by Sara Craven
Unless, of course, this is all one sick coincidence. But somehow I don’t think so.
‘If you’re not with us, I don’t think we’ll have a cause,’ Kit told her grimly. ‘You can’t give up on it all now. Besides, what point would there be when he knows where you are?’
It was logical—it was reasonable—but it made the situation no easier to accept.
She said, ‘I can’t just—meet him socially. Too much has happened.’
‘Then look on it as a business meeting,’ Kit urged. ‘They say half the deals in the country are done in restaurants.’
She bent her head. ‘You really think he’s going to offer any concessions?’
‘Why not? He didn’t have to agree to talk to us. He could have insisted on seeing you alone. That’s a hopeful sign, isn’t it?’
‘Nick likes to manipulate people,’ she said. ‘And he always has his own agenda.’
‘Nevertheless,’ he said stubbornly, ‘it has to be worth a try.’ He paused, and his tone altered. ‘Cally—did you ever intend to tell me you were married?’
She gave him a straight look. ‘I didn’t plan to be around long enough for that to be necessary. Anyway, it’s not an episode I’m proud of. I’m just thankful it will soon be over and done with.’
‘Why’s he a sir?’ asked Tracy.
‘Because he’s a baronet. He inherited the title from a distant cousin.’
‘With loads of land and money?’ Tracy was clearly intrigued. ‘That’s dead romantic.’
‘Most of the land had been sold off,’ Cally said wearily. ‘And he was already a millionaire several times over. So all he really got was a rather rundown house.’
‘Was it love at first sight?’ Tracy persisted. ‘When you met him? I mean, you obviously fancied him enough to marry him.’
‘Actually,’ Cally said in a clear, bright voice, ‘it was just a business arrangement. Only I decided rather late in the day that I couldn’t go through with it after all. And I’d rather not talk about it any more either,’ she added.
Except that she almost certainly wouldn’t have a choice in the matter, she told herself, grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing tray and swallowing some of it down her dry throat.
Because she was faced at last with the confrontation she’d have given anything to avoid.
She tried not to look—to see where Nick was in the busy room, or if he was alone. Particularly that. She strove hard not to wonder what he was thinking—or what he might have to say to her later. Because there was bound to be some kind of reckoning.
Even if he agreed that a quick and quiet divorce was the best way out of their situation—and as far as Cally was concerned there was no possible alternative—she was still unlikely to escape totally unscathed.
I left him with a lot of explaining to do, she told herself tautly. Made him look a fool. Something he’s unlikely to forgive or forget.
And now she would have to come up with an explanation for her headlong flight from him.
Not the truth, of course. That was locked away deep within her, and she would not go there. But something—anything—that would carry a modicum of conviction.
She put down her glass and with a murmured excuse went out of the room, down a flight of stone steps to the women’s cloakroom. She had it to herself, which she was grateful for, because one glance in the mirror told her that she looked as if she was running a temperature. Her eyes were feverishly bright, and there was a hectic flush along her cheekbones, so the last thing she wanted was for someone to ask if she was all right—especially if Nick was around to hear it.
I need to look cool, calm and collected, she told herself, as she ran the cold tap over the pounding pulses in her wrists and applied a damp tissue to her temples. I have to keep the emotional temperature low, no matter how difficult it may get later, because I can’t afford any sign of weakness.
And if they could only agree to conduct the eventual divorce in a rational, equable spirit, that would be a bonus.
She supposed divorce was the solution. She couldn’t imagine Nick accepting the annulment that represented the true state of affairs between them. Not good for his all-powerful male image, she thought wryly.
Although it would be her lack of sex appeal that would probably be blamed. What else could it be? Because, where women were concerned, Nick Tempest didn’t have to prove a thing.
Whereas she—she had little to offer. She was still too thin, she admitted, and under normal circumstances too pale. Her features were generally nondescript, with that thick, glossy fall of hair her only real claim to beauty. Although even that was brown. The whole picture was dull and duller, underlined by a blouse, skirt and jacket that didn’t hold a scrap of allure between them.
