‘At one time I thought that myself,’ he agreed laconically, ‘but that was before John died.’
‘And if I refuse …?’ What did she mean ‘if’. Of course she was going to refuse … but a thought had taken possession of her brain … the seed of an idea, that at last she might have found a way to make Joel pay for all the agony and shame he had caused her.
‘Then I’ll have to look around for someone else,’ he told her calmly. ‘Make no mistake about it Lissa. For the girls’ sake I intend to marry. I should prefer that my wife is you, but if you refuse, then I shall simply marry someone else.’
‘And I’ll lose the girls.’ She breathed the words softly, but he heard them and shrugged.
‘The choice is yours. I’m not, after all, asking you to make any sacrifice I’m not prepared to make myself. We’ll both be giving up our freedom … and one thing more Lissa.’ He came towards her standing only feet away, but making no move to reach out and touch her. She felt almost suffocated by his proximity but refused to step back, making herself endure it. ‘Our marriage will not be an empty legal bond only, but very real, in every sense of the word.’
‘But I don’t want you.’ She said it through stiff lips forcing them to frame the words, half of her praying that he would take back his proposal; and the other half, the bitter, angry half hoping that he would not.
‘How can you know that,’ he taunted softly. ‘We haven’t been lovers yet.’
Nor ever will be, the bitter half of her exulted. Let him marry her … let him think he was going to have it all his own way, but when she lay in his bed and in his arms she would be as cold as ice; as devoid of the ability to give and take pleasure as she had always been, since he had destroyed the feminine core of her. Ignoring all the urgings of common sense Lissa faced him, praying that he wouldn’t see the bitterness in her eyes, and that he wouldn’t guess exactly why she was marrying him. He was using her affection for the girls to force her into this marriage … a marriage she was sure that would not stop him continuing with his many affairs, but what he did not know was that she was also going to use him … as the instrument of her revenge.
‘Very well Joel … I agree to marry you.’
She was surprised to see the heated flicker of triumph burn dark gold in his eyes. He took a step towards her and she backed away, but before either of them could speak the door burst open and the elder of their nieces came rushing in.
‘Auntie Lissa … Auntie Lissa … I heard you talking.’ The petite four year old ran up to Lissa, clinging tightly to her legs, the blonde head buried in her skirt. ‘Are you going to stay here for ever,’ Louise demanded when Lissa bent down to pick her up. ‘I want you to … so does Emma …’
‘Yes, Louise, she’s going to stay here for ever,’ Lissa heard Joel saying from a distance, and just for a moment she felt a twinge of apprehension at the deep note of triumph in his voice, but then she banished it, telling herself she was imagining things. She was the one who should be feeling triumphant. She had got her nieces, and she had also got the means of repaying Joel for all the years of anguish and pain he had caused her. He might think their marriage was going to be a ‘normal’ one, but she knew different.
CHAPTER THREE
LISSA WOKE UP the next morning feeling totally disorientated; initially by the strangeness of her room, and then by the huge weight of depression which seemed to have descended upon her out of nowhere. And then she remembered.
She had agreed to marry Joel! She closed her eyes and groaned, her head falling back against her pillow. How could she have been so stupid? She would have to tell him she had changed her mind. It was her own silly temper and pride that had led into folly; the old burning anger cum anguish she always experienced whenever she was with him. Why oh why after all these years, should Joel still be the one whose contempt and rejection of her hurt so badly? Was it because he had been the one to thrust open that bedroom door and see her? Was it because somehow in her innermost mind she had because of that confused him in some way with her father? They were questions Lissa could not answer; all she did know was that whenever she came in contact with him she was reminded of the way he had looked at her that night … and how for one weak minute she had longed to cry out to him to understand and forgive her … Shivering faintly despite the centrally heated warmth of her bedroom, she was just contemplating how best to tell him that she had changed her mind and that she was certainly not prepared to marry him; even for the sake of her nieces when the door burst open and the two little girls rushed in, both still in their nightdresses.
Louise reached her first, flinging herself on to the bed and cuddling up next to her. Emma, still very much a toddler needed a helping hand, but there was no mistaking the enthusiasm in her hug when she was finally on the bed with Lissa and her sister.
