Savage Obsession

She stood up gracefully, her natural poise coming to her aid. Allie could make what she liked of the situation and one day she, Beth, would tell her friend the truth behind it all. But not yet. She wasn't strong enough to face the sympathy, the 'I told you so's'. And she was more than thankful that her parents were away, taking the world cruise they'd promised themselves when her father had retired.

'Give me a ring tomorrow, would you?' she asked. 'After you've fixed everything.'

'I can do better than that,' Allie said, her brown eyes serious. 'If you can promise me that Charles Savage of South Park doesn't live up to his name and come to beat me up for sending his wife abroad.'

'That's about the last thing he'd do.' Beth made herself smile, aching inside because she knew the reverse was true. Charles would probably send Allie champagne and flowers for months for so oppor­tunely helping him to rid himself of a wife he no longer wanted, the wife he had never pretended to love.

'If you say so!' But Allie was already reaching for the phone, punching numbers and, five minutes later, after intense conversation, she replaced the receiver and told Beth, 'He's weak with relief, or so he tells me. He has work piling up to the ceiling and you can't get there soon enough.' She scribbled rapidly on a card and handed it over to Beth. 'His address and phone number. If you get lost, you're to ring and he'll come to your rescue. And the same applies if you want meeting at Boulogne. Shall you fly, or cross by ferry?'

'Take the car on the ferry.' Beth tucked the pasteboard into her handbag and rose to go. If she was going to be completely independent then she might as well start now, and, although her heart was beating like a drum as she turned the Metro through South Park's gateposts, her soft mouth was set in lines of sheer determination, her green eyes cool.

Charles had made no secret of his reason for marrying her. He had wanted an heir, a family to enjoy all he had achieved. That he had distanced himself from her, emotionally and physically, after she had lost their child and the prognosis for her ever conceiving again had been unhopeful, had come as no surprise. What did surprise her, in retrospect, was her stupidity in agreeing to marry him in the first place. She had been besotted, she thought grimly, young enough and gullible enough to believe that she could teach him to love her.

But then, she excused as she garaged the car and locked it behind her, she hadn't known that Zanna would come back, bringing their love-child along with her. How could she have known? She would have run a mile if she had

been able to look into the future because, although she had been pre­pared to fight for Charles Savage's love, she didn't stand the ghost of a chance when Zanna was around. She never had done, and never would, and her strength lay in recognising that miserable and unalterable fact of life.

Her head was high as she walked through the hall and up the stairs. The whole house felt empty, very silent. Maybe Harry was still having his afternoon sleep and Charles and Zanna were taking advantage of it. She tried to tell herself she didn't care, but knew she did. The pain was almost too much to bear.

But she had to hold on. Had to pretend she was leaving of her own free will. Entering her room, she began to pack methodically, forcing herself to stay calm because if she let go, only for an instant, she would fall to pieces. And when she was ready to leave she would find Charles, say her piece and go, and that would be that. But it didn't work out like that, things never did, because Charles walked in through her door, making her jump out of her skin, and she spun round on her heels, her hand to her throat, her face running with fire.

And he said tautly, his austerely attractive fea­tures hard, 'Do you have a few free moments to spare for Zanna and me, yet?'

Beth shuddered suddenly, her whole body going cold. Ignoring the initial sarcasm coming from him, she saw his smoky eyes narrow as they fell on the open suitcase, and she got in quickly, 'I don't par­ticularly want to hear whatever it is you and Zanna feel you want to say. It can't be important.' She turned her back on him, not willing for him to read the misery on her face.

She had to walk away from him before he got the chance to throw her out of his life; it was the only way she could salvage her pride, regain her self-respect. She wouldn't let herself crawl, or weep. Not in front of him, especially not when his old and only love was somewhere near—with the son the two of them had created together.

She heard the sudden angry hiss of indrawn breath a mere millisecond before his hard hands clamped down on her shoulders, dragging her round to face him, and her chin tilted up rebelliously as he grated blackly, 'What the hell's got into you?'

