‘Oh?’ Her hand paused in the action of smoothing her skirt down, so that it stopped riding up her thighs.
He smiled. ‘You see, it’s taking quite a bit of adjustment getting used to you being like this.’
‘Like what? Helpless?’
“‘Vulnerable” was actually the word I was thinking of,’ he commented acerbically.
‘And only you could describe being sick as being vulnerable!’ she responded tartly, but it sounded half-hearted, and she saw him give another small smile and tears began to slide slowly down her cheeks. She didn’t even know what she was crying about!
‘Alessandra?’
‘G-go away!’ she sobbed, then added, inconsequentially, ‘It’s these wretched hormones again!’
He had pressed a pristine white handkerchief into her hands, and, when she had scrubbed at her eyes, she found him looking at her in total amazement and realised why. Because, in all the time she’d known him, she had never cried in front of him. For heaven’s sake, she had spent their whole marriage living a lie and it was about time that she started putting her house in order!
‘No, Cameron!’ she told him emphatically. ‘It wouldn’t work! I am not going to come back and live with you. I am not having whatever love you might once have had for me wither up and die altogether!’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about reality! The reality of our relationship! And I haven’t been honest with you, Cameron!’
He looked at her assessingly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Just that I know why you married me!’
‘Do you?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes. I do!’ She swallowed. ‘You saw a cool, unemotional career-woman, didn’t you? One who wasn’t interested in marriage. In fact, that probably played the biggest part in your pursuit of me—the fact that I was different from the other women in your life— that I wasn’t interested in getting your ring on my finger. That’s who you fell for!’
The dark face was unreadable. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.
‘And I was always terribly aware that that was my attraction for you. The woman who played hard to get! But that isn’t who I am, Cameron, not really! The longer we were together, the more I found that I no longer wanted to be cool. I changed, you see. I wanted to be like the kind of woman I knew you would despise—one who wanted to cling to you, one who couldn’t bear the thought of you jetting all round the world with a glamorous female pilot. I discovered that underneath I was that woman—jealous and possessive.’
‘I think I rather like the sound of that!’ he murmured, with a glint in his eyes.
‘No, you don’t! Look at me now!’ she declared wildly, her hand waving distractedly at her belly. ‘I’m all weepy and pathetic. Suddenly my career has about as much allure as a pile of dirty washing! I can see myself getting more and more mountainous as the months go by—eating chocolates all day and slobbing around the place. Then I’ll probably have the baby and spend all day feeding her—’
‘Her?’ he put in, surprised.
She read his expression accurately. ‘No, of course I can’t tell—not yet. I just somehow imagined having a little girl,’ she added, her voice softening imperceptibly before she raised a pair of belligerent dark eyes to him. ‘So what have you got to say about all that, Cameron Calder? I’ll bet you’re glad that I’m giving you the easy way out, aren’t you?’
‘And the easy way out is, I presume, you bringing our baby up on your own.’
It was tough, but she managed to say it. ‘Yes.’
He shook his head. ‘If that’s your definition of easy, then I suggest you invest in a new dictionary, Alessandra.’
‘But you—’
‘No.’ His voice was firmly emphatic. ‘I’ve let you have your say—now I think it’s my turn. Shall I tell you why I married you?’
‘I just—’ She swallowed.
‘No,’ he said again. ‘Not why you think I married you. The truth. And, like all fundamental truths, it’s actually quite simple. I married you because I fell in love with you. I think I fell in love with you the moment I first heard you telling your secretary that you wouldn’t see me. And then I saw you, and suddenly I understood what keeps poets in business.’
His eyes glittered. ‘And, yes, I’m arrogant enough to admit that it was refreshing that you played hard to get. You were most definitely a challenge, and I’m the kind of man who responds to challenges.
‘But all that wild and blinding attraction, coupled with the rather primitive need to possess—they certainly aren’t enough to sustain a relationship on their own. And that isn’t why I married you! For heaven’s sake—you’d have to be pretty dumb to base something as important as marriage on whether or not your partner played hard to get! I married you, Alessandra, because you’re witty and funny and intelligent and smart. Oh, and sexy. That, too.’
