by Helen Brooks
She had moved into the tiny, one-bedroomed flat she was renting the day before, and amazingly it had been her mother who had been instrumental in her finding the little treasure of a place tucked away in Richmond. It belonged to the daughter of one of Coral's bridge partners, apparently, who was away working in America for twelve months and had decided to rent out if she could get a suitable lodger. Victoria was considered suitable, and so that was that and she was installed before she knew it.
Victoria had been only too grateful to find somewhere so quickly—the three days she had spent at her mother's apartment on her return to England had been more than enough for both women. And how Coral would react when she found out she was going to be a grandmother, Victoria didn't even like to contemplate. She was barely speaking to her daughter as it was, and Coral had told her flatly—in the first minute of their meeting on Victoria's return to England—that she considered Victoria totally responsible for the breakdown of her marriage.
As though he had picked up her thoughts, William stopped her on the pavement just outside the restaurant and enclosed her lightly in his arms, looking down into her face as he said, 'How is your mother behaving in all this, or don't I need to ask?'
'About as you'd expect,' Victoria said with justified bitterness. 'Everything is all my fault and Zac can't do anything wrong.'
'She's one on her own. It's hard to believe—'
Victoria never did find out what William found hard to believe, because in the next moment, as she stood relaxed in his arms, her head tilted as she looked up into the face of this tried and trusted friend, a dark, cold voice at the side of them brought her jerking out of William's hold as though something had bitten her. Which in a way it had, she thought shakily as her heart continued to beat like a crazy thing.
'I hate to interrupt what is obviously a tender moment, but I want a word with my wife.' Ice tinkled in every word.
'Zac.' Victoria stumbled backwards and would have fallen but for Zac's quick hand at her elbow, which immediately returned to his side when she was steady, as though he couldn't bear to touch her. 'What…? How did you…?' she stammered incoherently.
'Let's cut the 'what are you doing here?' scenario,' Zac grated with icy contempt. 'I'm sure we can do better than that.'
He looked magnificent. That was Victoria's first jumbled thought. Followed by, And angry. Definitely furiously, murderously angry. He was in a business suit, clearly having come from the office, and in spite of the rage that was turning the dark eyes into brilliantly black bullets and his beautifully chiselled mouth into a hard, straight line his control was absolute.
'Zac, this isn't a good moment,' she began tremblingly.
'On the contrary, Victoria, it is an excellent moment,' he said tightly, his eyes sweeping over her flushed, anxious face.
'I'm… I've just had lunch. This is—'
'William Howard,' Zac finished for her, giving the other man one scathing glance before turning back to Victoria again. 'Now say goodbye to your playmate because we've got some serious talking to do, the results of which will determine whether lover boy here needs a new face in the very near future.'
'What on earth are you talking about?' She stared at him in horrified amazement His voice hadn't been raised one iota above normal, which made the content of his words all the more incredible.
'It's very simple, Victoria, but not something to be discussed in the middle of the street,' Zac said with smooth control, only the lethal glitter in the black eyes betraying the rage he was hiding.
'Now just hang on a minute.' William had had enough of being ignored. 'Perhaps Victoria doesn't want to come with you.'
'Surprisingly I really don't care what Victoria wants,' Zac said with smooth venom, and then, as William went to say more, he added with biting savagery, 'Stay out of this, Howard.'
'Zac, have you gone mad?' Victoria asked faintly. 'Stop this.'
'One of us has, and don't try to tell me what to do.'
'She's not coming with you the mood you're in,' William said stoutly. 'Not without me as well, that is.'
'Wrong,' Zac rasped. 'Quite wrong.'
'You hurt her and I'll—' William knew immediately he had said the worst thing possible in the circumstances as Zac turned to him, with a lightning move of his formidable body, and but for Victoria moving even quicker between them William knew he wouldn't have been on his feet for many more seconds.
'Zac, please…' Victoria was hanging onto his arms now, but as Zac stared at the other man over her head William doubted if the enraged man in front of him even heard her.
