Cruel Legacy

‘Mmm… I think we’d be more comfortable continuing this in bed, don’t you?’ Mark murmured to her as he eased her slightly away from him.

‘Continuing… ?’ Deborah blinked. ‘I know the air up here is supposed to be very bracing,’ she joked. ‘Oh, Mark, it’s been so long since we’ve done anything like this.’ She arched shakily towards him as his mouth caressed her breasts. ‘It feels so good knowing you still want me. Mmm—you feel so good,’ she told him in a muffled voice as she pushed him gently away and slid down his body so that she could take him in her mouth.

They made love twice more before Deborah protested tiredly that she was going to need a sleep before she could even think about getting ready for dinner.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so sexually satisfied, so content and replete. Exhausted, she crawled beneath the duvet, holding it up until Mark joined her, her last act before she gave in to the physical exhaustion claiming her to reach out for some tissues to soak up the familiar seepage of Mark’s semen from between her legs.

As she did so, she recognised that her brain was trying to tell her something important, but her need to sleep was too intense for her to listen. As she sank into sleep she was smiling happily, moving back to curl her body into the familiar warm spoon-shape of Mark’s.

As soon as he knew that Deborah was asleep Mark got out of bed. Had she realised that despite all his frantic attempts to do so he had not actually ‘come’? Mark wondered morosely. He could feel his stomach stiffen in rejection of the knowledge.

Beneath his apparent desire for Deborah he was still holding on to his anger for her; he recognised that his pleasure just now had come not from arousing her and wanting her, but from the knowledge of his sexual power over her… his body’s physical protest against the way she was emasculating him professionally. Sombre-faced, he turned away.

What was happening to them, to their relationship, that he should feel so bad and that she should not know it?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘HEY, you’re looking very pleased with yourself this morning. Good weekend, was it?’ one of the men teased Deborah slyly.

‘Very pleasant, thanks,’ she responded sedately, ignoring the innuendo behind his grin.

It was going to be a long long time before sexual harassment could be eradicated from the workplace when that kind of remark was so instinctively and automatically a part of the male psyche, she reflected wryly, although, to be fair, the male sex wasn’t alone in making observations about other people’s sex lives; it was just that when they did it…

It had been a good weekend, though, and on the drive home she had generously told Mark that he had been right to insist. on their going away, apologising for being so tetchy with him beforehand.

Just for a second she gave in to the temptation to close her eyes and blissfully mentally recapture the pleasure of their time away together.

Mark had always been a sensitive and generous lover, but this weekend… She had never known him to be so sexually demanding before, overwhelming her laughing protest that they weren’t engaged in some sort of sexual marathon.

She was normally the one who set the pace for their lovemaking.

‘Deborah, a word with you, please.’

Guiltily she opened her eyes, her face flushing slightly as she saw Ryan standing in front of her. She hadn’t heard him come into the office and her stomach muscles tensed warningly as she saw the look on his face. Something or someone had obviously annoyed him.

‘We’re having a partners’ meeting this afternoon and I’d like an up-to-date progress report on the case. If you can have it ready for me by two…’

Deborah stared at his back as he turned his attention from her. Her heart had started to beat a little bit too fast, while her brain tried to come to terms with the obvious irritation and impatience in his voice and the abrupt change of attitude towards her which it seemed to indicate. She had seen Ryan behave like this before—towards other people.

‘Ryan, I’m not sure if I’ll have time. I have an appointment with——’ she began, but he cut her off, turning back to face her and looking cold as he cut in,

‘No? But you did apparently have time to spend gossiping about your weekend. I warned you when I gave you this case that it would demand one-hundred-and-twenty-per-cent commitment from you, Deborah. When you came here, one of the first things about you that impressed me was your commitment to your career, but now it seems other things are more important. We don’t pay you to sit here daydreaming about your love-life like some moronic teenager…!’

Deborah swallowed hard on her chagrin, uncomfortably aware that there was very little she could do to defend herself from his criticism, no matter how much privately she might dispute his allegation that she was not giving her full concentration to her work.

‘I want that report,’ Ryan repeated curtly.

Hypersensitively she knew that the small knot of men gathered together round the coffee machine outside her office were talking about her. She could feel her ears burning with the injustice. It had not been fair of Ryan to call into question her commitment to her career, and surely he could have given her a little more time to prepare this report?

Luckily she liked to work with a relatively up-to-date progress chart… determinedly she switched on her computer.

Two o’clock, Ryan had said.

* * *

‘Oh, nice shot…’

Mark smiled an acknowledgement of his partner’s praise as they both watched the ball he had just hit rolling smoothly down the fairway.