He smiled, but there was a touch of sadness in his eyes. ‘In an ideal world,’ he continued softly, ‘we would have had more compatible lifestyles, but I respected your independence; and I thought that we could find a way to work around two very competitive careers.’
Alessandra’s eyes were huge in her pale face. ‘But we couldn’t. Could we? It didn’t work.’
He seemed to be choosing his words with care. ‘It wasn’t ideal.’
‘I could have looked around to see what jobs were available in Manchester,’ Alessandra admitted suddenly, considering for the first time what had always seemed the unthinkable. And finding that it wasn’t unthinkable at all. ‘But I was so afraid that if I slotted into your life like that, then somewhere along the way I’d lose myself.’
‘How?’
She shrugged her narrow shoulders restlessly. ‘Just that you’re so powerful and so important. You had your own very clearly defined life in Manchester, and I suppose that I was frightened of losing my own individuality up there.’
He shook his head. ‘Darling,’ he said ruefully, ‘you could never do that.’
‘I guess I was too stubborn to even try.’
‘But we’re two very stubborn people, aren’t we, Alessandra? It took me a while to realise that, by both locking our horns the way we were doing, we were in danger of destroying what we had together. That’s why I decided to get rid of all my properties. They had become more of a burden to me than anything else. I sold them so that I would be away less often, so that we could see more of each other. It was supposed to have been my surprise to you.’
‘And I spoilt it all by misinterpreting what I’d heard,’ she said slowly, but Cameron shook his head.
‘Not really. It boiled down to the fact that we had taken risks, that you could have become pregnant, and that, yes, I enjoyed it. Which, essentially, if you think about it, was a pretty selfish thing for me to do.’
She couldn’t be a hypocrite and let him heap all the blame on himself. ‘I enjoyed it too,’ she reminded him quietly. ‘Remember?’
‘I should have stopped. I didn’t want to stop,’ he admitted huskily. ‘And afterwards I wondered whether you’d been right—whether, subconsciously, I had been trying to get you pregnant—to trap you into giving up your independence.’
She looked at him with sudden insight. ‘And part of our trouble was that we never talked. We never discussed the major things, did we? We were so caught up with careers and aeroplanes and schedules and deadlines that we forgot the most important things. Like babies,’ she finished, and then gulped. ‘Oh, Cameron!’ she wailed. ‘What’s happening to me?’
‘It must be those hormones again,’ he said with some satisfaction. ‘I’m getting to be a big, big fan of those hormones!’
Alessandra wriggled against the cushions. ‘But what if it just gets worse and worse?’
He grinned. ‘How?’
‘What if I really do just lie around all day eating chocolates?’
He gave her flat stomach a lazy, lingering look, producing instant b
utterflies which had nothing whatsoever to do with nausea. ‘Oh, I think you’ve got quite a bit of mileage there, darling. Besides, I rather like the thought of you growing ripe and heavy—’
‘Fat!’
‘Suckling our baby,’ he went on, his eyes steady on her face, his voice laced with the heady combination of pride and promise.
Alessandra shuddered with longing, until she realised that nothing had actually been said... ‘Cameron—’
‘Mmm?’
‘What if I never want to go back to work?’
He threw her a perceptive look. ‘Like your mother, you mean?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Just because your mother never lifted another paintbrush after she had you doesn’t make her any less of a person, or any less of an artist, come to that. She used her talent in different ways—she diversified. She didn’t stop creating—she just created a family life instead of pictures. And you can do the same, if you want.’
‘How?’
‘You can be an earth mother, if you want to. Or Prime Minister, if you want to. Either way, I’ll love you,’ he added softly.
‘Prime Minister would mean nannies,’ she said shrewdly.
‘So?’
‘Wouldn’t you mind?’
He shook his head. ‘As long as she was the best nanny in the world.’
