The Far Side of Paradise (18 page)

Grimacing into the humid air, Taryn used every technique she could remember to calm her mind and woo the
oblivion of sleep. But when it arrived it was disturbed by chaotic, frightening dreams so that she woke in the morning unrefreshed and heavy-eyed.

Work was penance; treating Cade with cool dispassion was hell. Doggedly, she plugged through the day, even went to the beach in the late afternoon when she judged everyone would be inside preparing for drinks before dinner.

Soon she’d be back in New Zealand; she’d never have to see Cade again, and this heavy grief that had lodged in her heart would fade. People recovered from the most appalling things; she’d recover too.

She had to.

Shaded by palms, Cade watched her swim towards shore, long arms stroking effortlessly through the water. When she stood, the westering sun kindled an aura of gold from the glittering sheets of water that poured from her. She looked like Venus rising from the Mediterranean, slender and lithe and radiant, no sign of stress in her lovely face, her hair a sleek wet cloak of red so dark it was almost crimson.

Hot frustration roiled through him. Had he just made the biggest mistake in his life?

His jaw tightened as she stooped to pick up her towel. In spite of everything, heat flared through him. Damn the woman; he’d spent most of last night lying awake, remembering how sweetly, how ardently she’d flamed in his arms.

In spite of everything, he couldn’t reconcile the laughing, valiant woman he’d come to know with the woman he knew her to be.

His cell phone stopped him just as he was about to step out onto the hot sand. He said something fast and low, but the call was from his PA in London. Today was
the day they were to get the results of a further series of tests his PA’s three-year-old had endured.

‘Yes,’ he barked into the phone.

He knew the instant his PA spoke. Instead of the heavy weight of fears of the past month or so, his tone was almost buoyant. ‘It’s not—what we feared.’

‘Thank God,’ Cade said fervently. ‘What’s the problem?’

He listened for a minute or so as Roger told him what lay ahead for little Melinda. When the voice on the other side of the world faded, he said, ‘So it’s going to be tough, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.’

‘No.’

‘OK, take your wife and Melinda to my house in Provence and stay there for a week. Get some sun into all of you.’ He cut short his PA’s startled objection. ‘I refuse to believe you can’t organise someone to take your place. I won’t be back for another week, so things can ride until then. And buy Melinda a gift from me—something she’s been wanting.’

He overrode Roger’s thanks, but fell silent when his PA asked urgently, ‘Have you heard from Sampson?’

‘No.’ Not since the investigator he’d set to track down the money from Peter’s account had come to a dead end.

Cade stiffened as the tinny voice on the other end of the phone said, ‘He rang on Thursday to say he might have something for you in a couple of days.’

An odd dread gripping him, Cade glanced at his watch, made a swift calculation and said, ‘OK, thanks. And enjoy Provence.’

He stood looking down at the face of his phone, then set his jaw and hit the button that would get him
Sampson. As the investigator began to speak, his intent expression turned from hard discipline to shock, and then to anger. Swinging around as he listened, he strode back to the
fale,
the cell phone pressed to his ear.

An hour or so later, Taryn walked reluctantly into the
fale,
a
pareu
draped around her from armpit to ankle, only hesitating a moment when she realised Cade was already there.

He said harshly, ‘I have something to tell you. Something about Peter.’

‘I don’t want—’ She stopped, her eyes widening. He looked—exhausted. A fugitive hope died into darkness. It took her a moment to summon enough strength to say quietly, ‘What is it?’

He closed his eyes a second, then subjected her to an unreadable examination. ‘Did you know he was a drug addict?’

Shock silenced her, leaving her shivering. She put out a shaking hand and clutched the top of a chair, bracing herself while Cade waited, his face held under such rigid restraint she couldn’t discern any emotion at all.

She whispered, ‘No. Oh, no. Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I’ve just been talking to the man I got to investigate the whereabouts of Peter’s advance.’ He paused, then said in a voice she’d never heard before, one thick with self-disgust, ‘You’d better sit down.’

‘I’m all right,’ she said automatically. ‘Go on.’

But he shook his head. ‘Sit.’

And because her head was whirling and she felt nauseated, she obeyed, but said immediately, ‘You can sit too.’

