Page 84 of Ace My Heart

I don’t know if Joel told you, but I’m back in Australia – to stay. I dropped by to visit you, but you weren’t home. I would really like to see you soon, if you’re not busy. I’m staying at my investment apartmentin Kirribilli: 901/27 North South Road, until I get a chance to go house hunting. It would be lovely to see you. Drop by tonight if you get a chance.

Love, Ben

I looked away from the paper. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see him, after the conversation I’d overheard him having with Joel. He’d sounded frighteningly possessive. I thought I’d made it pretty clear that I wasn’t interested.

I sank down into a chair at my kitchen table and thought back over the conversation I’d had with Ben in Dubai. I’d told him I wasn’t interested, hadn’t I?

No, I hadn’t. I’d told him that there was no point in starting something up when he lived in Dubai and I was in Australia. Damn it! I’d thought I was letting him down easy. How was I supposed to know that he’d take it way too literally and move back here?

God, what should I do?

No answer.

I put my head in my hands. I couldn’t come up with a solution on my own. I couldn’t ask Joel, for a thousand different reasons.

And then another thought hit me. How the fuck had the note made its way to my kitchen table? If he’d dropped by while I was out, the most he could have done was slip it under my door. I shivered, suddenly feeling cold and very alone in my usually cozy apartment.

Someone had been in here while I was out. Amanda had known that I’d gotten home last night; I’d texted her so she wouldn’t wake me early in the morning on her way home from work, thinking she needed to give Connor his morning feed.

There was one other option.

I stood up, took a deep breath, picked up the phone and dialled.

“Hello?” my mother’s prim and proper voice answered.

“Hi, Mum,” I began. I opened my mouth to speak again, but shedidn’t let me.

“Melanie! I can’t believe you would do this to me! I feel like I can’t show my face in church ever again!”

“Are you talking about Woody Magazine, Mum?” I asked.

“I’m talking abouteverything! What’s gotten into you? I’ve heard stories about this … video … and now you’re in your unmentionables on the cover of a sleazy men’s magazine! And Maureen Turner told me that when she was dropping her daughter to work the other day, she saw a giant poster of you at Chatswood Eastmeadow, wearing underwear and spanking some boy with a tennis racquet!

“I didn’t get you into tennis so that you could make an exhibition of yourself in this way! Your behaviour is getting completely out of hand. Have you been to confession yet? Because I’m getting very tired of always telling Father Shannon that you’re just busy and you’ll pop by to see him soon.”

She stopped to take a breath and I jumped in.

“Okay, Mum, you listen to me!” I said. “What I do with my body is nobody’s business but mine. If I decide that I want to posenaked, I’ll do it. So you can just go tell Maureen Turner that she can stick it! And the ‘boy’ who’s posing with me, that’sJoel, Mum – remember? The son of the man who made me the player I am today. Mum, you’ve known him and his family for almostsixyears now!

“I don’t play tennis because I want to make an exhibition of myself. I play because I love it and because I’m good at it. You haven’t even spoken to me since before Indian Wells – did you know I made it to the final? Did you know that I’m now ranked in the top twenty female players in the world? I’m achieving my dream here, Mum!

“No I haven’t seen Father Shannon yet and I don’t plan on visiting him anytime soon. So you’d better stop making him promises that you can’t keep.

“I don’t want you snooping around my house when I’m not here. Either stay out, or I’ll change the locks. I’m sick of you butting into my life!”

I hung up before she had a chance to speak again. She’dprobably read the letter from Ben instead of just leaving it on the table. That would have been her style.

I collapsed onto the lounge, all energy sapped from me. It had always been this way with Mum – fiery screaming matches that left me drained immediately after.

I sent a group text to Brad and Amanda:

Mel: SOS guys – need relationship advice stat!

Amanda replied within ten seconds.

Mandy Moo: Be there in thirty. OK if Thomas comes too?

Mel: Yep!

---