No change there, she thought, her mouth twisting.
The witnesses at their wedding must have imagined they were watching a peacock mate with an ugly duckling.
But then Nick hadn’t married her for her attractions, or her charm. He’d had his own reasons…as she’d finally discovered, she thought, tension lancing her as those hidden memories stirred again.
Not that it mattered, she told herself vehemently. It was all past and done with, and soon that would be a matter of law.
I want nothing from him, she thought, but my freedom. And surely that isn’t too much to ask? He should be glad to be rid of me at so little cost.
In these past strange months in limbo, she’d learned that she could earn sufficient to keep herself without luxuries. Once she was no longer running away, she could actually seek some training, prepare herself for a career. Life would open up in front of her.
And, however long it took, and however painful the process, she would learn to forget that for a few hours she’d been Nick Tempest’s convenient bride.
‘So you’re still here.’ Tracy came into the cloakroom. ‘Kit sent me to find you. I think he was getting worried in case you’d disappeared.’
‘No.’ Cally had managed to tone down the worst of her flush with powder. She produced her comb and started to smooth her hair. ‘I’m still around.’
‘Put some lippy on,’ Tracy suggested.
‘I haven’t brought any.’ It was a fib, but she hadn’t used it earlier, and there was no way she wanted to look as if she’d made any kind of effort. It was the kind of feminine detail that Nick would notice, she thought, with a pang.
‘Kit thinks we should go and have a quiet drink at the White Hart.’ Tracy went on. ‘Plan our tactics, he says.’ She gave Cally a straight look. ‘You don’t think there’s much point, do you?’
Cally put her comb in her bag. She said quietly, ‘I honestly don’t know. He could simply have refused to talk to us.’
‘Well, he’s your husband, so you should know,’ said Tracy. She added, ‘And it’s not really “us”, at all. It’s you—isn’t it?’ And her eyes met Cally’s with a question she was unable to answer.
By the time they reached the restaurant Cally was on tenterhooks, totally gripped by tension. The preliminary discussion in the pub hadn’t got very far, because Kit was clearly still upset about her concealed marriage and was prepared to be resentful, which she regretted.
She realised, to her shame, that she was hoping against hope that Nick would yield to the Hartleys’ blandishments and not turn up.
You’re supposed to be fighting for Gunners Terrace, she reproached herself silently. Balance that against an awkward hour or so in your ex-husband’s company, and get a grip.
But Nick was there before them, occupying a corner table—the best in the house, naturally—and accompanied by a fair, stocky man whom he introduced as Matthew Hendrick, the project architect.
Cally was so determined not to sit next to Nick that she found herself placed opposite him instead, which was hardly an improvement, she thought, biting her lip with vexation.
While the menus were handed round, the bread brought and the wine poured, she could feel Nick’s eyes on her in a cool assess
ment which she could not avoid and he did not even try to conceal.
She could only hope he was thanking his stars for a lucky escape, but her intuition warned her that she might be wrong.
She ate sparingly of the antipasti that formed the first course, and only picked at the chicken in its rich wine sauce that followed. She tried to fix her mind on the earnest discussion going on, primarily between Kit and Matthew Hendrick, while Nick watched and listened. This was all that should matter to her, she reminded herself. The plight of the residents. The need to save the project and continue it. She should be joining in here, making her own reasoned contribution, as Tracy was doing.
But she was too aware of the dark man opposite, with the cool, contained face. Too conscious of the apprehensive thoughts circling in her mind, giving her no peace.
She refused dessert and coffee, praying inwardly that the party would start to break up and she’d finally be let off the hook.
But it was a vain hope.
‘Goodnight, Miss Andrews—Mr Matlock.’ Nick had risen to his feet and was shaking hands. ‘Matthew, I’ll meet you on site tomorrow at nine a.m. My wife and I are going to stay for a while, and enjoy our reunion.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘We have a lot of catching up to do—don’t we, my sweet?’
