Christmas Belles (Gillies Ridge)

Chapter 7

“I HAD an idea while you were asleep,” Richard confessed. “That we leave the rest of the tour to the young ones. I made a phone call and here we are.”

She looked at him as comprehension slowly dawned. “But the money... We’re going to blow five grand, aren’t we?”

“It’s Christmas. Tallulah will drop us here, and then swing by the tent city down by the bridge. There's bound to be a family or two who’d like to go for a ride in a limo.”

Tallulah grinned. “There’s a Christmas carol concert in the Parklands. I could pick up a couple of loads and take them to the concert, then go find your family at the Regatta.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Richard pulled some notes from his wallet. “The extra’s for you.”

Tallulah took the money and stuffed it down their cleavage. “Thank you, Sir. Enjoy your evening.”

Richard helped Rika out of the limo, and they waved it off before Rika turned to the door.

“You decided to bring me to your club without asking me?”

He looked at her. “You would have said no.”

She looked around her and came fully awake. “Exactly. I avoid places like this for a reason. Besides, I don’t meet the dress code.” She pulled at his hand and tried to back away.

“What’s the matter, Rika? You lost your stubborn?”

“It would be corporate suicide for me to be seen here with you. The media will have a field day.”

“You forget the perks of being seriously rich. The club has an agreement with the paparazzi.”

Rika tried again. “It’s a men’s club—no ladies allowed. Last time I looked I’m female.”

“I think you’ll find the rule has changed. Any more excuses?”

Rika raised her eyes and prayed to the heavens. She could think of about a million. “Jeans and a T-shirt in one of the most prestigious clubs in the city for a start.”

Good one, Rika . She looked over at how Richard was dressed in his dinosaur T-shirt and safari shorts. Compared to him she looked positively elegant.

“Let me take a breath,” she said, giving in to the inevitable. She ran a finger through her hair, straightened her T-shirt and pinched her cheeks. “I'm ready.”

“That's my girl.”

They entered the building together and were greeted by a page in a white dinner jacket, black trousers and crisp white shirt with regulation bowtie.

“Good evening Mr Buchanan, Ms Belle. Your room’s ready.”

“Our room?” Her voice broke. “You expect us to spend a whole night here?” If I give you the day, you’ll be mine for the night . Her gaze shot to his. Was he serious?

“Let's start with dinner,” Richard said intervened smoothly. He linked his arm through hers. “Two old friends catching up.”

Rika held herself erect. He had to be kidding. They were about to spend a night in a club so private Rika had only heard its name spoken in whispers, with no luggage, and dressed inappropriately.

“Stop worrying,” he said. “Nobody will know we’re here.” He pulled against his side and walked over to the reception desk. “I believe there’s a booking for Buchanan.”

He took care of the formalities while Rika kept her gaze resolutely downcast.

“Everything you ordered is in your suite,” the receptionist said. “Dinner will be delivered at eight.”

Rika’s gaze shot to his. “A suite? Dinner delivered? Together?”

“It's got separate bedrooms,” he said quietly. “You'll be able to have that bath you've been hankering after all day.”

“How did you—no, don’t answer.”

Richard smiled softly. “Let’s go up,” he said quietly. “We’re starting to draw attention to ourselves.”

Rika heard the whir of a camera and followed Richard’s gaze towards the front doors of the club where a photographer stood, pointing a long angle lens at them. So much for no paparazzi. “I don't suppose you could pay them off?”

“We’re not doing anything wrong. Rika. They see beautiful woman on my arm on a balmy summer evening about to enjoy dinner on a balcony overlooking the river. They think I'm the luckiest man in the world.”

Rika didn't reply. She was on his turf now and they both knew it. She walked towards the elevators.

The club was renowned for its tradition and pomp, and bellhops and cage-lifts, and lots of rosewood timber. This was as far away from her normal as she could imagine. She was about to get an insight into how the other half lived.

The concierge held the lift doors open for them. Rika stood silently at Richard’s side as the lift took them to the second floor. The concierge led them down a corridor past doors with discreet gold numbers, their footsteps silenced by carpeted runners with the faded roses that looked like they had been there forever covering the undulating oak timber floorboards. Drapes of maroon velvet tied open with gold tassels hung from floor to ceiling windows showcasing the city’s lights reflected along the river.

