Marriage Reunited. Jessica Hart
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unfairly.
‘I was thinking!’
‘Well, I’m not going to sign any papers until we have talked some more,’ he said, ‘so when do you suggest we meet?’
Georgia could feel her shoulders tighten with tension. It was just like Mac to go on and on and on until he got what he wanted. He just never gave up. His persistence had won him some fantastic pictures, but it was a less appealing quality on an emotional level.
Really, she had more than enough problems at the moment without Mac strolling in and unsettling her, Georgia thought with a mixture of exasperation and weariness. It had always been the same. He would turn her world upside down, make a mockery of her attempts to stay cool and calm, send her senses spinning. She had hated the way he could make her feel wild and abandoned and out of control.
She had loved it too, a small part of Georgia acknowledged.
But not any more. She had changed, she reminded herself sternly. She had other priorities now, and they didn’t include resurrecting a doomed relationship.
Georgia wished that Mac would just go, but she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t move until he got what he wanted. Well, let him talk if he wanted to. She had made the decision to move on and change her life, and she wasn’t about to change her mind now, no matter what he might have to say.
She might as well get it over and done with.
‘Come to supper tonight,’ she said with a sigh. It was lucky that she had already invited Geoffrey. Geoffrey was safe and solid and reliable. His very presence would remind her of all that was good about the new life she was choosing and all that was bad about her life with Mac.
Putting on her glasses, she pulled a pad of paper towards her and wrote out her address in her characteristically neat script.
‘As you’ve tracked me down this far, I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding your way,’ she said as she tore off the sheet and handed it to Mac.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and twirled the paper between his fingers with a smile that Georgia only just managed to steel herself against in time. ‘What time?’
He was always late. That was the one reliable thing about Mac, she thought, just as she could always rely on Geoffrey to be on time. She had asked Geoffrey for eight o’clock, when Toby went to bed, so they would have some time together before Mac turned up.
‘Come at eight,’ she said.
Mac got easily to his feet. ‘Shall I bring anything with me?’
‘Just the divorce papers,’ said Georgia coolly. ‘Preferably signed.’
She waited until the door had shut behind him before she groaned and dropped her head on to the desk with a thump. What was it with life at the moment? She’d no sooner struggle over one hurdle than another would be dropped in her way.
Ever since Becca had died, it had been one thing after another. Adjusting her life around a small boy. Giving up the job she loved so much. Leaving London. Dealing with hostility over her appointment as editor here. Staff walkouts. And now Mac, thinking that he could stroll in here and take up where he’d left off!
Well, he would learn that he was wrong, thought Georgia with grim determination. She had listened to ‘I will survive’ and now she could sing along with Gloria Gaynor with the best of them. She had survived, and she was going to go on surviving. She had enough to worry about without Mac.
Of course, it was typical of him to come back now, just when she was getting her life under control, she reflected bitterly. But he would find that she had changed. She was stronger now, more sure of herself, and she had learned to manage perfectly well without him.
It had taken her four long years to get to this stage, though, and it had been a hard process. There was no way she was going through all that again, no matter how tantalising his smile might be. She was a professional woman, with a career and a life of her own. She didn’t need him and she didn’t want him.
Now all she had to do was convince her treacherous body of that. Particularly her heart, springing around like a boisterous puppy, and those legs, whose bones had dissolved at the mere sound of his voice…They were just going to have to shape up, Georgia thought as she lifted her head from the desk.
And as for her stupid senses, who knew no better than to start throwing a ticker tape parade, cheering the good memories as they marched victoriously past Georgia’s puny defences—well, they could just pipe down too. Her head was in charge now.
Unconsciously, Georgia stiffened her spine. That was better. She was not going to let Mac cast her into confusion and turmoil the way he had before. She had other problems to deal with and more important things to consider, Toby chief among them. Let Mac have his say tonight, if that was what he wanted, but he would just have to accept that she had moved on and that her own need was for a very different life now.
Surely he would be able to accept it when he saw how much she relied on Geoffrey now?
Which reminded her; she ought to ring Geoffrey and warn him that Mac was coming for dinner. Geoffrey was about as different from Mac as it was possible to be. The Y chromosome was about all they had in common, Georgia thought ruefully, so while Mac might like surprises and living on the edge, Geoffrey most certainly didn’t. He would want to be prepared.
Georgia settled her glasses back on her nose and immediately felt more businesslike. Reaching for the phone, she braced herself to deal with Geoffrey’s PA, Ruth, who controlled access to her boss with a steely efficiency and a crisp manner that even Georgia found intimidating.
Sure enough, her attempt to speak to Geoffrey was immediately stonewalled by Ruth. ‘I’m afraid he’s with a client,’ she said, and Georgia knew better than to ask her to interrupt the meeting.
She had often thought that Ruth’s talents were wasted on a mere chartered surveyor. She should have been guarding the office of a Cabinet Minister at least. In fact, Rose could do with picking up a few tips from Ruth, Georgia reflected wryly. It might not be so easy then for the likes of Mac Henderson to stroll in and out of her office. No way would Mac have got past Ruth!
‘Can I take a message?’ Ruth was always polite, but Georgia sensed that she didn’t like her. Georgia wasn’t sure whether she was jealous of her relationship with Geoffrey or, in common with a good many other locals, resented her appointment as editor of the Askerby and District Gazette.
Probably both, thought Georgia wearily.
‘No, it’s all right, thanks, Ruth,’ she said, unwilling to launch into an explanation of the fact that someone who was technically her husband was coming to dinner. She could just imagine how Ruth would react to that little bit of information! ‘Just remind Geoffrey that I’m expecting him at eight tonight, would you?’
‘There won’t be any need for that,’ said Ruth primly. ‘He has eight written in his diary.’
In other words, dinner with Georgia was just another appointment for Geoffrey.
Biting back a retort, Georgia put down the phone and took off her glasses once more so that she could rub her eyes. She was fed up with today. She would write the leader tomorrow morning. It wasn’t as if it would change anything. People in Askerby knew what they thought, and they weren’t going to have any jumped-up journalist from London tell them any different.
It was hard to believe that she had grown up here sometimes. The ex-editor of the Gazette had been very popular locally, never mind that he had brought the paper to its knees, and few people were prepared to extend a welcome to Georgia when she was appointed in his place.
Geoffrey had been a notable exception, and she would always be grateful to him for that.
Although perhaps grateful wasn’t the best way to describe how you felt about a man you were seriously considering having a relationship with?
Georgia pushed that particular worry aside impatiently. Really, she had