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Later, after they had loved some more, Marianne cooked the steaks while Zeke prepared and tossed the salad, as naked as the day he was born, and then they snuggled under the duvet again and ate the meal watching the classic film Scrooge on TV, with another bottle of wine.
It was an enchanted Christmas.
Marianne was conscious, as each hour slipped by, that she was in a stolen bubble of time. The joy of waking on Christmas morning and seeing his dark head next to hers on the lumpy old sofa bed was the best gift she could have had, but he had bought her numerous presents, which they opened together over toast and tea which Zeke made.
They loved and ate and drank, and loved some more, almost rendering the turkey into a burnt crisp as they lost themselves in each other’s bodies. Zeke’s loving was urgent and hungry, as though he couldn’t get enough of her, but she didn’t let herself think that it might be because he was sensing time was short. As always when they touched each other the need was overpowering, taking control, doing away with the need to talk or communicate beyond the moment.
Even the weather conspired to make the time more chimerical and dreamlike, the snowstorms which had been forecast arriving with a vengeance early Christmas morning and turning the outside world into a blurred white cloud beyond the window.
It couldn’t last, of course.
Marianne had known that all along, but the end came with an abruptness that catapulted them both back into the real world with shocking suddenness.
It was late Boxing Day afternoon, and Marianne had been lying drowsily in Zeke’s arms watching a silly cartoon on TV, when he nuzzled her head with his chin. ‘I’ve another present for you,’ he said softly.
‘Another present?’ She watched him in surprise as he rose and padded across to his coat, appreciating the way his long, lean body moved with powerful male grace. ‘Zeke, you shouldn’t have. You’ve already given me so much.’
‘This is different.’
His eyes were narrowed and very smoky as he handed her the envelope—she remembered that afterwards. Almost as though he was already concealing his thoughts from her. As he might have been.
‘I don’t understand. What’s this?’ She stared at the envelope as he resumed his place beside her, his face hidden from her gaze as he pulled her comfortably against his chest, her head resting in the hollow of his throat.
‘Open it and see,’ he said lazily. ‘It won’t bite.’
‘The Bedlows property?’ She stared at the wad of documents in her hands. ‘You’ve bought the Bedlows property?’
‘You wanted it, didn’t you?’ he said softly. ‘Now I’ve got it for you.’
‘When? How?’ She twisted in his arms, her eyes bright and her face radiant. ‘Oh, Zeke, Zeke!’
‘We should have moved out of the apartment as soon as we were married; I realise that now,’ he said quietly as he looked into her excited face. ‘It was unfair of me to expect you to live there.’
‘It doesn’t matter!’ She flung her arms around his neck, her voice animated and high. ‘Oh, Zeke, Zeke, I can’t believe this. You’ve bought it! It’s ours.’
‘You’re pleased?’ He was watching her very closely.
‘Of course I am.’ She beamed up at him, careless of the way the duvet had slipped down to her waist, exposing the firm high peaks of her breasts. ‘When did you buy it?’
‘A few days after you had been to see it.’
That should have warned her. If she had been in her right mind that should have warned her, she told herself afterwards, but as it was she didn’t understand the portent of the statement. Not when she was held in Zeke’s arms and he had just given her a sign that he was going to meet her halfway.
But it wasn’t halfway. It wasn’t even a tenth of the way.
‘I can’t believe this.’ She felt as giddy as a schoolgirl. ‘It’s so beautiful and we’ll be so happy there; I know it. Of course I shall have to find out which colleges are within commuting distance; I don’t want to leave you for days on end, do I?’
And then, even before he said, ‘Leave me?’ in a flat tone of voice, she knew. Something in his face told her.
‘Marianne, this is going to be our home,’ he said softly, his eyes holding hers as she shrank back against the sofa. ‘It will be a new start, a new beginning.’
‘And that doesn’t include me furthering my education or getting a job or anything like that?’ she said very carefully, her heart thudding and the bile rising in her throat.
‘You’re my wife,’ he said roughly, his voice terse. ‘I’m giving you the house of your dreams—’
‘I don’t want a doll’s house, Zeke.’ She didn’t have to think about the words; they came straight from her heart. ‘Neither do I want to go back to the way things were. I’m a person, I’m real, I’m me; not a wife doll you can keep in a little compartment in your life. I love this house, of course I do, it’s the perfect home, but we are more important. Things have got to be right between us.’
‘So it’s got to be just as you see it, no compromise,’ he said accusingly, biting out the words.
