HOT SET: Playing with Fidelity (A romantic suspense novel) (6 page)

Amelia turned off the hot tap with her foam—
flecked toes, the dimmed bathroom lights making her French pedicure sparkle like pink diamonds. She sank down into the deep water of the enormous upturned kidney-shaped bath, her jaw only just above the warm foam, her knees poking out of the fragrant froth like two creamy islands in a misty-white lagoon. She had her blond hair piled high on her head and held precariously in place with a large, black clip. She’d washed off her make-up and her face looked like a teenager’s in the low light; softer and not as stunning.

The large, white
hotel bathroom turned cream and peach in the flickering candle light that shadowed the room’s recesses and highlighted the white tiles and huge mirrors, relaxing and enchanting her. Amelia breathed a big, contented breath and closed her eyes, absorbing the delicious heat.

She
had to admit it; she had a huge crush on Rhys Bradford. The control freak in her couldn’t term it obsessed, although it bordered so close it shared the same frequency. It had only been a week and strangely, for the first time for as long as she could remember, the cold ambition which had always driven her was surpassed by something different, unusual and warm.

It was… addictive
. Very addictive.

I
t had been an unbelievable seven days. He had made love to her (she could think of it no other way) three times and if anything, it had gotten better. At the thought of him, Amelia felt lust slither under her skin and she wished she could hop into a cab right now for another session, but he was at Dean’s to watch some stupid-sounding game called rugby. He’d told her enthusiastically Australia was playing England; she’d shrugged, not getting it.

Amelia pressed a small silver button on the bath edge and euphoria imploded with the gentle pounding
of her pink skin by a dozen perfectly placed jets. She zoned out and for some reason, thought of her mother, whom she hadn’t called for a couple of weeks. She immediately felt guilty, usually calling at least once a week. She resolved to do it in the morning.

After all, her mother was the only family she had left.

Amelia
Rhein came from a lower-socio economic area of Chicago. Her mother, Karen, was a woman old beyond her age from years of caring for Amelia’s disabled father, Sam, and raising her wilful daughter.

Sam was a proud man, very active
, athletic and handsome and he loved things that moved fast, especially his motorbike. In school, he was the popular ‘jock’, a prominent member of the lacrosse team and an unapologetic attention seeker; his adrenalin-churning exploits getting more and more elaborate. Karen Richmond was in the popular girl’s group. Blonde and gorgeous, she did not possess much scholastic ability (“one must marry well, dear”). It was the stereotypical popular girl dates stereotypical popular boy and they married soon after graduating senior year in an overpriced extravaganza funded untraditionally by Sam’s parents as Karen’s weren’t rich enough to give their daughter the wedding expected. Karen fell pregnant in their second year of marriage with Sam earning reasonable money in a lower level of a large bank with future promotions guaranteed. When Amelia arrived, Sam was ecstatic and Karen the doting stay-at-home-mum.

They were happy, prosperous and the envy of many
.

Sam had
the accident just as Amelia was developing into a sunny, adorable, snow-blonde three-year old. He wasn’t even going fast when it happened. He was riding his bike up a blind-cornered windy road he’d ridden a hundred times before. On this particular trip, he was stuck behind a rusty petrol tanker that unbeknownst to Sam, was leaking oil heavily from a faulty sump. On an upward hair-pin, the truck was going so slow it was almost stopped and a large pool of oil streamed onto the road as the driver changed gears. Sam was accelerating at the same time his wheels entered the puddle and the bike fell sharply, pinning his leg hard against the tarmac and sliding across the road with him trapped under it. Sam slammed into the Armco railing, twisting his lower back and fracturing his lower vertebrae.

He would never walk again
.

Sam c
ould have lived a productive life as banking required the use of the brain, but his pride disintegrated when he became a paraplegic, pushing him into a depression so deep, even his beloved daughter couldn’t get him out of it.

S
am’s medical bills were enormous and insurance didn’t cover them when the family could no longer afford the premiums. Karen tried to find the owners of the truck to sue for compensation but the driver was never located, so she had no choice but to shoulder responsibility. Sam’s parents helped only occasionally and reluctantly, hating that their son was no longer ‘whole’ and Karen’s were only able to provide small amounts occasionally. She worked in a supermarket and took in washing but it was inevitable that they move from their affluent suburb into a small, dumpy house in the outer reaches of Chicago.

Sam used his disability cheque to bury himself in the drug of the miserable
. As alcohol took over his life, his young, susceptible daughter watched his transformation from athletic, tall and handsome into an overweight, self-absorbed, very angry man. Sam, in turn, observed both his wife’s prettiness disintegrate and his daughter’s withdrawal from him, making him even angrier. It was justified to throw that plate one day and it felt so satisfying to see it shatter against the wall. It felt just as justified yelling at Karen and Amelia the following day over a piece of burnt toast. He felt guilty for a moment until the next time he got angry, and the next time, and the next time until vitriol was the only way he knew how to speak. He called Amelia a slut, whore, ugly, skinny, useless and stupid. As a pre-teen with a fragile self-esteem, she believed what he said.

Amelia, her confidence now ground into the dirt, found
solace in an unexpected gift. She was eleven when she started to write a diary in the sanctuary of her room. It was something Sam couldn’t interfere with and she poured her frustration and dreams into that little exercise book, which later became several. A year later, at twelve, she looked back through those sheets and noticed the words were mature, poetic, clever and well-flowing.

