What a fool you are, Sarah, she castigated herself. Nothing will change. Nothing will ever change. Don’t you know that by now?
Time to face the bitter truth. Time to stop hoping for a miracle.
‘His name his Nick Coleman,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘He’s been my legal guardian since I was sixteen, and I’ve had a mad crush on him since I was eight.’ She refused to call it love. How could she be in love with a man like Nick? He might have made a financial success of his life in the years since they’d first met, but he’d also become cold-blooded and a callous womaniser.
Sometimes Sarah wondered if she’d imagined the kindnesses he’d shown her when she was a child.
‘Did you say eight?’ Derek asked.
‘Yes. He came to work for my father as his chauffeur on my eighth birthday.’
‘His chauffeur!’
‘It’s a long story. But it wasn’t Nick who started my eating binge,’ she confessed. ‘It was his girlfriend.’ The one who was there draped all over him last Christmas, a drop-dead gorgeous, super-slender supermodel who’d make any female feel inadequate.
A depressed Sarah had eaten seconds at Christmas lunch, then had gone back for thirds. Food, she’d swiftly found, made her feel temporarily better.
By Easter—her next visit home—she’d gained ten kilos. Nick had simply stared at her. Probably in shock. But his new girlfriend—a stunning-looking but equally skinny actress this time—hadn’t remained silent, making a sarcastic crack about the growing obesity problem in Australia, which had resulted in Sarah gaining another five kilos by the end of May.
When she’d seen the class photo of herself, she’d taken stock and sought out Derek’s help.
Now here she was, with her hour-glass shape possessing not one skerrick of flab and her self-esteem firmly back in place.
‘Amend that to two girlfriends,’ Sarah added, then went on to fill in some more details of her relationship with her guardian, plus the circumstances which had led up to her coming to the gym.
‘Amazing,’ Derek said when she stopped at last.
‘What’s amazing? That I got so fat?’
‘You were never fat, Sarah. Just a few kilos over-weight. And lacking in tone. No, I meant about your being an heiress. You don’t act like a rich bitch at all.’
‘That’s because I’m not. Not till I turn twenty-five, anyway. My father made sure in his will that I won’t get a dime till I reach what he called a mature age. For years I had my educational and basic living expenses paid for, but once I could earn my own living I had to support myself, or starve. I was a bit put out at first, but I finally saw the sense of his stand. Handouts don’t do anyone any good.’
‘That depends. So this Nick fellow lives in your family home, rent-free?’
‘Well, yes…My father’s will said he could.’
‘Till you turn twenty-five.’
‘Yes.’
‘When, exactly, does that happen?’
‘What? Oh, next February. The second.’
‘At which point you’re going to turf that blood-sucking leech out of your home and tell him you don’t want to see his sorry behind ever again!’
Sarah blinked, then laughed. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Derek. Nick doesn’t need free rent. He has plenty of money of his own. He could easily buy his own mansion, if he wanted to.’ In actual fact, he’d offered to buy hers. But she’d refused.
Sarah knew the house was way too big for a single girl, but it was the only connection she still had to her parents, and she simply could not bear to part with it.
‘How come this Nick guy is so flush?’ Derek asked. ‘You said he was your father’s chauffeur.’
‘Was being the operative word. My dad took him under his wing and showed him how to make money, both on the stock market and in the business world. Nick was very lucky to have a man like my father as his mentor.’ Sarah considered telling Derek about Nick’s good fortune with Outback Bride but decided not to. Perhaps because it made Nick look as though he hadn’t become successful in his own right. Which he had. ‘Have you ever been to Happy Island on a holiday?’ she said instead.
‘No. But I know about it.’
‘Nick borrowed money and bought Happy Island when it was going for a song. He personally supervised the remodelling of its largely derelict resort, built an airport on it, then sold the whole shebang to an international equity company for a fortune.’
‘Lucky man.’
‘Dad always said luck begins and ends with hard work. He also advised Nick that he’d never become rich working for someone else.’ Which was why Nick had set up his own movie production company a couple of years back. He’d already had some success but nothing yet to rival Outback Bride.
‘Your dad’s right there,’ Derek said. ‘I hated it when I had a boss. That’s why I started up my own gym.’
‘You own The New You?’
Derek gave her a startled look. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know that either.’
‘No.’
He smiled, showing flashing white teeth. ‘Talk about tunnel vision.’
‘Sorry,’ Sarah apologised. ‘I can be like that. I’m a bit of a loner, if you haven’t noticed,’ she added with a wry smile. ‘I don’t make friends easily. Guess it comes from being an only child.’
‘I’m an only child too,’ he confessed. ‘Which makes my being gay especially hard on my parents. No grand-kids to look forward to. I only told them a couple of years ago when Mum’s pressuring me to get married got a bit much. Dad hasn’t talked to me since,’ Derek added, the muscles in his neck stiffening.
‘That’s sad,’ Sarah said. ‘What about your mum?’
‘She rings me. But won’t let me come home, not even for Christmas.’
‘Oh, dear. Maybe they’ll come round in time.’
‘Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath. Dad is a very proud and stubborn man. Once he says something, he won’t back down on it. But back to you, sweetie. You’re simply crazy about this Nick fellow, aren’t you?’
Sarah’s heart lurched. ‘Crazy describes my feelings for Nick very well. When I’m around him, I just can’t stop wanting him. But he doesn’t want me back. And he never will. It’s time I accepted that.’
‘But surely not till you’ve had one last crack at him.’
‘What?’
‘You haven’t been working your butt off because some anorexic model said you were fat, sweetie. It’s Nick you’re out to impress, and attract.’
Sarah didn’t want to openly admit it. But of course Derek was right. She’d do anything to have Nick look at her with desire. Just once.
No, not once. Again. Because she was pretty sure she’d spotted desire in his eyes one Christmas, when she’d been sixteen and she’d come down to the pool wearing an itsy-bitsy bikini that she’d bought with Nick in mind.
But maybe she’d imagined it. Maybe she was just desperate to believe he’d fancied her a little that day, despite his actions to the contrary. Teenage girls were prone to flights of fantasy, as were twenty-four-year-olds, she thought ruefully. Which was why she’d spent all week buying the kind of summer wardrobe that would stir an octogenarian’s hormones.
The trouble was Nick wasn’t an octogenarian. He was only thirty-six, and he kept his male hormones