'Me?' It came out as a squeak. Her throat was almost choked by a huge lump of chaotic emotion. She dragged her gaze up to his. Was it caring in his eyes? They burned with some indefinable purpose which certainly encompassed her, making her feel weirdly skittish.
'Take your sunglasses off, Lara. You don't have to hide from me.'
'I'm not…' She bit down on the lie, but to show her naked face…it was too humiliating. 'Can't you leave me with some pride, Ric?'
'This isn't about pride. It's about truth. Just between you and me,' he stated quietly, giving a promise she instinctively believed.
Besides, he had the photograph. Which he'd effectively quashed from publication. Didn't that prove he was keeping her situation under wraps?
With a defeated little shrug of resignation, she removed the glasses, revealing the swelling that reduced one of her eyes to a narrow, bloodshot slit. 'Black truth,' she said self-mockingly, fighting back the pricking of tears.
He nodded. 'I never told you my mother was a battered wife.' Lara flinched at the brutal labelling of what he was seeing.
'She died of injuries my father inflicted when I was eight,' he went on, hammering home what could happen. 'As many times as I tried to protect her, to get in the way, to deflect his violence, I couldn't save her.'
'I'm sorry. I…' She shook her head, swallowing hard to hold back the threatening tears. 'No, you never told me,' she choked out, trying desperately to hang on to some dignity.
'But I can save you, Lara. If you want me to.'
'Oh, God!' Control was beyond her. She moved blindly to the closest chair, dragged it out from the table, collapsed onto it, and covered her face with her hands, propping her elbows on the table for some solid support as she wept over the impossible prospect of being saved from a husband who was never going to let her go.
She was horribly conscious of Ric Donato watching her, waiting. At least he didn't try to touch her or speak comforting words, which would have been unbearable. He remained on the other side of the table, as still as a statue, saying nothing, doing nothing, just giving her time to get herself together again. Which she did eventually, pride in terrible tatters, but as Ric had already said, this wasn't about pride.
'Thank you. But there's nothing you can do.' She lifted her head, letting him see that stark truth in her eyes. 'Except what you've done…with the photograph. I'm very grateful to you for…for blocking it, Ric.'
Still that dark burning in his eyes. 'At the airport…you were running from him?'
'I failed,' she admitted wretchedly. 'Everyone here…they all report to him. I can't go anywhere…without his knowing.'
'No support from your family, Lara?' he asked, frowning over her helplessness.
'My father suffered a stroke.' Her eyes mirrored the bleak irony of the situation. 'He's in one of the Chappel nursing homes. My mother doesn't want to hear anything against Gary. It's too…threatening…'
She didn't go on. Ric knew she was an only child. No siblings to turn to. As for friends, Gary chose them. She'd lost touch with the girlfriends who'd shared her modelling years.
'But you do want to leave him,' he pressed.
'Oh, yes.' She flashed him a derisive look. 'I'm not a masochist, Ric.' 'How much, Lara?' he challenged. 'How far would you be willing to go
to have Gary Chappel out of your life?'
She shook her head defeatedly. 'It's not possible.'
'Yes, it is,' he said with such arrogant confidence it goaded her into a reply that snapped with a mountain of miserable frustration.
'Do you think I haven't tested what can and can't be done?' 'Would you spend a year on an Outback sheep station, away from
everything you've known?'
The Outback? She'd never thought of that as an escape route. Had never been there. Knew no one there. Was completely ignorant of how people lived there. But they did live. And she'd be free of the fear—fear she knew all too intimately, ever constant.
'Yes,' she said, defying any other judgment he might make from the rich and privileged lifestyle that had always been her environment.
Desperation bred desperate measures.
'Are you prepared to walk out with me now? No baggage. Just you, walking out and leaving all this behind.'
'With…you?'
Her mind whirled with this further shock. Ric Donato wasn't posing some theoretical situation. He was actually asking her…and she didn't know the man he was now. How could she agree to such drastic action when her only personal experience with him had become a teenager's romantic memory? That had been…eighteen years ago!
