Intimate

by Donna Huxley

  He shook his head. 'The man is certainly clever,' he admitted. 'He didn't want to frame her in the same way he'd done it to you—too obvious. So he went for the simplest solution. He decided that Miss Karff had stolen a letter from his files.

  'Today was the red letter day,' he concluded. 'Deman showed up in Chuck Robbins' office, the so-called stolen letter in his hand. He said he'd found it in Miss Karff's desk. Without a word, Chuck handed him his resignation. He told me later this morning that the look on Deman's face was worth writing home about. Naturally he demanded an explanation. Chuck pulled out a cassette, turned on the tape recorder, and there was good old Porter Deman, explaining to poor Miss Karff that since she hadn't seen fit to let him have his way with her, he would see she lost her job.'

  Marsh laughed contemptuously. 'Deman, of course, claimed the girl was a misfit, a scheming seductress who'd entrapped him. Chuck told him who she really was, and then pulled out a deposition made by Barbara what's-her-name—Moore, isn't it?—testifying to what Deman had done to her. Then, for the coup de grace, he simply handed Deman a copy of your doctored personnel file. Well, that did it. Porter signed the resignation. Of course, there's a law against sexual harassment, and the indictment has already been handed down.'

  'I can't believe it,' sighed Anna.

  'That we got him?' Marsh asked.

  'I thought he'd never be stopped.'

  'All things are possible,' Marsh smiled, 'when people work together, Anna. When they trust each other. I guess you and I both had to learn that the hard way.'

  'Marsh, I don't know what to say,' said Anna. 'When I told Mr Robbins the truth in the first place, and lost my job anyway, I thought the battle was lost. If I'd told you everything then…'

  'But you hardly knew me, remember?' He grinned, shaking his head. 'I've had a lot of time to think this over, Anna, and it seems to me you weren't at fault. You had plenty of evidence that the system didn't work for victims like yourself. Why fight a losing battle? Even May and I, as lawyers, had to force the corporation to recognise its mistakes. And you're not a lawyer. Your discouragement was perfectly justified.

  'But,' he added, his powerful hand resting gently on her shoulder, 'I have my lucky stars to thank for the fact that you felt you knew me well enough to marry me. Although I imagine you've had more than one occasion to think that was a mistake, too.'

  Anna shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I regretted what was happening, and I did think we would have to separate, but I never felt it was a mistake from the beginning.'

  'I had a feeling you still had some faith in me,' he smiled, 'since you didn't walk out on me when you had ample reason to. Until today, that is.'

  Anna pondered the new light thrown on the past by his revelations. Clearly, the slender thread of commitment binding her to Marsh had weathered many a storm without breaking.

  'I wasn't leaving you for ever when I came here today,' she said. 'I needed time to think, Marsh.'

  'I don't blame you,' he agreed. 'There was a lot to think about. I hope you don't blame Debby too much for telling me you'd be here. And by the way,' he added, 'she explained to me about last night's comedy of errors. You were apparently so upset at seeing me in that lounge with May that you didn't notice that Debby was even more flabbergasted. After all, she only knew May as Miss Karff from N.T.E.L., and she was wondering how in hell I knew the girl. But Debby is a smart woman. She had an inkling of the truth right away.'

  Anna sighed deeply. 'This is all too much,' she said. 'Too good to be true.'

  'But it is true,' he murmured, taking her gently in his strong arms. 'It's all over, Anna. You've had a tough time, you've been abused and insulted. And, I'm sorry to say, you didn't have the benefit of the support I could have given you.'

  He kissed her forehead, her hair, with a delicate tenderness whose tinge of regret underlined the sincerity of his words.

  'I was so crazy about you,' he said, 'from the first moment you bumped into me outside those elevators, that I must have been scared of my own feelings. I was used to handling life on my own, and I suddenly realised that from that day on I couldn't live without you. I've tried to hide from it, but it's as true today as it was then, Anna. I love you.'

  At last, after weeks and months of increasing despair, Anna began to feel the familiar warmth she had nearly forgotten. Was it possible? Could she be at home at last in his arms?

  'I'm glad you didn't give up on me,' she sighed.

  'The feeling is mutual,' he smiled. 'Although I must say I was a little worried today.'

  Suddenly Anna recalled the emotions that had driven her from his apartment this morning.

  'Anyway,' Marsh was saying, 'it's all in the past now, and I dare to hope that we'll finally be able to invest some confidence in each other. Porter Deman is out of a job, and Charles Robbins is waiting for you to call. He wants you to come back and take over the department, and he's hoping against hope that you'll accept his apologies. Think you're interested?'

  Anna squirmed to her knees on the couch and looked into his eyes with the same glimmering happiness that had bewitched him during their honeymoon.

  'I'd need maternity leave,' she smiled.

  Marsh gazed at her in shock until the meaning of her words came through to him.

  'You mean…?'

  She nodded. 'There'll be another little person in the Hamilton family before too long. And probably every bit as stubborn as his parents!'

  'When did you find out?' he asked.

  'Today,' she answered. 'That's why I left. I was at my wits' end, and didn't know what to do. But now I know what to do.'

  She kissed him tenderly. His arms encircled her with the special gentleness she thought she had lost for ever.

  'Anna,' he whispered; 'let's go home. I could sit here for ever, just telling you how much I love you, but you've had a hard day, and you should rest.'

  'Yes, let's go home,' she smiled, her arms resting comfortably around him. 'But I don't feel like resting.'

  She felt his lips touch her own. His kiss seemed a promise, charged with the call of a lifetime of happy hours, beckoning from a sunlit future. Her senses yielded willingly to him, for she knew that the past could no longer trouble this intimate beginning. The future was now.