Lovers Not Friends

by Helen Brooks

  She stared up at him, incapable of speech.

  ‘But you couldn’t trust me.’ He took a long deep breath. ‘Why?’

  ‘It wasn’t that—’

  ‘The hell it wasn’t.’ He wasn’t shouting, but the pain in his voice was more agonising than any rage. ‘You ran away, you didn’t give me a chance, and you faced this thing all on your own. You shut me out, Amy …’

  ‘But the flowers,’ she whispered slowly. ‘It wasn’t fair to ask you to accept this when you felt that way. I didn’t want you to pity me, I didn’t want to disgust you—’

  ‘What other world have you been in?’ he asked tautly. ‘How can you even think for one minute …’ He pulled her to him with such violent suddenness that her hair flew out behind her in a golden arc, and then his mouth descended on hers for one blindingly sweet moment before he put her away from him again. ‘We have to talk.’ He eyed her tensely. ‘And this time I want everything. But first—’ he sat her down in a chair and moved to kneel in front of her, his eyes holding hers with such gentleness that she began to cry without even knowing it ‘—first I must tell you how it is, my darling. I love you. I love you more than anything or anyone and I always will. If this disease takes you, if we can’t find a cure—’ she moved to speak but he put his hand to her mouth ‘—then I’ll die too. Oh, I might go on living for another ten, twenty, thirty years but I’ll be dead. And if you left me now that’s how it would be.’

  ‘You’d get over me—’

  ‘As you would me?’ That thought had never occurred to her and she stared at him horror-stricken. ‘Well, would you, could you?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered faintly.

  ‘But I am supposed to recover?’ There was a faint touch of anger in his voice that he was trying to control. ‘Why? Because I’m a man? Or because you don’t think I really love you?’

  ‘I know you love me,’ she said weakly, her chest aching as though she had been punched hard time and time again. ‘But to ask you to face this when you don’t have to—’

  ‘The hell I don’t.’ He stared at her as though she were mad. ‘Where are you coming from, sweetheart? From the first day I met you you became my life. You are me, Amy, don’t you see? A part of me. We aren’t two people any more. I can’t separate myself from the tiniest thing that concerns you. I breathe you, sleep you …’ His voice was a groan now, and she felt the blood racing through her veins as the tears ran unheeded down her face. ‘You’re my other half, the female part of me. You know how I think, what I feel—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Or I thought you did. Maybe I went too fast too soon. I hadn’t allowed for just how deep all the old insecurities had bitten. And what the hell have flowers to do with any of this?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘At home,’ she whispered, her lip trembling helplessly. ‘You had to have them perfect, without blemish. You didn’t like decay, you told me so,’ she finished desperately as all the old dread reared its head again. ‘New ones all the time—’

  ‘Amy, those are flowers.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘What on earth had my idiosyncrasy about the damn flowers got to do with anything?’

  ‘But I thought—’ she couldn’t bear to look at him and shut her eyes tightly ‘—I thought you would find it too hard to cope with seeing me slowly get ill. Sandra said—’

  ‘Sandra?’ He eyed her darkly as he forced her chin up, her eyes opening to meet his. ‘I might have known. What has your damn sister got to do with this?’

  ‘She’s …’ She took a deep breath and started again. ‘You don’t understand, Blade. She’s ill. Terribly ill. As I’ll be in a few years’ time when I reach her age. She said I’ll be a millstone round your neck and she’s right. You have your own life to live—’

  ‘I’ve never heard such callous rubbish in my life,’ he said furiously, his voice low and tight. ‘I can’t believe you really accepted that line of reasoning. What the hell happened to our relationship, the trust, the promise to love in sickness and in health? You think I value you like the damn flowers? Is that it? That I’d simply replace you with a fresh substitute and carry on as normal? Is that really all you think of me?’

  She stared at him blindly. Had she thought that? No, not really, not at the very bottom of her, she realised now.

