Merger By Matrimony

The woman who had originally been a temporary thorn in his long-range forecast was now driving him crazy.

‘Perhaps you two weren’t suited to one another,’ she was now saying quietly. ‘Perhaps the thunder and lightning and fireworks had gone out of the relationship—and what would have been the point of marriage then?’ Anyone would think that she, Destiny Felt, the woman with no emotional past to speak of when it came to the opposite sex, was an expert on the subject.

‘And what makes you think that thunder and lightning and fireworks are all that necessary to a good marriage?’ he jeered, calling a halt to the alcohol and resting his glass next to him on the ground. ‘In case it’s missed you, thunder and lightning and fireworks are all over in the wink of an eye.’

‘If you want to try and persuade Stephanie to stay with you, then you’re talking to the wrong person,’ Destiny said cautiously, and he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

‘You mean you won’t go upstairs and try and persuade her that my heart is breaking? That I can’t go on?’

Destiny tried to imagine this big, muscular man, made of steel, with a breaking heart, and she realised that it hurt to think that Stephanie might be the one to do that.

‘Just as well I don’t want you to do any such thing, then, isn’t it?’ He shot her a ferocious, brooding look. ‘Because you’re right. Steph and I should have reverted into being just good friends a long time ago.’ He got up and began his restless prowling around the room while she watched, mesmerised by the way his body moved. For someone of his size, there was a feline grace about him that she wouldn’t have expected.

‘Of course,’ he said, briefly turning to look at her from across the room, ‘it hasn’t helped that you’ve instigated the revolution by telling her that she was a poor, downtrodden female who needed to get in touch with herself and start making a stand for women’s rights.’

‘I did no such thing!’ Destiny protested uncomfortably.

‘Well—’ he shrugged ‘—she’s been quoting you from dawn till dusk. Oh, Destiny this, and Destiny that and Destiny the other.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Destiny said hesitantly, wondering what exactly these quotes were.

‘No, it’s not, is it?’ he countered, strolling over to where she was sitting and looming over her like an avenging angel. ‘Because, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, you haven’t exactly got the experience to be a guru on all things sexual, have you?’

‘I never claimed I was!’ Destiny said, rising to the occasion. It took a mammoth effort to stare him down, and in all events she didn’t manage it, finally lowering her eyes to his knees, which were altogether less alarming than other, less innocent, parts of him.

‘Do you know—’ he dropped his voice, which was even more alarming than when it was directed at her with all its implicit menace ‘—that for someone with little or no experience, you do a pretty damned good job of being a siren?’

‘Me? A siren?’ She laughed, but what emerged was more along the lines of a hysterical choke. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Where do you think I’ve learnt these amazing skills of being a siren? Do you think I practise daily in front of the howler monkeys in the jungle?’ She laughed derisively, thinking of her sheltered, protected background which had left all these loopholes she was now falling headlong into.

‘You,’ he accused, walking towards her so that she coiled back into the chair. He reached out and dropped his hands to either side. ‘So philosophical when it comes to giving advice. I bet you and Steph had a good old heart-to-heart while I wasn’t here, while I was in that pub burying myself in a few draughts of whisky, man’s most reliable friend…’

‘I thought you said you were on your way to London…?’

‘I was. But the journey ended prematurely at the village pub. Funny how these things happen.’

They happen, Destiny thought, because—whether you admit it or not—the break-up was traumatic for you. A man like him would need a submissive woman, a woman who was willing to bend like a sapling to his powerful personality, and the minute that Stephanie began showing signs of rebellion he had reacted with his typical overwhelming intensity. Perhaps the truth of the story was that Stephanie had ended their relationship and pride would not let him try to win her back, so, in her relief, Stephanie had misread his signals for feelings of shared relief that it was over. It all seemed so horrendously convoluted, but wasn’t Destiny fast discovering that nothing here was what it seemed? People dressed, spoke and behaved in a manner designed to create a certain type of impression, and honesty was something that remained locked away for a rainy day.