‘I wanted to talk to you about this,’ he told her harshly.
Dry-mouthed, Debra watched as he produced her letter of resignation, her eyes wide and uncomprehending. Surely she had made it clear enough what she intended?
‘What is there to talk about?’ she asked him tensely. ‘I want to leave the firm. I—’
‘You state in your letter that you’re giving us a month’s notice,’ Marsh told her tersely.
Debra blinked at him.
‘Yes,’ she agreed uncertainly. ‘But of course I’m quite prepared to leave immediately. In fact, I’m sure we both feel that that would be best.’
‘What we both do or don’t feel doesn’t come into it,’ Marsh told her grimly, and then demanded grittily, ‘Did you read the new contracts you were given when our two firms amalgamated?’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘If you did,’ he interrupted her, ‘you must have known that it calls for a minimum period of three months’ notice.’
Debra swayed dizzily,
clutching the door-jamb for support.
Of course... of course. How could she have forgotten? They had all been so pleased about that clause as well, taking it as a sign of intent on the part of the larger firm that their jobs were secure.
‘Look, I think we’d better go and sit down,’ Marsh told her roughly.
Numbly Debra did as he suggested, dropping unsteadily on to the smaller of Leigh’s two cotton-covered settees. Marsh sat opposite her on the other.
‘You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Debra? You have to give the firm three months’ notice and not one.’
For a moment irritation burned away her shock. It flashed in her eyes, giving her face an animation that reminded him painfully of the girl she had been before.
‘I’m not stupid,’ she told him acidly. ‘Of course I understand,’ but then she winced and bit on her bottom lip as she realised that her statement contradicted her actions. Why on earth hadn’t she remembered that three-month clause?
‘There must be some way round it,’ she queried now. ‘Some loophole.’
‘Perhaps there should be, but there isn’t,’ Marsh told her, shaking his head in denial. ‘I’ve had a word with head office, and I’m afraid they won’t budge. You see, to them you’re a very valuable asset. You have a knowledge of your clients and their finances which could not be absorbed overnight by someone else.’
The tension in his voice had changed. He was looking away from her as though there was something, some piece of information he was concealing from her.
Her heart started to race. Could head office be threatening to sue her if she broke her contract?
Nervously she asked him.
He looked rather shocked, surprised, no doubt, that she had guessed he was concealing something from her, she suspected. There was a small pause before he replied slowly, ‘Well, of course it’s a possibility.’
That meant that they would, Debra reflected.
‘I can’t come back,’ she told him wildly. ‘If necessary I’ll just have to take three months’ sick leave...’
But she knew she couldn’t. Her doctor was already making noises about her returning to work, suggesting gently but firmly that too much time on her hands to dwell on what had happened was not healthy.
Marsh’s face had lost its colour. He looked as though he was in pain, Debra recognised. She also recognised that he seemed to have lost weight and that his skin had lost some of its healthy sheen... that same healthy sheen which had made her ache so to reach out and touch him, to absorb the warmth of his flesh, its maleness... its strength and its weakness.
That same ache possessed her again, but it was deeper, stronger, now that it held all the power and all the pain of knowledge. Now she knew how his skin would feel, how it would react to his touch, how his muscles would tense and clench and then relax as he succumbed to his response to her.
‘You can’t come back, or you won’t?’ she heard him demanding bitingly. ‘And why can’t you, Debra? Is it because of what happened... or is it because of me?’
She sucked in a shocked breath, her eyes suddenly brilliant and dark with emotion.