“People tonight haven’t been too welcoming, have they?” he asked in concern, and Ellie shrugged but didn’t deny it. People tonight hadn’t been welcoming at all. “The women are jealous, Ellie. You’re beautiful, and married to a very wealthy and powerful man. And the men are intimidated, by both you and your husband. They’re worried about what the great Zachary McCormack might do to them if he thought that they were trying something on with you,” he explained, and Ellie just looked at him doubtfully.
“It’s true,” he said with a chuckle.
“You’re not worried then?” she teased.
“McCormack and I have been friends for years. He knows that I’d never do anything that would disrespect him. And I couldn’t care less if he got angry at me. The man has the clout to use his power and position, but he very rarely does. Usually his growl is enough to get his way without having to bite,” he said with a smile. “Though why I’m explaining that to you, I don’t know. You married him, so you obviously figured out his true nature yourself.”
Ellie stayed quiet on that point and let Clive believe whatever he wanted to on the matter. Telling him that she didn’t know her husband at all wasn’t exactly a wise move to make if she wanted to keep up the pretense that her marriage wasn’t a complete and utter sham.
“This is new to him,” the man said suddenly, and Ellie looked up in surprise and confusion over what he was referring to. “Having a woman to consider. It’s new to him.”
“I don’t understand,” she confessed with a furrowed brow.
“You’re a smart woman, Ellie, you knew full well that I was surprised that you’d been sitting next to your husband all night long. And I suspect that you know why that surprised me,” he continued. “I’d seen your husband at the table, saw you, a beautiful stranger sitting next to him, and assumed that you were his wife. But as the night progressed and he didn’t pay you any attention whatsoever I thought that I’d gotten it wrong.
“When somebody mentioned that you were here I couldn’t figure out who it would be. It seemed impossible that you could be McCormack’s wife with the way that he’d been ignoring you all night long. You’d been sitting there completely on your own.”
“He was busy with business,” she defended with a tepid smile.
Clive studied her closely, and Ellie couldn’t help but blush and look away at his penetrating gaze.
“Maybe. But it doesn’t excuse his behavior towards you. This is new to you. You don’t know anybody. He should have made you his priority tonight. Business could wait. You needed your husband.”
“He –”
“Your husband and I are good friends, Ellie, you don’t need to defend him to me. I know what he’s like. I don’t agree with his behavior tonight, but it’s not surprising. He’s never had a woman in his life. Always shied away from them. His mother left him with a sour taste in his mouth after everything that happened between her and his father. He’s never seen how a married couple should behave. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what to do.
“He was wrong, yes. But you can’t hold a man accountable for doing something wrong if he’s never been taught how to do it right. He’ll learn. Give him time to get used to having you around and find his feet with regards to a relationship. He’s navigating unchartered waters right now, but he’ll soon find his way,” he encouraged with a smile that Ellie reciprocated even if she didn’t believe the man.
Clive Greene was an incredibly astute and compassionate man, but he was completely wrong in this case. He didn’t have a clue about everything and he couldn’t be more wrong about it all if he’d tried. He might be right that Zachary didn’t know how to behave, but he was wrong that it would change, that her husband would care enough to figure out what to do. Her husband didn’t care for her at all and that would never change.
As far as the great Zachary McCormack was concerned, Ellie was nothing more than a possession to him. A trinket to display, or a pet to control. With a relationship like that as the basis between them there was no chance that he’d ever treat her any better than he had tonight. And it was foolish to even let herself harbor any hopes that he would do so.
With a tepid smile, Ellie let the conversation drop and instead steered it into more amiable and happier areas, finding out all about the man opposite her who had rescued her from the dreary night.
* * *
His wife was an absolute thorn in his side. That was the only thing that Zach could think at the moment. Ellie was a distraction and a nuisance.
He’d spent the whole of dinner and afterwards acutely aware of the fact that she was sitting right next to him, there as his wife to be displayed to everyone in attendance, and he’d hated it. She’d been taking his focus off of what was important: business.
As much as he disliked his wife and her scheming ways, he couldn’t deny the attraction that he felt towards her. He never should have kissed her the week before, but he hadn’t been about to allow her to make a mockery of him in his own house. Flirting with the men who had delivered their goods for them had been completely unacceptable, slamming his office door to alert everyone in the house that they were arguing was insupportable. So he’d rectified the situation with a blatant display of possession and domestic felicity.
He’d felt her trying to push him away, but he’d held on, proving that she wasn’t always going to get her way on everything. He should have stopped as soon as he’d felt her surrender, but the pleasure he’d experienced had been so unexpected that he’d ended up getting lost in the kiss that had been meant as a display, not a true expression of desire or want. But that’s what it had turned into.
And that kiss had been haunting him ever since. She was his wife, and that fact wasn’t lost on him. A wife who he didn’t respect or like, but who he was stuck with. One that he had to pretend to like and respect in public. One that kept capturing his attention at inopportune times.
Even now, with her on the dance floor, and her tempting perfume well away from him, he was aware of her. He knew exactly where she was, and he hated that she could do that to him. Hated that she had control over him.