'I wouldn't harm a hair of her head,' Zac grated out harshly, 'and she knows it. You, however, are a different matter.'
'Zac, you said you wanted to talk, so come on.' Victoria would have gone anywhere, said anything in that moment to get some safe distance between the two men. 'Where's your car?' She glanced wildly about the pavement as though she expected Zac's beautiful Jaguar to be sitting beside them like an obedient pet dog.
'Over there.' Zac gestured behind her without taking his glittering eyes off William for a moment, but although his voice was calmer Victoria could feel the bunched muscles under her fingers and she didn't dare let go of him.
'You don't have to go with him,' William said softly, looking straight into Victoria's terrified eyes now, 'His threats don't worry me in the least, Blue-eyes. You know that.'
The pet name had come naturally to his lips, but as Victoria felt Zac tense and heard him growl, 'They ought to, Howard, if you want to stay alive,' she knew it had enraged Zac further.
'I want to go, William. We…have things to talk about, you know?' Victoria said meaningfully. 'It might as well be now.'
William understood what she was saying and nodded slowly. 'Okay, whatever you say.' And then Victoria had to hold onto Zac all the more tightly as William looked at the other man and added, 'And the strong-arm tactics weren't necessary. If she hadn't chosen to go with you no power on earth would have made me let her go. I just wanted to make that perfectly clear, okay?'
'You young—'
Victoria hung on like grim death.
But William had gone, turning swiftly with one last nod at Victoria and disappearing into the lunchtime throng, who had ignored the little drama being enacted amongst them in the cold, disinterested way peculiar to all big cities.
'Did I detect a hidden meaning in that somewhat cryptic statement regarding our proposed chat?' Zac asked with lethal sarcasm as—William having vanished—he took Victoria's arm and led her over to his car. 'I take it I won't like it, right?'
'I…I don't know what you mean,' she prevaricated weakly, hearing her words with very real self-disgust She had to tell him about the baby for goodness' sake, she told herself firmly; it wasn't exactly something that could remain hidden for long. She was almost fourteen weeks pregnant, and the fact that a tiny little person was alive inside her, growing, changing, developing, was thrilling her more and more with every day that passed, in spite of her marriage breakdown. She loved this baby. She hadn't seen it, she didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, but she loved it with all her heart. It was part of her and part of Zac, and nothing could take that away from her. Nothing…and no one.
'I mean— Oh, forget it,' Zac said curtly, glancing once at her pale face as he opened the passenger door for her to slide into the luxurious interior of the XJ220, and then, after closing the door, striding round to the driver's seat and joining her before he spoke again. 'In spite of this abandoned lifestyle you seem to have taken up with such enthusiasm, you don't look particularly happy,' he said tightly. 'What's the matter? Isn't the grass as green as you thought? Regretting your fling already?'
'My what?' she bit back furiously, her back straightening.
'What would you call it, then?' he asked grimly as he pulled out into the teeming traffic after checking his mirrors. 'An intrigue? An illicit amour meant to heap retribution on my wicked, sinful head? How far has it gone, Victoria? Have you slept w
ith this…old friend? And don't tell me the poor guy isn't crazy about you because a blind man could see it,' he finished caustically.
There was one lightning glance at her face—now suffused with burning colour—and then he concentrated on the view out of the windscreen as he nodded slowly. 'I see.' It was very bitter and very cold. 'So that's how it is.'
What did he see? Victoria asked herself confusedly. She felt awful about William, painfully guilty that she had been unaware of his real feelings for her. She would never have run to him for help if she had known, or accepted his invitation to live in his home; it must have been so difficult for him to maintain the kind, brotherly attitude he had always shown her when she was actually living with him in his own house, but he'd never faltered once.
'So.' Zac cut up an inoffensive motorist with vicious disregard. 'What do you want to do, Victoria?'
