For Better for Worse

Immediately she pouted slightly. ‘I was rather hoping that you would come with me, or would that be too boring for you?’

In spite of himself, Marcus laughed.

‘You should have chosen politics, not law,’ he told her drily.

‘What makes you think I won’t?’ she riposted back. ‘In the US the law can often be a stepping stone to Capitol Hill. What are your ambitions, Marcus?’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘At my age one is supposed to have achieved them,’ he pointed out, ignoring the small warning voice that told him of the danger he was courting. She was more than intelligent enough to recognise such a subtle counter-flirtation, and he was not really surprised when she pounced with delicate, catlike dexterity and relish on the small morsel of encouragement he had given her, demanding softly,

‘What age…? No real man even starts to become interesting until he’s approaching forty, and I know for a fact that the decade between forty and fifty can be not just one of the most professionally fufilling but also one of the most sexually fulfilling of a man’s life. There’s something very, very attractive to a woman about an adult man who knows what he wants from life and how to get it… something so potently sexually attractive that very few women can resist it…’

How long was it since Nell had flirted with him like this… made him feel like this… boosted both his ego and his libido… ?

He was comparing two very different women, he reminded himself, and not very fairly. Nell had never had the kind of sexual self-confidence and aggression that would allow her to come on to a man the way that Sondra was doing.

In bed… in private, she had told him, shown him how much she desired and wanted him.

Had shown him? Guiltily he remembered the way they had made love in Provence; the eagerness with which she had come to him.

Long ago, in old-fashioned, traditional marriages, women had bartered sex for possessions and security

. Nell was not that kind of woman, she never could be, but in her way, if one looked beneath the surface, Sondra was exactly that kind of woman, using her sexuality, her youth as a lure, a bribe… relishing the power they gave her. He knew that, Marcus acknowledged, so why did he still find her sexually exciting?

What was it he really wanted? To lose himself and forget his anxieties and problems in the lush sexuality of her body? Or to punish Nell for not recognising and meeting all his needs by betraying her, betraying their marriage? Was he really that selfish—that weak? That male?

That was the trouble with being a lawyer, he recognised as the captain announced they would soon be landing; one always felt bound to assess both sides of the story.

Since both of them had brought only carry-on hand luggage with them, Marcus noticed wryly as they left the plane—Sondra’s bearing the unmistakable Gucci signature, unlike his own—there was nothing to delay their departure from the airport.

In the taxi taking them to their hotel, Sondra sat close to him, slipping her arm familiarly through his as she told him, ‘Well, at least we’ll have this evening free. What shall we do? I know… you can show me The Hague by night. The canals may not be as romantic as those in Venice, but the smell will probably be a lot better.’ She laughed as she wrinkled her nose.

As he listened to her, Marcus immediately registered his danger and his own foolhardiness. Those key words ‘we’ and ‘romantic’ had made her intentions plain enough. If he agreed to what she was suggesting, he had no doubts where the evening would end. And he wasn’t sure yet if that was really what he wanted. Nor really whether he actually liked being treated as the more passive partner.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t,’ he told her. ‘I’ve already arranged to spend the evening with an old friend…’

It wasn’t true, of course. What he had intended to spend the evening doing was getting up to date with some of his paperwork.

As soon as they had checked into their rooms, he picked up the phone, mentally keeping his fingers crossed.

Half an hour later he left the hotel, summoning a taxi and giving the driver his instructions. He had rung though to Sondra’s room and told her that he was going out. He could tell from her voice that she wasn’t pleased, and, remembering the soft, warm weight of her breast pressed against his body, he wasn’t sure if he really was doing the right thing himself.

The Hague was not a flamboyant city like Amsterdam; on the contrary, its buildings spoke of solid, respectable, middle-class wealth and lack of showiness, sedately prosperous, its streets immaculately clean, its very mien extraordinarily consistent with its role as the home of international justice; it had a sober, responsible, almost Scottish dour air about it which somehow made it somewhere totally unsuited for adulterous sex—or was that simply his own conscience prodding him? he wondered, as the taxi set him down outside one of a street of classically restrained canal houses.

The door opened almost immediately to his knock, the solid-fleshed, broad-shouldered man welcoming him giving off the same air of solid respectability as his home.

‘Marcus, it is good to see you,’ he greeted the Englishman, clapping him warmly on the shoulder. ‘Come in…’

‘It’s good to see you too, Piet. Sorry to land myself on you at such short notice.’

‘Not at all… I am only too glad to have your company. Elise is away with the children visiting her parents in Friesland and the house feels very empty without them. Have you eaten yet, or… ?’

‘We were offered something on the plane, but I’m certainly more than ready to eat again,’ Marcus told him, pausing as he saw the question in his friend’s face.

‘We? You are not alone, then?’ Piet peered round the door as though looking for someone else.

‘No… a colleague. An American lawyer who is spending some time with us studying the European judiciary system. She thought this trip would be of benefit to her.’

‘She?’ The thick, reddish-brown eyebrows rose a second time, and Marcus grimaced slightly to himself.