The Ultimate Surrender

What on earth was she doing risking everything she had striven so hard to achieve these last years? Bitterly she closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry.

She could still taste Marcus on her lips, smell him on her skin, feel the raw urgency of his sexuality and the heat of his anger.

His anger…That was what had motivated him, driven him to behave so…so shockingly towards her, but her motivation was…

Tears burned the back of her eyeballs, sharp as acid, painful as splinters of glass in her heart and just as fatal…like her feelings…

Her feelings? She couldn’t remember exactly how long it had been after Richard’s death before she had recognised her feelings towards him and her oddly out-of-character behaviour when she was with him for what they were—just as she didn’t know…didn’t remember when she had recognised that love could be pain when it was the wrong kind of love for the wrong man.

Her heart had started to beat heavily with anguish and she squeezed her eyes closed to force back her unwanted tears. Loving Marcus had been a fact of her life for so long that she had thought she had come to terms with it, but seeing him with Suzi, listening to Briony whilst she extolled the other girl’s virtues, her suitability to become Marcus’s wife and the mother of his children, had stripped back the pretence she had cocooned herself in and left her raw and bleeding with the pain of her love.

And for Marcus to have taunted her in the way that he had only made his indifference to her as a woman more plain. But why was he so angry? Because he was afraid she was going to make a fool of herself over Phil and he thought that might reflect badly on him?

Well, better by far that he should think her capable of making a fool of herself over Phil than that he should guess the truth.

Her heart started to beat even faster. But what if she had somehow betrayed herself to him just now in his arms? What if he had begun to suspect that it was him she…? But no, he mustn’t be allowed to guess. She didn’t think she could bear the humiliation of that. She knew she could not bear the humiliation of it, otherwise why would she have been so painstakingly careful all these long years to keep him at a distance?

She could not pinpoint exactly when she had looked at Marcus and known as a woman did know such things that her feelings for him were far too powerful, far too strong, far too intimate for the kind of relationship they shared.

Only she would know just how many times she had watched him in secret whilst he played with Briony and longed for him to give her a second child; to hold her, kiss her, possess her. The love she felt for him far, far outstripped the gentle warmth she had known for Richard. That had been a girl’s virginal emotion. What she felt for Marcus was…

She opened her eyes, her face white with strain. If he had chosen to, right there and then he could have…She swallowed painfully, her body shaking as though she were having a seizure as it told her how much it ached for the fullness of his possession, the completeness of it. She was thirty-seven, for heaven’s sake, she reminded herself fiercely. She was thirty-seven and a woman in her sexual prime, longing for, aching for the man she loved so much…

A ripple of sensation gripped her body causing her to tense against it and hold her breath.

What was happening to her? Perhaps Marcus was right after all, perhaps she was going through some sort of crisis. Just thinking about him with Suzi, with anyone else, made her feel so…

Stifling a sharply indrawn breath of pain she gritted her teeth and restarted the car. She had had many years to get used to the way she felt about Marcus. To get used to loving him whilst knowing that her love, her longing, her need could never be answered. So why now was she suddenly feeling this swamping frightening sensation of aching loss?

Carefully putting the car in gear, she started to drive back to the hotel.

The phone was ringing as Polly hurried into her office. It had been a hectic day altogether. She had been up early to see Briony off, the last of their weekend guests had finally left and now she was looking forward to a few days of peace and quiet before the next weekend’s influx began.

‘Hello,’ she said as she picked up the telephone receiver.

‘Polly, it’s Phil here—Phil Bernstein,’ she heard her caller announcing, to her surprise. ‘Look, I realise this is probably going to sound a little bit pushy, in view of the brevity of our relationship, but I was wondering if you would do me a favour…’

‘A favour?’ Polly repeated uncertainly. ‘Well, I…It depends what it is,’ she answered warily.

‘I’m in negotiations to buy a hotel in London and I was wondering if I could borrow your expertise and ask you to cast your experienced eye over the place and give me your views on it.’