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She was a survivor. Before the breakdown of her marriage she would never have termed herself such, but she was a survivor, all right. Zeke, Liliana, life—she wasn’t going to let it all beat her. As long as she didn’t see Zeke she’d get through this.
‘Marianne?’
She froze, the shock all the more drenching because of the nature of her thoughts. For a wild, desperate moment she hoped the big dark figure that had just stepped out of the shop doorway was a figment of her fevered imagination, but then Zeke took a step towards her, and with an instinct that was pure self-preservation she turned and ran.
He caught her before she had even reached the end of the street—as he’d been bound to. At six foot two and with the physique and fitness of a honed athlete it had been a foregone conclusion, she thought despairingly, as his hand on her arm swung her round to face him and almost lifted her off her feet in the process.
‘What the hell did you take off for like that?’ he snarled furiously. ‘What sort of a monster do you think I am? I’m not going to hurt you, Marianne.’
Not going to hurt her? For a second she almost laughed in his face. He was killing her, couldn’t he see that?
‘How…how did you find me?’ she asked shakily, trying to shake his hands off her arms but to no avail.
‘Does it matter?’ he asked irritably, and then as she continued to stare up into his dark face he added in a quieter tone, ‘I hired someone to track you down, if you want to know. Satisfied?’
‘You did what?’ She was more than a little grateful for the outrage that brought her as straight as a ramrod. ‘How dare you, Zeke?’
‘How dare I?’ He swore, very explicitly, which wasn’t like him. ‘You take off like a bat out of hell, leaving just that note, and you ask me how I dare? You’re priceless!’
‘Just so, and you can’t afford me,’ she said cuttingly. ‘I consider faithfulness of inestimable value and it’s clearly just too costly for you.’
He eyed her furiously, the narrowed gaze black with rage. ‘I am not going to have this conversation out in the street,’ he ground out tightly. ‘Okay?’
‘Oh, no, no.’ As he went to manhandle her along towards the bedsit she resisted in such a way she left him in no doubt she meant business. ‘You are not stepping foot into my home.’
‘Your what?’ He stared at her as though she was mad, and perhaps she was, she thought almost dispassionately. The world was full of women who turned a blind eye to their husband’s little indiscretions, but she wasn’t one of them! She loved him—she didn’t want to, but she did love him—and she hated him at the same time, and in finishing their marriage she was losing more than just a beautiful home and a fabulous lifestyle. Those things didn’t matter at all. But Zeke; Zeke mattered—not that she could let him see that now.
‘My home,’ she repeated icily, willing the trembling that had started in her stomach and was threatening to shake every limb not to come through in her voice. ‘It might not be up to your lofty standards but my little bedsit is more of a home to me than your empty shell of a place has ever been. I loathe your apartment, Zeke; it’s cold and false and worthless.’ Just like the woman who had stage-managed it.
‘Great.’ It was scathingly sarcastic. ‘Well, now we’ve established just how you see my taste—or lack of it—where do you suggest we talk? Because we are going to talk, Marianne, even if I have to carry you somewhere kicking and screaming.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster, silently admitting to herself that the raw December night was bitterly cold, with a nasty north wind that cut the air like a knife. ‘There’s a little wine bar in the next street that’s supposed to be quite nice; we can talk in there.’
‘Sure there’s enough folk in there this time of night to provide the protection you so obviously feel you need?’ he asked caustically.
‘Quite sure.’ She stepped back a pace and this time he made no effort to restrain her, letting go of her arms as he surveyed her through dark narrowed eyes.
He looked gorgeous. She didn’t want to acknowledge that his magnetic attractiveness was as powerful as it had ever been but there was nothing she could do about it. The big charcoal-grey overcoat he was wearing gave his already broad shoulders even more width than normal, and his raven-black hair and chiselled cheekbones turned his face into a picture of angled shadows in the dim light.
Marianne turned sharply, walking back the way she had just run as Zeke fell into step beside her, and she wasn’t even aware of the moment they passed the bedsit as she desperately tried to damp down the fierce, searing fire inside her that his presence had produced.
He had come to find her. He had cared enough to instigate a search for her. And then she called on the clear, hard voice of logic to combat the weakness he’d induced. She was his property; that was how he saw it, she told herself savagely. She fitted into his life in the same way as his cars and businesses and other possessions, but she was slotted in under a label entitled ‘Wife’.
All this wasn’t just about Liliana—bad as that was. How often had she tried to talk to him over the last twelve months in particular, only to be brushed aside or, worse, patronised? He had expected her to be happy just waiting for his return home each evening to the brittle palace he’d installed her in. He was to be her everything; nothing else was supposed to exist for her. She was glad now they hadn’t had children.
The thought shocked her, causing her to glance up from under her thick eyelashes at the grim, handsome profile as they walked towards the wine bar.
Every time she had had her period she had thought it was the end of the world for a while; she had been so desperately eager to have a part of him growing inside her, filling her belly with their love. But it would have been wrong, very wrong. All that would have happened was that another label would have been attached to her—‘Mother of his children’. Wife and mother of his children. And the real Marianne, the Marianne that had died a little more with each month of their marriage, would have been buried so deep she would never have clawed her way out of the abyss. And yet he had loved the real Marianne at first…hadn’t he? She wasn’t sure about even that now.
Oh, Zeke, Zeke. She found she was crying inside, although her eyes were dry. How had they come to this?
‘Are you eating properly?’
‘What?’
His deep voice brought her out of the dark morass of her thoughts, and now he repeated gruffly, as he glanced down at her white fragile face, ‘I said, are you eating properly? You look thinner.’
Now he mentioned it there were signs of strain about his eyes and mouth, Marianne thought suddenly as she wrenched her gaze away from his, and the skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones. ‘I’m eating enough,’ she said flatly, part of her crying out, Don’t let him be nice. I can cope with this if he isn’t nice.