At the end of the corridor a Christmas tree rose to touch the cornices of the paneled ceiling. The smell the pine needles told Rika the tree was real. The gifts wrapped under the tree were the size of jewelry cases, cigars and chocolatier praline gift boxes.

What the hell she was doing here. She didn't need Richard's approval. She didn't need anyone's approval.

But she had to admit she was intrigued.

How could the man in front of her look so much at home dressed in a dinosaur T-shirt with no luggage and a woman who didn't belong here tagging along beside him.

He looked at as home here as she did in her sleek modern chrome and silver suite of offices at the other end of town.

If anything showed how different they were this was it.

The club, located in the city’s business district, with its law courts and customs house, interspersed with office towers and fine dining restaurants, was where the rich and influential came to do their deals with discreet words and handshakes.

She supposed that was the way of the gentry. No questions asked. Discretion at all costs. Prices never discussed.

The concierge ushed them into a room with the same floor-to-ceiling windows as she’d seen in the corridor as well as French doors leading onto a private balcony overlooking the river.

Richard murmured a few words to the concierge while she looked out at the view and then the doors silently closed.

He came to stand beside her. “You can relax now. We won't be disturbed.”

“What do we do?”

He looked at her. “Whatever we want to do.”

She opened the timber doors onto the balcony and stepped outside. She eyed the view of Parliament House and the Botanical Gardens, and the historic precinct of the city spread out in it all its sandstone and gargoyled glory. To her right she could see the new Queens Wharf, majestic and modern, and somehow fitting neatly with the historic landscape.

The old and the new. It worked. The past and the future side by side.

“I lied when I said I never thought about you,” she said. “This time a year always brings back memories.”

“I'm here because of those memories,” he said softly. “You haunt my dreams at the best of times, Freddy, but Christmas is the worst.”

“What happened between you and Marisa?”

“I never intended to marry her but then you left, and things changed. Hubs got sick and my mother’s attention was on him. I didn't find out until later that she had asked you to leave. But it was too late. We were both married to other people.”

Rika turned away from the view and went and stood beside him. She put a hand on his chest. “Your mother was right at the time,” she said. “We were too young. Too in love. We would have destroyed each other.”

“You didn't give us a chance to find out.”

“No,” she said softly. “But I had my reasons.”

“No more secrets.”

She took her time replying. “It wasn't just your mother who sent me away.”

Richard raised an eyebrow. His eyes fixed on hers.

She took a breath and continued, “Jacqueline Belle was no innocent in what transpired.”

“Do I need to sit down for this?”

“I wasn't pregnant if that's what you mean. But I did break a golden Belle rule.”

“Now you really worrying me.”

“My mother came to this country with nothing. She was pregnant with me. She made a life for us doing what she had to do to survive.”

Richard waited.

Rika stared out at the river. She had walked away once because she hadn’t trusted him with the truth. Afraid what it would do to him. To them. And here she was again. Still afraid. But no longer prepared to walk away.

If one thing today’s outing had taught her it was that she was proud of who she was and the life she had built; for her daughters who she loved fiercely and the business challenges she fought every day.

Walking away from the man who she still had feeling for was wrong once. Was she prepared to make the same mistake again?

She came to a decision.

She turned and faced him. “I was never good enough for you,” she said. “Not because of who you were but because of who I was.”

“You were always good enough, Freddy. If my mother or your mother made you feel any differently, they were wrong.”

“What if they weren't?” Rika met and held his gaze, as if by looking into his soul she could find her answer. “What if my family’s secret was so bad it could have destroyed your family?”

She watched the expressions flicker across his face, but it was the steadiness of his gaze that held her captive. “What we had between us, Rika, was trust. What could possibly have been so bad that you couldn’t trust me to help you?”

“My father.” The one thing that Richard, and his trust, could not ignore. “My father was one of you and I was his bastard child. Can you imagine what it would have done to your family if it had gotten out?”

