Too Long a Sacrifice

by Yvonne Whittal

  'I didn't come here expecting you to forgive me, Nathan, and neither do I want your gratitude,' she said stiffly, her insides rejecting that word as if it were the plague. 'I came because I knew I owed you more than the brief explanation which I gave you the other night, and I have only one more thing to say before I go.'

  Her heart was thudding nervously and painfully in her breast, and her legs felt like jelly beneath the weight of her body when she rose jerkily to her feet, but her candid grey glance held his as she cast aside the final fragments of her pride.

  'My feelings for you haven't changed,' she confessed, her voice almost too low and husky to be her own, 'and you were right when you said that it was much more than a physical thing for me when we made love that night, but I was terribly ashamed of myself the following morning. I'd allowed my emotions to dictate my actions, and I'd given Marcia no more than a fleeting thought. I hadn't doubted her when she told me that you were going to be married, and she had also made it painfully clear that she had so much more to offer you in the way of advancing your career. I thought that was what you wanted, and I was afraid that it might jeopardise your future if we saw too much of each other. That's why I insisted that it would be better for both of us if we stayed out of each other's way.'

  There! I've said it! she thought with a strange sense of relief. Now, if you want to, you may do your worst!

  Nathan was white-faced with anger, and the words seemed to explode from him with a savagery that made her tremble with something close to fear when he bridged the distance between them with a few long strides to tower over her menacingly. 'Did you think I had become so ambitious that nothing else mattered to me?'

  'I'm sorry, but—' She searched his harsh features for some sign of softening, but his face was an inscrutable mask, and she spread her hands in a helpless gesture of despair. 'Five years is a long time, and people change.'

  'People change, but not to such an extent!' he barked at her, the angry accusation in his eyes searing her soul. 'You haven't changed, and you were prepared to step back once again in favour of someone who might advance my damned career as if that was the only thing of importance to you!'

  He was standing so close to her that her sensitive nostrils picked up the faint but pleasing woody odour of his masculine cologne. She would have given anything at that moment to touch him and feel his strong arms holding her, but it was a longing which she had to suppress forcibly. She had virtually no pride left, but she was not going to lay herself wide open to the humiliation of his rejection.

  'That wasn't the only reason why I would have stepped back,' she said dully, and her face was pale with the effort to still those agonising forces inside her. 'I thought that, if you were going to marry Marcia, you must love her and, under those circumstances, it was best to forget what had happened between us.'

  'What about your own feelings?' he demanded harshly. 'Or do you relish the thought of making a martyr of yourself?'

  'I didn't see it that way,' she protested with a measure of distaste. 'I simply wanted what was best for you.'

  'I see.'

  The atmosphere was heavily charged, and Julia was caught up in a wave of despair during the ensuing silence. She met Nathan's cold glance and found no sign of softening there, but she had told him the truth at last, and she could only hope that she would find some comfort in that knowledge during the long, empty years ahead of her.

  'Thanks for the drink, and your time,' she said, her voice choked with unshed tears as she picked up her handbag and walked blindly from the room.

  'Julia!' That harsh note of authority in his voice jolted her nerves and brought her to a startled halt before she reached the hall. 'Come here!'

  She turned slowly to face him, and her honey-brown hair danced about her shoulders when she shook her head in defiance of his command. 'I think we've said everything there is to say, and—'

  'You can't leave here while that almighty storm is raging outside, so shut up and come here!'

  His features were set in that harsh, unrelenting mask, but the coldness had left his eyes to be replaced by a burning, probing intensity. She walked towards him, obeying his command as if she had no will of her own, and she did not stop until she stood a little more than a pace away from him.

  'If you think I'm going to let you walk out of my life again, then you're mistaken!' There was a frightening tightness about his mouth when he took her handbag from her and flung it on to a chair, but there was something in the deep resonance of his voice that ignited a tiny flame of hope inside her. 'We've wasted five years, and I blame myself for that as much as I blame you, but I don't intend that we should waste another minute of the future unless it is absolutely necessary.'

  There was an ache in the back of her throat that would not go away, and she swallowed convulsively. 'You—you can't possibly still want me!' she whispered incredulously, her eyes misting with tears.

  'It's much more than wanting, Julia, but we can't go on from there until we've cleared the air between us.'

  His hand gripped hers, his touch instilling a little warmth into her cold heart as he led her towards the sofa and drew her down beside him, but her mind remained wary and suspicious. Dear God, she prayed silently, staring down at that lean, sun-browned surgeon's hand which was still holding hers. Please don't let him do this to me if he doesn't really mean it! Please, God!

