Yesterday's Husband

‘The food is still very good here, isn’t it?’ she remarked, with the half-hysterical feeling that she was dreaming and would wake up at any moment.

This time Richard’s smile seemed almost genuine.

‘Yes. I’ve often thought about this place over the years and I suppose you have too or you wouldn’t be here. Let me see, what else did we do last time we were here? Oh, yes. The trip to Penelokan. Now that really was a highlight. Perhaps we ought to set out tomorrow and see if it’s still as beautiful as ever. What do you think?’

Emma stared at him as if he had gone insane. Was he really proposing to replay every detail of their honeymoon just as if the violent quarrels, the estrangement, the hostility of the last eight years had never existed? Well, if he was, perhaps the safest thing she could do was to humour him.

‘That would be lovely, darling,’ she said in a strained voice, looking wildly round the table for some means of escape. But all she could see was the waitress bearing down on them to remove their empty plates. Shortly afterwards the girl returned with the rijstafel—a fragrant and delectable array of pork, prawns, chicken, vegetable and curry dishes around a central mound of steamed rice. Richard helped Emma to a massive serving of everything and grimaced comically when he dropped a prawn in the centre of the flower arrangement.

‘Oops, looks as if I’m still clumsy in the dining-room. Are you still as lousy at cooking as you used to be, Em?’

Emma pulled a face, torn bctwoon amusement and resentment.

‘Not quite, but it isn’t my favourite activity. I tend to buy a lot of take-aways and heat them in the microwave oven.’

‘You cooked a chocolate cake once in the microwave oven. It rose and rose and then exploded. Do you remember?’

Her lips quirked involuntarily at the reminder.

‘Yes, it was ghastly. I forgot the sugar, too. You ate it, though.’

‘"Greater love hath no man”,’ he murmured.

A terrible sense of constriction gripped her chest as if a cold hand were squeezing her heart. How could he sit there and joke about it all, as if this reunion were genuine? As if the love which had carried them through those early trials of married life were still alive and burning brightly? She caught her breath and dropped her gaze.

‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded.

‘I wish you’d asked me to do anything else but this, Richard,’ she replied in a passionate whisper. ‘It’s going to be so painful, so repellent. I can’t bear it.’ The good humour died out of his face and his blue eyes were suddenly chill and merciless.

‘You’ll have to,’ he said brutally.

They talked little during the remainder of the meal and even the luscious pineapple, cantaloup, mangoes and pawpaws which appeared as dessert failed to rouse Emma’s enthusiasm. Her whole mind and body seemed to be focused on the single, alarming question—What’s going to happen afterwards?

Yet when they finally finished their coffee and rode to the ground floor in the lift, Richard did not lead her straight back to the bungalow as she had half feared. Instead he put his arm around her shoulders and steered her towards the beach.

‘Let’s go and look at the ocean.’

The touch of his warm, muscular arm on her body made her flinch. She wanted so badly to relax into his embrace, to lean against his shoulder and rub her face against the light fabric of his jacket, to feel the beating of his heart. Instead she held herself stiffly aloof, trying to send out to him the silent message that, while she might have agreed to this farcical union, she was doing so under protest.

‘I despise you for this,’ she said unsteadily.

‘Do you?’ he retorted with a short laugh. ‘Well, I think I can live with that. It really makes very little difference to me how you feel about it, Emma. It’s how I feel that concerns me. And I feel quite satisfied.’

As the word ‘satisfied’ passed his lips, he brought her to a halt so suddenly that she was taken by surprise. Hauling her savagely into his arms, he bent his head and kissed her. His body was hard and intoxicatingly virile against hers, with a wild spicy tang of cologne and masculine warmth that she found irresistibly arousing. He tasted of champagne and tropical fruit and, when his tongue slid between her lips, she offered no resistance. Instead, seized by some primitive instinct, she gave it a soft, teasing bite. His sharp intake of breath told her that that was a serious mistake and now his hard, merciless fingers began massaging her back in a sensual, urgent rhythm that she found wildly exciting. The eight lonely years without love vanished as if they had never existed. The world spun around her and suddenly she was a young woman on her honeymoon, tasting the delirious bliss of love in a setting that was made for romance.

