The Marriage Takeover

by Lee Wilkinson

  ‘I thought if we could really get it together she might change her mind. So I bought a house in The Bay area and we made a fresh start.

  ‘However, things soon began to go wrong. She was hardly ever at home, especially in the evenings. Eventually she began staying out overnight. I made it clear I wasn’t going to stand for it, and she blew her top, saying she was entitled to have friends. But I was fairly sure she was two-timing me.

  ‘Then the gutter press got hold of the story and printed a photograph of Nina and a playboy property developer named Van Roc together at a nightclub. They followed that with one of me as “the cuckolded husband”, and had a great time digging for dirt…’

  No wonder he’d been so bitter about grapevine gossip, Cassandra thought sadly.

  ‘Roc was a married man with children, so it must have been hell for his wife… When I told Nina it had to stop, she vehemently denied they were anything more than friends, and for a while was a great deal more circumspect.

  ‘About two months later I read in the paper that he was in serious financial difficulties over a new shopping complex he was building. Nina and I still shared a room, but she’d been very cool and distant and we hadn’t slept together for weeks. That night she turned on the heat and tried sexual persuasion to cajole me into giving him a huge loan.

  ‘When I refused, we had a blazing row, during which she admitted that they had been having an affair, and taunted me with the fact that they’d been lovers even before we were married. She said he was a fantastic lover, worth two of me, and that she’d only pressured me into moving to San Francisco to be closer to him.

  ‘To be honest, I no longer cared. I kept on paying her allowance, and she took a flat in downtown ‘Frisco. I didn’t want to stay trapped in a marriage that had been nothing but a worthless, degrading sham, so, though I hated the idea, I began divorce proceedings.’

  There was a long, painful pause, and Cassandra had just decided he was going to say no more when, with an obvious effort, he went on, ‘Nina had been gone about three months when I got home one night to find her waiting naked in my bed. She said she wanted to come back to me. I asked, What about Roc? She told me it was all over between them. Finished.

  ‘She begged for another chance, said that she’d been foolish to leave me, that she did want children after all. If only I’d take her back we could start a family and be happy together…

  ‘But I had no intention of jumping on that merry-go-round again, so I turned down her offer, and told her to get out.’

  His face ashen, he added, ‘Though I didn’t know it then, my refusal signed her death warrant.’

  Aghast, Cassandra breathed, ‘She didn’t…?’

  ‘Commit suicide? No. She wasn’t the kind to take her own life.’

  ‘Well, whatever happened, you can’t blame yourself—’

  But as though she hadn’t spoken he ploughed on. ‘Three evenings later the police contacted me. That afternoon her car had been found by the side of the interstate, with her body inside it.

  ‘There wasn’t a mark on her. They were puzzled because she’d died from loss of blood, which suggested internal injuries, but the car wasn’t even scratched.

  ‘The post-mortem examination showed that earlier on the day she died she’d had an abortion and something had gone terribly wrong. She must have felt faint while she was driving and pulled over.’

  Horrified, Cassandra whispered, ‘She was pregnant when she came to see you?’

  ‘That was why she wanted me to take her back—so she could pass the child off as mine…’

  No wonder he seemed so bitter at times. How could any woman be heartless enough to refuse to have his children, then try to palm another man’s child off on him?

  ‘Later I discovered, through a letter she’d kept, that when Roc found out about the baby, instead of leaving his wife, as she’d hoped, he told her he’d been intending to end their affair.

  ‘His wife, who was pregnant with their fourth child, had had enough. She was threatening to take the children and leave him, unless he toed the marital line. He advised Nina either to go back to me and pretend the baby was mine, or have an abortion.

  ‘When the first option failed, she went for the second. But, apparently afraid of it getting into the papers, instead of going to a reputable clinic, she went out of town to some hole-and-corner place where nobody knew who she was…

  ‘It was ironical really,’ he added bitterly. ‘The pathologist’s findings made front-page news… As you can imagine, the press hounded me for weeks, asking endless offensive questions…’

  He dropped his head in his hands. ‘But the worst part was I felt, and still feel, partly to blame both for Nina’s death and the child’s.’

  Her stomach tying itself in a knot, Cassandra recalled Rob’s words. ‘Even Lang, who’s the most stable of men, took Nina’s death very badly. He’s still cut up over it…’

  Then Lang himself, saying, ‘Perhaps my conscience already carries a big enough burden…’

  And all this for a woman who had never cared a jot for him, who had only tried to use him.

  Filled with anger, and an urgent need to ease some of his pain, Cassandra jumped to her feet. Praying that shock tactics would be more effective than any amount of sympathy, she said crisply, ‘Well, I’ve certainly changed my mind!’

  Lang lifted his head and looked at her. Sounding a little fuddled, he asked, ‘About what?’

  The die was cast. ‘Earlier today I said I wouldn’t call you a fool, but now I’ve changed my mind. If you believe that you are in any degree to blame for your first wife’s death, then you’re a bigger fool than even she took you for!’

  Watching that look of despair and desolation give way to a kind of startled incredulity, she rushed on, ‘She and her lover were the only people responsible. When her attempt to saddle you with another man’s child failed, she didn’t have to have an abortion. It was her own choice. Some women in a similar situation would have opted to keep the child and go it alone.’