“She is beautiful, Zach,” the man said beside him, and Zach refocused on the conversation with Sherman Slater instead.
“That she is, Sherman. I was talking to Roger the other day –,” he tried but the older man cut him off.
“Come now, Zach. We can do business at any time. Take the opportunity to dance with your lovely bride,” he encouraged with a smile.
“She’s doing Clive a favor right now. The man’s not going to relinquish her too easily,” Zach said with a forced smile, unhappy with the fact that he felt a pang of jealousy that his friend was enjoying holding his wife close and dancing with her. But he wasn’t going to give in to such a ridiculous feeling.
“If he got married he’d have fewer women after him,” Sherman said with a sigh.
“I’m not sure about that. The man is wealthy, kind, considerate, and handsome. I think plenty of women would still want him regardless of his marital status. After all, most of the ones after him at the moment are married themselves, they obviously don’t place much importance or value in marriage vows.”
“True,” the man said with a sigh. “It’s a shame the way the world is now. It was once considered a scandal if a husband or wife had an affair, nowadays it’s almost expected.”
“Doesn’t make it right though,” Zach mumbled and glanced back to his wife again.
“No. It doesn’t. That’s why when you find a good one, you make sure that you keep hold of them,” the man beamed, and Zach resisted the urge to roll his eyes. If Sherman was referring to Ellie, the man was sorely mistaken. She might not cheat on him, in fact, he was pretty much guaranteed of the fact that she wouldn’t after the pre-nup that they’d signed, but that didn’t make her a good one.
“Like your own sweet wife,” Zach said instead, and the other man smiled widely at thoughts of his spouse.
“Yes. She is a
good woman. Look,” he said suddenly, and Zach turned towards the dance floor that the man was pointing at. “It appears as though Clive’s finally relinquished your wife, go and take your opportunity to claim your woman again,” he encouraged, and Zach just smiled before shaking his head.
“I imagine he’s either gone off to get them a drink or Ellie’s begged off dancing anymore,” he replied. He didn’t want to be dancing with his wife, didn’t want to have to hold her close to him and pretend to be in love with her. He was much happier keeping a distance between them and focusing on the business opportunities around him.
“Oh well,” the man sighed in obvious acceptance of Zach’s stance. “You’ve missed your chance anyway it would seem,” he added, and Zach found his brow furrowing before looking back to the dance floor again.
When he did he found his jaw and fists clenching. There was his wife wrapped quite securely in the arms of a man, a man who he had absolutely no respect for. A man he would trust about as far as a lame dog could throw him. Oscar Langley.
The man and Zach had always had a rivalry of sorts, stemming back to their school days together. At the time it had been grades and their parents’ success that had fuelled the feud. Then it had changed as they’d grown, turning into possessions, money, business success.
To be brutally honest, Zach didn’t care about how he compared to the man, if it were up to him he’d just ignore the other man’s existence. But Oscar had always been envious of Zach, envious of his father’s success and Zach’s himself. And Oscar had always found ways to rile Zach up, ways to get him to react.
When he was younger it had been references to his mother and her behavior. As he’d gotten older it had changed into references to his father and the lack of affection that the man was capable of showing, taunting Zach with allusions to the fact that he was completely unloved. Then it had changed into digs about how Zach would never amount to anything and that he was merely coasting along on the tails of his father’s success.
Every taunt and insult had always pricked right at the heart of Zach. Oscar had an uncanny knack of knowing exactly what to say and how to say it to get Zach’s back up. He had a habit of picking up on every one of Zach’s insecurities. And he’d found a new one: Ellie.
Zach couldn’t forget Oscar’s references earlier to his new wife. He couldn’t forget the man taunting him about his father’s and mother’s behavior from when he was younger, and he wasn’t going to let history repeat itself.
He held no love for Ellie, none whatsoever, but he wouldn’t let her make a mockery of him and their marriage. And he most assuredly would not let it all come about at the hands of Oscar Langley.
“Well hello again,” a voice slurred in Ellie’s ear, and she turned to see Oscar standing behind her, looking a little worse for wear. Casting her gaze about, she searched out Clive and could see that he’d been caught by somebody else, a fellow businessman Ellie presumed.
“Oscar,” she said with a cordial smile to the man who promptly grabbed her up in his arms and proceeded to dance with her. Ellie found herself surprised by the sudden move, but complied nonetheless. She also found herself rather surprised by how capable the man was. Clearly he’d been drinking since he’d left the table earlier on, and Ellie had almost expected to find him stumbling, but he was remarkably sure-footed.
“I’ve been waiting all night to get my hands on you,” he said, and Ellie pulled back in surprise to look at him with disapproval. “To dance, my dear,” he clarified with a low chuckle but Ellie found herself on-guard with the man.
“Clive just went to get a drink,” she said with a note of cautionary warning in her voice.
“I noticed. But he’s had plenty of time with you and your company, the man really must learn to share. Though I am surprised that Zach was so comfortable with it all. After all, Clive is a very handsome man. And much more of a charmer than that husband of yours,” Oscar said with a crooked smile, and Ellie pulled back once again to shoot him a disapproving look.
