Laura Martin - Living With The Enemy

‘I was just going to ask if he had a career,’ Alex murmured. ‘Don’t worry; nothing too personal. I got my head bitten off once before, remember? I’m not quite ready to have it bitten off again.’

‘I’ve been a bit of a pain, haven’t I?’ Lucy murmured. ‘Sorry.’

‘You’ve had a hard time.’ Alex’s tone was crisp and matter-of-fact. ‘It’s understandable.’

‘Paul didn’t like to be tied down to regular work. He did have a job when I met him,’ she added quickly, wondering why she was bothering to say any of this, ‘but after a couple of months he got laid off.’

Lucy risked a glance across the table and saw that Alex appeared less than interested. Why don’t you just come right out and say he was sacked? she asked herself. Be honest about it. Paul’s dead. You don’t have to cover up for him any more!

‘He had more of a hippy attitude, really,’ she continued. ‘He sort of drifted.’ Lucy looked at Alex and managed at least a modicum of honesty. ‘For a while I found myself drifting too.’

She looked at him then, saw the frown, the vague disapproval in his expression. Clearly he didn’t like slackers. ‘I got a position in an office, but I ... I didn’t feel too well for a while, and I decided to give it up.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

Serious? Lucy lowered her head to her plate and remembered how easy it was to lose her appetite. Was having a baby serious? It was important, she knew that much. Devastating when you lost it, or were made to lose it...

‘I hated office work anyway,’ she continued hurriedly. ‘It was a relief to leave.’

‘So, you’ll be trying something new? Maybe you’ll pick up the pieces of your acting career?’

‘I doubt it,’ she murmured. ‘All that feels as if it happened centuries ago. I’ll probably end up in an office again.’

‘Are you always so defeatist?’

Lucy looked across, surprised by the sudden vehemence in Alex’s voice. ‘I’m just being...realistic,’ she replied haltingly.

‘No, you’re not!’ He shook his head and threw her a disparaging look. ‘You’re just taking the easy option. How it annoys me when people settle for second best.’ Dark eyes flashed across the table at her. ‘Why don’t you fight for what you want?’ he demanded. ‘If you hate the way your life is going, then do something about it!’

‘Easy for you to say,’ she returned quickly, ‘sitting there with a successful career and your independence!’

‘They weren’t handed to me on a plate,’ Alex delivered with cool precision. ‘I had to work hard to get where I am. Years of slog in a profession that I ended up hating. Years of rejection slips one after another, with no one believing in me except myself.’

‘But you’ve got talent; you can do something—!’

‘And you can’t?’ Smouldering dark eyes bit into her. ‘You’re saying you’re useless?’

‘No! Yes!’ She shook her head and felt a wash of desolation sweep over her. ‘Oh, I don’t know!’

‘Well, I suggest you find out!’ Alex replied crisply. ‘You need to start looking at your life, at what you want to achieve. You can’t drift for ever, Lucy. The future has to be faced.’

‘I know that! I don’t need you to tell me!’ she retorted angrily. What on earth had made her think that this man possessed any sort of compassion? She stood up, scraping her chair back from the table, listening to the sound of her cutlery as it fell from her plate to the floor. ‘You’re so damned sure of yourself!’ she exclaimed. ‘It makes me sick! I didn’t come here to be lectured to; I came here to recuperate!’

‘Thinking seriously about your future is part of recuperation,’ he replied instantly.

She couldn’t stand any more. Strain clenched Lucy’s delicate features. She glared at Alex Darcy. That man! So damned sure of himself! What did he know? How could he sit there and make such cool statements about her life, about the way she should think? It wasn’t fair that he should judge her without knowing the facts.

She met the hard, critical look in his eyes and almost wished for a moment that he did know every detail. But that thought didn’t last more than a few seconds. Imagine how much worse his judgement would be, she told herself, if he knew how easily it had been for Paul to manipulate her, how weak she had been with him. Alex Darcy would undoubtedly take the tough line: women who allowed their husbands to treat them like slaves had only themselves to blame, and if it meant losing a baby in the process...a baby that no one outside the marriage knew existed...

Lucy closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about all that again. Goodness knew she had spent enough time torturing herself already.

At the door to the loggia she turned back briefly to find Alex surveying her with an expression that was difficult to decipher. His observation was disconcerting—so intense suddenly, as if he wanted to look into her very soul.

‘If I had known what a self-righteous swine you were,’ Lucy declared heatedly, ‘I would never have agreed to come!’

‘And if I had known about your defeatist attitude and your stubborn streak,’ Alex replied in clipped tones, ‘then I would have stood my ground and not allowed Charles to persuade me to have you here against my better judgement.’

It had been meant to hurt and it did. Although why so much, Lucy didn’t know—after all, she had guessed in that first moment of seeing Alex that he was allowing her to stay at his home on sufferance. Hearing the truth now shouldn’t have made that much difference.

‘I’ll go if that’s what you want!’ She stared at him bleakly. The evening had been going so well until now. All of a sudden Lucy felt tired again, and worn out, and very, very unhappy.

She heard a muttered curse, looked up with misted eyes and saw that Alex was getting to his feet. ‘Of course, it’s not!’ He threw down his napkin impatiently and strode towards her.

He came near and her mouth quivered tremulously. ‘But you said—’

‘I know what I said!’ His voice was harsh. ‘I know what I said,’ he repeated more softly. ‘Lucy, I—’ He dragged strong fingers through his dark hair and shook his head, cursing again, only more softly this time, beneath his breath. ‘This is...going to be difficult. I had no idea.’

‘What?’ She looked up, brushing a strand of hair away from her face, and frowned. Alex, she thought, looked almost tortured, as if he badly regretted being horrible to her. ‘Me? You mean I’m difficult?’

‘Charles certainly doesn’t have a clue about you, does he?’ Alex released a deep breath, noticed the puzzlement clouding her features and shook his head again. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m just thinking out loud. Your devoted stepbrother just didn’t prepare me very well, that’s all. Maybe you should go to bed.’ Alex’s voice was rough again. ‘You did say you were tired.’

He didn’t want her around. She bored him. All her gushing about his work, and her probing into his life, and then her petulant anger. No wonder he could hardly stand the sight of her.

‘Charles has put you in a very awkward position, hasn’t he?’ Lucy murmured. ‘I really irritate you beyond belief!’

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