The Marriage Solution

by Helen Brooks

  The villa was quite breathtakingly lovely inside, with an old, rustic feel to it that hadn't been spoilt by the fine furnishings and modern amenities which Carlton explained had been added at a later date. Most of the whitewashed walls were covered in an array of fine plates, decorated with coloured animals and flowers and glazed thickly like Arab pottery, as well as a host of exquisite pictures.

  The front door led directly into the massive sitting-room, which was a blaze of colour in red and gold and stretched the length of the house. The leaded French windows at the far end of the room led out on to a large patio surrounded by orange and lemon trees and gently waving palms. There was also a very large and well-stocked kitchen, with fine oak cupboards and a red tiled floor, a breakfast-room, a more formal dining-room and a downstairs cloakroom complete with a large double shower.

  Upstairs, the five bedrooms seemed to stretch for miles, three with their own en-suite bathrooms, and all with large balconies covered in red and white bougainvillaea, deep green ivy and the fragile, lemon-scented verbena. The master bedroom and one other overlooked the grounds at the back of the house where an olympic-size swimming-pool, just beyond the fringe of trees surrounding the patio, shimmered gently in the blazing sunshine.

  'I can't believe it.' As she stood with Carlton on the balcony of the master bedroom she felt as though she had been transported into another world All this would have been so perfect, so utterly enchanting if the tall, dark man standing silently by her side had been truly hers with his heart as well as his body. At this moment she would have given every last penny of the Carlton fortune to live with him in a little shack if he had spoken one word of love. 'It's just so lovely.'

  'We have two girls in the village who come and air the house periodically and do a little housework,' Carlton said quietly as he stood at her side, his profile dark and austere as his eyes gazed straight ahead. 'If the family are in residence they come each afternoon to prepare and serve an evening meal and attend to the household chores. I've never wanted anyone living in but I can hire a housekeeper on a permanent basis if you would prefer that.'

  'No.' As the image of Maisie flashed before her mind she spoke quickly and instinctively. One housekeeper was more than enough.

  Katie was always to remember the next few days with a bittersweet enchantment that even in the years ahead could bring tears to her eyes with their painful poignancy. They spent the mornings lazily by the pool, alternately swimming in the cool, silky water and dozing on the luxuriously upholstered sun-loungers scattered round the tiled edge. After a cold lunch they would set out to explore the surrounding countryside, Carl ton's face often relaxed and animated in a way it had never been in England as he showed her the country he loved.

  They travelled through mountain villages where patient donkeys still carried the occupants along cobbled, flower-decked streets and twisting, narrow lanes, wandered in green meadows beside peach and cherry orchards set against a mountainous backdrop of jagged limestone, bathed in golden bays of warm, crystalline water and returned home each evening, as the soft, gentle dusk began to mellow the fierce sun, to a delicious meal served by the two giggling, dark-eyed girls from the village.

  But it was the nights that were the most bittersweet of all, timeless and enchanting as Carlton gradually introduced her to a potent, bewitching world she had only guessed at. As the hours unfolded in all their intimacy she realised that during that first night he had been wonderfully patient and controlled, his passion curbed in view of her innocence, and the knowledge made her love him all the more.

  In fact, each day she loved him more as she discovered the man behind the mask. And still there were no words of love in all the passion and desire; still the days and even the nights were marred by moments of electric tension, strain and unease.

  It was after one such moment early in the morning, when she had woken to find him leaning on one elbow watching her face in such a way that she had immediately imagined that he was wondering how it would be if his love were there beside him, and had reacted accordingly with veiled eyes and an almost visible withdrawal of her body, that the telephone call came.

  She had already gone downstairs and Carlton was in the bathroom, shaving, and so she took the call, wondering nervously if a flood of incomprehensible Spanish was going to meet her ears. 'Hello? This is Katie Reef.' The name was still strange on her tongue. 'Can I help you?'

  'Katie?' Joseph's voice was strained and tight 'I have to talk to Carlton; is he there?'

