by Penny Jordan
Deborah shrugged. ‘There didn’t seem any point. It wasn’t your problem… and to be honest,’ she added tiredly, ‘being told “I told you so” was the last thing I was in the mood for.’
His quiet, ‘Thanks,’ made her look at him. ‘Is that really what you think…? That all I’d have wanted to do was gloat?’
The pain in his voice caught at her own vulnerable emotions. She shook her head.
‘I don’t know. I just…’ She stopped, recognising the truth: that she hadn’t wanted him to know, not because she’d thought he would gloat, but because of the blow it would have given her own pride.
Her pride? Since when had that mattered? Since when had it been important for her to prove herself to Mark, to protect herself from the risk of his seeing her defeated?
Something in his expression made her add shakily, ‘I would have got in touch with you… told you…’
‘Would you?’ he asked her quietly. ‘What’s happened to us, Deb? I used to think our love was so strong; that we… that we trusted one another… that nothing could ever come between us…’
‘Perhaps we made the gods jealous,’ Deborah replied wryly, a ghost of a smile touching her mouth.
She looked older, thinner, drained of her normal vivacity and self-confidence. His heart ached for her and for the ability to restore them to her and his body ached even more with desire for her.
He took a step towards her and then another.
‘No,’ Deborah told him huskily as she put out a hand to hold him off. ‘This isn’t the answer, Mark… This isn’t…’ But her lips were already clinging hungrily to his and the hand she had put out to reject him was now resting against his body, feeling the heavy pounding of his heart.
* * *
It was like the early days when they had first met all over again, his touch on her body so lovingly tender that it seemed to make her very bones melt with longing for him.
‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ he told her ruefully as he leaned over her, gently circling her nipple with his tongue.
Stretching herself luxuriously beneath his caress, Deborah responded wryly, ‘It wasn’t exactly on my agenda for the evening either.’
She waited for him to ask her if she wanted him to stop, to put the onus of making any decision on her, but to her surprise he didn’t.
Instead he opened his mouth over her nipple and caressed it with such slow sweetness that it made her cry out in pleasure as she slid her hands into his hair and held him against her body.
She felt the slightly rough grate of his teeth against her flesh, the sensation so fiercely erotic that a shiver of pleasure gripped her. The weeks without him had made her body extraordinarily sensitive and responsive to his touch.
She heard him groan as his hand covered her sex and he buried his hot face between her breasts.
There was laughter as well as chagrin in his voice as he told her thickly, ‘Oh, God, Deb, I’m so sorry, but I don’t think…’
Against all the evidence that her senses were giving her to the contrary, she immediately thought that he was trying to tell her that he didn’t want her, that he couldn’t… It wasn’t just sexual frustration that was clogging her throat with tears and making her heart ache with pain, she recognised as she pulled away from him, shivering as she reached for the duvet.
It was a shock to feel his arms coming round her, pulling her back against him, his mouth warm against her ear as he told her, ‘I’m sorry… I feel like a raw kid again, desperate to prove how much of a man I am and instead proving only that I haven’t got an ounce of self-control.
‘It’s all these weeks of celibacy without you. Can we try again?’ he asked her softly. ‘And this time I promise I’ll do my best to hold on at least until I’m inside you…’
When she realised what he had said, Deborah turned round in his arms.
‘Blame it on the pleasure of being back here with you,’ Mark murmured against her mouth. ‘On the need I have for you. Oh, Deborah… I could make love to you all night long and still want you…’
Despite the fact that her body was trembling as it recognised the passion and desire in his voice, she still laughed, albeit a little shakily.
‘Not on recent evidence, you couldn’t,’ she teased him.
‘Oh, no?’
Her breath caught in her throat as Mark took her hand and placed it on his body. Beneath her fingers his flesh felt silky hot and familiar. She had missed him so much… The feel of his body next to her own, the scent and taste of him, the strength of him inside her… her mouth curled in a small secret smile.
‘What is it?’ Mark asked her.
‘Nothing,’ she told him.
When it came to showing off in the showers she suspected that Ryan would definitely lose out to Mark. Quite definitely.
She held him firmly, caressing him with the slow, sure strokes she knew pleased him best, feeling her own body’s excitement grow to match his, sensuously anticipating the pleasure of having him inside her, her body quickening as she urged him not to wait any longer.
Her climax was quick and intense, over almost before she had had time to appreciate it, but Mark knew her well enough to know her needs without her having to voice them.
It had been so long since they had made love like this, she thought drowsily as she felt the warm drift of his mouth moving teasingly over her stomach—spending so much time indulging in all the small erotic pleasures of love-play. Lying together, sometimes simply kissing and gently touching just for the pleasure of breathing in one another’s scent, of tasting one another’s skin.
She couldn’t imagine ever having a more perfect lover than Mark. He was so attuned to her needs… to her moods, so aware of every small nuance of her body’s silent communication with his.
They made love again and this time Deborah was unusually silent, clinging to him, fiercely protective of the pleasure he was giving her and her own vulnerability to it, aching already with the pain of knowing that it couldn’t last.
