The Flawed Marriage

by Penny Jordan

  Amber tried to withdraw, but it was too late. His eyes opened, darkening as they looked down at her bowed golden head and wary face, sensual awareness suddenly smouldering in their depths as he became aware of the softness of her breasts pressed against his chest.

  It was almost as though they were both enchanted by a magician’s spell. Neither of them spoke. Joel moved lazily, encircling her with his free arm to bind her to him, his lips at leisure to explore the vulnerable curve of her throat as he rolled on to his back supporting her slender weight, the pressure of his arms making it impossible for her to move even if she had wanted to do so.

  His kisses, at first languorous, became tormenting as his lips rested against her skin in brief caresses, returning time and again to her mouth with a feather-light touch that aroused a storm of need that ached through her, making her long for the passion she was too proud to institute. Her breasts, crushed against the muscle of his chest, seemed to swell and harden, a weak yielding sensation assaulting the pit of her stomach, her small, incoherent cry of protest silenced as Joel circled her lips with the tip of his tongue, tracing their delicate outline, sending stomach-churning waves of desire pulsating through her.

  Unknown to her her eyes, normally a clear gold, darkened to topaz, mirroring her emotional shock, shadowed with the intensity of what she was feeling. She heard Joel mutter something jerkily under his breath and the next moment she was lying beneath him with his weight pinning her to the bed, his hands holding her face still while his mouth closed over her own in a fierce hunger, igniting something elemental deep within her, and any other kisses she had known paled into insignificance as she yielded herself completely.

  Her breasts might have been made exclusively for the possession of his skilled fingers, so complete was their response to his touch, her small, flat stomach quivering with excited pleasure as her nightdress was completely removed, and she was free to experience the silken pliancy of her body against Joel’s male hardness.

  When at last he dragged his mouth from hers, they were both breathing raggedly, a dull flush colouring Joel’s cheekbones, his eyes glittering with desire, as he swept aside the bedclothes to gaze hungrily at her body, before anointing it with kisses that by no stretch of the imagination were those of an experienced man for a naïve girl, and Amber thrilled to the knowledge that his arousal was as great as hers—a fact borne out by the shaken groan dragged from his throat as his hand trembled against her breast and was replaced by the devouring heat of his lips, grazing the pale, creamy flesh, before claiming the erect nipple on a satisfied mutter. His cheek felt hot against her skin, perspiration dampening his flesh where she touched it, his hands leaving her body long enough to guide hers over the smooth male contours of his, to their mutual satisfaction.

  The culmination when it came was a sweet agony that carried her to the stars and left her floating among them while Joel possessed her mouth in a kiss of satisfied tenderness.

  She would have been content to lie in his arms for the rest of her life, but Joel, it seemed, had different ideas. Amber listened to him showering, blushing slightly when he walked back into the bedroom wearing nothing but the towel draped round his hips. She longed for him to say something, and as the silence stretched from seconds to minutes she began to worry that he was annoyed with her, that he blamed her for what had just happened.

  ‘Joel?’ She spoke his name hesitantly, hating the way he turned away, dragging a tense hand through his damp hair.

  ‘Leave it, Amber, will you,’ he said tersely. ‘We’ll talk later—okay? I’ve got to go in to Kendal.’

  He left just as the post van drew up outside. Amber took the mail, her heart thudding as she saw the airmail stamp and then the American stamps. She turned the letter over mechanically, noting the return address in California and the unfamiliar name. A giant hand seemed to have clenched round her heart. Was the letter from Teri?

  It seemed a lifetime before Joel returned. He came in while she was giving Paul his tea, and so great was her concern over the letter that it was several seconds before she remembered how they had parted that morning, painful colour washing over her face as she bent assiduously towards Paul, avoiding Joel’s eyes as she tried to coax the small boy to eat another slice of bread.

