An Indecent Marriage (20 page)

She glanced at the clock and felt an abrupt stab of fear. It was three o’clock in the morning and one of the coldest nights of the year. Where had he gone?

Jessica was certain that she would not be able to sleep and put the kettle on to make herself a cup of tea.

One word kept forming over and over in her consciousness: why? Why had he run away again when she was sure, after that last hour in bed, that they had a chance? She knew she had not imagined what had happened between them. Had it frightened him, threatened his need for vengeance and caused his resolve to weaken? What was going on in his mind? He was so complex, so unpredictable, that he could be thinking anything.

Jessica drew aside the living room curtain and looked down at the deserted street. A light snow had begun to fall, and it blanketed the asphalt with a thin layer of white. She turned away as the kettle whistled shrilly and went to the kitchen. As she got out a mug and a tea bag she thought that she couldn’t take much more of this and hoped that he would return safely, and quickly, before she lost hope altogether.

* * * *
 

Jack slid his glass across the bar and said, “Give me another one of those, will you, Bob?”

“Sure thing, Jack,” the bartender said. He poured a second shot into the tumbler and said, “Looks like we’re in for some weather tonight.”

“Yeah, it was starting to snow as I came in.”

The man examined him for several seconds and then said, “You mind if I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead,” Jack replied, downing the contents of his glass in one gulp.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here because this is the only bar open till four a.m.,” Jack responded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“No, I mean, why are you out at all? I heard you just got married.”

Jack sat quietly for a moment and then said, “I did.”

Bob arched his brows. “Is it true you married Jessica Portman?”

Jack nodded, not looking up.

The man shook his head. “Boy, I remember her. You were three years ahead of me in school, and she was two, I guess. But you couldn’t miss her. She sure was a looker.”

“She sure was,” Jack whispered.

“Still is, I guess?” the man ventured.

“Still is,” Jack confirmed softly.

“She disappeared there for a while, was out of the country or something, but she’s not the type you forget.”

“No.”

Bob grinned. “She was probably trying to get away from her father, the old codger. You ever see him?”

“Not now.”

“I worked one summer in his factory, you know, filling in for the regulars. He drove everybody like he was carrying a whip. I never could understand how something as sweet as Jessica could be his daughter.”

“I think she’s like her mother,” Jack said.

“I saw in the paper the old man was real sick.”

Jack met the other man’s eyes, turning his empty glass in his fingers. “He’s in a nursing home.”

Bob’s expression changed. “Gee, I’m sorry to hear that. For your wife, I mean. I can’t say I have much feeling for the guy himself. He was not exactly what you’d call likable.”

Jack didn’t answer. The statement did not require a response.

“So how long you been married?” Bob asked, wiping down the bar. He was killing time until closing, and Jack was the only remaining patron.

“Two months.”

“Then I have to repeat myself. Why are you sitting here talking to me when you could be home with your gorgeous bride?”

“That’s a very good question,” Jack observed.

“Is she away or something?”

“She’s back at my apartment.”

Bob stared at him. “Look, buddy, it’s none of my business, but...”

Jack stood abruptly. “You’re right. It’s none of your business.”

Bob watched him fishing for money in his pocket. He had been a bartender too long to pay attention to anything a drinker said. “You going home?” he asked mildly, as Jack produced a wad of bills and tossed several on the counter before him.

“Are you my mother?” Jack countered, glaring at him.

Bob held up his hand in a gesture of appeasement. “Hey, don’t take offense. I just can’t figure you out, that’s all. A guy like you, you got everything. You shouldn’t be risking it all, drinking, driving around in the snow in the middle of the night.”

Jack smiled thinly, turning up his collar. Yes, he had everything, including a beautiful wife he had purchased like an addition to a harem, coldly, bloodlessly, because she wouldn’t have come to him willingly. He was Jack Chabrol, superstar, and he could take what he wanted. Wasn’t that his right? Wasn’t that what he’d learned in four years of pro football, that money was power, and if you had enough of it you could make people do anything? You could even get a young, desirable woman to stay with you when she didn’t want to, because your money could take care of her invalid father and send her kid sister to school. Oh, there was a lot for him to be grateful for, proud of, no doubt about it.

He realized that Bob was talking to him. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you wanted me to call you a cab.”

Jack shook his head. “No, thanks, Bob, I’m not drunk. I only wish I was.”

“G’night, then.”

“Good night,” Jack responded. “Forget what I said before. I’m not in the best of moods tonight.”

“It’s forgotten. Say hello to your wife for me. Tell her Bob Randall. My sister Kim was in her class.”

“I will.” Jack headed for the door as Bob looked after him, thinking that you just didn’t know about people. Jack Chabrol, with all his looks and money, his booming business, his pretty new wife, was not a happy man. Maybe he didn’t have everything after all.

Jack walked out into the cold, blustery night and jammed his hands into his pockets. The snow sifted over his face and settled on his shoulders as he walked to his car, thinking that he couldn’t put it off a minute longer. He would have to go back to Jessica and tell her what he had decided. He couldn’t compel her to participate in this farce anymore. Her persistent kindness and patience had driven away his desire for revenge and left in its place a longing for the love he knew she could never give him.

Jack leaned against the closed door of his car and stared up at the frigid moon, partially visible behind a hazy bank of swollen clouds. The ancients believed the moon induced madness, and he almost felt as if he’d been under a spell where Jesse was concerned. He was not normally cruel, but he’d treated her cruelly. He’d rejected her every overture of normal companionship, dealing with her as if she were a hooker he kept in his house for the sake of convenience. She had only been trying to do her best with the bad situation he had forced on her, and he’d purposely made it almost impossible for her to hang on to any shred of self respect. Not to mention plotting and executing the downfall of her family fortunes just to render her vulnerable to his attack in the first place. It was madness, and it was going to stop, tonight.

