Page 49 of Sinful Promises

Maybe that was what my life was going to be from now on. Nothing but blue sky. And new adventures.

I glanced down at my notepad and realized there was one more first I hadn’t listed.

First time I’d fallen in love.

It was true.

What I’d had with William was child’s play compared to how I felt about Roman. What I felt for Roman was untouchable. The Holy Grail. The glue that kept my heart together. It was true love.

Yet how could it be real when it wasn’t mutual?

I flipped the notebook closed and prayed that by the time I’d reached Sydney, Roman would be out of my brain and my heart.

Yet at the same time, he was in my heart forever. He would always be my first love.

I’m not sure that’s a first I’ll ever be able to recover from.

Chapter Ten

I’d never been to Sydney. It was strange that despite the dozens of times my parents had moved, not once did they venture into this major capital city.

Now that I was here though, my first impressions were not good. The traffic was hell. The people were busy and the crowds were huge. I’d been to some of the biggest capital cities in Europe, yet despite Sydney only having a fraction of the population of Rome, it was so much more jam-packed.

My early morning arrival coincided with peak-hour traffic, and it took over an hour to travel from the airport to the hospital. I’d slept well on the plane. Probably too well, on account of me being able to stretch out on the row of chairs at my disposal, and the three sleeping tablets I’d swallowed after I’d consumed everything on my dinner tray.

Now I was wide awake. And as the taxi driver dodged other cars and swapped from lane to lane like he was trying out for a role as dodgem car king, I tried to dodge all the unanswered questions flitting through my brain. My thoughts bounced around my brain like they were playing totem tennis.

How Roman was coping after I’d abandoned him like that?

How was Mother going to react when she first saw me?

The questions were as pointless as a third nipple.

The taxi pulled into the curb, and after paying the driver an obscene amount for the fare, I yanked my suitcase from the trunk and slammed it shut.

I glanced up at a wall of hospital windows above.

My skin crawled as I wondered if she was staring down at me. We hadn’t been face to face since I was seventeen. Twelve years. I still pictured her as a young woman full of life. If the last photo I saw of her was a true reflection of her now, I may not recognize her.

In the last decade, I’d spoken to Mother twenty-seven times. Nine of those calls had been in the last six months. And unfortunately, three more in the last week. Each call was more desperate than the last.

For the first time in her life, my mother wanted to see me. The feeling was not mutual.

Inhaling a deep breath, I strapped on my backpack, grabbed the handle of my suitcase, and headed into the hospital. The ground floor had a reception desk with several individuals lined up. I stepped in behind a woman strangling the hands of two young kids. Plenty of people were around; most were talking in whispers as if revealing a terrible secret. One woman however, sitting on a couch centered in the middle of the lobby, was talking loud enough to revive a comatose patient.

As she banged on about how much chafing she had, I shuffled forward in the queue.

When my turn arrived, I dragged my suitcase up to the counter with me. “Hello. I’m here to visit Patricia Chayne.” At the mention of my mother’s name, the receptionist’s eyes shifted downward, morphing into a look of utter sorrow that she’d probably used many times in her career.

After she gave me a brief instruction on how to get to Mother’s ward, I dragged my feet along the antiseptic-infused corridor toward an elevator. I paused at the buttons and told myself that it wasn’t too late to turn around.

But where would I go? I didn’t have a home.

That admission floored me like a freight train. I grew up without anywhere to call home, and despite all my attempts to flee from that status, I’d come full circle.

I strangled the handle of my suitcase containing everything I owned, and fought the urge to pick the damn thing up and hurl it at the wall like a world-wrestling champ would toss an opponent.

How had I let this happen? I was nearly thirty and had nothing.

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