It sounded a tall order, Alessandra thought abstractedly. They’d have to pick the nanny out together... She certainly didn’t want any nanny resembling Babette!
His gaze was resting, with a thoughtful smile, on her dreamy expression. ‘Are you quite comfortable there?’
‘Mmm,’ she answered, wriggling down against the cushions. ‘Blissfully.’
‘And is there room for me?’
She held her arms wide open. ‘Always.’
He shook his head ruefully. ‘Not always, darling. I think that in about eight months’ time there will be very little room for me on this sofa!’
‘For that I could either hit you or kiss you,’ she murmured.
His face was very close. ‘And which is it to be?’
‘Guess!’
‘Darling, you look absolutely beautiful!’
Alessandra turned from the mirror to look up into her mother’s smiling face. ‘Do I?’ she whispered. ‘Do I really?’
There was the faintest suspicious glitter in Mrs Walker’s fine brown eyes as she nodded. ‘Really.’
‘Good.’ Alessandra stared at herself with satisfaction, at the serene dark eyes set in the glowing oval of her face. “Because I want to look beautiful—especially today. For Cameron,’ she finished softly.
‘He’s a very lucky man,’ observed Mrs Walker, showing true maternal prejudice.
‘And I’m a very lucky woman,’ said Alessandra, with a little purr of contentment.
‘Yes, you are,’ agreed Mrs Walker. ‘You have a beautiful son, and a beautiful husband. Although it hasn’t escaped my notice that sometimes the two of you fight—’
‘Sometimes!’ interjected her daughter with a grin.
‘But there is nothing wrong with the occasional fight,’ insisted Mrs Walker. ‘Not when the two protagonists are such strong personalities, and as long as you end up in one another’s arms afterwards.’
‘We do. Oh, we do!’ Alessandra smiled, then looked up at her mother, suddenly serious. She and Cameron and their gorgeous two-year-old son Jamie had been staying in Italy for the past fortnight, where Alessandra’s parents now ran highly successful painting and cookery weekends in their low, sprawling grey stone house set in the Tuscan countryside. Their dream of living a better life in Italy had finally come true.
‘You know, Mamma,’ Alessandra said quietly, ‘for years I was convinced that you and Papà weren’t happy together.’
‘I suspected as much!’ observed her mother rather drily. ‘But now you know differently, hmm?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Alessandra fervently. At times during this visit she had almost felt as though she was intruding, so palpable was the love which was obviously shared by her parents. How had she ever thought that they weren’t happy together? ‘I used to think that you must hate being poor when we were growing up—it was such a struggle, wasn’t it?’
But her mother shook her head. ‘In the material sense, then yes, we were poor—but emotionally I had everything I could ever wish for with your papà. He has made me the happiest woman on this earth.’ And she began to dab briskly at her eyes. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do. I look a terrible mess!’
‘Rubbish!’ Alessandra contradicted, eyeing the delicately coloured primrose silk suit with its matching hat which so flattered her mother’s dark Italian looks. ‘You look absolutely wonderful, and exactly as the mother of the bride should look!’
‘And what about you?’ demanded her mother. ‘It’s already almost two-thirty and you’re still not ready—’
‘Who isn’t ready?’ came a deep voice from the doorway, and Alessandra looked up, her heart spilling over with love and pride at the sight of Cameron, resplendent in dark morning suit, accompanied by a chubby-cheeked toddler who was wearing a miniature version of his father’s outfit, complete with silk bowtie!
‘Mummy! Mummy!’ squealed Jamie, and hurtled across the room to jump up onto his mother’s lap. ‘Do I look nice?’
‘You look wonderful,’ smiled Alessandra, and her eyes met Cameron’s in the reflection of the mirror. And so do you she told him silently, seeing the gleam of pleasure which lightened the blue-grey eyes in the autocratically handsome face.
‘Jamie, Jamie, Jamie!’ scolded Mrs Walker. ‘Mind your mamma’s dress! Come with Nonna—and we’ll go and find your grandfather. We’d better make sure he’s ready for the wedding!’
