Kitabı oku: «Reclaiming His Wife», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOUR husband!’ Charity breathed, having called to ask if Taylor could spare a carton of milk later that evening. ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me? No, don’t answer that,’ she added quickly, palms upwards in negation of any explanation that might be forthcoming. ‘It’s none of my business and you have a right to keep it to yourself.’

With anyone else, Taylor thought, it might have been a prompt for more information, but she knew that with Charity that wasn’t the case. Just as she knew that the request for milk wasn’t a ploy to question her about Jared. Taylor had offered the information voluntarily and with little prompting. Besides, with a family and two cats to feed, Charity was always running out of milk.

‘I’m just not too proud of carrying around the stigma of a broken marriage,’ Taylor admitted, reaching into the fridge for the small, unopened carton.

‘Oh, Taylor! It’s hardly a stigma these days.’

‘Well, a failure then.’

Charity treated her to one of her caring smiles. ‘Not even that. It’s because you do everything so perfectly. Always look good. Manage a career and—’ she sent a glance around the modestly fitted but pristine kitchen ‘—somehow keep your home spick and span. Thanks.’ She took the carton Taylor handed her, giving it a shake as she said wryly, ‘Never running out of basic necessities. Sometimes you’ve got to realise that you’re human too. It’s all right not to succeed in everything.’

Was that how Charity—and possibly other people—saw her? Taylor wondered, shocked. As a kind of superwoman? The proverbial perfectionist?

Closing the fridge, she gave her a friend a half-hearted smile. She wasn’t sure she liked being viewed like that at all.

‘Are you going to at least let me in on how long you’ve known him?’ the other woman ventured.

She owed Charity that at least, Taylor decided, having deceived her over her marital status even if it were only by omission, although she had gone as far as to tell both Charity and Craig that she had had a relationship that hadn’t worked out.

‘It was four and a half years ago,’ Taylor told her, opening the dishwasher to unload it, releasing a sudden cloud of steam. ‘I was working in a small provincial theatre as assistant to the set designer. I think Jared knew the leading lady of the play we were putting on at the time. His mother had been an actress and I suppose he knew people through her. Anyway, the theatre was in extreme financial difficulty and was scheduled for closure at the end of that season.’ Carefully she stacked several small plates in the cupboard above the worktop. ‘It had been a theatre for ninety years and was going to mean a great loss to the community. I found out later that Jared financed it, prevented it from closing down.

‘One of the cast threw a party and that was the first time I saw him. All he did was look at me across the room…’ And she had been lost for ever, a helpless, willing slave to his enthralling sexuality.

She stared wistfully down at her hand as though seeing something more than the little warm glass she had used for her fruit juice that morning.

At twenty-one she had been a virgin, green and untutored in the mysteries of love and passion, wary after the unsettled nature of her parents’ marriage.

There had been a few hard years before then, unhappy years when, after losing the father she had adored, she had gone to live with her mother and step-father. Almost immediately, however, she had been made to feel like an interloper. Her mother had made a new life for herself that didn’t take account of looking after a lonely, spirited teenager. As soon as she had been old enough, Taylor had left home, working hard to put herself through art college. Before she was even nineteen, her mother emigrated to Australia and, all alone in the world, Taylor had studied single-mindedly, shrugging off all advances by the opposite sex, except the most innocent and undemanding of dates.

Jared, though, had become her lover almost from the start. By that time her career was already under way. Not that it would have mattered, she reflected poignantly, forgetting for a few moments that Charity was there, because the passions that had ravaged them had been too great for denial or restraint.

Within a month she had moved out of her bedsit into his luxury penthouse apartment. And two months after that, just after her twenty-second birthday, they were married on a Hawaiian beach, pledging their vows to the soughing breezes and the song of an azure ocean.

She had invited her mother to attend, sending two airline tickets and a hotel booking with the simple invitation, which had been politely declined. Even that, however, hadn’t detracted from the magic of her wedding day.

It had been a partnership made in heaven—or so she had thought—until the party Jared had thrown a few weeks afterwards to celebrate their marriage, to introduce his friends and business associates to his new wife.

