LEAH DIDN'T STOP swimming till a full twenty laps were
behind her.
Satisfied with her workout, she stroked over to the side
of the pool and grabbed the silver handles on the ladder.
As she hauled herself upwards out of the water, her gaze
connected with her left thigh and the rough ridges of
white skin that criss-crossed it.
Leah didn't look away, as she usually did. Instead, she
forced herself to study the scars in the early morning
sunshine.
They had faded quite a bit over the past two years. But
they were never going to go away, she accepted as she
climbed out on to the tiled pool surround and reached for
her towel.
Leah sighed. She wished her disfigurement didn't bother
her so much. It seemed pathetic to be upset about a few
wretched scars when the car accident that had produced
them had taken the life of her mother.
Nothing compared with that tragedy, not even Carl leaving
her a few months after the accident. Though she'd been
shattered at the time.
Leah clutched the towel tightly in her hands, rubbing at
her scars less than gently as she recalled the expression
on Carl's face when he'd taken his first good look at her
scarred leg. He'd been utterly revolted. And repulsed.
He'd made excuses not to make love to her for weeks after
she came home from hospital, till finally he'd announced
that he wanted a divorce, saying it was because she had
changed.
Leah agreed that she had. During the long, painful weeks
she'd been in hospital, she'd found a different person
inside herself. A better person, she liked to think. A
person with more character, and insight, and compassion.
Carl claimed she'd become far too serious and was no fun
any more. Leah's desperate argument that she'd just lost
her mother and was naturally feeling sad made no
impression on him at all.
His leaving her had nothing to do with her personality
having changed, she thought bitterly. It was all to do
with her scars. And her limp.
Well, the limp had long gone but the scars would never go.
Not the scars on her legs. Or the scars on her heart.
Still, she'd finally come to terms with Carl's calling it
quits on her. After all, what woman would actually want to
stay married to a man who could not tolerate a wife who
was no longer physically perfect?
Which, before the accident, she had been. Or so she'd been
told all her life.
Leah had been the image of her mother, a natural blonde
with lovely green eyes, perfect teeth and skin, and a very
pretty face and figure. Leah had grown up taking her good
genes for granted. Taking her privileged lifestyle for
granted as well.
As the only child of one of Sydney's most successful
stockbrokers, she'd never wanted for a thing. She'd been
spoiled rotten all her life, her pampered upbringing
producing a precious little society princess who thought
the world was her oyster. Working for a living had never
been on Leah Bloom's agenda. She had a monthly allowance,
plus a credit card. Why work nine to five in some dreary
job?
When people had asked what she did for a living, she had
told them she was an aspiring writer, a minor ambition
that had come to her during her last year at school when
her English teacher complimented her on one of her
creative writing assignments. She'd even attended a
fiction-writing course at one stage, bought herself a
computer and started a chick-lit novel, which was little
more than a diary of what she did every week.
Which meant extremely silly and shallow, Leah decided in
hindsight.
How could it be anything else when her life was silly and
shallow, every day filled with shopping and charity
luncheons and idle hours spent in beauty salons getting
ready for the evening's outing. By the time Leah was
twenty-one, she'd been to more parties and premieres and
black-tie dos than she could count.
Falling in love and marrying Carl had been the icing on
her seemingly never-ending cake. He'd been attractive and
charming and rich. Very rich. Leah's family didn't mix
with any other kind.
Carl had been thirty when they married, the heir to an
absolute fortune made in diamonds. She'd been twenty-three.
They'd only been married for six months when the accident
happened. Way too short a time for Carl to fall out of
love with her. Leah had long come to the conclusion that
she'd just been a trophy wife, a decoration on his arm to
show off, a possession that he'd only valued when she'd
been glitteringly perfect.
Once she'd become flawed, he hadn't wanted her any more.
"Mrs B. said to tell you breakfast will be ready in ten
minutes," a male voice called out.
Leah glanced up to see her father leaning over the balcony
that adjoined the master bedroom.
Dressed in his favourite navy silk dressing-gown and with
a tan that a summer of swimming and yachting had produced,
her father looked much younger than his sixty-two years.
Of course, he did keep himself very fit in his home gym. A
thick headful of expertly dyed brown hair didn't hurt,
either.
"That's the only reason I come home every weekend, you
know," she replied. "For Mrs B.'s cooking."
This was a lie, of course. She came home every weekend to
spend time with her father, to feel his parental
affection, up close and personal.
