by Penny Jordan
The phone rang for so long that Polly was just about to give up, assuming that Briony must be out, when her daughter eventually picked up her receiver.
‘Mum…Hi…I’ve just come in…’
‘Er, Briony, there’s something I want to tell you…’
Amazingly Polly discovered that she felt not just a little nervous but also rather apprehensive about telling Briony about her plans. Taking a deep breath, she began to do so.
The silence with which Briony heard her out was distinctly ominous, and Polly knew that her motherly intuition had not been mistaken when Briony demanded sharply, ‘Mum, is this some kind of joke? You can’t leave Uncle Marcus like that. You just can’t…’
‘Briony—’ Polly began but her daughter was obviously in no mood to listen, overriding her with her voice full of passion and accusation.
‘Mum, how can you even think of such a thing after everything that Uncle Marcus has done for us…for you…? I thought Suzi was just being a bit bitchy when she suggested that you might be in danger of falling for Phil because of your age, but it seems she was right, and—’
‘Briony!’ Polly interjected in shock. Why was it that those closest to her had such a low opinion of her and seemed so determined to pigeon-hole her in some kind of potential mid-life crisis area? ‘This has nothing to do with Phil on any kind of personal level. He has offered me a job, that’s all.’
‘That’s all? But you’ve always…But you’ve already got a job…You’ve got Fraser House…’ Briony protested.
‘The job that Phil is offering me has a lot more scope,’ Polly explained as calmly as she could.
‘A lot more scope for what?’ Briony asked her bitterly. ‘A lot more scope to go to bed with Phil Bernstein? What does Uncle Marcus think about all of this?’
‘He doesn’t know. Not yet,’ Polly was forced to admit.
‘You haven’t told him!’ Polly could hear not just the reproof but also the shock in her daughter’s voice. ‘Mum, I don’t believe—’
‘Before you say anything else, I think you ought to know that the reason I haven’t told Marcus yet is because I can’t. He’s in China and I have no idea when he’ll be back.’
‘Have you tried asking Suzi?’ Briony asked her carelessly. ‘She might know.’
‘I’m sure she will,’ Polly agreed tersely. ‘Tim Webb is drawing up a letter for me to send to Marcus, telling him I want to terminate my managership. Which reminds me, I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this, Briony, but I’ve decided that I want to sell my share of Fraser House.’
‘What? Mum, no! You can’t do that…’
Polly’s heart sank as she heard the distress and the panic in her daughter’s voice. She just didn’t need this. No way did she need it, but also there was no way she could explain to Briony, woman to woman, just why she wanted to completely sever her contact with Marcus.
‘Fraser House is home, Mum…our home. Ours and Uncle Marcus’s.’
‘Briony,’ Polly intervened. ‘I do understand how you feel, darling, but please listen. Marcus has already made plans to move to his own house; you know that. You’re away at college…Surely you can understand that it’s time for my life to move along as well as both of yours?’
‘Yes, maybe, but where are you planning to move it to, Mum? Phil Bernstein’s bed?’
‘Briony, that’s enough,’ Polly told her sternly. ‘I’ve already told you Phil’s offered me a job, that’s all. I do understand how you feel about Fraser House…’
‘No, you don’t,’ Briony told her passionately. ‘You don’t understand anything…’ And before Polly could say anything Briony had slammed down her phone, leaving Polly listening to silence.
Shakily Polly replaced her own receiver. Even as a child Briony had always had that little bit of impetuous temper. Polly knew perfectly well that within a very short space of time Briony would telephone her, overcome with remorse and guilt, but her reaction still hurt.
There was no mistaking where Briony’s loyalties and sympathies lay.
Wearily Polly massaged her aching temples. Her heart might be aching with desolation and grief but she still had a hotel to run. At least keeping busy would keep her mind off Marcus and Suzi—and off last night.
All day she had been aware of an unfamiliar heaviness, a lassitude almost about her body, a wayward, wilful tendency to remind her very physically and determinedly where its desires lay—not that she needed reminding, not for one minute. There was nothing she longed for more than to be loved by Marcus. Nothing she longed for more and nothing she was less likely to get.
