The Ex Factor (25 page)

‘I’m going to start a dog sanctuary.’

Her face lights up. ‘You
are
? Kitty, that’s amazing!’

I exhale noisily, relieved. ‘I’m glad you think so. I’ve thought about it, and sad as this may sound, I’ve realised that being around dogs is the thing that makes me happiest. And since I apparently have this compulsion to fix everything’ – Frankie looks a little sheepish –’then I might as well focus on things that really need fixing. I plan to take in the dogs that other shelters deem “unadoptable”. The ones with real physical and psychological issues. I’ll work with them and train them, and rehome as many as I can. The ones I can’t rehome can stay there with me forever. I’m going to call it Rama’s Rescue.’

Frankie’s eyes look suspiciously glassy. ‘You’re incredible,’ she says thickly. She takes another sip of wine, sniffs and clears her throat. When she speaks again, her voice has regained its usual perky pitch. ‘But where will you do it? You can’t house a load of special-needs dogs at our place.’

‘I’m going to look for some land in the country. Maybe down on the south coast. Remember how Mum used to take us camping at Seven Mile Beach when we were kids?’

Frankie nods. ‘It’s beautiful around there.’

‘And expensive, but the
InTouch
money should cover that. Then I’ll keep working for Danica to pay the expenses. And maybe you could use your social-media expertise to help out with some fundraising?’

Frankie looks thoughtful. ‘I’m happy to, but I reckon I can do better than that, too,’ she says at length. She takes the jewellery box from her lap and places it in mine. ‘Consider this your first donation. My gift to Rama’s Rescue, with love.’

I open my mouth to protest, but the look on my sister’s face tells me that no further correspondence will be entered into. So instead I hug her tightly and blub like an infant for several minutes.

‘Will you move down south when the sanctuary is up and running then?’ she asks once I’ve composed myself.

‘I think so,’ I say, elegantly wiping my happy tears away with my sleeve. ‘I’m ready for a change. Being in LA made me see that there’s really nothing for me in Sydney any more.’

‘And what am I? Chopped liver?’ Frankie says with mock affront.

I squeeze her hand. ‘Of course not, Frank. But you have your own life to lead, especially now you and Adam are going to live together. I travel all over the place with my work anyway, so a longer commute won’t make much of a difference. And . . .’ I duck my head, suddenly afraid to give voice to the thought that’s been half-formed in my mind for weeks.

‘And?’ Frankie prompts gently.

‘And I think I need to let the house go. I need to . . . to let Mum go.’ A fresh batch of tears wells in my eyes. ‘I invested so much in the place because it was
hers
, but she’s gone. And I need to face that. I can’t keep trying to hold on to her.’

My need to remain connected to my mother has been at the root of so many of my recent decisions – particularly the unwise ones. I see that now. Would I have fallen so hard, and so fast, for Mitchell if I hadn’t lost her? I can’t help thinking I might not have been so easy to hoodwink if I’d dealt with my grief two years ago. I need to stop living in the past. Starting right now.

‘You and Adam should live in the house,’ I tell Frankie. ‘Start your life together there. Fill the place with new memories. Happy ones.’

She looks ecstatic for a moment, but then Frankie’s brow furrows. ‘I don’t know, Kitty. I think we only have the budget for an apartment,’ she says. ‘We couldn’t afford to buy out your half of the house.’

I want to tell her not to be so silly, that she doesn’t have to buy her own house back, but I can tell that she won’t accept a handout. Buying a home with the man she loves is a big deal to the new, grown-up Frankie – she wants to do it right.

‘How about a trade then? Your necklace for my half of the house?’

‘It’s
your
necklace,’ she says, smiling, and I know we have a deal. ‘I just donated it to Rama’s Rescue, remember?’

‘Trust me, Frances, this thing will cover the house, a sizeable donation to Rama’s Rescue and pretty much anything else you may care to spend it on.’

Her eyes widen to the size of saucers. ‘
Really?
Wow. Mitchell has some seriously good taste.’

‘Yeah, well, I guess dropping a few dollars on an antique trinket for his little Aussie stooge was a small price to pay compared to the millions he’d have lost if his macho reputation took a hammering and he stopped being cast in those big-budget action flicks.’

Frankie unscrews the cap from the wine bottle and tops up both our glasses. ‘Have you heard from him since the story came out?’

