A Weekend To Remember

‘Yes, boss,’ she sighed back. ‘I admit it. I was about to become a fallen woman.’

He smiled a wry smile, showing big white teeth within his wide, strong mouth. ‘Not you, Hannah.’

‘Yes, me,’ she insisted, but laughingly.

‘You two seem to be having a good time together,’ Felicia said as she snaked her arm through Jack’s. ‘Is it a private joke, or can any old fiancee join in?’

‘Hannah was about to have a cigarette,’ Jack told her in all seriousness.

‘So? She’s entitled to, isn’t she? You’re only her boss, Jack, not her keeper.’

Was Hannah imagining things, or had she just seen the first chink in Felicia’s acting ability in front of Jack? She could have sworn there had been a veneer of acid coating the woman’s supposedly light words.

‘I know how hard it is to give up smoking,’ Jack said. ‘Hannah needs someone to keep tabs on her.’

‘What a sweetie you are, Jack,’ Felicia said, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘After we’re married, we’ll both keep tabs on her!’ This with a sly look Hannah’s way.

Hannah only just managed to stop herself from pulling a face at Felicia in return. Why, oh, why didn’t men see through this type of female? It wasn’t as though Jack was naive where women were concerned. Heck, no. There’d been a steady trail of girlfriends over the past year. Still, one had to concede that a woman like Felicia didn’t come along every day of the week.

Hannah endured the next hour of the party with great difficulty. Felicia spirited Jack out of her company in no time flat, leaving her to ‘mingle’ again, which wasn’t all that easy. Really, this was a party of Felicia’s friends, not Jack’s. There was not a single employee present from Marshall Homes other than herself. She began to wonder why Jack had insisted she come. On top of that, everyone she spoke to and who spoke to her seemed to be smoking—several of them offering her cigarettes. In the end she couldn’t bear it any longer, and accepted one.

Feeling guilty, and terrified that Jack would see her, she slipped out on to one of the two balconies the unit opened on to. Being midwinter, and with a cool breeze blowing at this height, none of the guests had availed themselves of either. Hannah had to huddle into an alcove to keep the cigarette alight, turning her back to the wind as she puffed away like mad. Oh, how soothing it felt! But how wickedly weak it made her feel!

Dwight’s repeated criticism over her many failures to give up smoking permanently popped back into mind, making her drag even more deeply. To hell with you, she thought savagely. And to hell with that blonde bimbo you replaced me with!

When she heard the sound of a glass door sliding open, Hannah almost died. Fearing it was Jack, come to spring her, she quickly squashed the cigarette underfoot, then squatted down behind a leafy rubber tree. Not daring to breathe, she was waiting for her boss to discover her guilty quaking self when a low moan broke the cold night air.

Hannah froze as more telling sounds met her ears. Dear heavens, someone was kissing, or making love, or doing something decidedly sexual. How embarrassing if they found out she was there, listening to them!

Hannah almost groaned aloud when she heard the woman say ‘darling’ on a husky whisper. For it was Felicia. The thought of being a silent witness to Jack and that woman doing and saying intimate things made her skin crawl.

‘You like that, darling?’ she murmured.

‘God, Felicia, what am I going to do without you?’

Hannah snapped to attention. For the man wasn’t Jack!

‘You’ll survive, Gerald. You do have your new little mistress to keep you satisfied, after all.’

‘She’s not a patch on you in bed.’

‘Such a flatterer, you are,’ Felicia cooed. ‘You’re rather good yourself. I’ve never met a man with your style and imagination.’

‘Then why the hell are you going to marry that big oaf? He’s all brawn and no brains. I wish to hell I’d never introduced you to him. You can’t possibly enjoy going to bed with him. I would imagine having Jack on top would be like being run over by a bulldozer. God, don’t stop.’

Felicia laughed. ‘In that case there must be something to be said for being run over by a bulldozer. Jack might not have your formal education, Gerald, but he’s street-smart and not to be underestimated. And what he lacks in irnagination he more than makes up for with a quite amazing stamina. I’m not that much a martyr that I would marry a man who couldn’t satisfy me in bed.’

‘I’d be quite happy to keep on satisfying you. Any time. Anywhere.’

‘Yes, but you won’t marry me.’

‘That’s because I’m already married. God, I’ll pay you, if that’s what you want.’

‘Not enough, darling. Under that supposedly magnaminous façade you wear, you’re the original Scrooge.’

‘I didn’t get rich by being stupid.’