  'I was determined to forget you,' he explained, his voice low and throaty, and tinged with anger. 'For five years I tried to make myself believe that I hated and despised you, but I never quite succeeded, and I was shocked to discover the extent of my failure that day when Marcia's reckless driving forced you into the ditch to avoid a collision.'

  'I had the edge on you,' Julia felt compelled to confide in him, and she could not quell that quivering expectancy which rose like a tide inside her when she looked up to glimpse a certain warmth in his eyes. 'I'd heard from Tant Sophie Breedt that you would be the new owner of Honeywell, and I was more or less prepared for the possibility that we might bump into each other again.'

  'Anger and bitterness had made me draw my own conclusions as to why you had changed your mind about marrying me, and the desire to lash out at you dictated my abominable behaviour.' He shook his head and smiled wryly. 'Damian was right when he predicted that I would hate myself for it.'

  She nodded, remembering that night when the two men had almost come to blows because of Nathan's accusations, and she dared to question him for the first time. 'Did you ever discuss marriage with Marcia?'

  'Never!' His brows drew together in an angry frown. 'She was simply one of the many women I have know these past five years, but marriage to any one of them never entered my mind.'

  Julia jerked her hand from his and gestured distastefully. 'Please, I—I don't think I—'

  'I know you don't like what I'm saying,' he interrupted her firmly, 'but it's important to me that there must be complete honesty between us.'

  'I—I'm sorry,' she stammered ruefully, and she clasped her hands tightly in her lap, steeling herself for whatever was to follow. 'Please go on.'

  Her heart quickened to an erratic pace when he brushed his knuckles lightly against her cheek, then he rose abruptly to pace the floor as if he himself did not relish the thought of what he had to tell her, but, as he had said, there had to be complete honesty between them.

  'My relationship with Marcia should have ended a long time ago, but I dare say I still found it flattering to my ego to have her around,' he explained in a clipped voice. 'I was going to talk to her after you and I spent that night together, but I changed my mind when you were so insistent about shutting me out of your life. I decided that it might be to my advantage to use Marcia in an attempt to gauge your true feelings, and that was why I didn't discourage her the last time she telephoned to say that she was driving up to spend a couple of days here on the farm.'

  'That wasn't very nice of you.'

  'No, it wasn't, but I was getting pretty desperate.'
He halted his restless pacing, and his mouth curved in a mirthless smile. 'I also have another confession to make. It wasn't an accidental meeting that brought Marcia and me to Roland's home that Sunday afternoon when you were visiting Elizabeth. I had seen your car parked in the street outside their house, and I made it my business to bump into Roland at the hospital. Afterwards it wasn't very difficult to get him to invite us to his home for tea. I was hoping that I would learn something from your expression when you saw Marcia and me together, but you hid your feelings so cleverly that I was furious with you for dooming to death what I had considered an excellent plan of action.' His glance sharpened and lingered intently on her face. 'Why are you smiling?'

  She had been unaware that she was smiling, but her expression sobered when she rose with an aching need to be closer to him. 'You don't realise what an effort it was to stay there and pretend that nothing was wrong.'

  'Perhaps it might appease you to know that I felt the same.' His smile was derisive when she paused less than a pace away from him. 'I was beginning to know the feeling of defeat, but later in the week I decided that I couldn't let the matter ret there. The purpose of my trip to Johannesburg on Wednesday was to settle with Basil Grant the unfinished business of rejecting his offer. I also paid Marcia a visit, and I won't go into detail about the unpleasantness of that confrontation, but suffice it to say that that part of my life is over and done with at last.' He moved his wide shoulders as if he was shaking it off physically, and his mouth tightened with a hint of anger which she suspected was not directed at her entirely. 'I was in a feverish haste to see you when I arrived back in Doornfield. I needed a couple of straight answers to a few pressing questions, but I was totally unprepared for the shock of discovering the actual truth.'

  The memory of his savage reaction to her confession was still terrifyingly fresh in her mind, and a shiver raced along her spine as she turned from him and lowered her eyes to the Persian rug beneath their feet. 'I'm inclined to think that I deserved your anger, but where do we go from here?'

  'I want you,' he said, taking her firmly by the shoulders and swinging her round to face him. 'If it's at all possible, then I want you now more than I've ever wanted you before.'

  She stiffened beneath his hands. 'Are you asking me to live with you?'

  'I love you, Julia. I have never ceased to love you and need you, and that's what I've been wanting to tell you ever since we spent that night together.' His voice was vibrant with an emotion she had not believed she would hear again, and it was there in his eyes when he took her face between his hands and tilted it up to his. 'I'm asking you to marry me, and I swear I shall hound you day and night until I get an affirmative answer.'

