This was so unfair. She stared at him, her eyes huge in the shocked whiteness of her face. And then she slid from beneath the covers, pulling on her dressing gown as she rose to her feet and stood looking down at him with tortured eyes. ‘I want to do something with my life, Zeke,’ she said painfully. ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be your wife and have a family, of course I do, but that might not happen for years and years. And what about when the children are at school? Do you expect me to sit at home twiddling my thumbs and just living for the moment when you all come home?’
‘You’re painting it in the blackest way possible,’ he ground out between clenched teeth.
‘No, I am not,’ she said evenly, her mind racing but crystal-clear. ‘You still don’t trust me, do you? You still think I might be attracted to someone else if you can’t lock me up in an artificial world of your own making. You said, when we talked before, that something died in you when you were a child.
I don’t believe that. It might have become stifled, buried, but it’s there, Zeke, and it’s essential for our marriage.’
‘You’re saying that unless I give you exactly what you want you will end our marriage.’ His vice was icy cold. She could hardly credit that it was the same man who had been loving her for the last forty-eight hours.
‘Don’t twist my words like that.’ She was angry and bitterly disappointed. ‘I’m saying that I have to be able to breathe and be me, just like you do. I want to go into medical laboratory work; it fascinates me and I know I’d be good at it. You and any children we might have would come first, of course you would, just as I’d expect that same degree of commitment from you. Your empire—this wonderful “thing” that you have created—actually isn’t what life is all about, believe it or not! You don’t have to prove yourself, Zeke. Not with me.’
She hadn’t meant to say that last bit, it had just popped out of its own volition, but now the impact of her words whitened his face and he rose savagely from the sofa, walking across the room and beginning to pull on his clothes as he said, his voice harsh, ‘You’ve never really loved me, have you? It’s been a sham, all of it.’
‘Don’t you dare say that!’ She had never before been in the grip of a rage that made a red mist rise before her eyes, but she was experiencing the phenomenon now. She must have walked across to him—she couldn’t have flown—but she had no memory of it. ‘Don’t you dare. I love you. I’ll never love anyone but you, if you want to know, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let myself be submerged. I want to be loved for myself. I want you to be proud of anything I achieve, not threatened by it. I want you to support me, for any children we might have to be our joint responsibility, not a means of tying me to the house.’
‘Oh, so you actually remember the house now?’ he snarled sarcastically as he finished dressing and turned fully to face her. ‘This wonderful house that you wanted above anything else?’
‘It’s only bricks and mortar, Zeke.’ His cold eyes had brought a devastating emptiness into her heart that was reflected in her bleak face. ‘You are more important—our relationship is more important—than any house.’
‘How noble,’ he said derisively.
‘No, it’s not noble,’ she said very quietly, her face deathly pale. ‘Just love. A few weeks ago you said you’d destroy me if I stayed with you and that you couldn’t change. What you are offering me is no different to what you were offering then, however you have convinced yourself otherwise. I have missed you every bit as much as you have missed me, but lying to ourselves is not the answer. The house is not the issue, children are not the issue, your work is not the issue—don’t you see? And if we start again under false pretences and you do destroy me with your jealousy—’
‘So it’s all me!’
‘Yes, it is,’ she bit back with equal ferocity. ‘And I won’t be bought or silenced with the offer of a doll’s house or anything else. Your other women were happy to take you on the terms you offered—perhaps a sterile relationship suited them as much as it does you; I don’t know—but I want more. I want you. I don’t expect you to be perfect—I know I’m not!—but I want you. All of you. Not the little bit you’ve offered me in the past.’
‘How can you say that after what we’ve shared the last couple of days?’ he said angrily.
‘That should be my line, Zeke.’ The stark bitterness brought his gaze shooting to the chalk-whiteness of her face and her wounded eyes. ‘You came here knowing exactly how you were going to play it for maximum effect, didn’t you?’ The breath caught painfully in her tight throat but she forced herself to go on. ‘I don’t know if you thought you were buying me or fooling me or blackmailing me or what, but I can’t live like you want to live. Not any more. And if you have any real feeling for me at all you won’t ask me.’
‘I love you, Marianne.’ His voice reflected her own agony and she almost softened. Almost.
‘If you love me, Zeke, really love me like I love you, you’ll trust me enough to give me my freedom,’ she said huskily. ‘Trust that I would come back to you of my own free will, without having to be kept in a beautiful gilded cage. Trust me enough to talk to me about your innermost fears and know that I wouldn’t put you down or think any the less of you for being human. You should be able to give me everything, as I’ve given you everything.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘No, I probably don’t, not completely. Because you won’t let me,’ she said sadly. ‘But I’d like to.’
There followed a silence so profound she didn’t dare break it. This was it. This was make or break time, she told herself silently as her senses clamoured and her mouth went dry. Let him just reach out, just the slightest…
‘I’d better go.’
She heard the words, the tight, clipped tone registering on her bruised mind, but she didn’t really take them in until after he had reached for his coat and overnight bag. And then she stood taut and still, enduring the light kiss on her forehead and his muttered, ‘I’ll be in touch,’ with just a nod and a raising of her chin.
At the last moment he turned in the doorway and looked at her, and for a moment, a second, she thought he was going to change his mind. He cleared his throat, and the dark-haired, serious-faced little boy was very evident when he said, ‘I shouldn’t have come, should I?’
She stared at him, willing herself not to break down. ‘I don’t know, Zeke,’ she said, with a flatness that spoke of bitter anguish. ‘Only you can answer that.’
He flinched visibly. ‘I’m a mess, Marianne, aren’t I?’ It was not really a question, and didn’t require an answer, but the unmasked desperation in his grey eyes hit her like a blow.
Nevertheless she stayed exactly where she was, although every fibre of her being wanted to fly across the room and take him in her arms. He stared at her, his face setting as the seconds ticked by, and then he said, his voice so low she could hardly catch it, ‘I would still like you to have the house, no strings attached. It…it’ll be a good place for you to start again.’
‘The house was a package.’ Her voice was very flat; it was either that or scream at him. ‘It would mean nothing without you. Sell it or live in it. I don’t care.’
‘Marianne—’
‘Just go, Zeke.’ Another moment and she would break down completely. ‘Please.’