‘Clare,’ she reminded him.
‘Clare?’ Guy looked blank for a moment, then went as pale as a ghost. ‘She wasn’t in the car with him, was she?’ he choked.
‘No!’ Marnie quickly assured him. ‘No—that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. But—Guy,’ she appealed to him for understanding, ‘she’s pregnant and she shouldn’t be! It was already a big enough shock for her to have Jamie come home with his face all bruised and his arm in a sling—how do you think she’s going to react when she finds out she forgot to renew his insurance policy and that they’ve now got to find upwards of fifty thousand pounds to compensate the owner of the car?’
Silence. Guy was staring at her through hard, angry eyes as he let all of it really sink in, and Marnie sat there staring back with her lovely blue eyes wide in anxious appeal, hoping that just this once—this one last time—he would come up trumps for her and help them out without demanding anything back in return.
‘He promises to pay you back—Guy,’ she added quickly, when he continued to say nothing, ‘he—he said to tell you he’s managed to acquire an MG K3 Magnette and you can have that as a down-payment. And he’s—’
‘A damned fool if he thinks I would accept anything from him!’ Guy cut in impatiently. ‘And I warned you, Marnie, quite distinctly, the last time you came begging to me on his behalf, that I had done more than enough for the man who wrecked our marriage,’ he reminded her forcefully.
‘Jamie didn’t wreck our marriage,’ she said wearily. ‘You did that all on your own.’
The dark head shook grimly. ‘We would still be together,’ stated the man who had always preferred to scatter blame around like raindrops so long as none of it stuck to himself, ‘living together—loving together, if your stupid brother hadn’t stuck his nose into my affairs.’
‘”Affairs” being the operative word,’ she derided.
‘Damn you, Marnie!’ Angrily, he climbed out of his chair, frustration making him run a hand through the thick, sleek blackness of his hair. ‘I didn’t mean it in that way—and you know it!’ He turned to glare down at her, then sucked in a deep, calming breath. ‘Your brother was directly responsible for—’
‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ It was her turn to cut him short—as she always did when he attempted to bring up the past. ‘It’s all just dead news now.’
‘Not while I’m still breathing, it is not,’ he bit out. ‘We still have unfinished business, you and I,’ he went on to warn, wagging a long finger at her in a way which was consciously gauged to infuriate her. ‘And, until you are prepared to give me a fair hearing, it will remain unfinished. Just remember that as you sit there hating me with your beautiful eyes. For one day I will make you listen, and then it will be you doing the apologising and I taking revenge!’
‘Oh, yes.’ The scorn in her voice derided him outright. ‘As I think I’ve already said, I don’t want to talk about it. I came here today to—’
‘Beg for more money for your useless brother,’ Guy tartly supplied for her.
‘No,’ she angrily denied that. ‘To beg for Clare!’ She too came to her feet, irritation and frustration in every line of her slender frame. ‘I was as determined as you are not to bail Jamie out of any more of his disasters,’ she snapped. ‘I told him this time and in no uncertain terms that I would not involve you again! But—God,’ she sighed, lifting her strained eyes to his, ‘this is different, Guy, you’ve got to see that? This time it isn’t just you and me and Jamie we’re fighting about; it involves Clare! Sweet, gentle Clare who has never wished harm on anyone in her entire life! You can’t turn your back on her, Guy, surely? Not just to gain your sweet revenge over Jamie?’
He was going to refuse, she could see it in the grim, hard cut of his tightly held mouth, and panic began to shimmer inside her. ‘Please, Guy.’ She lifted a trembling hand to clutch pleadingly at the bunching muscles in his upper arm. ‘Please…’ she begged.
He looked long and hard into the deep blue of her pleading eyes, his own so dark and disturbing that Marnie’s insides began to churn with an old memory so sweet and aching that she wanted to cry out against it. Once she had drowned in that look, placed all her vulnerable love and trust in its meaning what it appeared to tell her.
She watched him glance down to where her hand clutched at him, his beautiful eyelashes forming
a thick, sweeping arch against his strong cheekbones. Watched the hardness ease from his mouth as he lifted his gaze back to her own, and suddenly the silence between them began to throb with tension—a raw sexual tension that had no right to show itself at this vital moment! Marnie moved, her tingling fingers flexing slightly in an effort to dispel the unwanted sensation, her tongue flicking in agitation across the fullness of her suddenly dry lips, her breathing slow and heavy.
Guy saw it all, every revealing thing she was experiencing at this new kind of physical closeness, and something unfathomable passed across his face…a further darkening of those rich brown eyes that had her holding her breath in dear hope that her plea was reaching him.
‘Please…’ she repeated huskily. ‘Put your prejudices aside this one last time—for Clare’s sake?’
He hesitated visibly—long enough to make hope flare into her eyes—only to have him dip his dark head a little closer to her own as he countered softly but with a ruthlessness that left her in no doubt at all to his meaning, ‘And you, Marnie? Are you prepared to put your own prejudices aside, for sweet Clare’s sake?’
Her thudding heart sank, her body went cold, and she stood very still, staring into the utterly uncompromising set of his lean, dark features, wondering why she had actually had the gall to convince herself that she could win him round this one last time. Guy had, after all, told her in no uncertain terms not to come begging to him again unless she was prepared to pay the price. She had never known him say anything without carrying it through. It was what made him the man he was today, this stubborn unwillingness of his to compromise over anything—even the way he conducted his life, she reminded herself grimly. Married or not, Guy had always refused to answer to anyone but himself.
Unclipping her hand from his arm, she took a shaky step back from him, then turned away so she wouldn’t have to witness the flare of triumph her answer would put in his eyes. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘I’m prepared to do that.’
Oddly, and surprisingly since she had just conceded to him what he had been trying to get her to do for four long years now, instead of thrusting his triumph down her throat, Guy too turned away, going to stand over by the window.
‘How prepared?’ he persisted, not turning to face her with the final challenge, his back a rigid bulk of taut muscle for her to stare bleakly upon.
‘Whatever it takes,’ she promised flatly. ‘Whatever it is you want in return.’
‘You.’ He turned his head, his expression as cool and uncompromising as she had ever known it. ‘I want you back.’
She had expected it. Had travelled up here knowing exactly what he would demand; so why did she experience the sudden drain of blood from her head, or the blow of pain that knocked all the breath from her body in a way that sent her sinking down on to the sofa? ‘Oh, God, Guy,’ she whispered threadily, ‘I don’t think I can!’
If she thought him remote before, then her broken little cry managed to close him up completely, seeming to rake over every nerve-end he possessed before turning him into a cold statue of ungiving rock.