Everlasting Love. Carole Mortimer

sat back with a groan, his head back on the headrest, his eyes closed. ‘I’m too old to play games, Olivia,’ he told her harshly. ‘I warned you that once I started kissing you I wouldn’t want to stop. I can’t go back to our sterile relationship, not now, not when I’ve seen you, touched you.’

      She swallowed hard. ‘Are you saying that if I don’t go home with you now you won’t see me again?’

      ‘I don’t know what I’m saying!’ He ran an agitated hand through his already tousled hair. ‘I can’t think straight right now.’ He took her hand in his, guiding it down his body. ‘Feel how badly I want you,’ he rasped.

      ‘Oh, Marcus …!’ she began to tremble.

      ‘Yes,’ he thrust her hand away. ‘And I feel like this most of the time. Up until now, until you asked me to show you how I felt about you, I’ve been in control of the situation. I know how very young you are, how inexperienced, and I’ve kept my distance because of that. But after tonight I can’t do that. Do you understand what I’m saying now?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Go in now, Olivia,’ he instructed harshly. ‘We’ll talk again tomorrow.

      ‘Marcus—–’

      ‘Yes?’

      His abrupt tone chilled her, her agreement to do what he wanted, go where he wanted suddenly not seeming like a good idea after all. ‘Nothing,’ she bit her lip. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

      ‘Yes.’ He didn’t even turn as she got out of the car.

      Olivia looked down now at the man who lay so still and white in the hospital bed beside her, amazed that he could have caused such havoc in her life. Of course, she had been too young to cope with all that he wanted from her, but that hadn’t stopped her wanting to be all he needed. In the end it had nearly destroyed her.

      He began to move restlessly in the bed, to groan in his unconscious state, his lips moving soundlessly as he fought against the covers that confined him.

      ‘You’re all right, Marcus,’ she told him softly, knowing he was nowhere near regaining consciousness yet, but wanting to reassure him anyway. ‘We’re here, Sally and Olivia.’

      ‘Olivia,’ he muttered, startling her with the ferocity of his tone. ‘God, Ruth! She means nothing to me. Olivia. No, don’t go, it’s you I love.’ He muttered unintelligibly for several seconds. ‘No, don’t leave me,’ he groaned. ‘Ruth. She means nothing to me. Olivia, nothing. God, I love you, I love you. Please don’t go, not again. Ruth …’ he trailed off into oblivion once more.

      The tears were streaming down Olivia’s face by the time he had finished, and she moved away as the nurse came forward to check on him. Even in his unconscious state Marcus still hadn’t forgotten his love for his wife. It had been because of that love that he and Olivia had finally parted.

      Instead of the two of them talking the next day as Marcus had said they would, he cancelled their date for that evening. Olivia didn’t even bother to ask him why, she could guess the reason, and knew he was finishing with her as gently as he knew how.

      As she was coming off duty the next day she saw Marcus’s car parked outside the main entrance of the hospital, and seated in the passenger seat was a beautiful blonde woman of about thirty, her resemblance to Sally unmistakable. She knew immediately that it was Ruth Hamilton, and as Sybil Carr had predicted, Marcus had taken his wife back into his life.

      At that moment he had come out of the hospital, not noticing her as he got in the car beside his wife, giving a smiling response to something his wife said to him as they drove away.