Derek looked like he’d been raked across hell and back. His eyes were bloody, his mouth a hard line. He tried to rearrange his face, but it was too late. She knew what must have happened.
“Derek?” She pushed. “Tell me what happened. Say it.”
He looked at his feet.
“Derek, if you lie, I will never forgive you.” Her words came out diamond hard, as though from someone else’s tongue. She was dressed in nothing but one of his gray t-shirts. She’d thought she’d come out and seduce him into playing Daddy and little girl in front of the fire. How wrong she’d been.
Derek looked at her with hollow eyes. “There’s an article. About us.”
And from the way he said it, she knew that meant everything. Head buzzing, she wandered to the bar, grabbing a glass at random and dumping half a bottle of Hennessy into it.
“Can I have the Grey Goose?”
Mara clasped the long smooth bottle and brought it over for Derek. “How bad is it?”
He uncorked the vodka and drank. “Worse.”
“Oh.”
He patted the seat beside him. “Here.”
She obeyed, folding her legs under herself. She drank, tasting nothing. “So you know I won the lottery?”
“Yup.”
“And I was Marie in Europe?”
“Yeah.”
“And BlissAndGlow? And…?”
“The Italian model bloke?” Derek swigged vodka straight from the bottle. “Yup. I know about him.”
Mara clutched her glass. That made sense. The photos of her and Carlos were the most accessible from her time in Europe. Anyone looking into her would have found them.
She studied Derek’s savage expression and wondered what he’d say if she told him Carlos was the only other boyfriend she’d ever had. They’d dated for six months until he’d slapped her in a nightclub in Pag Island. He’d split her lip, and the next day he’d bought her a red 1985 Ferrari to apologise.
No, she thought numbly. Derek’s had enough of a shock. I don’t want to kill him.
“They used your real name,” he said. “Temple. They talked about your dad too.”
Mara gave a soft laugh. There seemed nothing else to do. Derek wrapped his arm around her, and she leaned into him, trying to absorb his warmth. It was over. HFA, BlissAndGlow, everything in Albury. It was all out. She and Derek had had less than a day together and now everything was crumbling like rock into the sea. She was Mara Temple, the murderer’s daughter again.
Derek drank from the bottle. “So, you’re a multi-millionaire?”
The sharpness in his tone made her chest ache. “I guess so.”
“You could have told me.”
She looked at him, heat flickering in her chest. “I could have told a lot of people a lot of things. But now I don’t have to.”
He looked away, and she pulled herself from under his arm. “How did they find out so fast?”
His dark eyes darted upward. “What are you saying?”
“You. You did something.”
He groaned. “I asked Hannah English to look into you.”
Hannah English. For a second Mara couldn’t place the name. Then a tall bossy blonde came into view, barging into the aged care home and demanding to speak to the manager. “The journalist from school. You told her to…?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know she’d do this. She’s supposed to be a mate. I thought… I fucked up.”
“Oh.”
Time stretched like old gum—fifteen minutes, half an hour. The sky lightened outside, as they sat drinking in the silence.
“I hate you,” she said quietly, as magpies and myna birds chirruped.
“I know.” Derek’s face was white, his eyes burning like coal. “I’m so sorry. If I could fix this, I would.”
It calmed her to have him admit he couldn’t fix it. It was better than pretending he could. It was dawn now. Early morning people would be up, checking their news alerts and clicking on the article. Sending it to thousands of late sleepers. As the day wore on, the story would be adapted for social media and TV. The famous, handsome footballer dating his orphaned millionairess ex-girlfriend. They’d republish her old posts, find her old friends. Report on her surgeries—if they hadn’t already. Her whole life spilled open for clicks.
“Troy Baker.”
Mara turned, as surprised as if he’d said, ‘Julius Caesar shall rise again.’ “Troy Baker?”
“You went out with him.”
Mara’s anger scratched an internal matchbook and instantly caught fire. “What’s your fucking point, Derek?”
His eyes widened.
She rarely swore, so when she did, that was always the reaction she got.
“My point…” Derek said, his voice like broken glass. “Is that I was right, wasn’t I? He did want to fuck you at school.”
Mara leaped up so fast, brandy splashed across her feet. “Who fucking cares? You abandoned me. You broke my fucking heart.”
Derek shrank back into the couch. “I know, but—”
“Fuck you! Fuck you for coming back after ten years and screwing everything up for me! I was fine without you! I was great!”
Derek’s face grew paler. “I’m sorry, I know I blew it. But I can’t believe you… it fucking kills me.”
Mara stared in horror. “You took a blowtorch to my entire life, and you’re whining because I slept with Troy Baker?!”
Derek’s head jerked back as though she’d hit him. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Mara gave a high, crazy laugh. “You do. You actually think that me dating Troy is as bad as you abandoning me and fucking half of Melbourne while I was stuck in Albury with my grandma.”
Derek put down the Grey Goose and got slowly to his feet. “Yeah, but you did it on purpose, didn’t you? I didn’t come home after you sent that picture, so you fucked Baker because you knew it would hurt me the most.”
She flung her hands in the air. “Boo fucking hoo. My life is over, but you’re mad because I fucked—”
“Do not say his fucking name!” Derek’s bare chest heaved, the tattoos rolling like a pirate flag.
Mara poked him in a picture of a grinning skull. “I’ll say whatever I want.”
Derek looked at her like she was insane, and she probably was. But she wasn’t scared. She poked him again, harder. “Derek?”
“Yes?”
“How many women did you sleep with once you left Albury?”
He backed away, his teeth bared. “I never left you. I tried to call you a week after you sent the picture and you’d changed your number and deleted all your accounts.”
