‘And I’m choosy who I put the question to!’ He moved to the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Julie frowned.
‘Out. For some air. I’ll see you later.’
‘I’m leaving this morning,’ she told him abruptly.
He nodded. ‘I’ll see you before you go.’
‘Of course. We still have the divorce to discuss.’
‘Our lawyers can discuss that. There’s no need for further unpleasantness between us.’ He straightened his cuff. ‘Do you have a lawyer?’
‘No.’
‘Then I suggest you get one.’
‘I trust you, Zack,’ she taunted. ‘A simple divorce, no messy accusation, that’s all I want.’
‘There’s the question of settlements—’
‘I don’t want anything from you, Zack,’ Julie interrupted sharply. ‘Especially not your money.’
His mouth twisted. ‘My wealth never did interest you.’
Her eyes flashed deeply green. ‘I didn’t marry you for your money, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I’m well aware of the reason you married me,’ he said dryly.
She gave him a sharp look. ‘You are?’
‘I gave you no choice,’ he shrugged. ‘I wanted you, you responded to me, I persuaded you to marry me. That’s all there was to it.’
Except that he had missed out the most important fact—she had loved him, and he had loved her, with an intensity that had given him jealous rages, made him suspect every man she had spoken to. A possessive, intense love like that was not something she ever wanted or needed.
‘In other words, it was destined to failure from the beginning,’ she mocked.
‘I—’ Zack drew a controlling breath. ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t argue with you about our marriage.’
‘Did you also promise yourself you wouldn’t kiss me?’
‘No,’ his voice was self-derisory. ‘I never make myself promises I know I’ll break at the least provocation.’
‘I didn’t provoke—’
‘You’ve never needed to.’ He quietly left the room.
Julie went back to bed, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. There was the indentation of Zack’s head in the pillow next to hers, which even when she thumped it back into shape still bore the smell of the aftershave he always wore. The times she had woken in the morning with the smell of that aftershave on her own flesh!
Thinking of that reminded her of the way he had just kissed her. Steve gave her pleasure with his kisses, excited her physically, but never with that quicksilver burst of sensuality that just the gentle, drugging movement of Zack’s mouth on hers could cause.
The cold-blooded reasoning with which he considered marrying the unknown Teresa chilled her, and his lack of love for the other girl filled her with pity. It was bad enough to be the object of Zack’s love, even worse to be the object of his liking. She couldn’t believe he was really going to marry for that reason, and yet she knew he would, knew he meant to go through with this heartless marriage.
She couldn’t stand lying in bed any longer, she had to get up. Perhaps one of the children would be awake, that should take her mind off Zack.
Connie was in the nursery when Julie quietly let herself in. Nicholas was already dressed in denims and a tee-shirt, Suzanne was in the process of being washed and dressed before they all went down to breakfast.
Connie looked at Julie almost guiltily, turning with Suzanne in her arms, the little girl’s fingers in her mouth.
‘Before you ask,’ Julie said dryly, ‘and I know you’re going to, I was unconscious all night, and Zack left the house an hour ago.’
‘I know,’ her friend said quietly. ‘I saw him before he left.’
‘Then you know—’
‘That the two of you are talking about divorce,’ Connie sighed. ‘Yes, he told me.’
‘And?’ Julie sensed the unspoken criticism; she knew her friend too well to be deceived.
‘Nicholas, go down and have your breakfast with Mrs Pearce,’ she told her small son. ‘Mummy and Aunty Julie will be down in a moment.’
The little boy’s hunger obviously meant more to him than listening to a conversation he didn’t really understand, and he went off quite happily to have his ‘toast and egg’.
‘You don’t approve, hmm?’ Julie said ruefully.
‘No,’ Connie didn’t prevaricate, ‘I think you’re both making a mistake.’
‘We don’t.’
‘Obviously. When he said he was spending the night in your room—’
‘You thought we were in for the grand reunion,’ Julie derided. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Connie, but divorce is the only thing on Zack’s mind. I think he shared my bed last night because of the sleeping pills.’
