‘All I wanted was for the boys to turn the television down a bit—you’ve got to admit they do tend to have the volume turned up too loud…’
‘Well, at least you can talk above it, which is more than can be said for Vanessa’s radio,’ she retaliated acidly. She saw the irritation tensing Marcus’s body.
‘Look, Nell, I know it isn’t easy for you having Vanessa here, but what am I supposed to do? She’s going through a bad patch at the moment.’
‘And because of that the rest of us have to suffer? Don’t our feelings and needs matter at all, Marcus… Mine and the boys’? I’ve tried my best to be patient and understanding with her. Do you think I’d ever stand by and let Tom or Gavin speak to you the way she did to me the other day?’ she demanded bitterly, switching tack. ‘Do you think I’d let them manipulate you… us… our relationship… or try to come between us?’
‘Don’t you, though?’ Marcus challenged her quietly. ‘Look at the way you’re behaving now just because I asked them to keep the noise down. I told you before we married that I’m not the paternal type, Nell.’
‘So what am I supposed to do, turn my back on my sons, abandon them? You can see the effect Vanessa is already having on Tom.’
‘Is it Vanessa, or is it you?’
Eleanor stared at him. ‘What do you mean…?’
‘Think, Nell. Tom is a very sensitive child, too sensitive perhaps. Don’t you think he’s picked up on your ambivalent feelings towards Vanessa? Add to that the fact that he sees me as a rival for his mother’s time and affection, and he’s bound to feel resentful and confused.’
‘Tom is not resentful,’ Eleanor denied. ‘Both he and Gavin were very happy when I told them we were getting married.’
‘When you told them we were getting married perhaps. Look, I’m not saying they don’t like me personally, but obviously they’re bound to feel some resentment and apprehension—any child would. You do tend to look at relationships through rose-coloured glasses sometimes, Nell. I think I understand why, but there’s nothing wrong with accepting that all of us at times have negative feelings about situations and people. In attempting to deny that, in not allowing Tom and Gavin the chance to admit and accept that there are times when they resent me and want to go back to having you exclusively for themselves, you’re teaching them to suppress feelings it would be far healthier to acknowledge.’
‘Like the way Vanessa acknowledges her dislike and resentment of me, do you mean?’ Eleanor asked him bitterly. ‘Is that what you think I should do, Marcus? Encourage my children to behave like your daughter?’
She was so angry that she was shaking, Eleanor recognised as the pressure of the last few days built up inside her, exploding into a fury she could scarcely control. ‘And what makes you such an expert on childcare all of a sudden?’
She stood up, brushing vigorously at her hair and then wincing as it got tangled up in her brush, tears of anger and pain blurring her eyes.
‘Vanessa’s right, this place isn’t my home. It’s yours! Is it any wonder that the boys play up? They can probably sense that you don’t want them here…’
‘That’s not true.’
Eleanor tensed as Marcus caught hold of her. ‘Look, Nell, I know how difficult things are for you at the moment, but can’t you understand, I’m under a lot of pressure as well. The last thing I need right now is…’
‘The last thing you need?’ Eleanor interrupted him. ‘What about what I need… what about what Tom and Gavin need? They’re unhappy, Marcus. They think we don’t love them… that I don’t love them.’
She pulled herself out of his arms, the frustration of what she was feeling welling up inside her as she flung her brush on to the bed and cried out fiercely, ‘I can’t live like this, Marcus. I—’
She tensed as he took hold of her again, turning her round to face him. Her heart was beating twice as fast as normal and she could feel the adrenalin-boosted surge of emotional reaction racing through her veins. Her senses suddenly seemed so much sharper, her awareness. She could smell the male heat of Marcus’s anger, see the small beads of perspiration dotting the flesh in the open V of his shirt. It pleased her somehow that she had made him as angry as she was herself; that she had jolted him out of his normal calm control.
‘Let go of me,’ she told him furiously, pulling sharply back from him, but then, as he did so, her mood changed, startling her with its abrupt switch from hot, almost violent anger to equally uncharacteristic and uncontrollable tears.
‘Nell.’ She heard the echo of her own shock in Marcus’s voice as he took hold of her.
‘Nell. What is it… what’s wrong?’
He was brushing the tears off her face, kissing her gently. Too gently.
She reached up, wrapping her arms around him, opening her mouth beneath his with a fierce urgency which took them both off guard.
His body responded immediately, challenging and exciting her.
Somewhere at the back of her mind lay the knowledge that their arousal, and its intensity, for the first time in their relationship had its roots in anger; but the need within her to release what she was feeling wouldn’t let her listen to any warning voices.
When she touched Marcus, when she kissed him, when she pressed her body demandingly into his, it wasn’t just with the knowledge of what she knew would arouse him but with an unfamiliar, satisfying selfish urgency.
Clothes were shed, quickly, almost roughly, her teeth impatiently savaging his bottom lip as she tugged at the barrier of his shirt, spreading her hands against his chest.
His skin felt hot and damp, the rapid hammer-beat of his heart echoing her own urgency.