  As he opened his mouth to speak, Cassandra demanded, ‘Tell me something; if she’d been honest and told you about the baby, would you have taken her back?’

  ‘No.’ His answer was unequivocal.

  ‘Would you have suggested she have an abortion?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘What if she’d decided to keep the child? Would you have helped her financially?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Even though it wasn’t yours? Why should you feel any sense of responsibility when her lover didn’t? If anyone should feel in any way to blame for what happened, surely it should be on his conscience, not yours.’

  ‘Yes. I know all that,’ Lang said wearily. ‘The thing I can’t forgive myself for is that last night. I should have guessed from her desperation that something was seriously wrong… But I let her leave without even trying to find out what it was.’

  So that was his real hang-up.

  Her face white and set, Cassandra cried, ‘What if you had tried…? Do you imagine for one minute that she would have told you?

  ‘Instead of allowing emotions to get in the way, think about it logically. She’d taunted you with this fantastic lover of hers… Can you honestly believe she would have admitted that he’d abandoned her when she needed him most? Admitted why she’d tried to seduce you? Like hell she would! Her pride wouldn’t have let her!’

  Then, throwing any last shreds of caution to the wind, she said, ‘In my opinion it’s high time you saw it as it was and stopped wallowing in unnecessary guilt. High time you made an effort to put the whole thing behind you—’ Running out of breath, she came to an abrupt stop.

  He got to his feet and stood looking down at her, his face a taut mask, apart from a little tic at the corner of his mouth. ‘Well, well, well… Now I know exactly what it feels like to be taken by the scruff of the neck and shaken.’

  Suddenly losing her confidence, wishing she’d stayed silent, Cassand
ra stammered, ‘I—I’m sorry.’

  He smiled thinly. ‘It may turn out to be a very salutary experience… Though I’m not sure I take kindly to the word “wallowing”.’

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have said what I did,’ she began unhappily, ‘but I couldn’t bear to see you torturing yourself like that, and I…’

  Her apology tailed off as he turned his back and walked to the door. A moment later the latch clicked quietly behind him, leaving her bitterly regretting her scathing remarks, her attempt to shock him into a new awareness.

  By choosing the wrong tactics, she had totally alienated him. Now it was too late she could see that it wasn’t yet possible to shrug off the past. He was a strong man, but he’d been tried to the limit, and beyond, by the traumatic circumstances of his wife’s death.

  Sitting staring blindly into space, Cassandra thought about all she’d learnt. What he’d told her had made a lot of things clear, but it had left one very important question unanswered.

  How did she fit into the equation?

  With one unhappy marriage behind him, why had he embarked on a second that seemed to stand as little chance of success?

  She remembered how he had stressed the fact that she might be pregnant. Was he afraid of history repeating itself?

  No, it couldn’t be that. When he’d broached the subject she had told him unequivocally that she wouldn’t consider abortion.

  In any case, she reminded herself, the whole thing had all been carefully planned long before she’d slept with him. Perhaps he’d been speaking the exact truth when he’d called her an obsession.

  But obsessions died. If she was nothing more than that, why had he insisted on marriage rather than an affair?

  Sighing, Cassandra admitted that it made no more sense now than when she’d first thought it through.

  But there had to be a reason. Suppose—she felt her blood run cold—suppose it was some kind of role reversal? His first wife had made his life hell. Was he bitter enough to want to take it out on his second? Make her a whipping-boy for Nina?

  The notion had a weird kind of logic and, her breath caught in her throat, she began to tremble violently.

  It was a full minute before she could pull herself together enough to dismiss the crazy thought. That was the sort of thing you might read in a book, not the sort of thing that happened in real life.

  But truth could be stranger than fiction… She already had proof of that…

  No, she was being utterly ridiculous. Lang wasn’t some kind of monster, just a man who had been badly hurt and was still suffering.

  Her failure to help him had left her dismayed and utterly wretched. It grieved her to think he was still on the rack, mattered that she had let him down. If she had loved him it couldn’t have mattered more…

  How long she sat there, her thoughts going round and round like a squirrel in a cage, she was never sure. But, finally waking to the realization that it must be an hour or more since Lang had left, depressed and tired, stiff from remaining in one position, she went to bed.

  At two o’clock in the morning she was still tossing and turning restlessly, unable to sleep, when there was a faint sound from the outer room. A moment later the bedroom door quietly opened and closed.

  ‘Still awake?’ Lang’s voice was even.

  ‘Yes.’ She barely breathed the word.

  He came and sat on the edge of the bed. His thick blond hair was rumpled and his shirt open at the neck. The room was light enough for her to be able to see a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  ‘Lang, where have you been?’

  ‘Walking.’ His expression was calm and relaxed. As she gazed up at him, he took her hand and, lifting it to his lips, kissed the palm.

  She made a small sound between a sigh and a sob. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Just the opposite, in fact. It needed shock tactics to make me really listen.

