Long-Distance Marriage

by Kendrick, Sharon

  ‘You must point her out,’ whispered Alessandra. ‘Maybe she can liven things up again this year!’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s go and have a drink while we wait for them to arrive.’

  She looked up into the direct blaze of the glittering blue-grey eyes which locked her in their magnetic light. Her throat suddenly seemed terribly dry, her breathing erratic. He could still make her feel as weak-kneed as a schoolgirl. ‘G-good idea.’ She gulped.

  He lifted her chin with his finger and looked down into the brown velvet of her eyes. ‘Alessandra?’

  ‘What?’ she queried, in a voice quite unlike her own.

  ‘I love you. Have I told you that recently?’

  ‘Not since last night.’

  ‘Well, I do. But do you love me?’

  More, more, more than he would ever know. ‘You know I do,’ she breathed as his mouth came down to claim hers.

  It really was amazing, Alessandra thought as she almost waltzed downstairs to be introduced to the first guest, how those three words could fortify and sustain you. All their minor spats suddenly seemed as insubstantial as candyfloss. He loves me, she thought, smiling with an inane grin all over her face at the union representative who had just arrived and was defiantly wearing jeans and a T-shirt which said ‘CAPITALISM STINKS!’. Subtle, thought Alessandra, trying desperately hard not to laugh as she met Cameron’s amused eyes.

  It was perfectly normal for married couples to have disagreements from time to time, she reasoned. It would be very odd if they didn’t!

  Babette made a spectacular entrance wearing a shimmering gold sequinned dress which was practically backless and frontless, her white-blonde hair cascading all the way down her back. But this evening Alessandra was secure enough to greet her warmly, then left her to be surrounded by a circle of eager men who were almost drooling—although she was glad to note that Cameron was not among them!

  Alessandra moved from group to group, chatting and laughing, making sure that glasses were refilled and that they’d eaten some of the delicious cold buffet before the ballroom was cleared for the jazz band due to start up at ten.

  Feeling hot and sticky, and deciding to wait until everyone else was settled with food before finding herself something to eat, Alessandra slipped into one of the downstairs cloakrooms to freshen up. She peeled off the elbow-length white satin gloves which matched her gown, and ran her wrists under the cold tap. Heaven! she thought appreciatively. She would carry the gloves when she went back to the party—it was much too hot to wear them.

  She dabbed two spots of icy water at her temples, tucked a loose strand of hair back in place, and was about to go back to the party when she heard the undertones of two people talking quietly outside the door. Not wanting to disturb them, she’d turned to go back into the cloakroom, when she heard her name being mentioned, and, with a start of recognition, she realised that it was Cameron speaking.

  She knew that eavesdroppers never heard anything good about themselves but she told herself that she wasn’t really eavesdropping, just being naturally curious to hear what her husband was saying about her, and that in a minute she would show her face. She realised that the second voice was that of Ken Richards, one of the directors.

  Ken was one of the few directors she had met before, just after she and Cameron were married. At sixty he was the oldest director in the company and had been with Calder’s all his working life. After Cameron’s father had died and Cameron had inherited a company about which he’d known practically nothing Ken had been, she knew, an absolute saviour—played the guardian angel, helping and guiding the twenty-year-old. He was also extremely proud of Cameron’s rapid rise in the industry, and the way he had made Calder’s such a highly respected international concern. With no children of his own, Cameron had become his surrogate son.

  ‘Alessandra is an exceptionally beautiful woman,’ Ken was saying. ‘Margaret was just remarking that she looks positively radiant this evening.’

  ‘Mmm,’ agreed Cameron, but the tone of his voice was strictly neutral, thought Alessandra.

  ‘Pity we don’t see more of you both,’ went on Ken. ‘Margaret would love to have the two of you over for dinner. Can’t you bring her up north a bit more often, lad?’

  ‘It would seem not,’ said Cameron tonelessly. ‘Not at the moment, at least.’

  ‘Sounds fairly emphatic,’ observed Ken ruefully.

