Daphne Clair - The Marriage Debt

‘Why?’

Devin looked down for a moment as if she’d caught him unawares with the question. ‘Why?’ he repeated. Then, slowly, ‘Call it…a trial reconciliation.’

She looked around the coldly glossy designer-created apartment he called home now. He couldn’t be serious. Despite the devastatingly sexy kiss she couldn’t help suspecting some other motive than a sudden overwhelming desire to attempt a renewed relationship.

‘A trial?’ she repeated. ‘For how long?’

‘As long it takes…’

‘To make the film? It could be five or six months!’ She knew she sounded appalled.

A shadow of annoyance showed in his eyes. ‘That’s the deal,’ he said curtly. ‘Don’t pretend it would be so enormous a sacrifice.’ Arrogantly he added, ‘You still want me.’

She could hardly deny that. Not after the way she’d succumbed to his kiss.

‘You know I want your money,’ she said, fighting for some sort of equilibrium. ‘And you’re saying you’d be willing to give it to me if I agree to…sell myself to you?’ Her whole being revolted at the idea, and she had to question his motive. He’d had three years to suggest a revival of their marriage without resorting to a kind of extortion that was guaranteed to arouse her hostility.

‘You’re making it sound sordid,’ he said shortly.

‘You were the one who did that!’ she said with scorn. ‘I just want to make sure we both know what the terms are.’ Surely he could see that his blatant attempt at manipulation could only backfire—if he was genuinely interested in a reconciliation. ‘I assume,’ she said, in an attempt to make him see the enormity of his suggestion, ‘you’d have it written into the contract and signed by witnesses?’

He said stiffly, ‘This would be a private arrangement. Between the two of us.’

‘I don’t suppose it would stand up in court anyway.’

She shouldn’t even be discussing it. ‘I’d like to go home now,’ she said. ‘Maybe you could call me a taxi.’

‘I’ll take you.’ His tone was brusque and he didn’t move immediately, but when she turned toward the door he followed and opened it for her, blocking her way. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘what happened to Duncan Hobbs?’

‘He was found guilty, though there was considerable public outrage about the verdict.’

‘So what do you think? Was he guilty?’

‘I don’t know. There are some strange gaps in the prosecution case.’

He nodded slightly, then stepped back, and as she passed him he said, ‘Think about my offer. You can phone me at the office during the day, or here anytime. If I’m not around leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’

They rode to her flat in silence and she bade him an almost inaudible goodnight, slipping into the lighted hallway and leaning against the closed door as she heard his footsteps recede down the short pathway and then the faint sound of his car driving away.

She could still feel Devin’s kiss on her lips, and his masculine scent was in her nostrils, lingering.

Imagination, she told herself, and walked to the bathroom, switched on the light and saw herself in the mirror over the basin. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, her eyes lustrous and the pupils large, dark, mysterious. Her mouth had lost the pink gloss she’d smoothed on before leaving, but her lips were red and full. She looked like a woman who had just left her lover.

Closing her eyes, she doused her face with cold water. How could he make her look like that with a single kiss? How could he make her heart beat faster, her blood run hot and swift in her veins, her whole being flood with longing?

She had got over the break-up of her marriage, gone on with her life, closed off the memories, except for those that surfaced in unguarded sleep.

The whole thing was impossible.

But, an insidious voice from deep within whispered, people do change. I’ve changed. Maybe he has too.

Not so much that he’d lost the ability to take advantage of any weakness in an opponent and move in for the kill.

They had parted bitterly and she’d assumed that Devin had cut his losses.

Yet tonight he’d said he wanted her back.

She dried her face and frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Could she believe that he’d simply missed her, and that seeing her again had triggered renewed feelings, perhaps as powerful and disturbing as those he’d aroused in her?

He hadn’t mentioned love, she recalled uneasily, hanging up the towel. He’d always found her sexually stimulating and still did, no doubt about that. Her skin tingled at the remembrance of the lambent flame in his eyes.

Had she really expected that he would give her money for nothing?

No, he’d have his pound of flesh. Her flesh.

Shannon shook herself. It would be a crazy situation to put herself in. Crazy. Only a masochist would do it.

And she was no masochist.

In the hour before sleep rescued her, and throughout next day, she couldn’t stop herself from going over and over the conversation. Couldn’t school her body to indifference at the memory of the unexpected kiss.

All the following week, in any moment she could spare from working on a TV commercial she been commissioned to direct, she revisited every avenue that she’d already exhausted of raising the money she needed, but even the modest success of Heart of the Wilderness wasn’t enough to open any doors, except for vague suggestions to resubmit her proposal the following year.

The commercial involved children, dogs and endless bars of chocolate. It paid the rent, but after five days Shannon was exhausted, never wanted to see another chocolate bar, and was less than enamoured of both children and dogs.

Anyway, children had long been on the list of things she preferred not to think about too much.

On Friday night she was lying propped against cushions on her couch, drinking coffee and poring over the script of her beloved project. As she scribbled notes on the pages, thinking about camera shots and angles, she had to wonder why she bothered. Odds were that the Hobbs story was going to be filmed by someone else, and her dream would die.

When the telephone rang she picked up the receiver listlessly and gave her name.

‘Shannon,’ said a deep, well-remembered voice.

Instantly all her senses were alert. She sat up. ‘Devin?’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m…fine.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’ Why did he want to know?

‘I haven’t heard from you.’

‘No.’ There wasn’t much she could add to that. Once or twice she’d toyed with the idea of leaving a blunt, even rude, repudiation of his offer on the answer machine, and at other times she’d been tempted to tell him she’d accept any terms he cared to lay down. But her silence should have told him she had no intention of taking up his preposterous offer.

After a short pause he said, ‘Have you found a backer?’

‘No.’

‘Feel like going out for supper?’

‘I’m tired.’ True. ‘I’ve had a hectic week.’

‘Me too. I could bring a pizza and come round.’ His voice dropped into seduction mode. ‘Pepperoni, pineapple, black olives…’

He knew all her weaknesses. She hadn’t thought she was hungry, but now her mouth was watering.

While she was still trying to muster the will to say no, he said, ‘I’ll be there in about half an hour. And I promise not to keep you up late.’

He’d hung up before she could say anything more. She put down the phone and sat staring at the page on her lap without seeing it.

Maybe he’d had second thoughts about financing her film, decided to retract his outrageous terms.

Some hope, she told herself. More likely he still hoped to talk her into accepting them.