The Marriage Replay (5 page)

‘Do I have to move?' she asked, frowning. ‘I'm OK here.'

Her eyes spoke volumes to Reece of her need to deny herself comfort of any kind, and the realisation disturbed him deeply.

‘You mustn't blame yourself for what happened, Sorrel. How can any of us know why it did? Maybe your body just wasn't ready to cope with pregnancy? What you need now is the best of care and lots of rest to help you recover. Then, when you're strong again, I'll take you somewhere warm and beautiful. We'll go
away for a couple of months maybe? Take our time, get to know each other all over again.'

‘Forget about the baby, you mean? Pretend that this never happened?'

‘I didn't say that!'

‘We should have gone through with the divorce proceedings, Reece. We should have just followed through and had done with it. You didn't want the baby. You didn't really want
me
. You were only mad at me because I left and took matters into my own hands. The most important thing to you has always been your career. Rubbing shoulders with people like Angelina Cortez…that's all you've ever really wanted, Reece. Not a wife and baby…no way.'

Sorrel was almost incoherent with grief. One thought bumped against another, just giving way to a flood of rage and hurt that pained her worse than the dreadful killing ache deep inside her womb.

Someone ought to pay for the terrible thing that had happened to her. Sorrel's greatest hope for them both had been that they could create a strong, secure, loving family—just like her own had been.
Why was that so hard for her to achieve with Reece?
Because ultimately he was
wrong
for her, she decided, tearing her glance away from the astounded expression on his face. Losing the baby was surely a sign that this man she had chosen was
wrong
for her.

‘You think that this doesn't hurt me as much as it hurts you, Sorrel?' His voice threatening to break with grief, Reece willed his wife to look at him. Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her gaze to regard him.

‘Just yesterday I learnt that I was going to be a father. Yes, the news came as a shock—I won't lie to you about
that.' A tiny muscle flinched beneath his eye. ‘Now…only a day later…that realisation has been ripped away from me in the most terrible way. Do you think that I'm made of stone? I'm devastated by what's happened to you…to
us
.'

Shaking his golden-haired head in anguished silence, Reece moved restlessly away from the bed. ‘I
wanted
our baby, Sorrel. I wanted this chance to be a better husband to you and a good father to our child. Now it seems that I've lost both those chances. If you think that my career is the most important thing to me at a time like this then you couldn't be more wrong. And I'm not going to simply let you wallow in your own grief and feel that you're in this nightmare on your own. I'll be here for you every step of the way…you can count on it.'

His mouth softening a little round the edges, Reece walked right back up to the bed and studied her tenderly. ‘As dreadful as you're feeling now…I promise you that things will get better, sweetheart. I'm in this marriage for better or worse, and nothing's going to change my mind about that. Am I getting through to you, Sorrel?'

‘Mrs Villiers…how are you feeling this morning?'

They were both saved from further heartbreaking interaction as the surgeon who had looked after Sorrel last night walked into the room, accompanied by another doctor and a nurse. And as Reece reluctantly tore his gaze away from his wife's troubled blue-eyed glance, he knew he was absolutely determined to follow through with everything he had said to her.

 

A week later, and home again, it came as a deep shock to Sorrel to realise that even though she had lost her baby
she still felt as if she was pregnant. They'd told her at the hospital where she'd gone to recuperate that it would take a while for her hormones to settle down again and return to normal, and that she wasn't to worry. But the after-effects of her miscarriage only served to remind her that her body was no longer preparing to carry her baby to term, that all the sickness and lethargy and bouts of crying she'd suffered had all been for nothing.

What was making things worse was Reece's unexpected presence in the house. He might have told Sorrel in no uncertain terms that he fully intended to stay in this marriage for ‘better or worse', but she really hadn't expected him to take so much time off work simply just to be with her. She knew the situation was unprecedented, but even so Reece had never sacrificed his desire to immerse himself in his work before. The fact that they were barely talking to each other—mainly because Sorrel deliberately withdrew into silence whenever he walked into the same room as her—didn't seem to bother Reece that much. He simply asked her if she needed anything, closed the window against any draughts, brought her magazines, a sandwich, an occasional cup of tea or coffee, and then left her alone with her thoughts with the proviso that if she did need anything else she was to tell him immediately.

Sorrel speculated on how long they could continue in such an emotionally sterile state. She was beginning to think that she preferred the jagged heat of their many arguments rather than the suffocating fog of silence that had descended on them both. Any day now she fully expected Reece to walk in and tell her that he'd had enough of playing nursemaid and that he was returning to work. Knowing that she was nowhere near getting
over the loss of her baby, Sorrel wouldn't have blamed him. It must be like living with a lifeless marble statue instead of a living, breathing woman.

