CHAPTER TEN

      THE rest of Sunday went by without a call from Jake.

      No contact from him on Monday, either.

      It would probably come on Friday, Laura told herself, doing her best to concentrate on her uni lectures and not get too disturbed by the lack of the communication she needed. Regardless of the situation with Jake, she still had to move on with her life, get the qualifications necessary for her chosen career. Yet all her sensible reasoning couldn’t stop the sick yearning that gripped her stomach when her thoughts drifted to him. And telling herself he would call soon didn’t help.

      It surprised her to see her father’s car parked in the driveway when she arrived home on Tuesday afternoon. He never left work early and it wasn’t even five o’clock. A scary thought hit her. Had something bad happened to her mother? An accident? Illness? She couldn’t imagine anything but an emergency bringing her father home at this hour.

      She ran to the front door, her heart pumping with fear as she unlocked it and rushed into the hallway. ‘Mum? Dad?’ she called anxiously.

      ‘Get in here, Laura!’ her father’s voice thundered from the lounge room. ‘I’ve been waiting for you!’

      She stood stock-still, her heart thumping even harder. He was in a rage. No distress in that tone. It was total fury. The only concern she need have for her mother was being subjected to his venom again.

      The double doors from the hallway into the lounge room were open. Laura stiffened her spine, squared her shoulders and forced her feet forward, knowing that her mother would be spared the full-on brunt of savage remarks when he turned them onto her. It didn’t matter how much she hated these vicious scenes. Better for her to be here than not here.

      On entering the war zone, she found her mother cowering in the corner of one of the sofas, white-faced and hugging herself tightly as though desperately trying to hold herself together. Her father was standing behind the bar, splashing Scotch into a glass of ice. His face was red and the bottle of Scotch was half-empty.

      ‘Are you still seeing Jake Freedman?’ he shot at her.

      No point in trying any evasion when her father was in this mood. He’d dig and dig and dig.

      ‘I don’t know,’ she answered honestly.

      ‘What do you mean “you don’t know”?’ he jeered, his eyes raking her with contempt. ‘Don’t pretend to be stupid, Laura.’

      She shrugged. ‘I was with him on Saturday night but he made no plans for us to meet again.’

      Her father snorted. ‘Had a last hurrah, screwing my daughter.’

      ‘Alex, it’s not Laura’s fault,’ her mother spoke up, showing more courage than she usually did. ‘You introduced him to her.’

      It enraged him into yelling, ‘The bloody mole played his cards perfectly! Anyone would have been sucked in by him!’

      ‘Then don’t blame Laura,’ her mother pleaded weakly, wilting under the blast.

      What had Jake done? Laura’s mind was in a whirl as she crossed the room to where her mother was scrunched into as small a space as possible and sat on the sofa’s wide armrest next to her. ‘What’s going on, Dad?’ she asked, needing to get to the crux of the problem.

      He bared his teeth in a vicious snarl. ‘That bastard has taken all my business to the Companies’ Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board and had me suspended from any further practice in the industry, pending further investigation.’

      ‘Suspended?’ This was why he was home, but… ‘Investigation of what?’

      His hand sliced the air in savage dismissal. ‘You’ve never been interested in my work, Laura, so it’s none of your concern.’

      ‘I want to know what Jake is accusing you of.’

      He shook a furious finger at her. ‘All you have to know is he was hell-bent on taking me down every minute he was supposedly working for me. Rolling you was icing on the cake for him.’

      ‘But why? You’re making it sound like a personal vendetta.’

      ‘It is a personal vendetta.’ His eyes bitterly raked her up and down. ‘How personal can you get with his hands all over you, exulting in taking every damned liberty he could.’

      ‘Alex!’ her mother cried in pained protest.

      She was ignored.

      ‘And you let him, didn’t you? My daughter!’ her father thundered.

      Laura refused to answer.

      He sneered at her silence. ‘He would have revelled in every intimacy you gave up to him.’

      ‘This isn’t about me, Dad,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘I’m obviously a side issue. Why does Jake have a personal vendetta against you?’

      ‘Because of JQE!’ The words were spat out.

      ‘That doesn’t mean anything to me,’ Laura persisted.

      He glared at her contemptuously as though her ignorance was another poisonous barb to his pride.

      Her chin lifted defiantly. ‘I think I have the right to know what I’ve been a victim of.’

      ‘JQE was his stepfather’s company,’ he finally in formed her in a bitterly mocking tone. ‘He believes I could have saved it and chose not to. The man died of a heart attack soon after I secured the liquidator’s fee.’

      Stepfather! ‘Was his surname different to Jake’s?’

      ‘Of course it was! If I’d had any idea they were related, he would never have been employed by me.’

      ‘How long has he been working in your company?’

      ‘Six years! Six damnable years of worming his way through my files, wanting to nail me to the wall!’

      A man with a mission…James Bond… Dark and dangerous…

      Her instincts had been right at their first meeting, but she hadn’t heeded them, hadn’t wanted to.

      ‘Could