Irene exclaimed over Callie’s gift to her, a vintage Chanel handbag they’d seen on a shopping expedition together months earlier. It had cost far more than Callie would ordinarily spend on a gift, but Irene was worth it. Without her steady hand guiding Callie’s life, who knew where she’d have ended up?
“Callie, it’s beautiful. How clever of you to remember how much I liked this. Here,” she said, handing Callie the birthday card she’d included with the gift, “pop this up on the mantel with the others.”
Callie took the card and crossed the room to the wide white marble fireplace. She put her card among the colourful collection already there and idly picked up the card next to it to read the message inside.
It was from Bruce Palmer to Irene. The usual generic kind of card a husband bought for his wife, but personalised with his own message inside. In his own handwriting. Handwriting that was suddenly far too familiar. Handwriting Callie had seen only yesterday in passionate declarations of love to another woman.
Her heart shuddered to a halt in her chest, kick-starting again with an erratic beat that made her fingers suddenly nerveless and saw the card flutter from her hands to the floor.
She bent to pick the card up again, and studied the lettering once more. There was no mistake. His distinctive slanting hand leapt from the card, damning him with every stroke. Ignoring her instinct to rent the card in two, Callie carefully placed it back on the mantel, barely able to draw breath.
“Are you all right, dear? You’re very pale.”
Irene’s voice swam through the fog in Callie’s mind. Callie had to get out of there. She couldn’t stay and go through the motions of a late-afternoon tea with the woman who’d been deceived by her husband for more than thirty-five years.
It was all too much. Somehow she had to gather her thoughts together and she knew she couldn’t do that with Irene sitting directly opposite her. Not today. Not when the realisation was all too raw and monumental in her mind.
“Actually, if you don’t mind I won’t stay, Irene. I’m sorry, but I’m really not feeling all that well. Can I call you a bit later in the week?”
“Certainly, but will you be all right to drive home?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine. I think I need an early night is all. Again, I’m very sorry.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Irene said. “We’ll catch up before the weekend and you can get me up-to-date on Tremont at the same time.”
How she made it out to her car and safely home was a mystery to her, but the instant Callie set foot inside her house she crumbled. On legs that had the consistency of overcooked spaghetti she made it up the stairs to her bedroom where she threw herself onto her covers and lay, eyes burning, staring at the ceiling.
The truth stared her starkly in the face. Bruce Palmer had to be the married man Josh’s mum had had the affair with.
Bruce was Josh’s father.
Callie couldn’t reconcile the head of Palmer Enterprises with the man whose intimate thoughts she’d read in a letter to his mistress. Nor could she reconcile that man, the lover, with the one who’d rejected both his mistress and his unborn child so callously.
Josh Tremont and Adam Palmer were about the same age. Irene had obviously gotten pregnant around the same time as Josh’s mother, and with the benefit of a legitimate heir in his near future, Bruce had clearly chosen to shun the woman he’d professed to love.
Or had it all been a lie, as Josh had said? Had he never loved Josh’s mother? Had he just seen a pretty face in the workplace and, using the power and charisma of his position, wooed her into his bed?
It just didn’t seem right. Bruce Palmer had always had such a dignity about him. She knew about the loss of one of his twin sons shortly after birth and had been told that afterwards he’d poured himself heart and soul into his work, almost at the expense of everything and everyone else.
Were those the actions of a man who’d discarded his illegitimate child without another thought? It just didn’t feel right. And yet, it had happened. Josh had the proof. He had the curt letter of dismissal, the cheque his mother had never cashed, all there in the bundle of letters.
Callie’s heart ached for Josh and for his dead mother. They’d had nothing and no one but each other, and they could have had so much more. Bruce Palmer could have ensured their financial security with very little hardship to himself. It would have been the right thing to do. The honourable thing to do.
Suddenly, Callie was faced with the awful truth that a man she’d long admired was not who she’d thought he was. Above all else, what could she now tell Irene? The woman expected answers, truthful answers.