A Whirlwind Marriage

by Helen Brooks

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she shot back furiously. It was the last thing, the very last thing, she needed to hear.

  He made no apology, his face even more belligerent as he scowled ferociously at an inoffensive couple who had been laughing as, arm in arm, they approached them. The laughter stopped and the young couple sidled past, the man putting his arm more protectively round his girlfriend and keeping his eyes warily on Zeke’s dark face until they were well clear.

  ‘Your father is in the car.’

  ‘What?’

  The icy eyes narrowed but his voice was silky as he repeated, with elaborate and insulting patience, ‘Your father is in the car.’

  ‘You’ve brought my father here?’ she hissed angrily. ‘That’s despicable, absolutely despicable, and you know it.’

  “‘Despicable” is not a word I’d choose when someone is trying to allay another person’s worry about the daughter they love,’ he said with sickening self-righteousness.

  ‘Oh, isn’t it?’ She eyed him furiously, her blue eyes sparking and her face flushed. ‘You brought him here so he could add his weight to yours and persuade me to go back to the apartment. Admit it!’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said with cool indifference.

  ‘Liar.’ He didn’t like that, and so she repeated it for good measure before going on to say, ‘Have you told him about Liliana?’

  ‘I’ve told him what you have accused me of and I’ve also made it plain it’s totally without foundation,’ Zeke said coldly, his eyes glittering.

  ‘I just bet you have,’ she agreed bitterly. ‘And of course he believed you.’ She had heard Zeke too often in the past not to know he was capable of making anyone believe black was white when he put his mind to it. But not her. Not any more.

  ‘Your father can recognise truth when he hears it, which is another reason he is here tonight,’ Zeke said a trifle cryptically.

  ‘What do you mean?’ There had been something there she didn’t understand. ‘If you think you can get my father to induce me to accept what I don’t believe, you’re wrong, Zeke,’ she warned heatedly. ‘You’ll just upset him, that’s all. I love him, very much, but I won’t perjure myself for him or you. This is too big for me not to be honest. It’s also between you and me,’ she added resentfully. ‘You had no right to try and use him to get to me. I didn’t think even you would stoop so low.’

  ‘You’ve turned into quite a shrew, haven’t you?’ he mused thoughtfully, his breath a white cloud in the icy air. ‘If this is what living by yourself does in two weeks I’d say it’s even more reason to come home.’

  ‘The apartment has never been my home; I’ve told you that.’

  ‘And you’re happy to let the Bedlows’ place go?’ He always knew how to go for the jugular. ‘Your sketches and colour schemes were spot-on, by the way.’

  She wasn’t falling for that one, Marianne thought angrily. He could use his charm on someone else! ‘Perhaps you should have employed me instead of Liliana?’ she suggested with an acid smile. ‘It would have saved the company a lot of money and you a lot of trouble in the long run.’

  ‘Perhaps I should have,’ he agreed softly.

  She stared at him, aware that Zeke was never so dangerous as when he was being inscrutable. Like now. Marianne decided to change the subject. ‘Where’s the car?’

  ‘Round the next corner.’ He smiled a shark smile. ‘I thought it only fair to give you a chance to compose yourself before you saw your father.’

  ‘You really do think of everything,’ she acknowledged with withering coolness. ‘Although you made a little mistake with regard to Stoke. It wasn’t quite far enough away to keep everything under wraps, was it?’

  ‘Marianne, if I had been entertaining a mistress, as you seem so determined to believe, I wouldn’t have made any mistakes,’ he returned smoothly, the street lamp picking up the shining jet of his hair.

  She tossed her head, terribly aware of her own bedraggled locks and the fact that she was minus a scrap of make-up, and began to walk with as much dignity as she could muster.

  ‘Ahem.’

  She turned back, eyebrows raised enquiringly, to see Zeke looking at her with an expressionless face as he pointed down the street in the opposite direction from which she was walking. ‘I don’t believe I said which corner,’ he said evenly, with a flatness that told her he was trying not to laugh.

