Jessica Hart - Marriage Reunited

There you go, Georgia told herself. Another bonus to add to the view.

In the end, Mac sat down uninvited in the chair recently vacated by the would-be photographer. ‘It took me a little while to track you down,’ he said. ‘You didn’t tell me that you’d left London.’

‘Is there any reason why I should have done?’ asked Georgia coolly.

‘We are married,’ he pointed out.

‘Technically, perhaps,’ she conceded, ‘but we’ve been separated for nearly four years and, since you haven’t made any other attempt to contact me in that time, it didn’t occur to me to keep you informed of my movements.’

Hey, who would have thought she would have been able to come up with a coherent sentence like that? Georgia marvelled. Who needed yoga anyway? She could do this. She could deal with her soon-to-be ex-husband without falling apart or letting the frantic churning get the better of her. Ha!

‘I don’t recall you letting me know whenever you went off to the Middle East or Angola or Liberia or all the other trouble spots you’ve been to over the last few years,’ she added, feeling more confident now.

‘You’ve been keeping track of me?’

The undercurrent of amusement in Mac’s voice made Georgia grit her teeth. He had never really taken her seriously, and it looked as if nothing had changed.

‘I read the papers,’ she said, managing a careless shrug. ‘I see your name under the pictures so I know where you’ve been, that’s all.’

And every time it had been like a knife turning in her heart, knowing that he was in danger, never getting a phone call to say that he was safe, knowing only that he had survived one conflict the next time his photographs of another appeared in the paper.

Of course, Mac had always thrived on risk. His was an odd mixture of recklessness and competence, a confidence bordering on arrogance that he could deal with any obstacle that stood between him and a good picture.

It was what made him a wonderful photographer and a terrible husband. How many nights, Georgia wondered, had she lain awake worrying about where he was and what he was doing, only for him to breeze back, to laugh at her fears and tell her that she should learn to live dangerously, life was so much more fun that way? But it hadn’t been fun for Georgia, just waiting for him to come home. He had never understood how hard it was for her.

She looked across the desk at him now. No, he hadn’t changed. Nobody could call Mac a handsome man, his features were too irregular for that, but he was undeniably attractive, with those dark, lean looks, and that reckless, good-humoured assurance that gave his mobile face its compelling charm.

He was a little thinner now, maybe, a little more battered around the edges, but then, weren’t they all? Georgia thought wryly. You didn’t have to spend your life in wartorn countries to lose your sheen after you hit forty.

He had aged better than she had, she had to acknowledge, but then men always did. Mac’s lines made him look rugged and humorous, hers just made her look tired and tense.

‘Besides,’ she went on, abandoning that depressing line of thought, ‘I am a journalist. It wouldn’t have been that hard to have found you if I’d needed to, which I haven’t until now. I sent the divorce papers care of the Picture Desk at the paper. I presume that’s why you’re here?’

‘Got it in one,’ said Mac, not feeling nearly as casual as he sounded.

Her letter had been forwarded to him in Mozambique. He had been sitting in a bar in Maputo, having collected the mail that had accumulated in his post box while he’d been covering a story up country. He had ordered a beer while he leafed through the letters, opening anything that seemed interesting and leaving the rest until later.

Mac remembered the moment exactly. Remembered frowning slightly at the solicitor’s stamp, turning the envelope over, ripping it open with his thumb. Even at the time he’d thought of Georgia, who would undoubtedly have used a letter opener or a knife to open it neatly rather than leave a jagged tear like that. It was the kind of memory that would catch at him like barbed wire, just when he least expected it.

He remembered shaking the thought of her aside as he’d pulled out the papers and unfolded them, remembered the sickening jolt as he’d read the solicitor’s covering letter and the words sank in. After all this time, Georgia wanted a divorce.

‘I appreciate the effort,’ she said now in a dry voice, ‘but there was no need for you to come. All you had to do was sign the papers and send them back to my solicitor.’

‘But I don’t want to sign,’ said Mac, tipping the chair back so that he was balanced alarmingly on the back legs. ‘I want to talk.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ said Georgia, trying to ignore his balancing act and failing miserably. ‘And stop doing that!’ she snapped, succumbing to the blatant provocation in spite of herself. ‘You’re only doing it to wind me up anyway. You know I hate it when you take stupid risks.’

‘Georgia, I’m only sitting on a chair!’ Mac rolled his eyes, but let the chair legs drop back to the floor.

‘You’re the only person I know who can sit on a chair dangerously,’ she said with a trace of resentment and he grinned.

‘That almost sounds as if you still care about me!’

‘Well, I don’t,’ said Georgia, not quite truthfully. ‘It’s nothing to me if you want to break your neck. Just don’t do it in my office when I’m trying to work!’

‘You’re not working now,’ Mac pointed out. ‘We’re just talking.’

‘We’re not talking,’ she insisted crossly. ‘What is there to talk about?’

‘Our marriage.’

‘Mac, we don’t have a marriage.’ Georgia sighed. ‘We agreed to separate four years ago. It was a mutual decision and since neither of us has changed our mind since then, there doesn’t seem much point in carrying on being married on paper only. Surely you can see that it’s sensible to sort everything out now?’

Sensible. There was a word to describe Georgia, thought Mac, studying her over the desk. She looked tired, he decided, and there were new lines around her smoky-grey eyes, but her blonde hair was still drawn neatly away from her face in a French plait, and she was as immaculately groomed as ever, wearing one of those little suits that always made her look crisp and elegant and just a little buttoned up.

The contrast in the two sides of Georgia had always intrigued him. There was the cool, controlled Georgia who faced the world, and then there was the other, much more alluring Georgia who shed her inhibitions with her neat suit and her sensible shoes, whose smile as she shook her beautiful hair free of its tidy plait had never failed to send a frisson of excitement down his spine.

Look at her now, sitting at her perfectly organised desk, crisp and capable in a scoop-necked silk top and discreet earrings. Who could guess that behind that practical façade was a warm, vibrant, alluring woman? Mac liked to think that he was the only one who knew, the only who had glimpsed the potential in the steady, sensible girl who had escaped the confines of a small Yorkshire town for London all those years ago, the only one to be fascinated and infuriated by her in equal measure.

The realisation that he might not be the only one after all had brought him all the way back from Mozambique, jealousy churning in his gut.

The amusement evaporated from Mac’s face. ‘The thing is, Georgia, you said that neither of us had changed our mind, but that’s not quite true. I have.’

She stared at him. ‘What do you mean, you’ve changed your mind?’

‘About being better off apart than together. I don’t think that any more.’ The navy-blue eyes looked directly into hers. ‘I don’t want a divorce.’