by Maggie Cox
‘Let me remind you that you relinquished all your rights as a husband when you coldly and unfeelingly walked out on my niece as if she was less than nothing to you! You put your business and your ambition way above your relationship, and that’s a fact. It’s just a shame you deceived Tara by marrying her in the first place!’
‘Deceived her?’ His handsome brow furrowing, Mac’s heart thudded heavily inside his chest.
‘Yes, deceived her!’ Beth reiterated angrily. ‘You didn’t want a wife! You must have known you weren’t interested in a real marriage when your work so obviously came first. You deceived Tara by telling her you were doing it for her. She’s a trusting soul, Mac. She believed every word you told her. No matter how many times you let her down—and believe me, I know there were many because she cried on the phone to me—she would still end up giving you the benefit of the doubt. “One day he won’t have to work so hard,” she’d tell me. “One day Mac and I will be able to have a real holiday together somewhere wonderful.” She worshipped the ground you walked on and what did you do to her?’ Beth paused to inhale a deeply outraged breath. ‘You walked away without so much as giving her a chance at a reconciliation. I’m not privy to all the details of what went wrong between you both, but the fact is you broke her heart. And when she lost that much loved, much longed-for baby of hers…you broke it all over again. I really think it’s best for all concerned that you just turn around and leave. After all, it is what you do best, isn’t it?’
He told himself he deserved the tongue-lashing Beth had given him but, even so, anger welled up inside his chest because she’d made his walking out on Tara seem so premeditated and cold when the truth was it was anything but. He’d anguished over his decision for days and days, unable to bear the sight of his lovely wife looking so desperately unhappy. At the time, Mac hadn’t had a clue how to put things right between them—they had seemed to want different things and the gap between them had grown wider. The demands of his business had swallowed up most of his time—too much—a fact he now bitterly regretted. He should have paid more attention to his wife; shouldn’t have left her alone for most of their married life. Somehow he’d fooled himself that she’d wait until he’d secured them the future he wanted for them; fooled himself that she’d understand why it wasn’t practical for them to have children right then. One day he’d make it up to her, he’d promised himself. One day he’d give her everything she ever wanted… Well, he’d made his fortune but he’d lost the woman he’d loved—lost her long before he finally walked through the door and never looked back.
‘Marriage doesn’t come with an instruction manual, you know?’ Sighing deeply, Mac glanced at Beth and speared his fingers frustratedly through his hair. ‘I made a mess of things. I know that. Trouble is…we stopped communicating.’ A self-deprecating little crease appeared between his brows. Something inside Beth melted a little.
‘I stopped listening,’ he continued. ‘It’s just a wonder that Tara stayed around as long as she did. As for the baby…’ Those deep blue eyes of his that could be as icy as a Scandinavian winter shimmered with a vivid flash of pain. ‘Did she think I’d abandon her when I found out she was pregnant?’
Beth examined the two gold rings on her fingers and shook her head. ‘Perhaps she worried you might think she was trying to trap you into staying. I don’t know, Mac, but, knowing Tara as I do, I’d say that had something to do with it. She tells me you want a divorce—that you’re going to remarry?’
‘No.’ Mac stared past Beth at the row of grandfather clocks that were unanimously chiming the hour in a cacophony of bells and gongs. ‘Amelie and I broke up.’
‘I see.’
‘She wasn’t the right woman for me.’
‘So what are you doing here, Mac? Why do you want to see Tara?’
‘Is she seeing anyone right now?’ He couldn’t help himself. He just had to ask the one question that had been bothering him since he’d seen her at the museum. There was no way a beautiful girl like Tara would have spent the last five years alone—but it still made him feel sick with jealousy to think of her with someone else.
‘There’s never been a shortage of interested young men lining up at the door to ask her out. What do you think, Mac?’
