‘We thought it was you, you know,’ her Friend’s expression was strained. ‘When they announced on the news that a reporter from the Daily Probe had been shot on that plane - lord, we really thought it was you!’
Julie swallowed hard. ‘We?’
‘All of us,’ Connie nodded. ‘Ben and I—and Zack. Julie—’
‘I think Nicholas needs some help with his farm.’ Julie got down on the carpet with the little boy, helping him put up the fences for his plastic animals. ‘No more, Connie—please!’
‘All right,’ her friend accepted quietly.
The rest of the afternoon was spent light-heartedly as the two girls played with the children, and Julie was up in her room changing for dinner when she heard Ben’s car in the driveway. At least, she presumed it was Ben, Connie hadn’t mentioned expecting anyone else for dinner.
As it was already seven-thirty Suzanne was in bed, and Connie was just in the process of giving Nicholas his bath. Considering that Connie could more than have afforded to have hired a nanny for the children it was very commendable that she preferred to take care of them herself, claiming that with a housekeeper and a nanny she wouldn’t have anything to do herself.
Julie could hear Ben’s firm tread on the stairs, heard Nicholas’s delighted giggles as his father joined them in the bathroom. She had thought the normality of a happy family life was what she needed at this time, but now she wasn’t so sure, Connie and Ben’s undoubted happiness together reminded her of all she was missing.
But she could have a marriage that suited her even better than theirs did; she could marry Steve, could continue with her career, could have the perfect marriage she could never have with Zack. She may not love Steve as she had once loved Zack, would probably never love Steve as she had once loved Zack, would never love anyone as she had loved him. But what she and Steve did have was good, and she was sure she could make him happy.
But not as happy as he deserved to be! She could never give him all of herself, never wanted to have the children he would no doubt crave in time. And yet she didn’t want to lose him either. It was a muddled, tangled circle, and one that she was going to have to have sorted out by the end of this week. Steve wanted his answer then.
The lounge was deserted when she came downstairs, the green of her dress a perfect match for her eyes, the soft material hinting at the perfection beneath rather than emphasising ii, the heels of her sandals making her taller than ever.
She turned with a smile as the door opened, and the smile faltered a little as she saw it was Ben. ‘Er—Hello,’ she said nervously, steeling herself not to be affected by his stark resemblance to Zack. He was as tall and broad as his brother, had the same dark hair that was inclined to curl, but his features Were softer, not etched out of harshness, and his eyes were a warm blue, not the icy grey of Zack’s. Nevertheless the resemblance was enough to disturb her, and her breathing was ragged as she waited for him to answer her.
‘How are you, Julie?’ he asked deeply, the blue eyes as wary as his son’s had been this afternoon.
‘I’m well, thank you, Ben,’ she returned stiffly.
‘Would you like a drink?’ He moved to the extensive array of bottles on the sideboard.
‘Just a sherry, please.’ She sat down, perched awkwardly on the edge of her chair. She hadn’t seen Ben since her break-up with Zack, and this first meeting was turning out to be more awkward then she had imagined.
‘Dry,’ he handed it to her.
She gave a nervy smile. ‘You remembered!’
Ben sat down opposite her. ‘I remember a lot of things about you, Julie,’ he said softly.
She glanced at him nervously. ‘Not all of it bad, I hope.’
‘On the contrary,’ he drawled. ‘Most of it good. And you’re still as beautiful as ever.’
‘Thank you,’ she blushed. ‘But I’m sure your new sister-in-law will be even more beautiful.’
A frown marred his brow. ‘New sister-in- law?’
‘I believe her name is Teresa,’ she said lightly, hoping he couldn’t see how talking of Zack’s second wife was upsetting her.
‘Connie told you about her?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed huskily.
‘I don’t believe marriage has been mentioned…’
‘Does it need to be?’ she taunted.
Ben’s eyes narrowed questioningly. ‘Why should it bother you one way or the other?’
‘It doesn’t—’
‘Oh, come on, Julie,’ he mocked. ‘I know you, and the thought of Zack marrying again does bother you.’
She bit her lip, taking a sip of her sherry, hoping Ben wouldn’t notice the slight trembling of her hand, although she was very much afraid that he had. Ben had changed the last three years, was no longer just Zack’s little brother but a compelling man in his own right. Maybe having a wife and children had done that to him, or maybe Zack had given him more responsibility, whatever, the reason he was now as formidable as his brother, and just as direct.
‘Ben—’
The door opened and Connie came in, looking fresh and beautiful in a brown crushed velvet dress. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked brightly, looking questioningly at them both.
Both Julie and Ben knew that they had been given this brief time alone together to come to terms with her visit here, and both of them went out of their way to reassure Connie that everything was fine between them—even if it wasn’t strictly true.
But somehow during that weekend they fell into the old camaraderie they used to share. No one mentioned Zack’s absence from their foursome, and the weekend passed pleasantly enough.
Nevertheless, Julie felt a little more relaxed once Ben was back at work during the day, enjoying her days spent with Connie and the children, always retiring early to bed and so leaving Connie and Ben some privacy during the evenings.