‘Want to go out for a while?'

His slow and deep, almost gravelly voice broke into her thoughts, and for a moment the rich warm tones caused a throb of heat to flare somewhere deep inside her.
Sorrel had always loved Reece's voice.
It stroked over her nerve endings with the combined seductive heat of the most desired French brandy and rich dark velvet and made her long to lean into his arms and just simply give way to the security and warmth of the strength that she knew she would find there.
How good would it be to stop grieving alone and simply reach out to each other again like they used to?

Dropping the edge of the curtain she'd pulled back to glance out of the window, she glanced back at him in surprise.

‘Where?' She shrugged, her heart helplessly lifting at the sight of his tall straight physique, silently admiring the way his stylish black jeans and grey lambswool sweater complemented his lean, yet nicely muscled body. Sorrel noticed too the chestnut lights glinting in his dark gold hair, and the way one corner of his delicious mouth was almost curving into a smile. Her resistance started to seriously be compromised.

‘I thought we could take a walk in Kensington Gardens…just a short one—nothing too taxing. Are you up for that?'

She had barely eaten a thing since her return from hospital, and as Reece's probing gaze swept his wife's almost too slender form in her cream-coloured cardigan and brown linen skirt, he was alarmed to discover that
she appeared to have lost even more weight. His heart pounded against ribs that already felt contused by anguish and grief.

‘OK. I'm going stir-crazy just staying in the house anyway.'

Her agreement at going for a walk totally took Reece by surprise. As soon as he'd made the suggestion he'd fully expected her to say no, and he'd been steeling himself against it. Now a flicker of hope started to throb inside him.

‘It might be a good idea to put on some jeans and boots. It's been raining off and on all morning, and there's probably a good deal of mud around.'

‘OK.'

Curling some soft blond tendrils behind her ear, Sorrel almost offered him a smile…
almost…but not quite
. As Reece followed her progress out of the room, he let loose the deeply weary sigh he'd been holding onto practically the whole week and sank down into a nearby red leather armchair to get his bearings.

‘W
HEN
were you intending going back to work?'

Her gaze focused on the large stretch of water before them known as the Serpentine—where ducks, geese and swans congregated in busy little groups intent on getting their share of the bread that children were happily throwing out to them—Sorrel dug her hands deep into the pockets of her green puffa jacket and tried to stem the tide of melancholy that washed over her. Today there was no discernible sunshine, because the sun was hiding shy behind a bank of stormy-looking grey clouds, and it perfectly echoed the lack of any kind of brightness in her heart.

They both came to a standstill, staring out at the lake in unison, the chattering of children and birds alike flowing over them, silently grating on the unseen bruises of their shared heartbreak. Reece lifted a shoulder and only glanced at his wife briefly, as if the sight of her sadness these days was almost too much for even his broad shoulders to bear.

‘I'm not in any rush to get back to work, Sorrel. I have other people to help take care of things in my absence…you know that. I'll take as much time out as you need.'

She didn't deviate from her intense perusal of the lake. She just stared as if both she and her thoughts were miles away.

‘That's the whole point, Reece. I don't “need” you to take any more time off work to be with me. What purpose is it serving? I'm miserable, you're miserable—how is it helping either of us? At least if you got back to work you could focus on something else instead of this—this.' Sorrel had been going to use the word ‘hell', but withdrew it at the last second as her womb contracted with a sudden piercing ache deep inside her.

One day all this would be behind her.
One day the pain she was experiencing now would not be so brutal—so raw—making her feel like she wanted to escape her own skin just to get some relief. If she didn't believe that her agony would diminish, even a little, she might as well just lie down and die right now. There had to be the promise of a day in the not too far distant future when her life would return to normal again, when she could start to come to terms with the fact that once upon a time all her hopes and dreams had been ripped away from her—like a boat torn from its moorings by a freak storm that had occurred out of the blue.

‘We're in this together, Sorrel. I told you that before. Why should I want to focus on anything else but us?'

‘You didn't want the baby.'

‘For God's sake, don't keep saying that!'

Agony piercing him at her cruel assertion, Reece curled his hands into fists down by his sides and clenched his jaw. It took him several seconds to put out the fire of anger that arose inside him, but he couldn't extinguish it completely. It stayed simmering beneath the surface even as he told himself it was only his wife's
deep misery about the loss of the baby she'd carried that made her say such blatantly untrue things. She needed to lash out at somebody over the unfairness of it all. It hadn't helped their case that their relationship had been at its lowest ebb when she'd discovered she was pregnant. And because of that, she naturally wanted to blame Reece for everything.

