Текст книги "Defending Pacer"
Автор книги: T. J. Hamilton
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“I don’t care if you cure cancer, Chelsea, I will never condone you being involved with a Fratelli.” Dad’s words tear my heart to pieces.
“But Dad, don’t you see that everything in Pacer’s investigations was fabricated?” I try to reason with him.
His glare is like nothing I’ve seen on him. “Bullshit! And you know it is! BULLSHIT!” he yells louder. “I never thought I’d see the day that you would front up to me like this and lie. You have brought so much shame upon our family.”
Heart smashed.
I suddenly feel very alone in this battle.
Looking to Mum, I pray that she says something, anything. The look on her face tells me she wants to, but I know she’s with Dad on this. And she has every right to be this way. I am lying to Father. But I just thought they would see how happy I am, and will warm to the idea eventually.
I try to steady my voice as I talk. “What if you met him? You might think differently.”
Dad’s fists hit down on the table we’re sitting at in the dining room. The fury in his face is rising like a volcanic eruption.
His voice resonates like a booming megaphone. “You have two choices, girl. Continue with this charade and consider yourself out of our family, or do what is right and forget about the Fratellis!”
I think about his words and remember my past week with Pacer and his family. How could I ever try to forget them now? But my family is my blood. They’re my reason for life. I want them to understand that I’m okay and that Pacer isn’t as bad as the media say.
What kind of father does this? He wants me to choose. The thought of it alone is too much. I can’t bare it. I see the figure of Dad through tear-soaked eyes, but can no longer make out the expression on his face. It’s a small reprieve.
“Mum?” I whimper.
Her voice is less angry, but still full of disappointment. “Chelsea, dear. You have to understand—there are rules in this world that dictate whom we can and can’t associate with. We are just two very different families. What did you expect to happen? We were going to sit down for a meal together and come together as one happy family? The world just doesn’t work like that.” She glances to Dad. “Your father and I have worked very hard to keep this family at a high level within society. The media are having a field day with this, and there is nothing I can do to stop it! This doesn’t just effect you. I’m already being shunned from certain circles because of this. Your father’s name is being dragged through the mud. Just think about what you’re doing.”
There is no hope. How can I possibly chose between my family and a man who has made me feel more than I have ever dreamed to feel? His family, everyone in his life have made me feel as if I was someone important to them.
I don’t know what I was expecting. I didn’t think I was going to have this—an ultimatum. A true family wouldn’t do this. Pacer’s family would never do this. My father was the one who sentenced Vincenzo Fratelli to his subsequent death, but they’ve only opened their hearts to me.
“How can you do this? I have been a good daughter to you. I’ve never touched drugs, studied hard at school, got the best grades at university and became one of the best barristers in the city!” I cry.
“And you’re going to throw all of that away for a criminal?”
I can’t take any more of Dad’s words, and I get up to leave.
“If you walk out of here now, you will NEVER be accepted back!” My Dad’s voice frightens me.
Tears stream down the face of my mother. I’ve never seen her cry, not even when my grandfather died.
“I’m sorry,” I sob as I look at my Mum.
I turn and walk. I can’t do this anymore.
They will come around, one day. They have to. Right now, I need to go.
“You are making a mistake, Chelsea.” My Mum’s pleading is the last thing I hear as I walk out of Dolorous.
***
Looking around my terrace, I feel very disconnected with the whole space. Another knock on the door makes me jolt. There is no privacy here!
I wish they would all fuck right off. This trip on Pacer’s Dad’s boat couldn’t come at a more perfect time. I need to leave to clear my head from all that has happened. A few months just circumnavigating the globe is exactly what I need to get away and consider everything my parents have forced upon me. They would accept me back if I returned, I know it. But could I leave Pacer?
Another knock at the door pushes me over the edge—I can’t stand it anymore.
“Will you just fuck off?” I screech.
“Chels, let me in, quick!” I hear Logan call out.
Shit! Swinging the door open I pull her in, and meet with a face full of flashes at the same time. She shakes herself off and looks up to me with a flushed face.
“Are you okay?” She holds my shoulders as she speaks.
Nodding I blink away the threatening tears. I guess she’s heard about Mum and Dad. I can’t talk right now.
