Reunited: Marriage In A Million

Maybe that was why, for so long, she had felt she was running on empty. That if she stopped concentrating for a second the floor would open up beneath her feet and she’d disappear.

Suddenly losing it, unable to keep up the pretence for another minute, she turned her back on them and tossed the bare essentials in a holdall—underwear, shoes, a few basics, the first things that came to hand.

What else? She looked around. Make-up…

She grabbed for a gold-topped glass pot but her hands were shaking and it slipped through her fingers, shattered, splashing pale beige cream in a wide arc over the centuries-old polished oak floor, an antique rug. With a cry of dismay, she bent to pick up the pieces of glass.

‘Leave it!’

Ivo…

‘Leave it,’ he said, taking her hand, pulling it away from the glass. ‘You’ll cut yourself.’

Her skin shivered at his touch; his hand was cool and yet heat radiated from his fingers, warming her—as he never failed to warm her—so that the siren call of everything in her that was female urged her to let him lift her up into his arms, to hold him, tell him that she didn’t mean it. That she would never leave him. That nothing else mattered but to be here with him.

He touched her cheek, then pushed back her hair to look at the graze on her forehead, regarding her with eyes the colour of the ocean, a shifting mix of blue, green, grey that, as with the sea, betrayed his mood. Today they were a bleak grey, her doing she knew, and she forced herself to turn away from his touch as if to gather up the rest of her make-up. It was easier to cope with his reflection in the mirror than face to face.

‘Is this because I didn’t want you to go away, Belle?’ he asked, his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs working softly against the muscles, easing the tension as they had done times without number in a prelude to an intimacy that needed no words.

His touch shivered through her, undermining her will. She’d lingered too long. He’d taken it as a sign that she was just having a bit of a strop, throwing her teddy out of the pram, was waiting for him to come up and make a performance of appeasing her.

‘No,’ she said. That he didn’t want her to go away was understandable, but she couldn’t allow him to use her weakness to stop her from leaving. ‘It’s because we don’t have a marriage, Ivo. We don’t share anything. Because I want something you’re incapable of giving.’

In the mirror she saw him blench.

‘You’re my wife, Belle. Everything I have is yours—’

‘I’m your weakness, Ivo,’ she said, cutting him short. This wasn’t about property, security. ‘You desire me. You have a need that I satisfy.’

‘And you? Don’t I satisfy you?’

‘Physically? You know the answer to that.’ When he held her, the flames of that desire were enough to warm her, body and soul. But when he turned away she was left with ice. ‘You have given me everything that I asked of you. But what we have is not a marriage.’

‘You’re tired,’ he said, his voice cobweb-soft against her ear. The truth was it didn’t matter what he said, her response to his undivided attention had always been the same; she was a rabbit fixed in the headlights of an oncoming car, unable to move, save herself and her body responded as it always did, softening to him. He felt the change and, sure of his power, he turned her to face him. Instinct drew her to him and she leaned into the haven of his body, waiting for him to tell her that he’d missed her, to ask her what was wrong, to do what she’d asked and talk to her.

Instead he took something from his pocket. A strand of fire that blazed in the light as he moved to fasten it about her neck.

‘I had this made for you for our anniversary next month.’

‘It’s not our anniversary…’

‘The anniversary of the day we first met.’

Belle felt as if she were being split in two. The physical half was standing safe, protected, within the circle of Ivo’s arms. But all of her that was emotion, heart, the woman who’d dug deep and, with the help of her friends, found the strength to confront her past, stood outside, looking on with horror as she was drawn in by this glittering proof that he had thought of her, cherished the memory of the moment when their lives had first connected.

‘No…’

She barely whispered the word as the gems touched her throat. A single thread of diamonds to circle her neck. Beautiful.

Cold.

If his heart was a diamond, maybe he could have given her that. But the warm, beating flesh required more, something that was beyond him. That she had once thought was beyond her…

‘Please, Ivo. Don’t do this…’

It took a supreme act of will to force up her chin, look him directly in the face, find the strength to break free, for both of them.