With few friends of her own, Taylor had invited just one or two people with whom she had been working at the theatre and, still basking in the warmth of being Jared’s new bride, was enjoying herself enormously at that party. It was only when, somewhat overwhelmed by all their congratulations and good wishes, she had wandered out onto the balcony that surrounded the penthouse that she had heard the two women talking.

One voice she instantly recognised as that of the leading lady of the play that had just finished running, the other belonged to an older woman she hadn’t met until that night.

Obscured by a screen of metal lacework supporting a thick and prolific vine, Taylor had stopped, hesitant to venture further, suddenly aware of the nature of the women’s conversation.

‘It’s been so quick,’ the familiar voice was saying. ‘I’d never have labelled Jared as the impulsive type. But you could have knocked me down with a feather when he came back from Hawaii married. I mean, after… What was the name of that woman he was seeing in Philadelphia? Alicia?’ And after a murmur of uncertainty, ‘Oh, I know it was an impossible situation,’ that same voice continued, ‘but well… he was so involved.’

‘A woman with a disabled husband she’s never going to leave doesn’t exactly make for a settled future,’ the older woman responded, ‘and I suppose Jared couldn’t wait around forever. He’s a full-blooded male. He needs a wife—children—and when all is said and done, well… she’s a lovely little thing.’

‘Hardly little!’ the leading lady contradicted with emphasis. ‘She almost matches him in height—certainly in those heels!’

‘Yes, but she’s so much younger than he is, that’s what I meant,’ the other woman elaborated. ‘This… Alicia, I believe, was much nearer his age. Still, he’s certainly picked one young enough and ripe enough to have his babies. She looks as though she’ll conceive every time he sneezes! And what with being so willowy and vulnerable looking—no wonder he couldn’t resist her! She must bring out the protective instinct in him!’

They both laughed, a muted sound drifting out across the dark waters of the Thames and the fairy-lit city.

Unable to face them, numbly Taylor had retreated inside.

When she had challenged Jared later about his being involved with a married woman, his reply had been surprisingly curt.

‘Who have you been talking to?’ he had wanted to know, flinging open the door to the wardrobe.

‘It was just something I overheard,’ she said.

He had sworn under his breath when she repeated her question.

‘She was separated from her husband when I met her. He had a car accident and she went back to him. That’s all there was to it,’ he said.

But it wasn’t, Taylor thought, seeing in that strong face—absorbed as he unfastened a cuff-link—an unmistakable tension that spoke volumes.

‘Did you want to marry her?’ she had asked tentatively, to which he responded only with, ‘I married you.’

‘Did you love her?’ She hadn’t intended to ask him so directly, nor had he been expecting her to, she reflected, forever afterwards hearing those hard and angry words he had lobbed back at her.

‘Yes I loved her. Are you satisfied? I had an affair. It’s something I’m not proud of, but it happened. Now let’s forget it,’ he had seethed through gritted teeth, before storming out of the bedroom.

Which was easier said than done, Taylor thought now, because she had tried. Nevertheless, the doubts and anxieties had seeded themselves in her mind, causing unnecessary tensions between them, sprouting up with renewed vigour every time he went away. The situation wasn’t helped when sometimes, answering the phone, she heard the line go dead at the other end, or when someone ringing from his office innocently asked her if she knew when his flight would be in from Philadelphia. He had told her he was going to New York, and that, she knew, was the truth, but he hadn’t mentioned going on to Philadelphia. So why had he kept it from her? she had asked herself, too aware that Philadelphia was where this Alicia lived. Why, unless he had had some very strong reason to feel guilty about it?

Unsure of him, plagued by long-buried insecurities, she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into her job, her mind made up about one thing.

She would never have children. Never entertain bringing babies into a marriage that wasn’t one hundred per cent secure.

When Jared had suggested starting a family, she had told him she wanted to wait—that she wasn’t that bothered about having children at all. Keen for an heir to succeed him in the company he had built single-handed, it was then, after several attempts on his part to change her mind had failed, that he had accused her of being interested only in her career.

‘And what’s wrong with that?’ she had flung at him, remembering all too painfully that conversation on the balcony, adding that if he had just got married to have children, then he should have married someone who would have happily provided him with them.

Angrily then, he had tossed back, ‘I thought I had!’

