A Whirlwind Marriage

by Helen Brooks

  ‘And a divorce will give you that?’ he’d bitten out through clenched teeth.

  ‘A separation will.’

  There had been a tense silence for a moment, and then Zeke had said flatly, his dark face an unreadable mask, ‘I don’t want my wife living in a hovel, Marianne. I don’t know what sort of gesture you thought you were making, but you’ve made it, okay? I can afford for you to live well whatever happens.’

  His hands had been tight on the steering wheel, the knuckles taut and white, and it had only been that betrayal of his inward turmoil that had stayed the hot, angry words hovering on her tongue.

  She didn’t want his money. Neither had she been trying to make a dramatic gesture! Why wouldn’t he listen to her? Even now he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He was so cold, so unapproachable—his mind was a locked door and he jealously guarded the key, even from her.

  He had only ever given her little portions of himself, she’d realised suddenly. Just so much and no more. He had compartmentalised his life and she had been allotted her box, along with everything else, but that was all.

  That wasn’t a marriage; it wasn’t even a relationship. She had opened the car door with an abruptness that had surprised them both, her voice weary and strained as she had said quietly, ‘Goodbye, Zeke.’

  And his voice had been equally quiet and bleak when he’d answered in turn, ‘Goodbye, Marianne.’

  She had expected the car to roar away the moment she turned away from it, but it hadn’t been until she had switched on the light in the bedsit and walked across to the window and begun to close the curtains that it had moved slowly away down the dark, deserted street. And she had gone to bed…alone.

  ‘Oh, Zeke, Zeke.’ She spoke his name on a little hiccup of a sob, glancing desperately round the room, which had now become quite cosy from the warmth of the gas fire. ‘Please love me like I love you. That’s all I ask.’

  It was maudlin self-pity of the worst kind, and after a few indulgent moments she flung the duvet aside and jumped up from the sofa.

  She wasn’t going down that avenue—not now and not in the future, she told herself firmly. She had a job to go to and she needed to be bright and cheerful when serving the customers, not pink-eyed and miserable, however she was feeling inside.

  And come the weekend she would make some enquires regarding further education; she wasn’t just going to talk about it—she was going to do it!

  She had never regretted the decision to support her father through the bleak, dark time after her mother’s sudden death, but she’d always known she was merely delaying going away to college or university, nor forgetting it altogether. But then Zeke had swept into her life, with all the charisma and drawing power of a powerful being from another world, and things had changed. She had let them change.

  She gathered up her toilet bag and towel in preparation for her sojourn in the bathroom down the landing, and then pulled the belt of her robe tighter as her thoughts travelled on.

  She had always enjoyed practical chemistry at school, she was more like her father academically than her mother, and her A level results in biology, chemistry and maths had been excellent. Becoming a doctor like her father had been an idea at first, but then, through work experience and contacts of her father, she had been drawn to a career in medical laboratory work. And she could make it happen; it was up to her. There were thousands, millions of women who had absorbing, interesting careers and were wives and mothers, too…

  Her heart started thudding as her stomach swirled violently. But Zeke couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see that. And she was losing him. Perhaps she had already lost him. And a world without Zeke would be so empty and pointless that the greatest career in the universe wouldn’t compensate—

  ‘Stop it.’ She spoke out loud, through clenched teeth. She couldn’t doubt herself now. She had rushed into her marriage like a giddy schoolgirl and the result had been a disaster. She loved Zeke, she would always love him, but she couldn’t go back to how things had been and he didn’t see any need for them to be different. He had been so cold and hard in the car last night, so distant and intractable.

  The weeks they had been apart hadn’t touched him, not deep down. He still didn’t see the need for them to talk, to communicate, to listen to each other. She had been shrivelling up and dying inside for months and he was oblivious to her despair.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath, her hand reaching for the door, and then jumped violently when the buzzer connected to the door in the street sounded in her right ear.

  ‘Marianne?’

