Emma Darcy: The Master Player

An independent solution.

Little by little she was separating herself from him.

Soon she wouldn’t need him at all, although wanting him was still strong. He made sure it would stay strong, pouring every bit of his sexual expertise into their love-making later in the evening. Afterwards she cuddled up to him with a satisfied sigh and murmured, ‘You know, Max, I’m not with you because I want to feather my nest with your billions. You don’t think that, do you?’

‘No, I don’t. Never would with you, Chloe.’

She snuggled down contentedly, accepting his word without question.

Max knew he couldn’t buy her.

Wouldn’t want to, either.

Her heart and mind were now geared to making the choices that felt right to her-running her own race.

To keep her he had to make himself her choice.

The hell of it was he wanted her to share everything with him, wanted to share everything with her. Running his own race into the future looked very empty without her at his side. Even Hill House felt empty without her there to come home to.

Max had never thought of his life as dark. A deep sense of purpose had driven it forward from nothing to everything he wanted. But Chloe lit him up inside with her lovely, shining, artless personality and all he had valued in the past-the brilliance of his achievements-lost its gloss compared to what she made him feel.

The plain truth was he didn’t have everything he wanted.

Chloe was slipping away from him and he wanted more of her.

DESPITE Chloe’s determination to set things right, she felt very nervous about the confrontation with Tony. He was sure to be angry and spiteful, and although their respective lawyers would be at the meeting-hopefully keeping the situation calm and orderly-having to face her husband again was not a pleasant prospect.

‘I can feel your tension, Miss Rollins,’ Gerry Anderson remarked caringly as they set out on the drive into the city. ‘Want to spell out the problem so I’ll know what to watch out for?’

He was a nice man. She had always felt comfortable with him. It was easy to tell him what had happened with Laura Farrell and the purpose of this meeting with her husband.

‘May I give you a piece of advice?’ he said when she’d finished.

‘Please do.’

‘Miss Farrell was using every angle she could to milk you. Sounds like a very practised con lady to me and I’ve had a lot of experience with that kind of person. Don’t be surprised if she’s already milked Mr Lipton for all she could get.’

‘You mean she lied to me about Tony not giving her anything?’ It was a stunning thought.

‘I’m just saying it’s a possibility. For my money, she was going after the cream with you.’ He shot her a smile of approval. ‘I’m glad you didn’t fall for it.’

Chloe grimaced. ‘I did give her five hundred dollars.’

‘Not too bad a loss. And it made you feel better, which was fair enough. I think you’ll probably have to accept it as a loss. I doubt you’ll get it back from Mr Lipton. In fact, I think you should listen carefully to his side of the situation before accusing him of anything.’ He glanced a quick appeal at her. ‘Okay?’

‘Yes. Thank you, Gerry,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I really appreciate your advice.’

He smiled and nodded. ‘Glad to be of assistance to you, Miss Rollins.’

‘I’m glad I called you. I feel more…more prepared now.’

‘I’ll be right on hand if you run into any trouble,’ he assured her.

‘Thank you,’ she said on a sigh of relief.

Having parked the car under the Opera House, Gerry escorted her up Castlereigh Street to her lawyer’s chambers and settled himself in the legal secretary’s office, right outside the door to the boardroom where the meeting was to be held. Tony and his lawyer were already there when hers walked her in.

The men were dressed in sober dark grey suits. She’d also worn a suit-a light pink linen-and after the preliminary formal greetings, Tony complimented her on it, smiling at her as though he was delighted to be in her company again.

‘You look lovely, Chloe,’ he said, throwing her into confusion with his charming manner.

She looked at the lawyers in agitated appeal. ‘Let’s get down to business, shall we?’

They sat at a long boardroom table, each party on opposite sides.

Tony leaned forward, hands outstretched in appeal as he earnestly stated, ‘Laura lied to you, Chloe. She lied to me. She’s not pregnant. Never was. It was all a lie.’

She’d been prepared for lies but not this. Nothing like this. Her mind reeled with shock. ‘But…but I saw her. She had a baby bump. Four or five months…’

‘Clever padding, I promise you,’ Tony asserted. ‘When the other guy she’d tricked contacted me, I insisted that Laura accompany me to a doctor to have the pregnancy confirmed. She wouldn’t do it, carrying on about me not trusting her, trying to get me to back off from having proof of pregnancy. No way. She’s done this before. Blackmail and fraud.’

Chloe stared at him, barely able to take in what he was saying. She kept seeing Laura standing on her front porch in profile, her pregnancy on obvious show. Was Tony spinning a story to suit himself?

‘What other guy?’ she asked, finally homing in on his back-up proof for the accusation of blackmail and fraud.

‘He’d read the story about our break-up in the newspapers. Laura Farrell’s part in it. He thought about it for a while, then decided to contact me, said he didn’t want another one of her suckers to suffer as he had, didn’t want her to get away with it again.’ Tony gestured to his lawyer. ‘Show Chloe his statutory declaration.’

The lawyer opened a manila folder and passed her a sheaf of documents. On top was a statutory declaration, made by a John Dennis Flaherty with a Perth address, not anyone she knew or imagined Tony would know since he lived on the other side of Australia. Still, it was entirely possible that newspapers over there had picked up on a juicy celebrity scandal, so that part was credible.

She began reading.

According to John Flaherty, Laura Farrell had been his personal assistant four years ago. She had seductively maneuvred him into a sexual relationship although he loved his wife and had no intention of breaking up his marriage, which he’d made clear to Laura Farrell, who had apparently accepted this situation until she told him she had accidentally fallen pregnant, subsequently pressing him to leave his wife. He refused, ending the affair and offering only to pay support for their child. Laura Farrell went to his wife, begging her to dump him so they could be married. His wife divorced him. He had nothing more to do with Laura Farrell except to pay out a substantial settlement to get her out of his life. A year later he decided he wanted to see his child. He hired a private investigator to track down Laura Farrell. The investigator discovered there was no child and no medical record of there ever being a pregnancy let alone a birth.

Photocopies of the investigator’s reports followed. On being questioned, Laura Farrell had declared the money was a personal gift-‘a kiss-off’-and there was no proof of anything else. It was her word against his-the ex-wife would not testify on his behalf because he had admitted infidelity-so no legal action for fraud could be taken to recover the money.

It was a nasty story, making Chloe’s spine crawl over how Laura had come to her-the wife-forcing the marriage break-up then playing on her sympathy, playing every emotional string she could, making herself out to be Tony’s victim. Chloe wondered if the substantial settlement had been fifty thousand dollars-not a bad take for a bit of pregnancy padding.