The Marriage Renewal. Maggie Cox
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through, perhaps? Please put it behind you, chéri, tomorrow is another day. You will do better then.’
Sensing her moving behind him, Mac was unaccountably enraged. All of a sudden her expensive French perfume was too cloying—oppressive almost—and he wanted to tell her to just leave him the hell alone. But he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t resort to anger when what he needed to do was just come clean. Be honest. Stop this charade now before another relationship went to hell in a handbasket. It was bad enough that he was going to call the whole thing off. Since the moment he’d seen Tara today—even before she’d told him about the baby, his son—he knew in his heart he didn’t want to marry Amelie. Couldn’t marry her.
‘Look…I know we talked about the possibility of us getting married, but all things considered—I honestly don’t think it would work.’
‘You mean your wife would not agree to the divorce?’
It was typical of Amelie that she would immediately lay the blame for his decision on someone else.
Sighing, Mac continued to stare out of the window. He thought about the baby—the son he’d never known—about Tara willing to face a pregnancy she thought he wanted no part of, then losing the child in the most horrendous way… His stomach knotted painfully with sickness and regret. ‘My decision has nothing to do with that. I’d do anything to prevent you feeling hurt and disappointed, Amelie, but it’s better that we end things now than go through with a marriage that would be a complete fiction. I’m sure if you’re absolutely honest with yourself you don’t really want to marry me either.’ Slowly he turned away from the window to face her.
Her pretty elfin face with her wide doe-like brown eyes stared back at him as if he’d suddenly been inflicted with some desperate malady. ‘Of course I want to marry you. Are you crazy? I love you!’
‘Do you?’
She had the grace to colour a little. Mac responded with a sardonic little smile.
‘You love my money, chérie. You love what I can buy for you; clothes, jewellery, perfume…’ His nostrils flared a little, a memory coming out of nowhere that almost floored him. Tara’s scent—a subtle, flowery, honeysuckle and vanilla whisper that had driven him almost mindless with need. He had sensed it today, even as he told her he wanted a divorce, and hadn’t been able to ignore it. His body had hardened almost instantly. ‘This proposed marriage of ours wouldn’t really suit either of us. You are too young and too pretty to tie yourself down to one man and I…well, up until now my work has been my life. I don’t deny it’s important but now I’m ready for a family. I want to have children. I’m not interested in dining out at the best restaurants every night or flying out to New York or Paris on a whim just so that my girlfriend can shop. I want a home life. A proper home life.’
The French girl sniffed, prettily, with elegance—the way she did everything else. ‘You make me sound so shallow, Macsen. I am deeply hurt you do not want to marry me. I would give you babies—lots of them.’ But even as she said the words there was a discernible stiffening of her slender, gamine frame that spoke volumes to Mac. She detested the idea. He hadn’t brought up the subject before but now he knew without doubt he was doing the right thing by bringing the relationship to an end.
‘I understand you better than you think I do.’ He smiled again, pulling her into his arms, but the kiss he bestowed at the corner of her perfectly made-up mouth was nothing short of paternal. ‘Don’t worry, chérie. I won’t let you leave empty-handed. I will give you more than enough to tide you over until your next wealthy suitor comes along…’
CHAPTER TWO
‘TARA? What are you doing sitting here with all the lights out?’
Blinking at the sudden brightness that flooded the living room, Tara guiltily uncurled her legs from beneath her on the couch and pasted an automatic smile across her face. The slightest slip of the controlled mask she’d so carefully constructed to prevent Beth knowing how she really felt inside and her aunt would pounce on her weakness like a lion on a raw steak, demanding to know what she could do to put things right. Her help would be well-meaning, of course, but ultimately useless. This was one situation her ever-practical aunt definitely wouldn’t be able to fix.
‘I drifted off,’ she lied in answer to the older woman’s question. ‘I locked up downstairs, fixed dinner, then came in here to relax.’
‘Did you see Mac?’ Her aunt threw her keys down on the little antique table just inside the door and stood, arms akimbo, in that brisk, no-nonsense, ‘I’m in charge’ way she had that reminded Tara of one of those TV cops about to conduct an interrogation.
‘I saw him,’ she replied carefully, tucking some stray blonde strands behind her ear. ‘Why did you tell him where to find me?’
‘Because he was charming and polite and concerned, and because in my opinion it’s about time you two got some dialogue going—even if most of the blame lies squarely at his feet.’ Beth Delaney, tall, slim, fiftysomething redhead with Irish temper to match, slipped off the tailored navy jacket of her suit and arranged it carefully on the back of a polished Edwardian chair.
‘I haven’t heard from him in five years, Beth, so I think you must have misinterpreted the “concerned” part. And as for dialogue, don’t you think it’s a little late for that?’
‘It’s never too late to talk, my darling. Your situation is just too ridiculous for words. Married but not married…in the usual cohabiting sense, of course. The pair of you need to sort it out.’
Tara took a deep breath and pushed herself to her feet. ‘It’s sorted. He’s asked me for a divorce.’
‘Oh.’ For a moment or two Beth looked simply stunned. Which had to be a first as far as Tara was concerned. No one, but no one ever caught her aunt off-guard. Sharp as a tack from the age of two—so the family mythology went. ‘And what did you say to that?’ Back in charge, Beth absently fingered the single strand of exquisite pearls round her neck.
Emotion tightened Tara’s throat. In her mind—the fevered jumble of thoughts that passed for logic—she told herself it was only natural Mac had found someone else. But a stubborn, hopeful, definitely illogical part of her had always clung to the tenuous belief that one day he might come back to her. As of today that belief had been cruelly swept away, like a lone leaf in the path of a cyclone.
‘I agreed, of course. What more was there to say?’
‘What more was there to…? I take it you told him about the baby?’
Dogged in the pursuit of truth, Beth didn’t flinch from asking the tough questions.
‘He’s met someone. He wants to get married again and start a family. In answer to your question, yes…I told him about the baby. In some respects I wish I hadn’t.’
Tearing her anguished gaze away from her aunt, Tara swept past her to the door. Some might call her a coward but right now she couldn’t take any more interrogation. All she wanted to do was unwind in a long, hot, scented bath and break her heart over Mac in private.
‘Why not? He deserves to know the agony he put you through!’
‘He was devastated, Beth. I saw it in his eyes. What’s the point of us both being in agony?’
For once, Beth did not know how to answer her niece. Making a little ‘tsking’ noise with her tongue, she retrieved her jacket then reached out a hand to gently smooth Tara’s fringe from her eyes.
‘You’re such a beautiful girl, my darling, you don’t deserve to be so dreadfully unhappy. At your tender age you should be having the time of your life instead of being stuck working in a fusty old antique shop with an old bird like me!’
Tara smiled, her heart swelling with affection for the aunt who hadn’t hesitated to offer her a place of refuge when Mac walked out on her. An aunt who’d given her not simply a home but a job too if she wanted it; who’d stood by