So that was it, she had thought, broodingly, watching as he poured himself a Scotch and soda in the apartment’s luxurious sitting room, challenging him with, ‘Is that the only reason for our marriage?’

‘Don’t be so stupid,’ he had said coldly.

But the doubts and resentments had festered and grown. After that, whenever he broached the subject, she would simply clam up.

She couldn’t—wouldn’t! she’d assured herself, agree to have what might possibly turn out to be a tug-of-war child, not when she was so convinced that at any moment he might leave her for the woman he really loved.

When she had accidentally conceived, fears for her child’s future had made her anxious and uncommunicative, something to which Jared had been acutely sensitive, even if not to the reason why.

‘Perhaps this is what this marriage needs,’ he had stressed one evening, a couple of months into her pregnancy.

‘What?’ she had challenged. ‘Something to keep me in my place while you go off anytime and anywhere you please?’ Already battling with irresolvable insecurities, it hadn’t helped when he had told her in no uncertain terms to grow up.

With their relationship already floundering, he had flown off to the States for a conference with several of his American company’s hi-tech whiz-kids a couple of days afterwards, during which time Taylor had started to miscarry. When he returned ten days later, her pregnancy was over.

‘Well, that’s exactly what you wanted, wasn’t it?’ he said when, still numb and wretched with grief she told him she had lost the baby. He had looked, she’d thought—wondering if he had had a particularly gruelling conference— bleak-eyed, yet frighteningly grim.

Illogically blaming herself for losing her baby, wanting to hurt herself as well as to hurt Jared, not thinking straight, she had thrown back, ‘Oh, sure! I arranged for it to happen! Well, you were having such a good time with your mistress, weren’t you? Why not!’

His eyes were glittering with such intense anger she wondered now what had prevented him from actually hitting her as he had snarled back, ‘At least she wouldn’t sacrifice a child for her precious job!’ There was such an edge of steel to his voice that she knew that whatever feeling he might have had for her, until then, she had killed with that last rash retort.

It was, however, to Taylor, an admission that he was still involved with the other woman, and one that had propelled her into leaving. The very next morning after he had left for his office, she had scribbled him a note, laid her wedding ring on top of it and fled, and she hadn’t seen him again until today.

‘Mmm,’ Charity murmured expressively, jolting Taylor out of her painful retrospection.

‘Mmm, what?’ she pressed, agitated, quickly stowing away the glass she was still holding.

‘Just “Mmm,”’ the woman responded, as Taylor turned round again. She could feel her friend’s perceptive gaze resting on her flushed cheeks.

Craig was home and from the floor below she could hear water running in the pipes, caught the strains of one of his country CDs playing. Safe, homely Craig who liked nothing better than to be with his family, to put up a shelf and play the odd game of golf when his job as lighting technician allowed.

‘I suppose a man like Jared could be quite overwhelming to be married to,’ Charity expressed as though picking up on Taylor’s thoughts. ‘Forceful. Possessive. Exciting. I know I said I had a crush on him but if he had asked me out, I’d have been scared to death! I mean all that dynamism and vitality! And the sophistication that makes the hard-headedness behind it all so scary and… I don’t know… I don’t suppose I should say it to you but, well… thrilling!’

Charity’s eyes were bright from the teenage fantasies she must have woven over what was after all an acquaintance of her parents while she studied Taylor sagaciously, looking no doubt for some flicker of agreement in her friend. But all Taylor said dryly was, ‘And with a temper to match,’ because of course Jared Steele was all of those things.

‘Ah-ah,’ Charity breathed. ‘I wondered why he came down those stairs like a bolt of lightning without calling in on his way out as he promised.’

In one of the rooms below, Josh had suddenly started to cry.

‘He’s just the sort of man I would have picked for you, Taylor.’ Charity was already moving towards the door. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

Taylor gave an outwardly nonchalant shrug. ‘We had our differences.’

‘With no chance that the two of you will ever get back together?’ Charity looked hopeful, but Taylor shook her head.

‘No,’ she answered, her lowered lashes concealing the pain in her eyes as she thought of their bitter arguments, remembered the conversation she had had with Jared earlier. ‘No,’ she said again, more adamantly this time. ‘No chance at all.’