  'Yes, of course, I'll just get him.' She put the receiver to one side and ran quickly up the open, winding stairs that led to the first floor of the villa, her heart thudding as her senses recognised the note of distress and panic in Joseph's voice. What now?

  Carlton turned as she entered the bathroom and, as always, her heart went haywire at the sight of him. He was stripped to the waist with just a pair of jeans covering his lower half, and his muscled chest with its light covering of dark body-hair was bronzed and powerful in the light-coloured bathroom. 'Was that the phone I heard?'

  'It's Joe,' she said breathlessly as her eyes drank him in.

  'Joe?' His eyes narrowed as he shook his head. 'You don't mean to say he's calling us on the first week of—'

  'There's some sort of trouble, I think,' she said quickly. 'He seemed upset, Carlton.' Even as she spoke he reached for a towel and wiped the shaving-foam from his face, pushing past her and running down the stairs, Katie following at his heels.

  'Joe?' His voice was anxious. 'What's wrong?' He listened for a few moments in silence and then barked a particularly explicit oath down the phone that made Katie jump. 'Why the hell did you let her?' he growled angrily. 'What's the matter with you, anyway?' There followed a few more terse sentences that Katie couldn't make head or tail of, although she gleaned enough to realise that Carlton was furiously angry with his brother, and as he banged the phone down and turned towards her she saw that his face was black with rage.

  'The young fool. The stupid, blind young fool,' he muttered grimly. 'If anything's happened to her—'

  'What has happened?' she asked softly as a terrible sense of foreboding rose like a thick cloud over the magic of the last few days.

  'It's Maisie.' As his eyes focused on her face she saw the deep concern and her heart began to pound like an express train. 'She's left the house, disappeared in the middle of the night.'

  'In the middle of the night?' She had heard the expression of blood turning to ice but it was the first time she had experienced it.

  'She could be anywhere considering the state Joe says she was in.' He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. 'There was no need for this, no need at all. What on earth was Joe thinking of?'

  'You can't blame this on Joe!' She was suddenly furiously, fiercely angry, her rage so intense that it swept away every other emotion in its path. So the lovely brunette was his mistress and she hadn't been able to stand by and see him married to another woman. She felt sick with impotent fury. What was he doing, playing with all their lives like this? Just who did he think he was?

  'You don't understand.' His voice was preoccupied, absent, and the final humiliation was that he was looking through her as though she weren't there. 'Joe—'

  'Oh, yes, I do,' she said tightly. 'I'm not a fool, Carlton, and I understand far more than you think. I do have a pair of eyes in my head, you know.' Her blood was pounding in her ears but her eyes were as dry as dust.

  'You know?' he asked as he seemed to force himself to concentrate on her. 'Did Joe tell you?'

  'No.' She didn't know where this strength that kept her upright was coining from but she was more than thankful for it. 'I just put two and two together—'

  'Joe was supposed to put things right,' Carlton muttered as he walked past her as though he hadn't heard her. 'She must have been in a damn awful state to clear out like that. Hell, he promised me—'

  'He promised you?' She was shrieking now, all control gone as the absolute unfairness of it
all made her quite literally see red. He had left Joseph to do his dirty work, placate his mistress while he played his games thousands of miles away, and now, it having gone all wrong, he was laying the blame on the younger man's shoulders? 'I don't believe I'm hearing this.'

  'You don't believe you're hearing what?' The pitch of her voice had got through to him and he turned with his foot on the first step of the stairs and glanced across at her. 'What the hell is the matter with you anyway?'

  'What do you think is the matter with me?' she asked furiously.

  'I don't know, Katie; that's why I'm asking you.' If she had been rational she would have noticed that he had gone curiously still, his dark eyes intent on her face and his voice low and controlled, but she was too mad to observe the subtle body language and the sudden awareness in the smoky grey eyes that narrowed with disbelief at his own suspicions.