‘I never knew you took them,’ her friend shook her head.
‘I don’t normally. Yesterday was—it was a bad day for me.’ Julie put a hand up to her aching temple.
‘Your wedding anniversary.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘Yes.’ Julie agreed bitterly. ‘Yes, it is. But not for the reason you think.’
‘Oh?’
She swallowed hard. ‘I can’t tell you, Connie. Not even you,’ she said regretfully.
‘I see,’ Connie bit her lip. ‘I know you argued on your first anniversary—’
‘We more than argued,’ Julie revealed shakily. ‘But that’s over now, and once we’re divorced maybe I can finally forget him.’
‘The divorce doesn’t bother you?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve been expecting it.’ And she had. For the past three years she had looked for the official-looking envelope pushed through her letter-box that would be the end of her marriage. She should have realised that Zack would deal with the matter much more personally, that he wouldn’t shirk telling her of the final end to their marriage. ‘But knowing about it means I can’t stay on until after lunch trying to be polite to Zack,’ she looked appealingly at Connie. ‘I want to leave now, if that’s all right with you.’
‘Can I stop you?’ her friend said dryly.
‘No,’ she admitted softly, looking down at her hands. ‘I’ve enjoyed my stay here with you, but now I have to leave.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’
‘Not really,’ Connie shrugged. ‘But you’re both old enough to know what you’re doing—I think.’
Julie laughed, with relief more than humour. ‘You don’t sound too sure.’
‘I’m not, but as long as you both are.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does this mean you’ll be marrying Steve?’ Connie frowned.
‘No.’ Julie shook her head firmly.
Connie squeezed her hand comfortingly. ‘Come and say goodbye to Ben before you leave,’ she encouraged, still carrying Suzanne, the little girl sucking contentedly on her thumb. ‘Zack won’t be very happy about your leaving like this, Julie. I’m sure he expected to see you when he got back.’
Her mouth twisted. ‘It won’t be the first time Zack has wanted something he couldn’t have. And I doubt if my absence will worry him that much, it hasn’t for the last three years.’
‘That isn’t true.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No.’ Connie looked undecided. ‘He asked me not to tell you, but—’
‘If he asked you not to tell me then perhaps you’d better not,’ Julie insisted.
‘I think you should be told. He started drinking when you left him, heavily. For almost a year he didn’t even go to work. Ben had to take over—’
‘I don’t want to hear any more, Connie,’ Julie interrupted stiffly. ‘This sounds private—’
‘How can it be private when he’s your husband?’ Connie demanded angrily.
‘Ex-husband.’
‘He isn’t,’ Connie said impatiently. ‘And he was in a terrible state for about a year after you separated. When he started pu
lling himself together we all heaved a sigh of relief—’
‘When he started dating again, you mean,’ Julie said bitterly.
‘Julie!’
‘I’m sorry, Connie, but I can’t feel any sympathy for him. If he became a drunk—’
‘Oh, I didn’t say that!’ her friend protested.
‘Okay, if he drank too much then maybe he had reason to—’
‘Of course he did, he had lost you!’
‘I don’t mean because of that,’ Julie dismissed impatiently. ‘Well, maybe I do,’ she corrected. ‘Ask yourself why he lost me.’
‘I think we would all like to know that,’ Ben said softly.
Julie turned with a start, wondering how much Ben had already heard. By the look of him, quite a lot.
‘Go and give Suzanne her breakfast, darling,’ he encouraged his wife. ‘Julie and I will talk in my study.’
‘Ben-‘
‘I think we should, Julie.’ He held the study door open pointedly.
She took one look at his determined expression and slowly went into the room. She had sensed the added maturity and command about Ben when she had met him at the beginning of the week, now she knew the reason for it had been the necessity of running Zack’s newspaper empire for a year.
‘Now,’ he followed her into the room, closing the door firmly behind him, ‘perhaps you would like to tell me the reason you left Zack.’