He was afraid to think, truth to tell. There was so much he didn’t know about the girl he’d married. So much water under the bridge that stood between them. He could only guess at the kind of person she was now. All he had to go on was memory—and hope…there was always hope. A dimple appearing at the corner of his attractive mouth, he allowed himself a brief smile before replying. ‘I think the male population of this town would have to be blind not to be interested in Tara. But you haven’t answered my question, Beth. Is she in a serious relationship?’
‘Is that why you’re here, Mac? To try and win her back?’ Cocking her head to one side, Beth considered the silent tussle going on behind those riveting blue eyes.
He laid his hand on the smooth, burnished surface of a ponderous Victorian dining table just to his left, in front of Beth’s desk. ‘You have some nice things here,’ he commented, glancing around. It was amazing to him just how many antiques one could cram into such a relatively small space. Then he thought of Tara working here, in that same small space, day after day—when she should be dancing, maybe teaching in a school of her own. Once upon a time that had been her dream and Mac had vowed to himself he would help manifest it. He frowned as he remembered. ‘We need to talk. That much I do know. What time will she be back?’
Beth flipped open the big red diary on her desk but her gaze was deliberately vague. ‘She won’t be back until this evening. She’s gone out for the day. Said she wasn’t sure what time she’d be home. Perhaps you could come back another day?’
‘No.’ He was unequivocal about that. What he had to say to Tara couldn’t wait. It was already five years overdue. ‘Here’s where I’m staying.’ Retrieving a small business card from his jacket pocket, he laid it on top of the diary. ‘I’ve taken a month’s leave. I’m not in a hurry to go back to London if that’s what you’re wondering. Please tell Tara I called and I’d like to see her. Will you do that for me, Beth?’
He seemed so sincere, in earnest, that the older woman relented. She prayed she was doing the right thing.
‘I’ll tell her, Mac—but I can’t promise she’ll be in touch. You might just have to live with the fact that she might not ever want to speak to you again.’
‘Just give her the message—that’s all I ask. I’ll be seeing you Beth…and thanks.’
With a little jangle of the doorbell, he closed the door behind him and strode away down the street. Beth picked up the gold-embossed business card he’d left on the desk with the name of the best hotel in town on it and for a moment or two clutched it speculatively to her chest. ‘Oh, Tara,’ she sighed.
‘It was a great movie, wasn’t it?’
Hating to burst his bubble, though action movies with buildings and people being blown up at every turn really weren’t her thing, Tara grinned ruefully at the handsome young man who’d taken her to the cinema. Raj Singh was the adored son of Sanjay and Binnie—proprietors of her local newsagents—and from time to time Tara and he would date, although their association was on a unanimous friendship-only footing—which suited them both. After Mac, Tara just didn’t do deep, meaningful relationships any more, and Raj was promised to a girl of his parents’ choosing in an arranged marriage. The wedding would take place in three months’ time at Christmas, when the whole family would decamp to Kerala on the Indian subcontinent for a traditional Indian ceremony. For a young man as westernised as Raj, Tara was enormously impressed that when it came to the question of marriage, he was willing to bow to the more traditional wishes of his family.
‘It wasn’t in the same league as Gone with the Wind,’ she teased, ‘but it was OK.’
‘Gone with the wind?’ Completely bewildered, Raj scratched his head.
“‘Frankly, my de
ar—I don’t give a damn.”’ Ring any bells?’ Tara’s mouth quirked in a smile. ‘Obviously not. It was my mother’s favourite film. I was named after the house that featured in the story.’
‘Tara was the name of a house?’
‘Forget it. Let’s go and get a pizza, shall we?’
‘Why do you get to choose what we eat? You know I’d prefer a burger!’
‘I let you choose the film, didn’t I?’ she shouted at him over her shoulder.
‘You are one bossy woman, you know that?’ Raj hurried to keep up with the slender blonde spitfire as she pushed her way through the busy throng of humanity spilling into Leicester Square and hoped to God that his promised new wife would have just half as much spark. The last thing he wanted was some submissive little wallflower with no opinions other than her husband’s.