‘No,’ she repeated, this time with more certainty. And, taking a step back, she brushed the necklace away, taking him by surprise so that it flew from his hand, skidded across the floor.

This wasn’t about desire. Not for him. It wasn’t even as basic as lust. This was all about control.

‘No more.’

She took another step away, then turned and, abandoning her make-up, she picked up her bag, holding him at arm’s length when, instinctively, he made a move to take it from her.

Only then, when she was sure he would keep his distance, did she turn, walk away on legs that felt as if they were treading on an underfilled airbed. On feet that didn’t seem to be one hundred per cent in contact with the ground.

Every part of her hurt. It was worse than that first day on the mountains when she’d thought she’d die if she had to force her feet to push the pedal one more time.

That had been purely physical pain. Muscle, sinew, bone.

This cut to the heart. If she’d ever doubted how much she loved him, every step taking her away from him hammered the message home. But love, true love, involved sacrifice. Ivo had taken her on trust, had accepted without question everything she’d told him about her life before they’d met. Before she became ‘Belle Davenport’. She’d done two utterly selfish things in her life—abandoned her sister and married Ivo Grenville. It was time to confront the past, find the courage to put both of those things right.

Her rucksack was where she’d left it, battered, grubby, out of place in the perfection of the Regency hall. They were a match, she thought, as she picked it up, slung it over her shoulder. She’d always been out of place here. A stranger in her own life.

The door had been propped open by the florists who were ferrying in boxes of flowers. Grateful that she wouldn’t have to find the strength to open it, she walked down the steps and out into the street.

On her own again and very much ‘scared witless…’ but certain, as she hadn’t been for a very long time, of the rightness of what she was doing.

Belle’s flat—small, slightly shabby—welcomed her as the great house in Belgravia never had. Unable to believe her good fortune, she’d bought it the moment she’d signed her first contract following one of those chance-in-a-million breaks. Her fairy-godmother had come in the unlikely guise of a breakfast show host who, when her brief appearance manning the phones on the telethon he was presenting had lit up the switchboard, had run with it and, playing up to the public’s response, had offered her a guest appearance on his show. Not quite knowing what to do with her, he’d suggested she do a weather spot.

For some reason her flustered embarrassment at her very shaky grasp of geography had touched the viewers’ hearts.

One of the gossip magazines had run a feature on her and within weeks she’d had an agent and a serious contract to go out and talk to people in the street, in their offices, in their homes, asking their opinions on anything from the price of bread to the latest health fad.

Even now she didn’t understand how it had happened but, from a situation where she and her bank did their best to ignore each other, suddenly she was being invited into the manager’s office for a chat over a cup of coffee. They hadn’t been able to do enough for her, especially once she’d demonstrated that investing in bricks and mortar—securing herself a home against the time when the sympathy wore thin—had been her first priority.

Against all the odds, she’d gradually moved from her spot as light relief to the centre of the breakfast television sofa, picking up the long-term security of a multi-millionaire husband on the way.

But she’d kept her flat.

She hadn’t needed Ivo—financial genius that he was—to advise her to let it rather than sell it when they’d married. She would never part with it. It wasn’t just that it was a good investment, that it had been her first, her only proper home; it represented, at some fundamental level, a different, truthful kind of security.

After her last tenant had left she’d made the excuse that it needed refurbishing and taken it off the agency books. Almost as if she’d been preparing for this moment.

Shivering, she dumped her bags in the hall, switched on the heating. Looked around. Touched one of the walls for reassurance. The stones in her wedding ring caught the light, flashed back at her, and she stood there for a moment, lost in the memory of the moment when Ivo had placed it on her finger. Then it had been the sun that had caught the stones in the antique ring as he’d pledged to keep her safe, protect her.

He had. He’d done everything he’d promised. But it wasn’t enough. And she slipped the ring from her finger.