Cally’s lips parted to utter a startled protest, but she bit back the words and sank back in her chair. That same intuition told her that any resistance on her part would only make her look foolish in the end. Far better not to fuss, she thought, but to let him think she regarded spending time alone in his company with complete indifference.
But how that was to be achieved she hadn’t the faintest idea.
The others left, and she saw Kit looking frowningly back at her. She was almost tempted to call out to him, ask him to stay, but she knew that wouldn’t be fair. She’d enjoyed working with Kit, but she would never have wanted more even if she’d been free, and she would have told him goodbye without regrets.
Besides, if Eastern Crest were interested enough in what he had to say to hold a site meeting, she couldn’t jeopardise that by allowing him to annoy the chairman.
And Nick had made his wishes coolly and brutally clear.
They were going to talk.
As he resumed his seat, she said in a small, brittle voice, ‘I feel as if someone should read me my rights.’
‘I already know mine,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to consider them.’ He signalled to the waiter to bring more coffee.
‘I don’t want anything else,’ she told him quickly.
‘Then you can sit and chat to me while I have some. Doesn’t that paint a nice domestic picture?’
‘Nick,’ she said, deciding to jump straight in, ‘do we really have to do this? Can’t we just accept that our marriage was a seriously bad idea and call it quits? I—I’d honestly like to go home.’
‘An excellent idea,’ he said affably. ‘Why don’t we do just that? Unfortunately, at the moment home for me happens to be the Majestic Hotel—a flagrant misnomer, if ever there was one.’ He gave her a small, cold smile. ‘I wonder if I could get them under the Trades Description Act? However,’ he went on, ‘with uncanny prescience, they’ve given me the bridal suite, so perhaps I should forgive their delusions of grandeur.’ He drank down his espresso. ‘Shall we go?’
She could suddenly feel the hectic drumming of her pulses. Hear the silent scream of No in her dry throat. She thought, He doesn’t mean that. He can’t…
Aloud, she said shakily, ‘I’m going nowhere with you. You seem to have overlooked the fact that I’ve left you.’
‘Oh, no, darling,’ he said with corrosive lightness. ‘I remember that incredibly well. Our wedding day, right? In fact, the ink was barely dry on the register when you scarpered.’
She said stiffly, ‘I suppose you deserve some kind of explanation.’
‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice seemed to remove a layer of her skin. ‘I bloody well do. And maybe an apology for making a fool of me quite so publicly. That would be a beginning.’
She bit her lip. ‘Yes, of course. I—I’m sorry about that.’
‘But nothing else?’ Nick divined grimly.
She thought, You were making a fool of me in private—or does that not count?
She lifted her chin. ‘It was something I had to do. I felt I had no choice.’ She hesitated. ‘What—what did you tell people?’
‘I couldn’t manage the truth,’ he said. ‘Because I didn’t know what it was. I had no farewell note—no “Dear John” blotched with penitent tears to point me in the right direction. So I simply let it be known that you’d had a change of heart, however late in the day, and that we’d agreed to separate.’
He paused. ‘You see, my sweet, at first I didn’t realise what had happened. You’d taken the car, so originally I assumed there’d been an accident. I wasted a hell of a lot of time making increasingly frantic hospital calls, until the police called to say they’d picked up some kids joy-riding. They’d stolen your car from a station car park twenty miles away and written it off. The guy in the ticket office there recognised you from our engagement photograph—now, there’s an irony—and said you’d bought a ticket to London. One way.’ His mouth twisted harshly. ‘That, of course, put an entirely new slant on the situation.’
Cally looked down at the tablecloth, tracing meaningless patterns on the white linen with her forefinger. ‘So you did—go looking for me?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not at first. Frankly, I was too bloody angry. So I thought, To hell with it. And her.’
‘You should have left it like that.’
‘Ah,’ he said softly. ‘But I too underwent a change of heart.’