Marcus loved Suzi. Suzi herself had told her so. Marcus loved Suzi!
CHAPTER EIGHT
MARCUS winced, his tense muscles protesting as he bent down to pick up the case he had put on the floor before letting himself into his suite.
The negotiations in China had taken longer than he had expected and, coupled with a long flight, he had been left feeling stressed and tense.
Come on, he derided himself as he pushed the door to his suite closed and put down his case. Who was he kidding? The real reason he was feeling so uptight had nothing whatsoever to do with the negotiations in China. In truth, the source was far, far closer to home.
It was past midnight, and the hotel had been in darkness when he had let himself in, but his body clock was totally haywire, thanks to his long-haul flight, and the last thing he felt able to do was sleep. There hadn’t been a day when he had been away when he hadn’t thought about Polly. There was nothing unusual in that. There hadn’t been an hour when he hadn’t thought about her, never mind a day, from the first day he had set eyes on her, but what had distinguished these particular days, these particular thoughts from previous ones had been the knowledge of the sexual intimacy they had shared before he had left.
He had always known how much he loved her, but what had surprised him had been the discovery of just how intensely sensually responsive she had been to him. It had almost been as though she had hungered for him, longed for him, loved him, with the same longing and need with which he had done for her—with the same love he had for her!
Who was he kidding? he scorned again. Polly hadn’t been thinking about him, Phil Bernstein was the man she wanted.
As he paced his suite his eye was caught by the pile of post waiting for him.
Automatically he picked it up and started to go through it, his whole body freezing when he opened and read the letter from Tim Webb. Very slowly he read it a second time and then a third.
Polly’s room was right at the end of the corridor. Marcus stormed along it, knocked furiously on the door and then opened it, demanding angrily, ‘Would you mind explaining to me what the hell all this is about?’
It was Polly’s habit on quiet evenings to have a relaxing bath, don her bathrobe and then work at her desk, using the time to deal with her paperwork without any interruption. Her first intimation of Marcus’s return—and his fury—came when he thrust open her bedroom door, and now, as he strode across the room and came to stand almost threateningly over her whilst he flung down the letter Tim Webb had drafted for her, she could feel herself starting to shake inwardly.
It just wasn’t fair that he could affect her like this; that even now, when he was furiously angry with her, she should feel so aware of him, so aroused by him, and it was even less fair that she should yearn so much for him to take her in his arms and wrap them around her, holding her tightly, whilst he told her…
What? That he loved her? Just how much of a self-deluding fool was she?
‘Well?’ Marcus demanded as he slammed the letter down on her desk in front of her.
Trying to remain as calm as she possibly could, Polly told him quietly, ‘I should have thought it was self-explanatory. It’s my letter formally requesting my release from my managership of the hotel. I’ve been offered another job and—’
‘Another job?’ Marcus exploded savagely. ‘Don’t you mean it’s another positi
on you’ve been offered, Polly?’
‘I’m sorry—?’ she began in confusion, only to stop, her face burning with outrage and shock, as Marcus explained bitingly, ‘A position that requires you to be in Bernstein’s bed…’
Immediately Polly stood up, pushing her chair away as she turned to confront Marcus and repudiate his totally unfair and humiliating remark.
‘Don’t you dare to say such a thing,’ she cried. ‘The job Phil has offered me is that of running his new hotel in London, and it has nothing to do with…’
‘With what?’ Marcus challenged. ‘With sex? You’re lying, Polly. It has everything to do with sex. I must admit I’m surprised that he’s willing to go to such lengths to get you into his bed. I should have thought—’
‘You should have thought what?’ Polly cut across him, hot-faced. ‘Just because I made…had sex with you, Marcus, that doesn’t mean—’
Abruptly she stopped. The last thing she wanted, the last thing she felt able to cope with was this kind of confrontation with Marcus. She had known, of course, that he wouldn’t be pleased about her decision; after all, he would have to find someone else to take her place if he wanted to continue—either that or sell his share in the hotel. But surely, with him and Suzi so close to for-malising their relationship, that wasn’t going to be a problem for him?
