LITMIR.BIZ

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couldn’t believe she was keen to get into the club. Spending an evening at a male revue, especially one called The Coop, wasn’t something she had ever done before and she could only imagine what the experience would be like—although if the guy on the door was any example she wasn’t going to need to rely on her imagination.

      Candice’s name was on the door, allowing them to bypass the queue and giving them free entry. Apparently Candice knew someone who worked here and Scarlett wondered where on earth you’d meet someone who worked in a strip club, but as the cute young shirtless guy on the door ushered them inside she decided she didn’t care, all she wanted was to sit down.

      ‘I want to hear all about it once we’re inside,’ Mel said, as another buffed and shirtless male greeted them and led them to their table. The club was dimly lit and it took Scarlett’s eyes some time to adjust to the lighting. A T-shaped stage jutted out into the centre of the club, the catwalk stretching into the tables that were clustered around the stage. A mirrored bar lined the far wall and a dance floor hugged the back wall and was already packed with young women dancing and singing. The noise level was high and almost unpleasant, but Scarlett hoped that might work in her favour. Perhaps the noise would make any sort of conversation impossible.

      She followed the girls to their table, which was front and centre at the end of the catwalk, and sank into a chair. Jugs of bright green cocktails were delivered, promptly poured into glasses and passed around, and Mel waited only until everyone had a drink before she continued her interrogation.

      ‘So Richard was lying in his hospital bed, recovering from heart surgery, working up the nerve to propose, and then you knocked him back?’ she asked, as she sipped her drink. It seemed Scarlett wasn’t going to get out of this.

      ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Scarlett protested. Surely Mel couldn’t believe she’d be that heartless.

      ‘Don’t tell me he was down on one knee beside his bed?’

      ‘No.’ Scarlett shook her head. ‘He was out of hospital.’

      ‘Well, that makes all the difference,’ Mel teased. ‘How did he take it when you said no?’

      Scarlett could tell Mel was enjoying her discomfort but she had made her decision for what she knew were perfectly valid reasons and she wasn’t going to marry the guy just because he’d had a mid-life revelation.

      ‘He was okay. What other choice did he have really? It was my decision. He can’t change my mind. I think marriage is overrated and it’s not for me.’

      ‘Don’t let Candice hear you.’

      ‘She already knows. Richard showed her the ring he bought me, he wanted her opinion.’

      ‘He bought you a ring!?’

      Scarlett nodded.

      ‘What was it like?’ Mel’s curiosity took another turn.

      ‘Gorgeous,’ she admitted. And it had been. A squarecut solitaire, over one carat in size, set in platinum. It was in a traditional setting and was exactly right for her, classic and expensive. ‘Almost gorgeous enough that I wanted to accept his proposal.’

      ‘So why did you say no?’

      ‘I was thinking about saying yes but then he started talking about having kids and I freaked out. I don’t want kids.’

      ‘Really? How come I never knew that?’

      Scarlett and Mel had been friends for years, since meeting on the first day of med school, but Scarlett hadn’t realised she’d never shared her feelings about children. She supposed the topic had never come up before now.

      ‘Kids are a huge sacrifice. Believe me, I should know. I’ve seen what my mother gave up to raise me and my sisters. I’ve worked really hard to get to this point in my career and I’m not done yet. I’m not going to give it all up to raise a family.’

      Scarlett could feel the effects of the cocktails they’d been drinking on top of the wine she’d had at dinner. She could hear her words weren’t as crisp as usual, a bit blurred around the edges, a bit of a lisp on the essess. She knew the alcohol had loosened her tongue too. She wasn’t normally so forthcoming about her personal life but she and Mel had shared a lot over the years since they’d been paired as lab partners on their first day at uni. They had been the only two who hadn’t already known someone—Mel had moved to Adelaide from Tasmania and Scarlett had been a mature entrant.

      She’d felt years older than everyone else and hadn’t been used to the social nuances of teenagers, even though she’d only just been out of her teens herself. Their isolation had been the only thing they’d had in common initially but they’d both recognised that it hadn’t mattered. Over the years their friendship had grown until Mel felt, in a lot of ways, like another one of Scarlett’s sisters, only a lot less trouble.

      ‘But you don’t have to have kids right now,’ Mel countered. ‘It could wait until you’ve finished your final exams.’

      ‘I’d still need to establish myself in anaesthetics before I could take time off and Richard doesn’t want to wait. He’s forty-three and he’s just had a major health scare. It’s made him reassess his future.’ Richard’s recent heart attack and minor surgery had been a big shock to him at a relatively young age and Scarlett knew that coming face to face with his own mortality had been the trigger for his proposal and his reassessment of his priorities.

      ‘You could get a nanny. And a housekeeper. The two of you could afford to pay for whatever help you want.’

      ‘So I get married, have babies and then hire a nanny and a housekeeper.’

      ‘Sounds all right to me.’ Mel grinned.

      Scarlett shook her head. ‘Having or not having kids wasn’t my only reason for turning him down. It just didn’t feel right. It was more than just his desire to have a family. When he proposed it should have felt like a moment I’d been waiting for my whole life, but I remembered being more excited about getting accepted into my anaesthetics specialty than receiving a marriage proposal, and surely that’s wrong. My heart was racing, but not with excitement, I think it was panic. There was no impending sense that this was the next stage of my life and I couldn’t wait for it to get started. I could have married him but it would have been for the wrong reasons. At the end of the day, I didn’t love him enough.’

      She also knew that she’d been scared. Terrified even. She didn’t want to have children with someone so much older and who had heart problems. What if he died and left her a single mother? That was exactly what had happened to her own mother and it was not what she wanted in her own future. She didn’t love Richard enough to take that chance. It was easier to let him go.

      She had thought Richard would be a safe choice, she’d thought he wanted the same things as her. She’d thought his focus was on his career and that because he was already in his forties he wouldn’t want children. Wouldn’t he have had them by now if that was the case? But when things had turned out differently from what she’d expected, she’d discovered that she didn’t love him enough to change her mind. She didn’t love him enough to risk everything she’d worked for.

      ‘So that’s it. All over?’

      ‘It’s the right decision. I know it is. I’m not even sure he loves me either. I think a lot of his plan for the future was driven by timing and circumstances and not so much by his love for me. He had never mentioned wanting children before his heart attack. I think he’d be marrying me for the wrong reasons too.’

      Scarlett picked up her cocktail glass. The wait staff was well trained and had obviously been told to make the most of the break in the entertainment to keep the drinks coming. No sooner had one jug been emptied than another was delivered. Scarlett sipped her drink. She didn’t really need more but she wanted to let the alcohol numb her a little bit. She didn’t want to spend the night thinking about Richard. That chapter of her life was over and she wasn’t planning on having any regrets.

      She’d

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