“How many women?”
“Fucktonnes! Okay? Hundreds!”
Mara’s chest ached, but she smiled because she knew it would sting the most. “I rest my case.”
“They didn’t mean anything! No one’s ever meant anything to me except you!”
“Well, that’s just sad!” she snapped. “You have no right to expect the same from me!”
“So, you were in love with Baker?”
“I didn’t say that!”
He took a furious step forward. “You let him touch you. You let him fuck you.”
“So?” Mara’s neck and cheeks were burning, the flush spreading to her chest. “You weren’t there, remember?”
“I wanted to be your first. I should have been the first.”
She screwed up her nose. “We’d already done everything before you left!”
“Don’t fuck with me, Mara. We never did that.”
“But…” She took in his furious expression and her mouth fell open. “That’s what you’re… you seriously… you think…”
A hysterical scream of laughter tore from her chest. “You’re just mad you weren’t the first person to have sex with me! That’s the only thing you care about!”
“That’s not true.”
“So, you don’t care that Troy Baker took my virginity? That he was the first man to put his penis in my precious little vagina?”
She read the answer on his face.
“Oh, my god.” She slapped her thigh like she was in a 90s sitcom, then straightened, fire burning through her veins. “You pig. You animal. How dare you? You were slutting it up like what we had was a joke but I should have stayed pure for you.”
“Yes, you fucking should have!” Derek pounded a fist into his chest. “You were mine! My girl! You weren’t supposed to fuck Troy Baker. You weren’t supposed to fuck anyone!”
“You left!” Mara bellowed. “You fucked off! You didn’t care anymore! We were done! But you have the nerve to stand there and tell me I wasn’t allowed to move on?”
“Yes!”
“Well fuck you! I did, and I wish I’d stayed that way!”
A low yowl broke through the morning. Her heart stopped. Pan. She sprinted to the spare room, flinging the door open and throwing herself on her puppy. Pan whined as Mara pulled her into her chest.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears flooding her face. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry, please forgive me. Mama loves you. Mama loves you so much.”
She heard Derek approach. Without looking at him, she knew he was thinking about his parents too. The way they’d backed into corners in the middle of the night, waiting for their mothers to stop crying. Praying they could all survive one more heartbreak.
She’d told herself she’d never be this woman, and she’d failed. She turned to her ex-boyfriend.
“I’m leaving. You need to get into your car and sit there until you hear me go.”
Derek’s shoulders slumped. “Mara…”
“No,” she whispered into Pan’s fur. “You don’t get another explanation.”
“You left me too.”
And just like that, fury was burning in her again. “Justify that statement.”
“A week after you sent the photo, I tried to call but you never picked up. Things were crazy with football but as soon as I got some time off, I drove up to see you.”
“You did not.”
“I did. It was a Wednesday. I went the whole way in one go, sitting on the speed limit the whole time. I was gonna find you, no matter how long it took. I had flowers and rock candy and I wasn’t going to give up. I was going to bring you back to Melbourne with me.”
She squeezed Pan close. “You’re lying.”
“You were gone. The house was empty. They had a ‘for rent’ sign up. I went into town and no one knew where you were. Then it got dark, so I drove back to your place and sat on the reserve and I…”
His voice wobbled. She heard him sniff, swipe a wrist over his eyes. “Fucking hell, Mara. It was like a nightmare. I didn’t know if you were dead. I didn’t know if you were hurt. I haven’t been the same since.”
She shook her head, slow tears tracking down her cheeks and onto Pan’s golden head.
“I know you hate me right now. I know you don’t believe me, but look.” He raised his right arm and she saw it. The tattoo she’d glimpsed before. An old-world swallowtail. Her favourite butterfly burned the skin below his armpit. “I got it the week after I drove up. So I’d remember. So I’d have something to show you when I found you again.”
Mara stared at the butterfly. The dabs of red and sapphire blue splashed across the wings. “Why did you wait until now?”
He lowered his arm. “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to make you feel bad. I didn’t want you to be with me out of obligation. I know I fucked up, but we still have something here. You know we do.”
A tear dripped onto his cheek, then another. Mara stared in wonder. Derek never cried. Not when he won premierships and medals. Not when he tore his hamstring before finals. Yet here he stood, crying.
“Mara, please stay. Let me take care of you.”
Let me take care of you. The words sounded like magic. Like a prayer to an absent god. But there was nothing left to take care of. Not Mara Kennedy or Mara Temple. She heard her phone ring out from the other room. Chase. Chase or someone else calling about the article. She looked at her ex-boyfriend, her Daddy, her first real friend. Derek Hardiman. The boy who started it all. Then she stood and walked past him, through the open door. “Go to your car. I need to pack.”
“And then?”
“I’ll get an Uber and go somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“None of your business.”
He gave a humourless laugh. “We came up here to run away. Now you’re running away again?”
She cradled Pan’s head. “Yes. By myself, which is what I should have done in the first place.”
Derek’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Baby, please? Isn’t there anything I can do?”
“Apologise for getting mad about Troy.”
His handsome face snapped shut. “No.”
The word punched through her like a dull blade, and she felt the need to try again, to make absolutely sure.
“You don’t have to like it,” she said. “Just say you understand. That you’ll forgive me like I forgave you.”
He looked her dead in the eyes. “No.”
“Okay.”
Rage rose in her like a fever. They were going to break up, properly break up, not because Derek had exposed her to the media or abandoned her when he was her whole world—but because she’d slept with some stupid guy and he couldn’t handle it. “You know what, Derek?”
“What?”
She spat at his feet. “Never come near me again.”