'I…I need to talk to you about something.' She couldn't tell him he was going to be a father in one breath, and that she had no intention of ever coming back to him in the other, in the midst of all this crazy traffic—there'd be a multi-car pile-up if she did. 'Could we pull in somewhere quiet for a minute or two, please?' she asked tentatively, her stomach churning.
'Ah, now why do I think I'm going to hear what you were just discussing with good old William?' Zac asked tightly. 'I am, aren't I?' he added brusquely. 'And cut the pussy-footing.'
'Yes.' She took a long hard breath and prayed for calm. He was so angry, so bitter, so furious, and it should be she who felt like this. She was the wronged one, not him, and she was blowed if she was going to explain her relationship with William any further. She had tried to do that twice in Tunisia and on each occasion he had twisted everything she'd said until even she had begun to believe black was white. It was all impossible.
He had his mistress and his nice little business deal— fine. But she wasn't part of the package, and neither was her child.
They didn't speak again as the powerful sleek car wove in and out of the traffic, the summer sun beating down outside the air-conditioned vehicle with fierce intensity. Victoria was breathlessly aware of the big masculine body so close to hers, the familiar delicious smell of him, the dark bronzed good looks and devastating presence turning her insides to jelly. How was she going to get through the rest of her life without him? she asked herself desperately. Knowing he was in the world, living, breathing, talking, laughing, and that she no longer figured in his life? Would Gina last? Would he stay with her? Or would there be other women? But there would be the baby; that, at least, would make her special. And he had married her. She had been his wife—if only for a night One night to last a lifetime.
But Gina would have him much longer. The thought came from nowhere and caused her excruciating pain, and it was all she could do not to moan out loud. She didn't want to love him, and in the first caustic days after their wedding she had told herself she hated him, but it was no good—he was part of her in a way that no other man ever could be. She resented his hold over her in view of his infidelity, and she would never let him know how much she loved him, but she would never get over him. Zac Harding was too tough an act to follow. She sat in silent misery, staring blindly through the window as the waves of bitter anguish and despair ebbed and flowed. Till death do you part…for her.
When Zac pulled the car off the road and through a pair of wide-open iron gates, Victoria didn't realise at first where she was, and then, as she came out of the dark abyss of her thoughts, she sat up straight in her seat, her voice high as she said, 'Where…? I don't want to come here.'
'You said you wanted somewhere quiet to talk,' Zac said with dangerous coolness. 'Where could be quieter or more discreet than our home? The home we chose together, the home I live in alone.'
'It's not our home.' She fairly spat the words at him, the agony that had gripped her at seeing the place where she had thought she was going to be so happy making her voice savage.
'Yes, it is, Victoria.' In stark contrast to her fevered protest his voice was silky soft, the thread of steel that underlined his words making them all the more distinct in their lack of expression. 'Yours and mine, like it or not.'
'No.' She hardly knew what she was saying, so great was her distress. 'I renounce all claim to it.'
'Victoria, this is not the Reformation and you are not Martin Luther,' Zac said with mordant cynicism as he watched her face with cruel eyes. 'No one has to renounce anything.'
'Well, I do.' She had faced the fact that she was never going to live here as a married woman some weeks ago, but she could still picture each room in her mind's eye. They had had such fun choosing the carpets and curtains, the wonderful antique furniture and new fitted kitchen. It had been such a beautiful dream…
The Victorian white-washed house had had an abundance of wisteria draping gracefully over the walls in May, but now, at the beginning of July, a cascading ramble of velvet-petalled roses were wafting their delicious perfume into the car as Zac opened his door, the tranquillity at odds with the tumult in her soul.
Victoria had fallen in love with the small but exquisite front garden before she had even set foot inside the house some months ago when she and Zac were searching out a property. It was full of flowers nestling in informal beds, but the snowdrops and crocuses of spring had given way to peonies, crimson poppies and fragrant roses of all colours that blazed out a riotous welcome now.
