could acknowledge that on a deep emotional level.

Sitting in the
departure lounge of a small regional airport, I felt my eyes well up as the
last strains of the song played out.

It was beautiful.
Undoubtedly the best performance I’d ever given, and I wanted to play it again
and again, to convince myself that it really was me, but the boarding call was
coming over the loud speakers and I could see people getting up around me.

I dabbed at my
eyes and quickly texted Kamal to tell him my flight was on time, then I shut
off my phone and got into the boarding queue, gazing blindly at the jumper in
front of me. All I could think was
an agent will see that.
And I knew,
without a doubt, that I could have a career as a recording artist. I could
perform for large crowds. I could record albums. I could make money.

My life was
suddenly full of potential. If I was lucky, love and babies would be part of
that. But at the very least I’d be able to share my gift with people who would
find pleasure in it and, if I could put my fears about security aside, I could
realize what a blessing this was. The future felt enormous, so I didn’t have
room for any other thought as I settled into my very comfortable business class
seat by the window, right at the front of the plane.

I was just trying
to work out how to put the seatbelt with my good hand, when a pair of cowboy
boots slid in beside me.