Page 44 of The Wanderer

He preferred the element of surprise and turning up to one of his dad's shows for the first time, with the intent of confronting him afterwards, would have to do.

A few more patrons filtered in as showtime grew closer. The eclectic crowd, ranging from old hippies to young yuppies, made him feel out of place. He preferred a simple pub to this faux trendy club. Black tables, black carpet, and silver-draped walls, with the small stage taking pride of place front and centre, featuring the clichéd crimson velvet curtain drawn shut.

It was stupid, to feel this nervous as the lights dimmed. Logan would soon see his father for the first time in twelve years and his throat tightened. His heart pounded in time with the introduction music blaring through speakers and his mouth grew dry.

The curtains drew back as Logan wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his jeans. Now that the moment had arrived, he wanted to make a run for it.

Then his father stepped forward to the microphone stand and Logan held his breath. His chest caved in on itself, like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Tears stung his eyes and he blinked rapidly, willing the urge to hyperventilate away.

This was crazy, his over the top reaction. Grown men didn't feel so weak.

Then his father grinned, catapulting Logan straight back to his fifth birthday, when his dad had presented him with a massive hardback dinosaur book and smiled at him just like that.

Rage made his hand shake as he dashed it across his eyes. This man had stolen so much from him.

What could they possibly say to each other now that would erase the pain of the past?

But Logan had never been a quitter so he sat through his dad's show. With every joke, every anecdote, his anger faded. Until he found his mouth reluctantly quirking into a semi-smile. Stephen was good. He commanded the room and held the audience captive. He delivered punch lines with impeccable timing. He related everyday incidents and made them funny.

But what captured Logan's attention the most was his dad's self-deprecation: because he had the same sense of humour.

When the show wound down and Stephen gave a mock bow to signal the end, Logan couldn't believe an hour had passed. Raucous applause filled the room and he found himself clapping too. As waitresses moved through the room, topping up drink orders before the next act, Logan knew the time had come.

Time to confront his father.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The first thing that caught Hope's eye as she entered her apartment was the letter propped against the fruit bowl. Stupid, how her parents still favoured snail mail in this age of cyber speed. She'd tried guiding them towards video-conferencing, even simple calling, but the McWilliams stuck to their fancy embossed stationary to connect with their only child a million miles away.

Now probably wasn't the right time to read the letter, considering she'd cried all the way home from Logan's after her sabotaging and his curt dismissal of their short-lived relationship, but she needed comforting and a tenuous connection to her old home might provide that.

She slipped off her shoes, picked up the letter she’d left there since yesterday, and curled up on the sofa. Sticking her finger beneath the flap, she wiggled it a little, then yanked, tearing open the envelope. As she slid the thick sheets of paper out, the faintest waft of lavender tickled her nose. Her mother's signature perfume, and just like that, tears stung her eyes again.

Blinking, she unfolded the sheets, three in total, and started reading. Her parents' letters were always the same. Her mum wrote the first page, her dad the second, and her mum finished off the third. They gave her mundane updates of their life in an English country manor: the housekeeper's grandson had started walking early at ten months of age, the gardener's wife had been caught flirting with the mayor at the pub, winter promised to come early this year.

These trivialities usually annoyed her, but Hope found herself re-reading the letter, deriving some comfort from the familiarity of it all. Some things never changed and her parents’ reliance on the traditional made her feel warm and fuzzy this time rather than intolerant and bored.

Interesting, that she'd urged Logan to confront his dad, when she hadn't visited her parents in five years. At her parents continual insistence she visit, she'd give the excuse that she was establishing a business and her students relied on her and why couldn't they visit her. They begged off flying the twenty-four hours from London to Melbourne, yet would happily fly first class around the world on a whim.

She'd taken it as yet another sign they didn't give a fig about her; they never had. But their letters arrived monthly like clockwork and they obviously read her emails by their written responses. They weren't demonstrative and a touch of approval on her head as a child had been the most she could hope for, maybe a hug on her birthday. It made her wonder, was she emotionally repressed too?

She didn't think so. She wouldn't have responded to Logan so openly and wholeheartedly if she were. But there was a world of difference between physical openness and acknowledging emotions.

She'd been more than happy to have sex with Logan but when she had the opportunity to explain herself an hour ago, she'd clammed up and walked away without a backward glance. She could blame her parents’ lies, Willem’s too, and Harry’s ultimate betrayal, but emotional obtuseness was in her DNA.

Every betrayal had changed her in a way, but she'd been more optimistic than her parents…until Willem. He'd been the one to really change her. To shatter her faith in love after following her heart, to then devastate her completely by revealing the truth of her parents’ duplicity when she didn’t give him what he wanted. She hated him for it.

With her resolve wavering to stay away from Logan, this would be a good time to remind herself of exactly why she couldn’t trust those she let into her life.

Sighing, she stood and stretched out the kinks in her back, before padding into the bedroom to get her memory box, her one concession to sentimentality. She hadn't looked at it in years but kept it as a reminder of who she'd been and how far she'd come. The trusting, naïve young woman had morphed into an independent cynic. She should be proud of how well she’d protected her heart.

So what had gone wrong with Logan?

Standing on tiptoes, she tapped the top shelf of her wardrobe, encountering the long, flat box tucked away beneath a stack of jumpers. She gripped it and slid it forward carefully, until she could grab it with both hands. A little larger and longer than a shoebox, it hardly weighed a thing. Her keepsakes were scarce but meaningful.

Plopping in the middle of her bed, she jiggled the lid of the box until it opened, revealing reminders of a time gone by. A program from a play in Hyde Park, a menu from high tea at a posh London hotel, a matchbook from an overnight stay at a luxurious B&B in Bath.

Willem had been extravagant, wooing her with high-end dates and expensive gifts, inveigling himself into her life as if he'd been born to it. But he hadn't been. He'd used her. Duping her into believing their three-month relationship had been real, only to discover his potent feelings and unwavering attention had been a sham. An elaborate lie perpetuated by an unscrupulous journalist who'd gone to any lengths to get the story he wanted: in her case, an exclusive interview with her parents, the reclusive yet wealthiest gentry in Yorkshire.

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