‘Pizza, then home,’ he said firmly, knowing Tara would completely ignore the assumed authority in his voice. ‘I promised your aunt I wouldn’t get you back too late.’
Tara stopped dead in her tracks and swung round to face him, hands on hips. ‘Well, more fool you, Raj Singh, because I want to go dancing!’
‘You do?’
‘I do.’ And, although she was smiling and determined to have a good time, inside Tara’s heart was aching because Mac had never—not even once—taken her to a nightclub to dance.
‘I think that just about covers everything. If you can think of anything else, call me. You’ve got my number.’ His business concluded, Mac replaced the receiver on its rest and swung his long legs onto the bed. Picking up the hardbacked book beside him on the nightstand, he flicked to the page he’d turned down at the corner then, adjusting the stack of pillows behind his head, proceeded to read where he’d left off earlier.
Five minutes later, having read the same two sentences at least ten times, Mac dropped the book beside him on the counterpane and with a harsh sound of exasperation dragged both hands back and forth through his thick blond hair. Unused to having time on his hands, time when he should be relaxing and enjoying himself, he concluded it was a sad state of affairs when a man didn’t even remember how to participate in either of those two very necessary states. He was so used to working twelve-to fourteen-hour days, his body seemed to have lost the ability to relax when he wanted it to. Getting up, he strode over to the old-fashioned sash window, lifted the forest-green drape and glanced out at the deserted street below. The row of Tudor-fronted shops reminded him how historical this little town was. How appealing to the out-of-town visitor or tourist from abroad. But it was mid-afternoon and as quiet as the grave…too quiet. How did Tara stand it? Wasn’t there anything about London she missed? Apart from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Sadler’s Wells, that was? The capital city could be an unforgiving mistress with its noise, traffic jams and pollution, but Mac had to admit he loved it—missed it when he wasn’t there. In the early days of their marriage, Tara had often talked about wanting to move to the country and Mac had put her off, promising to discuss it ‘some time in the future’ when he wasn’t so busy—when the demands of his steadily growing business were perhaps less. He’d get someone in to run the agency for him, he’d told her—then it wouldn’t matter that he didn’t live close by; he could keep in touch by phone or fax, just show up for the important stuff. His ambition had been like a drug, he acknowledged now, shame churning his insides. He’d let it blind him to the fact that his wife had needs too, and more often than not he wasn’t meeting them. He shut his eyes at the memory. On the nightstand, the trill of the telephone mercifully jolted him.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Simmonsen? I have a Mrs Simmonsen down here in the lobby to see you.’
A vein throbbed in his temple. For a moment he didn’t know what to say. He’d begun to think she wasn’t going to get in touch after all, as Beth had speculated she might not. All day he’d resisted the impulse to make his way back to the shop and see if she was there—find out if she was deliberately avoiding contact. Not that he’d let a little obstacle like that get in his way—there was far too much at stake for that…
‘Tell her I’ll be right down.’
As he descended the thickly carpeted staircase to the floor below, Mac straightened his tie, rubbed a hand round his recently shaven jaw, and mused that it was surely a good sign that Tara was still using his name when she could have so easily reverted to her maiden name. Even though they weren’t actually divorced, who could have blamed her under the circumstances? But, that aside, he couldn’t deny the throb of pleasure that pulsed through him at the sight of her sitting on the big cream sofa in the lobby. She was wearing light blue jeans with a crisp white blouse and she’d folded her tan-coloured jacket across her lap. She looked fresh-faced and pretty and when she trained her wary green gaze his way Mac knew an almost irresistible desire to get her alone, in the most intimate situation he could think of.
She got to her feet as he drew level, and her scent drifted round him, stirring memories strictly of the bedroom variety.
‘I got your message. I can’t stay long—I’m helping Beth with a stock inventory. What is it, Mac? What was so urgent that you couldn’t just tell me on the phone?’
