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He eased back, his eyes serious. ‘I am offering you exactly what you want.’

      She had to bite her tongue. She had to swallow and then draw in a deep breath. No matter how much this man with his angry wounded eyes and his lips that could transport her to heaven tempted her, she would not make the same mistake she had in the past. ‘I was wrong and misguided when I said those things. I was feeling hurt and angry and I wanted to lash out. I wanted to find a way to protect myself, but it was all a lie.’

      She pulled herself up to her full height. ‘Since I’ve been here I’ve come to see how wrong that kind of thinking is. If I treated someone that callously and with that degree of calculation it would make me worse than Brad and Diane. I have no intention of … of being such a bitch.’

      His eyes narrowed. ‘Love is an overrated emotion and—’

      ‘And it’s precisely what I need, and I won’t settle for anything less.’ She snatched her hand from his. ‘I need love and friendship.’ Her eyes burned and her throat thickened. ‘You made me believe in friendship again, but it was a lie. You don’t care what’s best for me. All you care about is what’s best for your daughters and you’re more than willing to sacrifice me on that particular altar, aren’t you?’

      ‘I—’

      ‘But if you think a loveless marriage is what’s best for Ella and Holly then you are truly and utterly mistaken.’ She heaved in a breath, taken off guard by the pain that sliced through her. ‘There are a lot of nannies out there who would bond with Ella and Holly as well as I have done and whom you wouldn’t have to make the supreme sacrifice of marrying.’

      He clenched his jaw so hard white lines appeared around his mouth. ‘I wouldn’t consider marrying you a sacrifice,’ he ground out.

      For a moment she almost believed him. She gave a harsh laugh and shook her head. ‘You are so not ready to get remarried. Are you telling me you’re prepared to give another woman the chance to walk out on you and the girls again? Because what makes you so sure I wouldn’t, huh?’

      His head snapped back. ‘I know you. I know you wouldn’t do that.’

      Really? She folded her arms. ‘Let’s just play with another scenario for a moment. What if I said I would marry you and Fran heard about it and, as a result, came racing back here to ask you for a second chance? After all, she is Ella and Holly’s mother. Who would you choose? Which of us would you deem as the best choice for your daughters?’

      His face, his frame, his fists all tightened. ‘That is not going to happen!’

      ‘That’s not an answer, Cade.’ A terrible tiredness gripped her. Her temples throbbed and her hands shook. Perspiration prickled her nape. ‘And until you do know the answer you’re in no fit state to marry anyone.’

      She recognised the panic that raced across his face then too but she had to harden her heart against it before it led her into doing something she’d regret.

      She folded her arms. ‘Marrying you would not be the best thing for me.’

      Beneath his tan, he paled.

       You stupid girl, Nicola Ann!

      She lifted her chin. ‘I deserve better.’

      She turned and left the room. He didn’t try to stop her.

      The next fifteen days were a new kind of hell, one Nicola had never experienced before. Cade barely spoke to her and yet as each day passed she could hardly bear the thought of leaving Waminda Downs—of leaving Jack and Scarlett and Harry; of leaving Ella and Holly.

      Of leaving Cade.

      Her heart lurched and ached with each reminder of the hours that passed and the diminishing time that was left to her here. Somehow this place and these people had soaked into her bones.

      She hadn’t fallen in love with Cade, though. She refused to believe that.

      Leaving day finally arrived, and the moment the Cessna left the ground to wing her away on the first leg of her journey home to Melbourne, Nicola burst into tears.

      ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled to the pilot—Jerry, who’d brought her to Waminda Downs seven weeks ago—as he handed her a handkerchief. ‘It’s just I’m going to miss them all so much.’

      He nodded. ‘Those little girls are the sweetest things. Kids, huh? They wrap themselves around your heart.’

      They were … and they had. But it was Cade’s face that rose in her mind. With each mile that took her further away, the more it felt as if her heart was being ripped from her chest.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       Four months later …

      NICOLA slipped the orange chiffon dress over her head and smoothed it down across her hips as her mother tied the halter neck into a bow at Nicola’s nape, and then adjusted the plunging neckline for a flattering and dramatic effect.

      ‘Nicola Ann, you look lovely. You’ll outshine the bride herself.’ Angela McGillroy’s lips pressed together. ‘Not that she doesn’t deserve it.’

      Nicola suppressed a smile. Her mother’s attitude had undergone an amazing transformation ever since a particularly frank and terse discussion they’d had when Nicola had returned from Waminda Downs. She had unequivocally told her mother that if she wanted to maintain a relationship with her, the constant stream of criticism and nit-picking had to stop. She’d told her that the way she chose to live her life was her affair—if it made her happy, why did her mother have such a problem with it?

      Her mother hadn’t been able to speak for a full thirty seconds. ‘But Nicola Ann,’ she’d finally said, ‘all I want is for you to be happy. I just never thought you were.’

      ‘Maybe because I never am when I’m around you. You always make me feel I’m a disappointment, that I never measure up.’

      ‘Oh, Nicola, why have you never told me this before? I’ve been pushing the things that make me happy in the hope that they’d help. They weren’t supposed to make you unhappier! It’s just … that’s the way I was raised.’

      And for the first time Nicola had recognised her own mistakes in the relationship. She’d bottled up all her resentment and pain and had never told her mother how she’d really felt. But now …

      Now they were taking it one day at a time. Relationships like theirs didn’t heal overnight, but she had to give her mother credit for trying. Yes, she still occasionally nagged Nicola, but she’d also become incredibly supportive.

      Cade had been right—we did teach others how to treat us.

      ‘Are you sure you’re happy going to this wretched wedding? Nobody would blame you if you changed your mind, you know?’

      ‘I’m fine, Mum, honestly. The truth is, Diane did me a favour.’

      A fact confirmed the first time she’d clapped eyes on the couple when she’d returned to Melbourne. In fact, with Cade so fresh in her mind, Brad had seemed pale and lacking in dynamism … a touch inadequate even. She couldn’t believe she’d almost married him.

      At the thought of Cade, a cloud drifted across the brightness of the day. Unlike Brad, his influence had not waned with time.

      ‘You know, Nicola Ann, I’m not sure I ever really did like Brad.’

      She had to smile at that.

      ‘But I still don’t like what Diane did. She was supposed to be your friend.’

      ‘I guess these things happen, Mum.’

      She’d accepted that her friendship with Diane had irrevocably changed. There were days she missed their old

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