  There was the inevitable delay before they could talk when Paul chattered eagerly to his father, insisting that both of them assisted at his bath, and Amber found herself dreading the eventual moment when they would be alone. What was Joel going to say? Despite their mutual passion of the morning—or maybe because of it—she knew that Joel wasn’t about to make a declaration of love to her. There had been ample opportunity for that when he held her in his arms, and something seemed to shrivel and die a little inside her as she tried to visualise what had happened from his viewpoint. He was a man first and foremost, and quite obviously an intensely sensual one, but he was also a man of compassion with his own personal moral code; and Amber strongly suspected that what had happened between them this morning had infringed that code. Knowing that she had been more than half to blame only increased her feeling of dread, and when Joel said expressionlessly,

  ‘Can you spare me half an hour downstairs in the study?’ she knew a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach which no amount of carefully cultivated optimism could banish.

  He was waiting for her when she opened the door, a glass in his hand. She had never seen him drinking alone before, and somehow the glass of pale amber liquid seemed to reinforce all her doubts.

  On her way downstairs she had suddenly remembered the letter, wondering how on earth she had managed to overlook it before. She had collected it from the kitchen and paused with it in the door, stealing a few brief moments’ contemplation of Joel’s long straight back, before some sixth sense alerted him to her presence and he pivoted round abruptly, motioning her to one of the chairs.

  As she subsided into it still clutching the letter he turned back to the window, frowning.

  ‘Amber, about this morning…’ He paused, and she held her breath, praying that everything would be all right.

  ‘It should never have happened,’ he told her bluntly, ‘and if I hadn’t been half asleep and in full control of my faculties it wouldn’t have done.’

  Her face crimsoned as she remembered the kisses she had placed against his skin while he slept.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she began miserably, but Joel waved her protests aside.

  ‘It can’t go on, Amber,’ he told her curtly. ‘Take it from me, in the end it will only lead to problems for us both. I thought I could handle the situation.’ He raked a hand through his hair and glanced wryly at her. ‘I’d forgotten nature’s disconcerting way of asserting herself.’

  Again colour washed Amber’s face, and she bit her lip, thinking he must be referring to the abandoned way she had responded to him.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m doing the decent thing and releasing you from our arrangement.’

  ‘But what about Paul?’ Amber protested, longing to tell him how much she longed to make their arrangement permanent.

  ‘I just don’t know. I’ll think of something. I can’t in all decency keep you here now, Amber. It would be different if you…’ He broke off to pour himself another drink. If she what? Amber wondered. If she was more sophisticated, more likely to treat the whole thing casually.

  ‘This came today,’ she told him, proffering the letter.

  He glanced at the handwriting, frowned, and then ripped the envelope open, extracting several sheets of paper and reading them quickly.

  ‘Damn!’ he swore explosively when he reached the end.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Teri’s father’s had a heart attack—not fatal, fortunately, but her mother has asked me to take Paul over there for a holiday, reminding me that Paul is their grandchild, and they don’t see much of him.’

  ‘You’ll go?’ Amber questioned.

  ‘I don’t see how I can refuse.’ H
e frowned again, avoiding her eyes as he stared out across the garden. ‘I’ve no right to ask you this after what happened this morning, Amber, but would you come with me? I have a feeling that Teri’s parents will do all they can to persuade me to give up Paul, and while I feel that I can’t refuse to visit them, I need you there with me,’ he said frankly, ‘as blanket protection.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come.’

  ‘Somehow I thought you’d say that,’ Joel remarked sardonically, turning to examine her flushed face. ‘Have you no sense of self-preservation? Most girls would have run a mile after this morning. This time I’m not going to give you my word that it won’t happen again—I can’t. You’re a very desirable young woman and I’m only human, heaven help me! God, what a mess!’

  It was the first time Amber had seen him defeated, and she was overwhelmed with a longing to go to him and comfort him.