She needed the extra sleep anyway, finding that now that she could sleep she was finding it difficult to get up in the mornings. Her sleep was black and dreamless, blotting out the memory of her time spent on the plane, and she slept like one drugged.
It was for this reason that she refused Connie and Ben’s invitation to accompany them on a dinner engagement the last evening of her stay with them.
‘Oh, you must come,’ Connie protested. ‘It’s your last evening with us, you have to come out with us at least once.’
The complaint was a valid one, she had already turned down two other invitations to accompany them when they went out, but tonight she had to be on her own; she would probably watch television for a while and then have another early night.
‘I’d rather not,’ she said softly. ‘I have the drive back to London tomorrow.’
‘You aren’t exactly decrepit, Julie,’ Ben mocked, adding his voice to the argument. ‘And the drive to London doesn’t take that long, I do it every day.’
‘Of course you do,’ she flushed. ‘But I would really rather not go. I—I have a slight headache,’ she invented, instantly feeling guilty as she saw Connie’s face darken with concern.
‘You should have said,’ her friend came to her side. ‘Have you taken anything for it?’
‘I—I was just about to.’ Julie studiously avoided Ben’s sceptical gaze, knowing he didn’t believe she had a headache at all. And he was right! Her reason for not wanting to go out tonight was much more deeply rooted than a headache.
Connie glanced at her husband. ‘If Julie isn’t feeling well…’ she gave a helpless shrug.
He looked down at Julie mockingly. ‘You really don’t feel well enough to accompany us?’ he taunted.
She looked down at her hands. ‘Er—No. Besides, I can listen out for the children.’
‘Mrs Pearce can do that,’ he drawled.
‘I—I’d rather stay here. It isn’t really important that I come, is it?’ Julie appealed.
Again Connie shot a rather helpless look at Ben. ‘I suppose not,’ she answered lamely. ‘Although it would have been nice.’
&nb
sp; ‘We can do it some other time,’ Julie dismissed easily.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t go either—’
‘Oh, I insist,’ she sharply interrupted her friend, wanting above anything else to be alone tonight, tonight of all nights. ‘After all,’ she gave a jerky smile, ‘I’ll probably only be going to bed anyway.’
‘Ben?’ Connie looked over at her husband.
He shrugged. ‘We can’t force her.’
‘Of course you can’t,’ Julie said brightly. ‘Now you go out and have a lovely time and forget all about me.’
She finally managed to get them out of the house an hour later, breathing a sigh of relief, then she dismissed Mrs Pearce for the evening, wanting to be alone. These dark moods of depression didn’t come over her very often, but when they did she knew it wasn’t wise to ignore them.
When she had first started to get them she had consulted a doctor, but he seemed to think it was a perfectly normal reaction to her broken marriage, the way it had broken up, and had prescribed pills which she refused to take. Doctors seemed to prescribe tranquillisers for everything nowadays, and she had seen friends of hers become dependent on them. She never intended to become addicted to anything again, she knew that the withdrawal symptoms weren’t worth it.
It was a strange way to think of your husband, as an addiction, and yet that was exactly what Zack had been for her. She had known from the start that he was wrong for her, had tried to resist total dependence, but in the end she had succumbed like any addict. And like any other addiction he had turned around one day and tried to destroy her, just as she had known he would.
She couldn’t remember, wouldn’t allow herself to remember, the good times, she knew only that tonight she would need the help of the sleeping pills the doctor had given her. She had taken them only twice before, and tonight she would need them for the same reason—to forget Zack, longing for that total oblivion the pills gave her.
She had already warned Mrs Pearce to listen out for the children, although she looked in on them before she went to her own room. They were sleeping like angels, looking nothing like the little demons that plagued Connie all day. Connie had infinite patience with them, and Julie could only admire her ability to be a mother.
But much as she had come to love the two children during the week here she still had no desire to become a mother herself. Nicholas and Suzanne she could hand back whenever she wanted to, knowing that her indifference wouldn’t bother them.
She quietly left the nursery to go and run her bath, finding the hot water soothing, although the blackness that was like a heavy weight refused to be pushed away.
The masculine night-shirt she wore fell down to just below her knees, and without her makeup she looked about sixteen. If only she felt that way!
The tablets, she knew from experience, would take some time to take effect, although when they did work they would knock her out for at least six hours, something she welcomed in her present mood. At the moment all her old resentment had come to the fore, and she felt angry, betrayed, almost violent as she fought off the dark memories that haunted her.
When the doorbell rang she was on her way from the bathroom, taking two steps down the stairs before freezing, staring at the tall, dark figure vaguely visible through the partly glazed door. Then a key was being placed in the lock, and Julie’s breath caught in her throat as the door slowly opened.
She must have gone deathly pale as she instantly recognised the man who stood there. ‘Zack…!’ she breathed raggedly, for it really was him. He was older, grey streaks among the black thickness of his hair, more lines on his ruggedly handsome face, perhaps a little leaner too, although no less powerful, looking every one of his thirty-nine years. And yet it was definitely Zack, the man who was still her husband.
