Chasing Summer: Date with Destiny / Marooned with the Maverick / A Summer Wedding at Willowmere. Abigail Gordon

windows that she’d discovered slid back electronically to allow access to the equally huge balcony.

      She wandered out to lean on the high cylindrical railing, and frowned at the view, which stretched across to Darling Harbour on her right, Milson’s Point on her left, and the Bridge straight ahead. The blue waters were cold-looking but beautiful beneath the clear winter sky. A crisp breeze ruffled Salome’s hair, making her realise how cool and refreshing this balcony would be in the summer.

      How much was this place worth? she wondered. A million dollars? More?

      She sighed. Molly was going to go off her brain when she told her she was going to give it all away too. Just as well Ralph had seen fit to give his young bride’s not-so-suitable mother a house and income of her own when they got married, or she’d never hear the end of it. As it was, Molly often brought up the matter of money and how stupid Salome had been to give it all away, then have to go and work in a dress shop to earn her own living.

      Which reminded her. She had still not told Molly that it looked as if she was going to be laid off soon. Sales at the boutique were slumping, along with the economy, the manager not minding at all that Salome had asked for the afternoon off. She’d been looking around for a better job but had found she wasn’t qualified for anything that paid well. To go back to waitressing was too depressing a thought to consider, but she might have to do just that while going to tech and getting herself some marketable skills. Perhaps a typing and word-processing course. That seemed very much in demand.

      Meanwhile she would have to face her mother’s exasperation.

      Perhaps she wouldn’t tell Molly about this unit at all, Salome mused. Perhaps she would only mention the car. She couldn’t get out of telling her about that, since she had already decided to drive the Ferrari back to her mother’s place at Killara that afternoon, then take it to one of the luxury-car dealers the next morning. There were a lot along the Pacific Highway up towards Hornsby.

      But she really wanted to talk to someone about Ralph, wanted a sounding-board for the agony of frustration that she felt building up again inside her. A string of whys had been whirling in her head for too long a time, and now she had another to add to the list. Why had he given her this unit?

      But her main questions dealt with the past. Why had Ralph cut her out of his life so abruptly and cruelly? And why, in the light of what had happened, had he married her in the first place? For, to have done what he ultimately had, he couldn’t possibly have loved her, as he’d claimed to.

      Salome groaned at the crazed complexity of it all. If sex had been involved it might have made some sense! She was used to men claiming they were in love with a woman till they were firmly ensconced in her bed, only to desert her several months later when their lust had begun to pall. She’d watched them do it to Molly for years!

      But her relationship with Ralph had not been a physical one, so sexual boredom—or another woman—could not be blamed for Ralph’s divorcing her.

      Suddenly, Salome’s chest contracted viciously, seized by a defiant surge of anger. This was the overriding emotion she was experiencing lately. Anger. A bitter, frustrated anger.

      ‘Why?’ she screamed out across the water. ‘Why?’

      It felt oddly good to give voice to her pain, even if only to empty air. In fourteen long months, Salome had been denied the outlet of actually screaming at Ralph, for he refused to see her, refused to let her get past the blanket of security he had wrapped himself in.

      He had moved to his rural property out at Dural, on the outskirts of Sydney, his enormous mansion in Potts Point having been sold within weeks of their separation taking effect. Salome had driven out to Dural several times in vain attempts to gain entrance to see Ralph. But to no avail.

      Her letters were returned unopened.

      As for phone calls...Valerie always answered the telephone, and there was no denting Ralph’s secretary’s relentlessly negative stance. Not that the woman was rude. She was just totally immovable. Ralph had given orders that his ex-wife was not to be put through to him, and that was that!

      Every which way Salome turned, her path was blocked. Finally she had been forced to give up, and had been trying to make a new life for herself. But it hadn’t been easy. Not easy at all.

      Today she had put on a brave front for Charles, but inside she was still a shattered woman, a woman who had married for love, not money, a woman who had never been the cheap, mercenary, gold-digging little tart others had always believed her to be.

      Though you have to admit, Salome, she conceded to herself with a certain irony, you can’t really blame people for thinking that was the case. You were thirty years younger than Ralph and—my God—the nineteen-year-old Salome Twynan would have made Eliza Doolittle look classy!

      Salome ran an agitated hand through her wind-blown hair. If she impressed people now as a well-groomed, sophisticated and articulate lady then it was Ralph Diamond who was responsible for that. Ralph, who had shown her how to walk and talk and dress and act; Ralph, who had educated her in matters of manners and music and, yes, even men, to a degree.

      As the wife of a successful businessman she’d been required to do a lot of entertaining, mostly in male company. Ralph had shown her how to be the perfect hostess to his male guests, which included knowing exactly what role to play to charm their particular personalities. Sometimes she was an intent listener, at others a witty conversationalist. Above all, she was always required to look as beautiful as possible.

      This miracle had not been achieved overnight. It had taken time, but Ralph had eventually remade the rough Mrs Diamond into a sparkling jewel, coated with a polish, the veneer of which not even his abandonment had destroyed.

      Oh, Ralph! Salome groaned. Why? Was I ever anything more to you than just another possession, to be toyed with for a while, then discarded when the game tired you? Have you found some other naïve, innocent young thing to make over to your requirements? Was that the object of it all? Do you get your kicks out of playing God with other people’s lives?

      Tears welled up into her eyes. She turned and walked slowly back inside, unconcerned when the tears began to overflow and run down her cheeks. What did it matter? A good cry was what she needed. She sank down on to one of the plush leather sofas, her head dropping into her hands.

      A loud, rapid knocking on the door gave her an awful fright.

      Her head jerked up, her fingers moving in a frantic attempt to dry her cheeks. She blinked rapidly with some success, and began moving towards the door, automatically tidying her messy hair with her hands. Who on earth could it be? Her stomach twisted with a rush of nerves at having to ward off someone awkward. Like Charles.

      But then she thought of the building’s security system, and relaxed. She had had to give the uniformed guard in the foyer a list of the people she would allow to come up without checking first with her. And she had only given her mother’s name.

      Yet her mother didn’t even know about this place yet. Salome frowned. She had come here straight from Charles’s office. Slipping the safety-chain into place, she slowly opened the door. ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ she asked sharply, worried when the small gap didn’t reveal any part of a human being.

      A man moved into the space, a man whose cleft chin rested at her eye level. She looked up and saw the blackest of black eyes peering at her from beneath equally black brows and hair. Then realised they all belonged to a person she actually knew. ‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, startled.

      The object of her shock said nothing for a moment, a fierce frown gathering his straight brows together as he stared at her through the narrow slit.

      Finally he spoke. ‘Mrs Diamond?’ There was puzzlement—and a definite hint of antagonism—in the way he voiced those two words.

      Now that her initial surprise was over Salome instinctively stiffened. Her visitor was not one of her most favourite people. Not even remotely.

      Michael Angellini was reportedly one