CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MATT finished his breakfast and cleaned up, impatient to be gone, out of his apartment and on his way to work. He felt a constant, miserable sense of emptiness here, with Peta gone. The apartment was still as functional a place as it had ever been, handy for everything, but stripped of her belongings, her feminine bits and pieces, her perfume, her presence...it was a painful reminder of what he didn’t have.
Still, it had only been a month since she’d left, scrupulously taking nothing of his with her. If he didn’t count the short span of his life they’d spent together. That was gone, though he couldn’t get it out of his mind. This apartment held the imprint of both the best and the worst of it.
He really should look for another place to live. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to let it go. Couldn’t bring himself to let her go, he corrected himself. Which was damned stupid, considering the ring of finality in the note she’d left behind.
I’m no good to you, Matt. I’m sorry. Truly sorry...
What use was sorry? It showed a measure of caring, he supposed, though she’d shown precious little caring towards him. People said sorry when they didn’t know what else to say, a nicety thrown out to cover not actually doing anything.
He shook his head and moved briskly into action, collecting what he needed for work. Five minutes later he was in his car and facing the usual morning traffic snarl. It was worse this time of year with Christmas coming up and shoppers eager to start the day early. Matt schooled himself to be patient. Nothing was going to move until it was ready to move.
The trip from Bondi to Taylor Square went at snail pace. However, once he was on South Dowling Street, the run towards the airport and Rockdale moved more smoothly. Stopped by a red light, he watched a Qantas jet coming in to land at Mascot and wondered if Peta was on it. She’d gone back to work. Megan had told him so the one time he’d called to ask about her.
Which meant the depression had lifted. Matt was glad of it for Peta’s sake, but getting herself together had obviously made no difference to how she viewed their marriage. Or him. He supposed the next contact she made would be about a divorce.
The light turned green and the traffic moved. His car phone rang. It was his mother calling.
“I was wondering what to do about Christmas, Matt.”
“Whatever you want to do, Mum,” he answered, totally disinterested in the festive season.
“Well... I hate asking you this, but you haven’t said...is there any chance of you and Peta getting back together?”
Matt grimaced. He hadn’t talked about it to his mother because he was too acutely conscious of the doubts she’d voiced about their marriage and he couldn’t bear her saying, “I told you so.”
“It isn’t likely,” he said shortly.
“Then...” She hesitated, aware she was on sensitive ground. “...It’s not likely we’ll be spending Christmas with the Kelly family? It’s just that they did invite me...at the wedding.”
“Better let it go, Mum. Make your own plans,” he advised, silently mocking himself for handing out advice he couldn’t take himself.
“All right, dear. I’m sorry...”
“Not to worry,” he quickly assured her. He’d had a gutful of sorry. “I’ll call you later in the week and you can tell me what you want for Christmas.” She always did.
“That would be nice, Matt.”
He breathed a sigh of relief as she ended the call. He didn’t want to talk about Peta. It screwed him up. Much better to bury himself in work. They certainly had enough of it at the factory with the Christmas rush. Extra orders for logo T-shirts were pouring in. He had a full day ahead of him, thank God! He needed to work to the point of exhaustion where he didn’t notice the emptiness in the bed in his empty apartment.
“Flight attendants, please take your seats for landing.”
Peta was glad to sit down and buckle up. The early morning three-hour trip from Cairns to Sydney was a busy one for the stewardesses—serving three hundred breakfasts to people reading cumbersome newspapers, then cleaning up afterwards. She would be glad to get home and have a couple of days off, too. The run of flights to far North Queensland were unsettling.
Having to stay overnight in Cairns, so close to Port Douglas where she and Matt had spent their honeymoon, inevitably triggered memories. They’d had a wonderful time together. Not even the black pit she’d fallen into after the miscarriage could cast a shadow over the fun they had shared before she lost the baby. When she thought of the various men there’d been in her life, Matt had definitely been the best companion, in every way.
She missed that companionship now. Very badly. Even the intimate aspect of it. Lust or love...the pleasure of it had been quite intense at times. A month ago, she couldn’t have believed she would crave it again, but she did in the lonely stretches of the night, especially last night, remembering the wild satisfying of each other’s every desire on their honeymoon.
A rueful sigh escaped her. They were probably flying over Rockdale right now, coming in to land. Matt would be on his way to work, or there already, snowed under with business. Christmas was a prime opportunity for merchandising.
She shied off the thought of Christmas, a family day, for children. Matt was probably going to hate it this year, too.
She’d done him terrible damage.
Impossible to undo it.
The plane touched down and gradually decelerated along the tarmac. Peta switched her mind back onto her duties. Once the passengers were disembarked, there was the business of checking in, but it wouldn’t be long before she was off for the rest of the day. Maybe she would call Megan and see if her sister was free for a visit.