Taylor was putting the finishing touches to the face of the young actress who was last on the set that morning. It was for a televised play and the outside shooting had been completed two weeks ago. Now it was just a matter of finishing the studio shots and, taking a break, several members of the cast and production team who had wandered into Makeup were sitting around, chatting and drinking coffee.

‘… didn’t think when I arranged to pick them up at lunchtime that they’ll be defrosted by the time I get them home.’

One of the production assistants was bemoaning her stupidity over some desserts she had bought for dinner. Concentrating on blending blusher across the young actress’s cheeks, Taylor wasn’t really listening until she heard her own name mentioned.

‘Just give them to Taylor to hold for the afternoon,’ Paul Salisbury was advising dryly. ‘That should keep them frozen.’

Tall and blond, Paul was a brilliant photographer who believed his prowess with women was all due to his good looks and his success with a camera. With Taylor, however, he had had his grand opinion of himself sadly shattered, she realised, when she had refused to go out with him—or with any man, she had determined bitterly, even if she weren’t still married—which was why, she decided, Paul had been sniping at her ever since.

‘I’ll have you know, Taylor is a very warm and sensitive person,’ Craig Lucas, mug in hand, perched on the edge of a table, lobbed back.

Dear unassuming Craig, Taylor thought, sharing a smile with the man with twinkling brown eyes, whose tawny head was bent slightly forward—as though he were uncomfortable with his long lean frame, she had often thought— grateful for the unnecessary but caring way he had leaped to her defence.

He was, however, looking towards the door, just as everyone else was and, glancing curiously over her shoulder, Taylor stifled a small shocked gasp.

‘How—how did you get in here?’ she stammered, her pulses quickening under the dark brooding gaze of the man who had just come through the doorway. Security was stringent and no one could get in without a pass.

‘I told them who I was and that I wanted to see you,’ Jared answered casually.

And that would have been enough, with that daunting air of authority and that core-hard confidence, Taylor thought grudgingly, to overcome the hardest obstacles.

She saw the withering glance he directed at Craig and wondered if he had heard the technician’s complimentary remarks about her; heard what Paul had said. She couldn’t help noticing though how the long dark coat and immaculate dark suit seemed to give Jared an edge over the younger men, over the rest of the production team and over her, dressed as she was, like they all were, in casual sweaters and jeans.

As if on an unspoken order, the others were already trooping out.

‘There,’ Taylor said, having made a great show of ignoring him by brushing powder from the girl’s cheeks and standing back at last to examine her work. ‘Now go out there and do your best.’

Getting to her feet, the actress scarcely glanced at her reflection, concentrating only on sending Jared a blatantly inviting smile before leaving them to join the others.

Disconcerted at being alone with him, Taylor began tidying her cosmetics, discarding used tissues, fastening lids on jars.

‘I take it you came here to discuss… what we were talking about the other day.’ Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘divorce’. It hurt enough to realise that he hadn’t wasted any time in getting back to her. But that was pride, she told herself. Nothing more. ‘If that’s the case…’ she was tossing brushes into a tall plastic holder ‘… I hardly think we can talk here.’

‘Exactly,’ that deep voice agreed. ‘Which is why I’ve booked lunch for us both in a quiet little restaurant I know, so if you’d like to get your coat, we can be on our way.’

‘Now wait a minute!’ Slamming down a pot of cleansing cream in front of the brightly lit mirror, Taylor faced him with her arms folded, supported by the shelf below the bank of mirrors that stretched along one wall. ‘Aren’t you rather jumping the gun just a bit? What makes you think I can just drop everything and follow you like some obedient little pet dog?’

‘Your receptionist—or whoever it was I spoke to when I telephoned earlier. She said you were doing your last job of the morning and that you’d probably be finished within half an hour.’

‘Oh, did she?’ Swinging back to her task, Taylor opened a drawer, dropped a few items into it and slammed it closed again. ‘Well, I’ve got news for you, Jared. I still can’t come with you.’ There was a defiant air to her fine features as she delivered with just a shade of smugness, ‘I’ve got a dental appointment first thing this afternoon.’

‘Which is also why I booked a restaurant no more than ten minutes from the dental practice.’

