But it was deliberate.
Chloe had only been shopping for a few minutes when an all too familiar voice cracked at her like a whip with stinging force.
‘It’s a shameful state of affairs when a mother is reduced to chasing a car to make contact with her daughter!’
The lettuce she’d been holding spilled from her hand. Her heart jumped and so did the rest of her body as she spun to face the oncoming attack. Her mother was livid with anger, her steel-blue eyes shooting furious arrows of accusation, her hands already lifting like talons to grab Chloe’s shoulders and shake her. The old instinct to cringe swept through her but this time Chloe fought it. She was not a child to be shaken into submission and her mother did not own her anymore. Her spine stiffened and she stood her ground, although her stomach cramped and her legs started to tremble.
Gerry Anderson stepped between them and her chest almost caved in with relief at being shielded by him.
‘Get out of the way! She’s my daughter!’ her mother hissed, grabbing his arm, trying to pull him aside.
‘Miss Rollins?’ Gerry was looking to her for direction.
He would strong-arm her mother away and swiftly escort her out of here if she gave the word. The temptation to flee quivered through her mind, but she’d been weak for far too long, letting her mother run her life. Running away from her now meant she still had power over her, would always have power over her. It had to stop if she was ever to forge an independent life.
She shook her head. ‘I’ll talk to her but stay near, Gerry.’ She turned to her mother, eyes flashing determination. ‘If you create any more of a scene, my bodyguard will step in and we’ll go. Is that clear, Mother?’
‘Your bodyguard,’ she savagely mocked as Gerry stepped aside for the two women to face each other. ‘Max Hart’s, you mean. He’s taking you over, lock, stock and barrel and you’re too blindly naive to see it.’
‘He is simply protecting me from the kind of harassment you’re dealing out right now.’
‘And why is he doing it, Chloe? Have you asked yourself that?’
‘I don’t care why. I’m out of the mess of my marriage, which you hid from me so I’d keep on working and bringing in the money. I’m not so blindly naive that I can’t see that, Mother.’
‘You’ve been working today to bring in the money for Max Hart.’
‘He didn’t deceive me.’
‘It was for your own good,’ she snapped defensively. ‘The affair would have blown over without any pain for you if Laura hadn’t got herself pregnant.’
‘I don’t like your judgement of what is good for me. I’m not going to take it anymore.’
‘You need me, Chloe,’ she bored in. ‘You’ll be lost without me. I’ve handled everything for you for so long…’
‘I’ll learn to do it myself.’
‘You think that can be done in a day?’ she jeered.
‘No. I expect it will take a while.’
‘Making a host of bad judgements. For a start, where do you intend to live?’
Chloe hesitated, not having thought that far yet.
‘You can’t stay in Max’s guest house forever,’ her mother pushed, mocking Chloe’s indecision.
‘No, of course not.’
Maybe her lack of any urgent concern over where to live gave the situation away.
Her mother pounced. ‘He’s invited you to stay on, hasn’t he? How long?’
‘This is none of your business!’ Chloe retorted defensively.
‘Longer than a few days. Longer than a week for you to think you don’t need me. A month? Two months?’ Speculation turned to triumphant certainty. ‘Yes. Two months. Until shooting all the episodes for the show is over. That would suit him very nicely. And you’re so gullible you got sucked right in.’
‘It suits me, too,’ Chloe hotly insisted, hating how her mother twisted everything.
Her claim was dismissed with a derisive snort. ‘Out of the frying pan into the fire!’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Her eyes glittered with contempt for Chloe’s intelligence. ‘Max Hart is worse than Tony, flitting from woman to woman. He’s setting you up for when he gets rid of Shannah Lian. Which will be very soon. Mark my words! You won’t have two months free of him. I’ll bet the bank on that.’
Dangerous…the undertow of physical attraction…impossible to ignore yet she hated her mother’s interpretation of the situation.
‘You’ll end up in a bigger mess than you have now,’ she went on in her disparaging voice. ‘You need me, Chloe. I’m the one who’s always protected you. Max Hart is a shark. He’ll eat you up and when you’ve satisfied his sexual appetite…’
‘That’s enough!’ Chloe cried. ‘I don’t have to listen to this and I won’t! Gerry…’ She turned to him in urgent appeal. ‘I want to go now.’
He immediately hooked one arm around hers, holding the other one out in a warding-off gesture. ‘Excuse us, Mrs Rollins,’ he said politely, starting to move Chloe along the shopping aisle towards the exit.
‘When you know I’m right, come home to me,’ her mother sliced at her. ‘I’ll look after you.’
Chloe maintained a stony face, looking straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the claim that she couldn’t look after herself.
She would.
As for the rest, Max wouldn’t force her into anything she didn’t want.
All along he had given her choices.
Not like her mother, who dictated what was to be done.
And not like Tony, who cheated on women, playing two at once.
At least she could be her own person with Max. She liked that. It was a positive step. She was never, never going to take the backward step of running home to her mother for help. For anything!
‘Would you like me to drive you to another shopping mall?’ Gerry asked as he saw her settled in the car.
She had forgotten the trolley containing the few pieces of fruit she had selected. They had walked out, leaving it standing in the aisle. ‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ she said, in too much emotional turmoil to think of food and knowing she could make do with what was available in the kitchenette. ‘Let’s go straight home, please, Gerry.’
He nodded and took the driver’s seat without comment.
Home…tears pricked her eyes at that slip of the tongue. The children’s house was not her home, yet it felt more like one than any of the places she’d lived in with her mother. Even the Randwick apartment that she and Tony had furnished had been more to his taste than hers-wanting to please him. He’d probably insist on keeping it as part of the divorce settlement. Chloe decided she didn’t care. Sometime in the next two months she would find a place of her own and please herself with the furnishings.