‘Anyway…I think you should go back to work. I've got things I need to concentrate on myself.'

Her blue eyes settled on him a little nervously, Reece thought—as though she were unsure of her ground since his outburst of temper. If only he could find the words to reassure her, to tell her that he would never willingly cause her any more pain in a million years. But right then—with the voices of excited young children ringing out in the chilly spring day—Reece's ability to think with any real clarity just got wrapped up in the innocent yet hurtful sounds, and he bent down, picked up a pebble and threw it into the water so that it skimmed across the dull, slightly green surface and made three distinct splashes as it progressed out into the centre of the lake.

‘What “things” do you need to concentrate on?' he asked.

‘I want to get back to work myself. Not modelling,' she added quickly as she registered Reece's swift frown of disapproval. ‘I've been working on some fashion designs, and Nina Bryant thinks that they're really quite good. I know a lot of people in the business still, and I think I could make a go of something if I give it my all.'

Reece hated to burst her bubble, he really did, but in his opinion no way was Sorrel ready to throw her
self into another career—let alone ‘give it her all.' She hadn't given herself proper time either to grieve or heal, and if this fashion designing didn't work out the disappointment could set her back even further. Much more pressing was the need for them both to try and repair the damage that had been done to their marriage, so that they could weather this new storm together with some strength.

‘I don't think now is the time to be thinking about starting out in something else, Sorrel.' His frown deepened, furrowing the lightly tanned skin on his forehead. ‘I think we should go away somewhere, like I suggested before. We could go to the house in the Algarve. At this time of year it won't be too hot, and we can just spend time together and relax.'

‘I don't want any more time to relax or think or brood! Can't you see that? I need to keep myself occupied. I really don't want to go away on holiday, Reece. Don't you think I would go out to Australia if I wanted to, and stay with my parents if I needed a break? My mum and dad have already asked me.' But Sorrel hadn't felt able to face her beloved parents' distress about the loss of her baby and deal with her own as well—
or
capitulate to her sister Melody's insistence that she return to Suffolk and stay with her. Best to steer clear of other people expressing their emotions right now, when she wasn't exactly feeling strong or prepared.

‘And what about us?'

Reece turned to face her head-on and Sorrel caught the merest glimpse of a muscle flexing slightly in the plane of his beautiful angled cheekbone. She sensed the undoubted tension building inexorably inside him,
as though he was on a very short fuse that was going to ignite any second now.

‘Us?'

‘Don't you think it would do us both good to get away together? To have time to rest and relax and make some decisions about our future?'

Her heart jumped.
Hadn't he already told her he was in this ‘for better or worse'? Was he now changing his mind?

‘I'll still agree to a divorce, if that's what you want.'

Inside, Sorrel was so frozen she felt as if she'd been buried beneath an icy avalanche that she would never escape from.

‘There's not going to be any divorce. I told you that already! Instead I'm going to be right beside you while you heal, and we're going to work things out together—as we should have done right from the beginning, when everything started to fall apart. Do you hear me?'

She flinched at his uncompromisingly irritated tone, and at the perfectly delineated features that were so compelling. All she ever seemed to do these days was make him furious with her. But there were no manuals available with ‘quick fixes' in them, to tell her how to get over this terrible thing that had happened to her and stop destroying the one thing that she'd always counted on until recently…
her husband's love
.

Turning away from the sight of the lake and the activity surrounding it, Sorrel returned her chilled hands to her pockets and started to walk away.

‘Sorrel!'

Reece chased after her, halting her progress with the ring of command that inevitably laced his voice. Studying him with dulled blue eyes, Sorrel wished that
the day, her body, and her life didn't all feel so deathly, irredeemably cold.

‘I'm sorry,' he ground out, the cold air turning his breath to steam. ‘I'm not trying to upset you. I'm merely trying to get you to see that I want to help you. I've never seen you so low…do you know what that does to me?'

‘It's OK.' Grimacing slightly, Sorrel could hardly bring herself to meet his eyes. ‘You probably deserve a much better wife than me, Reece.'

‘Don't say that!'

‘I've brought you nothing but trouble.'

‘Why are you doing this, Sorrel? Isn't it enough that we've both suffered over what's happened without punishing ourselves even more?' Wanting to ease her anxiety and let her feel his genuine support, Reece reached out and brushed a lock of her hair tenderly away from her eyebrow. ‘Why don't you let me make an appointment with a doctor or a bereavement counsellor to get you some help?'