There was a loaded silence, then she said jerkily, ‘How—how did you know where to find me?’
‘Except for those first weeks, I’ve always known where to find you.’
A shiver chilled her spine, and she closed her eyes momentarily. ‘And I thought I’d managed to cover my tracks. That if I kept moving I’d drop out of sight.’
‘Oh, finding you was the easy part,’ he said sardonically. ‘Deciding what to do about it was trickier.’ He paused. ‘There was a time, you see, when I thought you might come back. That you might find living with me marginally preferable to slaving away in various greasy spoons.’ The grey eyes met hers. ‘But you never did.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Because I thought I was free. It never occurred to me that I was simply on the end of a long rope.’
There was a silence, then he said, ‘What made you come here?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s the same as any other place. And it seemed—anonymous.’
He said drily, ‘It’s about to undergo a revival. Someone’s decided the town has commuter possibilities. Hence Gunners Wharf.’
‘And hence your presence here, too.’ Her voice was taut.
‘It seemed too good an opportunity to miss,’ he said slowly, and she knew he was not referring to the development. Or not solely. And felt her heartbeat falter in panic.
She said hurriedly, ‘Eastern Crest—is that a new acquisition? I didn’t recognise the name…’
‘Well, darling,’ he drawled, ‘you haven’t been around much, keeping up. And without you to divert my attention I’ve had more time to devote to acquisitions and mergers.’ He paused. ‘And if you’d recognised the name, you’d have done—what?’
There was another silence, then she said wearily, ‘I don’t know. Running and trying to hide has clearly been futile. And I suppose we needed to meet eventually, to discuss what to do about the divorce. But why at this particular time?’
‘I was told you were seeing someone,’ Nick said expressionlessly. ‘So it seemed an opportune moment to intervene. Your colleague, Mr Matlock, appeared upset to hear you were married,’ he added pensively. ‘I do hope, darling, you haven’t been making promises you’re not entitled to keep.’
‘I’m “seeing” no one,’ Cally said throug
h gritted teeth. ‘And Kit has no reason to feel aggrieved. So you could have easily saved yourself the inconvenience.’
‘Yet, as you say, we needed to meet—to talk about the future. So this became the time—and the place.’ His smile was brief and without warmth. ‘And apart from the implicit defiance in your voice and body language, you’ve hardly changed at all, my love.’
‘Perhaps the defiance was always there,’ she said. ‘But you didn’t notice.’
‘I noticed a hell of a lot,’ he said quietly. ‘And I was prepared to make allowances. Only you never gave me that chance. You preferred to bolt as if I was some kind of mad axe murderer.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing so dramatic. Simply because I wasn’t going to live my life on your terms.’
His brows lifted. ‘Did I impose any conditions? I can’t recall them.’
‘You made me become your wife,’ she said, her throat tightening. ‘That involves—obligations.’
‘Ah,’ he said softly. ‘In plain words, you didn’t want to sleep with me.’ He gave her a meditative look. ‘Admittedly, we didn’t have a conventional courtship, but you never gave the impression at the time that you found me particularly repulsive.’
Cally bit her lip. ‘Well, you know now.’
‘In fact,’ Nick went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘there were moments when the indications seemed distinctly favourable. Or did I imagine that?’
No, thought Cally, a tide of unwilling colour rising in her face. You didn’t imagine it—damn you.
She said stiffly, ‘You’d naturally prefer to think so, of course. You wouldn’t want a dent in that irresistible image of yours.’
‘If I’d ever been conceited enough to entertain such a notion,’ he returned icily, ‘you’d have shattered it for ever when you ran away.’
‘But I’m sure you’ve had consolation,’ she flung at him, and could have bitten out her tongue. She had not meant to say that.
‘Why, darling—’ Nick’s tone changed to mockery ‘—did you really expect me to soothe my wounded feelings by staying celibate?’
‘And do you really expect me to care—one way or the other?’