Their lips met in a long, increasingly passionate kiss. Through the thin satin gown she felt the heat and hardness of his body as he crushed her closer, and their breathing quickened. They didn’t even get as far as the bedroom before he had discarded his clothing and pulled off her nightgown. The sofa was wide and soft and Marcus arranged the cushions for her comfort. In the darkness, with the rain beating on the windows, they came together, and Marcus muttered hoarsely, urgently, “Say my name, Jenna. Tell me you know who I am.”
Almost lost in sensation, too caught up in the whirlwind to wonder why he needed this, she gasped it out, and heard him groan aloud when they reached at last a mutual fulfillment.
As they lay panting in each other’s arms for minutes afterward, Jenna asked him, “Did that feel like pretending?”
She felt the heave of his breath, followed by silent laughter. “No,” he said before he picked her up in his arms and carried her to their bed. “It felt like…nothing else on earth.”
It wasn’t the first or the last time they had not bothered with a bed. They had made love on the couch, on the floor, once in an armchair, even in the kitchen and bathroom, and a few times in the car when they’d been too impatient to wait until they were home after a night out.
Sometimes it seemed to Jenna there was a kind of desperation to their lovemaking that gave her an uneasy feeling. It was almost as if it was their only sure avenue of communication.
They had agreed that there was no need to prevent pregnancy. But despite their very active sex life, four months into their marriage Jenna’s cycle was as regular as ever.
Marcus’s mother chuckled when Jenna mentioned the fact. “Not everyone gets pregnant at the drop of a hat, you know. If you go more than a year or so it might be wise to get a doctor to check you out. Meantime the best thing you can do is relax. I’m sure Marcus doesn’t mind.”
But there were odd occasions when she caught him watching her as if waiting for something. Maybe he felt more strongly about having children than he was letting on.
Then Katie phoned her at work one day, sounding agitated. “It’s Dean,” she blurted, and Jenna’s heart stopped for an instant. “Callie’s left.”
“Left?” Jenna was dazed. Callie had left Dean?
“He’s devastated,” Katie told her. “He’s a mess.”
“Where is he? And where’s Callie gone?”
“Home. Callie, I mean. Back to America. Dean spent the night at the flat with me. I’m worried about him, Jenna. Can you help?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Jason and I are having dinner at his parents’ place tonight. It’s all arranged and I don’t want to let him down, but I hate the thought of Dean going home to that empty house after work.”
“Don’t worry, Katie,” Jenna said immediately. “I’ll see he isn’t alone.”
She was waiting outside his place when Dean turned up. He looked at her dully, without surprise. “Katie told you,” he said.
“Yes.” Jenna touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
He opened the door, taking it for granted she’d come in. He looked worn and pale, his mouth set in a stubborn line. “It’s nice of you to come, but I don’t need a nursemaid.”
“I’m not a nursemaid, I’m a friend. And your sister-in-law. Next best thing to a sister.”
He managed a wan smile. “Can I make you a drink? I’m heading for the whiskey myself.”
Jenna forbore to ask him if that was wise. If he wanted to drown his sorrows, she guessed he was entitled.
“Gin and lemon?” he asked her, and she nodded.
She sat on the sofa while Dean paced the sitting room, glancing out the window to the street, picking up books and ornaments and putting them down again as if he didn’t know what to do with himself between gulping at his drink.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly.
A photograph of Callie, laughing into the camera, stood on top of a bookcase. Dean picked it up and stared down at it. “Am I an insensitive sod, Jenna? Should I have noticed she was unhappy?”
“She wasn’t unhappy all the time.”
He brightened a bit. “She wasn’t, was she? I mean, she can’t have been pretending every time we…” Then he looked grim again. “But it was a tug-of-war between me and her old life. And I lost.”
“Did you fight over it?”
He shook his head. “No. We cried over it.” He looked embarrassed and buried his nose in the whiskey glass. “I took her to the airport,” he said, lowering the glass and staring moodily into it. “Still hoping she’d change her mind.”
