‘You have two great passions in your life, Marnie,’ he said. ‘One is your work and the other is me. When you are working, your art takes precedence. I am man enough to accept second place on those occasions so long as, once your work is done, I then fill your world.’
It was a shame he had not applied the same philosophy to himself.
‘Here.’ He offered her a cup and saucer.
‘Thank you.’ She took it from him, then watched as he took his brandy glass and threw himself down in the chair opposite her, his weariness showing in the long sigh he gave as he stretched himself out, long tanned legs with their liberal covering of crisp dark hair extending beyond the black silk covering of his brief robe.
Marnie swallowed drily, lowering her eyes to the steaming brew in her cup. Looking at him hurt. It always had, even when they’d been supposedly happy. He was that kind of man, painfully, heartbreakingly beautiful.
‘How is your father?’ she enquired, as a direct snub to the kind of thinking she had been about to indulge in.
‘Resigned to using a walking stick, at last.’ Guy grimaced. Roberto, like his son, had his fair share of pride. When a slight stroke had left a stiffness down one side of his body, he had not taken kindly to the idea of using a stick to get about. ‘He has a different stick for all occasions now,’ he added drily. ‘Your doing, I suspect.’ There was a half-question in his mocking gaze.
Marnie smiled. ‘I just happened to mention to him—in passing, you know—how interesting a man of his good looks and charm could look sporting a walking stick.’
‘You mean you pandered to his ego.’
‘The Italian in him,’ she corrected. ‘Goodness, but you Latin types place so much importance on your outward appearance,’ she complained. ‘I don’t think there is a race of people more egotistical, arrogant, proud—’
‘It was all of those things which attracted you to me once,’ Guy mildly pointed out.
She ignored the remark. ‘I thought,’ she went on consideringly instead, ‘that since I have to be in Berkshire myself next week I might call in to see him on my way. I could perhaps beg dinner and a bed for the night, then I can spend the whole evening flattering him a little before I need to be on my way.’
‘We shall certainly be going to Oaklands,’ Guy murmured slowly, watching her through hooded eyes. ‘But, as to anything you have planned in Berkshire, I am afraid you will have to cancel it.’
Marnie uncurled her legs from beneath her, alarm skittering along her spine. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded sharply.
Guy yawned lazily. ‘Exactly what you think I meant,’ he said, getting up to pour himself another drink. ‘As from tonight, you became my property again—which means you’ll be taking no more commissions which take you away from home.’
‘I won’t give up my work for you, Guy!’ she stated sharply.
‘You will do exactly as I say,’ he informed her, quite casually, as though the subject did not warrant him raising his voice to it. ‘Accept, Marnie—just as my father has had to accept his walking stick—that you are mine again, and in so being your commitments to me will override any others you may have already made.’
‘Not my work.’ She shook her head adamantly. ‘I will not give up my work and—dammit, Guy, but you can’t make me!’
‘I can,’ he assured her, ‘and I intend to.’
The sardonic raising of his brows brought her climbing furiously to her feet. ‘But y-you let me continue working the last time we were together!’ she choked. ‘I—’
‘Just one of the mistakes I made in our marriage,’ he declared. ‘One which will be corrected this time around.’
Struggling to maintain a grasp on her sanity, Marnie tried to be reasonable. In all honesty, she had not expected this. Of all the other horrors she had forced herself to think about concerning the situation, this was one she had not even so much as considered!
‘But—my work is my life!’ she cried. ‘You know it is! You can’t just—’
‘I can do whatever I please,’ he cut in with infuriating calm. ‘One of the most fundamental errors I made when dealing with you before, Marnie, was—’
‘Sleeping around!’ she snapped out bitterly.
His curt nod was an acknowledgment of a direct hit, but barely rattled his composure. ‘Was allowing you,’ he went on regardless of her outburst, ‘too much of your own way. I let you roam about the countryside like a gypsy with hardly a complaint. I let you choose which friends I could keep and which I had to discard. I…’
‘You didn’t discard Anthea, I made painful note!’
‘I let you, Marnie,’ he continued grimly, ‘run my life to such an extent that I began to lose my own identity!’
‘You lost your identity?’ she scoffed out scornfully. ‘What do you think our marriage did for me? I became Guy Frabosa’s woman! The silly child-bride who was as naïve as she was blind!’
‘But that is just the point,’ Guy put in silkily. ‘You are no longer a child, Marnie. Remember that, because I don’t intend to treat you as one. This time you will be a proper wife to me—a full-time wife! The kind of wife every man who is honest with himself wants in a marriage, which is the old-fashioned, home-loving, child-bearing kind!’