The Marriage Debt

‘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.

‘When they’re ice-skating in hell,’ she muttered.

It was only twenty-five minutes before the doorbell buzzed. The aroma of melted cheese met her nostrils as soon as she opened the door, bringing back memories of evenings when they’d sat side by side watching a film on TV while sharing a pizza and a bottle of wine.

He’d brought wine too, her favourite red. It was raining outside, a light, misty drizzle that dewed the wine bottle. Tiny sparklets of moisture glittered in Devon’s dark hair under the glow of the hall light.

He wore no jacket or tie with his blue shirt and dark trousers. Her eyes were level with the open neck of the shirt, and she could see the tiny pulse beating under lightly tanned skin. Her own pulses quickened.

She led him into the lounge before it occurred to her that it would have been safer to eat in the dining area in the kitchen. This room was far too cosy.

But he’d already placed the pizza and wine on the coffee table, beside the script. ‘A corkscrew?’ he enquired.

Shannon turned to the old oak sideboard and extracted a corkscrew, two wineglasses and a couple of plates. Pretty, flowered china plates that had once belonged to her grandmother, and that her mother had bequeathed to her.

Devin sat on the ruby-red armchair and deftly opened the bottle. As she resumed her seat on the sofa he poured the wine and placed a glass in front of Shannon, then lifted the lid of the box and slid a slice of pizza onto a plate.

Automatically Shannon tucked her bare feet under her on the couch before biting into the layers of cheese, extras and the doughy crust. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured as the concoction released its flavour onto her tongue.

Devin smiled, watching her. Then he took a bite of his own piece, picked up his glass and leaned back in the chair.

Shannon swallowed. ‘How did you know this is what I needed?’

‘I know a lot about you, Shannon.’

She supposed he did, superficially. But he had never shared her deepest feelings. He didn’t understand why she’d been compelled to end their marriage. Her clumsy efforts to explain had only made him angry.

He seemed mellower now, the anger dissipated by time.

Devin dusted crumbs from his hands. ‘A script?’ he asked, nodding at the open folder on the table. ‘The one you’re wanting finance for?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I?’

She nodded and he picked it up, taking another slice of pizza as he began reading.

Shannon let him do so in silence, watching as he put down his plate with the half-eaten slice on it and turned a page, apparently forgetting to finish the food.

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