* * *
Mark woke up abruptly. The bedroom was in darkness but he could still see Deborah’s silent figure standing by the window.
He got out of bed, swinging his feet to the floor and padding over to join her.
Deborah tensed as she felt him touch her. She had woken up over an hour ago, curled up against him, warm, relaxed, content, happy, and her mouth had curled into a soft smile of pleasure as she’d reached out to stroke her fingertips down his arm in a soft caress of loving possession… and then she’d remembered…
‘What is it?’ Mark asked her. She stiffened as he drew her back against him but he ignored her resistance, wrapping his arms round her, holding her in the warmth of his body.
‘You’re cold,’ he told her. ‘Come back to bed…’
Deborah shook her head. She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes, and she didn’t want to Mark to see her crying.
‘This doesn’t make any difference, Mark,’ she told him painfully. ‘What happened between us tonight… it doesn’t change anything… I wish to God it could,’ she admitted. ‘I love you and I want you…’
‘And I love and want you,’ Mark assured her roughly.
‘But don’t you see that isn’t enough…? Not any more…’
She felt him stiffen against her.
‘You want me now, Mark… Now, when I’m vulnerable and in need——’
‘What is it… what are you trying to say?’ he interrupted her.
‘That I’m afraid,’ Deborah admitted. ‘Afraid that you only really want me when I’m vulnerable… when I’m dependent and needy. But that isn’t what I want. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be your inferior. I’ve seen what that does to women, how it makes them sacrifice themselves… Can’t you see, Mark? I need you to want me… the real me… I need you to want me when things are going well for me… when I’m strong and powerful. I want to share that feeling with you, for you to rejoice in it with me, not turn aw
ay from me… to celebrate it with me… I’m sorry that I can’t be the woman you want, but…’
‘You are the woman I want,’ Mark contradicted her fiercely. ‘I made a mistake… I admit it. Punish me for it if you want to, Deb, but don’t punish yourself as well… There was something else I came here to tell you…’
He paused and then continued, ‘This partnership I’ve been working in is up for sale. I want to buy it. All right, I know what you’re thinking and you’re right; it’s a small country practice that will just about earn me a living, and there won’t be any glory or power; but those aren’t the things I want. Life in the fast lane isn’t for me… not because I’m not good enough but because it simply isn’t my choice. I know myself now, Deb, and I know what’s right for me.
‘I’ve been working at this practice long enough now to know that I’d forgotten what it felt like actually to enjoy my work… to get a real feeling of satisfaction out of it, to enjoy the contact I have with other people, to wake up in the morning and look forward to the day ahead. And if in Ryan’s eyes and those of men like him that makes me a failure, then so be it. I certainly don’t feel any less of a man for having different goals from them…’
‘Nor should you,’ Deborah agreed. Mark was right; her heart had started to beat too heavily. What was he going to suggest—that she join him in his country idyll? But to her such an existence would be a trap, a dead end. She could feel her eyes filling with tears and for the first time in her adult life she came close to wishing she were different, that Mark and his love were all she wanted.
‘It sounds perfect for you, Mark.’
‘But not for you.’
It was, she realised, a statement and not a question.
‘No,’ she agreed sadly, ‘not for me… I need more than that… I’m not like you. I like to be challenged… stretched; I need a job that takes me out into the world, not shuts me away from it…’
‘Yes. And that’s one of the reasons I came to see you. I have a client, a woman… a very, very successful woman who’s looking for someone to work alongside her as her second in command——’
‘A company accountant?’ Deborah interrupted him. ‘Oh, Mark, I don’t think I——’
‘No… she already has a company accountant… Stephanie is an empire-builder and what she wants is a colonel-in-chief to check out the land ahead of her, so to speak, and to guide her through its dangers.’
‘And she wants me for this job…’
Mark paused.
‘No—well, no… as a matter of fact she wanted me,’ he told her ruefully. ‘She isn’t very keen on the idea of working with another woman, especially one young enough to suddenly decide that she wants to trade in her career for motherhood…’
‘What?’ Deborah turned round angrily. ‘Is it any wonder that women find it too hard to climb the career ladder when our own sex-?’
‘Of course, I told her that you might not even want the job,’ Mark went on. ‘After all, it’s a pretty big step to move out of the comparative security of the profession for industry; no one would blame you if you felt wary about wanting to take on that kind of challenge.’
Deborah was thinking furiously. It was impossible, of course. Work for another woman… another woman who already seemed ambivalent about employing her… who would have preferred Mark… Give up her career plan of working in the profession…
She couldn’t do it; she would be a fool even to think of doing it.
She turned round to tell Mark as much, but he was standing so close to her that she walked right into his arms.
‘Mark, no. Stop it…’ she mumbled under his kiss.
‘Why not come and find out for yourself?’ he suggested softly.
Deborah looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘It won’t work,’ she warned him. ‘I know what you’re trying to do, Mark, but life isn’t like that; it doesn’t come with fairy-tale endings.’
