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Ignoring his last line, Amelia probed gently, filled with regret for all she had done, the love she had thrown away, but needing to hear how close she had come to realising her dream. ‘What did she say?’
‘I didn’t get to tell her.’ Vaughan’s face hardened, yet she could see the pain behind it, see his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists together in an effort to hold things back. ‘Jamie’s condition had deteriorated overnight—nothing definable, of course, nothing the doctors can put their fingers on or qualify to the press as reasons for moving him to the top of the transplant list. So I doubt it will happen now.’ He stared at her paling face, rammed in the knife just a touch further, shaming her all over again. ‘I brought Liza back here for a break, so she could have a shower and bawl her eyes out away from her son, to give her a chance to admit her terror. It didn’t seem the right time to talk about my love-life.’ His head was in his hands again, and he was speaking more to himself than to her. ‘Or appalling lack of it.’
‘I’ll go.’
Her voice was a mere croak and Vaughan looked up briefly, pulling his head out of his hands just long enough to loathe her.
‘Why not? After all, you got what you came for.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT FELT as if she were coming home after a funeral, mourning the loss of what she’d so recently had. And her apartment seemed steeped in a life that was divided into two—before and after Vaughan.
Before, when things like bath oils had mattered, when horoscopes had held promises, when she’d thought she had it tough, had been so naïve as to think that Taylor’s infidelity was as low as life went.
How naïve, how pathetically naïve to think then that she had known pain. The loss she had felt at the end of her relationship with Taylor didn’t even compare to the raw grief that held her in its vice-like grip now.
The waxy pink petals of the orchids Vaughan had sent her were the first thing to catch her eye, and she couldn’t help but realise that they had lasted longer than them, and there wasn’t a single thing she could do.
‘I guess I just fell in love,’ Amelia whispered, scarcely able to comprehend that something so beautiful could hurt so much.
And was it worth the pain?
She could almost hear Vaughan asking the question and remembered that first night at the hotel, standing on tired, aching feet at the threshold of the love affair of a lifetime, thought of her bruised, raw, shredded heart. Without hesitation she nodded into the lonely room.
‘Absolutely.’
She knew he’d never forgive her, knew her time with Vaughan was over, yet she ached to put things right, to somehow repair some of the damage she’d unwittingly inflicted. But at every turn she was thwarted. Her angry demands for a retraction were met with an incredulous laugh from Paul, who was completely unable to comprehend why she wasn’t wallowing in the glory of it all.
Hours dragged into days, her anger giving way to lethargy, and it was a supreme effort just to lever herself off the couch to answer the door. Flowers were being delivered, even a bottle of champagne, and her telephone was constantly ringing with messages of congratulations. Even her father, for the first time, was proud of his daughter’s work.
But the one person she wanted to see, the one person she wanted to hear from, kept a dignified silence.
No outburst of temper on the six o’clock news, just the stern fix of his jaw as he left the hospital with his sister-in-law and nephew to wait for a call that might now come too late. The navy eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, yet nothing could shield from Amelia the depth of his despair, the pain behind the ‘no comments’, the agony of her apparent betrayal.
And Amelia was as guilty as the rest of the general public—greedy for insight, surfing news bulletins, listening avidly as reporters explained the disease that afflicted his nephew, that Vaughan Mason himself might carry the gene. She learnt that even in his apparent anger, his seeming withdrawal after their love-making, Vaughan had been concerned for her—had somehow been trying to protect her.
He had loved her. With torturous hindsight she knew that now—knew that in his own unique, special way Vaughan Mason had truly adored her.
The loud ringing of her doorbell only made Amelia jump. The prospect of another visitor did nothing to raise her spirits, and she didn’t want another bouquet or congratulations she didn’t deserve. And anyway her apartment already looked like a funeral parlor—felt like a funeral parlor.
Amelia didn’t want to see anyone.
