The Perfect Husband (3 page)

Mason whistled, impressed. “That’s very
accommodating of you, given you’re a busy mom. You’re lucky Nigel
was available to pick up the slack.”

She grimaced and this time when she turned
her head his way, he noticed the slight swelling around her eye.
Was that bruising beneath the layer of makeup, or was it something
else?
Had someone hit her?
He frowned, but she spoke quietly
again, giving him no time to contemplate the disquieting
thought.

“Actually, I was out of luck. Nigel’s
apparently stuck in the operating room until six. I had to phone
the daycare center. Fortunately, they were able to squeeze them in
for the few hours until Nigel gets off work.”

Mason shot another look in Isobel’s
direction, but she’d turned her head away. His chest constricted on
a sudden surge of anger. If that asshole had touched her…

He gritted his teeth and shook his head.
What the hell was he thinking, drawing such a wild
conclusion?
He couldn’t even be sure what he’d seen was a
bruise. It was churlish to blame Nigel for something that was
probably no more than a figment of Mason’s imagination—because he
realized, despite what he’d told himself for years, he was still in
love with the football star’s girl.

No, she hadn’t been hit; he had to have been
mistaken. There was no way Nigel Donnelly would beat up his wife.
He might have been an asshole in high school, but that was a long
time ago and a long way from becoming a violent husband.

Mason wasn’t prepared to admit his
willingness to think the worst of his former teammate had nothing
to do with any real belief Nigel was an abuser and everything to do
with the fact Nigel had married the only girl Mason had ever
loved.

Dragging his gaze away from the woman in
question, he made a conscious effort to relax his clenched jaw.
Isobel’s marital status was none of his concern. She’d married
Nigel. They had two kids. Mason’s marriage might have ended badly,
but he’d never purposefully set out to break up someone else’s
marriage—no matter how badly he wished he could.

He’d spent the best part of a decade trying
to forget about her and now, without knowing it, he’d relocated
from his hometown a half day’s drive away to the very hospital
where she worked. The irony wasn’t missed on him and it was
something he’d have to get his head around.

He wished he’d known beforehand that she was
a nurse at the Sydney Harbour Hospital. He would have headed in the
opposite direction. Hell, he could have applied for a job in far
North Queensland and visited with his parents every now and then.
It would have put him more than a thousand miles away from the
woman who still haunted his dreams.

If he tendered his resignation now, he’d
appear ludicrous. Today was his first day on the ward. Questions
would be asked and even more considered in private. It would set
his career back further than he cared to think. The Sydney Harbour
Hospital was the most prestigious hospital in the country. People
vied for jobs there like children fought over favored toys. No one
accepted a position and then passed it over the very first day they
started.

No—resigning his position wasn’t an option.
All he could do was steel his heart against the woman he loved and
push aside any hope he had of making her his. He had to steer clear
of Isobel Donnelly, no matter how strong his feelings still were.
In fact, that was even more reason to stay the hell away from her
altogether. Nothing good could come of yearning for another man’s
wife, and especially not the wife of Nigel Donnelly.

Dear Diary,

I am losing myself. I am terrified one day
I’ll look into the mirror and see a complete stranger…a woman I no
longer recognize. I am being pulled under, into the dark, silent
depths and each time I manage to resurface and snatch a breath, I
am pushed down again.

I am slowly dying from the inside out and
don’t know what to do, or even if anyone cares. It’s surreal how
much I loved my husband in the early years of our marriage and yet
now, I am frightened by his touch.

He has become a stranger to me and one of
whom I am scared. There was a time when I felt safe and secure in
his arms. Now I can’t imagine ever feeling safe near him again…

* * *

Isobel pulled her car into the driveway of
her impressive North Shore home. Although it wasn’t on the water,
she could glimpse the harbor between the leafy trees that lined the
lower shore. The rendered brick façade, painted in a modern shade
of gray, sat comfortably beside its similarly grand neighbors’, but
right then Isobel was way too tired to appreciate it.