Her sympathetic gaze is hard to ignore. “My Mum told me what happened. I think it’s a bit rough. But they just don’t get it. I don’t think they ever will either, Chels.”
“Then I have no other choice but to leave for a while.” I can’t stay in this city now. How could I?
She nods. “How long do you think you’ll be gone for?”
“As long as it takes for the city to calm down over this.” I shrug.
“What about your work?”
“How am I supposed to do any work with that going on? My clients will be harassed. No one will be getting a fair trial if I represent them. My boss suggested I take some time off. My family, my work, the city—they’re all against me.” The tears well in my eyes as I speak.
“I’m so sorry, Chels. I just hope things will sort itself out.” Logan hugs me.
“I’m going to miss you.” I hold her tight.
“Nah, you won’t. You’ll be having plenty of fun with your lover boy. It’s going to be a trip of a lifetime.”
I look at her face and smile. It feels like a last goodbye, but I know it won’t be long before I’ll see her again.
“There’s one last thing I need you to do,” I say as I grab a file from my kitchen table. “Could you please deliver these to Lou at the café? They’re the documents for the trust that has been drawn up for his café. I’ve left enough money that any displaced person can have a bacon and egg roll at his café for free. He wasn’t impressed with the idea, but the money is more than he’d ever earn in a decade.”
Logan shakes her head but smiles. “You have always been a Mother Teresa. You’ve always had to help people, ever since we were kids. Please don’t ever change. No matter what.”
“I couldn’t if I tried,” I say with a grin.
***
The Lady Maria. She is a beautiful boat, as I imagined she would be. The interior is rich with woods and navy blue fabrics. The furniture is really tasteful, and not an Italian designer in sight. In fact my Dad’s boat is very similar and ironically, this is also berthed in the same marina as my Dad’s, here in Rushcutters Bay.
The cameras followed us from my terrace to Pacer’s house, then down as far as they could get at the Cruising Yacht Club. Thank Christ this is a restricted area, but I know the paparazzi’s lenses are powerful enough to zoom right in on everything we’re doing. I can feel them everywhere. I’ve never felt so suffocated. I feel as if we can’t go anywhere or do anything. My parents are going to see all of this, and be hurt by it. They’ll see me leaving with Pacer and know the decision I’ve made.
I shake my head, reminding myself that they’re the ones who don’t want to accept this. They gave me the ultimatum. If I weren’t pushed away, I wouldn’t be going. I almost don’t want to come back. This isn’t any kind of life to live—filled with cameras and judgment.
“Please look after each other.” Pacer’s Mum holds my hands tight as Logan helps Pacer load my suitcases aboard. “You have both been through so much. Just be there for each other.”
I smile. “I couldn’t imagine going through this with anyone else.”
“Okay.” Pacer comes up the stairs from the bedrooms on the lower level. “I think we have loaded your thousand suitcases now, and we’re set to go.”
Looking at Logan, I feel the tears building again. As much as I wish things were different, deep down I have the sinking feeling that this is just how it’s going to be forever. I am no longer part of my own family. From this time on, I only have Pacer’s family and Logan.
“If they put pressure on you, I understand if you can’t be part of my life anymore. This is my choice and my burden to carry, not yours.” The tears overflow and roll down my cheek.
Logan smiles. “That’s never going to happen. I won’t let it.” She hugs me tight again.
“Make sure you send postcards of all the places you go.” His ma points her finger between the two of us.
Nodding, I answer, “Of course.”
We all say our final goodbyes and prepare to launch. As we pull away from the berth, I stand at the rear and wave at Logan and Ma Fratelli on the pontoon.
***
Cruising through the headlands of Sydney harbour, the waves pick up and the boat rocks over the rolling ocean. The last of the boats filled with photographers dwindle off as we head farther out into the open ocean.
I join Pacer up at the control bridge and sink into his outstretched arm. One last glance out the back of the boat and I see the tall cliff tops that line Sydney become a small thin line. Looking ahead, there is nothing but the ocean, and our future together.
Reflecting back on our whirlwind romance that began just over a month ago, I find it so hard to believe just how far we’ve come in that short time. Under the circumstances that we were given, we had little choice in taking things slowly.
