The Trophy Husband

When she went downstairs, she looked into the library, for the first time really taking in the devastation which Alex had wreaked the previous night. Filing drawers and cupboard doors hung open. Books and papers were tumbled across the desktop, with many more on the floor. Alex was a formidably tidy individual in any working environment. And yet last night he had torn this immaculately organised room apart and ended up only removing a single, half-empty box.

Had she arrived home earlier than he had expected? Something told her that had she returned a couple of hours later Alex would by then have swept the boards of Ladymead so clean of his presence that she would have had trouble finding evidence that he had ever lived here with her. It was a chilling thought, emphasising the frightening speed with which Alex had decided to walk out on their marriage. An instantaneous decision, immediately acted upon.

Instinctively she began to return the library carefully to order, and then slowly her hands fell still again. Alex wasn't coming back. Alex wasn't coming back unless she kidnapped him. She had given him the true story last night and he hadn't believed her. She had told him that she loved him and he hadn't believed that either. The best she could do now was to face him again and repeat exactly the same things. So why was she wasting time cleaning up?..,

'Don't bother to ring ahead and warn him,' Sara told Gina, the receptionist, pleasantly on her way past. 'I want to surprise him.'

'Hello, Sara…' Pete stopped dead on the threshold of his office. 'Is Alex expecting you?'

'Do I need an appointment now, Pete?' Fevered tension made Sara sharp. She flushed. 'Sorry. Is anyone with him?'

'No, but the helicopter's waiting to take him up north.'

'I won't keep him long.'

She walked into Alex's office on the power of one long, pent-up breath.

He was standing by the windows. He spun lithely round and stilled, his strong features freezing into impassivity. Cold dark eyes settled on her without any perceptible emotion. That scared her, wiped out her prepared speech.

'Now this I didn't expect,' Alex drawled reflectively. 'I assumed you would have too much pride to create a scene here.'

'I'm not going to create any kind of scene…' Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as she stared back at him with a compulsive intensity that she couldn't control. Already she felt as though he had left her at least a month ago. An agonising sense of loss engulfed her without warning.

'But you shouldn't be here. I made my wishes very clear last night. Go home. You can have nothing to say that I am prepared to listen to.'

'But you have to listen,' Sara protested.

'Why? I don't want you anywhere near me.'

Her colour receded. On the drive up to London she had not prepared herself for this level of cruelty. Had Alex still been seething with anger, she could have borne it better, but rejection couched in cold detachment was infinitely more final. 'Alex… haven't you ever done anything you're ashamed of "on the spur of the moment"?' she prompted in desperation.

'Married you.'

Sara flinched as if he had struck her. 'Don't do this to us. Once you said to me, "Nobody's perfect," and I know that you have a right to be angry-'

'I am not angry.' But for an instant she saw a flash of stark, bitter pain in his narrowed gaze before he screened it. 'And you're embarrassing me,' he continued with cutting precision.

In a numb motion, Sara shook her head, wondering if she had imagined that pain. 'Alex?'

He shrugged back a white shirt-cuff to scrutinse his watch. 'I haven't got time for this-'

'If you say one more word, I may well hate you for the rest of my life,' Sara told him strickenly.

'Anything you feel you have to say, share it with your lawyer, not with me.' Alex strode past her to the door.

'I thought you didn't want a divorce,' she muttered unsteadily.

'I've changed my mind,' he imparted without turning round. 'I want you out of my life.'

As the door closed Sara was in such a daze that she slid down on the nearest seat, her stomach cramping up. Oh, you really made him listen, didn't you? Oh, you were really convincing, weren't you? she derided herself. But it had been as though Alex had retreated somewhere where she couldn't reach him.

'Sara?'

She glanced up to find Marco standing several feet away. She hadn't even heard the door open.

'What did you do to my brother?' he enquired with unhidden aggression.

'Where did you come from?' she mumbled.

'I was calling in to see how he was but I appear to have missed him. So what did you do?' he demanded again fiercely. 'He came round to my apartment last night and sat there like he'd been hit by a truck!'

'Did he?' She realised how low she had sunk when she experienced a flicker of hope.

'I could see he was hurting but not a blasted word could I get out of the stubborn bastard!' Marco complained. 'So what's going on?'

'I told him a lie about something and he assumed the worst and walked out.'

'And you're surprised?'

She sighed. 'You couldn't say anything to me that would make me feel any worse than I already feel…OK?'

' 1 don't like seeing my brother upset like, that. It would be much more healthy if he got drunk and punched walls instead of walking about like the living dead!'

Sara took a deep breath. 'Could you find out where he's gone?'

Marco walked to the door and bawled, 'Pete!'

'The Lake District,' Pete supplied cheerfully, walking in, obviously having been listening.

'What the blazes is he doing there?' Marco enquired.

'Visiting friends, I assume. He goes up there maybe twice a year. I've never

gone along.'

'So?' Marco pressed impatiently. 'Who are they?'

'I spoke to the woman once. Her name's Elissa,' Pete informed them helpfully. 'I don't think I ever got her surname.'

Marco looked stunned. 'Elissa?' he repeated. 'Are you sure?'

The roof had fallen in round Sara's head. Shock was roaring through her in waves. Pete frowned in be-musement at them both as he walked back out again.

'Did you know about this?' Marco asked her sharply. 'That Alex was in touch with her again… I mean that he even knew where she was?'

'No.'

'Elissa living in England,' he muttered, still struggling with his own incredulity. 'And he never said a word.'

'I understood she was always too special to talk about.' Sara's voice quivered.

'If you're thinking that Alex is keeping a mistress he only sees twice a year, your head's away!'

'Is it?' She studied her feverishly linked hands through a blinding blur of tears.

'Alex is nuts about you-'

'He's never said so.'

'So he's a bit tight with the words!' Marco conceded in frustration. 'But he married you. He's living in a freezing cold house with one bathroom for your benefit. He's doing weird things like buying furniture and taking off out of the office in the middle of the day… This is not Alex as we have known him for the past thirty-four years!'

'No?''

'Sara, he's so sickeningly happy with you that he throws your name into every other sentence. Pete can't keep him in the office after five. This is a guy who cannot wait to get home to his wife every night. I ask you, is it likely he's doing a line with some old doll from his past?'

'I think I'd like to meet that old doll before I commit myself,' Sara admitted as she slowly got to her feet. Although she was still pale, her mouth was firmly set.

'What do you want to meet her for?' Marco regarded her in open dismay.

'Are you scared of what I might find? So am I… but it would be much more scary to sit at home wondering,' she confided.

It was already the middle of the afternoon. It was over two hundred miles to the small village where Elissa lived but Sara climbed into the Jag with unassailable determination. Alex might well have gone by the time she arrived… well, so be it. It was Elissa whom Sara needed to meet. She did not want to see Alex with the wretched woman. Such an encounter required a certain discretion, didn't it?