‘Bye bye, darling, see you later!’ Alessandra deposited a smacking kiss on the top of her son’s dark head and gave him a big hug before he ran off happily with his grandmother.
There was silence for a moment after they had gone.
‘Are we mad?’ she asked Cameron suddenly.
‘Mad?’ There was the glimmer of a smile on the perfect curve of his mouth. ‘Why mad?’
Alessandra shrugged. ‘Getting married today, when really we are already married.’
He shook his head. ‘Not in the eyes of the Church, or in the eyes of your parents. Not even—’ and he shot her a swift, understanding look ‘—in your eyes; am I right, my love?’
She thought back to their registry office wedding over three years ago, with her in that short scarlet dress and Cameron stopping to buy matching roses on the way. Oh, it had been fun, crazy—but she hadn’t been sure of his feelings for her then, and her own had been so mixed up.
Now she was certain of their mutual and lasting love and commitment, and she wanted to honour that commitment by taking her wedding vows seriously. In a church. And she had wanted to involve her family in the ceremony, too, which was why the three of them had travelled out to Italy for the wedding.
‘I shouldn’t be wearing white,’ she whispered as her fingertips gently touched the fragrant diadem of cream roses and freesias which she would wear on her head. ‘Not with my two-year-old son acting as page-boy!’
‘It isn’t white,’ he contradicted as his eyes slid lingeringly and appreciatively down the entire length of her body. ‘It’s ivory, and you look absolutely beautiful.’
It was Cameron she most wanted to hear it from. ‘Do I?’ she smiled, thrilling to that blatant look of need which was written all over his face.
‘You know you do!’ And he put both hands on her narrow shoulders and began to massage them rhythmically through the silk of her simple wedding dress, so that Alessandra immediately felt the slow, irresistible build-up of desire.
‘Darling, don’t,’ she protested weakly. ‘I’ve only just finished doing my hair.’
His eyes sparked with a sensual gleam as he reluctantly halted the movement. ‘Later,’ he promised huskily, and planted a gentle kiss on the back of her long neck, then smi
led at her in the mirror.
But her eyes were glittering with unshed tears, and he tensed immediately. ‘Sweetheart?’ he murmured. “What is it? What’s the matter?’
For a minute she couldn’t speak. ‘I’m so happy!’ she wailed. ‘I love you! I love our son! I even love living in Manchester, which I was never quite sure I would!’ She dabbed rather helplessly at her eyes with one of the tissues from a box on the dressing table.
‘And I adore being a full-time mother,’ she continued, still with a slightly doleful expression. ‘Though I think your idea of buying our own advertising agency when the children are at school is brilliant!’ She sniffed again and patted some powder onto her nose to take the shine away. ‘Yes, Cameron,’ she concluded seriously. ‘I’m very, very happy.’
He narrowed his eyes, looking as confused as she had ever seen him look. ‘So why the tears?’
She savoured the momentary pleasure of having her strong, powerful husband looking utterly, utterly bemused! ‘It must be those wretched hormones again,’ she murmured demurely.
‘Hormones?’ He frowned. ‘Hormones?’ There was a shocked, telling silence and he crouched down to chair level, his face just inches away from hers. ‘Alessandra Calder,’ he said sternly, ‘are you trying to tell me that you’re... you’re—?’
‘Pregnant?’ She nodded vigorously. ‘Mmm. I am. Pleased?’
He pulled her to her feet and into his arms, his blue-grey eyes blazing with some heart-stopping emotion as they stared down at her for what seemed like a long, long time. ‘Pleased?’ he echoed softly. ‘Oh, yes, my darling. I think you could safely say that I’m pleased.’
And he bent his lips to hers to show her just how much.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6226-3
LONG-DISTANCE MARRIAGE
First North American Publication 1998.
Copyright © 1997 by Sharon Kendrick.
Long-Distance Marriage Page 14