Could some cool, detached professional help show her the way out of her sorrow and pain?
The idea didn't fill her with much reassurance. Swallowing down a fresh wave of despair, Sorrel glanced up into Reece's warm, concerned gaze.

‘I know that you mean well, but I'm not ready to talk about this with anyone else just yet.'

‘That's OK, honey.' He touched her mouth, then withdrew his hand with a smile. ‘When you're ready, we'll get you all the help that you need. In the meantime I'm here for you—twenty-four seven…you got that?'

Because he was smiling at her, Sorrel couldn't resist the warmth that the gesture engendered in all the icy little corners of her heart. Her hand moved towards him
and she found her fingers curling tentatively around his. Registering his surprise and pleasure, she allowed her grip to tighten a little. ‘Can we walk a little more, do you think?'

‘Of course…as long as you don't overdo things.'

Feeling his heart lift for the first time in days, Reece remembered what sweet pleasure it was just to do something as simple and innocent as hold hands with his beautiful wife….

 

Despite their fledgling truce at the park, they were still sleeping in separate rooms, with Sorrel continuing to fight shy of making conversation and withdrawing into herself for hours on end.

When the telephone rang on his study desk one evening about a week later, Reece was actually genuinely pleased to hear the exotic Spanish tones of the beautiful Angelina Cortez.

‘Reece,
mi querido!
I rang your office but they told me that you were on leave. I am so glad to find you at home! I was hoping we could still have lunch together, as I suggested before? Would tomorrow at one o'clock suit? I am still at the Dorchester, so we can eat there. Please say that you can join me?'

Knowing that Sorrel had already turned down his suggestion of lunch tomorrow at one of the new Conran restaurants in town, Reece rubbed his hand round the back of his neck to ease the strain that had accumulated there from the past few weeks and quickly scribbled the time down in his opened diary.

‘One o'clock will be just fine, Angelina. I'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.'

‘And I have to ask…have you thought any more about
accepting my offer to organise a new tour for me? I am anxious to know.'

Ordinarily Reece would think
Why not?
and relish the prospect—although challenging, with a star like Angelina—of getting his teeth into another demanding and all-consuming project. But right now there was no enthusiastic response left in him—not when all he could think about was Sorrel, and when and if she would ever show even the merest glimpse of returning to a normal life again. Because his emotions were so affected by his wife's melancholic moods, he questioned his own ability even to pull off a major project like the American tour Angelina had in mind.

‘We'll talk about it tomorrow, if you don't mind,' was all he said, and at Angelina's subdued
adios
he put down the receiver.

 

Pausing outside the door of her husband's modern and spacious study, Sorrel let her hand drop to her side instead of knocking to go in, and drew her finely arched brows together in a helpless expression of anguish.
Reece was going to meet Angelina Cortez for lunch tomorrow.

What was the ‘it' they were going to talk about? Sorrel longed to know. Since losing the baby her anxiety about her relationship with Reece had become even more acute. She ached to discuss her feelings with him, to ask him to give her time and not become despondent that she was so uncommunicative and withdrawn—and
especially
not to seek comfort in the arms of someone else. Someone vital and exotic and lovely…like Angelina Cortez… But how could she even begin
when she knew in her heart that he had to be getting tired of her behaviour?

It had been months now since they had had any kind of intimate relations, and there would be another month yet—the gynaecologist at the hospital had told her—before ‘normal' sexual activity could resume. It didn't help Sorrel that she was terrified of resuming
any
kind of intimacy with her angry and frustrated husband. They had both levelled some terrible accusations at each other, and how did they go about healing the scars of all that? How could Sorrel start to see herself as a desirable woman again when her body wouldn't even allow her to carry a baby to full term?

The door opened suddenly while she was standing there thinking, and she jumped back in surprise. Reece's commanding frame stilled in the doorway, and his glance was wary, as if he wondered what new problem his wife was going to present him with now. It hardly reassured Sorrel to imagine that her own husband viewed her as someone with an endless list of problems and demands.

‘What is it?' he asked.

‘I—I think I might like to go out to lunch tomorrow after all.'

Finding it hard to meet the searing examination of his forthright gaze, Sorrel glanced down at her unpainted nails and pushed back the cuticle of her forefinger with the nail of her thumb. She knew perfectly well that Reece was meeting Angelina tomorrow, and she wanted to know what he would do about it if she presented him with this new dilemma. Would he choose the sultry opera star over his sad, depressed wife?