Going for broke, he squared his shoulders. ‘I’ve decided I don’t want a divorce after all,’ he replied evenly.
‘You don’t?’ Big as saucers, Tara’s green eyes were visibly apprehensive. ‘Then…then what do you want?’
‘I want you, Tara…back in my life. I want us to have a proper marriage.’
CHAPTER THREE
TARA heard what Mac said but wondered crazily if she’d imagined it. All the way to his hotel she’d been frantic with nerves; terrified but excited at the thought of seeing him again—acknowledging that their unexpected encounter in the museum had stirred up so many hopes and dreams that she really should have let go of long ago. Especially after what had happened… But now, staring up into a fathomless blue gaze that clearly had no intention of letting her off the hook—not even for a second—she clutched her jacket to her chest and remembered that the only feelings she should have towards him were ambivalent at best—hostile at worst.
‘Is this some kind of bad joke? Because if it is, I really don’t appreciate it. One minute you’re telling me you’ve met someone and you want a divorce, the next… What’s going on, Mac?’
He told himself to take it easy, not to push so hard or he’d more than likely frighten her away for good. His insides clenched at the thought. Now that he’d seen her again he knew what he was doing was right. It was actually a shock to him that he’d survived so long without her. Maybe not so much survived as existed. How could he have contemplated for even a second marrying someone like Amelie? The French girl didn’t even let her guard down in bed; she was far too obsessed with her appearance, too controlled to get low down and dirty, too…too cold. Mac only had to glance at the hectic colour seeping into Tara’s cheeks to remember how warm his wife had been in that department—an erotic revelation of passion and fire.
‘It’s not a joke, Tara. Amelie and I broke up.’
A sharp spasm of jealousy coiled through her at the mention of his girlfriend’s name. Before she had a name the woman had been a hazy nothing in her mind. ‘Amelie’ made her flesh and blood, real, and that hurt.
‘So what am I? Any port in a storm?’
‘Of course not.’ He looked offended. Too bad, Tara thought wildly, when he didn’t seem to care what he did to hurt her.
‘We got along once upon a time,’ Mac continued, sliding a hand into a pocket of his dark blue suit. ‘Is it so crazy to imagine we might get along again?’
‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’ Inside her chest, Tara’s heart was beating double time. Of all the reasons Mac could have given for why he wanted to meet up with her, a reconciliation was the furthest—the last thing in the whole wide world she could have imagined. What was behind it, she wondered, and why was he torturing her like this when the mere sight of him was tying her
insides into some kind of intricate macramé?
‘So serious I’ve taken a month’s leave of absence.’
‘Well, that must be a first! Are you sure they can spare you, Mac? I always thought you were so indispensable.’
To her surprise, a self-deprecating little grin hijacked his perfect mouth. ‘So did I. Obviously that’s not the case. Fortunately I have some good people working for me—people I can trust to do a good job. I really have no worries about being absent for a month.’
‘And what will you do with all that free time, Mac?’ Tara asked, tucking a stray blonde strand behind her ear. ‘Maybe some therapy might be a good idea?’
‘Therapy?’
‘For your workaholism…or are you still in denial?’
He could hear the hurt in her voice, the anger behind the bitter accusation, and regret twisted through Mac at the pain he must have caused her when time after time he’d put his working commitments before his relationship. Sighing heavily, he glanced round at the reception desk, at the interested glances they were getting from the smartly dressed brunette who sat behind it, who suddenly pretended to be looking at some paperwork.
‘We can’t talk here. Can we go somewhere?’
‘Where do you suggest? Aunt Beth’s shop? Your hotel room perhaps?’ Her green-eyed gaze disdainful, Tara unfolded her tan jacket and slipped it on. Flipping her hair out from behind the collar, she bit down on her lip to stop it from quivering. ‘You’ll get over your break-up with your girlfriend. I’m sure you could charm her into patching things up—you always did have a way with women, didn’t you, Mac?’