CHAPTER 2
Zack tersely dismissed the housekeeper as she came in answer to the ringing of the doorbell, having eyes only for Julie, light luminously grey eyes surrounded by thick dark lashes, eyes that smouldered as he looked at her, turning back the clock for both of them.
She had been newly employed at the Global News fresh from working on a local newspaper in the small town she had been brought up in. She had found London a strange world after the intimacy of Sleaford, and had had no premonition of the complete change that was to take place in her life.
From the first day she had seen Zack she had known he was a dangerous individual, but when she had gone to work on that Monday morning four years ago she hadn’t dreamt she would meet such a man, hadn’t known such men existed outside the pages of romance novels.
He was everything she had ever dreamt of in a man—tall, dark and very, very handsome. It was the latter that worried her the most. She had met too many men in the past whose looks gave them a conceit she detested.
Zack had walked into the open-plan office to talk to her boss, a totally dominating personality who instantly drew attention. She had watched him as he talked to Frank Black, and seen the respect with which Frank treated him. As he walked out of the office he had caught her gaze, his brows rising as she blushingly looked away. She had hated that blush, knew that at twenty-two she should be past such things; she had thought she was until Zack had looked at her with that totally male assessment.
She had learnt later who he was—it would have been hard not to! All the female members of the staff were buzzing with the return of Zachary Reedman from his business trip abroad, the owner of the newspaper they all worked for, and a very sexy individual, according to most of the women.
She had been coming back from one of the other offices when she saw Zack again. He was coming towards her down the corridor, and she bent her head to take an unwarranted interest in the papers in her hand. Maybe if she hadn’t been acting so coyly and had looked where she was going the two of them would never have met—although knowing Zack’s determination perhaps they would!
As it was they had walked straight into each other, the solid wall of Zack’s chest completely knocking her off her feet. She landed in an untidy heap on the floor, her papers scattered all over the corridor. Later on, when she knew him better, he teased her about the way she had ‘fallen’ for him, but at that moment she had been burning with indignation, mainly because she had felt a fool.
To her surprise Zack had asked her out to dinner after helping her pick up the papers, an invitation she had refused. After all, he couldn’t really be serious. Why should the owner of the newspaper want to take out his most junior reporter?
That was when she first discovered Zack’s persistence. For a week he had bombarded her with telephone calls, so much so that she had begun to get strange looks from the people she worked close to. It was because of this growing curiosity that she had finally agreed to meet him for a drink one evening, sure that once he discovered how ordinary she was he would quickly lose interest.
He hadn’t. That first date had led to a second, the second to a third, until at the end of three weeks Julie suddenly realised they had met every evening of that time. That was when she began to panic, turning down his next two invitations on made-up excuses.
Zack hadn’t been fooled for a moment, and the telephone calls started once again. She had finally given in, almost fainting with shock when Zack had asked her to marry him. All her objections—the fact that they hadn’t known each other very long, their different lifestyles—had been to no avail. Once again she had come up against Zack’s determination, and before she was even aware of it happening she found herself standing before a registrar, with Connie as her witness, Ben as Zack’s.
The only thing she had insisted on was that their marriage remain a secret for the moment, and Zack reluctantly accepted that it could be awkward for her to carry on with her career as his wife. Reluctantly he had agreed, although only on a temporary basis. Somehow it had never seemed the right time to make their marriage public, so that even now it had remained a secret between Connie and Ben, Zack and herself.
For the first six months of their
marriage everything had seemed to go smoothly for them. The two of them were often away at different times, although each homecoming was like a second honeymoon. It was at the end of a month’s absence on Julie’s part that Zack had finally told her she had to choose, her career or him. It had been an impossible choice, and for another five months their marriage had continued in a stilted warfare.
Zack’s unreasonable jealousy had caused their final confrontation. He had accused her of having an affair with the man who had accompanied her as a photographer on the month in South Africa. It had been a ludicrous accusation, and when she had told Zack so he had finally lost all control.
What had happened next she still didn’t like to think about, blocking the horror of it from her mind even now.
She had found it impossible to remain at the Global News, although Zack had made no effort to make her leave. But seeing him walking confidently about the building and knowing their marriage was over Julie had known she couldn’t stay, and she made the move to the Daily Probe almost immediately.
Much to her surprise Zack had never divorced her, and so officially she was still Mrs Julie Reedman, although she had never used the name. And she never would! She was no man’s possession, and never would be. Zack could divorce her and marry this Teresa, could have the family he had always wanted, but she would never ever put herself in the position again where she was responsible to a man for her actions. She liked her independence, liked being free to do what she wanted when she wanted. And when the day came that she was no longer attractive to men she would still have her career, she wouldn’t have become the mental cabbage her mother had before her father lost interest in her.
No man would ever make her his doormat, the woman he came home to when his mistress wasn’t available, the woman who ruined her own figure giving him the children he wanted while his mistress remained beautiful for him. The sort of husband her own father had been!
Zack was the first one to break the spell, turning to close the door, muscle rippling beneath the superb cut of his black dinner jacket. When he looked up at her again his eyes were the cold, metallic grey that was more familiar to her, his mouth twisting sardonically as his gaze passed from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.
Love Unspoken Page 3