‘Briefly. He said none of what Vida told me is true.’ I take a long drink. ‘Because I’m
so
likely to believe anything that comes out of his mouth at this point.’

‘Interesting,’ says Frankie, sipping from her own glass. ‘Was that all he said? He wasn’t angry? He didn’t threaten to sue you for defamation?’

‘No. Actually, he sounded really . . . sad.’ It’s a struggle to get the word out. Even though he devastated me beyond measure, and even though I know nothing we had was real, it still pains me to think of Mitchell hurting.

Frankie sets her glass on the coffee table with a clink. ‘Okay,’ she says, turning to face me. ‘You won’t want to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway and you can yell at me if you want.’

‘Okaaay . . .’

‘Kitty, what if Mitchell was telling the truth? What if there was no publicity stunt? I mean, who
does
that!’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘But what if Vida made it all up? How would she even know about it? The woman is a psychopath. We know this.’

I turn and stare out of the window. The cobalt-blue Pacific extends beneath me to the horizon – twelve thousand kilometres of water with Mitchell on the other side of it. I don’t know how to answer Frankie. Because the possibility that she might be right – that Vida lied to me that day in the dunes – has been gnawing at me ever since I spoke to Mitchell yesterday.

And if Frankie
is
right, then I walked away from the man I love for nothing.

‘And if you’ll just sign here and here, Miss Hayden, then we’re in business.’

Rhonda Bergin slides a sheaf of papers across her desk with one hand and hands me a pen with the other. Two neon smiley-face stickers mark the places in the contract where I need to sign my name.

I take a deep breath and scrawl my signature next to both, and just like that I’m the owner of five gorgeous acres of land at Woodhill, halfway between Berry and Kangaroo Valley.

It’s funny, but between Frankie and me, I’ve always thought of my sister as the impulsive one. After all, it’s Frankie who changes jobs every five minutes, drops six grand on designer clocks on a whim and suddenly falls head over heels in love with a man for whom she once swore undying enmity.

In my mind, I was the sensible, plodding tortoise to Frankie’s always-on-the-go hare. But come to think of it, I’ve made my share of impetuous – some might say rash – decisions, too. From chucking in my steady job as a puppy-school instructor and starting my business six years ago to slapping a movie star and then following that movie star to the other side of the world, it turns out I’m also quite fond of flying by the seat of my pants. Case in point: buying a country home for Rama’s Rescue two days after I started looking. Hopefully this move will have a happier ending than the last one I made.

‘Congratulations, Kitty,’ Rhonda says warmly. ‘I’m so thrilled for you. It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing. I don’t think I’m speaking out of school when I say you can count on the community supporting Rama’s Rescue wholeheartedly.’ She taps the stack of papers on her desk. ‘Now, just let me make a copy of these for you.’

While I wait for Rhonda to take care of the admin, I turn and gaze idly out of the window of her small real-estate agency. It overlooks the main street of Berry, the closest proper town to my new property. The street is hardly bustling by city standards, but for a district town first thing on a Monday morning it’s positively teeming. Locals on their way to work stop and chat on the footpath. Young mums clad in workout gear stride by pushing prams. Working dogs watch from the trays of utes as their farmer owners disappear into shops. Tourists pile into cafés and exit clutching lattes and pastries. It feels purposeful, normal. I think I’m going to like living here.

A sharp rap on the window jolts me out of my reverie. I look up to see Frankie waving like a madwoman on the other side of the window. Adam is by her side, grinning heartily. One arm is looped casually around my sister’s waist; the other clutches Reggie, Dolly and Carl’s leashes. I wasn’t about to leave my housemates behind in Sydney while I went to scout new digs for us.

It’s still strange to see Frankie and Adam together, but it’s wonderful at the same time. Their shared happiness beams out of them like sunshine. They had jumped at the chance to join me on my Rama’s Rescue reconnaissance mission the moment I’d suggested it when Adam got home on Saturday evening to find Frankie and me tipsy on his sofa. And they’d been every bit as enthusiastic as I had about the property when we’d stumbled across it in the hills above Berry yesterday.

In fact, it was Adam who insisted we stay the night and virtually accost Rhonda as she arrived at work this morning, even though it meant he had to call in sick. Frankie has never needed convincing to take a day off work, but for Adam it’s a big deal. I know it was a gesture on his part – a peace offering – and I love him for it.