I never would’ve dreamed of doing the things I’ve done during the past month. I was raised on the values of having strong ethics, but Pacer’s world has shown me that ethics are subjective to each individual. Pacer was right—the only way to deal with someone like Jackson Reed was to fight fire with fire.
The moment I made a deal with the detectives to destroy evidence against Pacer, I knew I had crossed a line that I could never come back from—I had entered their world.
Even if I knew my parents weren’t going to accept Pacer and I no matter what I did, I would do it all over again.
It’s not just love; it’s the whole package. Security, self-worth and understanding—it’s what I feel every time I look at Pacer. There was no other choice in this. I had no alternative—love found me in the most unique of situations, and I accepted it with open arms. Maybe we were drawn to one another for a reason.
Our destination may be unknown, but as long as Pacer is beside me I don’t care where we land. Pacer is my island and his love is my life-vest.
EPILOGUE
The badly-damaged and capsized boat, Lady Maria, was located off the coast of the Cook Islands by the coast guard today. It is believed that the vessel met with rough seas a month after it set sail from Sydney Harbour. An extensive operation has spent the past two days salvaging the wreckage, which is believed to have spread across 100 metres of the South Pacific Ocean. There are no confirmed survivors of the wreckage. Dive teams have searched the waters for its occupants, but the bodies of Pacer Fratelli and Chelsea Tanner are yet to be recovered.
A nation watched on in wonder as both Fratelli and Tanner left aboard the vessel days after Fratelli was cleared of a charge of murder. The pair captured the interest of the country with their Shakespearean-style love story. True to a story that Shakespeare himself would have written, art has imitated life, and this too has resulted in a tragic outcome for a romance that embroiled two of the city’s most powerful families on opposing sides of the law.
Representatives from the Legano family—the prominent crime family that Pacer Fratelli was linked to—have requested that the public please respect the privacy of the Fratelli family while they grieve for the loss of their much-loved family member. This is the second tragedy for Maria Fratelli, after the death of her husband in 2010 while he was serving his prison sentence at Silverwater Correctional Facility.
The high-profile Tanner family has refused to make a public statement about the incident, but sources close to the family say they are understandably devastated about the news of their daughter.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
Picking out a new postcard, I choose one with palm trees overlooking the white sands of Bahia Beach in Costa Rica. We have decided to stay here for the next few months. Chelsea comes out of the drug store with her purchase, wrapped in a paper bag.
Giving me a quick kiss on the cheek as she passes, she keeps on walking. “I just need to get back to the villa and change into something a little more appropriate than a bikini and a sarong. I told Lenni I’d help him sort out the trouble he’s having with his assault charge.”
I shake my head. I can’t help but love her that little bit more. “We’re meant to blend in, remember?”
“I promised him I’d help,” she calls out, walking fast along the sidewalk to our private villa on the beach.
She can’t help herself. Always has to be helping someone, wherever we go. Walking into the drug store to purchase my postcard for Ma, I rifle through my pocket for some coins. I haven’t sent her a new postcard for about six weeks now. She’ll be getting worried. I never write anything on them, but when Scott wired his last call through to Franco, he told me she loves them.
I never thought I’d see the day when I would step back from the family, but Chelsea changed everything. Wherever we’ve gone, the local gangs always know who I am, but because of my father’s legacy, I am usually respected. They’ve heard the stories of ‘The Sting’. So far, I haven’t had to prove myself. I don’t think I will either. No one should ever underestimate freedom, on any level. It’s something I’ll never take for granted again.
The round little Costa Rican lady behind the counter grins smugly at me as I approach her. “Two hundred colones.”
I hand over the coins. The lady wraps my postcard in a paper bag and hands it back to me. “So your wife, eh, she not feeling so well lately, eh?”
I frown and have no idea what she’s talking about. Shaking my head, I reply, “Not that I know of. Why? Is everything all right? What did she have to buy?”
The lady raises her eyebrow and smiles. “If you noticed how much she’s blossoming, eh, maybe you have the answer for yourself, young man. Here …” She turns and grabs a bottle of vitamins and puts them into the paper bag. “You’ll probably be needing these.” She winks.
