The Problem with Perfect Read online

  “I failed in my marriage by seeking for it to be perfect. It was nowhere near it apparently.”

  Her father leaned forward. “Can I ask you something, Marigold? It’s something that I should have asked you years ago. And I’m sorry I didn’t, as maybe it would have saved you some heartache.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you marry Julian with your head or your heart?”

  She looked down. “I thought both, but I think now it was more of an academic decision to marry him. I did love him – I’ll always love him – but I married him as he ticked all the right boxes. I wanted a marriage like yours.”

  Peter shook his head. “Your mother and me, our marriage isn’t perfect. Nobody has a perfect marriage. They have ups and downs. I’ve spent far too much time at this place; hence why handing it over to you kids was always on the cards.”

  “Yeah,” Marigold sighed. “Mum said something like that. It’s funny; I never thought she thought that before. I’m sorry. I screwed up your plans for retirement.”

  “Maybe they were a tad hasty. Perhaps I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. But, are you still ready to be CEO?”

  She hesitated. “I’m terrified. For so long I’ve wanted to take over your role, but now I don’t know if I can do it. Or at least, not yet.”

  Her father nodded. “I think you can, but I’ve had an idea that may make it easier for you to take over without me completely stepping away but giving me more time at home. Relationships aren’t easy, and they require some effort to make them work.”

  As she listened to her father’s plan for the future of D-Line, she decided that if she ever got the chance again, she’d avoid her mistakes. She’d pay more attention. After all, D-Line had survived generations – but relationships required even more love and care.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Marigold

  Marigold returned from her Pilates class to find Aaron sitting on her front step, looking pale and uncertain.

  “Aaron, are you ok?” she asked.

  Aaron shook his head. “I need to tell you something. About Julian.”

  Her stomach flipped. Would this ever be over? She’d thought she’d heard the worst from Sasha. What else could there be to discover?

  “Ok. Come in,” she said, unlocking the door and letting him through. She momentarily considered calling Finn, but quickly decided that was silly. Or was it? It had always made finding out things about Julian a little easier with him beside her.

  She made Aaron a cup of tea and they sat in the living room. She noticed his hand was shaking as he lifted up the mug.

  “I need to tell you something. I think I may have been responsible for Julian’s heart attack.”

  She shook her head. “Aaron, no. I doubt that.”

  “He was stressed because of me. Because of my mistakes.”

  “Mistakes?”

  “Yes.” Aaron looked down into his tea.

  The shaking continued. Worried he’d spill his drink over her new sofa, she took it from him and set it down on a coaster on the coffee table. “What mistakes?” she asked.

  “With a case. I screwed up. I lost a piece of information, and when it went to court, Julian was left standing there without a critical part of the case. The whole thing collapsed, and the client absolutely lost it with him. They started harassing him – making all these calls to him.”

  Marigold blinked. The complaint? It was Aaron’s fault? “Did they start making demands of him?”

  Aaron nodded. “He didn’t want them to complain officially, so he flew up to Sydney to try to placate them. Talk them out of it.”

  And pay them off. “They were based in Sydney?”

  He nodded. “Their case was from something that happened in Melbourne, but they live in Sydney. They claimed they’d ruin Julian, and if he wanted to protect your family’s reputation and his, he needed to comply with their demands. It was all my fault – he insisted that it wasn’t, and he should have been better prepared, but he was stressed, and… I’ve not been sleeping well. It took me forever to really accept that he was dead, because I feel so responsible.”

  Aaron had always struck her as incompetent. And what a chain reaction his lack of professionalism had caused. To Julian, and to her. She looked at him, longing to wring his neck, but paused. It would do no good. Julian was dead. Whatever caused his heart attack, it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter – everyone needed to move on. Sasha, Aaron and most of all, her.

  “Aaron, Julian was in charge. I’m sure that even if you had made a mistake, he didn’t blame you. He shouldn’t have died – he was young and healthy – but I don’t think that anything any of us did caused it.”

  “He was a good boss.”

  Marigold nodded. “He was a good man.” She did believe that, even with how he’d hurt her. He was a good man who’d quickly found himself out of his depth. “And these clients shouldn’t have been blackmailing him. Nor should they get away with that. I think we need to go to the police. Can you get any information together? I’m happy to go with you.”

  As Aaron left, agreeing to put together whatever information he had for the police, she thought about ringing Finn again, to tell him that Aaron’s information confirmed the Sydney trips and payments. As she unlocked her phone, she eyed the date. She wondered when the inquest into the siege was happening. She pulled out her phone and Googled. Yes, it was re-opening again today and he’d been called to give his evidence. What had he decided to do? Tell the truth and hurt Simon’s family, or lie to protect them?

  She was about to text him when she decided that she needed to do more than that. Finn had been with her every step of the last painful few months. The least she could do was repay the favour.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Finn

  This was it. This was the moment he needed to finally say what needed to be said. He saw Tamsyn in the room, hugging one of the kids to her chest, the other sitting next to her. They looked so much bigger than the last time he saw them, and so like their dad. He looked at Simon’s eldest. Not much younger than Finn was when he lost his own father.

