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‘Do you want to abort it?’
Lissa couldn’t hide the flash of shocked pain in her eyes, but managed to whisper croakily, ‘Do you?’ She ought to have been prepared for this, but somehow she had not. It was, after all, the neatest, tidiest solution, but it was not one she could ever agree to. Even if Joel rejected her she still intended to go ahead with her pregnancy.
‘No.’ His voice was harsh, his head averted so that she couldn’t see his expression.
‘Neither do I,’ she admitted huskily.
‘You realise what you’re committing yourself to, do you, Lissa?’ he demanded, still without looking at her, ‘and I don’t just mean motherhood. I want to make it quite clear now that there is no way I would ever allow anyone else to take my place in my child’s life. I won’t divorce you so that you can go to Greaves,’ he told her levelly, facing her for the first time.
At first Lissa was too shocked to respond.
‘But …’
‘Don’t bother to deny it Lissa. I saw the two of you together in London—remember?’
She bit her lip. It was tempting to allow Joel to go on believing that she was in love with Simon, for the sake of her pride if nothing else, but if she did … She thought about the child she was carrying … Joel’s child … life would be difficult enough for it as it was with a father who merely tolerated instead of loving its mother. It was better to tell the truth.
‘That was a chance meeting, Joel,’ she told him quietly. ‘I bumped into him in the street the day I went to buy a new dress for the dinner party. I didn’t tell you at the time because …’ She laced her fingers together and stared down at them as fiercely as though they were something she had never seen before, concentrating on them so that she would not have to look at Joel.
‘Because …?’ he prompted, his voice steel soft.
Suddenly she felt totally exhausted, her hands relaxed, her body slumping into the mattress. ‘Do you really need to ask,’ she said tiredly. ‘Please let’s not play games now, Joel …’
He was at her side in a second, his fingers cool against her unexpectedly hot forehead, his eyes, in the brief second she allowed hers to meet them, deeply concerned … so concerned that she felt she must be hallucinating.
It was pointless feeling pain because he had not denied his involvement with Marisa, what had she in all honesty expected?
‘No games,’ he promised quietly, ‘but we must talk, Lissa. I must admit that this was not entirely the outcome I … hoped for when …’
‘When you made love to me,’ Lissa supplied tiredly. ‘No … I think I understand what motivated you Joel.’
A shadow darkened his eyes, and she thought for a moment that he looked almost haunted … a trick of the light of course.
‘And understanding that …’
She cut him off before he could go on to tell her as he undoubtedly would that his own feelings had never been involved on more than a merely concerned level. ‘It makes no difference, Joel,’ she told him curtly, turning her face away from his so that he couldn’t see the anguish in her eyes. ‘I am carrying your child, and we are both agreed that the pregnancy should not be terminated. You don’t want us to divorce …’
‘Do you?’ He shot the question at her with explosive force, her head automatically turning so that she could look at him. She had seldom seen him look as he was doing now—as though he were fighting to control his anger.
‘I believe that for the sake of the children—the girls as well as our own child—we should stay together but …’ She bit her lip wondering if she dare tell him that she did not know how long she would be able to go on as they were now without completely breaking down. Every time he went out without telling her where he was going—every night he came home late she imagined him with Marisa. Jealousy was a bitter corrosive emotion and one she would far rather not have suffered from.
‘But?’ Joel prompted harshly. His eyes glittered almost blackly beneath thick spiky lashes. He seemed to have aged somehow, and as he walked towards the window Lissa recognised an inner tension in his movements that tore at her heart.
‘When we were first married,’ Lissa began carefully, picking her words with forethought, too aware of the delicacy of the ground she was now venturing on to speak completely openly, ‘we managed to get on reasonably well, before …’
‘Before I made love to you?’ Joel interrupted harshly, his face oddly drawn. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’
It wasn’t, but it would suffice. She had meant before she realised the truth about Marisa, but didn’t want to say so. Her pride would not allow her to reveal to Joel how she felt about him, or how jealous she was of Marisa.
‘Well if that is all that’s worrying you, don’t let it. From now on our relationship will be as sexless as that of brother and sister if that is what you want?’
For a moment Lissa almost hated him. What on earth did he expect her to do? Beg for his lovemaking? When she knew he loved someone else?
She turned her face away from him and said quietly, ‘I don’t think I need to answer that question, do I, Joel?’
She heard the door slam as he went out and only when she was quite sure he was gone did she release a shuddering breath of tension.
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED while it couldn’t be said that there was a complete return to the easy familiarity that had developed between them in the early days of their marriage, Lissa was conscious that Joel was making an effort to put their relationship back on a more relaxed footing.