He said, ‘I feel better standing.’

Taryn swallowed. ‘All right.’

But he sat down anyway.

Slowly, painfully feeling her way, she whispered, ‘I hate to say it, but it makes sense. Peter was mercurial—in tearing good spirits one day, then in the depths the next. I thought it was artistic temperament—made even more so when he got that commission. And asking me to marry him was so out of the blue! He was a great, good friend, but there had been nothing.nothing like … ‘

Nothing like the instant, unmistakeable reaction between you and me.
A glance at Cade’s stern face made her remember that only she had felt that wild erotic response.

Stumbling a little, she went on, ‘Just nothing. Which was why I thought he had to be joking.’

Would Cade believe her now? She held her breath, her heart thumping so heavily in her ears she had to strain to hear his reply.

‘He wasn’t joking,’ he said roughly. ‘He loved you.’

But Taryn shook her head. ‘He never made the slightest approach—never touched me except for the odd kiss on the cheek—the sort of kiss you’d give a child.’

‘I imagine he was afraid to let you get too close in case you found out about his addiction.’ Cade spoke with a control that almost scared her. ‘And, although I can’t be sure, I suspect he began to hope that if you married him he’d be able to beat the addiction.’

Taryn drew in a ragged breath, grateful he’d made her sit. ‘It would never have got that far,’ she said numbly. ‘I loved him too, but not—’ She stopped again, because she’d been so lost in Peter’s private tragedy she’d almost blurted out
not like I love you.

‘Not in a sexual way,’ she finished, acutely aware of his probing gaze. ‘But, oh, I
wish
I’d known. I might have been able to help him. At the very least, I’d have known not to laugh when he proposed … ‘

‘He would have been ashamed of his weakness,’ Cade said.

‘If I’d understood, I wouldn’t have let him down so badly.’ The words were wrenched from a depth of pain she could hardly bear.

Cade said, ‘He didn’t tell anyone.’ He paused before saying without inflection, ‘Our parents knew what addiction could do, and not only to the one with the problem. My birth mother was an addict—they’d seen what living with her had done to me. When I arrived at their house I was feral—wild and filthy and barely able to function on any level but rage. They worked wonders with nothing more than uncomplicated love and fortitude and their conviction that there was some good in me.’

She made a slight sound of protest and he went on harshly, ‘It’s the truth. They fostered me because they were told they’d never be able to have children. Peter was their miracle, but it appears he always felt they loved me more than him.’

He’d withheld so much about himself, so much she’d longed to know. The telling of it was clearly painful and now she wished he didn’t feel obliged to. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Damn it, I don’t know why,’ he said with a hard anguish that wrung her heart. ‘I just don’t know.’

But Taryn thought she understood. When he compared himself to Cade’s compelling character and the success he’d achieved, Peter must have felt inferior.

As though driven, Cade got to his feet, moving awkwardly for so lithe a man. For once he seemed unable to find the right words. ‘I thought we had a good relationship, but it appears it was not. He didn’t come to me for help because he resented me.’

‘No,’ she said swiftly. This was something she could give him—possibly the only thing he’d take from her.

She steadied her voice. ‘Whenever he spoke of you there was no mistaking his affection. He never said your name—it was always
my brother
—but he told me little incidents of his childhood, and he always spoke of you with love. He might have felt he couldn’t measure up to you, Cade, but he did love you.’

He got to his feet and strode across the room as though driven by inner demons. ‘Life would be a hell of a lot easier without love. It complicates things so damned much,’ he said angrily. Then, as though he’d revealed far too much, he continued, ‘I owe you an apology.’

Taryn’s breath locked in her throat. If only he’d tell her he’d really wanted her, that it hadn’t all been a fantasy.

One glance at his face told her it wasn’t going to happen.

He went on in a cool, deliberate tone, ‘I should have made sure of my facts before I taxed you with stealing the money. It’s no excuse that I didn’t want to believe it, but no one else seemed close enough to him to be a suspect. And he’d given you the money for your parents.’

He hesitated, and she waited with her breath locked in her throat.

But he finished, ‘From what the investigator has discovered, it probably all went to pay off drug debts.’