When Jenna returned to the apartment, Marcus was on the sofa, a stack of papers on the coffee table before him, a pen in his hand and an empty shot glass at his elbow. He wore his business shirt but had unbuttoned the collar and rolled up the sleeves.
His gaze was alert and questioning. “You look whacked,” he said. “Do you need a drink?”
“I’ve had enough to drink, thanks.”
Marcus’s brows went up. “Is that so?”
Not as much as Dean, whom she’d left curled up on the sofa where he’d finally collapsed. She’d removed his shoes and thrown a light blanket over him before leaving.
“A couple of glasses of gin and lemon,” she explained, “with Dean. You got my message?” She’d left a message on the answering machine to say where she was, but with Dean listening in she hadn’t gone into detail about why.
“How is Dean—and Callie? Is something wrong?”
“She’s gone,” Jenna told him. “Back to America.”
His stillness was almost frightening. He might have been turned to stone, not even blinking as his darkened eyes bored into hers. “She’s left him?”
“She was homesick. More than Dean ever realized, I think. He’s terribly upset, and Katie was meeting Jason’s parents tonight.”
Marcus was scrutinizing her face. “So you went to comfort him.”
“He needed someone.” Jenna’s eyes filled with tears. She was tired and wrung out after being supportive and sympathetic for hours while Dean talked and cried and finally drank himself into temporary oblivion. His shock and bewilderment and self-blame had made her own heart ache.
She wiped at the tears with her hand. Marcus didn’t move, so she said, “I’m going to bed.”
In the bathroom she splashed cold water on her eyes and blew her nose. Poor Dean. And poor Callie. She felt wretchedly sorry for them both.
She was in the bedroom when the sound of breaking glass made her start. Marcus must have dropped something. She put on a silky nightgown and got into bed. She desperately wanted Marcus beside her, his warm, hard body close to hers. She wanted to make love to him, to feel his mouth on her lips and her body, his thighs strong and muscular between her own.
But by the time he slid into the bed beside her she had long been claimed by sleep.
In the morning she was lethargic and depressed. Marcus too seemed almost morose.
There was something wrapped in newspaper on the counter, and when Jenna picked it up Marcus said quickly, “Careful—I should have put that in the bin.”
She looked at him.
“I…dropped a glass last night,” he explained.
Dimly she recalled hearing the crash.
Marcus was putting folders into his briefcase when the phone rang and he handed the receiver to Jenna.
“How was he?” Katie asked.
“Sleeping like a baby when I left,” Jenna reported. “Pretty cut up, actually. He’d had a lot of whiskey.”
Marcus stopped by her and gave her a cool kiss on her cheek. He spoke into the receiver. “Jenna has to go to work, Katie. Why don’t you phone Dean?”
“I have, and he’s not answering,” Katie said crossly.
Marcus had straightened. “What did she say?”
“He’s not answering his phone,” Jenna relayed. To Katie she said, “He’s probably gone to the office.”
“Or
he’s sleeping off the hangover,” Marcus suggested.
Katie said, “Maybe I should go and see if he’s all right. I’ll be late for work, but—”
“Hang on.” Jenna put her hand over the receiver and caught at Marcus’s sleeve as he made to leave. She and Katie both had bosses to placate if they were late; he didn’t. He was the boss. “Could you go round by Dean’s place,” she pleaded, “and make sure he’s okay?”
Marcus frowned. “He isn’t a child. And he’s not the type to top himself over a broken love affair.”
“Katie’s worried.”
He took the phone from her. “Katie? I’ll call in and see Dean before I go to the office, okay? Though it’s my guess he’d rather be left alone…. Yes, I’ll let you know if I think he needs you. Yes…promise.”
Hanging up, he gave Jenna an exasperated look. “Personally I should think the last thing he wants is a lot of women fussing over him.”
She was home earlier than Marcus that evening, making dinner as he arrived.
“I saw Dean,” he told her. “He’s sorry for himself and he had a hell of a head, but he went to work. He’ll get over it.”
