The Marriage Truce

She was bound to see him at the wedding, of course, but there would be plenty of other people around, and he would be easier to dodge in a crowd. And there would be the unknown Tim to act as safeguard, anyway.

Apart from the wedding rehearsal tomorrow, there was no need for her to leave Trevarne House at all, and she would make sure that her every waking moment was full—even if all she could find to do was soothing Aunt Grace.

She folded her arms on the steering wheel and leaned her forehead against them, feeling the prickle of tears against her closed eyelids.

But who, she thought, with sudden desolation, is going to soothe me?

And for that she could find no satisfactory answer at all.

CHAPTER THREE (#ua0d46f50-4abf-506a-8244-19ee0b8a0da5)

THE car was a cocoon. A refuge closing her away from everything except her thoughts. Those she could not escape, or even evade. Not any more.

Her mind was in chaos, yet somehow she found she was being dragged inexorably back in time to that night over three years ago when she, a child no longer, had met Ross again.

There’d been a private view at the Haville Gallery for a talented young painter having his first exhibition. The evening had gone well, and a number of pictures had displayed the red dot of success. People had begun to drift away when, suddenly alerted by an odd tingle in her senses that she was being watched, Jenna had turned and seen Ross standing a few yards away, his eyes narrowed in a kind of stunned disbelief as he looked at her.

They might have been alone. None of the chattering groups around them had seemed to exist any longer.

All the breath seemed to leave her body in one deep, startled gasp as her gaze had locked with his. Read what he was thinking as if he had shouted it aloud. The total astonishing certainty of the moment had taken her a willing, helpless prisoner. Joined them both in a new and devastating recognition.

It had been as if some lifelong search was suddenly over, and the hidden treasure—the Holy Grail—was there waiting for her.

Her stomach had churned—her pulses had gone crazy. A delicious heat had spread through her veins, and her senses had gone spinning into a kind of delirium.

And then she’d seen him smile and start towards her, and she had moved, too, going to meet him halfway. More than halfway. People had spoken to her, but she hadn’t heard what they said. She’d been oblivious, every fibre of her being focussed on this man now reentering her life with such unbelievable impact. She’d realised that she was accepting without question that here was the only man in the world whom she would ever want.

And that it was how, in some strange unfathomable way, she had always known it would be.

When she’d reached him, her voice had been a little husky croak. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was invited. Someone I met at a party.’ She watched him draw an uneven breath. ‘I—I almost didn’t come …’

And they both laughed in derisive rejection of the very idea. Because they knew that since time began it had been inevitable that they would meet again at this place—at this moment. That this was what they had both been created for, and that there was nothing that could have kept them apart.

She said, her voice smiling, ‘You recognised me—in this crowd?’

He said slowly, ‘I’d have known you anywhere.’ He paused. ‘But why are you here?’

‘It’s where I work.’

‘Of course.’ He shook his head. ‘Thirza told me that you’d done an art course.’

‘I’m surprised she remembered.’

He said quietly, ‘But I asked about you, Jenna. I always—always asked about you.’

And as she met his eyes, and saw the flare of passion, the unhidden hunger, she felt her skin warm passionately and involuntarily, and her throat tighten in a sweet excitement she had never known before.

She said, in a whisper, ‘I—I don’t understand. What is happening?’

‘We are.’ His voice was almost harsh. ‘We’re happening to each other. At long last.’ His hand touched her cheek, stroked its curve, and she turned her head in a swift, involuntary reaction, finding his caressing fingers with her lips.

‘Jenna.’ He spoke in a tortured whisper. ‘Dear God, Jenna …’

For a moment he was silent, mastering his breathing. Then, ‘Come.’ He took her arm, hurrying her from the room—from the building and into the street. Striding so fast that she had to run to keep up with him.

‘I can’t just leave …’ But her protest carried no real conviction.

‘You just did.’

‘Where are we going?’ She was overwhelmed by all she felt for him—scared, joyous and hungry all at the same time.

And he stopped suddenly and turned to her, his hands framing her face with heart-stopping tenderness. ‘Does it matter?’

And she replied simply and seriously, ‘No.’

They went to his flat in a warehouse development overlooking the Thames. As he sat beside her in the shadowed intimacy of the taxi Ross took her hand and held it. There was no real pressure in the clasp of his fingers, but his touch seemed to penetrate to her bones, and she began to tremble inside.

Yet as they rode in the lift to the upper floor Jenna found her first euphoria evaporating, leaving her feeling shy and vulnerable. She cast a swift, sideways glance at Ross, but there was nothing to be read from his expression. Suddenly he seemed to be the cool, enigmatic stranger of her teens again, and she was assailed by a pang of real doubt.

What am I doing? she thought. Why am I here?

Well, she knew the answer to that, of course. She might be inexperienced, but she wasn’t naïve. And she had gone with him of her own free will, so she could hardly protest if he expected her to keep the promise that her capitulation implied, she thought, swallowing.

But her first glimpse inside the flat itself drove everything else from her mind. Eyes widening, she stared round at the high vaulted ceilings and enormous windows which provided untrammelled views of the river from the main living area. The wooden floors gleamed with the patina of gold, and the pale walls provided a neutral background for furnishings and drapes in warm earth colours.