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She had always enjoyed practical chemistry at school, she was more like her father academically than her mother, and her A level results in biology, chemistry and maths had been excellent. Becoming a doctor like her father had been an idea at first, but then, through work experience and contacts of her father, she had been drawn to a career in medical laboratory work. And she could make it happen; it was up to her. There were thousands, millions of women who had absorbing, interesting careers and were wives and mothers, too…
Her heart started thudding as her stomach swirled violently. But Zeke couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see that. And she was losing him. Perhaps she had already lost him. And a world without Zeke would be so empty and pointless that the greatest career in the universe wouldn’t compensate—
‘Stop it.’ She spoke out loud, through clenched teeth. She couldn’t doubt herself now. She had rushed into her marriage like a giddy schoolgirl and the result had been a disaster. She loved Zeke, she would always love him, but she couldn’t go back to how things had been and he didn’t see any need for them to be different. He had been so cold and hard in the car last night, so distant and intractable.
The weeks they had been apart hadn’t touched him, not deep down. He still didn’t see the need for them to talk, to communicate, to listen to each other. She had been shrivelling up and dying inside for months and he was oblivious to her despair.
She took a deep, shuddering breath, her hand reaching for the door, and then jumped violently when the buzzer connected to the door in the street sounded in her right ear.
‘Marianne?’
It sounded like Zeke’s voice, but it couldn’t be, she told herself silently as she spoke into the intercom. ‘Yes, who is it?’
‘How many men could it be at this time of the morning?’ came the dry response.
‘Zeke? What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Freezing my butt off.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Come up.’ She pressed the switch to release the street door and then gazed wildly about, as though her clothes and make-up were going to jump on her all by themselves so she could present a cool, contained façade. There was no time to do anything but hastily fumble in her toilet bag and run a brush through her tangled hair before his knock sounded on the door.
Right, you can handle this. From his attitude the night before he had probably come to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on their separation, she thought frantically. He was a control freak in every area of his life; that had become more and more apparent through the two years she had been married to him. Always cool and immaculate, with an undeniable air of authority and command that was awesome. It had only been when they were in bed, and he was loving her with every fibre of his mind and body, that she had felt she had all of him. But perhaps even that had been an illusion she had created because she didn’t want to face up to the sham of their marriage?
When his knock sounded again she pulled herself together and wiped all trace of her thoughts from her face before she opened the door. And then she stared at him, her mouth falling open in a slight gape before she said bewilderedly, ‘Zeke, what on earth…? You’re soaked, absolutely soaked. Has the car broken down somewhere?’
‘No, the car hasn’t broken down,’ he said wearily, raking back his hair as the snow covering his head began to melt in rivulets down his grey face. ‘I’ve been walking.’
‘Walking?’ She could see he was shivering as he stood dripping on the draughty landing, and now she pulled him into the room, shutting the door before saying briskly, ‘Get your coat off and I’ll switch the kettle on. You need something warm inside you.’
‘Marianne?’ As she went to move away he caught hold of her hand and his flesh was ice-cold. ‘I love you. If nothing else, I want you to understand that. But there’s another part of me…’ He let go of her, turning away with a savagery that spoke of suppressed emotion.
‘Zeke, what is it?’ The look on his face frightened her. ‘Are you ill?’
‘Probably.’ He drew a long, shaking breath. ‘In here.’ He tapped his forehead before turning to face her again, contemplating her wretchedly from beneath his hooded lids, his eyes so smoky dark as to be black. ‘When I left you last night I drove back to the apartment and parked the car and then began walking. I needed to think about what you’d said.’
Marianne ignored the fierce stab of hope the last words had given her, and said instead, her voice concerned, ‘You haven’t been walking all night in this weather? Oh, Zeke, that’s crazy. You’ll catch your death of cold.’
‘That’d be a clean end to this mess, if nothing else,’ he said bitterly through the uncontrollable chattering of his teeth.
‘Don’t be silly.’ She regarded him now in the manner of a schoolmarm admonishing a naughty child, although there was nothing childish about the six foot two, big, dark figure in front of her. He looked broodingly sombre and impossibly handsome, but exhausted. And cold, very cold. The last thought caused her to say firmly, ‘Get your coat off,
Zeke, and hand it here. There’s an airer in the bathroom; I’ll hang it in there.’
However, once divested of his coat, it was clear he was soaked right through, the designer suit as wringing wet as his overcoat.
‘You’re chilled to the bone, aren’t you?’ She couldn’t believe that the logical, cold, imperturbable man she had lived with for the last two years could have been so irrational as to walk the streets all night in the worst snowstorm the south had seen for a decade. ‘You need a hot bath if you aren’t going to catch pneumonia.’
‘I’m all right.’ It was abrupt. He hated her fussing.
‘You’re not all right.’ It was equally abrupt. She left him standing in front of the fire and walked across to the ancient wardrobe, pulling out her jeans and a jumper. After flinging her dressing gown on the sofa she quickly pulled on the jeans and jumper over her nightie, slipping her feet back into her shoes before turning to face him again, her face flushed.
He was watching her, and as their eyes met and held Marianne felt her heart begin to thud as his dangerous attraction reached out into the space between them. ‘I’m going to run you a hot bath,’ she said, her voice as firm as she could make it through her wobbly insides, ‘and I want you to take everything off and put my robe on.’
‘What?’
She frowned. ‘Don’t argue, Zeke.’ She turned away from him before he could answer, and reached for the unopened jar of mustard she had bought the day before. ‘And this is going in, too.’
‘Marianne—’