Jenna had to remind herself that Marcus wasn’t as callous as he sounded. He might be less openly emotional than the twins, but he was fond of them. When his family was in trouble he always came through for them.
She set the table in the dining area in the living room and turned on the light. As she was returning to the kitchen, a glint of something bright made her bend down, finding a tiny sliver of glass. Picking it up cautiously, she noticed that the door was scratched, a new scar on the lower part of it marring the varnish. For a second or two she studied it, puzzled.
She recalled that Marcus had dropped a glass last night—so he’d said.
But if he’d dropped it on the carpet in the living room, it wouldn’t have broken. And if he’d been in the kitchen she would hardly have heard it so clearly from the bedroom.
Surely he couldn’t have thrown it at the door? That would have been most unlike him. And why would he do such a thing?
A hissing noise and a pungent smell from the stove reminded her she’d left a pot of vegetables on high. She rushed to save it, and by the time she’d disposed of the glass, rescued the vegetables and cleaned up the mess they’d made, Marcus had emerged from the bedroom.
Halfway through the meal she remembered. “Where did you drop that glass?”
“What glass?”
“You said you dropped a glass last night.”
“Is it important?” He picked up the one in front of him and took a sip before putting it down again. “I’m sorry if it was a special one.”
“No, but…”
“You can always buy more,” he said.
“Yes, I know.” He set no limit on her spending, although she still used her own money to buy her clothes and cosmetics. “It’s not that. I just wondered how you broke it. There’s a mark on the door.”
Marcus frowned. “Is there? Where?”
She pointed. “It’s not very obvious, but…”
“Never mind,” he interrupted. “We can get it fixed.”
That wasn’t the point, but he said, “Have you heard from your mother lately? She promised to send a newspaper article she thought would interest me.”
Not wanting to nag, or make a mountain out of what was surely not more than a molehill, Jenna let the subject of the broken glass die.
Three days later a handyman fixed the door and it looked as good as new.
Over the following weeks Katie and Jenna did their best to make sure Dean didn’t have too much time to brood. Not the kind to slink off and lick his wounds in private, he accepted invitations and hid his feelings behind a show of his usual effervescence.
Jenna asked him round for dinner, along with Katie and a few other friends. She and Katie asked him to take them to a craft show out of town that Marcus didn’t want to attend, and Katie persuaded him to drive her to their parents’ place for a Sunday lunch. When Marcus had a boat again for a weekend, Jenna suggested that they invite Dean along. Shrugging, Marcus agreed. “If you think it’s a good idea.”
“He needs to be kept occupied,” she answered. “And he likes sailing. We can tell him we need an extra pair of hands.”
Maybe he knew they didn’t, but Dean came along anyway, and she thought he enjoyed himself. She took careful note so that she could report back to his sister, who she knew would call the next day to ask how he had seemed.
“It will take time,” Jenna warned her. “We can’t expect too much too soon.”
“There’s a pop concert in the Domain next Saturday,” Katie said. “We’ll take him to that.”
They did, although Marcus refused to accompany them. “Not my favorite group,” he said. “I didn’t think it was yours, either.”
It wasn’t, but Katie seemed to take it for granted that she would go, as she assumed that if she wasn’t available to entertain and distract Dean, Jenna would be.
Sometimes Jenna noticed the droop of his shoulders, or caught him in an unguarded moment, his mouth turned down and his eyes distracted, and a little reflection of his hurt tugged at her heart. Then he’d look up and smile at her, and she’d smile back, not letting on that she knew his casual, laid-back air hid very real pain.
Katie knew it too. She worried that Dean had lost weight, that he wasn’t eating properly. She wondered aloud if she should get in touch with Callie and tell her how much Dean missed her, that he still loved her.
“For God’s sake,” Marcus said irritably, strolling into the living room one day as Jenna was lending a sympathetic ear to his sister, “let the guy sort himself out in his own way. He won’t thank you for trying to solve his problems.”