I snatch the bag and race out the door. “Thank you,” I call out as I leave.
Opening the paper bag as I walk, I find a vitamin bottle with the word ‘prenatal’ written boldly across the front. I can’t believe my eyes. Staring for a moment, all the little signs sink in. She suddenly hates the cologne she bought me for our wedding day in the Bahamas. She feels sick at the sight of seafood when she normally scoffs it down, and she is bulging out of her bikini top a lot more than normal.
Is my wife pregnant?
Waiting for the break in the crazy traffic along the main beach, my adrenaline starts to send me crazy. I need to get to the villa, to my honeybee. With the break I’ve been anticipating, I race over the road and try to run as fast as I can towards our villa.
Flinging our door open, I find Chelsea pacing back and forth at the front of the huge open lounge room. My entrance surprises her, and she stares in complete bewilderment at me. Our eyes remain firmly fixed on one another for what feels like minutes, but is no doubt only seconds.
“Is it true?” I ask.
The smile slowly grows across her face as she looks down at the white plastic strip within her hands.
“Looks like we’ll be staying in Costa Rica for a while,” she says slowly.
I race to her, swaddling her in my arms, swinging her around in a circle. “I’m really going to be a Dad?”
She nods and kisses me just the same as she did when we fist kissed in the seaplane, more than a year ago. Since then we have fled our native country, faked our own death to avoid the constant cameras that never seemed to leave us, no matter how far away we went, got married, lived in eight different countries … and now we’re having a baby!
“I can’t wait to tell Logan about this. I want her to come over here to be with me through this. Can you get Scott to put a call through to her for me?” Her smile is serene.
I hope she isn’t missing her family too much. She tells me she wants nothing to do with them, but I could never have that. I wasn’t raised like that, and no matter what her family did to her she needed to stay in touch with Logan, at the very least.
“You sure you still don’t regret leaving our life behind like we did?” I search her eyes to know for certain that she’s okay to have a baby in foreign country.
“We didn’t leave our life behind; we created one that we deserved.”
Taking my glove off to feel the soft skin across her swollen belly, I feel as if my own stomach is doing back flips. She grins and grabs my other hand that’s still gloved in leather and forces it between her legs. I grin wide.
“Now fuck your pregnant wife with that gloved finger of yours before I have to go out. I swear to God, I am the horniest pregnant girl in the world.”
I chuckle and don’t waste a moment to watch her squirm with pleasure right before my eyes.
Looking to the heavens above, I thank those responsible for bringing her to me. She’s the good to my evil, the ying to my yang. Together, we complete each other.
I suck at acknowledging people who help me pursue my dream of telling stories, so let me just keep this simple. THANK YOU ALL!
But seriously, here are a couple people who should get at least a mention …
Kel, Hep, KM (they’re the names that I can repeat). You have my back and prove over and over again just why we will be mates forever. The classic quotes you give me in your critique notes always manage to find their way into my books. They are too good to not use! You’re one of the only people on this planet who get to share the joy of my self-doubt meltdowns. Consider yourself lucky! That habit you have of seeing the positive in everything, as much as it might annoy me at the time, it’s a beautiful quality to have, and I would never have you any other way. Please never change … and you’re never too old to laugh at farts!
My husband Matt. I’m sorry I called you a prick when you’re stressed because I’ve locked myself in a room to get the story out, leaving you to manage the kids by yourself. I appreciate everything you do, even when you whinge. I get it —being married to an author sucks sometimes.
Lastly, Lauren and Sali, killer team. You girls breathe life to these stories.
Sali with an I —A GIFT, MY FRIEND! A GIFT!
DEATH’S SHADOW
YOU CAN CALL ME MIRANDA
BUYING THYME
(Thyme #1 coming October 1st 2015 through Harlequin Books)
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TJ is a former cop, turned writer who uses her first-hand experience of working the city streets of inner city Sydney, to now write sexy stories of mystery and intrigue. Her head has been buried in crime since studying criminology at university over a decade ago, and she just can’t seem to shake her fascination with the macabre. TJ now lives a quiet life in the tropics with her handsome husband and kids where she writes a weekly column for her local newspaper, and spends her days re-living the action packed life she may have once had through her strong fictional characters.
