THE REBEL AND THE RICH GIRL (19 page)

“Thanks,” Nicole murmured, realizing at once what had happened. For some reason he’d changed his mind about Frank Davies’s offer, or maybe he’d always intended following it up. That would explain why he’d been so non-committal at the airport.

When Jenny handed her a slip of paper with his address on it, it confirmed it. He had gone on to fulfill his dreams without her. There is was in black and white. He’d bought the cottage in Kettering, never intending to share his life with her. It was also obvious that he’d never had any intention on returning to Sydney either.

Nicole buried her face in her hands, unable to stop the tears from stinging her eyes. His betrayal bit so deep that in front of these virtual strangers she started to sob.

“You were more than just friends, weren’t you?” Jenny said softly, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Nicole nodded, trying to regain her composure. Now wasn’t the time to break down, but her entire body ached with the pain of his deception. It ran through her veins like poison, seeping into every pore, until she started trembling as though in the grip of a violent fever.

Jenny told her daughter to go outside and join her brother, and she heard the sound of footsteps on the tiles. Nicole didn’t look up to see if she’d left the room. All she felt like doing was disappearing down some cosmic plug-hole where she could cry her heart out.

“How could he do this to me?” She didn’t realise she’d spoken her thoughts out loud until Jenny answered her.

“I know this isn’t really any of my business, but Philip led me to believe he was moving to Tasmania because he wanted to settle down there with the woman he loved. He never told me her name, but if you’re the girl he met through that yacht race, then you’re the one he wants to share his life with.”

“But - “ Nicole began to protest.

“I don’t know what went wrong, how the misunderstanding occurred, but if I were you I’d fly down there right away and sort it all out. I’ve known Philip for four years, and I’ve never seen him so happy as when he was talking about his plans for the future with you.”

“He loves me?” she murmured dazedly.

Jenny smiled. “He’s all yours.”

Philip loved her. He had actually told his neighbour he loved her. It sounded almost too good to be true, but it was enough to give her the hope she needed. Nicole had to leave for Tasmania as soon as was humanly possible.

When Philip remembered what Peter Cameron had said to him he felt like killing the man, but he wanted to do worse to Nicole. How could he have been so wrong about her? He should have known she’d be the same as every other rich bitch he’d come across in his life.

Not to be trusted.

But Philip had opened his heart, and she’d taken it, twisted it and shattered it, until it was broken beyond repair.

“You
dare
to come here!” Peter had bellowed when he opened the huge oak door to him and Philip announced that he wanted to see Nicole. “She’s not here and she doesn’t want to see you.”

“You’re lying,” Philip retorted, pushing against the door, but Peter had his foot against it. “Nicole!” he yelled into the house.

“I’m having a restraining order placed on you,” Peter announced.

“Yeah, you would, wouldn’t you?” Philip said bitterly.

“Yes, because I know who you are - Philip Palmiri.”

Philip felt as though someone had shot him right through the heart. He staggered back, staring in shock and anger at Peter Cameron’s sneering face. How had he found out? How could he possibly know?

Nicole.

She was the only one who could have told him.

Philip had covered his tracks too well for anyone to find out by chance. But stupidly he’d told her, believing she cared about him. How could he have been such an idiot?

“I can see by your face you’re not denying it… How I could let the son of such a criminal onto my yacht, let alone near my daughter…”

“He was never my father. My father’s name was Juan Pelayo. He died when I was five, but I can see that doesn’t make any difference to you… Don’t worry about the restraining order. I won’t be back.”

Philip turned and marched down the stairs, blind with rage, choking with fury. He could hardly unlock the door of his car he was seething so much. Once inside he slammed his fists against the steering wheel.

“Damn you all to hell!” Philip felt utterly betrayed, totally humiliated. He should have know the moment he let his defenses down and allowed love into his heart that it would backfire big time.

He should have remained aloof, should have put up with the loneliness and the emptiness. Now it would be twice as hard to return to that way of life. But return to it he must, for Nicole had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

Philip had to get as far away from her as possible, and the furtherest place he could think of was Tasmania.

Nicole stopped the hire-car on the side the road in front of the cottage. It was mid-afternoon and the sunshine sparkling on the bay brought back the bitter-sweet memories of her previous visit to Kettering over a month ago.

As expected the
For Sale
sign was gone, and a gold convertible Porsche sports car was parked in the driveway. Relieved to see he was home, Nicole switched off the engine, sticking the key into the pocket of her jeans.

For a moment she merely sat there staring at the cottage. The grass had been mown, and flowering plants flourished in terracotta pots on either side of the steps. There were even curtains on the windows. It was certainly starting to look lived in.

Nicole still found it hard to believe he’d actually gone and done it. She thought it merely been wishful thinking; abstract talk about a far away dream. She should have known that Philip was someone who acted on his dreams.

The irony was, she had been offered the job she’d gone for on the day she was mugged, but Nicole was certain, no matter what happened today she wouldn’t return to Sydney in a hurry. There was nothing and no one to keep her there anymore. Her parents would only try to run her life. Trisha had Jim now, and Robert would be starting University in a few weeks. Neither did she feel safe there anymore, not when one was attacked in the middle of the day.

There had to be a job for her in Hobart. Earlier that morning she’d glanced tentatively through the positions vacant section of the paper, but circling a few ads was as far as she’d gone. Her mind had been too preoccupied with Philip.

Something caught her eye, and she turned away from the house to see the tall lean figure of a man walking along the edge of the road towards her. As he drew closer she saw it was Philip. Even though his strides were fast and purposeful, there was an aura of sadness about him, making her heart beat painfully in her chest. He also appeared to have lost weight. His cheeks were hollowed and his eyes shadowed.

