PENNY JORDAN - For Better For Worse

She could remember now how humiliated she had felt… how humiliated and self-conscious she had been from then on whenever she saw Adam. Had he actually discussed her with Nick… told Nick…? In fact, she had felt so uncomfortable, so betrayed almost, that she had deliberately started to avoid seeing him. And yet he had never given her any indication… done or said anything…

It had hurt her to know, though, as she now did know because of Nick’s revelations, that Adam had probably been quite aware of the silly crush she had had on him. Aware of it and no doubt amused by it, discussing it probably with the unknown woman who shared his bed, the woman who Nick had implied was a world away from her own silly immaturity.

In the trauma of her shock, though, she had not had the strength to erect her normal defences against Adam. She had simply let him take her home with him, sit her down and gently coax from her what had happened.

She had started to cry, she remembered. And that was when it had happened… when she had broken faith with all that her parents had taught her to respect and revere, when she had done something that was far, far worse than Nick’s merely sexual betrayal of her.

Even now she could not bear to think about it, pushing the memory fiercely out of sight, willing herself not to allow even a chink of light into that seething darkness of spirit and emotion into which she had locked the memories away.

She had known afterwards, of course, that there was no going back, that her marriage to Nick was over, but she hadn’t said anything to Adam.

How could she, when she knew that he had simply acted out of pity, had just reacted as any man would have done to what she had said… what she had done?

She had insisted on returning home, even though Adam had tried to dissuade her. ‘At least let me drive you,’ he had said, but she had shaken her head, unable to bear to look at him, backing away from him in her panic in case he reached out and touched her, so shocked and ashamed by her own behaviour, her own wantonness, that all she had wanted to do was to escape from him and from it, taking advantage of the quirk of fate that decreed that his phone should start to ring just as he reached out towards her, distracting him long enough for her to turn and run.

He had come after her, calling out her name, but it was too late, she was already outside in the street, knowing that with others to see them, others who knew who both of them were and what their relationship to one another was, Adam could hardly run after her and force her physically back into the house.

And besides, why should he really want to? Despite the concern he seemed to feel for her, secretly he must surely have been only too relieved that she was leaving, saving him the necessity of pointing out to her that she had misunderstood… that he had never intended…

The phone had been ringing as she got home, but she had ignored it, knowing that it would be Adam. Instead she had gone straight upstairs to where her suitcase still lay open on the bed.

Methodically she had started to remove her clothes from the wardrobe and pack them into it, rehearsing what she was going to say to Nick, how she was going to tell him that she knew about his affair, knew he loved someone else; knew that their marriage had to end.

He had arrived home ten minutes later, returning much earlier than usual, and she had seen immediately from his expression that he knew his lover had been to see her.

She had opened her mouth to tell him that she was leaving but he’d forestalled her, bursting into an impassioned speech, reaching out to take hold of her, scarcely seeming to notice the way she tensed and flinched back from his touch.

‘Fern… Fern… I’m so sorry. I never meant you to find out. She never meant anything to me, you must believe that,’ he told her huskily.

He went on to beg her not to leave him, to tell her how much he still loved and needed her, to plead and cajole, making her head ache with the voluble force of his arguments and insistence.

‘Think what this will do to your parents,’ he said as he looked at her half-packed suitcase. ‘You know how much it would hurt and upset them. Do you really want to do that to them, Fern, and all over a silly little fling that never meant anything important?

‘You’re so naïve… you see everything in black and white. How many marriages do you think would survive if every woman who learned that her husband had made a small mistake actually left him? I never intended it to happen, but, well, let’s be honest—sexually…’ He gave a small shrug. ‘She made me feel wanted,’ he told her, giving her his little-boy-lost smile. ‘She made me feel that I was important to her. She wanted me, Fern. Oh, I know it isn’t your fault that you aren’t very responsive sexually, and believe me I do understand, but I am a man with all the normal male urges, and she…’

She felt sick then, sick and too filled with loathing and disgust to say anything, to do anything other than merely stand there and listen to him, knowing that he was right, knowing how upset her parents would be, how shocked, how devastated… how difficult they would find it to understand.

‘I still need you,’ Nick insisted. ‘We can put things right… try again. Please, Fern. You must give me a second chance.’

In the end she gave in. What other option did she have? she asked herself bewilderedly. Nick loved her; he needed her; her parents would neither understand nor approve if she left him, and she herself was bitterly aware of her own guilt, her own betrayal of the vows she had made and had fully intended to keep.

Nick was right, she did owe it to him to give their marriage a second chance. But even as she was giving in, agreeing, aware of the huge weight of reasons why she ought to be pleased that he wanted to stay with her, she still felt an unfamiliar dangerous flare of panic and anger, a sense almost of being trapped and imprisoned.

She suppressed it, of course, quickly smothering it with the tight blanket of her parents’ teachings and her own awareness of what she owed it to them and to Nick to do.

But that night in bed, after he had made love to her and she had lain dry-eyed and tense beside him, she knew she had to tell him about Adam.

The next morning she tried to do so.

‘What do you mean, you can’t stay with me?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Look, Fern, I’ve already told you, it… she meant nothing. It was just sex, that’s all, just sex.’

‘It isn’t that,’ she whispered miserably. ‘It’s me. I…’

Something in her expression must have given her away, because she heard him curse and then demand aggressively, ‘It’s Adam, isn’t it? Well, if you think I’m going to let you leave me for him…’

‘It isn’t like that,’ she protested, horrified by what he was saying. ‘Adam isn’t… doesn’t…’

She wasn’t able to continue, her voice breaking under the strain of what she was feeling, but Nick grabbed hold of her arm, insisting fiercely, ‘Oh, no, you aren’t stopping there. Adam isn’t… doesn’t what , Fern? Adam doesn’t want to fuck you? Don’t lie to me, Fern. I know how much he…’

He stopped then, releasing her so roughly that she half fell against the kitchen table.

‘I’m not letting you go,’ he repeated flatly. ‘You’ve made a commitment to me, to our marriage, and if you think…’

He paused, watching her as she crouched against the table, her body shaking with shock and tension, tears slowly filling her eyes as her self-control started to splinter.

Suddenly his voice softened and became almost cajoling.

‘Think, Fern. Think of how your parents would feel if we broke up… if I had to tell them that you’ve been unfaithful to me with Adam. How long have you been seeing him? How often?’