Our Honeymoon Isn't Over, It Has Only Begin
'm not one of your
tinued. "I'm
Zeke grated slowly. "So why d
arrog
husband, so what's got i
gnited a response deep in the core of her. He only had to touch her and she
didn't raise her head from her contemplation of the contents of her coffee cup, not even when he stopped just behind
show no reaction, either in her body or her voice, when she
lond head. 'I probably won't be home much before seven myself. I'm flying up to Stoke this morning to
n to you, isn't it? She didn't trust the bitterness not to show if sh
ye, Ma
she replied in like vein whe
ull minute, willing herself not to give way to the tears that were always threatening these days, and th
ormade for Zeke long before he had met her, more than two years ago. It was the last word in opulent living, from the massive drawing room regally decorated in blue and go
na de Giraud, who was the interior designer to the rich and famous-had designed the penthouse, and once sh
er to look at different properties-some apartments, some houses-but al
inst the cold glass, and then she straightened abruptly, drawing her
ressure. She would come through this; she would. She had coped with the shock of her mother's sudden death four years ago-she would cope with this. But, oh... She bit her lip hard. Wh
ng until the answer-machine cut in. The only people who rang these days were Zeke, one or other of
t-Patricia-in case you haven't guessed, and as
the receiver and said breathlessly, 'Pat? O
e any day to hear it, Annie,' Pat said w
he had met Pat, and the two had never hit it off. Pat was right, though; she should have contacted her before this, Marianne told herself silently. But with all that was
e said now. 'Can we meet
o come round to the apar
cond before she said, 'No, we'll eat out. My treat. There's a great little French place a few
ee you then.
e asked c
ou all
h and said quietly, 'No, n
e, then.' And in characterist
of relief and expectation swept through her. She hadn't realised just how much she needed Pat's down-to-ear
a few months after she had married him. Eight o'clock. Four hours to go. But suddenly the
d, leaving the breakfast table just as it was, walked through to
n she only did it to avoid yet another row. She couldn't quite explain it, but the flamboyant, lavish black-and-silver bathro
discarded the flimsy wisps of material on the floor as sh
ed her mind to drift back to how it had been when she had first told Pat about Zeke. In spite of th
been in Canada?' Pat's voice had been distinctly mi
d taken in her friend's woebegone face. 'He
' It had been almost a wail. 'Te
face of her best friend-the girl she'd grown up with and who lived just a f
ur extraordinaire, should have fallen in love with her was someth
third finger of her left hand and felt the same giddy rush of
been agog that a girl from their little backwater should have caught a big fish f
ut that great whopper of a ring on your finger. Everything, mind! There was little old me thinking I was having a good time in Canada when instead it was all happening at h
id have a
been comical. 'But compared to you
at the back of the aged property. There she had said, 'Zeke came to have a look at that land on the outskirts of the village, Farnon's Farm, that's been designated for housing and a new school and so on.
nd
said, 'Leave the flipping coffee, for goodness' sake, Annie, and tell me!' determinedly pushin
asked me out to dinner that night,' Marianne had said matter-of-factly, clasp
nsion, a place where even the most ordinary, mundane aspects
nnie. There's not many girls with your intelligence and looks that would have given up the chance of university and spr
do,' Marianne had responded quickly
xclamation ha
ct that they were both only children and their birthdays were just days apar