Page 1 of Repluse

PROLOGUE

Iwatch him walk through the doors, and the first line of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” plays through my mind as a smile tugs at my lips.

I’d wondered if he’d be here—hoped in fact—and after years of wishing, there he is, his stride confident, chin tilted with an air of arrogance, and his right brow arched as his green eyes search the room.

My heart races with every step he takes closer. It isn’t me he’s looking for, but I’m sure as fuck going to make sure he finds me.

Until this moment, I’ve been bored. Bored senseless. Bored of this party, the company, the shitty music, my entire fucking life. Bored. Bored. Bored.

I take another glass of Prosecco from the tray of a passing waitress, shifting my eyes from the dark-haired man who just entered the room only long enough to notice mine aren’t the only ones trailing a path in his direction.

So, the women of Yirabang aren’t dead after all.

“Fuck me. What the fuck is he doing here?” my sister-in-law Ella questions beside me.

“Who?” I begrudgingly drag my eyes in her direction. I know who—of course I know who—but I’m not about to let her know that.

“My cousin. He moved away when we were younger. You might remember him from school, although he was a couple of years ahead of us. Older than Logan, even.”

Three school years, but due to the months our birthdays fall, almost four years older than me. I was in year nine when he left before finishing year twelve. Without even an inkling to my existence, he left and took the broken pieces of my fourteen-year-old heart with him.

But now he’s back, and despite the fact I’m currently married to his cousin, this time I’m going to make sure he never forgets me if he chooses to leave again.

I’ve dreamed of this man for almost twenty years, waiting for this chance to make him notice me. Tonight, I’ll make it happen. Tonight, I’ll risk it all.

Tonight might be the beginning of my end, but to relieve the incessant boredom, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Keeping my cool,I sip on the chilled Prosecco as my eyes trail lazily around the room. Him aside, I don’t care who else is in attendance—don’t care about them, don’t care to talk to them. The faces are all familiar, but I can’t really say I know them, nor do I care to.

I. Just. Don’t. Care.

The room is filled with clients, colleagues, family, and friends of my husband’s. Notmyclients, family, or friends, but Logan’s family’s.

We are all gathered at the Lakeview Resort to celebrate my father-in-law Scott’s sixtieth birthday.

I watch as Logan and his dad greet a couple who just came through the door, their faces familiar, their names irrelevant.

Like many in country Victoria, the woman is wearing the standard generic uniform of jeans and a blouse, probably purchased from R.M. Williams, Target, or Rivers, depending on their level of wealth. Her hair is cut in a no-nonsense short style, and her weathered face is devoid of makeup.

Her husband’s wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and boots. His grey hair is smoothed back, his beard long and ungroomed. He’s probably a millionaire, but you’d never guess it. People from the country, whether it be Victoria or any other Australian state, don’t give a shit about designer labels or the latest trends in fashion. You could be standing at the bar between a gazillionaire and a pauper, and you’d never have a clue which was which by the way they dress, the car they drive, or the house they live in.

And that’s why I don’t fit in. I never have, and I never will, not that it matters now anyway, but just a short while ago, it bothered me. As much as I brushed it off back then, it hurt that I always knew the people of Yirabang thought I was not good enough for their prince.

Logan Walsh comes from money—old money, not new. His family have been landowners since the town was established in the mid to late eighteen hundreds, his forefathers arriving on the first fleet. Coincidently, mine did, too, except Logan’s great, great whatever was a ship’s captain—mine, a prisoner.

The disparity in our families’ economic growth and social standing has remained until this very day.

The Walsh family are wealthy landowners, as well as horse and cattle breeders. They own a dozen vineyards, produce olive oil that is shipped around the world, are the landlords of around forty percent of the houses available for rent in the area, and own most of the commercial properties, too. They invested in apartment blocks in every capital city in Australia, and own apartments at every tourist destination along the entire coastline. Walsh Haulage is one of the biggest transportcompanies in Australia, their trucks instantly recognisable by their bright red and gold design.

My family own nothing. In fact, I grew up in a house my dad rented from the Walsh family.

We were poor. I was the youngest of four children, with two brothers and a sister coming before me. Baby number four proved too much for my twenty-year-old mum, and she took off when I was three months old, leaving my dad to raise me, my four-year-old sister, and my twin brothers who’d just turned three, on his own.

My dad turned to the grog, and our lives went to shit. He drifted from job to job. Toast was our main source of sustenance, and every day was all about survival. When I was eleven and had resorted to rolling up an old threadbare facecloth to use as a sanitary towel on the day I got my first period, I swore to myself that I would find a way out of that nightmare, no matter how I had to do it. One day, I’d have more money than I could spend.

When I started high school that February, after the long summer break, I sat next to Ella Walsh in my home room. We became friends, she introduced me to her older brother Logan, and I knew right then the exact path I needed to take to implement my plans to change the course of my life, and more importantly, my finances.

My plan had worked, and now I had it all: the clothes, the house, the car, the holidays, the lifestyle I’d craved as a child. But I’m still bored, so now it’s time to implement my next move, and Frankie Walsh is about to be a part of that plan.

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