‘It’s OK,’ he told her straight-faced. ‘I know what you’re thinking. It is a big step to take; you’d only have yourself to rely on, no professional back-up team to fall back on and blame if things go wrong, and Stephanie does set almost impossibly high standards, expecting everyone to be as enthusiastic about her company as she is herself, expecting them to give the total commitment she gives it. She’d drive you as hard as she drives herself and expect you to make the kind of decisions I admit I wouldn’t want to make. You’d be out there on your own, and it would be one hell of a risk to take——’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Deborah interrupted him indignantly. ‘That I’m not good enough for this woman?’
She stopped abruptly, eyeing him suspiciously when she saw the amusement in his eyes. Laughter struggled with irritation, a wry smile curling her mouth. ‘All right. You always did know how to wind me up,’ she complained ruefully.
‘At least come and meet Stephanie,’ Mark urged her.
‘It won’t work,’ Deborah repeated, forced to mumble the words through his kiss.
‘It will if we want it to,’ Mark insisted. He lifted his mouth from hers and studied her face. ‘Isn’t what we have together worth at least giving it a try?’ he asked her emotionally.
Deborah drew a shaky breath. ‘I’m not promising anything,’ she warned him. ‘Your Stephanie and I will probably loathe one another at first sight.’ But she was smiling as she said it, her body warm and fluid as he drew her back into his arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SALLY winced inwardly as her daughter turned her head towards her with obvious reluctance.
She had been at work since six and almost halfway through her shift Sister had allowed her an extra ten minutes’ break, despite the fact that they were short-staffed, so that she could come down here to see her daughter.
She had looked in on her when she’d first arrived but Cathy had been fast asleep then, unaware of Sally’s presence as she’d straightened the bedclothes and tenderly touched her, holding her breath until her fingertips came into contact with the warm, living flesh.
The loss of a child must surely be every parent’s worst nightmare, and its echoes haunted Sally still as her heart ached with pain at her daughter’s rejection of her.
‘When’s Dad coming?’ Cathy demanded now. ‘He promised he’d be here.’
The hunched shoulder and sulky pout which accompanied her demand left Sally in no doubt how little she wanted her company.
‘He’s coming to collect you later,’ Sally told her quietly. ‘Once Mr Davies, the specialist, has been to see you.’
The specialist’s round was later in the afternoon, after she had gone off duty. She had wanted to wait and take Cathy home herself but what was the point when Cathy had made it so obvious that the parent she wanted was her father?
‘All you do these days is nag,’ Cathy had accused her only the previous week when Sally had asked her to tidy up her room. ‘And all you care about now is money, not us,’ she had added hurtfully as she’d slammed the door closed on Sally’s reminder of how expensive and wasteful it was when Cathy spent far too long on the telephone talking to her friends.
As Cathy continued to keep her back turned towards her, Sally stood up, blinking back her tears.
As she left the ward, she paused for a moment, looking back at the small, still form of her daughter, remembering how the previous evening she had felt so shut out and unwanted as she’d watched Joel bending over Cathy’s bed, comforting her, his arm around Paul’s shoulders, the three of them a complete self-sufficient unit in which there was no place for her.
Even the specialist had directed his comments to Joel and not to her.
Depression filled her, saturating her thoughts, surrounding her like a thick grey cloud of dull misery.
There was no place for her in Joel’s or her children’s lives any more, she decided as she went back to the ward. Financially they might need her, but that was all… If she weren’t there… She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Leave
him and come to me, Kenneth had urged her.
She couldn’t, she had protested. They needed her…
But that wasn’t true any longer, was it?
* * *
By the time she had finished her shift she knew what she had to do.
Joel would soon find someone else to take her place; he was, after all, a very sexually attractive man, as she was constantly being told.
Her hands trembled on the steering-wheel of her car as she stopped in a queue of traffic, catching her breath on the sharp, hurtful pain that bit so deeply into her as she visualised Joel with someone else, holding her, touching her.
It confused her that she should feel so intensely emotionally and sexually jealous, hating already the woman who would lie in her bed, in Joel’s arms, responding eagerly to his touch, drawing from him soft sounds of pleasure and excitement… Sounds he no longer made for her.
Behind her another driver punched his horn impatiently and she realised that the road ahead of her was now clear.
The children wouldn’t miss her either. Not now that they had Joel, and she couldn’t have taken them to Kenneth’s with her anyway; she knew that and had known it from the moment she’d entered Kenneth’s house.
How would Cathy, with her love of loud pop music, her untidiness, her giggling friends who liked to practise the latest dance steps on the bedroom carpet and make up one another’s faces, leaving brightly coloured pieces of cotton wool and sticky bits of make-up all over the bathroom and Cathy’s dressing-table, ever be able to fit in or feel comfortable in Kenneth’s immaculate rooms?
And Paul, who took his bike to bits outside the back door and then scattered oil and dirt all over the kitchen floor, who left his muddy football boots on the kitchen table and argued volubly with Cathy about whose turn it was to choose the tapes on the video. Would Kenneth welcome and want him?
She already knew the answer.
Kenneth liked order and discipline in his life; she had absorbed that knowledge instinctively; those ruthlessly weeded flowerbeds, those empty, immaculate rooms—her children would stifle and choke in them…