Yet another thing to blame himself for, she thought bleakly, once more faced with a situation she was unable to help, unable to do anything but watch him with an anguish she didn’t dare reveal.

In a softly savage voice that sent shudders down her
spine, he said, ‘That supplier will be out of business very soon—just as soon as I find out who he is.’

‘I might be able to help there,’ Taryn said impulsively, immediately regretting her statement when he swung around, eyes narrowing. Choosing her words carefully, she said, ‘Peter had a friend—an artist he respected—but it was a difficult relationship. Intense and vaguely antagonistic … ‘

As she spoke, she suddenly realised why she’d dreamed of the other woman. Torn, she hesitated.

‘What was his name?’ Cade demanded.

Taryn made up her mind and gave him Andrée Brown’s name. ‘I saw him handing her a wad of notes once. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. It might have been perfectly innocent. Probably was.’

‘But?’ Cade said curtly.

She frowned, trying to put into words something that hadn’t been suspicious but which she’d remembered. ‘When he realised I’d seen he told me why—he had a perfectly logical reason, but his reaction was odd. Not for long, and not so much that I was at all suspicious, but just a bit
off.’

Keen-eyed, he asked her to write the woman’s name down, and when she hesitated once more, gave a hard, mirthless smile. ‘Are you worried I might hound her too? I never make the same mistake twice,’ he said brusquely. ‘Taryn, I’ve treated you abominably. Whatever I can do for you I’ll do.’

‘Nothing,’ she returned automatically, chilled to the bone but holding herself together with an effort that came near to exhausting her.

He said harshly, ‘Don’t be a fool.’

Taryn’s heart contracted, but she steadied her voice enough to be able to say, ‘I accept your apology. You had
what you thought were good reasons for your mistake—and I understand why you wanted to punish someone who took away your brother’s hope.’

‘He could have asked for help, booked himself into rehab.’

‘Poor Peter,’ she said, her voice uneven. ‘Would you have helped him?’

‘Of course.’

She believed him. ‘And surely your parents wouldn’t have turned against him?’

He wasn’t nearly so quick to answer this time. ‘At first they’d have been shocked and intensely disappointed, but they loved him. They’d have tried to help him. I had no idea he thought he’d failed them, and I’m sure they didn’t suspect either. If they had, they’d have reassured him.’

Something about his words made Taryn say, ‘You speak of them in the past tense.’

He shrugged. ‘My father died of a heart attack two weeks after Peter’s funeral, and my mother walked out in front of a car a few weeks later.’ After a glance at her horrified face, he said immediately, ‘No, she didn’t intend to. She’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.’

More than anything, Taryn longed to put her arms around him, give him what comfort she could. She didn’t. His tone was a keep-off sign, a message reinforced by the jutting lift of his chin, taut stance and steely eyes.

She said quietly, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry about.’ As though he couldn’t wait to be rid of her, he went on, ‘I’ll get you back to New Zealand straightaway.’

Within twelve hours she was in Aramuhu, listening to
her landlord while he told her that the sleepout needed urgent repairs and she’d have to find somewhere else to live.

She nodded and must have appeared quite normal because he said, ‘I’m sorry, Taryn. The roof’s started to leak and I have to get it all repaired before the kiwi fruit pickers come in. You’ll stay with us until you find somewhere else to live, of course.’

When he’d gone she sat down and let the slow, unbidden tears well into her eyes, farewelling the past, looking ahead at a future that loomed grey and joyless.

‘T
ARYN
, why won’t you come with us?’ Hands on her slender hips, her flatmate eyed her with exasperation. ‘You’re never going to get over The Mystery Lover by staying obstinately at home.’

Taryn’s lazy smile hid the flash of pain that any mention of Cade always brought. ‘I’m too tired to go halfway across Auckland for a concert—I walked up to the top of One Tree Hill this afternoon,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’d be nodding off halfway through the first song.’

Isla grinned. ‘You couldn’t—the band’s too loud. And you’re not going to get over a broken heart by turning into a hermit.’

‘I’m not a hermit,’ Taryn told her. ‘I’m an introvert. We enjoy being alone.’