“Don’t get your back up,” the man chuckled again before pulling Ellie even closer, and she found her eyes widening at the contact. When she’d been dancing with Clive, the man had always left a respectable amount of distance between them, and Ellie glanced about frantically to see whether this sort of proximity to the man would be acceptable.
Unfortunately, she noticed that there were plenty of other couples dancing while plastered to one another and so came to the conclusion that it must be alright. She might be uncomfortable, but clearly there was nothing wrong with it, no reason to try to cause a scene because of it.
“It’s no secret that Zachary McCormack isn’t exactly Prince Charming,” Oscar continued in her ear, and Ellie found herself getting increasingly uncomfortable with the man, with both his words and his actions. “Which makes it all so puzzling to conceive how he managed to get you to marry him,” Oscar said and pulled back slightly with narrowed eyes boring into Ellie’s.
“Something more is going on,” he declared suspiciously. “None of it makes sense. He was determined not to marry. Focused entirely on his business and legacy. Never had a real relationship. And yet here he is, married, to a complete stranger that nobody knows. And not only that, but he’s clearly perfectly at ease with letting every other man in the room get their hands on you.
“If I had a wife like you, you wouldn’t be out of my arms, Ellie, and you sure as heck wouldn’t be in anybody else’s,” he declared, and Ellie blushed in embarrassment. “And you’re just as aware of that fact as everyone else is,” he added, and she couldn’t help but feel tears pricking at her eyes. She’d never before in her life cared what others thought of her, but somehow, right now, she did. Everyone knew that she was with a man who didn’t care, and that fact was not only embarrassing but incredibly demeaning.
Ellie tried to keep her face averted as she swallowed hard, but Oscar’s fingers gently pushed her chin up so that he could see her eyes himself.
“He ignores you. He clearly doesn’t love you, Ellie. So why are you with him? Why do you put up with it? How did the man even persuade you to marry him?” he asked as he studied her closely, and she had no idea how to defend her husband’s actions to this man who seemed to see the situation so incredibly clearly.
Looking away without answering, she just let the silence reign between them for a few minutes. She needed to find a way to make things work, to find a plausible excuse for her husband’s behavior towards her tonight.
“His business is important to him,” she finally said and cleared her throat to sound more firm. “These events are about making connections, aren’t they?” she said more strongly as she looked back at the other man.
“Not completely,” he said. “His business is important to you then?”
“Of course. It’s important to him, after all.”
“And it’s the means of keeping you away from the life that you used to lead,” he surmised, and Ellie bristled at the comment. Oscar was making her sound mercenary.
“Of course it provides us with our material goods, but that’s not the most important thing in the world.”
“No? So would love perhaps be the most important thing?” he said slyly, and Ellie stumbled in her thoughts.
“Honesty and dedication are more important. What’s the point of love if you have no trust and respect?” she retorted.
“Ah, honest and dedicated are you? How much did that loyalty of yours cost him, Ellie?” Oscar said, and Ellie found herself stiffening and stopping mid-step to send him a harsh look.
“Excuse me?” she demanded.
“Come now, my dear, there is absolutely no chance that the man managed to woo you. He doesn’t care about you. Which means that you married him for something other than his personality or love. You married him for security. You married him for something that he offered you.
“What happened?” he kept questioning, and Ellie could feel her temper spiking. It was true that she didn’t love Zachary, that
he didn’t love her. It was true that there was no affection between them. But she had married for love. Love for her father and his freedom. For this man to say that she’d married for purely selfish reasons was incredibly insulting. Insulting and degrading.
“Let me guess,” he continued as Ellie just stood there trying to keep her temper in check. “He stayed at The Palatio one night. Am I right? Saw you there in your little maid’s outfit and decided that it was time to get himself a wife. So what did he do, Ellie? Offer you everything to keep you out of that lifestyle? Offer to make you his wife and save you from the drudgery of maid service?
“I have to say, you must be a clever one to have gotten marriage from him. Most women would happily go for a tumble without securing a marriage proposal. But now that you’re married and you’ve gotten what you want, what will you do next? What will you do with your husband?
“What will you do with all that free time that you have when he’s busy with his true love? His business?” he said into her ear, and Ellie continued to breathe deeply through her mounting anger.
“If you haven’t got any ideas, I could offer a few suggestions,” he continued, and Ellie’s lips pinched together as tightly as humanly possible as he proceeded to do just that. When she felt his hands move over her body and caress her she lost all of the control that she’d had and snapped.
Chapter Nine
“What did he do?” a voice said from Ellie’s side, and she looked over to see her husband staring out of the car windscreen in front of him.
It was the first time that he’d spoken to her since they’d arrived at the charity event, and Ellie didn’t know how to answer. She knew that he was mad at her, furious, in fact, and she didn’t really want to rehash the whole event again.
“Ellie,” he said sternly, “what did he do?” he demanded, and Ellie just stayed quiet where she was seated in the passenger seat. When she refused to answer she heard a frustrated growl and gasped as he pulled the car over to the side of the road they were on before switching off the engine.
Bonds of Matrimony Page 11