  ‘I’d become so used to the idea that I could have altered things… But you were absolutely right. Even if I had asked Nina what was wrong, she would never have told me…’

  Putting a palm against Cassandra’s cheek, he added, ‘Now I’m convinced of that, I can stop thinking “if only” and start enjoying our honeymoon.’

  He looked like a man who had had a great weight lifted from his shoulders, and a corresponding weight lifted from hers.

  Smiling up at him, she asked softly, ‘How far did you walk?’

  ‘About twelve miles.’

  ‘Oh… I expect you’re tired?’

  ‘Not too tired.’ A gleam in his eye, he added, ‘I’ve always considered honeymoons were meant to be enjoyed to the full.’ Then, with wry self-mockery, he said, ‘Not to say wallowed in.’

  The following weeks were some of the happiest Cassandra had ever known. Determinedly pushing away all thoughts of the past, and worries about the future, she enjoyed every moment of their honeymoon.

  They went out and about, spending long sunny days travelling, and in a very short time Cassandra was fit and tanned and glowing, her ash-brown hair streaked with gold that Lang told her was like tangled sunshine.

  He himself was looking younger and happier and carefree. Seeing the change, Rob, who at their insistence had once or twice made up a threesome, was delighted, and said so.

  But though Cassandra’s days were full of pleasure she found herself waiting impatiently for the nights. Wonderful nights spent in Lang’s arms, sometimes just talking companionably, more often than not making long, delectable love.

  Lang called her darling, told her she was beautiful and exciting, warm and sweet and sexy, a delight to make love to, but the three words she hoped to hear were never spoken.

  When she discovered that she wasn’t pregnant, at first her feelings were mixed. Then she told herself firmly that it was just as well. Though the present held almost everything she could have hoped for, the future remained uncertain.

  It was almost the end of their honeymoon—Penny would be arriving the next day—and Cassandra was no nearer to solving the mystery of why Lang had coerced her into marrying him.

  During the preceding weeks she had resolutely banished the puzzle to the back of her mind, but it was always there, like a shadow lying in wait to ambush her whenever she relaxed her guard.

  Now, sitting on the penthouse terrace in the relative cool of late evening, waiting for Lang to finish a call and join her, it crept into her consciousness once more, bringing with it a sudden memory of Alan.

  She sighed, guiltily aware that she had never given him a thought. Poor Alan. Comparing him to Lang, she could see how narrow and joyless he’d been, a man with little warmth and no sense of humour.

  Recalling how close she’d been to marrying him, she shivered…

  ‘Something wrong?’

  She jumped almost guiltily. For so big a man, Lang moved lithely, quietly, and she hadn’t heard him coming.

  ‘No… No, of course not.’

  Dropping into the lounger beside her, he queried, ‘Then why were you looking like someone about to face the electric chair?’

  ‘I was just thinking,’ she said evasively.

  He picked it up immediately. ‘About what?’

  Unwilling to mention Alan, she hesitated.

  Lang’s mouth tightened ominously. ‘As you’re so reluctant to tell me, I can only presume you were thinking about Brent.’

  Her flush was answer enough.

  ‘What’s the matter, still missing him? Still wishing he was your husband? I must say you’ve done a good job of disguising the fact that his ghost shares our bed—’

  ‘It does nothing of the kind,’ she broke in desperately. ‘And far from missing him, or wishing he was my husband, I’ve never given him a thought until now. And if you want to know exactly what I was thinking, it was that with hindsight I can see just what a terrible mistake marrying him would have been. Trapped in a totally loveless—’

  ‘But it wouldn�
��t have been totally loveless,’ Lang broke in smoothly. ‘He might not have loved you, but you told me more than once that you loved him.’

  After a moment, she admitted, ‘I realize now that I was mistaken. I don’t think I ever really loved him.’ Incautiously, she added, ‘Perhaps what I did feel was a kind of gratitude…’

  Lang’s well-marked brows went up. ‘Gratitude? Why gratitude?’

  ‘It’s not easy to explain,’ she said weakly.

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Well, I—I felt safe with Alan. Though it was clear he was attracted, he didn’t put me under pressure or pose any threat…’

  ‘You mean sexually?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lang steepled his fingers and waited.

  She stumbled on, ‘I—I’d lost confidence. While I was still a student I had a rather traumatic experience that made me wary of men.’

  ‘Do go on,’ he said inexorably.

  ‘It’s not something I like to talk about. Can’t we just leave it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think we can.’ Lang disagreed softly. ‘It’s time you told me about Sean.’

  Her green eyes wide and startled, she asked, ‘How do you know about Sean?’

  ‘Surely you remember Brent mentioned him that night?’

  But not by name.

  As though reading her unspoken thought, Lang told her, ‘Later, when we were having a drink in the bar, he brought the subject up again. He hinted that your past might be far from spotless…’

  Cassandra felt a fleeting surprise. Though Alan had certainly been angry enough to want to blacken her, she wouldn’t have thought he was brave enough to chance annoying Lang by disparaging his new bride.

  But he must have been, otherwise how would Lang have known Sean’s name?

  With an edge to his voice that she hadn’t heard for weeks, Lang was continuing, ‘So if you’d like to start from the beginning and give me your version? Tell me how and when you and Sean got to know one another.’