  ‘Perhaps Teri’s parents will give us separate rooms,’ she suggested. ‘After all…’

  ‘They won’t like the thought of another woman sleeping with their daughter’s ex-husband? Don’t kid yourself. They’re realists. Teri used to take her boy-friends home with her regularly. I remember after we were married they told me how amazed they’d been the first time I went home with her and insisted on booking into the local motel. I hadn’t known her long then, but when I did I was amazed, until I realised that for Teri sex was simply a game, and like chess, you won more when you used your brain rather than your emotions.’

  There was a wealth of bitterness in the words, and Amber wondered a little about what his marriage must have been.

  ‘Did you love her very much?’ she asked timidly, regretting the question the moment it was uttered. It was a crude invasion of his privacy and would have been better left unsaid.

  ‘I certainly desired her very much,’ Joel drawled mockingly, watching the colour mount in her cheeks. ‘At least at first. Love is for fools,’ he told her curtly, ‘or little girls like you, who persist in clinging to outdated myths. As you’ve now discovered, love and sexual desire don’t always equate to the same thing; you love the man who walked out on you, but there was desire between us this morning, Amber, you can’t deny that.’

  ‘Who says I want to?’ she asked in shaky tones, not knowing whether to be sorry or relieved that he believed her to be in love with Rob still.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Joel said softly. ‘You’d rather believe that desire only comes with love, but I had to teach you different, didn’t I? Amber, are you sure you want to go on with this?’ he added, seriously. ‘I’m offering you one more chance to bring our arrangement to an end, but I warn you, if you refuse this time, you won’t get another chance. I’ll have you on the plane to California so fast, you won’t have time to get your breath. Teri’s parents are very attached to Paul, and it’s just occurred to me that when they see how fond he is of you, how he’s blossomed out, they might persuade Teri to drop this idea of regaining custody. They aren’t doting parents by any stretch of the imagination. In fact they advised me not to marry Teri. They thought she was too immature for marriage, too selfish.’

  ‘I don’t want to back out,’ Amber told him, adding bravely, avoiding his eyes, ‘and anyway, perhaps now we’re both aware of the… situation… we’ll be able to take more effective evasive action.’ She said it lightly, all the time her heart rebelling violently against the denial of her desire to be close to him.

  In answer Joel walked over to her, placing his hands on her shoulders and lightly kissing the tip of her nose.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said softly. ‘I’m no saint, but I promise I’ll do my best.’

  That night was the second they spent apart. Amber woke up to find herself alone in the double bed, and thought longingly of how it had been the previous day. From now on she would have to put a stringent guard on her emotions.

  They flew to New York at the end of the week, spent a few days in the bustling city seeing the sights and then set off on the second leg of their journey to California.

  The heat that met them as they left the aircraft made Amber feel quite faint. She was wearing the warm separates she had worn in New York, but here in California they made her feel overdressed and dull.

  Everywhere she looked were young and beautiful girls, vibrant and full of life, wearing brief resort-type clothes. Joel seemed oblivious to the frankly assessing looks he drew as they passed through the barrier and into the main arrivals hall of the large airport.

  Teri’s parents had come to meet them, and Amber felt her courage dwindling away as Joel started to search the thronging crowd for them.

  ‘There they are!’ Paul exclaimed, spotting his grandparents before his father, and tugging impatiently on his sleeve. Unlike Amber, Joel seemed to be dressed perfectly suitably for the hot climate, his black jeans and thin shirt entirely in keeping with what other men were wearing.

  Teri’s mother greeted them first; a slim elegant brunette dressed in beautifully tailored white trousers which drew attention to her still slender body, and a cobalt blue shirt.

  ‘So this is Amber!’ She hugged Amber warmly, and then examined her. ‘Paul wrote to us about you. He said you were very beautiful.’

  ‘Children see things differently from adults,’ Amber murmured, flushing, as she saw herself with Edie Haines’ eyes. Of course she was not beautiful; and somehow she sensed that Teri would have been and that her mother was quite naturally comparing Joel’s second wife to his first.

