But it wasn’t, Taylor thought, seeing in that strong face—absorbed as he unfastened a cuff-link—an unmistakable tension that spoke volumes.
‘Did you want to marry her?’ she had asked tentatively, to which he responded only with, ‘I married you.’
‘Did you love her?’ She hadn’t intended to ask him so directly, nor had he been expecting her to, she reflected, forever afterwards hearing those hard and angry words he had lobbed back at her.
‘Yes I loved her. Are you satisfied? I had an affair. It’s something I’m not proud of, but it happened. Now let’s forget it,’ he had seethed through gritted teeth, before storming out of the bedroom.
Which was easier said than done, Taylor thought now, because she had tried. Nevertheless, the doubts and anxieties had seeded themselves in her mind, causing unnecessary tensions between them, sprouting up with renewed vigour every time he went away. The situation wasn’t helped when sometimes, answering the phone, she heard the line go dead at the other end, or when someone ringing from his office innocently asked her if she knew when his flight would be in from Philadelphia. He had told her he was going to New York, and that, she knew, was the truth, but he hadn’t mentioned going on to Philadelphia. So why had he kept it from her? she had asked herself, too aware that Philadelphia was where this Alicia lived. Why, unless he had had some very strong reason to feel guilty about it?
Unsure of him, plagued by long-buried insecurities, she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into her job, her mind made up about one thing.
She would never have children. Never entertain bringing babies into a marriage that wasn’t one hundred per cent secure.
When Jared had suggested starting a family, she had told him she wanted to wait—that she wasn’t that bothered about having children at all. Keen for an heir to succeed him in the company he had built single-handed, it was then, after several attempts on his part to change her mind had failed, that he had accused her of being interested only in her career.
‘And what’s wrong with that?’ she had flung at him, remembering all too painfully that conversation on the balcony, adding that if he had just got married to have children, then he should have married someone who would have happily provided him with them.
Angrily then, he had tossed back, ‘I thought I had!’
So that was it, she had thought, broodingly, watching as he poured himself a Scotch and soda in the apartment’s luxurious sitting room, challenging him with, ‘Is that the only reason for our marriage?’
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ he had said coldly.
But the doubts and resentments had festered and grown. After that, whenever he broached the subject, she would simply clam up.
She couldn’t—wouldn’t! she’d assured herself, agree to have what might possibly turn out to be a tug-of-war child, not when she was so convinced that at any moment he might leave her for the woman he really loved.
When she had accidentally conceived, fears for her child’s future had made her anxious and uncommunicative, something to which Jared had been acutely sensitive, even if not to the reason why.
‘Perhaps this is what this marriage needs,’ he had stressed one evening, a couple of months into her pregnancy.
‘What?’ she had challenged. ‘Something to keep me in my place while you go off anytime and anywhere you please?’ Already battling with irresolvable insecurities, it hadn’t helped when he had told her in no uncertain terms to grow up.
With their relationship already floundering, he had flown off to the States for a conference with several of his American company’s hi-tech whiz-kids a couple of days afterwards, during which time Taylor had started to miscarry. When he returned ten days later, her pregnancy was over.
‘Well, that’s exactly what you wanted, wasn’t it?’ he said when, still numb and wretched with grief she told him she had lost the baby. He had looked, she’d thought—wondering if he had had a particularly gruelling conference— bleak-eyed, yet frighteningly grim.
Illogically blaming herself for losing her baby, wanting to hurt herself as well as to hurt Jared, not thinking straight, she had thrown back, ‘Oh, sure! I arranged for it to happen! Well, you were having such a good time with your mistress, weren’t you? Why not!’
His eyes were glittering with such intense anger she wondered now what had prevented him from actually hitting her as he had snarled back, ‘At least she wouldn’t sacrifice a child for her precious job!’ There was such an edge of steel to his voice that she knew that whatever feeling he might have had for her, until then, she had killed with that last rash retort.
It was, however, to Taylor, an admission that he was still involved with the other woman, and one that had propelled her into leaving. The very next morning after he had left for his office, she had scribbled him a note, laid her wedding ring on top of it and fled, and she hadn’t seen him again until today.
‘Mmm,’ Charity murmured expressively, jolting Taylor out of her painful retrospection.
‘Mmm, what?’ she pressed, agitated, quickly stowing away the glass she was still holding.
‘Just “Mmm,”’ the woman responded, as Taylor turned round again. She could feel her friend’s perceptive gaze resting on her flushed cheeks.
Craig was home and from the floor below she could hear water running in the pipes, caught the strains of one of his country CDs playing. Safe, homely Craig who liked nothing better than to be with his family, to put up a shelf and play the odd game of golf when his job as lighting technician allowed.
‘I suppose a man like Jared could be quite overwhelming to be married to,’ Charity expressed as though picking up on Taylor’s thoughts. ‘Forceful. Possessive. Exciting. I know I said I had a crush on him but if he had asked me out, I’d have been scared to death! I mean all that dynamism and vitality! And the sophistication that makes the hard-headedness behind it all so scary and… I don’t know… I don’t suppose I should say it to you but, well… thrilling!’
Charity’s eyes were bright from the teenage fantasies she must have woven over what was after all an acquaintance of her parents while she studied Taylor sagaciously, looking no doubt for some flicker of agreement in her friend. But all Taylor said dryly was, ‘And with a temper to match,’ because of course Jared Steele was all of those things.
‘Ah-ah,’ Charity breathed. ‘I wondered why he came down those stairs like a bolt of lightning without calling in on his way out as he promised.’
In one of the rooms below, Josh had suddenly started to cry.
‘He’s just the sort of man I would have picked for you, Taylor.’ Charity was already moving towards the door. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’
Taylor gave an outwardly nonchalant shrug. ‘We had our differences.’
‘With no chance that the two of you will ever get back together?’ Charity looked hopeful, but Taylor shook her head.
‘No,’ she answered, her lowered lashes concealing the pain in her eyes as she thought of their bitter arguments, remembered the conversation she had had with Jared earlier. ‘No,’ she said again, more adamantly this time. ‘No chance at all.’