  ‘That’s the demands of two high-powered careers for you,’ Cameron put in, and Alessandra could almost see him shrugging his broad shoulders which tonight were immaculately clad in a formal black dinner-jacket.

  ‘They conflict, I suppose?’

  ‘Inevitably, yes. But I’m hoping that things will change very soon.’ He definitely had a smile in his voice as he spoke, a satisfied kind of smile, and tiny hairs of warning prickled and stood up on end at the back of Alessandra’s long neck.

  ‘Oh?’ said Ken jovially. ‘Anything to tell me, or can I guess?’

  ‘I’d rather not say until anything’s confirmed.’

  Ken laughed softly. ‘Well, if it’s what I think it is, I’ll be delighted, and so will Margaret We’ve waited long enough for the patter of tiny feet from you, my lad!’

  Tiny feet?

  Alessandra rushed back into the cloakroom and stood shaking in front of the mirror, her face almost as white as the gown she wore, her lips a trembling red slash in her face.

  Lord, no, she told herself desperately, knowing that she was clutching at straws. It couldn’t be! It couldn’t be! She swayed and held onto the washbasin for support while her unwanted thoughts went haywire.

  Surely ...?

  Had Cameron actually been trying to get her pregnant last night?

  No. Of course he hadn’t!

  Now she was getting completely paranoid She had been the one who had flown to Manchester without her pills, hadn’t she? And, while he might have a mind like a steel trap, he certainly couldn’t have predicted that!

  But... Her lips started trembling again. Once she’d told him, why hadn’t he stopped making love to her?

  She didn’t believe for a second that it was because he had gone beyond the point where he was able to stop. Because Cameron was a master of self-control, both mental and physical.

  When he wanted to be!

  But, even if you were generous and counted the first time they’d made love as a lamentable but wonderful mistake, made because passion had overcome them and they hadn’t been able to stop, why had he gone on to spend the rest of the evening and most of the night trying out different variations on the same theme, hence lessening the odds against her becoming pregnant? Dear Lord, it had been her mistake in forgetting to bring her pills—but hadn’t Cameron capitalised on that? Hadn’t he just!

  Alessandra stared at her face in the mirror, scarcely recognising the woman who looked back at her. Tonight she was wearing her hair up, which was unusual for her, but the classic topknot complemented the formal gown which Cameron had bought for her. Now she felt as if she wanted to pull all the pins out and free her hair and rip the satin garment from her back in a symbolic gesture of rejection.

  The eyes which were reflected in the mirror were misty with tears as the injustice and the sense of betrayal she felt came slamming home to her.

  How could he? How could he hint that there might be a baby on the way, and then allow kindly Ken to prattle on about the ‘patter of tiny feet’?

  But why not?

  There was a chance—a faint chance, it was true, but a chance all the same—that there would be the patter of tiny feet. Because Cameron had made damned sure of that! Why, he’d made love to her last night more times than he had done the very first time they’d gone to bed together—and that was saying something!

  He hadn’t even bothered to disguise his wishes either, had he? she asked herself furiously. He had been quite open about it. He had actually told her that he wanted to impregnate her. Had told her that while he was making lov
e to her!

  She felt absolutely sick to the stomach. Sick at the extent of his betrayal. And she certainly didn’t want to face him, not now, not until she’d calmed down a bit.

  She would slip upstairs to their suite and compose herself while she decided how best to confront Cameron about what she had overheard. And when to do it. She certainly didn’t want to spoil everyone’s evening by having a raging scene with him in public.

  But how can you possibly slip away? prompted the voice of her conscience, and she forced herself to listen to it. It would look distinctly odd if the boss’s wife just upped and disappeared.

  She took a moment to compose herself, and then, drawing a deep breath, Alessandra went slowly back into the party.

  She allowed Ken and Margaret to press a plate of food on her, but she simply played with the lobster salad, and her refilled glass of champagne went untouched. The minutes ticked by with agonising slowness, and Alessandra felt as though her smile had been stitched to her face and that her head must resemble a puppet’s, the way she kept obediently nodding it up and down as she strove to listen to the conversation of yet another group of people she’d just met.