Unless it was Vaughan, standing grey and washed-out in her doorway, looking as awful as she felt, yet the most beautiful thing she could ever hope to see.
‘You look awful.’ Perhaps not the most romantic of greetings, but it was all her quivering lips could manage. She braced herself for the crash landing of his temper, another hit to her bruised and battered heart.
‘Turbulence.’
She blinked as he managed a wan smile, still scarcely able to believe he was here, unable to comprehend that he didn’t appear angry. Surely after the hell he’d been through these past days he should be raging? But instead he was talking almost normally—completely unable to meet her eyes, of course, but fairly normally all the same.
‘Bloody turbulence all the way from Melbourne.’
‘Turbulence?’
‘Did I forget to tell you that I’m terrified of flying?’ He didn’t even soften it with a dry smile, and Amelia closed her eyes in another second of regret. The ritual trip to the newsagent made sense now, and the white-knuckled silence in helicopters. She was glimpsing again the softer side of the wonderful man that she could have had.
‘How’s Jamie?’ Still holding the door for support, Amelia asked one of the many questions that had been plaguing her. ‘How’s he dealing with all the publicity? And Liza…?’
‘They’re fine,’ Vaughan said slowly. ‘They’re dealing with it. In fact it’s almost a relief that it’s out in the open now. Almost,’ he added, and Amelia knew it still must hurt.
But suddenly the conversation shifted, suddenly they were talking about them—or at least Vaughan was.
‘Amelia, I don’t care.’ Dragging her into his arms, he held her fiercely, breathing in the scent of her hair, holding her as if for support, and all she could do was hold him back, words strangling in her throat as he loved her for all the wrong reasons. ‘I don’t care just as long as we can move on—I can see why you did it, why you had to go for the story. It’s your job, Amelia,’
‘You don’t understand…’
‘No, but I’m trying to.’
Pulling his head back, he held her cheeks, kissed her parted lips, drinking from them as if they were the life force he needed, as if her kiss, her embrace, was the one thing that could make him go on. But she pulled back, his touch desperately wanted but the truth needed more.
‘Vaughan, I need you to see something.’ Letting him go even for a second was a feat in itself, but somehow she managed, somehow she made it to her desk. She rummaged through the appalling mess and for the second time in their short relationship held her breath as he read a piece of work with her name upon it—only this time it was the truth. Each word was laced with the esteem in which she held him, each carefully crafted sentence a pure deliverance of the truth.
‘This is what I filed, Vaughan. This is the piece I wrote.’
‘I guess I should have had more faith.’
‘Yes, Vaughan, you should.’ Something in her voice made him look up. ‘Vaughan, how you can say that you love me when you think I did that to you defies explanation. It wasn’t me. It never was me. Apparently one of the other mothers in Jamie’s ward tipped off the press—that’s why Carter was following you; that’s why they jumped so high at the chance of my spending a week with you. They thought they were on to a big story. This woman thought that her son was sicker than Jamie, that Jamie was somehow getting preferential treatment because of who his uncle was, so she—’
‘Poor woman!’
His reaction confused her. She’d expected some of the venom he’d directed at her when he’d thought she’d betrayed him to somehow appear again. But not for the first time she marvelled at his insight, at the hidden depths behind this amazing man.
‘When you’re desperate you’ll do anything. I’d probably have done the same.’
‘I’ve tried to get the paper to print a retraction.’ Amelia shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘Perhaps if we both lean on Paul…’
‘There’s no need.’ Vaughan shook his head. ‘Jamie’s still where he should be on the transplant list, despite the news coverage. Those doctors have stood firm. It takes more than a newspaper article to scare those guys, Amelia. They face death every day.’ His eyes found hers. ‘I’m sorry, Amelia, more sorry than you know for doubting you. I’ve just been so used to being let down, so used to being misquoted just to grab a headline. But when I thought it was you I lost my head for a while. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight…’
‘Touché,’ Amelia blushed, thinking of her bitch-on-heels act at his hotel door.