  It sounded like Zeke’s voice, but it couldn’t be, she told herself silently as she spoke into the intercom. ‘Yes, who is it?’

  ‘How many men could it be at this time of the morning?’ came the dry response.

  ‘Zeke? What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Freezing my butt off.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Come up.’ She pressed the switch to release the street door and then gazed wildly about, as though her clothes and make-up were going to jump on her all by themselves so she could present a cool, contained façade. There was no time to do anything but hastily fumble in her toilet bag and run a brush through her tangled hair before his knock sounded on the door.

  Right, you can handle this. From his attitude the night before he had probably come to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on their separation, she thought frantically. He was a control freak in every area of his life; that had become more and more apparent through the two years she had been married to him. Always cool and immaculate, with an undeniable air of authority and command that was awesome. It had only been when they were in bed, and he was loving her with every fibre of his mind and body, that she had felt she had all of him. But perhaps even that had been an illusion she had created because she didn’t want to face up to the sham of their marriage?

  When his knock sounded again she pulled herself together and wiped all trace of her thoughts from her face before she opened the door. And then she stared at him, her mouth falling open in a slight gape before she said bewilderedly, ‘Zeke, what on earth…? You’re soaked, absolutely soaked. Has the car broken down somewhere?’

  ‘No, the car hasn’t broken down,’ he said wearily, raking back his hair as the snow covering his head began to melt in rivulets down his grey face. ‘I’ve been walking.’

  ‘Walking?’ She could see he was shivering as he stood dripping on the draughty landing, and now she pulled him into the room, shutting the door before saying briskly, ‘Get your coat off and I’ll switch the kettle on. You need something warm inside you.’

  ‘Marianne?’ As she went to move away he caught hold of her hand and his flesh was ice-cold. ‘I love you. If nothing else, I want you to understand that. But there’s another part of me…’ He let go of her, turning away with a savagery that spoke of suppressed emotion.

  ‘Zeke, what is it?’ The look on his face frightened her. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘Probably.’ He drew a long, shaking breath. ‘In here.’ He tapped his forehead before turning to face her again, contemplating her wretchedly from beneath his hooded lids, his eyes so smoky dark as to be black. ‘When I left you last night I drove back to the apartment and parked the car and then began walking. I needed to think about what you’d said.’

  Marianne ignored the fierce stab of hope the last words had given her, and said instead, her voice concerned, ‘You haven’t been walking all night in this weather? Oh, Zeke, that’s crazy. You’ll catch your death of cold.’

  ‘That’d be a clean end to this mess, if nothing else,’ he said bitterly through the uncontrollable chattering of his teeth.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She regarded him now in the manner of a schoolmarm admonishing a naughty child, although there was nothing childish about the six foot two, big, dark figure in front of her. He looked broodingly sombre and impossibly handsome, but exhausted. And cold, very cold. The last thought caused her to say firmly, ‘Get your coat off,
Zeke, and hand it here. There’s an airer in the bathroom; I’ll hang it in there.’

  However, once divested of his coat, it was clear he was soaked right through, the designer suit as wringing wet as his overcoat.

  ‘You’re chilled to the bone, aren’t you?’ She couldn’t believe that the logical, cold, imperturbable man she had lived with for the last two years could have been so irrational as to walk the streets all night in the worst snowstorm the south had seen for a decade. ‘You need a hot bath if you aren’t going to catch pneumonia.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ It was abrupt. He hated her fussing.

  ‘You’re not all right.’ It was equally abrupt. She left him standing in front of the fire and walked across to the ancient wardrobe, pulling out her jeans and a jumper. After flinging her dressing gown on the sofa she quickly pulled on the jeans and jumper over her nightie, slipping her feet back into her shoes before turning to face him again, her face flushed.

  He was watching her, and as their eyes met and held Marianne felt her heart begin to thud as his dangerous attraction reached out into the space between them. ‘I’m going to run you a hot bath,’ she said, her voice as firm as she could make it through her wobbly insides, ‘and I want you to take everything off and put my robe on.’

