‘It’s irrelevant!’ he snapped.
‘Not to me, it isn’t!’
They glared at each other for long fraught moments, her fierce pride fighting his equally fierce will to have his way.
‘You don’t want this to end here any more than I do,’ he stated with vehement conviction.
‘I didn’t understand what “this” was to you, Fletcher.’
‘What were you hoping for…a proposal of marriage?’ His eyes savagely mocked any such ambition on her part.
I was hoping you would come to love me, to love me so much you’d want me with you always.
Impossible to say such words in the face of his mockery.
Her silence goaded him into a further strike at her heart.
‘Did you think giving me your virginity would persuade me to consider making you my bride?’
‘I just told you I wasn’t into bartering, Fletcher,’ she threw at him, her own eyes stormy with rejection of everything he was suggesting. ‘Please take your hands off me and let me go back to our accommodation. I have some last-minute packing to do.’
He lifted his hands away in a dismissive flourish. ‘Fine! We’ll both do that.’
They walked on together but apart, each wrapped in their own tense brooding silence.
Tammy was so churned up inside, as soon as they reached their apartment, she locked herself in the bathroom and was violently ill. She stayed there for as long as she reasonably could, taking a long shower, packing her toiletries, then vacating it for Fletcher to clean up while she dressed in her travel clothes, completed her packing and checked the rooms for anything missed. Her stomach revolted at the thought of eating anything. She tidied the kitchen, took her bag out to the front verandah and sat there waiting for their lift to the airport.
Fletcher did not speak to her, and Tammy did not speak to him.
On their way to catch their flight back to Sydney, he sat beside the driver of the minibus, chatting away to him as though nothing of any importance had happened. Tammy sat behind them, staring out the window, the island paradise now just an empty blur.
Fletcher handled the formalities at the airport terminal. Tammy hung back a little, with him but not beside him. As soon as her bag was checked in and he’d collected their boarding passes, she moved out to the front lawn, settling on a bench seat to wait for the plane to come in. She fixed her gaze on the cows grazing in the paddock beyond the tarmac and emptied her mind of everything to do with Fletcher Stanton.
He came and sat beside her. She ignored his presence, but the tension of doing so made her feel sick again.
‘If you think you can bring me to heel, you’re making a big mistake, Tamalyn,’ he advised her in a derisive tone. ‘I won’t make another offer.’
She dragged her gaze off the cows to face him with her truth. ‘It isn’t the life for me. Let’s leave it at that.’
There was a flash of angry incredulity in his eyes. Tammy turned away from it. He didn’t love her. He hated losing, wasn’t used to being refused by a woman. She’d left no room for argument and he disdained attempting to persuade her into a change of mind.
Their plane arrived. The incoming passengers disembarked. They boarded. She and Fletcher were seated together but they couldn’t have been more apart. Tammy closed her eyes, concentrating on trying to control the nausea rolling around in her stomach. It was an enormous relief to her when they finally landed at Mascot. Fletcher had only brought a carry-on bag. They could separate as soon as they were inside the terminal.
She expected him to walk off without another word, but he didn’t. They were heading down the long corridor towards the exit and the baggage carousel hall when he grabbed her arm to halt her. It jolted Tammy into looking at him, although her eyes were glazed with the urgent need to go to the ladies’ room, which they’d almost reached.
‘Think about it!’ he commanded, his eyes blazing frustration at her stubborn refusal to weaken and give in to what he wanted. ‘You have my e-mail address. All you have to do is send a yes.’
She dragged her arm out of his hold, shaking her head at this last-minute attempt to change her decision. ‘It will always be no. Goodbye, Fletcher.’
She spun away from him and dived into the ladies’ room.
He was gone when she emerged from it.
The break was complete.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Third Wedding
THE baby wedding, the gang was calling it. Celine was expecting her first and Lucy was pregnant, too, which was why she was getting married in a hurry.
‘It’s not a shotgun wedding,’ she had insisted. ‘Tony and I love each other to bits. We just couldn’t keep our hands off each other and…well, never mind about that. Tony’s thrilled about becoming a father, can’t get it legal fast enough, and his family wants to put on the wedding at their vineyard in the Hunter Valley, so we don’t have to worry about finding a decent reception place in Sydney at such short notice.’
Tammy was happy for Lucy and didn’t want to steal her thunder by revealing her own pregnancy. She was still coming to terms with it herself. Even when the signs had been piling up, pointing to the fact, she had recoiled from believing it. Not once had she missed taking the pill, continuing to follow the whole month’s program after she’d returned from Lord Howe Island. At first, she’d told herself that giving it up after two months of taking it had messed up her menstrual cycle. But the prickling tightness in her breasts, the queaziness in the mornings…she’d had to face up to it.
The pregnancy test had been chillingly positive. No joy in it for Tammy. Fletcher would certainly not be thrilled to learn he was going to be a father. He’d trusted her to take care of contraception. He’d probably think she’d deliberately tricked him, trying to force him into a wedding he didn’t want. All she could think of was her system must have rejected the effect of the pill on that last day when she’d vomited her heart out.
Becoming a single mother would not have been her choice, not for herself nor the child, but terminating the pregnancy was not an option she could consider. She loved babies and would love her own, all the more because she couldn’t imagine having anyone else to love. Sometime after Lucy’s wedding, she would tell her friends, knowing they would be caring and supportive once they’d vented their feelings on what she should do about Fletcher.
To her mind, there was nothing to be done.
In the four months since they had parted at Mascot Airport, he had not contacted her and she had not contacted him. She’d told the gang that her time with him on Lord Howe Island had proved to her they had no future together. End of story. Book closed. Re-opening it was going to be hard and it could certainly wait until after Lucy’s wedding.