  He straightened his tie as he prepared for what he was about to do. It was the right decision, but hardly an easy one.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marigold. His heart seemed to stop for a moment as he watched her walk in.

  She was wearing a black dress with a coat over the top, towering high heels, and her hair was pulled into a bun. She looked so professional and elegant and everything that made her so intimidating, yet endearing at the same time.

  She’d travelled to Canberra for the hearing? For him?

  Giving him a nod and a small smile, she slipped into a chair at the back of the room.

  He gave her a nod back, before turning his attention to a man in a dark suit who started firing questions at him about that day of the siege. The questions were exactly as he’d expected. He ran through the events, from the moment he’d got the call to get there, his unit’s response, his actions, his instructions, and, finally, the signature.

  Finn swallowed as he was asked this question about whether he believed the signature was forged, and looked over to Tamsyn, who was crying.

  “Yes,” Finn said.

  There was an audible gasp.

  “So you are saying you don’t believe that Theo Williams signed the form? That someone forged his signature?”

  “Theo Williams was in another part of the building. There was no way he could have made it back to sign that paperwork before they moved in.” He watched as several former colleagues shook their heads and glared at him. He leaned forward.

  “Why do you think Simon Alberti failed to obtain the second signature? Surely, obtaining the two signatures is an important part of an operation like this.”

  Finn shook his head. “I don’t think Simon failed to do anything.”

  “But you said—”

  “What I mean is that we’re not perfect. No-one is. They can train u
s and we can practise, but when it comes down to it, you have a single second to make a call in a bloody tough situation. People’s lives were at risk. Not just the people in the building, but goodness knows how many other people if the offender’s threat of the bombs was genuine. It was impossible. Did Simon make the right call? Should he have got that second signature? Yes, but he didn’t act the way he did because he was lazy or trying to cut corners. He was the best officer I’d ever met. He was dedicated and brave, and he desperately wanted to save those people. He was doing his job. We’re not perfect. None of us behaved perfectly that day, but you know, we all went in trying to get the best outcome. That’s why we sign up. That’s why I signed up. If you want perfect, create some robots to do the job.” He sat back, pushing down a lump that was rising in his throat.

  He looked over to Marigold who was wiping away a tear. She shot him a reassuring look.

  After some further questions, he was excused. He returned to a seat near the front and sat back down again. Official-sounding people said various things, and without him realising it, the inquest had been adjourned for a break. He stood up and found himself face-to-face with Tamsyn.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  Tamsyn blinked back tears. “I shouldn’t have ever asked you to lie,” she whispered.

  He looked around for a quiet corner and beckoned to a couple of chairs.

  “What you said was amazing,” Tamsyn said. “Simon would have been proud of you.”

  Finn felt another lump rise in his throat and tears at the back of his eyes. He blinked them away. “He would have been proud of you. Of how well you are doing, raising the kids on your own.”

  She nodded. “I hope so. I don’t know, I wonder. You see, I’m seeing someone new,” Tamsyn said, her eyes cast down. Was she embarrassed? Worried he’d judge her for moving on? Be angry on Simon’s behalf?

  “I hope he would be ok with that,” Tamsyn added, almost as if she were reading his thoughts. “I’m scared that he’d be devastated.”

  Finn still didn’t know, but decided a white lie was the best answer. Tamsyn needed to move on. Whether Simon would have approved or not was irrelevant. He wasn’t here. Tamsyn was, and she deserved to live her life. “I’m sure he would be. He’d want you to be happy.”

  Tears welled in her eyes and she grasped his arm, giving it a squeeze. “He’d want you to be happy too.”

  “Things changed that day.”

  “They did, but even if I knew that this would have happened, I still would have married him. Even if he’d survived, maybe things wouldn’t have worked out. But who knows? The main thing was I had him for a while. I spoke to Zara and she said she hopes that you’re ok.”

  “I am, and you’ll be too.” Finn noticed Marigold from the corner of his eye. She was hovering nearby, though standing back, as if waiting for him to finish. “Take care, Tamsyn.” He leaned in and kissed Tamsyn on the cheek, and moved towards Marigold.

  “That must have been challenging,” she said.

  “Hello, Marigold.”

  She ducked her head and let out a sigh, mixed with a laugh. “I’m so bad at greetings.”

  “I know.” He actually didn’t care. It was who she was. She was to-the-point. She said things that mattered.

  “Hi, Finn,” she said with a smile.

  “Hi, Marigold. You came? You remembered this?”

  She nodded. “I thought you might like the moral support, but I don’t think you needed it. You were excellent.”

  “I couldn’t lie.”

  “You did the right thing. But I know it must have been tough.”

  “How are you?

  She nodded, slowly and purposefully. “I don’t know. I think I’m ok. I think things are starting to feel normal again.”

  “Normal? I thought there wasn’t anything normal.”