‘Have you told Briony about this?’ Marcus demanded shortly.
‘Yes, I have,’ Polly confirmed.
‘And?’ Marcus pressed.
‘She…she wasn’t too keen on the idea,’ Polly admitted, her chin firming as she continued determinedly, ‘But she understands that now that she’s at college and to all intents and purposes an adult, with a life of her own, it’s time for me to branch out a little, add to my CV…’
‘By doing what? Becoming Bernstein’s bed mate?’ Marcus challenged her unkindly.
‘For the last time this has nothing to do with sex,’ Polly protested. ‘The job Phil has offered me—’
‘Is a piece of juicy bait intended to get you into his bed,’ Marcus concluded for her. ‘And you must be as aware of that as I am. Well, if you’re entertaining some romantic fantasy that he’s going to offer you marriage, Polly, I have to tell you Bernstein’s got other plans that you obviously don’t know anything about. Apparently he’s the only male of his generation in his family, and according to Suzi he’s almost obsessive about wanting to have a son to pass his business interests on to. When he marries—if he marries—it will be to someone young enough to provide him with the male children he wants so much.’
Polly had had enough, heard enough. She wasn’t going to take any more of this—why should she? If Marcus was so determined to think the worst of her then let him. She didn’t care. But there was something she did care about—something he hated to be told.
‘I may have an almost adult daughter, but in modern terms I can assure you that I’m still young enough to give Phil a child—and more than one, if that’s what he wants.’
‘You’d actually do that…you’d…?’ Marcus stopped as though unable to actually say the words. His voice was so hoarse and strained that Polly barely recognised it. Something had gone badly wrong, she knew that; Marcus was reacting as though she’d threatened to destroy someone. Was that what he thought being involved with her would do to a man? Why? Because of Richard? Because she was older than Phil? Because she already had an adult daughter?
Well, if what she had just said had shocked him so much, how on earth would he feel if he knew of the secret longing she had to have his child? The dream that had tormented her so often in the early years of her widowhood was that she had had his son in the same hospital room where she had given birth to Briony, with Marcus at her side. And they were all there. Marcus, Briony, herself and their new baby…a son.
Such a foolish dream. To match her even more foolish love.
‘But what if the child he gives you turns out to be a girl? Have you thought of that?’ Marcus asked her grimly. ‘What would you do then Polly? Bernstein doesn’t want female children—ask Suzi.
‘My God, I don’t know what’s got into you recently. Suzi warned me that a woman going through a mid-life crisis can behave…’
Suzi had warned him? Polly had heard the expression about seeing red but had never truly appreciated its significance before now. She was by nature a calm, well-balanced type of person, preferring to avoid confrontation and arguments where she could, but suddenly, in a blinding blood-hot flash, it was there, a burst of scarlet, scalding colour that exploded inside her head. It was like an extra charge of adrenalin, rocket fuel to her emotions, blasting them out of the safe orbit they normally travelled in and launching them and her with them into an attack on Marcus’s unsubstantiated claim.
‘Suzi seems to have been very busy handing out her warnings,’ Polly flashed furiously. ‘I was on the receiving end of one of them myself quite recently—but when it comes to mid-life crises you’re much closer to having one than I am, Marcus. After all, you are a prime candidate for—’
‘For what?’ Marcus interrupted her ominously.
For a relationship with a much younger woman, Polly had been about to tell him, but the idea of any woman of any age not finding Marcus irresistibly attractive was so ludicrous that Polly couldn’t bring herself to voice it. After all, she had seen the way their female guests looked at him, and she knew just why they had looked as well. No, Marcus was simply not the kind of man who would ever need to find himself a much younger partner simply to prop up his own deflating ego.
Instead, unwilling to give up the argument completely, she demanded pettily, ‘Anyway, why shouldn’t I have a baby if I want one?’