But Leah didn't want to live at home twenty-four seven.
Joachim Bloom was far too dominating a personality for
that. Leah knew she would find herself giving in to him if
she was always around, like her mother had. As happy as
her parents had been in their marriage, Leah had always
been well aware who was the boss in their relationship.
"Rubbish!" her father retorted. "You're skinny as a rake."
"You can never be too thin," she quipped. "Or too rich,"
he finished for her. "Which reminds me, daughter, there's
something important I have to discuss with you over
breakfast, so shake a leg."
"The good one?" Leah shot back at him. "Or the gimpy one?"
Pretending to her father not to care about her scars had
become a habit. She didn't want him to know that they
bothered her as much as they still did. Or that they were
the reason she never went to the beach any more, or swam
anywhere else but here, at home, when there was no one
around but her father and Mrs B. to see them.
"Very funny," he said with a roll of his eyes, and
disappeared back inside.
Leah threw the towel over her shoulder and headed for her
bedroom, one of six in the two-storeyed, waterside mansion
that she'd been brought up in and which was probably worth
many millions on the current market.
Vaucluse was the place to live in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
For a while after his mother's death, her father had
thought of selling the house and buying elsewhere, but
Leah had talked him out of it. And she was so glad she
had. It was a comfort at times, to be around her mother's
things. To feel her presence in the rooms.
Such beautiful rooms. Such a beautiful house, Leah thought
wistfully as she climbed the curving staircase that led up
to the bedrooms.
The thought didn't come to Leah till she was in the shower
that her father might have changed his mind about the
house. He might still want to sell. Maybe that was what he
wanted to discuss with her.
I won't let him, she resolved as she snapped off the
water. I'll fight him to the death!
A couple of minutes later, she was running downstairs,
dressed in cut-off blue jeans and a pink singlet top, her
long damp hair up in a ponytail.
Joachim's heart lurched as his daughter raced into the
morning room. How like her mother she was! It was like
looking at Isabel in her twenties.
"If you think you're going to sell this house, Daddy,"
Leah tossed at him with a feisty look as she sat down at
the breakfast table, "then you can think again."
Joachim sighed. Like her mother in looks, but not in
personality. Isabel had been a soft sweet woman, always
deferring to him. Never making waves.
Leah looked soft and sweet. When she'd been younger, she'd
even been soft and sweet. But over the past eighteen
months, she'd become much more assertive, and very
independent. Not hard, exactly. But quite formidable and
forthright.
But who could blame her for turning tough, came a more
sympathetic train of thought. Carl had a lot to answer
for. Fancy leaving Leah when she needed him the most. The
man was a weasel and a coward. Joachim wouldn't spit on
him if he was on fire.
His daughter had had two alternatives during that awful
time in her life. Go to pieces, or develop a thicker skin.
For a while it had been touch and go. Joachim was very
proud that Leah had eventually pulled herself together and
moved on.
"No, Leah," he told her with a reassuring smile. "I'm not
selling the house. I know how much you love it."
Leah's relief was only temporary. Then what did Daddy want
to talk to her about?
"What's up, then?" she asked as she reached for a slice of
toast from the silver toast rack. "You're not going to
make a fuss about my working, are you? I thought you were
proud of my getting a job."
Perhaps surprised would have been a better description of
her father's reaction. When Leah had first mentioned a
year ago that she was going to find a job, her stunned
father had asked her what on earth she thought she could
do. "Even waitresses have to have experience these days!"
he'd told her.
Leah understood his scepticism after she went to have her
resumé done. Because there was nothing much she could put
on it, except a very average pass in her Higher School
certificate — studying had not been high on Leah's society
princess agenda — plus that very brief creative writing
course. She had absolutely no qualifications for
employment other than her social skills and her looks and
a limited ability to use a computer.
Which was why the only job she'd been able to find after
attending endless interviews was as a receptionist. Not at
some flashy establishment in the city, either. She
currently worked for a company that manufactured beauty
products, and had their factory and head office at
Ermington, a mainly industrial suburb in western Sydney.
"I am proud of your getting that job," her father
insisted. "Extremely."
Mrs B., coming in with a plate piled high with scrambled
eggs, hash browns, fried tomato and bacon, interrupted
their conversation for a moment.
"This looks delicious, Mrs B.," Leah complimented her
father's housekeeper as she placed the plate in front of
her.
Leah was privately thankful that she only had to eat Mrs
B.'s breakfast one day a week, or she'd have a backside as
big as a bus.