The Bride's Secret

She wasn't aware of calling his name in the moment they both tipped over the pinnacle into a fiery world of colour and light and sensation, only of his fierce and savage cry of exultation as he made her wholly his and took her with him to the stars.

Marianne came back slowly from the warm, satisfying completeness of that other world, an exhaustion so deep as to be paralysing drugging her senses as she lay in the curve of Hudson's arm, snuggled up against his warm, hairy body with her face on his furry chest as he kissed the top of her head and held her close.

She must have slept, because when she next opened her eyes it was to a room filled with the half-light of dawn, and she was still encircled by Hudson's body, safe and secure and content She couldn't remember sleeping like that for years… The thought was there, in the soft golden moment before she became fully awake, but then her eyes shot open as she remembered. Hudson.

She froze before moving carefully, experimentally, easing herself out of his protective embrace and sliding slowly towards the edge of the bed. What had she done? What had she done?

She shouldn't have slept with him, not so… so completely, she told herself desperately. She should have let it be a physical mating, a fleshly thing. She shouldn't have given herself to him heart, soul and body, because he'd know—he would have sensed—her utter abandonment, and it would make their subsequent parting so much more difficult for him to accept Little chills of sick panic flickered up and down her spine. But how could she leave him now?

'Where do you think you're going?'

Hudson's voice was soft and satisfied, and Marianne froze again at the edge of the vast bed before turning slowly to face him, the edge of the duvet clutched against her breasts.

'I… I need to go to the bathroom,' she managed at last.

He raised himself into a leaning position on one elbow, his powerfully muscled chest causing her breath to catch in her throat as he drawled, 'Hurry back, sweetheart.'

'Sweetheart'. She continued to sit there staring at him, noticing the tender amusement in his handsome face as he studied her confusion. He thought she was shy, embarrassed at all the intimacies of the night before, she thought helplessly, and perhaps if the situation had been different she might have been. But there was no room for maidenly modesty now. She was going to have to tell him; she should have told him years ago, because then it would have been cut and dried without all the equivocations and half-truths that had led them to where they were now. She'd made such a mess of it.

'Annie?' The lazy amusement had died to be replaced with concern as he watched her face. 'What is it?'

'I can't… I can't stay here,' she blurted feverishly.

'Here? You mean in this hotel?' he asked intently. 'But you were staying here anyway; I don't see what's changed.'

'No, not the hotel; I don't mean that' Marianne swallowed miserably. 'I mean… ' She closed her eyes, a hopeless sense of dark inevitability making the need to shut out his face paramount 'I mean here with you, as… as your wife.'

She had expected an immediate response, perhaps a movement of his body as he reached out for her, but when the silence remained absolute she forced herself to open her eyes after long moments.

Hudson was still watching her, and as her heart began to beat in wild, panic-stricken little jerks he said evenly, 'Before last night I might have allowed you to get away with that, but not now. You're mine, Annie, and I don't mean because of a marriage ceremony either. There is no power on this earth that will make me let go of you now. You wanted me every bit as much as I wanted you last night'

'You said—you said if I wanted to leave—'

'But you don't, not in here.' He hit his fist against his magnificent chest 'This is telling you something different maybe—' he touched his head lightly '—but in your heart and soul you are all mine because you want to be, because you gave yourself to me last night more sweetly than anyone has ever done before. And don't deny it, Annie. I'm not a fool so don't treat me like one.'

'I… I can't stay with you, Hudson,' Marianne said flatly.

'Oh, yes, you can, Annie.' He moved across the bed, careless of his nakedness, to catch her wrists in his hands as he knelt to face her on the rumpled covers. 'And you're going to, because I have no intention of letting you go,' he warned grimly.

This was worse, a hundred times worse than she had ever visualised, but now all her options were gone and she knew it was only the truth that would do. And whatever he said, however he manipulated the words in that astute lawyer's brain of his, she would know from his face that he was secretly horrified at what he had inadvertently let himself in for. His career meant everything to him, she knew that, and however much he loved her, however much he cared, a tiny, hidden part of him would be relieved if she left.

'You'll understand when I tell you,' she said shakily.

'I said I don't need an explanation; we've gone beyond that—'

'I have to tell you.' She cut across his quiet voice with a shrillness that silenced him. 'I should have told you before, long before, and then perhaps yesterday wouldn't have happened.'

'I wouldn't bet on it,' he said darkly. 'I love you, Annie, and that involves more than a quick tumble in the hay or having the little woman ready with the slippers when I get home at night I'm committed to you for better or worse; I have been since the first day I saw you. I don't care what you've done or haven't done; there is nothing, nothing, that you could say or do that would make me love you any the less. So if you still want to tell me, knowing that, so be it'

'Don't Please, please don't' The tears were running down her cheeks, the sense of loss already unbearable. 'Just… just listen, please, Hudson—without saying anything.'

'I'll listen.' He settled back on the bed, folding her against the hard wall of his chest so she was sitting with her back against him, his arms round her waist 'Tell me.'

The moment was here, time had run out, and she didn't know how to start. She stared blindly round the beautiful room, cool and shadowed in the early-morning light, her nerves stretched to breaking point What would he think of her when he knew?

'You remember that night, when you asked me to marry you?' she said, trembling. 'And I said—'

'You said "Yes, please, my darling",' Hudson said quietly.