  ‘Joel darling!’ She turned to embrace her ex-son-in-law, leaving Paul to introduce Amber to his grandfather.

  Like his wife he looked fit and bronzed, in spite of his recent heart attack, and like her he was expensively dressed in sports casuals, his white hair immaculately groomed, only the grooves running from nose to chin alongside his mouth betraying the pain he must have endured.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t been well,’ Amber told him sincerely.

  ‘Yeah, but I was lucky—a warning—this time. And how’s my boy?’ he asked Paul, grinning at the young boy. ‘Gonna take me fishing?’

  There was obviously a good rapport between Paul and his grandparents, but Amber could sense tension in the air when the five of them were in the Haines’ car, speeding down the freeway in the direction of their house, which was apparently several miles outside the legendary film city of Hollywood.

  It came as a slight shock to Amber to realise that Teri’s parents must be comparatively well off. When Joel had talked about Teri being avaricious she had assumed this greed stemmed from a childhood deprived of material benefits, but some explanation was forthcoming when Lee Haines told her that until they had inherited some money from a distant relative quite recently, they had lived in much more modest circumstances than they now enjoyed.

  ‘Spend it while you got it, that’s my motto now,’ he chuckled. ‘What do you say, Amber?’

  Both Teri’s parents had studiously avoided either looking at or mentioning her leg, although she had noticed how quick they had been to praise Paul’s progress, and she wondered again if they were comparing her with Teri and wondering what on earth Joel saw in her.

  It was pointless inflicting such pain upon herself, she told herself; she wasn’t Teri, and she wasn’t beautiful, but she was grateful for the tact with which the other woman’s parents avoided any direct references to her.

  It was good that both they and Joel had felt able to continue with what was obviously a mutually pleasant relationship after the break-up of Teri and Joel’s marriage, and Amber admired the trio for doing so, especially when she saw how naturally Paul chattered away to his grandparents; whatever the problems with his mother, it was obvious that the small boy felt no such reservations with her parents.

  The house was set in the hills above the coast; set in beautifully manicured lawns and approached by a sweeping gravel drive. The house itself gleamed pristine white in the brilliant sunshine and was built into the hillside on two levels.

  ‘You can ju
st about see the ocean from the bedroom windows,’ Edie Haines told her as the car came to a halt. ‘That was one of the reasons we bought the house—the views, and its tranquil setting. Teri wanted us to get somewhere closer to Bel Air, but we told her, what do we need with cities at our time of life?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how peaceful it can be around here,’ Lee Haines chipped in as they got out of the car, and Joel got their cases. ‘Why, only the other morning, I was watching the ridge with my glasses and I saw a bald eagle—quite a rarity in these parts.’

  ‘Can I see it, Gramps?’ Paul demanded, his eyes wide. ‘Tom’s been teaching me all about birds and things.’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘A young man who’s been staying at the village,’ Joel explained. ‘He’s a schoolteacher. Have we got everything?’ he asked Amber.

  The hallway of the house was cool and shaded; blinds were drawn over the windows, the walls painted stark white to offset the richness of the Mexican tiled floor and rugs. Traditional Mexican furniture emphasised the South American atmosphere of the house, which, Edie explained as she led the way upstairs, was a copy only slightly scaled down of a typical Mexican hacienda.

  A beautifully polished staircase led upwards to a galleried landing, again covered with an intricately woven rug, this time Navajo, so Edie told her.

  ‘We’ve only got the four bedrooms,’ she added, ‘but luckily two of them have their own bathroom, so it isn’t too bad. You’ll be the first to use our guest room,’ she added. ‘It’s only just been decorated, I hope you like it.’

  Amber did, very much. It was a dream in soft peaches and greens with matching cane furniture and a breathtaking view which included, as Edie had promised, the ocean.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Amber told her simply. How very kind Teri’s mother was, assuring her tactfully like that that Teri and Joel had never shared this bed; this room.