  ‘What?’

  She frowned. ‘Don’t argue, Zeke.’ She turned away from him before he could answer, and reached for the unopened jar of mustard she had bought the day before. ‘And this is going in, too.’

  ‘Marianne—’

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute, when the bath’s ready.’ She was out of the door and halfway along the landing before he had time to argue.

  She made the bath as hot as human flesh could stand, and once it was full and steaming went back and knocked on the flat door.

  When Zeke opened it she willed herself not to laugh, but her voice had a faint gurgle to it when she said, ‘The bath’s ready and I’d soak for at least half an hour if I was you.’

  He surveyed her from under black beetling brows, his limbs sticking out from the heavy towelling outlandishly, and the material straining across his chest and broad shoulders as it stretched at the seams. She had never, in all her life, thought to see the autocratic, imperious Zeke Buchanan in such an incongruous situation, but her amusement was tempered by his grey colour and the way the skin was pulled tight across the chiselled cheekbones.

  ‘You’ll need a towel.’ As she squeezed past him in the doorway all amusement fled as the powerful hardness of his male body beneath the soft towelling made itself known, and the scent of him—a mixture of many things, but undeniably his—teased her nostrils briefly.

  ‘Thanks.’ He took the towel from her as she handed it across with downcast eyes and he was already walking towards the bathroom when she raised her gaze. His big-boned frame, the massive width of his shoulders and the hard line of his back caught at her senses and desire flared, hot and strong, taking her completely unawares.

  She bit hard on her lip as she closed the door, her eyes cloudy with unease. As soon as Zeke was anywhere near, all rationale had a habit of flying out of the window, she admitted unhappily. It was that which had kept her beguiled for two years and she had to be on her guard against his magnetic pull now.

  Zeke was a devastating strategist and a ruthless opponent, she had seen him persuade people black was white without batting an eyelid, and when those attributes were added to the rest of his fascinating persona… Yes, she had to be very, very careful.

  Marianne hadn’t expected Zeke to take any notice of her instructions, but it was exactly half an hour to the minute when his knock sounded at the door.

  She had boiled some water in the meantime, stripping off her clothes and having a hasty wash in the sink before getting dressed properly and doing her hair and make-up. She could have a good soak tonight, she’d told herself feverishly. For now it was of supreme importance to be in control of the situation, and for that she needed every weapon at her disposal. She had to present a cool, calm front—she wasn’t, she very definitely wasn’t, going to fall into his arms.

  That resolve was severely tested when she opened the door to him. In spite of the chill on the landing he hadn’t put the robe on again, merely draping the towel around his lean hips with a sight too casual a regard for safety. He was lithe and tanned and thickly muscled, and the tight black curls on his chest and the power in his hard, male thighs made her breathing quick and shallow as she said squeakily, ‘Come in, come in,’ before moving flusteredly back towards the kitchen area.

  ‘I’m making a hot drink,’ she said jerkily over her shoulder, without turning to look his way again. ‘It’s a pity I haven’t got any brandy or whisky to add to it to combat the cold.’

  ‘I’m not cold now.’

  Neither was she! For an awful minute Marianne thought she had spoken out loud, but the response had only been in her mind.

  ‘That’s good,’ she managed brightly, hoping Zeke couldn’t see the way her hands were shaking. ‘But I’m afraid your clothes aren’t even remotely dry yet. Don’t…don’t you want to put my robe on again?’ she added, trying to keep the desperate plea from sounding in her voice.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he returned drily.

  She turned then—she had to; she couldn’t very well continue to fiddle with the teapot and tray for ever, and the hot tide of sensation which had just begun to diminish slightly washed over her again as she met the smoky grey gaze.

  The jet-black hair, the hard male jaw, the piercing intentness of his heavily lashed eyes—he was gorgeous! Just too darn gorgeous to be true, she told herself with silent desperation.