After completing a double shift, she could
barely drag herself from the car, but knowing Nigel would be
waiting for her to get home before he could leave for work, she
collected her handbag from the seat beside her and slowly got out.
She climbed the stairs to the porch and the usual sense of dread
began to grow. She’d hardly stepped through the front doorway
before he started in on her.

“What the hell took you so long? I’m going
to be late because of you!”

Even though she’d anticipated such a
welcome, his narrowed eyes and the angry red flush that stained his
cheeks took her aback. It was only a little past seven. He still
had at least twenty minutes before his normal departure time. She
couldn’t understand what he was so worked up about, but she held
her tongue as she’d learned to do so well. She turned away and
placed her handbag on the table that stood against the wall in the
hallway.

“Don’t ignore me, Isobel.” He grabbed her
arm and spun her around to face him. She gasped in alarm at the
menace in his eyes.

“Where have you been?”

“I told you, I’ve been at work.”

“Who were you working with?”

She sighed, way too tired to deal with this
right now. “Jacquie and Ronald.”

“Ronald? Who’s Ronald? Do you like him?”

She shook her head. “He’s gay.”

“What doctors were on?”

“Mark Wild and David Hamilton.”

Nigel’s eyes narrowed. “I know David
Hamilton. He thinks he’s pretty special. Works out all the time.
Pretty proud of his muscles.” His fingers tightened around her jaw.
“Do you like him? Do you like the way he looks?” He loomed over
her, his eyes mere inches from hers. His breath was hot on her
face. “Do you want to fuck him?”

Her stomach clenched in fear and revulsion.
“No! Of course I don’t! Where’s all this coming from, Nigel? I
don’t understand.”

His breath hissed in and out between his
teeth. “If I ever catch you with another man, I’ll kill you. And
then I’ll kill the kids. Slowly. Painfully. They’ll feel every
second of the torture.”

Isobel gasped. His tone was as deadly as the
expression on his face. Fear paralyzed her. The only sounds she
heard were the rushing of her blood through her ears and the
pounding of her heart. Each of his words inflicted fear so icy she
was frozen to the spot. Useless tears burned behind her eyes and
she wanted so much to let them fall; to wash away the shame and
guilt; to bring even a moment of relief.

And then her husband laughed. It should have
eased her tension, but his laughter sounded crazed and there was a
dangerous glint in his eye. She remained as taut as ever. He
released her jaw and turned away. She rubbed at the soreness he’d
left behind.

He suddenly turned back to face her and
sneered down at her. “Not that I have anything to worry about on
that score. You’re way too ugly for anyone to want to fuck. Look at
you, scrawnier than a prairie dog. No tits or ass to speak of.
Fucking you is like fucking a bloke. In fact, I’d probably get more
pleasure screwing a man.”

She gasped again in shock and horror. Her
hand came up to her mouth in an effort to contain her disgust, even
as hot shame flooded through her. She lowered her head and stared
at the carpet, knowing that at least part of what he said was true.
She was thin. Too thin.

She’d lost a lot of weight over the past few
years from the continuous stress and strain of her marriage. Nigel
craved endless reaffirmation that he was the best husband, father,
doctor, friend—the list went on and on. She equated her current
state of affairs to living with a drug addict.

When Nigel was in a buoyant mood, the high
was nothing less than blissful, but after the highs came the
inevitable lows and once that happened, her life became hell on
earth. The constant tension was exhausting.

Her stomach was always in too many knots for
her to eat more than the tiniest of morsels. She tried to force
herself to eat more, but her stomach didn’t agree with her head. It
was little wonder she was always so tired.

Then of course, there were the countless
nights when she was too scared and upset to sleep. Even with Nigel
snoring beside her, she rarely did more than doze. She didn’t want
to roll over and touch him by accident. She didn’t want to risk
waking him and having him at her for hours and hours on end. She
was terrified of their grueling sex sessions where she’d end up
crying and just lying there, feeling demeaned, exhausted and
abused. She’d stopped saying no, years ago.