'I'm your safe passage, Lara,' he stated without so much as a flicker of an eyelash. 'I can get you to Gundamurra where you'll be protected from any possible pursuit by your husband. You'll have safe refuge there for the year it takes to get a divorce.'
Gundamurra…it sounded like the end of the earth…primitive…
'It's best if you choose quickly,' he coolly advised. 'If what you say is true, and everyone here reports to your husband, he may already know of my visit and be suspicious of it.'
'How can I trust you to do what you say you'll do?' she cried, the fear of consequences paralysing any decision-making process.
'I'm here. I'm offering. What have you got to lose by trusting me?' 'If you fail, it will be much, much worse.'
'I won't fail.'
'Gary said he'd have a man watching me. Watching the house.
Watching where I go.'
'My car is parked at your front door. I have the resources to evade anyone who follows us.'
He spoke calmly, with an indomitable self-assurance that actually calmed the surge of panic that was screaming through her mind. In its place came a wild litany of hope. Could he do it? Could he really? Get her away to a safe place where Gary couldn't reach her?
An Outback sheep station. Why not?
It had to be more civilized than living like this.
'It's your choice, Lara. It will be a different life, but at least a life where you can always breathe easy.'
She took a deep breath. 'This Gundamurra…it belongs to you?' 'No. But I have lived there. And you'll be made welcome. It's where
you can get your head straight…if you want to.'
Freedom was all she could think about, but freedom might also have a price tag.
'If we do this…and succeed in getting there…I'll owe you big-time, Ric.'
His mouth softened into a whimsical little smile. 'This isn't a money issue.'
Money? She hadn't even thought of money. Looking at the man he'd become—powerful enough to challenge Gary, and feeling his power reaching out and winding around her…what did he want of her?
Was it only compassion for her situation moving him to offer help?
What if he was like Gary, taking without caring what she wanted? No, he couldn't be like that or he wouldn't have spoken about his mother. She was letting fear screw up her instincts.
'You can always pay me back whatever you think you owe me after you get a divorce,' he dropped into her fretful silence.
'How will I manage a divorce if I'm…?'
'I know just the guy who can do that for you. Don't worry about it, Lara. Mitch will nail Gary Chappel to the wall so there'll be no comeback from your ex-husband.'
She shook her head incredulously. This was all happening so fast— promises being held out that she desperately wanted to grab. 'Are you sure about this?'
'Absolutely.' His dark eyes glittered with more than determined purpose as he stepped forward and picked up the envelope she'd laid on the table. 'This photograph will be used to gain fair compensation for what you've suffered at Gary Chappel's hands.'
She stared at him, and the feeling that she'd had about Ric Donato as a teenager came flooding back—a driving, unstoppable force. But he had been stopped then…by the police for stealing a car.
No need for him to steal now. He had the wealth and power to make him unstoppable in any enterprise he chose to take on. With that recognition, hope grew in Lara's heart. Rightly or wrongly, she did trust him. Whatever the risk, his offer was worth taking. At least she should try it.
She scraped her chair back and stood up, adrenalin shooting new energy through her. 'I'll go and get ready.'
Decision made.
He nodded, acknowledging it, approving it. 'Bring nothing more than an ordinary handbag, Lara. Purse, driver's licence, what you'd normally carry on an outing. Okay?'
She was acutely aware of the sense in that instruction—nothing to suggest a final departure. 'I'll only be a couple of minutes, Ric. Wait here for me?'
'Yes. You can put your sunglasses on again.'
She did, then amazingly she found herself smiling at him, the heady promise of freedom lifting her heart. 'Thank you, Ric.'
He smiled back. 'I always wanted to be a white knight coming to the rescue of a fair damsel in distress. It feels good to be at your service, Lara. That's enough for me.'
It was a reassurance that she was safe with him. He wouldn't demand anything of her.
Maybe fairy stories could happen in real life, Lara thought light- headedly, hurrying off to get a bag. Though she couldn't see Ric Donato as a white knight. More a dark prince.
But dark was good when it came to hiding.
If he could keep her safe from Gary, he would indeed be a prince.