“Bullshit, Rika.” His eyes turned storm-cloud black. “That kind of thing is something for the history books.”

“It was 1993. After recession and before the great financial crisis. Your mother told me your father was unwell. With you newly at the helm and the slightest wrong step, your family’s future would have been in jeopardy. She didn't tell me to leave because I wasn't good enough. She told me to leave because you deserved better.”

She watched warring emotions cross his face. “Was Hubs in on this?”

Rika shrugged. “I don't know, but our mothers had certainly discussed it.”

Richard frowned. “Jacqueline knew?”

“Who do you think told me who my father was?”

There was a knock at the door and they both started.

“We haven’t finished this conversation.” Richard strode to the door and yanked it open.

A concierge entered, pushing a rack on wheels with several coat hangers and black covers. Behind him, two bellhops pushed a trolley into the centre of the room.

The smell of food wafted towards Rika, and she realised she was hungry. It had been hours since their food truck lunch.

Richard tipped the bellhops and the concierge. “Thank you.” The door closed. “I took the liberty of ordering our dinner. I figured it was my turn, since you chose lunch.”

Taking it in turns, just like we used to.

“And the clothes hangers?”

“Something comfy for us to change into for a quiet night in. There should be bath pretties for you, and fresh jeans and T-shirts. I've ordered the same for me. No dinosaurs.”

Rika smiled softly. “Pity. I kind of liked him,” she admitted. “He made you more real for a while there.”

The storm in his eyes lightened a notch. “You doubt that I’m real?” He advanced towards her, his eyes crinkling around the edges.

She took a step backwards and held up her hands. “You know what I mean. You were unbowtied-real, if that’s a word.”

“I'm so real you can touch me.” He tossed her a wink as he ran his hands over his chest, working his way down past a muscled abdomen, and lower. “Wherever you want.”

Her gaze followed the trajectory of his hands and saw the material of his shorts tighten. She blushed and returned her gaze resolutely to his face. “I haven't finished confessing my sins,” she said, sounding desperate, even to her own ears.

“I don't know about you, but I think we've heard enough sins for one day,” he said lightly.

Her gaze turned stubborn. “I’d like to finish. It's been hanging between us for too long.”

“It’s been thirty years. It can wait a bit longer.”

She let her gaze drop to his shorts, before slowly making her way back up to the shape of his mouth and ran her tongue over her lips before locking gazes with him once more. “Not if we want our new beginning.”

His eyes lightened another notch. “I’m listening.”

“My father’s family was wealthy. Old world wealthy. Like yours. Yet he married my mother for love and walked away from everything his parents had set up for him. His parents disowned him. Then he and my mother didn't work out. They never had their happily ever after.” Rika took a breath and forced herself to continue. “Your mother said she would disown you if I stayed, and that you would inherit nothing.”

“Not nothing,” he said softly. “I would have had you.”

She shook her head sadly. “Eventually it wouldn’t have been enough.”

“Are you sure about that? By running away, you didn’t give us a chance to find out.”

“My father nearly lost his family and his inheritance. Except, with my mother out of the picture, his parents welcomed him back with open arms. He married a suitable bride and only then did he get his happily ever after.”

“You left so I could marry Marisa?”

Rika nodded, the feeling of not being good enough, one she’d buried so deeply she thought it had gone, rose to the surface like it was yesterday. “You were happy with her.”

“We divorced. How did that make me happy?”

“The media said it was amicable.” She didn’t care that he knew she had followed his career. And his personal life. “You’re still friends.”

“We were only ever friends. If you’d hung around, I would have told you that. You thought you were doing the right thing. But you were so wrong.”

The way he was looking at her made Rika want to reach up a hand and smooth the hurt away. But she knew it was too late for that. Actions speak louder than words . It was what she had learnt the hard way during her own marriage.

Could she show him that she was sorry. That it wasn’t too late to start again. She wasn’t sure she believed it herself.

But one thing was certain. She was no longer a na?ve teenager who wore the words not good enough stamped on her forehead. She looked the world in the eye and took what she wanted.

And she wanted Richard Buchanan.