‘Neither will I. Modelling and acting hasn’t brought me any real fame or fortune, and my looks won’t last forever. I’m going to marry Jack Marshall, and there’s nothing you can say or do to stop me. He’s the ideal husband for me. A multi-millionaire. A self-confessed workaholic. And a man who doesn’t want children. What more could I possibly hope for? Now, I really must go. Jack will be out of the bathroom by now.’

‘But you can’t leave me like this,’ Gerald groaned.

When Felicia laughed, Gerald told her where she could go in decidedly obscene terminology. Felicia laughed again before opening the glass door and going back inside. Gerald must have quickly followed, because all of a sudden the balcony was very silent and very, very cold.

A shudder of revulsion ran through Hannah. Now the matter was settled. She could not let Jack marry that revolting woman. She wouldn’t say anything tonight, but first thing tomorrow morning she would take Jack aside and tell him all she had overheard…

I would have, too, Hannah reminded herself valiantly now, as she glanced over at her sleeping boss again. If Jack had come straight downstairs into the office this morning. If he hadn’t gone off instead to the site of the exhibition village Marshall Homes were building at Cherrybrook. And if that damned tile hadn’t hit him on the head, knocking him unconscious and obliterating the last six weeks from his mind.

Lord, she could still see the shock on Jack’s face when she’d announced their new relationship. If his head hadn’t been aching so much, he might have sought to question her further. But his pain, plus his obsessive hatred of hospitals, had obviously kept all the questions she had seen in his eyes from finding voice at that time. His one and only objective had been getting out of there. Then, once in her car, the sedating painkiller the doctor had prescribed had taken over and he’d drifted off to sleep. He hadn’t even woken when she’d made the stops required to complete her outrageous plan.

Now Hannah began to wonder just how long he was going to be out of it. Then she began to worry that it might not be the drugs keeping Jack asleep. Maybe it was a case of severe concussion? Maybe he was going to fall into a coma? Maybe he—

‘Oh, hell!’ she swore, slamming her foot down hard on the brake as the back of a mud-spattered semi-trailer suddenly materialised through the misty rain. Everyone and everything shot forward when the brakes gripped in the wet, the car slewing wildly. A collision was avoided by mere inches.

Jack was instantly but dazedly awake. ‘What in blazes?’ he growled, then shot a most disconcerting glance over at Hannah. It was part-pain, part-disorientation, part-disbelief. Gradually the fog seemed to clear from his eyes and he frowned at her. ‘What in hell do you think you’re doing, Hannah?’

Oh, my God, she thought. He’s got his memory back.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ecd94564-5a4a-5be1-b4b8-3166d2c5350d)

‘YOU’RE usually such a good driver,’ he added, and Hannah tried not to shudder in relief.

She just wasn’t ready for him to get his memory back yet. It was hard enough to cope with his being awake. She knew he’d been dying to ask questions back at the hospital about their supposed engagement. Now nothing was going to stop him.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Didn’t see the darned thing. This road’s murder in the rain.’ She slanted him a hopefully soothing smile. ‘We’ll be at the cottage soon. Only a few more miles.’

‘What cottage is that?’

‘Don’t you remember? I told you about it back at the hospital, when the doctor insisted that if you were fool enough to discharge yourself then the least you could do was to go somewhere quiet and rest for a few days. When I mentioned the holiday cottage I owned in the Blue Mountains up near Leura, he said that would be perfect.’

‘I can’t really remember. I think at the time I was still too stunned by our engagement to take much in. Besides, I would have blindly agreed to anything to get out of that bloody hospital. So how did you come to own this mysterious cottage? You’ve never mentioned it before.’

‘Dwight bought it several years ago as a getaway. It was part of my divorce settlement.’

‘I see. Well, that explains why I didn’t know about it. You never talk about your marriage or your husband. Or you didn’t before I lost my memory,’ he muttered disgruntedly.

Which was pretty true, although Jack did know that Dwight was a doctor. And she had told him one day about the apartment she lived in, which was right in the middle of Parramatta’s business district, and far beyond a secretary’s salary. It was in a fairly new and prestigious building; the lower floors were devoted to shops and offices, and the upper floors housed exclusive executive apartments.

Dwight had bought one of these apartments only a couple of weeks before Hannah had left him. And had arrogantly—but stupidly, as it turned out—put it in her name for tax reasons. He hadn’t even had time to put tenants in when she’d walked out on their marriage and laid legal claim to it. It had given her a small amount of satisfaction that there hadn’t been a darned thing Dwight could do about it.