‘You…’ Leaning back against the shelf again, Taylor wrapped her arms around herself in a subconsciously protective gesture, the bright lights behind her making her hair gleam like liquid silk as she shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you’re for real,’ she whispered, flabbergasted, feeling her privacy being sorely invaded. ‘What rights have you got to go checking up on me? Are you hoping to find some besotted lover so you can sue me for adultery rather than admit to it yourself?’

A nerve seemed to jerk in his jaw, but he made no comment in response to her little outburst.

‘It was more a case of serendipity than purposely checking up on you,’ he said phlegmatically instead. ‘When I phoned here they said that if I wanted to catch you I’d have to do so quickly as you had a dental appointment at two. I then deduced that you were probably using the same practice as when we were living together, so I simply rang and asked if my wife had arrived yet and when they told me when you were expected, I knew I’d guessed correctly.’

He had also assumed—and correctly—that for convenience she would still be using her married name at the dental practice. Silently she had to compliment him on his ingenuity, but his calculated determination unsettled her.

‘And if I needed to find someone besotted…’ Coolly he reached over her shoulder, causing her to catch her breath from his unsettling nearness as he flicked the switch that turned off the lights around the mirror. ‘I don’t think I’d need look much further than these studios, Taylor, do you?’

The meal was a tense, uneasy affair. At least where she was concerned, Taylor decided, which was why she had ordered only a piece of crisp bread with a light topping which she would still have had difficulty swallowing if it hadn’t been for the mineral water she had ordered with it.

Jared, however, seemed perfectly relaxed as he tucked into his steak sandwich with a second cup of coffee. She supposed under normal circumstances she would have complimented him upon his choice of restaurant. Totally informal, it was small but airy, the tables well spaced, the efficient service apparent as soon as they stepped inside, when a waiter had swiftly and discreetly borne their coats away.

‘No wonder you’re so thin.’ His dark glittering irises surveyed her with unmasked disapproval across the table. ‘Charity’s cats eat more than you do and they’re like waifs. How long have you lived with Charity?’ he was demanding before she could respond to his comments about her weight.

‘I’m not living with them,’ she stated pointedly.

‘Don’t split hairs,’ he said, sounding impatient. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

Taylor inhaled deeply. He was right. It was pointless deliberately antagonising him. It was just that he hadn’t even skirted the subject he had brought her out here to discuss and her anticipation had become a tight knot in her stomach.

‘Just over a year,’ she told him then. ‘Within a week or two of my being engaged by the studios. With Josh on the way, Craig and Charity decided it would be practical financially to let the top floor. I was looking for a flat. And that was it. I couldn’t have found anywhere better if I’d tried. Charity’s such a lovely person it wasn’t difficult striking up an instant friendship with her, and Craig’s so easygoing, it’s never been a problem working with him all day and seeing him socially as well. He’s been a marvellous friend to me too.’

‘Well, bully for Craig,’ he drawled.

His meal finished, he was sitting with one elbow resting on the back of his chair, so that a good deal of white shirt was exposed beneath his open jacket.

Disconcertedly, Taylor dragged her gaze from the dark shadow of his body hair, clearly visible through the fine cotton, aware of a different kind of tension invading her now.

‘You’re determined not to like him, aren’t you?’ she accused, wondering for a few fleeting moments if his motive sprang from jealousy. But, no, she decided, dismissing the thought before it had scarcely taken shape. Jared Steele was the type of man who evoked that emotion in others, not experienced himself. And, anyway, he was in love with someone else. He had always loved someone else… ‘I thought Charity was a friend of yours,’ she challenged when he ignored her last question.

‘She is. Or rather, her parents are.’

‘Well, then,’ Taylor uttered, with an unconscious lifting of her chin. ‘Don’t you think they—and she—might take exception to your insinuations that I’m having an affair with her husband? Because she’s my friend too—and I do!’

A faint smile played around the hard masculine mouth. He didn’t look at all perturbed.

‘You’ve grown more confident,’ he remarked.

His soft observation was unexpected and disarming and quickly she lifted her glass, took a last draught of the cool water.

‘What did you expect?’ she challenged, setting her glass down on the pale cloth. ‘Even the most naïve of us grow up—if we’re forced to. And boy! Was I naïve!’