  'You expect me to just stand by and say nothing,' she asked incredulously, 'while you panic about where your mistress has gone?'

  'My what?' And then she realised, as she stared into his face which had gone as white as a sheet, his eyes glittering with a fury that surpassed her own, that she had made a terrible, unforgivable mistake.

  CHAPTER NINE

  'You think Maisie is my mistress?' Carlton asked with a deadly quietness that was more lethal than any roar of rage. 'You've been thinking that all along?'

  'I…' Katie's voice faltered and died at the look on his face. 'It seemed like that; I—' She shook her head as she searched for words. 'You were always so nice to her… You—' Her words strangled in her throat. 'You were kind, gentle…'

  'And because those attributes are so alien in me, so unnatural, the only conclusion that you could draw was that if I was nice to anyone I was sleeping with her?' he asked softly. 'I'm such an animal in your eyes, so abnormal that I can't feel friendship or warmth or any of the normal human emotions that the rest of the human race takes for granted?'

  He hadn't moved any nearer, made any threatening gesture, but she was rooted to the spot with an overwhelming fear of what he might do if she moved so much as an inch. 'You thought I would marry you, commit myself to you when I was using another woman in that way, forcing her to watch us together and even expect her to keep my house?'

  She stared at him, her eyes enormous in the chalk-white of her face, as his lips drew back from his teeth in a contemptuous snarl that paralysed her with fright. 'And my fumbling attempts to make you understand how much I loved you—you thought they were all part of the act?' he asked acidly. 'No wonder you cut me dead each time I tried to make you understand how I felt.'

  His eyes narrowed still more into black slits that gave his face a sinister, panther-like darkness. 'And you were prepared to marry me, thinking all that? Sell yourself to such a man as that? What are you, Katie? Who are you? Did your flesh creep each time I touched you? Was all that passion, all that desire an act to keep the buyer happy?'

  'Carlton, it wasn't like that.' She was frightened, desperately, helplessly frightened, her mind still reeling from the revelation that he loved her—he loved her—but that she had ruined it all, destroyed anything they might have had because he would never forgive her for this. His eyes told her so.

  'The hell it wasn't.' His face was grey now, his mouth a hard white slit in a face that was as cold as ice. 'I thought I could make you love me, Katie.'

  He gave a harsh bark of a laugh. 'Funny, isn't it? The ultimate irony. I couldn't believe that, feeling as I did, you wouldn't respond. Oh, I know you hated me at the beginning, that circumstances conspired to make it all wrong, but the physical chemistry was real—or I thought it was.'

  'You hit me like a ton of bricks that day you came to the office, when I sat with you on my lap and you sobbed out all your insecurities and pain. But we'd got off to a bad start so I thought I'd play the waiting game, persevere, be around.'

  'But every time we met there were fireworks and then the solution was dropped in my lap. I could help your father, keep you near me at the same time and show you the man I really was. I was going to be patient, believe it or not.' His face was caustic with self-contempt 'I wasn't going to force my unwelcome attentions on you, I was going to wait until you were ready, however long it took, because once you had married me I had all the time in the world. No one else could touch you. But then…'

  He shook his head slowly. 'What the hell was that on our wedding night, Katie? You didn't have to give satisfaction for money like some whore in a brothel.'

  She deserved it She knew she deserved it but his words were more punishment that she could bear. The bitter hurt and pain that had turned his face into a stone mask cut her like a knife. What had she done? What had she done! She had seen so many glimpses of his caring side even before they were married and the tenderness he had displayed since they had been man and wife had touched her time and time again. She should have known he wasn't capable of this thing—she should have known, especially loving him as she did.

  'Please, Carlton,' she whispered brokenly. 'Let me explain.'

  'You've had your revenge, Katie.' As she went to walk towards him he lifted his hand to stop her. 'You've shown me what an arrogant fool I am, but just at this moment the urge to wring that beautiful neck of yours is overpowering so just keep your distance for an hour or so,' he warned with chilling grimness.

