exist any more.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU’RE just being a dog in the manger,’ Georgia went on, warming to her theme. ‘You haven’t wanted me for the past four years, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either. And please don’t try telling me that you’ve been faithful to my memory!’ She fixed Mac with a clear look. ‘Journalists are a gossipy lot, and I know all about your girlfriends.’
Faint colour tinged his cheekbones. ‘I’m not going to pretend I’ve been celibate for four years. Yes, there have been women, but I didn’t love any of them the way I loved you and, God knows, I tried.’
‘Oh, thanks, that’s very reassuring!’
‘I’m trying to be honest,’ said Mac with obvious restraint. ‘I know we both agreed we would be happier on our own, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel hurt and bitter about the way things had ended. I wanted to meet someone else, someone I could love, someone who wanted children too, but the harder I tried to forget you, the more I found myself missing you. I’d meet someone young and beautiful and gentle, she’d be good with children and longing to have a family of her own, and all I could think about was you.’
He sounded almost angry about it.
‘I did everything I could to get you out of my head. Over and over again, I reminded myself about your annoying habits, the way you drove me mad with your lists and your routines and the way you always had to be at the airport four hours early.’
But then he would remember her sensuality and her intelligence and her honesty, the kindness she kept concealed behind that brisk façade.
And, more treacherously still, he would remember her perfume, her warmth and her softness and the tickle of that glorious hair as she leant over to kiss him. Even now the very thought of it could make his whole body clench with desire.
‘So you were always there, whether I wanted you or not,’ he went on, resigned. ‘I went a bit crazy after you left. I threw myself into work. The more dangerous the story was, the more I wanted to go. I got myself sent on a long assignment in Africa, but even that couldn’t dislodge you from my mind. The thought of you just wouldn’t go away. In the end I gave up,’ he said simply. ‘I decided it was always going to be you.’
Georgia bit her lip. She had been through the long, weary process of trying to shake off a haunting memory herself.
‘If you felt like that about me, why didn’t you do anything about it?’ she challenged him, her grey eyes bright and direct. The last thing she wanted was to start identifying with him!
‘I’ve only reached that conclusion recently,’ he said, picking his words with care now. ‘I could have come back, but I think part of me was afraid to change the balance of things. I used to hear about you occasionally. I knew you were doing well and I guess the fact that you never did anything about a divorce made me think it might be better to leave things as they were until I finished my assignment and could try and see if we could have another go.’
‘In fact, I’m fitting conveniently into your schedule,’ said Georgia in a withering voice.
That was typical! She had spent her whole marriage waiting for Mac’s attention, waiting for him to finish one assignment, waiting for him to shake off the memories of some bitter, dreadful conflict that consumed him when he came home, hoping for a moment when he could stop thinking about what he had seen and think about her instead. But the call to the next war, the next disaster, the next misery had always come first.
‘No.’ Mac’s jaw tightened. ‘I got your letter, and that changed everything. I can make a living as a freelance, so I resigned and came home to find you. There was no way I was going to stay in Africa and let you divorce me without a word of explanation.’
‘I have explained!’
‘Not in a way that I can understand,’ said Mac. ‘I want to talk.’
Georgia regarded him crossly. It never occurred to him to think about what she wanted!
This was her new life, and she didn’t want him here, reminding her of what she had left in London, reminding her of the kind of person she used to be, leaving memories and associations behind after he had gone. He changed things just by walking into a room. Now she would never be able to look at that stupid chair he kept tipping back in without thinking of him.
‘I can’t talk now,’ she said irritably. ‘I’m busy.’
Mac lifted a disbelieving eyebrow and looked into the newsroom where Kevin now had his feet on the desk while he checked his mobile phone.
Georgia gritted her teeth. ‘I’ve got a lot to do, even if no one else does!’
‘You were just staring out of the window when I came in,’ Mac pointed out unfairly.
‘I was thinking!’
‘Well, I’m not going to sign any papers until we have talked some more,’ he said, ‘so when do you suggest we meet?’
Georgia could feel her shoulders tighten with tension. It was just like Mac to go on and on and on until he got what he wanted. He just never gave up. His persistence had won him some fantastic pictures, but it was a less appealing quality on an emotional level.
Really, she had more than enough problems at the moment without Mac strolling in and unsettling her, Georgia thought with a mixture of exasperation and weariness. It had always been the same. He would turn her world upside down, make a mockery of her attempts to stay cool and calm, send her senses spinning. She had hated the way he could make her feel wild and abandoned and out of control.
She had loved it too, a small part of Georgia acknowledged.
But not any more. She had changed, she reminded herself sternly. She had other priorities now, and they didn’t include resurrecting a doomed relationship.
Georgia wished that Mac would just go, but she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t move until he got what he wanted. Well, let him talk if he wanted to. She had made the decision to move on and change her life, and she wasn’t about to change her mind now, no matter what he might have to say.
She might as well get it over and done with.
‘Come to supper tonight,’ she said with a sigh. It was lucky that she had already invited Geoffrey. Geoffrey was safe and solid and reliable. His very presence would remind her of all that was good about the new life she was choosing and all that was bad about her life with Mac.
Putting on her glasses, she pulled a pad of paper towards her and wrote out her address in her characteristically neat script.
‘As you’ve tracked me down this far, I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding your way,’ she said as she tore off the sheet and handed it to Mac.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and twirled the paper between his fingers with a smile that Georgia only just managed to steel herself against in time. ‘What time?’
He was always late. That was the one reliable thing about Mac, she thought, just as she could always rely on Geoffrey to be on time. She had asked Geoffrey for eight o’clock,