Amazed and f
eeling an uncharacteristic of burst of self-assurance, she nervously, and without her parent’s knowledge, sent in a short story into a local paper’s writing competition. She came third. Amelia was elated and following her newly-found confidence, joined a writing club at school and later submitted articles for the school newspaper under the assumed name of Meredith Scholar. She didn’t make a fuss of her talent and no one asked so she was left to write to her heart’s content.

Amelia, being
so ashamed of her rundown house and ugly father, had shunned relationships of both the romantic and friendship types, not that people approached her for either, anyway. Having no positive association with her good looks, she downplayed them. At 13, she let her fringe grow long and messy, hiding her face. She wore shapeless clothing and hunched a little to look shorter. She didn’t speak up in class, was an average student academically and just tried to not be noticed. But despite her efforts, a statuesque body and heartbreaking face was emerging from beneath her teenage gauche.

She was happ
y by herself; it just meant she found social etiquette challenging and regularly missed queues by reacting with the wrong emotion or words to a situation, something which she’d struggle with for the rest of her life. Combined with her clothing choices and shy nature, this isolated her further. At 14, a particularly nasty bully named Lisa decided her easy pickings and Amelia had a terrible year, spending most of it crying.

Her life was so sad
, but she had big dreams. She hated Sam with a passion that was tangible and knew the ultimate revenge would be taking her mother away from him, leaving him to die alone. Amelia fantasised coming back to her dingy streets in a fancy car and whisking her mother away to a quaint little cottage all of her own, leaving Sam shaking his fist behind them and never seeing his hideous face again. He didn’t belong in her dreams and wanted nothing to do with him (something Sam did sadly note but was too far-gone to change). She lived this daydream, it was all she had.

Amelia was a few months past 15 when the miracle happened
.

She was in the public library; a favourite place of solace and protection
. For a change, she’d tied her hair back in a messy knot and as the sun moved through the windows, a warm, bright patch of yellow light surrounded and heated her and she took off her sloppy jumper leaving on a simple black singlet top. Unknown to her, the sun stream descended like a Godly aura, illuminating her loose strawberry blond hair, peaches n’ cream skin, icy blue eyes and Cupid’s bow lips. Her figure without the baggy clothes was slender and long, her arms slim with a few freckles delicately tracing the surface, her breasts small but well-formed even in the unfitting bra. The angle of the beam shaped her figure, framing her with a glow.

Peter
Denner was mesmerised.

He’d been looking for a book from a favourite novelist and had stopped in his tracks at the angelic young woman enthroned in the beam. This was the face he’d been looking for, the figure perfect
. She was exquisite.

Peter couldn’t help himself
. He rushed over and landed with an inept plonk into the plastic chair opposite Amelia. She jumped in fright and yelped, a sound which bounced around the library producing death stares from the bench of librarians. She pushed back her chair to distance herself from the flamboyant man in front of her.

“
No, no, please. I’m not going to hurt you,” Peter apologised, holding his hands palm outwards in a disarming gesture. He hurried on, not realising in his earnestness that he sounded like a stalker. “I just think you’re one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen and I want your name and to photograph you.”

“
What? Get away from me!”

Peter could see he’d terrified
her. “No, please don’t go!”

Amelia was grabbing her books and papers in a hurry, barely managing to hold them
. A notebook dropped noisily to the floor and Peter dropped quickly to retrieve it for her.

He was practically on his knees pleading, drawing the attention of everyone in the
library. “No, you don’t understand! I’m a photographer, a model photographer. I need a model for an art shoot and you’d be perfect.”

She snatched the notebook from
him. “Look, mister, you’re freaking me out.”

“
Can we please talk about this? Somewhere else maybe?”

“
No! Hell no!”

“
I promise I’m not a pervert. I’m legit. Look, see, here’s my card…” he held out the card in her direction, his name and profession clearly printed on one side.

Amelia had backed away looking like a terrified bird, eyes wide
. Peter held out the card like he was luring her closer with a tidbit.

He spoke
quietly, “I promise. I only want to photograph you, nice photographs, for a magazine. That’s all.”

She loo
ked at the card he waved at her. Peter was in his mid-40s, she guessed, almost six-foot tall and slim and was wearing a colourful combination of pirate shirt, vest, dress pants and purple Doc Martin boots open from the ankle. Under a thick head of dyed messy brown hair, his face was round with a prominent nose, small wrinkles around kind brown eyes and a pair of round silver glasses, lending him favourite-crazy-uncle sort of feel. She looked at the card again, wondering if it was going to bite her, then tentatively reached out and plucked it from his fingers. Peter sighed in relief as she read it.

“
I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir. You’re obviously scaring this girl.” came the dismissive tone of one of the librarians, her face squished in disbelief that someone would dare make such a holler in
her
library.

“
Okay, okay. I’m leaving. But not before I ask for this woman’s name and get a promise she’ll call.”

“
The library is not the place to coerce minors. You will leave immediately.”

The curly-haired
, voluptuous librarian stood no higher than 5’4 but still looked intimidating.

“
Okay, I’m going.”

He tried once more to plead with
Amelia. “Please, call. It’ll change your life.” And with that, he was escorted to the exit.

Amelia didn’t move
. She watched Peter until the sliding door closed behind him. She dropped into her seat, lay her books on the table and read the card again.

“
What the hell?” she whispered before sliding the card into her old rucksack and tried to push the whole episode to the side.

It was pay day for Sam and he’d spent most of the day in the bar getting wasted
. That night, he was cruellest he’d even been and had started the barrage of verbal abuse the instant Amelia opened the door.

“
Where have you been, you slut? How dare you not come home straight after school? You’ve been sleeping’ around, haven’t you? HAVEN’T YOU!”