Julie sat down in one of the two leather armchairs he had in here, admiring the water- colours on two of the walls, the others lined with books.
‘Julie?’ he prompted impatiently, coming to sit on the edge of the desk in front of her, breaking her line of vision to anything but him, unless she chose to turn her head sideways. ‘I want to know.’
‘Want, want, want!’ She stood up to glare at him, once again overwhelmed by his likeness to Zack. She braced her shoulders angrily. ‘Don’t you Reedmans know anything else?’ she bit out scornfully.
‘You’re a Reedman,’ Ben reminded her quietly, completely unperturbed by her show of anger.
‘I’m me, Julie Slater!’
‘Reedman,’ he corrected softly, watching the flush to her cheeks and brilliance of her eyes with a cool detachment.
Julie flushed in the face of his calm determination, seeing at a glance that he wasn’t going to move until he had been told the whole story. ‘The technicality of a name isn’t important right now,’ she dismissed. ‘What is important is that you have no right to question either Zack or me about anything.’
‘I’m trying to understand—’
‘Understand!’ she repeated furiously. ‘You are probing into dangerous ground, Ben, just because you have to understand!’
‘I’m willing to take the risk,’ he told her quietly, watching her with calm blue eyes.
‘Are you?’ she turned on him. ‘Even if it throws your precious brother into a bad light?’
‘Even then,’ he nodded.
‘Even if I don’t come out of it completely the black woman I’ve been painted?’
‘I’m hoping you won’t,’ he said with quiet sincerity.
‘Oh, Ben!’ her shoulders slumped defeatedly. ‘You’ll hate me for this.’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ she accepted dully. ‘But I can’t keep it all to myself any longer.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Zack is—was—very possessive,’ she began.
‘Where you’re concerned, yes,’ Ben agreed.
She chewed on her top lip for several seconds, getting her thoughts together. ‘I never wanted that sort of husband, that sort of marriage. Maybe I didn’t want marriage at all, maybe an affair would have been better. Oh yes, Ben, I mean it,’ she said at his sceptical look. ‘I tried to tell Zack that, to convince him that I wanted a career—’
‘He never stopped you working.’
‘No.’ she gave a bitter laugh. ‘He never did that. He just suspected every man I worked with, from other reporters to the photographers who came with me to get my stories. He became convinced I was having an affair with one of them, Alec Clarke, so convinced that he wouldn’t believe me when I denied it.’
‘Yes.’
She swallowed hard; this delving into the past was leaving her raw. ‘On the night of our first wedding anniversary I got a call from my editor —he wanted Alec and me to fly to Germany, immediately.’
‘And Zack was naturally angry at the interruption to your celebration,’ Ben shrugged.
‘Unnaturally angry,’ Julie corrected, her head held high. ‘So unnaturally angry that he raped me.’
‘He what?’ Ben thundered. ‘It can’t be called rape between a man and his wife, Julie. If he made love to you in anger—’
‘He didn’t!’ She was shaking now, her hands trembling as she put them up to her face, the words coming out muffled between her fingers. ‘He—he hit me,’ she wet her dry lips. ‘He threw me to the floor, and he—he raped me.’ She closed her eyes, taking her hands away, looking up at him with shadowed green eyes as she raised her lids. ‘Zack raped me. He hurt me physically, and he killed—he killed my love for him. Now will you leave me alone, Ben?’
CHAPTER 4
The drive back to London was peaceful, the traffic at a minimum on this sleepy Sunday morning.
But Julie’s head ached by the time she got back to her flat, the tension of holding back tears resulting in a throbbing pain behind her eyes.
She sat in the chair by the window at her flat, reliving the past as she stared sightlessly outside. She had never wanted to tell anyone of the physical and mental anguish Zack had put her through when he raped her, and even now she hadn’t told Ben the whole story, knowing that would shock him even more.