  ‘I love you, Amy.’ He took her in his arms again and stood silently as they swayed slowly back and forth in an agony of grief. ‘I’ll always love you whether we’re together or apart. When you’re not with me the world is grey, empty. Damn it!’ His arms closed tighter until she could hardly breathe. ‘Of course I think you’re beautiful because you are, but that’s only a tiny part of it. I love you, the person under the skin and hair and bones. I love your strength of mind, your honesty, your sense of humour, all the things that make you you. If you had an accident tomorrow and were horribly disfigured or hurt, of course I’d care, I’d care like hell, but not in the way you seem to think. It would hurt me because it hurt you, but we’d face it together. Now you are going to sit down and tell me it all, from the beginning, starting with the day I left on that France trip.’

  ‘Are you sure you really want to know?’ she asked tremulously as he pulled her down on to his lap as he sat in the chair. ‘Everything is cut and dried; there’s no chance of a reprieve or that it’s curable. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave—’

  ‘Well, I’d sure blame you,’ he said grimly. ‘You’re mine, Amy, and I’m yours. I have the right to expect everything from you that I wouldn’t even want from anyone else, love, fidelity, the whole caboodle—’

  ‘And there’ll be no family, no children,’ she said quietly, as she felt something begin to rise in her, a flood of pain and joy and anguish that constricted her chest in a tight band. ‘It’s hereditary, you see, in baby girls. I couldn’t risk—’

  ‘You’re my family,’ he said softly, his eyes gentle. ‘I told you that when we were first married when I explained about Mom and my father and Todd. If it’s just you, and no kids, then I’ll take that and be damn grateful—’

  As the flood finally tore out of her she shook them both with her sobs, the months of heartache and loneliness and black terror escaping from her eyes and nose and mouth in a torrent of weeping that filled the small room with its agony, and he was wise enough to let her cry for long, long minutes as he held her close to his heart.

  And later, as they talked, he still held her close as though he would never be able to make up for all those lost days and nights when they could have been together. She told him it all and the sun was finally rising in the small copse behind the house before she had finished.

  And then they went to bed, to love and touch and feel until that same sun was a high golden ball in the flawless blue of the sky and the sunlight flooded rich and bright into the tiny bedroom where she lay wrapped in his arms as they both slept.

  And much later, as evening shadows coloured the room a soft grey, he explained about the flowers, his voice painful and taut. ‘My father never brought flowers or any little gift to Mom while he was alive. Todd and I used to pick bunches of wild lilies and buttercups on our way home from school sometimes, and her face used to light up. She’d keep them until they were dead and faded before she could bear to throw them out. And later, when I had left home, I sent her a bouquet every week no matter where I was.’ He stopped, his face constricting, and she hugged his bare chest tight as she gazed up into his face dark with memories.

  ‘Don’t go on, Blade, I don’t care about the flowers—’

  ‘No, I want to.’ He glanced down at her lying by his side and smiled gently. ‘I should have told you months ago but I still find it hard to talk about. I found her, you see. I’d called in on a flying visit for the weekend and she must have died the previous day, a heart attack, the post-mortem revealed. There were bouquets all around the room, old and dead and faded, with all the little cards in a pile. When I visited I never went in the bedroom and that’s where she’d kept them, hordes of them.’ He shook his head
slowly. ‘The sight of all those dead flowers with her lying there did something to me I’ll never forget. And she looked so peaceful, even happy. The ultimate irony.’

  ‘They must have given her a lot of joy,’ Amy said softly as the picture he painted rent her heart.

  ‘Yes, I suppose they did.’ He wrinkled his brow as he moved restlessly. ‘I never looked at it like that before. It just seemed so sad, such a waste of a life.’

  ‘It just depends how you look at it,’ she said quietly.

  ‘So do lots of things.’ He stroked the soft silk of her hair thoughtfully. ‘Can we go home now? At last?’