  “Well, I guess there’s not. I mean, not how it was. It still hurts, and I still miss Julian, but maybe a new sort of normal. I bought a new sofa.”

  “A new sofa?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “The old one was rather uncomfortable,” she grinned, “as you are well aware.”

  Their eyes met, and he realised that he wanted to see her. Spend any time with her that he could. And he had for so long. The number of times he’d gone to her house during the investigation, when a phone call could have sufficed. The night of the Gala, he could have left her to hobnob with her friends after she’d calmed down. The call about her being in hospital. He could have called Peter or Odette or Rose, but he hadn’t. He had wanted to be with her.

  He wasn’t sure how she felt about him, but she was here. For him. Did she share any of the feelings he had towards her?

  It was a long shot, but it didn’t matter. Any chance to spend time with her, he’d take it. Even just as a friend.

  “Marigold?” he asked. “How long are you in town for? Can I buy you a drink tonight?”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Marigold

  “That was Simon’s wife you were speaking to today?” she asked Finn, as they were seated at a table at a crowded bar. It was pretty casual, so she was pleased she’d gone back to her hotel and changed into jeans. Finn was also looking more casual that he usually did, in jeans and a dark blue fitted shirt, open at the collar and rolled-up sleeves. She looked at his arms, remembering what was underneath them the day she’d found him in her parents’ pool, before refocusing on what he was saying.

  “It was. That was Tamsyn.”

  She took a sip of her gin and tonic. “How did she feel about your evidence?”

  “She was ok. I think she’s starting to move on. She’s seeing someone new.”

  How long had it taken Tamsyn to feel that she could move on? “She loved Simon?” she clarified. “He was a good husband to her?”

  “Adored him. And he adored her.”

  She ran her finger along the edge of her glass. “Finn, I’ve made some big realisations these few weeks. You were right.”

  “About what?”

  “Julian. I didn’t force him to behave the way he did. It’s not my fault, but I also made mistakes and I need to own them. Perhaps our marriage was more like a business arrangement than a marriage. I probably didn’t treat him like a husband sometimes, but he didn’t treat me like a wife either. He should have told me about those things, not hidden away in a secret apartment.”

  Finn nodded. “That’s a good way of looking at things.”

  “You were also right when you said that I’d possibly find out things I didn’t want to know, and I did. But I made the right choice. Those things are helpful and they’ll help me move on. And maybe, one day, not make the same mistakes again.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. He was lucky to have you.”

  She smiled. “Well, maybe someday I’ll get a second chance.”

  “You will.” He gave her a smile. “You’re lucky. A second chance is something that we don’t all get.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was talking about Julian, or Simon, but she knew what he meant.

  “I need another drink,” he said suddenly with a grin, as though he’d sensed that she was ready to move to the next conversation. He gestured to the bartender to indicate another round.

  “I thought you didn’t drink?” she asked, as a second beer was placed in front of him.

  “I don’t drink alone. But a drink with a friend, that’s another thing.”

  A friend? Was that a lower status than she’d been hoping for? She wasn’t sure, but for some reason, she found it a little disappointing. She cleared her throat. “I’m a friend?”

  “Though I don’t really have any friends who are as beautiful as you. Or as smart. Nowhere near as smart, now I think of it. It’s a pleasure to drink with someone who’s interesting to talk to and nice to look at.”

  She felt herself blush and she looked down. It wasn’t the first time that he’d said such things about her. “That day we staked out the apartment, you said that I intimid
ated you when we first met.”

  Finn nodded. “I did.”

  “I fear I might have intimated Julian. He’d been too scared to tell me what was going on in case I freaked out, like I did about his weight.” She took another sip of her drink. Hardly a marriage if one person was frightened of the other. Is that what she did to people? Frighten them?

  “Maybe he was. But you see, and perhaps this is my poor command of English and grammar, but I’ve never been scared of you, I’ve been in awe of you.”

  She looked at her drink, watching the bubbles fizz and evaporate.

  “You’re impressive. It is a bit awe-inspiring. You ok?”

  She looked back up to him. “I am. I’m a little, umm… Thank you, that’s such a nice thing to say.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  Their eyes met for a moment, before he pushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear. His touch sent a delightful little shiver along her body and a feeling of excitement in her stomach. Aside from that day after the Gala, she hadn’t thought too much about sex. She’d wondered if that part of her would ever really work again, but she wondered what it would be like to go to bed with Finn tonight. To feel his weight on her, to feel his skin against hers. Maybe it would release some nervous tension she’d had for so long. Or would it create something between them that wasn’t really meant to be? Transfer some sort of emotional feelings and love for Julian onto him? That wouldn’t be good. It was far, far too soon to be thinking of anything like that.

  Or was it?

  She paused, before moving closer to him. She placed a hand on his cheek, feeling the stubble of his five o’clock shadow bursting through his jawline, and leaned up to him.

  Their lips met. He kissed her, sending little electricity bolts along her spine and right through her core, before it became more intense. She didn’t care what this was exactly, but right now she knew that she needed him.

  And, judging by the way he was kissing her, he needed her too.