Rape. As Ben said, it was a strange word to use between a husband and wife, but it was the only way to describe the physical abuse Zack had subjected her to that last day they had been together.
Of course he had been sorry afterwards, his remorse genuine as he begged for forgiveness. But as far as she was concerned it had been the end, the things Zack had shouted at her as he look her would stay with her always. The names, those awful names, had been untrue, but Zack’s fierce jealousy about Alec had made him believe them all the time.
And he still believed them, still thought she had had other men during their year of marriage. He might have apologised for his assault on her, but he had never taken back those sick names he had called her. And later it had been loo late even to take those back…
Ben had been speechless after her revelation, had been visibly shocked by his brother’s behaviour, but had made no further objections to her wanting to leave.
She shouldn’t have told him; she should have kept Zack’s violence to herself, as she had always promised herself she would. But just for once she had wanted someone to understand, partly, if not fully, the reason that her marriage to Zack was irrevocably over.
She stood up gratefully as the doorbell rang. Steve. He was exactly what she needed right now to cheer her up.
But it wasn’t Steve who stood outside her door, but Zack, and he looked furious, white lines of tension beside his nose and mouth. ‘You little bitch,’ he ground out, pushing his way inside. ‘You vindictive little bitch!’ He turned angrily to face her.
Julie slowly closed the door, her hands shaking as she clasped them in front of her. ‘I don’i want you here,’ she murmured. ‘The divorce can be dealt with by our lawyers, you said so yourself.’
His eyes glittered dangerously, a fierce silver- grey. ‘I’m not here about the divorce, although God knows the sooner that’s over with the quicker you’ll be out of my life for good!’
Her head went back at his contempt. ‘The feeling is mutual, I can assure you.’
‘Is it?’ he rasped. ‘Then why stir things up again by telling my own brother I raped you?’
She went deathly white. ‘Ben…’
‘Yes—Ben!’ Zack ground out. ‘My little brother has just told me exactly what he thinks of me.’ His m
outh twisted. ‘And it wasn’t pleasant.’
Julie closed her eyes, knowing how much Ben’s anger must have hurt him. He had more or less brought Ben up since their parents died, and she knew how much they had always meant to each other. ‘I’m sorry…’
‘Sorry!’ he scorned. ‘God, Julie, why the hell did you have to tell him that?’ He looked at her with agonised eyes. ‘You know I hated myself for doing it, that I got down on my knees to you and begged your forgiveness.’
‘And I gave it,’ she nodded dully.
‘You have a damned funny way of showing it!’
‘He wanted to know, Zack,’ she explained pleadingly. ‘He’s thirty-four, old enough to know the pressure that would drive a man to act the way you did.’
‘And to despise me for it!’
‘He doesn’t despise you, Zack,’ she sighed. ‘Once he’s thought about it for a while he’ll realise that he could act the same way if he thought Connie was having an affair. If you think it will help you can always tell him you were right.’
His eyes became even icier. ‘And was I?’
She sighed wearily. ‘I only said you could tell him that, I didn’t say it was the truth.’
Zack shook his head, turning away from her. ‘For the last two years I’ve forced myself not to even think about you, let alone the men you’ve been seeing, going to bed with. And yet now, having seen you again, it’s all coming back.’ His body was rigid with tension. ‘All the old suspicions, the jealousy.’ He spun round, searching her pale features. ‘I think the reason I’ve always felt this way is because you never completely gave yourself to me. You always held something back.’
Julie stiffened. ‘Isn’t that a woman’s way of remaining mysterious?’ she said woodenly.
‘Not with your husband. Why did you hold back, Julie?’ he frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I didn’t-‘
‘Oh yes, I can see it now. At the time I was too close, too involved, but now I can see it all clearly. I knew your body, I even knew your intelligent mind, but the you behind that body and mind always held back. Even when we made love—’
‘There was never anything wrong with that!’
His mouth twisted. ‘Not physically, no,’ he agreed ruefully. ‘But even then you were holding back mentally.’
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