He acknowledged this only with a subtle lifting of a dark eyebrow.

‘As I recall, you also didn’t always make friends so easily. Or perhaps it was just that you didn’t try.’

No, she thought. She always had been a bit of a loner, too shy and self-conscious for her own good. Even at school she had preferred to read or sketch rather than join in with the more communal pursuits of her peers. Perhaps that was just how she was. Or perhaps it sprang from a reluctance to get too close to anyone…

‘We all change—for better or worse,’ she said without thinking, and felt a sudden sharp emotion stab her.

She saw a furrow crease the high, intellectual forehead, met those far too perceptive eyes and looked quickly away.

‘So what were you doing for the first six months after you ran away? I did contact your mother but she couldn’t give me any information, and with no friends to pump—or relatives in this country—it proved to be an impossible task trying to find you.’

Had he looked for her? The knowledge brought a treacherous colour to her cheeks.

‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’ she murmured. After all, whatever his reason for trying to find her then, it didn’t alter the fact that now he had found her, it was with only one purpose in mind. Which suited her fine! she convinced herself, in spite of the dull ache under her ribs.

He sat forward then, resting his elbows on the table, his chin on his clasped fingers.

‘Humour me,’ he breathed.

So she did, telling him how she had moved north for a while, taking a short, intensive art course to further the basic grounding she had received at college. It was difficult though, keeping her voice steady, trying not to notice how strongly chiselled his face was, how his long lashes seemed to emphasise the darkness of his eyes and how his cruel mouth—a mouth that had once worked magic on her sensitive flesh—firmed now first with something like disapproval then with what…? Admiration? she wondered. Surely not!

‘I saw an opening for a make-up artist down here in London, grabbed it and moved back. So there you have it. My wild and exciting life in its most uncensored form.’

A contemplative smile touched his lips. ‘Can there be anything more wild and exciting than what we had, Taylor?’

The smoky quality of his voice played across her frayed nerves, working its own magic on her senses. Before her mind’s eye rose the image of his hard and superb physique, of his naked limbs entwined with hers, of strong, dark body hair grazing her softness.

No, she thought. Whatever else their marriage had lacked, it certainly hadn’t lacked sensuality.

That he still wanted her was obvious, in the most primitive sense at least. She could see it in those dark, dilated pupils, in the flaring of those proud nostrils that spoke of the huge hunting male catching the scent of a mate. She closed her eyes against it now, knowing that he would recognise an answering and involuntary response in her if for one moment she let her guard down, and with the instinct of self-preservation she forced herself to remember why he had come. Shakily she whispered, ‘If you try to press a settlement on me, I’d like you to know, I won’t accept it.’

When she looked at him again his heavy eyelids had come down over his eyes, cloaking any traces of desire. Grimness compressed his lips now and there was an unfathomable edge to his voice as he said, ‘We’ll talk about that later. In the meantime…’ he dropped a glance to the gold wristwatch peeping out from his immaculate cuff ‘… I think you’d better get yourself sorted out for your dental appointment.’

He had left the car in a nearby Pay and Display car park, a newer model of the type of low-slung saloon he had always driven.

The wind was biting as they crossed the tarmac towards it.

‘I thought spring was coming,’ Taylor remarked, struggling to keep her coat from being wrenched open by the tugging wind. She felt low and dispirited, seeing the turn in the weather as a reflection of how her life had suddenly changed over the past week.

On the surface, nothing was different. She and Jared were still living apart. She still had her job. Her interests. Her friends. But seeing him again had revived memories she didn’t want to think about; feelings she didn’t want to feel. Oh, if only he had stayed away! If only things could have stayed the same and she could have gone on with her life thinking…

Thinking what? That one day he might come and tell her that he missed her? Loved her?

‘What’s wrong, Taylor?’

Of course, he had always been able to pick up on her mood, even if sometimes he had misinterpreted—and grossly—exactly what she was feeling.

‘I was only thinking…’ Suddenly her stomach muscles were knotting painfully again. ‘What has today achieved, Jared? I mean, we haven’t talked about anything we couldn’t have said on the phone.’

He stopped abruptly, the speed of his action as he swung to face her making her recoil.