Sighing sensually, she tilted her trembling lips to his and let her body sway in his hold so that she brushed lightly against him. The heated evidence of his arousal was unmistakable and he caught her by the hips, grinding himself against her so that she was in no doubt of what he wanted. She heard him give a low groan deep in the back of his throat, then he cupped her face in his hands and looked down at her so intently that she felt he was studying her. Overhead the palm fronds rustled lightly in the mild breeze and the tropical sky was like a dark blue banner ablaze with stars. An aching sweetness trickled through Emma’s entire body as she met Richard’s gaze and she felt herself quivering as if she were shaken by a fever. It wasn’t too late for them, was it? Surely if Richard could still make her tremble and throb and yearn to cry out with this mysterious, molten passion there must be something between them worth saving? Mustn’t there? It couldn’t be mere lust that made him stare down at her so fiercely with that glittering moonlit gaze. Could it?

‘Come on,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I can see you want this as badly as I do. I’d strip you off and have you here and now, Emma, down on that silver strip of sand with the foam surging around our bodies. But somebody else might come out for a walk. Better to be inside our house where you can let yourself go and moan and gasp and cry out when I take you, you beautiful, heartless little witch.’

Emma stiffened at that cruel taunt. Yes, it would be mere lust! Easily, very easily. In fact she would be a fool to deceive herself for one moment into thinking that Richard felt anything else for her. Wrenching herself out of his hold, she began walking furiously down the beach.

‘Well, come on, then,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Her gold evening shoes sank into the sand at every step and Richard had no difficulty at all in overtaking her. She almost hoped that he would ask for an explanation of her abrupt departure, so that she could tell him a few blistering home truths about himself. But he was too shrewd or too indifferent for that. He simply strode along beside her looking as relaxed and nonchalant as if they had come out for no other reason than to enjoy the soft hiss and rush of the waves breaking on the silvery sand, the sweet, potent fragrance of the tropical flowers and the moonlight shimmering over the water. Emma was seething so furiously that she almost missed the turn-off to their bungalow and Richard had to reach out and catch her hand.

‘Let go of me!’ she spat.

‘Just as you like,’ he replied in a soft, mocking voice. ‘I can wait.’

When they reached the bungalow she hurried ahead of him, inserting her key into the door with shaking fingers and then rushing up the stairs and into the bathroom. Shutting the door behind her with a vicious slam, she leaned against it, her heart pounding.

‘Damn him,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Damn him, damn him, damn him!’

Her heavy, dark hair was falling out of its chignon and her make-up was smudged from Richard’s kisses. A strange air of febrile excitement seemed to crackle dangerously about her as if she were a teenager who had just been kissed for the first time. It infuriated her to see herself looking so dishevelled in the mirror when she was used to being confronted by the image of a cool, composed businesswoman. With jerky, impatient movements, she took a pot of face cream out of her sponge bag and deliberately sponged every trace of make-up and of Richard off her face. Then she hauled off her clothes, flung them carelessly on the bathroom floor and stepped into the shower. It gave her a certain spiteful, childish pleasure to linger there. Let Richard wait if he wanted to use the bathroom! She hadn’t invited him here, had she? Maybe he would take the hint and go somewhere else!

But at last the water began to run cold and she was forced to emerge. She rubbed herself dry and then stood there hesitating. What was she to do now? There had been no sound of a door closing below and she felt fairly certain that Richard was still out there, waiting for her. Her skin crawled with a half-delightful apprehension at the thought. Should she get dressed again? But the mere thought of climbing back into the same clothes made her grimace. Of course she could just wrap herself in a large bath-towel and go out like that. But it seemed like a terribly poor-spirited thing to do, especially when she was bound to have it ripped off her anyway. Well, she’d show Richard that she wasn’t afraid of him! Defiantly she tossed back her long black hair, opened the bathroom door, and stepped out into the bedroom stark naked.

Richard had turned on the bedside lamps so that the room was bathed in a soft, apricot glow and he had taken off his dinner-jacket and shirt. At the sound of the opening door, he turned round and faced her and she felt an unwelcome pang of admiration at the sight of his lean, hard, muscular physique. The flare of interest in his eyes made her suspect that he was regarding her with a similar admiration. Her cheeks burned but she rested her hands defiantly on her hips.

‘Well, is this what you want?’ she demanded contemptuously.

‘Yes.’