  Zeke had two cars besides the company car—a Mercedes—and the helicopter which he used frequently, and when Marianne turned the corner she saw it was his white BMW that was waiting patiently a few yards away.

  Her father had been sitting in the front seat, but he’d obviously been using the mirrors because he was out of the car in an instant, reaching her in a couple of strides and lifting her off her feet in a bear hug which spoke volumes about how concerned he’d been.

  Marianne immediately felt guilty—both on her father’s account and also because she realised Zeke had been speaking the truth when he’d said her father needed to see her and make sure she was all right. Not that she didn’t think Zeke had an ulterior motive for his altruism, she assured herself silently. Zeke was always playing some game of his own, whatever else he liked people to think. She might not have known her husband as she’d thought she did, but there were certain aspects of his character that were blindingly clear!

  ‘Zeke’s taking us out for dinner.’

  They had been holding each other very tightly without speaking, and when her father drew back a little and looked into her face she saw his eyes were wet. Which made her feel such a heel that she didn’t object to his statement, although she wanted to. What Marianne did say was, ‘I’ll have to change first and freshen up. It’s…it’s been a hectic day; someone was ill.’

  ‘No problem.’ Zeke had been standing to one side, his smoky grey eyes trained on her face during the reunion, and now his voice was clipped and cool as he said, ‘We can wait until you’re ready.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘Hey.’ Her father caught hold of her arm as she made to dart away, smiling at her before he tucked it through his, saying, ‘Aren’t you going to show me where you’re living?’

  Oh, hell. It was a catch-22 scenario. If she took her father back to the bedsit Zeke would have to come, too, and she didn’t want him to see the shabby, run-down conditions in which she was living. But if she refused to let her father accompany her he would be bound to think the conditions were even worse than they were, or that she had something to hide, or— Oh, a host of things. She was between the devil and the deep blue sea.

  ‘Later, perhaps?’ She forced a smile. ‘It’s just a bedsit, Dad. One room, and I need to change.’

  ‘We’ll come out and wait in the car while you change.’ Zeke actually had the gall to take her other arm as he spoke and now Marianne found herself being escorted along the pavement with the two men either side of her.

  Everything in her wanted to jerk her arm free of Zeke’s and say something very rude to put him in his place—whatever that was—but, conscious of her father and the emotional greeting he’d given her, she tried to ignore the anger spreading through her and keep any trace of it out of her voice. ‘It’s not very attractive,’ she said quickly as they neared the house, ‘but it’s cosy and cheap and it will do until I find something better.’ She didn’t think it was the time to mention that that wouldn’t be for years.

  Her father glanced at her, and as she met his gentle eyes she read in them that he was aching to advise her to go back to her husband. But, to give him his due, Josh Kirby held his tongue on the matter, merely murmuring, ‘I’m sure it’s very nice, Annie.’

  Zeke said nothing, but his cynical profile—as she risked a quick glance at him from under her lashes—said volumes.

  Marianne could feel her heart thudding against her ribcage as she unlocked the street door, and as she led the way up the stairs towards the bedsit’s front door there were a thousand emotions tearing at her. But when she inse
rted the key into the lock and swung the door wide before clicking on the light she raised her head high.

  She walked across the room and closed the curtains, which, courtesy of Mrs Polinkski’s iron, were now creaseless, and she blessed the fact that a couple of days before she had bought a woven linen throw in burnt orange for the sofa, obtained from the charity shop at a fraction of the price it was worth. Nevertheless, no number of throws or bright clean curtains could disguise the overall meanness of the surroundings, and Marianne took a long deep breath before she turned round.

  Her father looked shocked—there was no other word for it—and Zeke had his blank face on. Their combined silent censure brought her chin up another notch or two as she faced the two men.

  She knew her father wouldn’t say anything hurtful but she was preparing herself for one of the biting, caustic comments Zeke did so well. But it didn’t come. Instead he slowly met her eyes, and she found the expression in the smoky grey depths brought her hand to her throat as he said quietly, with a vulnerability she hadn’t thought him capable of, ‘You would rather live here, like this, than have to live with me again.’ And it was a statement, not a question.

