For Better for Worse

‘Marcus! What are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to be with you,’ he told her simply and truthfully. It didn’t matter why he had originally left London. Now he was here with her, seeing the way she reacted to him, seeing the emotion, the love in her eyes. All that seemed important was that he was here with her.

He could see the sheen of tears in her eyes and the way her mouth trembled, and suddenly he ached for her with an intensity it was hard to control.

‘Oh, Marcus… Marcus…’ he heard her whisper huskily as he took hold of her.

Later, curled up against him in the huge bed in the suite he had booked, Eleanor asked him sleepily, ‘Tell me again who’s looking after Vanessa.’

He told her briefly, nuzzling the soft, vulnerable skin of her neck as he did so.

‘Sondra Cabot?’ Eleanor repeated. ‘Isn’t that the American girl you said was over here on an exchange?’

‘Mmm.’

He was working his way down the slope of her breast now, and already her nipple, her skin was quivering in delicious anticipation of his caress, but she still felt the slight change in his breathing, the hesitation… the tension almost, and the hand she had slid into his hair as she caressed the back of his skull stilled for a second as she looked down at him, puzzled slightly by his reaction.

‘Marcus, wh—?’

‘Forget Vanessa,’ he told her thickly, brusquely she recognised, as a tiny chill of foreboding ran through her.

His daughter, it seemed, was still a dangerous subject between them, and she felt too vulnerable, too afraid of spoiling what they had just shared to raise it. Vanessa wasn’t an issue that was going to go away, she reminded herself, but the thought was hazy, the issue one she did not really want to pursue. Not now… not when Marcus was slowly teasing the erect nub of her nipple with his tongue, its warm, moist lap providing an almost unbearable sensual contrast to the cool dryness of his breath.

She couldn’t even manage to tug herself free of the sensual spell he was weaving around her for long enough to explain to him that it hadn’t been Vanessa she had been about to mention, but the American. Dizzily she told herself that there would be time enough later to ask him how she came to be looking after Vanessa… For now… She gave a soft half-smothered murmur of pleasure as Marcus abandoned his delicate teasing to draw her nipple fully into his mouth, sucking slowly and lingeringly on it and then far more fiercely and with far less control as she moved urgently against him, her fingers clutching at his hair.

They had two blissful days together before Marcus announced that they had to return, and it was only on the flight home that Eleanor recognised that, while their time together had proved to her that Marcus still desired her, it had done nothing to resolve the other problems and fears.

She had wanted to talk to Marcus about them, and yet a part of her had almost been afraid to do so. Last night she had started to tell him how anxious she was about the house, but he had frowned immediately, exclaiming irritably, ‘Do we have to discuss that now, Nell? Is it really so important?’

He had apologised almost immediately, but his attitude had left her feeling slightly edgy and wary.

When they got home the house was empty. It was an odd feeling to Eleanor to walk into its silence, and its neatness. She ought to have been pleased, relieved to have been spared a potential confrontation with Vanessa immediately on her return, she knew, and yet as she walked into the kitchen, saw its immaculate order, she could feel the tiny hairs on her arms and her nape starting to lift antagonistically.

The house even seemed to smell different, she recognised, although it wasn’t until half an hour later, when Sondra returned with Vanessa and Sasha, that she recognised why. The alien smell was the American girl’s perfume, she realised with a sharp thrill of dislike.

Dislike? Why on earth should she dislike her? Or was it not dislike but jealousy she was suffering from? she wondered as she listened silently to the teasing comments exchanged with both teenage girls.

It had been Marcus who had gone to let them in and now the three of them and Marcus were standing to one side of the kitchen table while she remained on the other, feeling alien, an outsider in her own home.

‘You look well,’ she heard Sondra saying to Marcus. ‘You’ve even got a tan. We made fudge brownies this morning,’ she added, still smiling at him. ‘Would you like to try one?’

It was almost three hours before she finally left. Eleanor knew because she had counted every minute of them; and most of the final sixty minutes upstairs alone in the bedroom, unable to endure any more of the scene being played out downstairs in her kitchen, her home, with her husband, without betraying what she was feeling.

She tensed as she heard Marcus come upstairs and walk into the bedroom.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’

‘I’m feeling fine,’ she told him angrily. ‘But I don’t like being made to feel that I’m an outsider in my own home.’

Marcus was frowning at her, but he was an astute, experienced man, and he must have recognised what was going on as easily as she had done herself. The girl had hardly been subtle about her interest in him. Eleanor was not an overly jealous or possessive person, but to have to sit in her own kitchen and watch another woman not merely flirting with her husband but making it plain that she was very sexually interested in him was not something she was prepared to tolerate. And what made it worse was that Marcus had done nothing to stop her; even Sasha and Vanessa had recognised what was going on. Her stomach churned sickly as she recalled the triumphant gloating look Vanessa had given her. No wonder Vanessa had taken so well to the American. She would take well to anyone who she thought might displace her in Marcus’s life, Eleanor thought bitterly. She turned away from Marcus and stared out of the window.

‘Nell?’

She swung round. ‘Why did you let her stay here, Marcus?’

He frowned as though he did not understand her question and then, as he pushed his fingers into his hair in a gesture of irritation, he told her, ‘You know why. So that she could look after Vanessa.’

‘Having perhaps already looked after you…’