On entering the house in January, Victoria had found the large oak-dominated hall, with its winding staircase and mellow wooden floor, enticingly reminiscent of another, more tranquil era. It was a house in which to raise a family, she had told Zac excitedly on their first viewing, the sunlight streaming in through the sash windows and the big high-ceilinged rooms that reflected every scrap of light and space, her idea of a real home.
Zac had smiled indulgently at her enthusiasm, whilst pointing out the pitfalls of an older house, but he had bought it the next day, warts and all. And now she would never live in it.
'I don't want to go inside,' Victoria insisted again as Zac opened the passenger door and held out his hand to help her alight. 'We can talk just as well in the car, can't we?'
'Don't be ridiculous.' He had never spoken to her with such scathing disdain, but she preferred his ridicule to stepping inside the home she had dreamt about more times than she would like to remember over the last few weeks. And the dreams always had one conclusion—she and Zac entwined in their enormous king-size bed, the wildly expensive silk sheets which Zac had insisted on with wicked relish soft and sensuous beneath her naked limbs. 'What do you think I'm going to do—take you by force as soon as the front door closes?' he asked derisively. 'Now come and have a coffee and let's at least pretend to be two civilised people.'
She didn't feel civilised, Victoria thought miserably as she scrambled reluctantly out of the car, ignoring his outstretched hand and nearly sprawling headlong into the drive as a result of her defiance. In fact every time she thought of him with Gina she wanted to bite and kick and destroy. She just hoped the article she had read a day or so ago in one of the mother magazines she had bought, which stated that the unborn child picked up its mother's thoughts and brain patterns, was wrong. Otherwise she'd be giving birth to a miniature Rambo with psychopathic tendencies.
The hall was as beautiful as she remembered it, the two Shaker-style wooden chairs with floral-style woven silk seats at either side of an antique chest on which a vase crammed full of trailing roses stood looking just as she had pictured they would They had been due to be delivered the first week of their honeymoon, and so Victoria hadn't seen them in residence before.
She felt the tears begin to well up and spoke quickly, her voice clipped, to quell the flow. 'The chairs look very nice.'
'Damn the chairs.' It was pure Zac, and in any other circumstances would have brought forth a smile. Now laughter was the last thing on her mind as Victoria followed the big, broad figure of her husband through to the huge farmhouse kitchen at the back of t
he house, which opened up on to a large and very gracious Victorian conservatory. 'Sit down.' Zac indicated one of the plumply upholstered cane sofas dotted about the conservatory through the open kitchen doors. 'I'll bring the coffee through.'
The back garden was a good deal larger than the front, about a third of an acre in all, and laid mainly to lawn with a thick border of mature trees and bushes that shielded the grounds from being overlooked. A few apple and pear trees dotted the lawned area, along with strategically placed benches positioned to benefit their occupants of the leafy shade, and it was to one of these that Victoria made her way, walking right through the conservatory and out into the sleeping garden.
The air was thick with the scents of summer, the air slumberous and still in the July heat, and as Victoria sank down onto the warm wood she found her legs were trembling and weak with trepidation.
She had to tell him about the baby now—she should have done it that day a week ago, Victoria thought miserably, leaning her head back against the smooth wood and shutting her eyes. That was another thing she didn't understand, this overwhelming tiredness she felt all the time. Even on the nights she did sleep well she woke up just as exhausted, and she hated feeling like this. She hated feeling tearful, she hated the constant nausea, she just hated everything, although it was some small comfort to know from the other pregnant women at the clinic that a good few of them felt just the same.
Self-pity threatened to overwhelm her, and she pushed it away determinedly, settling herself more comfortably on the sun-warmed bench. A lone aeroplane droned monotonously in the cloudless blue sky above, and Victoria could hear the odd bee or two buzzing for pollen in the background, but suddenly it was too much effort to open her eyes.
When Zac joined her she would tell him about the baby whilst emphasising she still wanted a divorce, and then the peace would be well and truly shattered, she thought wearily. For now she was taking a minute or two to rest in the calm before the storm; she had a feeling she was going to need it.