A Whirlwind Marriage

She had been wearing a pair of old jeans and a skimpy, much washed little top that summer’s day when she had first seen Zeke, she remembered flatly. Her hair had been loose in silky disarray and her only jewellery had been large silver hoops in her ears. Where had that carefree, happy-go-lucky girl gone?

She looked again at her wardrobe, and then her mouth lifted slightly at the corners. She knew what she was going to wear now.

The BMW was parked outside the house when Marianne exited ten minutes later, and Zeke leant across from the driver’s side and opened the front passenger door for her. She slid into the front seat, turning briefly to smile at her father, and then said calmly—as though her stomach wasn’t turning over and over— ‘Where are we going to eat?’

‘Salamanders,’ Zeke said shortly.

Thank you—oh, thank, God, she prayed fervently. She had been worried he was going to say Rochelle’s, and the jeans she had bought for weekends and the waist-length bubblegum-pink cardigan—another acquisition from the shop below that she had spied the previous Saturday and leapt on as soon as the shop had opened—were definitely not Rochelle material. Salamanders… Yes, Salamanders encouraged their clientele to be different. She could pass for capricious at Salamanders and it would be to her credit.

Salamanders was the restaurant of the moment, and when Zeke drew up outside its relatively innocuous portals and a doorman leapt to take care of the car, she gave a secret nod of acquiescence to the little voice in her head that said, You’re back in his world now, even if it is only for one evening.

Well, yes, she might be, she agreed silently, but this time she was going to make darn sure it was on her terms.

She had fixed her hair in a cute 60s ponytail on the side of her head, her make-up was discreet but flattering, and as she walked into the restaurant on the arms of her father and her husband she knew she looked good. She might not look like a millionaire businessman’s wife, or the latest designer clothes-horse, but she looked good. As she wanted to look, like the person she was inside.

Their table was waiting for them—Zeke would have expected nothing less—and as Marianne followed Zeke, her father making up the rear, her eyes suddenly become riveted on the woman the waiter was walking towards. It couldn’t be! He wouldn’t have! She kept on walking but her mind was screaming a warning. How could he? How could he do this? Surely her father hadn’t agreed to this?

‘Zeke, darling.’ As they reached the table Liliana’s heavily made-up eyes flicked over Marianne and her father, and Marianne realised the lovely redhead was as taken aback as she was. ‘We’re going to have a little party! How lovely.’

‘I thought so.’ Zeke inclined his head towards Liliana’s table companion as he turned to Marianne and Josh and said coolly, ‘Marianne, you know Liliana, but not her brother, I think? Josh, may I introduce you to Liliana and Claude de Giraud?’

‘Good evening.’ Josh was nothing if not a gentleman, but Marianne could tell he had recognised the name as the third corner in his daughter’s particular little triangle, and also that he didn’t appreciate her being put in such a position. The look he bestowed on Zeke was piercing, and it was not amiable.

‘Trust me.’ Zeke answered the beetling eyebrows quietly, his voice flat but holding a message Marianne didn’t understand.

‘This had better be good, Zeke.’ For once Josh was not his easygoing self. ‘I believed you were genuine when you said you had Marianne’s best interests at heart.’

Josh’s voice was too low for the two sitting at the table to hear, but her father had drawn Marianne to him with a protective arm and she heard every word. She didn’t know what to do or think. If her father hadn’t been there to give her moral support she had to admit she would have probably turned tail and run—despite the satisfaction that would have given the beautiful redhead. As it was, she forced herself to smile politely and incline her head just the slightest as she said, ‘Liliana, Claude, good evening.’

Once they were seated there was a split second of screaming silence before Zeke said, ‘A cocktail, I think, before we order?’

Marianne eyed him balefully. If he wasn’t too ca

reful he might find one particular cocktail ended up all over his dark, adulterous head, she thought viciously. ‘Lovely.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘I’ll have a Pink Slammer, to match my top.’

She had been aware of Liliana’s eyes on the jeans and cardigan, and it didn’t need an expert in psychology to work out Liliana was doing her sums. Marianne had decided attack was the best defence.

Liliana was dressed to kill in a black slinky number that fitted where it touched, with a hairstyle that must have taken her hairdresser hours. Her brother was equally expensively dressed, his suit clearly handmade and his shirt and tie in raw silk.

‘What a darling idea!’ Liliana seemed to have recovered her poise, her ice-blue eyes deadly as she allowed her gaze to rest on Marianne’s jeans for one moment before she said, with a little tinkling laugh, ‘A Black Widow for me, sweetie.’

The waiter was at their elbow taking orders in the next instant, and it was a second or two before he moved away and Liliana said, resting a red-taloned hand on Zeke’s arm as the opaque gaze flicked round the table, ‘It was just so sweet of you to invite Claude and I along tonight, darling, but what’s the occasion?’

‘I rather thought you could provide the answer to that, Liliana. You and Claude, of course.’ Zeke’s voice was silky-soft but Marianne glanced at him sharply. She knew that tone; she’d heard it once before, in the early days of their marriage, when they had been sitting in the garden of a riverside pub and some youths—aged fifteen or sixteen, certainly old enough to know better—had thought it good fun to throw stones at a swan and her signets.

They had been seven to Zeke’s one but he hadn’t had to swing a punch. The look in his eyes and the tone of his voice had had the bunch of yobbos all but crawling in the dirt in front of him.

Liliana wasn’t exactly crawling in the dirt, but she was intelligent enough to know that all was not well. The hand was removed from his arm and she settled back in her chair, glancing round the table once more before she said, ‘I don’t understand?’

‘Now, isn’t that strange.’ Zeke glanced from her to her brother. ‘I thought you might just click on when you saw us come in. And you, Claude? You also do not understand?’

‘Zeke…’ Claude’s voice trailed away, but the one word was enough to make Marianne’s eyes open wider. She knew that voice.

‘Yes?’ Zeke had fixed Claude’s eyes with his own and the Frenchman was wilting.

‘Zeke, this was not of my doing. You must understand that. I did not want to be a party to it—’

‘Shut up!’ Liliana’s voice was malignant. She said something in French to her brother that was clearly not complimentary.