Elizabeth Power – A Passionate Affair: The Passionate Husband / The Italian's Passion / A Latin Passion (страница 22)

She had been an idiot when Taylor had called this morning. She had underestimated her own strength to resist him, but she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Her hands bunched together as she remembered their embraces, her cheeks flushing with humiliation at how easily he had beguiled her. From now on he could threaten to wake the whole street and she would not let him in. But it wouldn’t come to that anyway. Tomorrow she would arrange to meet him somewhere anonymous, a wine bar or something similar, and she would make it abundantly clear the divorce was going through come hell or high water.

She caught her breath as her heart twisted. Behind her closed eyelids she could picture him on the screen of her mind. His long lean tanned body as it had looked that morning, the broad muscled chest, flat stomach and hard powerful thighs, his hands—brown and long-fingered—and his mouth. Oh, his mouth… Sensuous, coaxing, possessing the power to send her delirious with desire. How was she going to manage without him? How would she ever get through the rest of her life, knowing he was in the world—walking, eating, breathing, loving—but not with her?

Stop it. She opened her eyes with a snap, furious at herself. She had got by the last eighteen months and she would do so again. Taylor Kane was not the be all and end all; she had to remember that. He might be fascinating and sexy and tender and magnetic, but he was also ruthless and arrogant and hard when it suited him. The same qualities that drew her to him drew other women, and she wasn’t about to live her life ruled by jealousy, eaten up by it. This had to be a clean sharp cut which severed any fragile links still hanging between them.

She turned her head to gaze unseeing out of the window. Of course she would always love him, always carry a thousand regrets for what might have been, but she mustn’t let him know that. She had thought she would grow old with him, loving him and being loved in return, but it wasn’t to be. There would be no babies, no little Taylors with dark hair and tawny eyes…

Again she jerked herself out of her thoughts by sheer will-power. She must not let her mind stray for one moment. She had to keep absolute control over herself or she would end up a gibbering idiot! She had made the only decision she could eighteen months ago and nothing had changed. She couldn’t spend her life wondering when he would tire of her completely, when one of his other women would capture his heart, mind and soul. Living alone for the rest of her life would be preferable to that.

The thought mocked her, especially because, having seen him again, she wasn’t sure if it was true. If she thought there was a chance she might hold him she would take it.

But not at the cost of your own soul. She sat up straighter, her mouth setting in a grim line. And that was what it boiled down to. She wouldn’t let herself become a victim, the sort of woman who put up with intolerable indignities in the name of love.

‘Here we are, miss.’

As the taxi drew up outside the TV building Marsha scrambled out, giving the man a handsome tip to make up for being such an uncommunicative passenger.

She had made a life for herself and it was a good one. It was. It would have to be enough.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘MARSHA. I didn’t expect you today.’

Nicki beamed at her as she walked into the office, which was a slight balm to her sore feelings. At least her secretary liked her, she thought with a heavy dose of self-pity which she wasn’t about to apologise for in the slightest. ‘I sorted things out quicker than I expected,’ she said quietly.

‘Sorted things out?’ Nicki frowned. ‘Jeff said you’d come back to work yesterday too quickly and weren’t feeling great again today.’

Bless him. Marsha felt a brief warm glow in the leaden ball of her stomach. People could be so nice on occasion. ‘Well, I’ll stick to that officially, then. Unofficially—’ she bent down closer ‘—I took your advice and went to see Taylor’s sister.’ She wasn’t about to tell even Nicki of the early-morning breakfast scenario.

‘And?’

‘Nothing. She was very sweet and very upset, but that’s all. The truth is the truth when all’s said and done.’

‘Pants.’

‘Quite.’

Marsha seated herself at her desk and pulled a wad of papers in front of her. There was nothing more to be said.

