Our Honeymoon Isn't Over, It Has Only Begin

'm not one of your

tinued. "I'm

Zeke grated slowly. "So why d

arrog

husband, so what's got i

gnited a response deep in the core of her. He only had to touch her and she

didn't raise her head from her contemplation of the contents of her coffee cup, not even when he stopped just behind

show no reaction, either in her body or her voice, when she

lond head. 'I probably won't be home much before seven myself. I'm flying up to Stoke this morning to

n to you, isn't it? She didn't trust the bitterness not to show if sh

ye, Ma

she replied in like vein whe

ull minute, willing herself not to give way to the tears that were always threatening these days, and th

ormade for Zeke long before he had met her, more than two years ago. It was the last word in opulent living, from the massive drawing room regally decorated in blue and go

na de Giraud, who was the interior designer to the rich and famous-had designed the penthouse, and once sh

er to look at different properties-some apartments, some houses-but al

inst the cold glass, and then she straightened abruptly, drawing her

ressure. She would come through this; she would. She had coped with the shock of her mother's sudden death four years ago-she would cope with this. But, oh... She bit her lip hard. Wh

ng until the answer-machine cut in. The only people who rang these days were Zeke, one or other of

t-Patricia-in case you haven't guessed, and as

the receiver and said breathlessly, 'Pat? O

e any day to hear it, Annie,' Pat said w

he had met Pat, and the two had never hit it off. Pat was right, though; she should have contacted her before this, Marianne told herself silently. But with all that was

e said now. 'Can we meet

o come round to the apar

cond before she said, 'No, we'll eat out. My treat. There's a great little French place a few

ee you then.

e asked c

ou all

h and said quietly, 'No, n

e, then.' And in characterist

of relief and expectation swept through her. She hadn't realised just how much she needed Pat's down-to-ear

a few months after she had married him. Eight o'clock. Four hours to go. But suddenly the

d, leaving the breakfast table just as it was, walked through to

n she only did it to avoid yet another row. She couldn't quite explain it, but the flamboyant, lavish black-and-silver bathro

discarded the flimsy wisps of material on the floor as sh

ed her mind to drift back to how it had been when she had first told Pat about Zeke. In spite of th

been in Canada?' Pat's voice had been distinctly mi

d taken in her friend's woebegone face. 'He

' It had been almost a wail. 'Te

face of her best friend-the girl she'd grown up with and who lived just a f

ur extraordinaire, should have fallen in love with her was someth

third finger of her left hand and felt the same giddy rush of

been agog that a girl from their little backwater should have caught a big fish f

ut that great whopper of a ring on your finger. Everything, mind! There was little old me thinking I was having a good time in Canada when instead it was all happening at h

id have a

been comical. 'But compared to you

at the back of the aged property. There she had said, 'Zeke came to have a look at that land on the outskirts of the village, Farnon's Farm, that's been designated for housing and a new school and so on.

nd

said, 'Leave the flipping coffee, for goodness' sake, Annie, and tell me!' determinedly pushin

asked me out to dinner that night,' Marianne had said matter-of-factly, clasp

nsion, a place where even the most ordinary, mundane aspects

nnie. There's not many girls with your intelligence and looks that would have given up the chance of university and spr

do,' Marianne had responded quickly

xclamation ha

ct that they were both only children and their birthdays were just days apar