  'But I want to talk to you,' she pleaded desperately. 'This isn't what you think—'

  'I don't want to talk to you,' he said bitterly. 'In fact I don't want to look at you, think about you—' He turned and strode past her, walking to the French doors at the end of the room and opening them savagely before striding out on to the patio and disappearing behind the trees.

  'Carlton!' She screamed his name but there was no reply, just the bright, sun-filled room and warm, scented air that was a mockery in itself when she could hardly breathe for the agony that was tearing her apart.

  How long she stood there in the screaming silence she didn't know, but eventually she walked slowly across the room and up the stairs, entering their bedroom and walking out on to the balcony that was already hot underfoot with the heat of the sun. She looked up into the clear blue sky first, her eyes narrowed against the piercing light, and then down into the garden below, gazing blindly into space as her mind whirled and spun.

  He had said he loved her. The thought was drumming loudly in her head along with the sickening, weak feeling in her stomach which the sudden confrontation had produced. Why hadn't he told her before? Then none of this would have happened.

  Her mind searched its memories, like a computer compiling data, and suddenly several little incidents, when he had tried to do just that, were stark and clear in front of her. But she had been too blind, too stubborn to deviate from the verdict her brain had decided to reach and now she had lost him.

  She whimpered out loud as she gripped her arms round her waist and swung back and forth in an agony of grief, the locket that he had given her on their wedding night moving gently against her throat.

  A sudden movement below focused her eyes on the swimming-pool and she saw Carlton's powerful body cutting through the water like a machine, his arms and legs keeping up an unbelievable speed as he swam relentlessly up and down it.

  He was nearly an hour in the water and her eyes didn't leave him for a moment, and when at last he hauled himself out to stand naked and magnificent for a moment in the blazing hot sun she saw that his shoulders were bowed as though with an unbearable weight, and the pain was so intense in her throat that she thrust her fist into her mouth to stop herself crying out. She had hurt him, hurt him as no one else had ever done. The knowledge was crucifying.

  She watched him as he pulled his jeans on slowly, running a hand through his wet hair as he straightened, and then the big, lean body stiffened, his shoulders squaring and tensing, and she knew he had come to a decision of some kind.

  'Pack your things, Katie.' As he joined her in the bedroom she turned to face him, her heart poundi
ng. 'I'll check the first flight to England.'

  'We're going back?' There was a lump in her throat that was making speech almost impossible.

  'I hardly think there's any point in continuing this travesty, do you?' he asked grimly as his eyes flickered briefly over her tear-stained face before he turned to leave the room. 'Besides which I want to make sure Maisie doesn't do something silly—something Joe might have to live with for the rest of his life.'

  'Carlton—'

  'Don't offer any platitudes, Katie.' He swung round so savagely that she took an instinctive step backward, her hand going to her mouth as she realised that his veneer of self-control was paper-thin. 'I don't want to listen to a word you might say. Just keep quiet and pack your things.'

  They left that day on an evening flight, the tall, dark, stony-faced man and pale, fair-haired slip of an English girl, and no one looking at their faces would have guessed feat they were on their honeymoon.

  Katie was in the grip of a fear so overwhelming that she was functioning purely on automatic, the guilt and horror of what her hasty words had produced in Carlton almost unbearable. He had retreated behind that invincible authority and coldness that had so misled her in the early days, unassailable and proud and quite unreachable.

  All she could hope for was that there would be an opportunity, just a slight mellowing of that icy calm, for her to tell him the truth and bare her soul. But somehow, looking at his face and remembering all he had told her of his past life, she feared he wouldn't let her in even for a moment.

  She had tried to talk to him once more before they had left the villa, but at her first words he had cut her off with such bitter ferocity that she hadn't dared try again. He was a fiercely proud man—that much she had known—but now she realised that in acting as she had she had ground that pride into the dust and he was finished with her. It was in his every action, every gesture, every icy glare.