Where had they gone wrong? Why were they now apart, each enclosed in their own private world of torment?

He walked right past the car without seeing her and up the path to the house. Nicole watched him unlock the front door and disappear inside.

Spurred into action, she got out of the car and followed him.

Moments later she stood on the veranda with her hand poised to knock on the door, realising for the first time that she had absolutely no idea what she was going to say to him.

Play it by ear, she told herself. Jenny had said he loved her, and Nicole loved him. That was all she had to tell him. Things would take care of themselves from there. Everything would turn out for the best the moment he saw who his visitor was.

She rapped her knuckles against the decorated stained-glass section of the door and waited. She heard his heavy tread on the floorboards, and a moment later saw his tall silhouette through the frosted window.

When he had the door open and saw who was standing on his doorstep, Philip’s expression turned from indifference, to shock, and then anger, all within the space of a heartbeat. Fury was the last emotion Nicole would have expected, and wondered what reason he could possibly have to be mad at her.

For a moment neither of them spoke, but Philip regained control first. If Nicole had been stunned by the fearsome look in his eyes, she was totally floored by his words.

“I can’t believe you have the gall to show up here after what you’ve done,” he said through tightly clenched teeth.

Nicole stared up at him in dismay. Too stunned to speak she shook her head mutely from side to side.

“But then that’s the way of your entire family, isn’t it? If it wasn’t enough to inflict the wound, you had to come and dig the knife in deeper. Well, you’re too late. I’d already made all the arrangements, and Frank knows everything about my past. I made sure of that before I started.”

“Wh- what are you talking about?” Nicole finally managed to ask in a tremulous voice.

“Don’t play the innocent with me you spoilt little bitch. I should have known that your sweetness and light was all a front. I should have followed my initial assumption that you’d bend under the pressure and do as Daddy says.”

“Please Philip. Whatever he’s done, I had no part in it,” she protested, but his dark scowl told her Peter Cameron had well and truly succeeded in driving a wedge between them.

“Didn’t you? Then how about telling me how he found out about Mario Palmiri...?”

“Not from me. I swear,” she gasped, shocked and horrified that her father had somehow discovered the truth and used it against Philip.

He leaned closer, his hard angry face only centimetres from her own. “If you didn’t tell him, then a little birdie must have, because you’re the only person I trusted enough to talk to about it. After what we shared, how could you turn on me like that?”

“I didn’t. Can’t we go inside to discuss this?”

He stretched back up to his full height, towering over her, making her feel small, vulnerable and alone.

“What’s there to discuss?” The harshness in his voice hit her like cold hard chips of ice, chilling her to the core.

“Why you never rang me once we got back to Sydney for one.”

“Oh but I did. I rang you over and over, left messages on your phone. I even went to your house, but I was threatened with an AVO, and told that you didn’t want to see me anymore.”

“Oh God!” she groaned, sharp spears of anger at her father’s underhanded vindictiveness tearing through her.

But Philip hadn’t finished. “At first I didn’t want to believe it, but when you made no effort to contact me I realized he had to be right. Now I’m telling you to get the hell out of my life.”

“No, Philip. Please listen to me? I did ring you, but for two weeks I was stuck– “

But he was already closing the door on her. “I know why you really came here, Nicole. You’re jealous that I got this house before you did. You think you can have everything - but you can’t. No one crosses me and gets away with it.
No one!”

“Philip!”
she cried again, but found herself facing the hard paneling of the door.

For a moment she just stood there, too shocked to move. Never in her worst imaginings had she thought Philip would turn on her like this. He hadn’t even been prepared to listen to her explanation, hurling vicious accusations at her instead. Had Jenny got it wrong? If he really had loved her, surely he would have at least stopped to hear her side of the story. Instead he’d banished her from his life. If he truly had cared about her he wouldn’t have listened to her father. He would have trusted her, believed in her.

But he had.

He’d trusted her enough to tell her about it in the first place. He could quite easily have kept that part to himself. How her father found out about it she had no idea. Being confronted with it like that must have really torn Philip apart. No wonder he’d slammed the door in her face. Somehow she had to make him see the truth. But the first thing she decided to do was tell her father exactly what she thought of him.

Gail answered the phone when she rang. She’d managed to calm down somewhat after the drive back to Hobart and the light supper she’d forced herself to eat in a coffee shop near her hotel.

“Where on earth are you, Nicole?” her mother asked anxiously. “We haven’t heard from you in days, and when I rang Trisha last night, she told me you’d gone interstate.”

“That’s right, but it’s Dad I want to talk to right now. Put him on please?”

“What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”

“Get Dad to tell you after I’ve finished,” she said coldly.

“Nicole! All right I’ll get him.”

A few moments later he spoke insistently into the receiver. “Where the hell are you?”

“Where do you think I am? Trying to salvage a relationship you ruined. How could you do such a thing!?” she demanded, all her pent up anger and frustration boiling to the surface.

“You haven’t gone running after that awful Spanish man, have you?”

“Got it in one, and if you think you’re going to stop me from seeing him, you’ve got another thing coming. I’m not returning to Sydney until I’ve repaired the damage you’ve caused.”

“For God’s sake! His father was a crook, a criminal. Why do you think Philip changed his surname?”

“And if you’d done your research properly, you would have found out he wasn’t his father, but his
step
-father, whom Philip helped put behind bars.”

“He told you that did he? I can’t believe you’d fall for such a pack of lies. I thought you had better sense than that. I want you to come back to Sydney first thing in the morning.”

“Stop ordering me around. I’m staying right where I am,” Nicole asserted vehemently.

“If you continue seeing that man I’ll -“

“You’ll what? Forcibly bring me back? Just try it.”

“No, I’ll disown you,” he said softly, dangerously.