‘Too damned right,’ Nathan agreed. ‘Perceptive of you. No hormones.’
The woman viewed Sasha with icy contempt. ‘Beware of slander. I have a law degree, the same as Nathan.’
Dismissing Sasha as too trivial for further consideration, she turned back to the target of her visit. ‘We have a custodial case on our hands, Nathan. I came to give you a choice. You can remarry me and play the part of the adoring husband, which you do so well, for the next twelve years. In that time I will become the first female premier of this state and have two terms in office.’
Enlightenment burst through Sasha’s mind. The vague familiarity of the face—Elizabeth Maddox—prominent campaigner on television in the last state election—the consummate speaker for women’s interests.
‘That satisfies my needs,’ she continued, uncaring of the naked and grasping ambition she displayed. ‘You get to keep Matt, Nathan. That will satisfy your needs.’
‘If needs must.’ It was the voice of hopelessness.
Sasha was appalled at the deal offered and Nathan’s response to it. ‘That is so unfair!’ The words poured from her lips before she could bite her tongue. ‘It’s blackmail!’
The woman shrugged. It was of no consequence to her whether it was fair or not. Sasha’s heart plummeted to the same basement dungeon where she had previously put Nathan Parnell. She looked at him in desperate appeal. Was there no way out of this poisonous woman’s plot?
He misread her look. ‘Elizabeth didn’t become avaricious for power over people until after we married,’ he said, as though wanting Sasha to understand there was some mitigation for his mistake in marrying the woman.
‘It took me a while to realise my potential,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘But I made it big. And I’m going to make it bigger. One day I’m going to be the first female prime
minister of this country. My name will be enshrined in every history book.’
The gloating pride in her voice sent a wave of revulsion through Sasha. The self-aggrandisement was sickening enough, but then she had the gall to look at Nathan as though he were an object of pity.
‘And what will you have done, Nathan? What will you achieve?’ she mocked.
He made no reply, simply staring stonily at his ex-wife. And Sasha suddenly understood. There was no point in talking caring or kindness or generosity of heart to a heart of stone. Nor would Elizabeth give credit to any genius of mind that was not bent to amassing and cementing power.
‘I’ll expose you,’ Sasha said, fiercely hating everything Elizabeth Maddox stood for. ‘I’ll repeat this conversation. As a witness. I’ll sell it to the newspapers. I’ll...’
Elizabeth laughed at her. ‘You’d be digging yourself a hole you’d never climb out of, you poor, pathetic idiot. You couldn’t pay off the damages I’d collect in a lifetime.’
‘I could show up your rotten hypocrisy so you’d never get elected again,’ Sasha flung back at her.
‘No one would believe you by the time I finished ripping your character to shreds,’ she retorted with chilling confidence. ‘In the courtroom I can make black look white and white look black.’
She looked pointedly at Bonnie, then eyed Sasha with malicious intent. ‘I think I’d portray you as a...tramp. A gold-digger. A sleazy gutter bitch who’s trying to sell something more profitable than what’s between her legs. I can do it, too, can’t I, Nathan?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed heavily. ‘You can do it, Elizabeth.’
She didn’t bother acknowledging the affirmation. Her cold reptilian eyes kept projecting their lethal message straight at Sasha. ‘That was the difference between us. Nathan was an idealist. He wanted truth and justice, no matter at what cost. I wanted success. I won. Nathan lost. That’s true, isn’t it, Nathan?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed even more heavily. ‘You won. I lost.’
It answered all the questions Sasha had had about why Nathan was no longer a barrister. And why he took the law into his own hands to correct what he perceived as wrong.
Elizabeth bestowed her smarmy smile on him. ‘That’s the way it’s always been between us. You recognise and accept that, don’t you, Nathan?’
‘I hope you never make yourself Minister for Justice,’ he said, hating his defeat yet apparently powerless to evade it.
‘Why would you lose the custody case?’ Sasha pleaded to him. ‘If the family law court has already found in your favour...’
‘Please explain it to your moronic friend, Nathan.’
He took a deep breath. He looked directly into Sasha’s eyes, yet his own were curiously blank. There was nothing to be read of what he was feeling. His voice was toneless as he stated the position.
‘The reality was that Matt would have interfered with Elizabeth’s working schedule. I interfered with it and she got rid of me. The responsibility of a child was a worse interference so she got rid of Matt. At the time, that image of Elizabeth and her ambition suited her requirements. My petition to the court for custody was not contested. It suited Elizabeth to let me have Matt then. But when it comes to court again, she will argue mental fatigue and harassment, undue pressure by a big powerful man on a defenceless woman. Allegations will be made of physical threats...is that right, Elizabeth?’
‘It barely scrapes the surface of what will happen, Nathan,’ came the taunting promise.