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Miriam pulled on one of the thick white robes which had been waiting for them in the suite and busied herself making the coffee from the complimentary tray in the sitting room. When Jay joined her he was already dressed, his black hair damp from the shower. He walked across to where she was sitting, touching the side of her face with a tender hand as he said, ‘I love you so much. You know that, don’t you?’
She nodded before saying the words he had a right to hear. ‘I love you too.’
His breath caught at her declaration and he pulled her to her feet, holding her loosely within the circle of his arms as he murmured, ‘Does that mean what I want it to mean?’
She had known this moment would come, of course. All afternoon she had known it at the back of her mind and it had made each moment all the more bitter-sweet. She didn’t try to prevaricate or play dumb. Lowering her eyes because she couldn’t bear to look at his face while she said it, she said equally softly, ‘I can’t be what you need, Jay.’
‘I need you. That’s all. Just you as you are.’
‘No.’ She pulled away and he let her go, the tawny eyes tight on her face. ‘You need someone who can enjoy being part of your world and take what it means to be your wife in her stride; the social functions, the dinner parties, the entertaining, the—the women.’
‘I didn’t have an affair with Belinda,’ he said quietly. ‘From the first moment we met there has been no one but you.’
Funnily enough, for the first time she believed him. ‘That doesn’t make any difference.’
‘Doesn’t make any difference?’ He stared at her. ‘What the hell are you talking about? You left me because you believed I had been having some sort of relationship with that woman and after the lies she told and the way you found us at the office that night I couldn’t blame you for thinking the worst initially. I hoped reason would kick in and tell you I couldn’t possibly have betrayed you like that when you’d had a chance to think about it, I admit, but I hadn’t allowed for how deep the damage over what your father did to your mother had gone. But I love you, Miriam. You love me. What are we fighting about?’
‘We’re not fighting.’
‘I want you as my wife. You. No one else.’
Nothing he was saying was making her feel any better. Something had broken in her that afternoon. The problem wasn’t Jay, it was her, and she would always be this way. She knew she would. And she didn’t want to ruin both their lives with her jealousy and distrust and turn Jay into someone he wasn’t. Shaking her head slowly, she murmured, ‘Remember the good times, remember this afternoon; let it end like this.’
‘The hell I will.’ His eyes glittered like spun gold in the subdued lighting in the sitting room. ‘This is not some play or film, Miriam. We’re real people in a real situation without a dramatic fade-out, and if agreeing to spend the afternoon with me was your idea of a swansong then you can forget it. I’m not got rid of so easily.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘You’re dead right there.’
She didn’t think she had ever seen him so angry. ‘It’s me, not you,’ she said wearily. ‘At first I thought you had been seeing Belinda but over the last weeks I faced the fact that might not be true and I’d made a terrible mistake.’
‘It wasn’t and you did,’ he put in grimly.
‘But there’ll be other Belindas, don’t you see?’ she said jaggedly. ‘Women like you; they throw themselves at you.’
He stated the obvious. ‘I can’t help that.’
‘I know that. I know you don’t encourage them but it happens anyway. Another woman might be able to take that in her stride but I can’t. I know that now. I—I should never have agreed to marry you, Jay. It was a disaster waiting to happen.’
Red streaks of temper were searing colour across his cheekbones but his voice was more controlled, low and steady, when he said, ‘This is nonsense. Are you seriously telling me that you accept there was never anything going on with Belinda, or anyone else if it comes to it, but it doesn’t make any difference to the way you feel about ending our marriage? That doesn’t make sense and you know it. I’ve told you how I feel about you; what more do you want from me?’
Struggling for calmness, she said, ‘If I came back to you we’d end up hating each other eventually. Jealousy does that. I—I love you but I can’t trust you. I can’t, Jay. I’ve tried but all the time at the back of my mind I’d be questioning, wondering when the one is going to appear who would get your attention.’
‘I’ve told you, she’s here.’
‘And I believe you. At this moment.’ There was a tinge of panic to her voice as she tried to make him understand. ‘But outside these four walls is the world and we have to live in it. That’s where I’d fail. That’s where I’d fail you.’
‘I’m not accepting that.’
‘You have to.’
‘What can I say to convince you?’
‘You can’t.’
‘Damn it, Miriam, have the courage to put the past behind you.’ He was breathing hard in the effort to hold on to his temper. ‘I’m not your father any more than you’re your mother. We’re two different people with a different life together. I can’t alter who I am, the way I look, and I wouldn’t if I could. I’m me. I’m not ashamed of it. I was always absolutely honest with you about my past relationships. I sowed my wild oats, we both know that, but I never told a woman I loved her until I met you and I sure as hell never asked one to marry me. When I met you I fell head over heels, you know that too. I told you it’s the kind of love that will last for ever, that I wanted you to be the mother of my children, that I wanted the roses round the door and commitment and the whole caboodle, and nothing’s changed. Not for me.’
She had to do this. It was tearing her apart but it would be worse in the future if she gave in now. Somehow she had to make him see. Trying to find the words to explain the truth of how it was, she said, ‘I know and, like I said, this is my fault, not yours. I love you, although you might not believe it, but that itself is the problem. If—if I didn’t love you so much I wouldn’t feel this way but the whole time we were married I was on edge. I didn’t realise it until that night I saw you with Belinda but it’s the truth. And I don’t want to live like that, Jay.’
