The Soulmate(67)

AMANDA

BEFORE



‘Just the two of us, the horizon and all these lovely staff,’ Max said, with a laugh, as he touched his champagne glass to mine.

It was Christmas, and once again we were on a yacht in the Whitsundays. It was idyllic. I’d never seen water so clear or sand so white. And I’d never seen Max so relaxed. For a week, he didn’t so much as check his emails. We snorkelled and swam. I took photographs. We sat on the deck and drank wine. We fished. One night, we rowed to shore in a dinghy and our captain cooked freshly caught tuna on a makeshift barbecue. We ate it on the sand while drinking white wine.

‘Do you ever wish that you had been pregnant that time?’ Max asked out of the blue.

I knew the time he meant. I was surprised to hear that Max remembered it too. Or, if not surprised that he remembered it, I was surprised that he’d thought about it, reflected on it, since.

‘For a while I did,’ I admitted. ‘When I saw a baby, or when my friends’ children were little and they were entirely consumed by them.’

Max was listening to me so intently. There was something pained about his expression, and it hit me suddenly that this was something he’d been carrying all these years. Maybe I’d even seen that pained expression in his eyes on those odd occasions we were in the company of a newborn baby.

I saw the apology he was about to offer, so I made sure I got in first. ‘But now I see what a gift it has been, just the two of us, spending our lives together. And I’m grateful for it. Truly.’

I was. Of course, if we’d had children, I’m sure we wouldn’t have regretted it. We probably would be sitting here surrounded by our family, talking about how empty our lives would have been without them. But we would have been wrong. Our lives were not empty. Even with all that remained unsaid between us, as I sat there with Max, it was hard to imagine any alternative reality in which I would be more content, more fulfilled.

And still the sadness remained on Max’s face. ‘You always asked so little of me, Amanda. I should have given you so much more.’

I smiled. ‘You gave me what I asked, remember? Fidelity. That was the deal.’

Max smiled back. His eyes were both sad and happy.

‘Darling,’ he said, ‘it was such an easy thing to give.’





71


PIPPA

NOW



I stay in my office for over an hour while Gabe is outside with the girls in the sandpit. When I finish my work, the house is quiet. After days of us all being cooped up in the house, it is strange. I close my computer and go to the kitchen, wait for the kettle to boil, make a cup of tea. I’m jiggling the teabag in the water when I hear the toilet flush, then Gabe walks into the living room.

‘Bathroom,’ he says by way of explanation, but I’m already opening the glass doors, scanning the yard for the girls.

The sandpit is empty.

The spike of adrenaline is instant. My face becomes hot. My mouth becomes dry. My vision blurs at the edges.

I look beyond the fence towards the bushes and the moonah trees. Towards The Drop . . .

I see the man first – the giant man from the car park. He’s bent over, talking to my little girls. As he stands upright, my stomach lurches. The size of him next to the tiny girls makes my blood run cold. They’re so close to the cliff edge. He could pick one up in each hand and in a heartbeat they’d be gone.

‘Gabe,’ I say in a strangled voice.

And then I run faster than I ever have in my life.





72


AMANDA

BEFORE



It’s funny how bad things sneak up on you when you least expect it. It’s almost as if the universe wants to maximise the utter shock and despair. For a year, Max and I had been happy. Gabe and Pippa had moved away, and the drama with Arthur Spriggs had settled. Max was still working, but he was winding back – handing over more things to the executives and coming home earlier and earlier. We’d started to talk about retirement.

‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Max said. ‘It’s time for a life change. I think we should move overseas. Maybe to Europe. We can sell the business and start over.’

‘But how can we sell the business without exposing the investment from A.S. Holdings?’

‘I don’t know yet, but I’m going to set up a meeting with the accountants to see what’s possible.’

It was on that day – the day the accountant came to our house – that I found Max’s secret laptop on the floor of the walk-in wardrobe, next to the open safe. I hadn’t seen it in a while; I’d almost forgotten it existed. Max had probably come in to check something and then forgotten to put it away.

For over a minute, I just stared at it. After years of coveting this computer, or at least its contents, I suddenly felt reluctant to touch it. Max and I had been so settled. What if I discovered something I didn’t want to know? What would I do then?

Still, I found myself closing the door of the wardrobe and kneeling on the floor. I gently turned the screen to face me. A spreadsheet was open, one I couldn’t make heads nor tails of – but then spreadsheets were always like gibberish to me. I minimised it and opened the email inbox. That was where the interesting stuff would be found – or it was in the movies, at least.