‘You want a child?’
Marcus’s incredulity and disbelief fuelled her anger.
‘Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I want to have a man in my life who loves me…a child whom he and I have created together?’
Tears clogged her voice and inside her head she could see both the man she really wanted and his child. It had been a long week, and she was physically tired and emotionally exhausted. Just how much more was she supposed to have to take?
‘Well, that’s a bit of a volte-face, isn’t it?’ Marcus derided her. ‘What happened to the Polly who claimed that she could only love one man and that no one else could ever replace him in her affections—or her bed?
‘Have you the least idea of what you’re going to be getting yourself into with Bernstein, Polly? Aside from the fact that he’s younger than you, according to Suzi he uses women like disposable paper tissues, and even she…You know there was a time when the two of them…?’
‘I know they were lovers, yes,’ Polly agreed tersely. ‘But if that doesn’t matter to you, why should it matter to me? After all—’
‘You can’t take this job, Polly.’ Marcus interrupted her grimly. ‘You belong here at Fraser House.’
‘I what? No way!’ Polly told him furiously, shaking her head. ‘I don’t belong anywhere, Marcus, nor to anyone, any man. I’m a free agent, and if I want to work for Phil, if I want to go to bed with him, then I have every right to do so. And if I want to have his child then that’s my right as well, Marcus,’ she insisted.
He suddenly reached past her, snatching up the letter he had thrown down onto her desk and ripping it into pieces as he told her through gritted teeth, ‘You think so? Well, I’m sorry to disillusion you, Polly, but there’s no way you are going to be able to accept Bernstein’s so-called “job”.’
‘Marcus,’ Polly protested. ‘You can’t do that. I—’
‘You’ll what? Make me an offer I can’t refuse?’ Marcus’s mouth twisted cynically. ‘Every man might have his price, Polly, but you don’t have what it takes to meet mine.’
White-faced at his insult, her chest tightening in protest against the savagery of her own pain, Polly whispered shakily, ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Marcus. I thought you’d be glad to have me out of your life.’
‘Out of my life maybe,’ Marcus conceded coolly, ‘but someone has to run the hotel.’
Polly gave a small gasp of pain. She should have expected it, perhaps, but still, to have it confirmed that she meant so little to him as a person, that she couldn’t even lay claim to his friendship and affection as a fellow human being, hurt dreadfully.
‘Suzi could do that,’ she pointed out quietly.
‘Whose idea was that? Bernstein’s or yours? No doubt it would suit you both to have her safely out of your lives, albeit for rather different reasons. Doesn’t it bother you at all, Polly, knowing that the position you’re being offered, the job you’re being offered, should more rightfully go to Suzi?’
‘I’m not going to listen to any more of this,’ Polly told him tersely. ‘You can’t stop me leaving, Marcus. I have legally given you formal notice of my decision to stop working here.’
‘You have,’ Marcus agreed cordially, ‘but, as I’m sure you’ll know, having read our contract, you are legally bound to give six months’ notice. Six months is a long time in the life of a man like Bernstein, Polly. Are you sure he’ll want you enough to wait that long?’
‘Six months?’ Polly gasped. ‘It can’t possibly be so long.’ But it must be, she recognised; Marcus wouldn’t say so otherwise. Six months!
In six months Marcus and Suzi could be married and Suzi could be carrying Marcus’s child, whilst she would have to stay here and witness their love for one another. Six months! She closed her eyes weakly. There was no way she could endure that kind of emotional torment. The back of her eyes stung with the tears she was fighting to control, and her throat and chest ached with her tension.
As he watched her, Marcus reflected bitterly that when he had originally had that clause placed in their contract it had been to protect Polly and not himself. He had been concerned that if the hotel did not do well her pride might force her to leave and look for another job rather than stay on, suspecting that he might be making up her salary from his own funds, which was exactly what he had planned to do. But as it had turned out the hotel had done so well that there had never been any need for him to do so, and now the clause he had originally devised to protect Polly financially would, he hoped, help to protect her emotionally.