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MARCUS

Implying that Vanessa was mentally unstable was the most tired trick in the book, but then Lotts—Charlotte—had never been much of a creative thinker, despite what her slavering fans believed. Marcus shook his head at the TV contemptuously. This whole puff piece was a masterclass in banality. Now Charlotte was strolling along the St Kilda foreshore hand in hand with that so-called ‘tech entrepreneur’, Ned Kasch. Marcus snorted as he took in Ned’s man bun and beard, and his low-crotched, skinny-legged jeans. The guy looked like he’d modelled his entire presentation on a Hipsters R Us catalogue—clearly, he didn’t have an original thought in his repertoire, either.

He downed a Scotch and considered turning off the TV, but now Charlotte and Ned were perched on a bluestone fence, engaging earnestly with the pubescent A Current Affair hack.

‘Ned’s been such a support to me,’ his wife said, squeezing her lover’s limp hand. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without him.’

‘You’ll never have to find out,’ Ned simpered.

‘Good!’ Charlotte said, and she kissed him.

Marcus made a dry-retching motion to disguise a genuine stab of pain.

‘You guys are so in love,’ observed the infant ‘journalist’ who was already excelling at mediocrity. ‘Ned, what’s it like for you to see Charlotte accused of something like this?’

‘What can I say, Zac? It’s tough. Charlie’s so talented and so successful—why would she need to plagiarise anyone?’

Marcus raised his glass to Charlotte. ‘I can think of a reason, Lotts.’ She turned to look directly into the camera, almost as though she’d heard him.

‘I didn’t know what love was till I met Ned.’

Okay, that hurt. Bitch. So now everyone in Australia thought that Charlotte Lancaster had never loved Marcus Stafford. Well, the morons who watched A Current Affair, anyway. He grabbed the remote.

‘You’re much hotter than him.’

He turned. Ivy was walking up behind him, wearing nothing but sexily tousled hair and his court robes. She put her arms around his waist, wrapping a long slender leg around his.

He smiled. ‘You think?’

‘I think,’ she whispered into his ear.

Marcus turned to prove her correct with a steamy and lingering kiss. Then he gently disengaged and turned off the TV.

‘Do you want to eat here, or should we go out?’

He was halfway to the kitchen before he realised that she hadn’t responded. He turned back to see that she was planted on the spot, looking peeved.

‘What about me?’

Marcus was briefly confused.

‘Do you think I’m more beautiful than Charlotte?’

He hid a prick of annoyance. Had she only offered him that compliment in order to elicit one for herself?

‘You’re okay,’ he teased her. ‘Fair to middling.’

Ivy pouted her full lips playfully. With her dark bob and brown doe eyes, she could give a younger Audrey Tautou a run for her money. She walked over and put her hands around his neck, pretending to strangle him. ‘Tell me the truth!’

The truth? thought Marcus. The truth is I’ve never felt quite so bleak as I do in this moment, and I have no idea why. He felt an unexpected rush of yearning for his mum, who’d gone back to Kalgoorlie the day before. Was life always destined to be like this?

‘You’re more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen,’ he said.

‘Just as well,’ Ivy purred.