  Once or twice she caught Cameron glancing over at her, a small frown of enquiry creasing his brow, and she managed to send him a tight little smile in return which was supposed to tell him that everything was just fine.

  But her acting abilities were obviously lacking since, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that he had begun to move towards her, though that wasn’t really difficult to notice—his tall and elegantly graceful figure easily marked him out from every other man in the room.

  She felt cornered, trapped. If she could have fled then she would have done. Instead she felt the tiny cold droplets of sweat which beaded the base of her spine as he approached, a look of questioning concern on his face.

  He took her elbow gently but with a markedly proprietorial air.

  ‘Cameron, I’m talking,’ she hedged as she indicated the female marketing manager and three of her sales team with whom she was standing.

  He gave a smile that could have won any heart. ‘And now it’s my turn, isn’t it?’ he murmured.

  ‘Oh, Cameron!’ laughed the marketing manager. ‘You can’t monopolise your wife like that! We never get to see her.’

  ‘I can and I will,’ he laughed, but the hint of steel behind his words indicated that he meant business. ‘Speaking of which, I don’t get to see you very much myself, do I, my darling?’

  His hand moved around to her waist, and then it moved slowly and tantalisingly all the way up her back, his fingers expertly caressing the tense shoulders. ‘Excuse us, won’t you?’ He gave another of his all-conquering smiles as he firmly led her away from the group. ‘Let’s go outside for a breath of fresh air,’ he said as he guided her through the ballroom.

  ‘But the band’s just beginning—wouldn’t you like to dance?’

  ‘No. I damned well wouldn’t like to dance! And you look so brittle that if I dared take you in my arms you’d probably snap!’

  ‘Cameron—’ But her voice went unheard. The last thing she’d wanted was to be alone with him, but now it was too late. She felt the rush of the cool evening air hitting her face and the sounds of the band starting up in the ballroom behind her. Her eyes blinked furiously as they tried to adjust to the moonlight which washed the flagstones of the deserted terrace with its pale light.

  She turned to look up at him, and his gaze was fiercely intent as he stared down searchingly into her eyes.

  ‘What the hell’s the matter?’ he queried abruptly.

  Did he know she’d overheard him? ‘M-matter?’ she stumbled guiltily, feeling suddenly at a disadvantage at the thought of being found out for eavesdropping.

  ‘Yes, matter,’ he repeated a touch impatiently. ‘Has someone said or done something to offend you?’

  ‘Why?’ she queried faintly,

  ‘Because you’ve been so uptight all evening.’

  ‘I was chatting to people,’ she protested, but he shook his dark head.

  ‘That isn’t what I meant, and you know it. I want to know what it is that’s bothering you.’

  She moved away from him. ‘Do you?’ she asked slowly. ‘I wonder.’

  ‘And don’t, for pity’s sake, speak in riddles! I can’t bear women who play silly word games!’

  It was the way he’d said ‘women’ in that scathing, scornful way that did it. Lumping her together with every other member of the female sex. Alessandra lost the temper which had been on a slow, angry boil since she’d listened to his conversation with Ken.

  ‘I overheard you talking to Ken Richards!’ she accused. ‘So what have you got to say about that?’

  He had gone very, very still, like a panther’s watchful stance before it strikes. ‘I think you’d better explain yourself, don’t you?’ he said in a voice which was completely expressionless.

  His icy calmness riled her still further. ‘Oh, I think that any explanations would be better coming from you, Cameron!’ she returned, tossing her head back so angrily that half the pins in her hair clattered noisily onto the flagstones and her hair spilled down all over her shoulders, although neither of them seemed to notice.

  He raised his eyebrows in arrogant enquiry. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that before you start announcing to the world at large that we’re about to have a baby hadn’t you better consult me first?’

  Incredulity gave way to a wintry anger. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he queried coldly.

  ‘It’s pointless trying to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!’ she stormed furiously. ‘I was there! I heard you—remember?’

  ‘And just what did you hear, exactly?’