  She couldn’t drag her gaze away from his stricken eyes, although she wanted to, and it was only her father—clearing his throat and speaking gruffly into the taut silence—who brought things back to a more normal footing as he said, ‘We’ll wait in the car, then, Annie.’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right.’ She wanted to cry, she wanted to cry so much, but she managed to keep a check on her feelings until the door had closed behind them and she was alone. And then the tears came, hot, burning, desolate tears, even as she told herself that she mustn’t cry—they would be sure to notice and that would be the final humiliation.

  She pulled herself together fairly quickly. She could cry tonight, and all the other nights, but for now she had to get through this evening with a modicum of dignity. What had just happened—it didn’t alter the facts. He had taken Liliana to Stoke with him; they had been going out to dinner when he had called her. And that man, Liliana’s boyfriend, he had been very specific as to the manner of Zeke and Liliana’s liaison. And Zeke hadn’t been compelled to employ the stunning redhead, especially knowing how Liliana felt about him. It had been asking for trouble, and Zeke Buchanan wasn’t a naive teenager who didn’t know the ways of the world. He had deliberately chosen to play with fire and it had burnt both of them.

  Thoughts were swirling around in her head as she hastily splashed cold water over her face and whipped off her creased work clothes, only to come to an abrupt halt as she opened the wardrobe and surveyed the meagre array of clothes inside.

  She had absolutely nothing which was suitable to go out to dinner in. The clothes she had purchased in recent days had been bought purely for their suitability for working at the supermarket, and were functional at best.

  Her eyes alighted on the dress she had been wearing when she had left the apartment, a beautiful long-sleeved cashmere in chocolate-brown, and then moved to the jumper and skirt she’d thrown in the overnight case. They were expensive, and they looked it, but they belonged to her old life. She had only kept them because it seemed ridiculous to get rid of them until she’d purchased a few more bits and pieces.

  Her hand reached out to the cashmere before falling to her side. Somehow, and she couldn’t explain it even to herself, let alone anyone else, it would seem like a betrayal of everything the last miserable, lonely two weeks had stood for if she put on clothes Zeke had bought for her.

  She hadn’t asked to be taken out to dinner tonight, and if Zeke was ashamed of how she looked then that was his misfortune, she told herself stoutly. She wasn’t the long-suffering, obedient little wife any more, who couldn’t say boo to a goose, neither was she a sleek, exquisite, designer-dressed Liliana de Giraud.

  She had been wearing a pair of old jeans and a skimpy, much washed little top that summer’s day when she had first seen Zeke, she remembered flatly. Her hair had been loose in silky disarray and her only jewellery had been large silver hoops in her ears. Where had that carefree, happy-go-lucky girl gone?

  She looked again at her wardrobe, and then her mouth lifted slightly at the corners. She knew what she was going to wear now.

  The BMW was parked outside the house when Marianne exited ten minutes later, and Zeke leant across from the driver’s side and opened the front passenger door for her. She slid into the front seat, turning briefly to smile at her father, and then said calmly—as though her stomach wasn’t turning over and over— ‘Where are we going to eat?’

  ‘Salamanders,’ Zeke said shortly.

  Thank you—oh, thank, God, she prayed fervently. She had been worried he was going to say Rochelle’s, and the jeans she had bought for weekends and the waist-length bubblegum-pink cardigan—another acquisition from the shop below that she had spied the previous Saturday and leapt on as soon as the shop had opened—were definitely not Rochelle material. Salamanders… Yes, Salamanders encouraged their clientele to be different. She could pass for capricious at Salamanders and it would be to her credit.

  Salamanders was the restaurant of the moment, and when Zeke drew up outside its relatively innocuous portals and a doorman leapt to take care of the car, she gave a secret nod of acquiescence to the little voice in her head that said, You’re back in his world now, even if it is only for one evening.

  Well, yes, she might be, she agreed silently, but this time she was going to make darn sure it was on her terms.

