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As she waited for Joel to at least make a token attempt to deny Marisa’s insinuation Lissa could feel her face burning with humiliation and resentment. How dare he subject her to Marisa’s bitchiness? How dare he bring her here to be insulted and tormented by the sight of Marisa continually making it plain how much she wanted him?
Peter gave an embarrassed cough and glanced rather uncertainly towards Lissa.
Pride came to her rescue. With a brittle smile she said tightly, ‘That’s right, Marisa. The children are Joel’s responsibility and as I’ve discovered, he’s a man who takes his responsibilities extremely seriously, but of course, taking our marriage seriously doesn’t preclude either of us from …’ she managed a tiny, expressive shrug, ‘shall we say making other friendships outside that marriage.’
There was a definite silence when she had finished. Without looking at either Joel or Marisa she picked up her coffee cup and made a pretence of drinking. Let Marisa make what she liked of that, she thought viciously.
‘Goodness. How very … civilised of you,’ was Marisa’s eventual comment. She turned to Joel. ‘Darling I must say that had you married me, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been anything like as practical, and how you must have changed.’ She directed Lissa a smile of sweet malice. ‘You perhaps won’t believe this, but I remember Joel as being quite outrageously possessive and jealous.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Lissa agreed with commendable control, and an acidly sweet smile of her own, ‘but that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? I think everyone feels things more intensely in their late teens and early twenties. I know I did.’
The evening dragged on interminably. Marisa insisted on taking Joel into her own private sitting room to show him some prints she had recently bought, and to judge by the willingness with which Joel went with her, she had been right to suspect that Joel still cared for her. Why had Marisa married Peter when it was so obvious that she preferred Joel, Lissa wondered miserably. Had she perhaps married Peter on some impulsive whim only to discover that it was Joel she really wanted?
‘You mustn’t mind Marisa,’ Peter told her, breaking in on her thoughts. ‘I’m afraid she’s grown rather used to thinking of Joel as her exclusive property.’
‘No, of course not,’ Lissa agreed, feeling rather sorry for him. ‘I realise that you’re all very old friends.’
‘Yes … Joel was dating Marisa when he introduced her to me,’ Peter agreed, confirming what Joel himself had told her. ‘Of course, he wasn’t in a position to get married then. His father was extremely strict with him—kept him on a very tight rein financially.’
Lissa bit her lip. Was that the reason Marisa had married Peter in preference to Joel? Because Peter had been the better-off financially. Lissa was under no illusions about the other woman. Marisa was a woman who wanted the very be
st that life had to offer. Her marriage to Peter had given her financial security, but now she wanted more … she wanted Joel … And Joel quite plainly wanted her, Lissa reflected sickly seconds later as they both walked into the room. There was still a faint smear of lipstick on Joel’s mouth, and she felt the sickness boil into fierce hatred as she averted her eyes from Marisa’s cat-like expression of complacency.
It was gone one in the morning when they eventually left. The angry surge of adrenalin which had kept Lissa going throughout the evening evaporated the moment she got into the car, leaving her unbelievably exhausted and more miserably unhappy than she could ever remember being in her life.
They had driven half a dozen miles or so when the tape finally stopped. As Lissa reached out to turn it over, Joel stopped her, his eyes meeting hers briefly for a moment, before he bit out, ‘And just what the hell were you trying to do to Marisa?’
What was she trying to do to her! Lissa took a deep breath and tried to steady herself, her voice when she eventually managed to speak sounded unfamiliar, but reassuringly steady. ‘Only the most stupid or appallingly cruel man would confront his wife with his mistress in such intimate conditions,’ she told him huskily. ‘If I was rude to Marisa, then I was only responding to her verbal attacks on me.’
For a moment it seemed to Lissa that he checked and would have said something, but then he paused and at last said coolly, ‘In self-defence? Is that all it was? There were one or two moments when I thought I detected more than a hint of jealousy.’
His astuteness infuriated her. ‘Me, jealous of your relationship with Marisa? Why did she marry Peter and not you in the first place, Joel? Was it because he promised to be the better husband from a material point of view?’
He stopped the car with a jerk that threw her forward in her seatbelt with such force that her head almost bumped into the windscreen. The jolt winded and shocked her, but Joel made no allowances for that, his hands gripping her shoulders as he swung her round to face him, his eyes glittering with a savagery that made her draw in her breath. He did love Marisa. He would never have reacted like this otherwise. Pain … awful and all-consuming filled her until there was no room for anything else, not even the ability to be alarmed by the quality of his anger.
She let what he was saying wash over her, and then when he had finished said numbly, ‘You’ve still got her lipstick on your mouth …’
She watched in anguish as he raised his hand and rubbed it off.
‘Even if you didn’t care about humiliating me, Joel,’ she said tiredly as he re-started the engine, ‘I should have thought you might have spared some consideration for Peter. After all he is supposed to be your friend.’
‘Peter knew what he was getting into when he married Marisa,’ Joel informed her harshly.
After that neither of them spoke until they reached Winterly. Lissa got out of the car quickly and went straight upstairs to the girls’ room. Mrs Fuller had promised to listen out for them, but they were both fast asleep. Emma was sucking her thumb, Lissa released it from her mouth, and bent down to kiss both girls, tears stinging her eyes. Joel had married her for their sake; and she must always bear that in mind. The tender, caring lover she thought she remembered had just been an illusion. Now she had no idea why Joel had made love to her. Once she had thought she knew, but after tonight … She shuddered, suddenly picturing him with Marisa … the sickness grew inside her and she dashed into the girls’ bathroom. Joel walked in just as she was wiping her face, frowning quickly.
‘Something wrong?’
‘I must have eaten something that disagreed with me,’ Lissa told him shakily, snapping off the light. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now, Joel. I’m tired.’
‘Of me? Is that what that little speech to Marisa about marriage was all about?’
He followed her into their room and tugged savagely at his shirt buttons, stopping suddenly to frown and walk over to his tallboy. He opened a drawer and took out a long flat gift-wrapped package, which he tossed casually over to her. ‘I nearly forgot, today’s your birthday, isn’t it?’
Lissa could have wept. It was, and she herself had almost forgotten about it. She would rather have had no present at all from Joel than one thrown at her in this careless manner which made it plain that it was no more than a duty gift.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
She did so reluctantly with fingers that trembled, unable to suppress a small gasp of surprise when she opened the slim box and discovered the pearl choker inside.