  ‘I told you! I heard Ken asking why you didn’t bring me up north more often and I heard you say you wanted to, but that we had conflicting careers!’

  ‘Go on,’ he said, in an odd kind of voice.

  ‘And then,’ she added triumphantly, ‘I heard you say that hopefully that was all going to change very soon. And we all know what you meant by that, don’t we?’ She almost snarled that last, accusatory sentence, then had to pause, her hand on her heart, momentarily out of breath.

  ‘We do?’

  ‘Damned right we do!’

  ‘And?’ he promptly archly. ‘Oh, please don’t stop now! Do continue, Alessandra. I’m hanging on your every word.’

  She chose to ignore the dangerous sarcasm in his voice. Chose to ignore everything but the muddled maelstrom of emotions which was churning away inside her. ‘You want me to be pregnant, don’t you? That’s what you were trying to do last night—make me pregnant!’

  To her fury he tipped his head back and laughed, but it was a cold, bitter kind of laugh. ‘Oh, I see! I should have guessed the source of your wrath, shouldn’t I, Alessandra? Because you thought that your greatest fear might come true? That you might be pregnant?’

  Put like that, it didn’t sound at all like what she meant. ‘You’re making it sound as though I’m ruling out the possibility altogether, but that just isn’t true. And when I do decide to have children—’

  ‘Yes, when you decide,’ he echoed sardonically. ‘Not when we decide, I note. Do enlighten me, Alessandra—when exactly will that be? Which day in the far and distant future? We’ve never actually discussed it, have we? Or even made a plan to discuss it?’

  ‘And now we probably never will!’ she said on a half-sob. ‘I’m probably pregnant right now!’

  ‘And it’s all my fault?’ he guessed.

  ‘Well, there isn’t anyone else it could be!’

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight, shall we? What exactly is it you’re accusing me of?’

  ‘You made love to me seven times last night!’ She threw the wobbly accusation at him.

  ‘Darling, do lower your voice—you might make a lot of women jealous!’

  ‘Why, you—’

  ‘No, you,’ he said, sounding very fain
tly bored. ‘You were the one who forgot to bring your pills—’

  ‘Well, there was no need for you to—’

  ‘To what?’ he queried bluntly. ‘You sure as hell chose a fine time to remember to tell me! And, if my memory serves me well, what happened afterwards seemed pretty mutual.’

  ‘But you enjoyed it!’

  ‘And is that such a heinous crime?’ he drawled. ‘To have enjoyed it?’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant and you know it!’

  ‘No? Then perhaps you could be a little more specific. What exactly are you objecting to? That I enjoyed the sex?’

  ‘That you enjoyed taking the risk,’ she said in a small, shaking voice.

  ‘Hell, yes, Alessandra—I admit it! I enjoyed it! We took a risk and, yes, that fact turned me on! It was something I’d done with you and with no other woman, and, yes, if you like, that made it even more special. But we are married and you are my wife.’

  ‘And if we’re—unlucky?’

  His mouth tightened into an ugly line. ‘Not quite the adjective I would have hoped for,’ he grated. ‘Would it be so very awful—if you got pregnant?’

  ‘A pregnancy shouldn’t be a mistake!’ she retorted. ‘It should be properly planned!’

  ‘And I’m sure it will be,’ he observed bitterly. ‘Like everything else in our neat and tidy little world! You can bet your sweet life that a child of ours won’t be conceived out of an explosion of passion or need!’ he raged on like a man possessed, some stranger she’d never encountered before. ‘Will it?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with planning!’ she stormed back. ‘I’ve seen too much of the other way, remember?’

  The corners of his mouth came down with a derisory twist. ‘Ah, yes—your fecund and feckless mother! Who had more babies than she could ever afford but loved it! Who lived simply but didn’t care! Who committed the cardinal crime of allowing instinct to conquer greed!’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ Alessandra spat. ‘We never had two pennies to rub together! And that may be bloody corny but it’s true! And here’s something even cornier but also true—we didn’t know where our next meal was coming from. And believe me, Cameron, when I tell you that there’s absolutely nothing romantic about poverty! I know.’