  ‘But Mrs Cox—’

  ‘Has been in residence for the last twenty-four hours.’ He looked down at her expressionlessly. ‘That was what I had come to tell you last night. Arthur was going to ring her after we’d left and explain you were with me.’

  ‘You never said.’ She wriggled slightly in his arms. ‘I could have gone back there last night.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ he said grimly. ‘I had the sense to realise I wouldn’t get another chance like that one to get to the bottom of things.’

  ‘You took advantage of a situation like that?’ she began indignantly, even as a small smile touched her mouth.

  ‘Too true.’ The dark deep voice held no remorse whatsoever. ‘I was getting desperate. And now you’re coming home, Mrs Forbes, where you belong. But first …’

  This time he made love to her slowly, lingeringly, his eyes hot with passion and his big masculine body hard and commanding. She trembled at the feel of his skin next to hers, warm and pulsating, at the fierce need his mouth and hands were drawing from her quivering form. ‘I could eat you alive …’ His voice was a dark growl of passion. ‘How could you have stopped me doing this for so long?’ She tried to answer, to offer some solace, but in a few seconds no words were necessary as she melted into the exquisite fire that was consuming them both.

  His mouth was flagrantly erotic, coaxing her on and on into new intimacies that she met eagerly, wantonly, her whole being concentrating wholly on the delicious sensations that had her trembling helplessly in his arms. The past, the future, counted as nothing. All that was real was Blade. Just Blade.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY had been home for three days when Blade had to leave on a trip he explained it was impossible to postpone. Their time together had been bittersweet, each moment intense and precious and threaded through with the knowledge that they had to compress a whole lifetime of loving into just a few short years.

  Amy was sitting quietly in the garden in the evening shadows, the hub of London life barely reaching into the protected opulent grounds surrounding Blade’s beautiful mansion except for the odd faint scream of a police siren now and again rising above the muted drone of the world outside. The thick warm air was heavy against her face and bare arms; it had been a baking hot day and the weather man had forecast more to follow.

  She followed the progress of a busy little insect gathering pollen from a flowering bush nearby, its transparent wings a blur in the dusky air, with sleepy interest. It was strange, this feeling that seemed to have taken her over since she had lain the burden of her illness on Blade’s shoulders. She wasn’t exactly happy—the knowledge of what she had to face was still too new for that—but somehow a kind of acceptance had settled like a warm comforting blanket over the horror and pain, and with it the joy of living had been revived. She couldn’t be sure of what the future would hold, Blade had impressed that on her time and time again, except that they would face it together and for the moment that was enough.

  She glanced at the delicate gold watch on her wrist idly. Nine o’clock. Evening birdsong had started, the pure loud notes of a missel-thrush competing with the other resident birds that inhabited the vast grounds of Blade’s mansion. Blade would be home this time tomorrow evening if all went well, but she was already missing him desperately although he had only been gone since six that morning. She shut her eyes as she leant back in the huge cushioned cane chair, her thoughts heavy and dreamy. He loved her. More than she had ever imagined possible. There was no more room for doubts or fears but she wished, oh, she wished she wouldn’t have to leave him alone so soon. The next few years seemed a painfully short time. It was the knowing that was so hard; if it had happened suddenly, in an accident, then maybe …

  ‘Hello, sleeping beauty.’ The warm hard kiss brought her instantly awake from the light doze she had fallen into, and she opened dazed blue eyes to stare straight into Blade’s glittering gaze. ‘Oh, Amy, my love …’ He had whisked her up from the chair, and into his arms before she could speak, holding her so tight as he whirled her round and round in a frenzy of excitement that she felt she would faint if he didn’t stop.

