The Marriage Renewal. Maggie Cox
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embarrassing moment, why, oh, why did it have to be him? Apart from her elderly friend smelling of lavender, that was.
‘Have you eaten?’ Mac was already unscrewing the bottle of water, sliding his hand round the back of her head and guiding her lips towards it. Tara spluttered a little as the water filled her mouth and slid down her throat but it instantly made her feel better, more like herself.
‘What do you mean, have I eaten?’ Wiping her hand across her mouth, she was resigned to the fact that her lilac-coloured lipstick had probably been all but obliterated. Just because Mac’s impossibly blue eyes were mesmerising her as they had always had the power to do, she couldn’t really expect to look her best when she’d just passed out in front of him. But seeing him again was sweet agony to her beleaguered soul…
‘She has a habit of forgetting to eat,’ Mac confided aloud with what sounded suspiciously like resignation. ‘This isn’t the first time she’s fainted.’
‘She needs taking care of.’ The woman accepted the half-consumed bottle of water, screwed the top back on and returned it to her bag. ‘Why don’t you take her to the cafeteria and get her a sandwich?’
‘Thank you. I was just about to do that very thing.’ His tone deceptively charming, Mac bestowed one of his killer smiles on the older woman, which Tara knew just had to make her day, then brought his gaze slowly but deliberately back to her. As she swallowed hard, her heart skipped another beat.
‘I don’t want a sandwich.’ Old resentment surfaced and, scrambling to her feet, Tara dusted down her long denim skirt, green eyes shooting defiant, angry little sparks that couldn’t fail to tell him she didn’t welcome his intervention—no matter how apparently kind. He was taking charge again…just as he had always done. How dared he? Had he forgotten they hadn’t seen each other for five years? Did he think he could just walk back into her life and take up where he’d left off?
Of course he didn’t. Her heart sank. She was being utterly foolish and stupid. If he’d wanted to take up where they’d left off he would have contacted her long before this. Long before she’d built an impenetrable fortress round her heart to stave off further hurt or disappointment.
‘Well, take care, then…both of you.’ With a doting smile—the kind reserved for beloved grandchildren—the elderly lady left them.
Tara ran her tongue round the seam of her lips then stole a furtive glance at Mac. He towered over her, tall, broad-shouldered, athletically lean and commanding in that impossibly arrogant way he had that made her feel very much ‘the little woman,’ no matter how emancipated she told herself she was. He was wearing his hair a little longer than she remembered but it was still straight, blond and unbelievably sexy. Tactile. Just begging for her to run her fingers through it…
A small trickle of perspiration slid down her back between her shoulder blades.
‘What are you doing here?’ Caught off-balance, she knew her voice lacked the strength it had normally. It made her stiffen her resolve to somehow stay immune to this man.
A beguiling dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth as he straightened the cuffs of his suit jacket—his very expensive suit jacket. ‘Looking for you. What else?’
Mac watched her reluctantly eat her sandwich. She had that look on her face that said she was eating it under duress—not because it was good for her or because he thought she should. She was just as stubborn as he remembered, stubborn and…gorgeous. Simply ravishing in that fresh-faced English way, with her softly mussed blonde hair, milkmaid complexion and pretty green eyes like emeralds washed beneath a crystal-clear fountain.
He’d missed her. An odd little jump in the pit of his stomach attested to that. Suddenly unclear about his own intentions, he told himself to get a grip. All he had to do was tell her what he wanted and go. After which, he needed never set eyes on her again. Something in him baulked at that.
‘My aunt had no business telling you where to find me,’ Tara pouted, her plump lower lip sulky but undeniably appealing. ‘Anyway, how did you know where to look?’
Stirring his coffee, Mac took a careful sip before replying. ‘You always used to come here first, remember? You loved looking at the clothes.’
She did. And more often than not she’d dragged Mac round with her, promising she’d go to one of his boring business dinners with him if he’d just humour her in this, her favourite pastime.
Another bite of sandwich found its way to her mouth. The tuna and mayonnaise filling could have been wallpaper paste for all she knew. Her tastebuds had ceased to function while her stomach was mimicking the on-off cycle of a tumble-drier, all because Mac—the man she’d given her heart to all those years ago—was sitting opposite her as if he’d never been away. But there was no warmth in his expression as their gazes locked. Instead, he was unsmiling and detached, like one of those beautiful marble statues that graced some of these very halls, as distant from her now as he’d been during the last painful six months they’d been together. They were some of the longest, loneliest, hardest months of her life, she recalled. Months when they were barely even speaking to each other, when they’d both sought relief and refuge elsewhere. Mac in his work—which was all-consuming at the best of times—and Tara in her dancing.
‘Well, seeing as how you’ve gone to so much trouble to seek me out, you’d better tell me what you want.’ He wasn’t the only one who could project ‘detached’, she thought defiantly. The last thing she wanted him to conclude was that she was still missing him. But just seeing him again had brought so many long-buried emotions to the surface. Love, fear, bitterness and regret—feelings she’d tried so very hard to put behind her…and obviously failed miserably.
‘What do I want?’ A muscle ticked briefly in the side of a lean, clean-shaven jaw that Tara remembered felt like rough velvet when she pressed her cheek to it. He also wore the same aftershave, she noted. A timeless, classic, sexy male fragrance that she always associated with Mac. ‘I want a divorce, Tara. That’s what I want.’
Her musings were roughly halted.
‘You mean you want to get married again?’ She could think of no other reason he’d finally got round to asking for the one thing they’d both avoided for the past five years. She steeled herself. He didn’t reply straight away and, feeling her heartbeat throb loudly in her ears, Tara glanced round at the trickle of people moving in and out of the cafeteria, just to gain some precious time. Time when she could pretend he hadn’t made the demand she’d never wanted to hear.
‘I’ve met someone.’
Of course he had. Women were always drawn to Mac—like the proverbial bees to a honeypot. But he had always taken great pains to reassure Tara he only had eyes for her.
‘I’m just surprised you haven’t asked before now.’ Pushing away her plate with the barely touched sandwich on it, she bit her lip to stem the threatening onrush of tears. There was no way on God’s green earth that she was going to break down in front of him. He’d seen her at her lowest ebb and he’d walked away. Walked away…
Mac saw the colour drain from her face and wondered why. Their marriage had been over a long time ago, so she could hardly be shocked that he was finally drawing a line under it after all these years. In fact, he’d been more surprised that she hadn’t contacted him first. He was so sure that some nice young man would snap her up the moment she’d been free of him that almost every day for the first year after they’d parted he’d dreaded the phone ringing or picking up his mail. Just in case it was Tara asking him for a divorce.
‘There didn’t seem much point until now.’ He drew his fingers through his hair and Tara stared in shock at the slim platinum band he was still wearing. Why on earth hadn’t he taken it off? Then she glanced down at its twin glinting up at her from her own slender finger and quickly folded her hands in her lap.
‘So what’s she like?’ Don’t do this, Tara…don’t torture yourself. ‘Your intended? Some single-minded career woman, no doubt—equally addicted to work