She could have told him, but wouldn't give him the satisfaction, or the opportunity to put his love, his need for Zanna and his son, into words. She could bear anything but that.

'Please let me go.' The heat from those strong fingers seared her skin through the thin fabric of her blouse, threatening to rob her of all her hard-won poise, and when his grip merely tightened she ground out quickly, hoping his anger at her refusal to listen to what he and his precious Zanna had to tell her would prevent him from guessing just how much his touch affected her, 'If you'll stop mauling me, I'll say what's on my mind.'

At the acid inflexion of her tone his hands dropped to his sides, his mouth going hard. It had worked like a charm, and if he thought his very touch disgusted her then that was a bonus. And she said tightly, before her will-power deserted her completely, 'I don't need to tell you how our mar­riage has been disintegrating these past few months.' She didn't specify dates, although she could have done, to the day. She couldn't bear to remind him, or herself, of the tragedy that had marked his loss of interest in her. 'I think it's best if we have a trial separation.'

She turned from him then, forcing herself to make her movements smooth and sure, taking a pile of lingerie from her dresser and adding it to the contents of her suitcase. Her heart was beating with a heavy, sickly rhythm, but he couldn't know that, and, although she couldn't see him, she was fully aware of the tense watchful look in those narrowed gunfighter's eyes, the tension that would be holding that powerfully crafted body rigid.

'Is that what you want?' There was a tightness in that deep husky voice that, had she not known better, she could have imagined to be pain. But she did know better, she reminded herself scornfully. He might not love her, and he assuredly wasn't planning on being faithful, but he wasn't an un­caring man and might be concerned about her future welfare.

Beth nodded, unable to speak for the moment because this was goodbye, wasn't it? Goodbye to the man she had always loved, to the future they might have had together had things worked out dif­ferently. Swallowing the painful lump in her throat, she bent to snap her case shut, the wings of her short, sleekly styled hair falling forwards to hide her face as she struggled to find her voice.

And then she managed, 'It is. I've got a job to go to, so you have no need to worry, and I suggest we get in touch in a month or two, to finalise things.' By then the whole locale would know she had gone, that Zanna had replaced her, returned to where she belonged. And by that time, although she knew she would never get over the pain, she would have created her own life away from him, gained in self-respect. And something bitter, deep inside her, made her add, 'And don't slam the door as you leave. It might wake Harry.'

'We might as well call it a day.' William Templeton dragged his fingers through his wiry light-brown hair, his craggy face drawn with fatigue. 'And thank you, Beth. We've done some good work—I can feel it in my bones.' His radiant smile suddenly flashed, transforming his plain, craggy features and Beth smiled back, she couldn't help herself; he was that kind of man.

She could even forgive him for knocking her up at four this morning, his fertile mind bursting with ideas for the mid section of his current book which had proved, up until then, a sticking point.

'Coffee?' Beth closed her shorthand notebook and laid it down beside the ancient electric type­writer on the cluttered desk, but William shook his head.

'I'm going to crash out for a couple of hours, and I suggest you do the same. If you're still asleep at noon I'll make lunch and wake you. OK?'

She nodded absently as he bumbled out of the book-filled study, physical tiredness and the relief of achievement making him look older than his forty years, making his chunky body in the worn old cords and battered sweater sag. And, momen­tarily, her green eyes softened.

During the ten days she'd been at the old farm­house she had grown to like and respect the author. Despite his enormous commercial success he gave no signs of self-importance and although he worked her hard he was fair, paying excellent wages, in­sisting that she took plenty of time off to make up for his erratic working methods.

But although she had worked at full stretch for the last five hours, taking down his rapid-fire dic­tation, she was in no mood to go back to bed. She wouldn't sleep, she would simply lie there, prey to the thoughts she was still struggling to keep at bay.

Ten days wasn't nearly enough time to recover from the trauma of losing Charles, she told herself as she took herself off upstairs to shower in the slope-ceilinged bathroom beneath the eaves. She doubted if she would ever recover but hoped that, with time, she would come to terms with it, would be able to get on with her life without having to guard her thoughts and emotions so completely.