  ‘Blade, no more—’ He cut short her protestation with another kiss that was almost savage in its intensity before letting her slide on to her feet still in his arms. ‘You aren’t supposed to be home till tomorrow.’ She stared at him anxiously. He looked strange, wild, as though something was burning inside that was going to explode.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ His voice was shaking but the look on his face reassured the sudden panic that gripped her throat for a second. It couldn’t be bad news, not with him looking like that. ‘Sit down, you’ll have to be sitting down, and let me finish before you say anything. Promise?’ He sank with her on to the bowling green-smooth lawn, careless of his expensive suit, and she nodded silently as her eyes swept over his handsome face. ‘I’ve been to see Sandra.’

  ‘Blade!’ She reared up like a scalded cat. ‘You promised me you wouldn’t, not yet, not till I could face it.’

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ he said quietly as he pulled her back down beside him. ‘I didn’t plan to tell you anything about it. I just wanted to find out details, doctors, things like that so I could make my own enquiries. I didn’t intend to leave a stone unturned—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Hell, I’m not making a very good job of this. Amy …’ He took her face in his hands as he gazed deep into her troubled eyes. ‘You don’t have the disease, you’re safe, it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘What?’ Time had stopped, suspended and hanging on a thread in the dusky stillness. ‘Blade, what did you say?’

  ‘You don’t have it, Amy, I’ve checked, I’m sure.’ He watched the colour flare and then recede in her face anxiously. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you like this, I was going to lead into it gradually to cut down the shock.’ The buzzing in her ears was deafening but she fought against the faint feeling sweeping her body with sickening weakness, and leant against him shakily. This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be, it was too much like all the hopes and dreams she’d had in the last few months to be true.

  ‘Let me tell you now, from the beginning, and don’t say anything.’ His arms were strong and secure as they held her close and she nodded silently, her heart pounding. She mustn’t hope, not for a minute. It would be a mistake. She knew it.

  ‘I flew up to Scotland early this morning after arranging to meet Sandra’s husband yesterday. She wouldn’t see me but, frankly, after what you’d told me I didn’t think I’d get too far with her anyway. I met Jim for lunch in a hotel down the road from their home; he’s a good man.’ She nodded again without speaking. She vaguely remembered seeing him in the background as she’d stumbled out of the house on her last visit, but his face had been a blur through her tears. ‘Amy, how important is it to you that Sandra is your sister?’

  ‘What?’ Her head jerked up as she stared into his dark face. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Not at all now really, too much has happened.’

  ‘Well, she isn’t related to you at all.’ His arm tightened still further round her. ‘And this next bit might hurt a little. The couple you looked on as mother and father weren’t your parents.’

  ‘Blade, I don’t understand any of this.’ She looked at him, her eyes huge.

  ‘Then let me explain. Apparently about
three years after Sandra was born her parents found out about the disease when it began to show symptoms in the mother. They had everything checked and the worst was confirmed. They wanted more children but of course that was impossible, and so they concentrated on Sandra, spoiling her hopelessly and giving her everything she wanted. And then, when Sandra was seven, her mother’s best friend got pregnant on a one-night stand while her husband was working away in the Far East or some such place. Apparently she couldn’t face an abortion but neither could she keep the child, and so—’ he turned and brought her face round to meet his fully ‘—they hatched a plan, an illegal plan.’

  ‘Me?’ she asked softly.

  ‘You.’ He nodded slowly. ‘The four of them, Sandra included, went off for an extended holiday in Latin America and you were born there. Neither of the women had said to anyone they were pregnant, and when Sandra’s mother claimed you were a surprise birth there was no reason for anyone to doubt it. Sandra’s mother was thrilled with her new baby, the friend went back home and her husband never knew anything about it, everyone was happy—except Sandra.’ He eyed her carefully. ‘Apparently you were startlingly beautiful even then, and everything Sandra’s mother had always wanted in a little girl. From what Jim told me, Sandra wasn’t just pushed aside and neglected, they actually inflicted a mental cruelty of the worst kind. I should imagine along with the disease is a form of imbalance in the mind. Sandra has it and her mother certainly did.’