The Marriage Surrender

‘Well, thank you for that, also,’ he very drily replied.

Then in one of those quick-fire changes of mood he could undergo which tended to make her flounder, he suddenly stood up and rounded the desk.

‘Come on,’ he said, taking a grip on one of her hands.

She stiffened up like a board, but he ignored the stiffening, being so used to it from years ago. Just as he had become used to having to ignore it if he wanted to go on touching her. He began pulling her towards the door.

‘But where are we going?’ she demanded warily.

‘My hand needs attention,’ he clipped out, that was all.

The door opened, he pulled her through it, then pulled her past his wide-eyed, beautiful secretary without so much as glancing her way, out of that office, down the corridor and into a waiting lift.

Another damn lift.

He let go of her at the one time in her life when she wished he’d hang on tightly, digging his unwrapped hand into his inside jacket pocket and coming out with what looked like a plastic credit card. Sliding the card into a narrow slot in the lift console, he pressed one of the floor buttons, then slid the card out again.

But Joanna didn’t see which floor number they were going to; she was too busy bracing herself for the moment when those wretched doors would close them in.

‘You are quite pathetic, do you know that?’ he observed deridingly.

Yes, she acknowledged, she knew it, but knowing it didn’t stop the war of abominable memories she was desperately trying to suppress.

The doors closed, the lift began moving, and she pressed herself back against its panelled wall, expecting to begin sinking downwards—but didn’t. The lift shot up, then came to an almost immediate stop again.

Startled, she opened her eyes to find Sandro watching her with a half-frowning, half-contemptuous expression. She stared back, vulnerable—without knowing it, she looked vulnerable.

The doors slid apart. Sandro wrenched his gaze away from her and walked out of the lift, like the last time, obviously expecting her to follow him.

She did so reluctantly, once again having to peel herself away from the wall and walk forward on shaking legs—only to stop dead two steps on to stare bewilderedly around her.

‘Where are we?’ she asked sharply.

‘Up one floor,’ Sandro replied. ‘In my private apartment, to be exact’

Predictably, all hell broke loose inside her, blue eyes flickering around her new surroundings like a trapped animal looking for a means of escape. ‘Y-your apartment? ’ she repeated unsteadily. ‘Here?’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed, his tone spiked. ‘Convenient, is it not?’

He knew what she was thinking. He knew what she was feeling. He knew that to her, a private apartment meant in

timacy, and intimacy translated into panic.

She flicked him a very wary glance. He answered it with a mocking one, challenging her to protest, to give in to what was beginning to bubble up inside her and run screaming for the dubious safety of the lift behind her.

A choice of two evils. Like the one she’d had to make between facing Sandro again, or facing what Arthur Bates had in store for her.

Then there was no choice to be made, because the lift doors gave a soft warning whoosh. She almost jumped out of her skin, spinning jerkily around to stare as her one means of escape smoothly closed on her.

‘Well, well,’ Sandro drawled so silkily she winced. ‘Caught like a frightened little mouse in a trap. Poor Joanna. But please,’ he continued before she could retaliate against his biting sarcasm, ‘make yourself at home, if you can,’ He was dry and he was cutting. ‘I need to attend to my injured hand.’

Then he had gone, disappearing through a door and leaving her hovering there, staring dazedly around her.

It was nice, was the first sensible thought to reach through the scramble her mind had become. The lift had opened directly into a large airy sitting-room that reflected Sandro’s very classical Italian tastes much more than his ultra-modern office had done.

Pale pastel-shaded walls made a tasteful backcloth to timeless pieces of elegant antique furniture that blended easily with the more modern oatmeal sofas and easy chairs sitting comfortably on a thick-piled cappuccino-coloured carpet.

No smoked glass to pound his fist into here, she noted wryly—only to feel her breath catch in her throat when she relived the appalling sight of Sandro, of all people, losing control of himself like that. It just wasn’t like him. Sandro had always been the most patient and controlled person she knew.