‘You’re looking well, Magdalena,’ Adam told her softly once they were all assembled in the sitting-room.
That name again!
She sat down in one of the armchairs, more tired from the strain of the evening than she cared to admit. She sat forward in the chair, unable to relax, the darkness of her hair falling forward over her shoulders. ‘How did you expect me to look, Adam?’ she returned scornfully, deep blue eyes clashing with icy grey. ‘Broken and defeated?’ As she had undoubtedly been on the day he’d left her life three years ago!
At the time she hadn’t believed, after what had already happened to her, that her life could get any worse than it already was; how wrong she had been! She hadn’t allowed for Adam, for his cold selfishness.
His mouth tightened. ‘No, I—’
‘As you can see, Adam—’ Mark was the one to interrupt him ‘—Maggi is happy and well—and doing just fine without you!’ he added challengingly.
Glacial eyes were turned in his direction. ‘When I want your opinion, dear cousin—’ Adam drawled the last two words insultingly ‘—I’ll ask for it! At this moment I happen to be talking to Magdalena.’
Cousin. Yes, these men were first cousins. It was hard to believe they could be related, that their mothers had been sisters, but it had been through her friendship with Mark that she had first met Adam, having accompanied the younger man to a family wedding. Adam had got up to sing during the reception and Mark had encouraged Maggi to join him. Even then, though their performance was completely unrehearsed, it had been obvious to the people listening that there was something magical about the two of them singing together.
Adam had been at the wedding with his long-term girlfriend, Jane, and Maggi had been dating Mark for almost six months. But something had happened between the two of them that day, and when Adam had telephoned her a couple of days later, having got her number from Mark, and suggested they go through some songs together with the intention of actually performing them in front of an audience in the future, Maggi had felt no hesitation in agreeing to meet him.
If only she had hesitated! If only she could have known the heartache that would follow, then she would never, ever have gone near Adam after that telephone call.
‘As Mark has already told you,’ she firmly answered Adam now, ‘I am very well, thank you.’
Adam’s mouth twisted again at the formality of her tone. ‘I’m so glad!’ he returned tauntingly.
Her head went back challengingly. ‘Are you?’
Adam’s jaw tensed, a warning of his building anger. ‘What sort of question is that? Of course I’m glad you’re fit and well again,’ he bit out harshly.
‘I would have thought Maggi’s scepticism was only too well deserved,’ Mark derided dismissively. ‘You haven’t exactly been falling over yourself with concern for her welfare in the last three years!’
Adam was very still, a nerve pulsing in his now tightly clenched jaw, the lines beside his nose and mouth, acquisitions of those years, becoming more pronounced. ‘And just how would you know what I have been doing?’ he grated accusingly. ‘You seem to have had your hands full during that time bedding Magdalena!’
‘Mark, no!’ Maggi had time to shout before she rushed across the room to stop his fist actually making contact with Adam, managing to put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘He isn’t worth it, Mark,’ she told him quietly, her gaze softly compelling on his flushed face. ‘He never was,’ she added heavily, knowing it was true.
It had taken her a long time to accept it—weeks, months of pain and disillusionment, before realising that after two years of living her life for and with Adam he was no longer there for her, not physically or emotionally. That perhaps he never had been.
It was said that you never knew the extent of a person’s love until faced with adversity; Adam had turned and walked away the first time their relationship had come up against a serious obstacle.
She turned to look at him as he stood so mockingly in front of Mark. ‘Our relationship is none of your concern, Adam,’ she told him flatly. ‘Nothing that has happened in my life over the last three years is,’ she added determinedly.
Adam’s mouth curved wryly. ‘I’ve been waiting most of that time for some family announcement of a wedding between the two of you.’ He looked at them both coldly. ‘Or did she turn you down a second time, Mark?’ he added scornfully.
Again Maggi put a restraining hand on Mark’s arm. Adam had always liked to bait the younger man. The friendship she’d had with his cousin before knowing him had always been a sore point with him, even though it had been Adam she had loved. It was true that perhaps if she had never met Adam she might have one day married Mark. But she had met Adam, and so the question of any marriage between herself and Mark was now ridiculous. As Adam must know only too well. He was just playing his games again—and she, for one, did not want to play!
‘Mark and I don’t need marriage to cement our relationship.’ Again Maggi was the one to answer him. ‘We know how we feel about each other,’ she added challengingly, feeling some of the tension leave Mark as her hand still rested on his arm.
Adam’s mouth thinned disapprovingly. ‘So does everyone else when the two of you are openly staying here together!’ He looked around him pointedly.
‘Moral indignation, Adam?’ Mark taunted, completely in control again now, squeezing Maggi’s hand in thanks for her support before moving slightly away. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ He looked at the other man contemptuously.
Neither Maggi nor Mark, she was sure, had any intention of telling Adam that this suite had two bedrooms: one for Mark and one for herself. If he chose to believe the two of them shared the bedroom they had just left, then that was Adam’s problem. He only had his own warped morals by which to judge other people...
Adam looked coldly at the younger man for several seconds before slowly turning back to Maggi. ‘I didn’t come here to talk to the monkey,’ he bit out disgustedly, his gaze dark on Maggi’s face now. ‘I spoke to the organisers of the festival after you left earlier,’ he told her smoothly. ‘They were very pleased with the way things went this evening.’
‘You had no right to talk to any—’
‘I’m sure they were,’ Maggi interrupted Mark’s angry outburst, glaring steadily at Adam.
He nodded unconcernedly. ‘They would like us to repeat the performance tomorrow evening.’
‘No,’ she told him flatly, having already guessed what he was going to say; the organisers of the festival would be very silly not to try and cash in on the fact that Adam Carmichael was willing to perform. ‘For one thing, I’m sure a world-famous celebrity like yourself must have a more pressing engagement—’
‘None that I can think of,’ he dismissed easily, looking at her challengingly now, hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his black trousers.
‘And for another,’ she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted, ‘I’m a solo performer myself now. I don’t sing with anyone else.’ It was a flat statement of fact which held no challenge. ‘The organisers either accept that, and I go on stage alone tomorrow evening, or I don’t perform at all,’ she added.
His mouth twisted. ‘You’re better than you ever were, Magdalena,’ he acknowledged dryly. ‘So I’m sure they will accept that.’
‘Then there’s no problem, is there?’ She gave him a humourless smile, immune to his praise, knowing that it was being given on a purely professional level; that was one area where Adam was always completely objective. As she knew only too well.
He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘The problem is, we were always better together than apart.’