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She had decided to spend Christmas at the bedsit, despite numerous invitations from her father and his relatives, Pat and her family and Mrs Polinkski, so she wasn’t going to belly-ache about it now. Her husband had obviously decided to call it quits, she didn’t have two pennies to rub together and Christmas dinner was going to be a turkey sandwich, but what the hell! She had two arms, two legs and she was in her right mind—there were others who were much less fortunate.
The little pep talk helped—a bit—but her eyes were still gritty with unshed tears as she ran down the stairs half an hour later and opened the door into the street.
‘Zeke!’ He was standing there, right in front of her, and for a moment she felt herself go weak at the knees at the sight of him. She stared at him as if her eyes were deceiving her, and she noticed the lines etched round his eyes and mouth appeared deeper and he looked thinner overall.
‘Hallo, Marianne.’ It was cool and contained, but she had seen the hot glitter in the grey eyes in the moment she had opened the door and taken him by surprise. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘I’m just on my way to work,’ she said breathlessly, and then, in case he thought that was a refusal, she added quickly, ‘But they won’t mind if I’m a few minutes late.’
His eyes had been moving over her flushed face and wavy, silky hair, and now he touched the red ribbon with one finger as he said thickly, ‘I like that. You look like a Christmas sprite this morning, bright and glowing.’
‘Do I?’ Zeke was the last person in the world given to fanciful compliments and it threw her even more.
‘Yes, you do,’ he said softly. ‘And very beautiful.’
‘Thank you.’ She gestured backwards with a trembling hand. ‘Do you want to come up for a minute?’
‘That’s not necessary, I don’t want to make you late for work.’
She stared at him uncertainly. This big, powerful and very sexy man was her husband, and yet she didn’t have a clue what was going on in his mind.
‘The reason I came…’ He paused, and she realised with a little shock of surprise that he was nervous. It hit her like a bombshell. ‘It’s just that your father said you weren’t spending Christmas with him when I spoke to him last night.’
‘Did you expect me to?’ she asked evenly.
‘I suppose so. Yes, I did,’ he added suddenly. ‘Or with Pat or other friends. But Josh said you intend to have Christmas on your own here.’
‘He shouldn’t have phoned you,’ she said tightly. Zeke’s pity she could do without!
‘He didn’t. I phoned him,’ Zeke said shortly. ‘I—I wanted to make sure you were all right.’ And then, before she could say anything, he raked back his hair irritably in a gesture she recognised only too well, and said angrily, as though she had forced it out of him, ‘In actual fact I wanted to see if there was a possibility we might meet some time over Christmas, but I didn’t know if you would be around or if you’d feel like it.’
‘Couldn’t you have asked me that?’ she asked steadily through the mad beating of her heart.
‘I wasn’t sure if you would want to speak to me,’ he said with brutal honesty, ‘not with the way things are. The separation means you are free and I didn’t want to complicate things or embarrass you.’
She didn’t know whether she wanted to kiss him or hit him! ‘You haven’t embarrassed me, Zeke,’ she said carefully, trying to ignore the shaft of pain that had pierced her heart at the ‘free’ statement. ‘What had you in mind?’
He shrugged warily, his eyes roaming over her face again, and she suddenly found herself longing to reach out and touch him, to feel his arms about her. She curled her fingers into fists and buried them deep in the pockets of her coat to restrain herself.
‘I haven’t made any plans either,’ he said, even more carefully than her, ‘so perhaps dinner tonight?’
‘Everywhere will be packed Christmas Eve.’ She took a deep breath, praying for courage, as she continued, ‘Why don’t you come here and I’ll cook us something?’ Mrs Polinkski would sub her for the food out of her next wage packet.
And then he took care of that detail when he smiled at her with his eyes and said, ‘As long as I provide the food and the wine?’
‘It’s a deal.’ How could everything that had been so wrong be so right in a few moments of time? she asked herself silently. Suddenly the day was transformed, beautiful, and all because she was going to see him tonight. It was hard to contain the wild beating of her heart; even though she knew how dangerous it was to hope she couldn’t help herself. And he had agreed to come here, to her little bedsit. A few weeks ago she couldn’t have imagined him doing that, not when he had been so furious at her leaving the apartment.
And then something of the glow left the morning as he said, quietly and very matter-of-factly, ‘And I know this is no strings attached, so don’t worry.’
No strings attached? She wouldn’t object to all the strings in the world! Or perhaps she would? Oh, she didn’t know—she didn’t know anything when Zeke was around. He had the power to turn her upside down and inside out with just a glance of those devastating grey eyes.
‘I’ll walk you to the supermarket,’ he offered coolly, and then,
as she fell into step beside him, he said politely, ‘How are you enjoying working there?’
If she had answered truthfully she would have told him it was boring and allowed her far too much time on quiet days to daydream about him, but instead she said brightly, ‘Oh, the Polinkskis—who own it—are very nice. I think Mrs Polinkski looks on me as one of the family now; she’s even hinting at my continuing there when her daughter comes back from Poland in a couple of weeks’ time.’
He nodded, his profile aloof and distant, and she found herself wondering if he was regretting agreeing that she cook for them that night. And perhaps it was too twee and cosy at that? she thought worriedly. And how on earth was she going to cook anything worth eating in the archaic oven that had a mind of its own? And the tiny table would just about carry two place settings and nothing else; it certainly wasn’t going to be a dignified affair, with candles and bowls of this and that.