But I don’t
love
him. Now that I’m in my right mind, I’m quite sure of that.

For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel . . . not quite happy, but content. I’m still healing, still a little raw, but I’m moving forward. My family is back together – because potential future brother-in-law or not, Adam
is
family – and I’m following my passion. Hollyweird feels a million miles away, and so does everything I left there.

Mitchell who? Maybe if I say it to myself often enough, I’ll start to believe it.

I return Frankie’s wave and gesture for them to join me in the office, dogs included. I don’t think Rhonda will object, considering the hefty commission she’s just earned from me.

A second later, my sister bounds to my side. ‘Well,’ she all but squeals. ‘Did you do it? Did you sign on the dotted line?’

‘Are you officially a country gentlewoman?’ Adam adds as he gently wrests Dolly’s nose out of Rhonda’s bin.

‘I did, and I am. Although country spinster is probably a more accurate description. Sign me up for the next CWA cake sale.’

Frankie scoffs. ‘Pfft. You’ll nab yourself a handsome farmer in no time. Rhonda, you must know all the eligible bachelors in the area,’ she calls out as the estate agent shuffles back to her desk.

‘Oh, yes, plenty of decent blokes round here,’ Rhonda says with a throaty chuckle. ‘No movie stars, though!’

The moment the words leave her lips, Rhonda’s face falls. She hasn’t so much as hinted before now that she knows anything about me, but it looks like my infamy has reached the South Coast, too. Gossip is like a noxious weed; it’s everywhere people are and impossible to eradicate.

‘Sorry. I, um . . . I didn’t mean . . . er . . .’ she stammers.

‘It’s fine,’ I say, but my smile feels plastered on. ‘No more movie stars for me. This is a new chapter.’

Suddenly, Rhonda’s office feels oppressively small. The elation I felt a moment earlier as I stood on the precipice of my new, Mitchell-free life evaporates in an instant. I pick up my bag and hurry out, drawing in deep lungfuls of crisp country air as I reach the street. Frankie and Adam scurry after me.

‘You okay, Kit?’ Frankie asks, taking my hand.

I take another restorative breath and smile, genuinely this time. ‘Absolutely. I just forgot that I haven’t quite faded back into obscurity yet,’ I say, fumbling in my bag for my car keys with my free hand. ‘I’m sure it won’t be long now though.’

From the corner of my eye, I see Adam and Frankie exchange a meaningful glance as I unlock the van.

‘Do you want to tell her or will I?’ Adam whispers.

‘I’m right here, people! Tell me what?’

Frankie shoots her boyfriend a look that clearly says
way to be subtle.

‘I don’t think people are going to forget your name just yet,’ she says carefully, avoiding my gaze.

I groan. ‘God, what now?’

‘I only read it myself this morning, and I was going to tell you on the drive back to Sydney . . .’

My heart begins to hammer in my chest. ‘What is it, Frankie? Spit it out!’

Frankie purses her lips, obviously searching for the right way to say whatever it is she needs to say.

‘It’s Mitchell Pyke, Esquire,’ Adam blurts. ‘The prodigal bastard is back in town.’

Two and a half hours is a long time to spend in a car with my sister. Particularly when she has an internet-enabled phone and an agenda.

As I drive the three of us back to Narrabeen, Frankie curls up in the passenger seat and reads aloud from apparently every celebrity gossip website in existence as she tries to deduce exactly why Mitchell has returned to Australia. The upshot is that he’s needed for reshoots on
Solitaire,
and has jetted in for a couple of weeks to complete them.

Now, I know from years in the film business that reshoots are almost always necessary once a director starts editing a movie; they invariably find they need another shot of some landscape or building, or perhaps an actor mumbled his lines and it can’t be fixed even with clever sound editing. Frankie, however, chooses to read a whole lot more into it.

‘He’s here to see you,’ she says authoritatively. ‘He’s come to win you back.’

‘No, Frankie. He’s come to film additional scenes for his movie.’

‘Oh
really?
Why come all the way here, then? Why couldn’t they just do it on some sound stage in La La Land?’

‘There could be a million reasons,’ I tell her. ‘They may have wanted specific locations. It may have simply been cheaper. Mitchell would be contractually obligated to do reshoots wherever they want him to.’