“We just want to help him,” Katie said. “Don’t you?”
“I don’t see there’s much we can do. If he really wants Callie—”
“Of course he wants her!” Katie was shocked. “He loves her!”
“Then why isn’t he on a plane to the States?” Marcus asked bluntly.
“It’s not that simple. He’s got a job here to hold down,” Katie protested. “He can’t work in the States without a permit and Callie—”
“It seems to me that two people who really love each other should be able to work out some kind of compromise.”
“Like what?” Katie challenged.
“Like making a commitment to Callie spending time with her family a couple of times a year. Like marrying her and then looking for work in the States. Like putting himself out to make her so happy with him she won’t miss her own people as much.”
Katie sniffed. “It’s easy for you to say. You have plenty of money.”
“Dean knows he only has to ask and he can have a loan anytime. And I didn’t say it would be easy. Loving someone was never meant to be easy. Real love demands sacrifice and pain and damned hard decisions. It’s gut-wrenching and soul destroying, and there are times when it seems more than a man can take. But you’ll do anything, put up with anything just to be near the person you love, even if it hurts like hell. And you’ll even give that up if necessary to give her her heart’s desire.”
Jenna stared at him, and Katie was openmouthed too.
Marcus clamped his lips into a line, and color appeared on his cheekbones. “If he doesn’t love her that way,” he said, “then he doesn’t deserve her.”
After he’d left the room, Katie looked at Jenna and lifted her brows interrogatively.
Jenna shook her head, as bewildered as his sister, and perturbed. She had never heard Marcus speak with such passion. Who was the woman who had inspired it? Her hands unconsciously curled in her lap. Her back went rigid. A fierce flame of jealousy ignited inside her.
Marcus had never pretended he felt anything that strong about her. She couldn’t reproach him for deceiving her, because he hadn’t.
Chapter Ten
Jenna broached the subject obliquely with Katie. “I know Marcus had girlfri
ends before me,” she said, as they washed up after the family had come to dinner one night. “Was he serious about any of them?”
“Hard to say,” Katie answered thoughtfully. “He didn’t bring them home often, and you know Marcus—he’s always played his cards close to his chest, especially about his personal life. Still,” she added cheerfully, “I’m sure you’ve nothing to worry about. I shouldn’t think any of them are likely to crawl out of the woodwork now, and if they did, he wouldn’t look at them. He’s much too…well, honorable, and apart from that, he loves you.”
“I know,” Jenna hastened to agree, taking the latter part of her friend’s assurance with her customary grain of salt.
“Is there a problem?” Katie asked.
“No.” Jenna shook her head. “Except one of his friends said…she thought someone had hurt him.” She remembered his assurance when they were in his father’s orchid house that the pain would pass, she’d get over it. Had it passed for him? Had he really got over his mystery lover?
Katie said, “Everyone’s been hurt at some time. I shouldn’t think my big brother is the type to let any woman blight his life…although,” she added thoughtfully, “still waters run deep and all that. Maybe he just wouldn’t admit it. You probably understand him better than any of us.”
“Because I’m his wife?”
“Well, that, of course,” Katie agreed. “But you and Marcus are alike in so many ways. I guess that’s why you fell for each other.”
Jenna blinked.
“Sort of enclosed and intense. Not like Dean and me. We’re all on the surface. Everyone knows when we’re happy. And when we want to hide something, we just apply another glossy coat that looks like the same thing to most people. I mean, look at him now.”
Jenna nodded. She and Katie knew Dean was covering up, and sometimes he let the cheerful mask slip with them, but outsiders would be fooled by his determinedly cheerful, outgoing manner. They would think his broken engagement was a minor glitch in a carefree life.
Katie said, “I can tell with Dean. But I never know what Marcus is thinking, even though he’s my brother. And you’re more like him than I ever realized…. I thought that we knew all about each other, though you don’t blab about everything to me the way I do to you. I know you have more secrets than I do. But I never suspected you had a thing for Marcus.”
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