  An incredible warmth invaded her heart and filled her soul with a singing joy, but there was also a weariness deep inside her. It felt as if she had travelled a long, dreary road to find again the peace and inner tranquillity of that haven which she had been forced to reject so long ago, and now there was no reason for her to leave it ever again.

  'Oh, Nathan!' she sighed, swaying towards him and smiling tremulously through the happy tears that leapt into her eyes. 'I love you so much, and I would marry you this very instant if it could be arranged.'

  There was an odd tremor in his hands when he drew her closer still to the hard length of his body to claim her mouth in a kiss of such infinite tenderness that it touched her more deeply than anything had ever done before, but tenderness gave way to the escalating urgency of their emotions. The pain and suffering of the past was still very real, and they clung together, their arms straining with a need to be closer almost than their bodies would allow. Nathan's sensuous mouth trailed fire along her throat, but they sought each other's lips repeatedly with a hunger which refused to be assuaged.

  The emotions clamouring through Julia were as fierce as the storm raging outside, and she was trembling uncontrollably in the circle of Nathan's arms when he finally eased his mouth from hers. His eyes were dark with desire, and there was a sweet, stabbing response inside her when she buried her flushed face against him where she could feel the roughness of his chest hair against her cheek. She could hear his heart beating as hard and fast as her own, and she was elated beyond expression at the knowledge that it was beating solely for her.

  She sighed contentedly, her arms locked about his lean waist, but a niggling thought leapt into her mind seconds later. 'Would you have left on Monday without saying goodbye?'

  'Of course not, you crazy woman.' He laughed mockingly, his warm breath fanning her temple. 'I was going to drive out to your cottage this evening, but you thwarted my plans once again. That's becoming quite a habit of yours lately, but I must admit that there was a certain therapy in watching you work your way nervously round to the actual reason for your visit.'

  'So you enjoyed my misery, did you?' she demanded crossly, leaning back in the circle of his arms, and looking up into his amused face.

  It was difficult trying to pretend that she was angry when she was not, and the laughter bubbling from her lips was stifled when Nathan's sensual mouth shifted over hers with an urgency that drew an eager response from her. His kisses affected her like a drug, making coherent thought impossible while he was edging her purposefully towards the sofa, and she was powerless to stop him when he lowered her on to it and held her there with the weight of his body.

  'Tell me about Warren Chandler,' Nathan commanded without warning while his fingers deftly unbuttoned her blouse, and it sobered her to the extent that the flush of happiness faded on her face to leave her slightly pale.

  'Warren was a good friend, and I shall always consider him as such,' she explained quietly and with a certain amount of sadness. 'He'd asked me to marry him, but I never had more to offer him than a platonic relationship, and I think he suspected that long before I actually put it into words the other evening.'

  'I was insanely jealous of that man,' Nathan growled, brushing aside the silky material and sliding his hand possessively over her breast.

  'And how was I supposed to feel about your relationship with Marcia?' she parried his statement, her pulse quickening beneath the erotic arousal of those probing fingers, and Nathan smiled twistedly.

  'Were you jealous?'

  'Yes, dammit, and you know it!' she laughed selfconsciously, sliding her hands inside his shirt and loving the feel of his hair-roughened chest against her palms, but her expression sobered the next instant. 'Oh, Nathan!' she exclaimed, her voice choked as she flung her arms about his neck and buried her face against him. 'Have you ever wondered if you would make the same decisions and the same mistakes if you could have your life all over again?'

  'I have often wondered that, and especially these past few days, but I'm not sure I've found the answer.'

  'We've wasted so much time,' she sighed ruefully.

  'Yes, we have,' he agreed, tipping her face up to his and kissing her warmly and satisfying on the lips. 'We'll take a drive into town in the morning to speak to Roland about releasing you, since we're going to be married as soon as I can arrange it, but right now I have something else in mind for us.'

  There was a devilish glitter in his eyes when he got up and scooped her masterfully into his arms, and she did not need to be told what he had in mind when he carried her from the living-room and across the hall towards the long passage which led to the bedrooms.

  'Are you in agreement, Julia?' he demanded throatily when he shouldered open the door to the main bedroom and kicked it shut behind them.

  'Absolute agreement,' she murmured happily against his lips, the flickering fires of desire in his eyes finding an echo inside her.

  There were still so many things to talk about, and so many decisions to be made before he left on Monday to return to Johannesburg, but it could all wait. The long sacrifice had ended, and there was no sense in wasting this precious moment when fate had been kind enough to give them this second chance.

  ittal, Too Long a Sacrifice