The Failed Marriage. Carole Mortimer

control. ‘Just go. Now.’

      She scrambled to her feet, collecting up her clothes before going to the door. She gave one last longing look in his direction before quietly leaving.

      But she was adult enough to realise that his anger had mainly been directed at himself, for his response to her. Her own body ached from her pleasure in his rough caresses, and she was determined that she would know that desire again.

      Joanna’s thoughts came agonisingly back to the present as she heard the slamming of the Rolls’ door outside, knowing that Joshua was home. The clock at her bedside told her it was almost eleven. Joshua was later than he usually was, her own time since his departure being spent reliving the time they had met and she had fallen in love. Because she had fallen in love, during that first kiss.

      She got to her feet now, hobbling into the bathroom to empty the cold scented water she had forgotten she had run as she became lost in thoughts of the past.

      She was in bed reading a magazine when she heard Joshua coming up the stairs, knowing he must have seen the light on in her room, her windows facing the front of the house. Her face was a polite mask as his knock sounded on her bedroom door, and he entered immediately afterwards.

      He looked even more tired than he had earlier tonight, sharpening Joanna’s suspicion as to the reason for the tiredness, although she didn’t ever remember lovemaking tiring him in the past.

      He didn’t make the curt goodnight at the door as he usually did, and Joanna stiffened as he came in to sit on the side of her bed. ‘How is your foot now?’ he enquired softly.

      She put her magazine down, her hands clasping together to stop their trembling. This situation reminded her too much of the time she had pretended injury to her wrist, swallowing hard as she remembered the way he had kissed her then. ‘It’s fine,’ she dismissed, just wanting him to leave.

      ‘Sure?’ he frowned, looking all of his thirty-seven years.

      ‘Yes!’ Her tone was sharp with tension.

      His eyes took on the look of a storm-tossed sea as he continued to look at her, his breathing suddenly ragged. She had learnt during their married life together that it wasn’t only anger that made his eyes go that colour, that physical desire produced the same effect. It was the latter he was feeling now.

      He confirmed her suspicions as he groaned low in his throat. ‘God, Joanna, I—–’

      ‘No!’ She recoiled away from him even as his hands tightened on her arms.

      ‘Yes, Joanna,’ he bit out grimly. ‘Tonight it has to be yes!’

      His mouth claimed hers, parting her lips as he bent her to his will, kissing her with an intimacy she thought forgotten. His hands moved feveredly over her body from her hip to her breast, lingering over the latter, tracing the outline of the nipple through the silk of her nightgown, pushing the strap of the gown down as his mouth moved to claim her bare breast.

      ‘No!’ she looked up at him with wild eyes. ‘I don’t want to!’ She pushed his hands away from her.

      Joshua was breathing heavily as he raised his head, refusing to be pushed off as he pinned her down to the bed. ‘You never do,’ he ground out. ‘But I do,’ he told her fiercely.

      Her eyes glittered her rejection of him. ‘Then go and see your little receptionist. But don’t come to me!’

      His eyes narrowed as he slowly moved up and away from her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he rasped.

      Her mouth twisted, she pulled herself up the pillow now that the danger had passed, straightening the bedclothes about her with a calm she was far from feeling. It was a long time since she and Joshua had discussed anything on such a personal level, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it yet.

      ‘Joanna!’ he prompted hardly at her silence.

      She sighed, her head back defiantly. ‘You know exactly what I mean, Joshua, so let’s not play games. If you choose to have an affair with your receptionist then that’s your business, but don’t come to me after you’ve been with her.’

      ‘I’ve been working—–’

      ‘I think the whole of London is aware of the “work” you’ve been doing in the evenings lately,’ she said contemptuously.

      He breathed angrily, his mouth tight. ‘In other words, your mother has been listening to one of her cronies again,’ he derided harshly. ‘No wonder she was concerned about you! When will you learn not to listen to gossip, Joanna?’

      She flushed at the rebuke. ‘This wasn’t gossip, and you know it. And my mother actually defended you,’ she told him angrily. ‘She thinks a man is entitled to “stray”, as long as his wife finds out in time and puts a stop to it,’ she added disgustedly.

      ‘But you don’t want to do that, do you, Joanna?’ he taunted hardly. ‘Because if you did that you would have to share a bed with me yourself.’

      ‘Does this mean you admit to having an affair with Angela Hailey?’

      ‘I admit nothing—but I’m not denying it either,’ he added softly, too softly. ‘Does that give you an excuse to keep denying me access to your bed, and your body?’

      ‘I don’t need an excuse!’ she snapped, two bright spots of colour in her cheeks.

      ‘No,’ he agreed heavily, beginning to pace the room. ‘I realise that.’ He stopped his pacing to glare down at her. ‘Just why the hell did you marry me, Joanna?’ he asked wearily.

      She looked down at her hands. ‘You know why,’ she mumbled.

      ‘Tell me!’ he ordered tightly.

      Her head went back at the aggression in his tone, throwing back the bedclothes to stand up, her body tense with anger as she faced him across the room. ‘Because I was eighteen, terrified, and carrying your child!’

       CHAPTER THREE

      AS she watched him his face became a shuttered mask, all emotion erased, his eyes the only part of him that showed he hadn’t turned to stone, fires leaping and dying amidst the stormy sea.