The snark in the lawyer’s voice softened a fraction. ‘When isn’t it? Okay, Josh, here’s the deal. You willing to make a statement about what you saw of Aaron Finch harassing my client at her home?’
‘Sure.’
‘Good. This is an opportunity, and Vera needs to seize it. We apply for a restraining order to keep him away from her.’
He looked at the sliding door through which he’d been denied entry. ‘I’m totally onboard with that. But—you better ask Vera. Whatever she decides, that’s what I’m supporting.’
‘Huh. You as cute to look at as you sound, Josh Cody?’
He rolled his eyes. Again. Sue steamrollered on as though her question had been hypothetical. ‘Get her to call me the instant she’s finished there, will you? I’m having a slow day, and it would give me a lot of pleasure to ring Aaron Finch and hand him his testicles minced into teeny-weeny little pieces.’
Josh raised his eyebrows. ‘Remind me never to piss you off.’
‘Wise call.’
The voice in his ear clicked off and he stared down at the phone. God, what a day. What a hell of a day.
CHAPTER
43
Vera lifted her hand, wondering how on earth she was going to construct six dozen prawn and vermicelli rice-paper rolls with this bandage-swaddled club at the end of her arm. She felt as weak as a lettuce leaf. A drop of blood she could cope with, but watching a needle and thread stitch her palm back together?
Her stomach flipped. No thank you.
The doctor who’d stitched up her hand had insisted she take a seat and drink a cup of tea until her colour improved, but had then bustled off through swing doors and disappeared.
Should she get up? Find someone?
Sooner or later she was going to have to haul herself out of the recliner chair she’d been allocated and make some sense out of what had happened … but it was quiet in this little treatment room she’d been parked in.
She lay back against the vinyl headrest and closed her eyes.
Quiet and calm, like someone else was in charge and she could take a break from being Vera for a moment.
Aaron had lost his marbles, that was clear. To drive all this way to tell her she was mistaken, that he was really a great guy who could overlookherflaws? It was outrageous, and creepy as hell, which was why she’d texted the bare details to her lawyer on the drive in to the hospital.
Was asking for a restraining order an extreme reaction?
She wasn’t sure. She just knew she couldn’t face another scene like that alone.
But that moment when she’d finally had enough of being his victim, enough of feeling that he and Acacia View and the mistakes of her past were in charge of the shape of her future … she’d had a moment then. Anepicmoment.
Staring him down and pushing back at his bullshit had done more than shut him up. Seizing that moment had been like seizing back control, and the weight she’d been carrying for months had gone. She hadn’t seen the truth in her own words until she’d flung them in his face.
She’d been blaming herself, all this time, thinking she was a failure for not making better decisions, but now she knew. She took in a long breath and let it out, feeling the certainty build. She hadn’t been a failure; she’d made a mistake, and she was dealing with the consequences like a responsible adult. She’d had a valid reason for her actions: she’d been worried about her aunt.
What valid reason had Aaron had for dobbing her in to Acacia View? A fat deposit into theSouth Coast Morning Herald’s advertising account?
He’d used her for his own ends, and she’d been naive, yes, but she hadn’t been a failure.
What shewasguilty of was letting her miserable history ruin her chance of a happier future when she’d pushed Josh away and kept the truth about Aaron from him.
A creak made her look up and there, holding open the hospital’s swing door, was the man himself. Josh. Her heart splintered into a thousand painful needle pricks. He was carrying flowers, a great messy bunch of … were they wildflowers? Billy buttons and triggers and daisies in pinks and yellows and silvers dizzier than Jill’s quilt.
‘Can I come in?’
A man with flowers. And not just any man,theman. The one who’d burrowed his way into her brittle lonely heart and made her feel again. Love and pain. Hurt and longing. And great deep swathes of want.