  ‘You…you shouldn’t risk getting cold again.’ His clothes were gently steaming on the back of the sofa, which she’d pulled close to the warmth of the fire, and now Marianne indicated her neatly folded duvet as she said, ‘If you don’t want the dressing gown, wrap that round you.’

  ‘Marianne, there’s things I have to say,’ he said huskily.

  Fine, but at the moment all she could concentrate on was the way the hair on his chest narrowed to a thin line bisecting his flat, taut belly, and it wasn’t doing her equilibrium any good.

  She nodded in what she hoped was a brisk fashion, wondering how she could feel so incredibly shy with her own husband, and turned back to the tray of tea. ‘Okay, but breakfast first,’ she said weakly, adding an extra spoonful of sugar to her mug for much-needed strength. ‘Bacon sandwiches all right?’

  ‘Bacon sandwiches sound wonderful.’

  His deep, throaty voice made her shiver—he’d always had the sort of voice that would have been pure dynamite on the silver screen—but at least by the time she had set several rashers of bacon sizzling in the pan on the stove and poured the tea, he had draped the duvet round his shoulders.

  It helped, a bit, as she passed him his mug of tea and took a nervous sip of her own, but the atmosphere was still so tense and taut that she found it difficult to persuade her throat to swallow.

  She risked a glance from under her eyelashes after a few moments of silence, and saw he was looking towards the window, where the snow was still thickly falling, his profile grim. And then he turned his head suddenly, meeting her eyes, and said in a low voice, ‘You were right about the separation, Marianne, we both need to think about the future. But I don’t want you living here. I want you to have an allowance, okay? Get something decent.’

  She wanted to say something, anything, but the shock of his words had robbed her of all coherent thought. He didn’t want her any more. Here she’d been thinking she would have to repel his advances or something similar, and all the time he had been going to say he wanted the separation. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry, but as she couldn’t very well do either she called on every scrap of strength she had left and said quietly, ‘I like it here, and I don’t want your money, Zeke.’

  ‘It’s not my money,’ he bit out harshly, and then, as her face whitened still more, he said more g
ently, ‘It’s not my money, Marianne. You are my wife; you have certain entitlements.’

  Entitlements? She couldn’t trust herself to speak. She didn’t care about entitlements; she only cared about him, she cried silently. Couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he understand? She couldn’t believe they had come to this.

  ‘I…I’d better see to the bacon.’

  As she turned blindly away she thought she heard him murmur something along the lines of, ‘Damn the bacon,’ but in the next moment the twang of the sofa told her he had sat down, and she decided she must have imagined it.

  ‘You have been very unhappy in this marriage, haven’t you?’ It was more a statement than a question, and the way he said it made her blood run cold, but before she could respond he continued flatly, ‘And now the very thing I feared the most has come to pass; I’ve made it come to pass.’

  She breathed deeply and then turned to face him. She didn’t understand this conversation, she didn’t understand him, and whatever else she wasn’t going to play games. Things were so bad they couldn’t get any worse, so she might as well be honest. ‘Zeke, you might know what you are talking about but I haven’t a clue,’ she said tightly. ‘You’ve just told me you’re happy to have a separation—’

  ‘Happy?’ he bit savagely.

  ‘Well, aren’t you?’ she shot back angrily, suddenly furious at how easily he could manipulate her emotions. She had given him everything when they had married—her heart, soul, mind and body—and it made his power over her frightening.

  ‘Marianne—’ He stopped abruptly and then rose, flinging the duvet away irritably before walking to stand at the window, the towel low on his hips and his back to her.

  The quiver of sexual excitement she had felt in spite of everything that was happening made her voice brittle as she glared across the room and said, ‘Zeke, talk to me, for goodness’ sake! Shout, scream, do what you want, but I’m sick of the long cold silences that happen every time we discuss us. All the months we’ve been married and I’ve tried to talk to you about the house and children and a job and whatever; you do this to shut me up. Well, I won’t shut up, do you hear? You can’t intimidate me any more because I won’t let you!’