Without a trace of embarrassment, he strolled across the room, swept her up in his arms and planted a long, burning kiss on her mouth. Then, staring down at her with glittering blue eyes, he walked across to one of the huge beds and dropped her in the centre of it. Before she could utter more than a single indignant gasp of protest, he knelt astride her, pinioned her wrists on either side of her head and kissed her even more violently than before. Emma wanted to show her complete disdain for him by remaining totally unmoved and at first it was easy. She struggled angrily, turning aside her face from his kisses. But as his mouth travelled down the column of her neck in a series of soft, biting caresses she could not repress a faint moan of pleasure. He raised his head for a moment and she saw a flicker of triumph in his eyes. Then slowly, sensually he drew her nipple into his mouth and caressed it with his tongue. A tingle of pleasure so acute that it was close to pain flared through every nerve-ending in her body and she caught her breath and arched instinctively against him, writhing and shuddering under his touch. His lips released her, only to move further down her body, nibbling over her flesh in a provocative, rhythmic stimulation that drove her wild with longing. Her hands clenched tightly on the sheets and she closed her eyes, whimpering softly. When his mouth touched the most intimate, secret part of her, she started up with a shuddering gasp of protest of incoherent pleasure, but he thrust her back.

‘Lie still and enjoy it,’ he urged, his body so closely linked to hers that she could feel the vibration in his throat. She tried to remind herself that she hated him, that she was doing this only under protest, but her body seemed to have taken on a will of its own. And what it wanted it wanted urgently, violently, without any delay.

‘Richard… we shouldn’t… it’s insane…’

‘Yes, we should. And it isn’t insane. I want this more than I’ve wanted anything in the past eight years and you do too. Don’t you? Don’t you? Admit it, Emma; tell me that you want me. Say it!’

He had hauled himself up in the bed and was looming above her now, supported on his forearms, with his halfnaked body crushed against her. She could feel the warmth, the heat, the tension in that body, the unmistakable virile hardness of it, and she wanted him! Oh, how she wanted him! Not just to touch her and hold her and kiss her, wonderful as that was, but to plunge deep inside her until they were fused in a total union.

‘Say it,’ he rasped again.

‘I want you, Richard,’ she breathed.

‘That’s all I needed to know,’ he said coldly.

And, to her astonishment and chagrin, he rose to his feet and stood staring down at her with a strange, ravenous mixture of desire and hatred in his eyes.

‘Goodnight, Emma.’

She lay in shocked disbelief, instinctively drawing up the sheet to cover her nakedness, and watched as he swiftly finished undressing with his back turned to her, pulled on a pair of lightweight cotton pyjamas and climbed into the other bed. Then, without another word, he switched off the light and began breathing deeply and evenly. She didn’t ask him why he was doing this. She already knew. It was an act of cold-hearted, calculating revenge. First the challenge had been to see whether he could excite her to the point where she actually wanted him and then, having demonstrated the humiliating fact that she did, he had twisted the knife by rejecting her. The bastard! The unutterable, manipulative bastard! She wanted to kill him…

Her heart was still pounding furiously and her body was hot and pulsing with the effects of unsatisfied desire so that it made her more angry than ever when a few minutes later she heard his quiet breathing deepen into the unmistakable rhythm of sleep. How could he lie there and just sleep when Emma herself wanted to cry and rage and throw things? It was inhuman! There must be some way she could get back at him for this, there must, there must! For hours she lay awake, tossing and turning, thumping her pillow and letting out occasional, low gasps of annoyance. But some time after three o’clock she fell asleep with her last conscious thought surging through her head as monotonously as the breaking surf outside. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him…

Her dreams were confused and anxious, centring not on the humiliating scene she had just endured but on the violent parting quarrel which had separated them eight years before, except that this time Richard didn’t storm out without any explanation. Instead he came back to her and told her some long and complicated rigmarole which made everything magically all right. In the dream she was filled with a happiness so quiet and profound that it was like listening to lyrical music. Then the dream changed and she was in her office at Prero’s, trying to make her father proud of her, feeling anxious and unhappy with a computer whirring in the background and the printer grinding. As she came slowly up to the surface of consciousness, she realised that it wasn’t just a dream. There was a computer whirring right in this very room. Blinking, she sat up and squinted. It seemed quite crazy, but Richard was sitting at the foldout mahogany desk in the corner of the room with a portable computer, the telephone and a tiny printer laid out in front of him. Without even stopping to think about how much she hated him, she spoke impulsively.