And last week he’d come home from work,
talking about the marathon sex his colleague was having with his
new girlfriend. One session had lasted three hours. To her horror,
Nigel had seemed driven to want that for them. She’d lain there,
praying to God to have him ejaculate early. Her prayers went
unanswered and the longer it lasted, the more angry he’d gotten.
Angry at her, for not exciting him enough to come.

For one hopeful moment, she thought about
how wonderful it would be if he were never interested in her again.
If he could take a lover; she didn’t care whether it was a woman or
a man, just so long as he never touched her, never forced her
again. Nothing about their life, their relationship was healthy. It
was all so horribly, awfully wrong. There was no way she could
sustain this way of living, but she had no power to change it.

Instead she’d become numb and maybe that was
a good thing. It was better to feel nothing than to feel the truth
of their situation. In the meantime, she was as jumpy as a mouse in
a hole with a cat prowling around and around. She’d begun to think
it was only a matter of time before the cat pounced and consumed
her whole…

With a snort of impatience, Nigel pushed
past her and headed for the front door. Collecting his keys and
briefcase from the hall table, he grabbed his suit jacket from the
coat rack and left without another word. Isobel looked around for
the kids, but apparently they were both still in bed. Hot tears
pricked her eyes.

Familiar feelings of helplessness and
despair overwhelmed her. With dogged steps, she shuffled toward the
couch and collapsed onto its soft leather seat. With her head in
her hands, she gave in to the urgent need to cry.

Desperate tears ran down her cheeks and
dripped onto the knees of her stockings. Her injured eye burned
from the makeup she’d applied with a heavy hand. She recalled how
Mason had stared at her in the tea room and how for a moment, she’d
thought her cover was blown.

Mason.

Of all the men to run into. It had been
years since she’d seen him. The night of their high school
graduation, to be exact. The night he’d begged her to come away
with him. The night he told her he loved her. She remembered it
like it was yesterday, just like she remembered how, without a
qualm, she’d politely turned him down, choosing to end the night
wrapped in Nigel’s arms.

Dear Diary,

I took a good long look at myself in the
mirror today. The sight momentarily startled me, enough that I felt
compelled to inch forward and take a better look. I scrutinized the
reflection, analyzing each feature and detail, looking for some
anomaly, some mark that would prove this wasn’t me. But I didn’t
find what I was looking for.

The woman staring back at me looked older,
pale… And those eyes, they were expressionless, blank. Dear God, I
hate who I’ve become! I will the tears to pour out because I want
to feel sad and hurt and angry. I want to mourn the loss of me! I
want to feel something…anything… But I feel nothing. I’m numb from
the inside out. My whole world is consumed by infinite shades of
black….

* * *

Mason stared at the large, legal-sized
envelope in his hands and tried to find the courage to open it. The
logo from his lawyer’s firm graced the top left hand corner.
Harton & Sharpe:
We get results.

There were no guesses as to what the
envelope contained. His lawyer had called a week ago to tell him it
was on the way. He remembered the exact moment: He’d been in the
middle of packing the last of his belongings in his car before
leaving his hometown of Maitland for the glamor of the city lights.
Maybe forever.

His three brothers had left Maitland long
before him and his parents had retired to the coast. They were
currently up in far North Queensland, embracing their retirement,
sailing in a yacht from Port Douglas to Cairns. He was happy for
them and wished them all the best.

Drawing in another deep breath, he eased it
out between lips that were suddenly dry and turned the envelope
over again. Knowing he couldn’t put it off forever, he tore it
open. Inside was a single sheet of paper.

The official-looking document had been
issued by the Family Court of Australia. He scanned the typed
words, each one bold and black and succinct. The court had issued a
decree nisi
. His divorce had been officially approved.

He tossed the paper aside. He didn’t need a
court order to tell him his marriage was over. It had been over
before it began. He thought Sue Ann could help him put his past
behind him and make him forget the girl he could never have, but it
hadn’t worked out that way. He’d felt badly about it almost from
the beginning, when it became clear he’d made a mistake. He’d been
unfair to Sue Ann and his conscience didn’t let him forget it.
She’d never done him wrong. All she did was have the bad sense to
fall in love with a man who didn’t love her in return. The rest was
history.