‘Puh-leeease, Kitty!’ Frankie rolls her eyes as if she can’t believe my naiveté. ‘The man is Hollywood royalty. He does what he wants.’

Well, she’s not wrong on that front. But still.

‘You’re forgetting one thing, little sister. Our relationship wasn’t real. I wasn’t Mitchell’s girlfriend; I was just a decoy. He can’t win me back, because you can’t regain something you never really had in the first place.’

‘You need to see him,’ Frankie continues as if I haven’t even spoken. This would be the agenda-pushing part of her plan, then.

It takes all my willpower not to slam on the brakes and order my sister out of the car on the side of the Princes Highway. Luckily, Adam voices my incredulity before I cause a multi-vehicle pileup.

‘Frances, my darling, have you taken leave of your senses?’ he pipes up from the back seat. ‘Why on earth would Kitty want to do that?’

‘He
owes
her,’ Frankie says emphatically, twisting around to face Adam. Then, turning back to look at me, ‘He owes you, Kitty.’

‘Hey, I got a necklace, a car and a lucrative magazine deal. I imagine Mitchell thinks I’ve been fairly compensated for my troubles,’ I mutter darkly.

‘That!’ she exclaims. ‘That’s why you’ve got to see him. I know you’re trying to move on, but your bitterness is showing. You’ll never be at peace with any of this until you ask him why he’s such a lying scumbag. What he owes you is an explanation.’ She pauses and cocks her head to one side. ‘For
closure
,’ she says meaningfully.

‘Two days ago you said maybe Mitchell wasn’t such a lying scumbag after all,’ I remind her. ‘You tried to tell me that Vida might have made the whole thing up.’ The fact that there’s still a little voice in my head telling
me
that Vida might have made the whole thing up is a can of worms I’ll need to muster all my courage to peek inside.

‘Hmm. Did I?’ she says, her mouth twitching upwards in an enigmatic smile. She turns to stare out of the window.

Silence descends on our little trio and we exchange barely a word as we travel the rest of the way to Sydney. I find myself wishing Frankie would keep reading out inane snippets from those trashy websites; anything to distract me from the what-ifs playing on endless loop in my head.

What if
Vida’s claims about Mitchell’s and my relationship were all lies? Despite her angelic public persona, she has a pretty impressive track record of manipulation, undermining and just all-out nastiness behind the scenes. And I definitely wasn’t her favourite person on the day of the Cleopatra’s Serum shoot. She grew more sullen and disagreeable every time anyone tossed a kind word in my direction. Maybe she was lashing out when she said Mitchell had never had genuine feelings for me. The idea that Vida aimed to wound me as deeply as she could, any way she could, is definitely not beyond the realms of possibility.

But why was I so quick to believe her that day? Not even an hour before she unleashed her secret, Mitchell had vowed to get our relationship back on track. I was floating on cloud nine. Why, then, was I willing to let a few vicious words from his awful ex-girlfriend shatter that?

It’s because I didn’t believe Mitchell. Or rather, I didn’t believe
in us
. This realisation slams into my consciousness like one of the semi-trailers hurtling past me on the highway. Well before Vida told me my relationship with Mitchell was an illusion, I already felt that way myself. And his assumption that I’d trot back to LA to be with him only confirmed it. I know I can’t function in that place, so even as my mouth was telling Mitchell I’d give things another try, my brain was signing our relationship’s death certificate.

I doubted Mitchell really loved me, and I didn’t trust my love for him. So it never could have worked, because I was convinced it never would.

Which, of course, makes me a great big hypocrite. The night I left LA I had accused Mitchell of not having faith in us, but it was me. Me! I thought turning my life upside down to follow him to America was proof of my commitment to our relationship, when it turns out I was the faithless one all along.

Mitchell never said he loved me, but from his sweet little notes to using that awful picture of me as his screensaver, he showed it in a million different ways. Only I thought they were Hollywood tricks. I refused to accept he was over Vida, no matter how often he said it or how creatively he demonstrated it, partly because Vida Torres is not the sort of woman men get over. And partly because she left him without warning, and my experience of being left by the person you love most is that the pain of it never goes away.

I left Mitchell because I expected him to leave me, and I bought Vida’s story because being angry with him was easier than admitting to myself that I’d made a huge, huge mistake.

‘Oh no,’ I whisper under my breath.

‘Yeah,’ Frankie replies.