‘Thank you.’ Marianne hesitated. She could prevaricate or change the subject but everything in her balked at that tonight. ‘I don’t want to stay in the apartment for very much longer,’ she said carefully. ‘It was Zeke’s bachelor pad before we married and I don’t really like it. I’d prefer a house on the outskirts.’
Wendy nodded interestedly. ‘Do you work?’ she asked mildly.
Zeke was still talking to Gerald, but a sixth sense told Marianne he was listening to the women’s conversation, and that more than anything else loosened her tongue. ‘Not at the moment,’ she said evenly, ‘but I intend to look into the possibility of doing a degree course in biology and chemistry with a view to eventually working in a hospital lab.’
‘Really?’ Now Wendy was genuinely interested. ‘My sister did exactly that and she’s never regretted it. She has done a great deal of work with leukaemic children; you must have a chat with her some time.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Marianne eagerly. ‘Thank you.’
They spoke some more, and although Marianne didn’t think Wendy could detect the black waves coming from across the table, she most certainly could.
The desserts were served, and, delicious as Marianne’s poached pears with lemon caramel were, she found she had to force them down. She and Zeke were going to have a row—a great, almighty giant of a row—once they were alone; she just knew it. But she had tried, over and over and over in the last months, to tell him how she felt—about the apartment, going to college, the way he kept her wrapped up in cotton wool and separate from the rest of the world—oh, so many things. And he had brushed her aside or treated her like a child who didn’t know its own mind. Or both.
She couldn’t go on like this any longer, feeling a prisoner in that beautiful, cold, soulless glasshouse Liliana had created for him. And he knew how she felt about the elegant redhead, yet he’d still asked Liliana to take on the project, knowing it would involve them working in each other’s pockets for days on end.
Her parents’ marriage hadn’t been like that. Theirs had been an equal partnership, with giving and receiving on both sides; she knew her father had valued her mother’s opinion and talked everything over with her. She wanted to be loved like that.
She raised her eyes suddenly on the last mouthful of dessert and looked straight across the table at Zeke, and the narrowed grey eyes were waiting for her.
She stared at him, considering him almost as though he were a stranger. He’s magnificent! Her brain told her what she really didn’t want to hear. She would never, ever meet another Zeke; no man could follow him. It wasn’t just the dark good looks, or the brooding magnetism that still had the power to make her weak at the knees, the brilliant force of his personality or the d
angerous, almost savage quality to his sensual attractiveness. It was the other side of him, too, the tender, coaxingly soft side that only she saw which in itself made it all the more precious.
He loved her. In his own way he did love her, she told herself silently, but whereas he was all her world she was only one small segment of his. She had to decide whether she was prepared to put up with the status quo or insist on change—change that could mean she would lose him altogether. And there was Liliana—and plenty more Lilianas, no doubt—waiting in the wings should this go against her. She had to remember that.
But she still wanted more than this…this cage he’d manufactured around her. If he really loved her he would understand that, wouldn’t he?
The waiter arriving with their coffee broke the eye contact and Marianne almost slumped back in her seat before she brought herself up straight. She had to be strong; she couldn’t let him intimidate her in any way, this was too important. This situation with Liliana, it had somehow brought to a head everything that had been fermenting under the surface for months.
She had expected Zeke to go for the jugular the moment the taxi dropped the Mortons off at their attractive mews house in Kensington, but after the goodbyes had been said, and they were on their way again he merely settled back in the seat, drawing her arm through his. ‘Tired, sweetheart?’
Marianne’s reply was lost in his leisurely kiss, a kiss that had her dizzy and flushed and warm by the time he’d finished. She had never met anyone who could kiss like Zeke. She had never met anyone who was such a master of manipulation as Zeke! She took a deep breath and prayed for the right words. ‘Zeke, we have to talk. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I can think of better things to do, but if you insist…’ He smiled at her, a slow, sexy smile, and she hoped he couldn’t see the effect it had on her. ‘Wait till we get home, okay?’ he drawled softly. ‘We can have a brandy and talk all you want.’
He smelt delicious—Zeke always smelt delicious; it was one of the first things she had noticed about him—and as Marianne rested her head against his broad shoulder she found herself praying she wouldn’t capitulate to his charm as she had done so many times in the past. It wasn’t that she had set her heart on being a career woman to the exclusion of everything else—she wanted children, Zeke’s children, and a family home and slippers in front of the fire; of course she did—but in this day and age it didn’t have to be one or the other.
He kissed her again once they were in the lift, and she closed her eyes, her arms snaking up round his wide muscled shoulders and her hands tangling in the spiky short hair at the back of his head. His hands swept over her breasts, her thighs, before coming to rest on her neat rounded buttocks as he urged her against his hard maleness until she could feel every inch of his powerful arousal.
‘You’re incredible, do you know that?’ he murmured against her lips. ‘I can never get enough of you.’
The lift slid to a halt and she pushed him away slightly as sanity returned. ‘Zeke—’
‘I know, I know.’ He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners as his thick short lashes swept down, hiding his expression from her. ‘You want to talk first.’
They entered the apartment with his arm round her waist and their bodies touching, but once in the drawing room Marianne purposely seated herself on a blue brocade chair rather than on the sofa, her hands neatly together in her lap and her back straight.
Zeke poured them both a brandy from the gracious cocktail cabinet in one corner of the room, his face faintly amused as he took in her posture.
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was prim as she accepted the heavy crystal brandy glass from him, and she swilled the dark golden contents around for a moment before taking a small sip.
‘So?’ He seated himself on the sofa opposite her after taking off his suit jacket and slinging it on a chair, undoing the first few buttons of his shirt and loosening his tie as he settled back comfortably in the seat. ‘Talk, my sweet. Talk.’
‘My sweet’. It wasn’t so very different from ‘sweetie’, was it? Marianne thought, Liliana’s condescending manner in the forefront of her mind as she stared back into the dark, handsome face opposite her. They both thought she was someone to be patronised in their different ways.
The thought made her voice brittle as she said, ‘I can’t carry on living as we are, Zeke, you must realise that.’
‘Why?’ It was cool and even but not aggressive.