‘You’re going to marry Uncle Joel and then you’ll be our new mummy and daddy,’ Louise announced importantly.
Lissa’s heart sank. She felt trapped and desperate. How could she have been so crazy as to allow those old hurts to trap her into her present position. It seemed mediaeval and archaic now, in the cold clear light of a February morning that she should actually have contemplated marrying Joel, simply to even punish him for the pain he had once caused her. That was all over and done with now. But Joel … why did he want to marry her?
That was simple Lissa told herself; he wanted someone to look after the children who was not going to walk out on him. If she backed out she would lose the girls, Lissa reminded herself, looking at the two blonde heads, nestled together against her warmth. As she watched them, a melting, aching wave of love for them suffused her. If she didn’t marry Joel, he would find someone who would and the girls would be lost to her for ever. Could she endure that? Looking at them Lissa knew she could not. This deeply maternal feeling she felt towards them was something she had always kept well hidden from others. Only Amanda had been aware of it, wryly amused by her sister’s passionate love for her daughters, warning Lissa that when she married she would soon discover the drawbacks to being a mother. ‘You want them because this way you can satisfy your mothering instincts without having to endure someone’s lovemaking’, an inner voice warned her, but Lissa refused to listen, her fingers curling slightly into the bedclothes as she tried to deny the thoughts. Whose fault was it that she froze every time a man touched her she asked herself, trying to whip up some of the anger she had that had consumed her last night. Not hers!
Her bedroom door opened again, and she blinked in stunned disbelief as Joel strolled in carrying a breakfast tray, which he put down on the table by the bed.
‘Who said you two could come in here?’ he demanded of the girls, ruffling the blonde curls and drawing stifled giggles form Louise.
‘You and Lissa are going to be our new mummy and daddy, aren’t you?’ Louise demanded importantly of him, and yet Lissa could see that beyond the child’s self-importance was a shadow of uncertainty and fear, and all her inner arguments against what they were doing melted. If for no other reason surely the sacrifice demanded of her was not too great when she thought of what it would mean to the girls. Joel was right; they needed the security and stability of a proper family unit, and if she didn’t marry him, Joel would stand by his threat to find someone who would. She loved them too much to let someone else take her place with them, Lissa knew, and as she raised stormy haze
l eyes to meet the mocking gold of Joel’s, she knew that he had faithfully monitored each and every single thought that had passed through her head since he walked in the room.
‘Too late for second thoughts,’ he mouthed softly. There were two cups on the tray, Lissa noticed for the first time, and she gaped a little as Joel promptly started to fill them both with aromatic freshly brewed coffee. No doubt he was used to providing breakfast in bed for his legion of girlfriends, she thought waspishly, but he had no right to look so at ease and relaxed as he did so. He was dressed casually in jeans and a soft woollen checked shirt.
‘Mrs Johnson’s day off,’ he explained laconically, handing her a cup.
‘Very impressive,’ Lissa responded tautly. ‘But then I expect you’ve had plenty of practice.’
She saw his mouth tighten, the good humour that had lightened his eyes going, and a certain hard coldness taking its place. ‘I thought we’d agreed to bury our differences and start afresh,’ he said curtly. ‘Two adults who spend all their time together back-biting at one another aren’t going to help these two.’
Lissa knew he was right, and she bit her lower lip in mortification, hating him for putting her in the wrong and for making her appear selfish. She ought to be thinking of the girls and not herself. Joel obviously had. There were two beakers on the tray and he poured orange juice into each of them, handing them to his nieces. He was rewarded with a beaming smile from Emma, and a small frown from Louise, who confided artlessly, ‘When Daddy makes Mummy’s breakfast for her, he always gets back into bed with her. Sometimes he tells Nanny to come and take us away,’ she added importantly.
Lissa could feel the colour stealing up under her skin, but it was impossible for her to drag her eyes away from the amusement sparkling in Joel’s.
‘Blushing.’ He ran a teasing finger along the curve of her cheek as he sat down on the edge of her bed. ‘How novel, and why I wonder should the thought of married sex embarrass you when you yourself must surely be no stranger to the early morning rituals between lovers.’