  She had fixed her hair in a cute 60s ponytail on the side of her head, her make-up was discreet but flattering, and as she walked into the restaurant on the arms of her father and her husband she knew she looked good. She might not look like a millionaire businessman’s wife, or the latest designer clothes-horse, but she looked good. As she wanted to look, like the person she was inside.

  Their table was waiting for them—Zeke would have expected nothing less—and as Marianne followed Zeke, her father making up the rear, her eyes suddenly become riveted on the woman the waiter was walking towards. It couldn’t be! He wouldn’t have! She kept on walking but her mind was screaming a warning. How could he? How could he do this? Surely her father hadn’t agreed to this?

  ‘Zeke, darling.’ As they reached the table Liliana’s heavily made-up eyes flicked over Marianne and her father, and Marianne realised the lovely redhead was as taken aback as she was. ‘We’re going to have a little party! How lovely.’

  ‘I thought so.’ Zeke inclined his head towards Liliana’s table companion as he turned to Marianne and Josh and said coolly, ‘Marianne, you know Liliana, but not her brother, I think? Josh, may I introduce you to Liliana and Claude de Giraud?’

  ‘Good evening.’ Josh was nothing if not a gentleman, but Marianne could tell he had recognised the name as the third corner in his daughter’s particular little triangle, and also that he didn’t appreciate her being put in such a position. The look he bestowed on Zeke was piercing, and it was not amiable.

  ‘Trust me.’ Zeke answered the beetling eyebrows quietly, his voice flat but holding a message Marianne didn’t understand.

  ‘This had better be good, Zeke.’ For once Josh was not his easygoing self. ‘I believed you were genuine when you said you had Marianne’s best interests at heart.’

  Josh’s voice was too low for the two sitting at the table to hear, but her father had drawn Marianne to him with a protective arm and she heard every word. She didn’t know what to do or think. If her father hadn’t been there to give her moral support she had to admit she would have probably turned tail and run—despite the satisfaction that would have given the beautiful redhead. As it was, she forced herself to smile politely and incline her head just the slightest as she said, ‘Liliana, Claude, good evening.’

  Once they were seated there was a split second of screaming silence before Zeke said, ‘A cocktail, I think, before we order?’

  Marianne eyed him balefully. If he wasn’t too ca
reful he might find one particular cocktail ended up all over his dark, adulterous head, she thought viciously. ‘Lovely.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘I’ll have a Pink Slammer, to match my top.’

  She had been aware of Liliana’s eyes on the jeans and cardigan, and it didn’t need an expert in psychology to work out Liliana was doing her sums. Marianne had decided attack was the best defence.

  Liliana was dressed to kill in a black slinky number that fitted where it touched, with a hairstyle that must have taken her hairdresser hours. Her brother was equally expensively dressed, his suit clearly handmade and his shirt and tie in raw silk.

  ‘What a darling idea!’ Liliana seemed to have recovered her poise, her ice-blue eyes deadly as she allowed her gaze to rest on Marianne’s jeans for one moment before she said, with a little tinkling laugh, ‘A Black Widow for me, sweetie.’

  The waiter was at their elbow taking orders in the next instant, and it was a second or two before he moved away and Liliana said, resting a red-taloned hand on Zeke’s arm as the opaque gaze flicked round the table, ‘It was just so sweet of you to invite Claude and I along tonight, darling, but what’s the occasion?’

  ‘I rather thought you could provide the answer to that, Liliana. You and Claude, of course.’ Zeke’s voice was silky-soft but Marianne glanced at him sharply. She knew that tone; she’d heard it once before, in the early days of their marriage, when they had been sitting in the garden of a riverside pub and some youths—aged fifteen or sixteen, certainly old enough to know better—had thought it good fun to throw stones at a swan and her signets.

  They had been seven to Zeke’s one but he hadn’t had to swing a punch. The look in his eyes and the tone of his voice had had the bunch of yobbos all but crawling in the dirt in front of him.

  Liliana wasn’t exactly crawling in the dirt, but she was intelligent enough to know that all was not well. The hand was removed from his arm and she settled back in her chair, glancing round the table once more before she said, ‘I don’t understand?’