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Chapter Nineteen
By the time Dale started hammering on Don’s front door, he was frantic. He and Darryn had arrived too late last night to call anyone. But since early this morning he had been trying to get hold of Zoe.
She wasn’t answering her phone. She hadn’t been at her flat or at work. Susan, the woman who worked with her, didn’t even know Zoe was back.
He’d tried Hannah’s phone, but there was no answer, and the hotel in Mauritius had said she was busy with a shoot.
Because he didn’t have Zoe’s mother’s cell number, he’d phoned every Sutherland in the book in Hermanus but couldn’t get hold of her. She either didn’t have a landline or it wasn’t listed. He’d tried to phone Caitlin, but she kept slamming the phone down.
So here he was. Don would probably kill him, but Dale was beyond caring. He had to get hold of Zoe, he had to tell her how he felt.
He was still hammering when the door flew open. A very grim Caitlin frowned at him.
“What do you want, Dale? You should be very glad Don isn’t here right now, he’s ready to wring your neck. That is, of course, after I finish with you.” She hadn’t raised her voice, but ice dripped from every word.
Dale rubbed his face. He hadn’t slept in hours and was feeling faint, but he had to make Caitlin understand.
“You don’t understand—”
“You’re right. I don’t understand why you would accuse Zoe of using you, of stealing your plans. She doesn’t need you or your bloody plans. You’re my brother-in-law and I love you, but right now I don’t like you very much, so it’s best if you just go.” She started to close the door.
“But I’m in love with her!” Dale shouted and the door stopped.
Caitlin’s face still didn’t show any emotion, but the door wasn’t closing on him any longer. He had a chance. Going for broke seemed to be the only way out of this mess.
“I know I’ve screwed up. I know I’ve hurt her. But you see, I was so dense, I didn’t know this craziness inside of me was because I’d fallen in love with her way back the first time I saw her—in my mom’s restaurant. You remember that day? She was wearing a turquoise top with this ridiculously short white skirt, and I just…” His words dried up. Mere words couldn’t convey the depth of his feeling.
A soft hand touched his, and he looked up into Caitlin’s face. She was smiling and was pulling him inside.
“You men are so dense,” she said exasperated. In the kitchen, she pushed him onto one of the barstools.
“When last did you eat?” she asked while switching the kettle on.
Dazed, Dale stared at her. Eat? He hadn’t thought about food since yesterday morning.
“Thought so. Let’s get some food into you,” Caitlin said and started pulling plates from the cupboard as she kept up a running conversation.
“What you Cavallos don’t understand is that, as far as ordinary people are concerned, you come from a different planet where money is never an issue, where people are always nice to you because you have money and, in most instances, they’re only nice because they want something from you. For that reason, you treat everyone with suspicion and, I don’t know, it’s like you’re waiting for people to do something so that you can prove you’re right. My sisters and I come from a very different background. We don’t use people.”
“I know that…”
“And,” she said, turning around to look him straight in the eye, “from what I can gather, you’ve slept with Zoe, you’ve spent time with her, which means you have to know at least the basic things about her. Like the fact that she doesn’t use people. It’s rather the other way around, she happily lets people use her. She doesn’t realize her own worth—it probably has to do with our dad walking away when we were still little, I don’t know. I had trust issues because of that, and Zoe has somehow decided it was because she wasn’t the kind of girl anyone would want to stay around for. An idiot boyfriend when she was a student confirmed her idea that she isn’t worthy of anyone’s love. She found him in bed with someone else. So you telling her all those horrible things only reinforced that belief.”
Dale stared at Caitlin, only now fully aware of how deeply he’d hurt Zoe.
“What do I do?” he finally said. “I’m prepared to grovel and do whatever else I need to do. But I have to get her back.”
“Why?” Caitlin asked.
“I told you!” he called out. “Because I love her!”
“And?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
Caitlin shook her head and pushed a plate of sandwiches in front of him. “You love her… and? What? You want to be with her? Want to what?”
Dale rubbed his face. What the hell? He’d said he loved her, what the hell was Caitlin going on about?