When Nicki brought back half the canteen’s stock of food at lunchtime Marsha ate a rather pitiable-looking ham sandwich and apple at her desk, but she had to force the food down. Jeff had popped his head out just after she had got into the office, declaring himself immensely pleased to see her, after which he had deposited a slim file in front of her, ordering her to stop all other work immediately. Marsha was not fooled by the width of the file. Thinking up ideas for new and interesting programmes was testing enough, but often necessitated a minimum of paperwork. Translating the idea into a programme within a budget, often with the impending broadcasting date just ahead, was the really hard work. After glancing through the paperwork she knew she would be working all over the weekend.

She had just returned to her desk, after a visit to the studio where the programme would be shot, and was immersed in a wad of possible facts and figures when Nicki leapt in front of her. ‘Could you sign this please?’ she said loudly, adding in a low hiss, ‘Penelope and him are in the corridor outside.’

Marsha’s stomach curled, but she had the presence of mind to keep her head down as she reached for the blank piece of paper Nicki had thrust on her desk.

Every nerve-end prickling, she waited for the door to open. She wasn’t disappointed. Penelope sailed in first, in a cloud of cloying perfume, her tone pre-emptive as she said, ‘He’s in, I take it?’ and made for Jeff’s door.

‘Just a moment, Miss Pelham.’ Marsha was on her feet and in front of Jeff’s door quicker than a dose of salts. She ignored the dark figure behind the other woman as she said, ‘If you would like to take a seat, I’ll just check Mr North is free.’

Penelope halted, swirling on her high heels as she said to Taylor, ‘Really!’ But she didn’t press her case, knowing full well it was exactly how she would have expected her second in command to have acted.

Marsha knocked on Jeff’s door, slipping inside and closing it again before she said evenly, ‘Miss Pelham and Mr Kane are outside.’

‘What?’ Jeff had been deep in an intricate and soaring budget which had been giving him a headache for days, but as her words registered his eyes cleared. He disliked Penelope every bit as much as he liked Marsha, and he thought this Kane fellow needed his head testing. He didn’t know what had gone on in the marriage—it might have been six of one and half a dozen of the other, though he doubted it—but for the guy to rub Marsha’s nose in it with Penelope was downright cruel. And he had a pretty good idea what the ‘personal business’ Marsha had spoken about earlier involved. ‘You okay?’ he said softly.

Marsha put out her hand, turning it from side to side as she said, ‘So, so,’ her smile shaky.

‘You know you’re far too good for that bozo, don’t you? Let Penelope get her claws into him for a while. He’ll soon wish he’d never been born.’

Marsha’s smile was more natural this time. ‘Thanks, Jeff. I’ll show them in, shall I?’

He nodded. ‘And get Nicki to bring some coffee in, would you? Penelope takes hers with arsenic.’

‘Oh, Jeff.’ The kindness was a little too much, coming at a time when her composure was fragile to say the least. As the smile wobbled and her bottom lip trembled Jeff was round his desk in a shot.

‘Hey, come on. No guy is worth your tears. Now, then—there’s plenty out there who would give their right arm to be with you.’

He put a comforting arm round her shoulders, digging in his pocket for a crisp white handkerchief with the other. He handed it to her with a wry smile. ‘Chin up,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t give either of them the satisfaction of seeing this bothers you.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘That’s my girl.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Are we interrupting anything?’ Penelope’s cool voice from the doorway brought Marsha’s blonde head and Jeff’s brown one swinging round as though connected by the same cord.

Neither of them had heard the door open, but Penelope was standing staring at them, her eyes aglow, with Taylor filling the space behind her. Marsha gave an inward groan, but to give Jeff his due he maintained the stance for a second or so more, removing his arm from her shoulders almost leisurely as he said, ‘We’ll talk later, Marsha. Okay? Now, perhaps if you’d like to get Nicki organising that coffee…?’

‘Certainly.’ Taking her cue from Jeff, she raised her chin, speaking to the two in the doorway but keeping her eyes on Penelope’s feline face as she said, ‘If you’d like to take a seat?’

She let them come into the room before she made any effort to pass them, but even though she didn’t glance at Taylor she could sense the dark waves emanating from the tall figure. Just as she shut the door she heard Penelope say in an overt whisper, ‘Jeff, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I thought Marsha was merely announcing us. If we’ve embarrassed you in any way…’