She was in the staff room, on the point of leaving the airport, when one of the pilots casually commented, “Oh, there was a guy asking after you, Peta.”
“A guy? Who was he?”
The pilot shrugged, then grinned teasingly. “Tall, dark and handsome.”
Matt? Her heart leapt and catapulted around her chest. “Is he still here?”
“Don’t know. I told him what door you’d be coming out of.”
“Thanks.”
Her mind buzzed with a mixture of alarm and excitement. Why would Matt come for her here? What did it mean? Maybe he intended to pick her up and carry her off. Matt was certainly capable of doing that...a wild impulse, a cavalier sweeping away of all objections. If he did...could she let him? She wanted to...right or wrong she no longer cared. She desperately wanted to have Matt with her again.
But was he still here?
Agitated, exhilarated, and almost scared to look, she hurried out of the staff room and into the terminal. She swung her gaze around in hopeful anticipation, and her fluttering heart stopped dead.
It wasn’t Matt waiting for her.
It was Giorgio... Giorgio Tonnelli...as elegant as ever in what was undoubtedly an Armani suit, wearing the self-possessed air of a man whose strikingly handsome face naturally drew admiring looks.
As weird as it seemed, after the initial shock of seeing him here, in Australia, Peta felt completely disconnected from him.
Even though his dark eyes hotly consumed her, she didn’t melt. Her heart didn’t race. She couldn’t even summon up the sense of having once belonged to him for two whole years of her life. The only emotion he raised was a stomach-turning disappointment that he wasn’t Matt.
He lifted his arms in a gesture of here I am for you. It evoked an instant inward recoil. No urge to run to his embrace. Not the slightest temptation, either. It seemed almost grotesque that he should invite it, expect it.
It was gong—all gone—the effect he’d had on her.
When she remained standing stock-still, he stepped closer, smiling his intimate smile, murmuring, “Carissima ... I have missed you so much.”
The velvet voice made her bristle. A voice full of deception. Not like Matt’s, always sounding direct and open and honest, meaning what he said, following through on it, a voice she could trust.
“What are you doing here, Giorgio?” she demanded, resenting the reminder of how he had fooled her, and what a fool she had been to let him—a mannequin of a man—come between her and Matt.
His eyebrows slanted appealingly. “I have come all the way from Milano to see you again. You were the light of my life, bella mia. These past few months...”
“No business deal pending?” she cut in, seeing him as Matt would—the Latin lover, pouring out romantic words that had no real substance to them.
He shrugged. “I did a little manipulation to make this opportunity.”
More lies. He obviously wanted a convenient little fling with her while he was here. Convenience... That’s what she’d been to Giorgio, not to Matt. How had she let this man flatter her into believing him? All he had was superficial glamour.
“Well, I’m glad your trip won’t be entirely wasted,” she said dryly. “As I told you before, we’re finished. If you’ll excuse me...”
“No...” Ruffled by her cool rejection, he grabbed her hands, meaning to press them into submission. His fingers brushed over her rings. They startled him into looking down. “What is this?”
“I’m married!” Peta stated proudly, lifting her hand to flaunt the beautiful diamond Matt had given her.
She should have taken it off, given it back. The wedding ring, too. It wasn’t right to keep them. Yet, removing the last link to their marriage had seemed...heartless, another hurt on top of too many hurts. It would have to be done, of course, when it felt right.
“This cannot be.” Giorgio’s dark eyes blazed with fierce, emotional intensity. “It is me you love. You cannot have forgotten. I have not forgotten.”
“I never loved you, Giorgio,” Peta said with very clear certainty, totally unmoved by the flow of energy he was trying to wrap around her. “I only thought I did because I didn’t know any better.”
The truth finally came to her, bursting into her heart and exploding through her mind. “My husband has taught me what love is. And I’ll love him for the rest of my life,” she vowed, breaking away from the man who had no right to hold her.
Her heart was racing now.
The insight—revelation—about her true feelings for Matt was so strong it couldn’t be doubted. She loved the man she had married. Loved all that he was.
If she hadn’t been so hung up on Giorgio when she and Matt had first come together, if she hadn’t been so hung up on having a baby...blind, blind, blind! She’d had the right man, her mate in everything, and she’d blown the chance of a lifetime.
She broke into a run, out of the terminal, across the road to the taxi rank. She didn’t know how to fix the damage she’d done. Matt might throw her out of his office. She couldn’t blame him if he did. But she had to go to him and beg for another chance, convince him somehow that she did love him.
Otherwise...
No, she wouldn’t think about otherwise. There’d been too much negative thinking already. She had to be positive. Very, very positive.
So she had to stop shaking with the fear that she’d left it too late, stop thinking of herself. It was Matt she had to concentrate on...his concerns, his needs, his desires, his dreams. That was what love was about. He’d shown her. And maybe, if she was very, very lucky, he might show it to her again. After she’d shown him.