It was amazing how easy it actually was, in the end. All he had to do was finally confess to himself what he had stubbornly denied all along: that he still loved Jesse, had always loved her. The admission was liberating. Having faced the truth, he could let her go. He’d been using the past as an excuse to hold her, and the constant effort necessary to sustain the fiction had exhausted him. Better to release her and let her forget, even if he knew he never could.

Jack unlocked the door of his car and got behind the wheel, staring straight ahead, hardly feeling the cold as he tried to start the engine. It took three attempts to get it going, and then it coughed into life. The delicate Italian machinery, suited to a warmer climate, was having some trouble coming to grips with the weather. He waited until the car warmed up, not anxious to begin the trip, and then headed home, driving slowly because of the snow and his own growing sense of dread.

When he entered the apartment the first thing he saw was Jessica sitting on the couch, her legs curled under her, staring at the door. She straightened alertly, saying, “Jack, thank God. I was so worried.”

He walked to the love seat facing her and sat on its edge, not bothering to remove his coat. The snowflakes were melting in his hair, creating little spots of wetness in the sable waves, and he looked haggard, his beard rough and dark.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” he said. “I have to talk to you.”

Chapter 10

“I couldn’t sleep,” Jessica replied, preoccupied with his serious, almost relieved air. He looked like a man who had come to a difficult conclusion, but was now glad the thinking period was over.

“Oh, no?” he said, pushing his damp hair back from his forehead.

“I woke up and you were gone, Jack. It was the middle of the night and I didn’t know where you were.”

“I see. Well, I’m sorry you were concerned, but we might as well get this over with now,” he said.

“Get what over with?” Jessica asked. “Jack, what are you talking about?” A chill, like a cold mist, was moving in around her heart. She knew she wasn’t going to like what was coming.

He looked at her for a moment, into her eyes, and then glanced away. His throat was working, and his big hands hung uselessly as he said, “I’m not going to hold you to this anymore, Jesse. You can have a divorce whenever you want.”

Jessica was stunned into silence. Just hours before she had been thinking of leaving him. But that was before their last lovemaking together. Evidently the thing that had convinced her they might have a chance had only convinced him that they didn’t.

He kept staring into the distance as he went on. “I’ll still cover your father’s care until he’s on his feet and Jean’s education. You don’t have to pay me back. God knows you’ve earned the money, enduring what I’ve put you through these past couple of months. And once the house is renovated you can have it as part of the settlement, as well as any alimony you think fair. I’m sure Ransom can set it up whatever way you want.”

Jessica could tell by the way he spoke that he had given the arrangements a great deal of consideration. He must have been sitting someplace for hours, mulling it over, deciding how he could cut her loose as painlessly as possible. He obviously thought that if he gave her everything anyone could possibly want she wouldn’t fight him.

He must be very eager to be rid of her. She felt her throat tighten with the constriction of oncoming tears and swallowed hard, forcing them back. She seemed to spend a good deal of her time bawling lately, but she wasn’t going to do it now. She would be brave if it killed her.

Jack still hadn’t turned to her, and he went on talking in a dull monotone, as if he had rehearsed this speech and had to get it all out before he forgot it or lost his nerve. “I know you don’t want me,” he said expressionlessly. “You did once. I felt that you did, even if you went along with what your father said in the end. This time it was different. I used the only leverage I had, leverage I had created, to get you.” He sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping.

“But you can’t recapture a memory,” he added. “I’m sorry I gave you such a bad time.” He stopped, as if to phrase his next thoughts more carefully.

Jessica no longer felt like crying. She was sitting bolt upright, her eyes riveted on his face, her fingers knotted in her lap. Could he possibly be saying what she thought he was saying?

“You left me,” she whispered, blurting out the first idea she could articulate. “Every time we made love, you left me. You always slept in the other bedroom.”

“I was afraid to stay, afraid that we would both see how I really felt,” he murmured.

“Every time?” she asked softly, barely breathing.

“Every time. I felt so close to you afterward, and I just knew that if I stayed, I would not be able to shut you out.”

“Oh, Jack,” she murmured. How had she misunderstood so completely?

He stood abruptly, his back to her. “Please don’t feel sorry for me,” he said tightly.

“Jack, wait...”

He made a silencing gesture. “Just let me get this out,” he directed curtly, and she allowed him to continue. There would be all the time in the world for her to say her piece when he was finished. A quiet sort of joy was welling up within her, filling her with the certainty that no matter what he told her now, everything would be all right.

“You may not believe this, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, but I love you,” he said quietly, looking at her for the first time. “Now more than ever, and I loved you more than life itself when we were kids. All those years we were apart, every time I got close to another woman, I saw your face. I was engaged once, did you know that? But I couldn’t go through with it. She was a nice girl, but she just wasn’t... you. I wound up hurting her because I let it get too far before I saw the truth and called it off. I wanted to feel about her the way I had about you, and I didn’t. And if I couldn’t have that, I didn’t want anything. I told myself that the feeling I remembered happened only because we were so young, and I repeated it so often I guess I came to believe it. And when you came back, all I could focus on was the hate for what you’d done, for the way you’d left me. I wouldn’t see the truth, that the emotions didn’t have anything to do with age or maturity. It was you. You were the only person who could make me feel that way.”