LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      AS SHE MADE her first morning cup of coffee, Joanna Harding totted the days up in her mind. Four gone, nine to go. Today was Friday. A week tomorrow was the deadline. Before Brad flew back to Sydney from his conference in Brisbane, she had to decide whether to marry him or not.

      Joanna sat down at the table in her mother’s kitchen and hunched over her coffee mug, berating herself for not being clear-minded about the future Brad was offering her. There should be no question about what she wanted. Brad was everything Rory Grayson wasn’t, yet her failed marriage to Rory cast long, haunting shadows that still affected her.

      It was not her fault the marriage had failed. The blame lay fairly and squarely on Rory’s head. And another part of his anatomy. It was absurd and self-defeating to let his failure cloud her future.

      Three years had passed since she had separated from Rory. She had told her ex-husband on the day of their divorce, two years ago, and she had told herself repeatedly since then, that she would never see him again. She did not want Rory Grayson to take up another second of her life.

      Wanting, however, was one thing, reality quite another. It was as though Rory sat on her shoulder, a white angel who dimmed the attraction of any other man she met, or a dark angel who reminded her of the black pits an intimate relationship could lead her into. It did not seem to matter that her love for him had been crushed under the unforgivable weight of what had happened.

      The dust of it still clung around her heart, taunting her with the loss of its substance.

      “Do you have any plans for today, Joanna?” her mother asked as she carried her habitual boiled egg and toast breakfast to the table.

      Today was the day to blow the dust of Rory Grayson away, Joanna decided. She needed to rid herself of it. Rory had to be buried in a final resting place. If she saw him again and felt nothing, if he left her completely cold, then she could go ahead and accept Brad’s proposal, and marry him with a free heart. No hangovers from the past. No regrets. Nothing to spoil her happiness.

      “I might give Poppy Dalton a call,” she answered her mother. “See if she wants to take in a movie or look around the shops in the city.”

      It was a safe reply, and she might well spend part of the day with her friend and fellow teacher. It also avoided any mention of Rory. There was nothing to be gained in sparking off an unpleasant and totally unnecessary scene with her mother.

      As far as Fay Harding was concerned, the worst thing Joanna had ever done was to marry Rory Grayson, and the best thing she had ever done was divorce him, vindicating Fay’s deep and abiding disapproval of him. Right from the start Rory had earned that disapproval by flouting or mocking the rules Fay held dear. Which, of course, had been one of his strong attractions to Joanna, who had bridled against those very same rules all her young life.

      Was it rebellion that had drawn her to link her life with Rory’s? A heady sense of freedom from all the constrictions of convention? She had believed she had found her true soul mate in Rory, but it hadn’t turned out that way.

      To Joanna’s mind, no matter what the stresses and strains in a marriage, nothing, absolutely nothing, excused adultery. Particularly when that adultery was proven, beyond any possible belief in Rory’s denials, by the other woman’s pregnancy. It made no difference that the pregnancy was eventually terminated by a miscarriage. The betrayal went too deep for Joanna to ever accept Rory back as her husband.

      “You must be missing Brad,” her mother remarked, a fondly hopeful note in her voice. As a marriage prospect for her daughter, Brad Latham had Fay Harding’s gold-star approval. “It’s such a pity he has to be away for the whole midyear break.”

      “It’s a very important conference, Mum,” Joanna replied with a resigned shrug, defending his decision while ignoring the probe into her private feelings about Brad.

      “I thought he might have asked you to go with him,” her mother commented wistfully.

      “Not appropriate.”

      Unlike Rory, who wouldn’t have given a damn, Brad would never think of behaving in any way that might draw the censure of others. A discreet affair was one thing, advertising it quite another. Brad’s whole life had been governed by a rule book. Ten years in the navy had set a pattern of discipline he had taken straight into the education system. He was totally dependable. And predictable. Important assets in giving her a sense of security, Joanna assured herself.

      “Well, you are on his staff,” her mother said, piqued into justifying her personal wishes by the abrupt tone of her daughter’s reply.

      “The conference is for the principals of private schools, Mum. Not the teachers. Brad will be busy politicking the whole time. You know they want to press the government for bigger subsidies next year.”

      “Yes, but surely they have some time off for socialising,” her mother argued.

      “It wouldn’t look good for Brad to have me there,” Joanna explained. “I’m not his wife. And Brad is far too ambitious to put a foot out of line.”

      Brad had his eye on the headmastership of a more prestigious private school on the other side of Sydney. Relatively young, at thirty-eight, full of drive and energy, a charismatic leader to both pupils and parents, he had a better than even chance of winning the position when it fell vacant at the end of next year.

      “There’s nothing wrong with ambition, Joanna.”

      The terse note in her mother’s voice drew her gaze. Their eyes clashed for one unguarded moment, and Joanna knew her mother was thinking of Rory and his grievous lack of what Fay Harding recognised as proper ambition. It was her dogmatic opinion that trying out new ideas had no solid substance and could only be regarded as suspicious business.

      Joanna

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