‘Can we go somewhere and talk in private? There’s a coffee shop just off the foyer facing the street. How about in there?’
She shrugged with seeming indifference. ‘If you insist.’
He didn’t enlighten her till the coffee arrived, and she refused to press, despite being curious. The days when she’d hung on Eric’s every word had long gone.
‘You didn’t come to the dinner on Saturday night,’ he began, throwing her slightly. What to say to that? Rachel cast her mind back to the night in question and decided to go with the fiction Justin had created.
‘We had no need after my boss met with his client.’
‘Mr Wong decided against Sunshine Gardens?’
Rachel maintained her cool. ‘You don’t honestly expect me to discuss my boss’s business with you, do you? If that’s why you’ve come, to pump me for inside information for your girlfriend, then you’ve wasted your time. And the price of this coffee.’
‘That’s not the reason,’ Eric said hastily when Rachel made to rise. ‘I came to warn you. About your boss.’
Rachel sat back down, blinking. ‘Warn me. About Justin?’
‘Look, I know I hurt you, Rachel. I’m not a fool. The way you look at me now…you probably hate my guts and I can understand that. But I don’t hate you. In fact, I think I made a big mistake breaking up with you. You are one special lady and you deserve better in life than getting tangled up with the likes of Justin McCarthy.’
Rachel opened her mouth to deny any involvement with Justin, but after their performance on Saturday night it would be difficult to claim they weren’t lovers. Not that it was any of Eric’s business who she slept with.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said stiffly. ‘Justin is a wonderful boss, and wonderful in every other way. What could you possibly be warning me about where he’s concerned?’
Eric laughed. ‘I have to give him credit. He puts on a good act. But he’s not in love with you, Rachel. He’s just using you.’
‘How kind of you to tell me that,’ she said, struggling now to control her temper. ‘Might I ask what right you have to say that, what evidence? Or is it just that when you look at me you see a pathetic, foolish woman that no man could really love?’
‘There’s nothing pathetic or foolish about you, Rachel, and you know it. You’re still as beautiful and bright as you always were. But you do have one fatal female flaw. You fall in love with bastards.’
‘I am not in love with my boss,’ she denied heatedly.
But when Eric’s eyes searched hers she felt her face flame.
‘I hope not,’ he said. ‘Because he’s one bitter and twisted guy. Not that he doesn’t have a right to be. I’d be bitter and twisted if my wife did to me what his wife did to him.’
Rachel’s mouth went dry. ‘What…what did his wife do?’
‘I thought you wouldn’t know about that. It’s not the sort of thing a man would spread around. Charlotte didn’t put two and two together on Saturday night when you first introduced him. After all, his is not such an unusual name. But she got to thinking about it last night and made some discreet enquiries, and bingo, he was the one all right.’
‘Eric, would you kindly just say what it is you’ve come to say?’
‘Your boss’s ex-wife has been Carl Toombs’ personal assistant for a couple of years now. And I mean very personal. He pays for her apartment and she travels everywhere with him. Their relationship is a well-kept secret but that’s the reason she left her husband, to shack up more often with her high-profile boss. You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course I do,’ Rachel snapped. ‘I might have been out of the workforce for a few years, but I wasn’t dead. I don’t know of anyone in Australia who wouldn’t know who Carl Toombs is.’
‘OK, OK, don’t get your dander up. Anyway, Toombs is Charlotte’s client, the one who wants to buy Sunshine Gardens. Because of their business association, Charlotte’s had quite a bit to do with his beautiful blonde PA over the past few weeks, and you know girls. They like to chat. Anyway, the ex-Mrs McCarthy confided in Charlotte over lunch and a few Chardonnays the other day. Apparently, darling Mandy is still suffering great gobs of guilt over her ex-hubby. She told Charlotte how cut up he was when she left him. She confessed she said some pretty dreadful things so that he would hate her and forget her, but that she’d never forget the look on his face when she told him she’d been having sex with Toombs for some time. She said she did love her husband and he was mad about her, but she simply couldn’t resist Carl’s advances. She said Carl wanted her and nothing was going to stop him having her. She said she thinks she broke her husband’s heart.’
Rachel didn’t say a word. She was too busy absorbing the full ramifications of Eric’s news.
‘From what I gather he’s one very bitter man,’ Eric went on. ‘Knowing you, Rachel, you probably think he’s in love with you. You’re not the type of girl to jump into bed idly. But it’s not love driving your boss these days. More like revenge.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Eric. For one thing, I’m not in love with Justin. And I don’t imagine for one moment that he’s in love with me.’
Eric frowned. ‘Then…what is it between you two?’
‘That’s my business, don’t you think?’
‘You are sleeping with him, though.’
‘That’s my business, too.’
‘Look, I’ve only got your best interests at heart, Rachel. I care about you.’
She laughed. ‘Since when, Eric? Are you sure you didn’t seek me out today to tell me this because you’re getting bored with Charlotte and think you might have a bit more of what you once used to take for granted?’
‘I never took you for granted, Rachel. I loved you in my own way. I just couldn’t see our marriage working with you becoming a full-time home carer. I’m a selfish man, I admit. I wanted more of your time than that. I need a wife whose first priority is me.’
‘Then you chose a strange partner in Charlotte. Her first priority is her career. And her second priority is herself.’
‘I always knew that. Why do you think I didn’t marry her? It was you I wanted for my wife, Rachel. I still do…’
‘Oh, please. Spare me. Thank you for the coffee,’ she said, rising without touching a drop. ‘And thank you for your very interesting news. You might not know this but you did me a huge favour in telling me about Justin’s ex. It’s made everything much clearer.’ Which it had. She might not know the full details of Justin’s thoughts and feelings. But it wasn’t revenge driving him. Revenge would have acted very differently at the weekend, and today. Revenge would have used her.
Rachel walked away from Eric without a backward glance, her mind wholly and solely on Justin. Alice hadn’t exaggerated. Her son’s wife certainly was a cold-blooded bitch. Either that, or terribly materialistic and disgustingly weak.
He was better off without someone like her in his life. The trouble was…did he realise that yet?
Maybe. Maybe not. Clearly, he’d been deeply in love with this Mandy. Possibly, he still was. It was hard to say.
Still, time did heal all wounds. Just look at herself. She’d once thought the sun shone out of Eric. She’d been devastated by his dumping her. Today, she hadn’t turned a hair at his declaring he still wanted her as his wife. The man meant nothing to her any more, and being free of him felt marvellous.
Rachel suspected, however, that