Love Unspoken

  LOVE UNSPOKEN

  Carole Mortimer

  ‘You’re so busy trying to do your job as well as a man, you’ve forgotten how to be a woman!’ Zack Reedman had thrown at Julie, in anger and bitterness. And perhaps she was expecting too much—to be an ambitious, successful young reporter and find time to love Zack as well. So they had parted—for good, Julie supposed. Yet now, three years later, Zack had turned up again. But far from any thoughts of a reunion, he now announced that he was going to marry the sweet, gentle Teresa Barr. Was it really the end of everything between him and Julie now?

  CHAPTER 1

  Thank heavens the flight was over; the sooner she got to her flat and got some sleep the better she was going to feel. It had been a gruelling two weeks, the last three days nightmarishly so.

  ‘It was bad, hmm?’ the man at her side spoke.

  She turned to look at Steve Carter, finding comfort from his untidy normality, the long dark hair, laughing blue eyes, and casual clothing. ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘I really thought they were going to shoot us all.’

  He took her hand in his. ‘So did I,’ he admitted shakily.

  ‘Oh, Steve!’ Some of Julie’s own tension left her, as she saw how pale Steve was beneath his tanned skin. ‘I’m fine—really.’

  ‘I wish I could have been with you.’

  She gave a rueful smile. ‘And then maybe it would have been you they shot instead of Matt.’

  ‘How is he?’

  Her smile deepened. ‘Complaining about the food when I last saw him.’

  ‘It was just a shoulder wound?’

  ‘I don’t think Matt looks on it as just something.’ She closed her eyes, reliving the moment when Matt had unwittingly antagonised the terrorists who had taken their plane hostage, seeing the blood that seemed to be everywhere as he collapsed after the burst of gunfire, clutching his shoulder as the blood seeped through his fingers and down his hand.

  The flight had started out so boringly normal, the long journey in front of them suddenly interrupted as the Middle Eastern gunmen demanded the release of their fellow terrorists all over the world. They made the pilot return to the United States, and over the next three days continued to make their demands. Poor Matt had made a scathing comment to a fellow- traveller about the respective governments never agreeing to let those murderers free, not realising that one of the terrorists was standing behind him.

  Matt had passed out from the pain of his gun- wound and Julie began screaming at the gunman, sure that he had killed Matt. They had only gone to the States to cover a campaign leading up to the Presidential election, she as the reporter, Matt as the photographer, and she had thought they had killed Matt. Her screaming had stopped when the gunman hit her across the face with his gun, and the cut and bruise were still very noticeable on her pale cheek. Matt, luckily, had passed out from the shock, although the blood wouldn’t seem to stop flowing. The terrorists had finally agreed to let him off the plane so that he could get medical treatment.

  Two days ago the terrorists had given up; the money they had requested was available, but the demands for the release of the prisoners had been flatly refused. For Julie and a hundred other passengers the nightmare had finally, been over. Matt had been admitted to hospital, and that was where she had seen him yesterday, his usual ready smile back in evidence as he claimed to have known those men would never get away with it. Julie wished she could have had his confidence—she had been terrified!

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ Steve squeezed her hand now. T didn’t mean to upset you. Did you see the story in the newspaper?’

  As soon as the doctors had finished examining her and she could book into a hotel she had got in touch with her editor at the Daily Probe, giving him the full story—from the inside. She had bought a newspaper at the airport, a photograph of herself—completely out of date— and one of Matt, accompanying the sensational story on the front page. Julie hadn’t written the story herself, feeling too weary to do anything other than pass on the necessary information to Doug; she had let someone else write up the story. Unfortunately, as far as she was concerned, David Miles had gone overboard, even going as far as to guess her thoughts and fears during that terrifying forty-eight hours.

  ‘I saw it,’ she said dryly.

  ‘You didn’t like it,’ Steve said knowingly.

  ‘David makes me out to be some Simpering Sara. I was frightened, yes, but then so would he have been in my position.’ Her green eyes were shadowed, her face pale beneath the golden tan.

  ‘Anyone would,’ Steve squeezed her hand. ‘God, I wish Doug hadn’t sent me off to Italy with Sean. Anyone could have filmed the Italian politicians.’

  ‘Anyone could have interviewed and filmed the American ones too,’ she derided. ‘It’s amazing how politicians all over the world look and talk the same.’

  ‘Lying and cheating?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she laughed. ‘I only hope this series of stories on world politics is worth Matt getting shot,’ she sobered.

  ‘That was incidental—’

  ‘Incidental!’ she interrupted angrily. ‘Try telling his wife and two little boys that! Madge must have gone through hell when they gave out the information that a Daily Probe member of staff had been shot.’

  ‘So did I,’ he rasped. ‘I thought it was you! The whole newspaper was in an uproar. And when I said incidental I didn’t mean it wasn’t important, I meant that it didn’t happen because of the job. It could have been anyone on that plane.’

  ‘Yes,’ Julie agreed dully.

  ‘I still wish I could have been with you,’ Steve said grimly.

  The two of them more often than not worked together, and it was through this continual closeness that they had started to see each other out of working hours. The last six months they had been dating were some of the happiest Julie had ever spent.

  ‘It’s all over,’ she assured him. ‘I just want to get back to normal—I won’t even complain the next time Doug gives me a boring story to cover,’ she added teasingly.

  Steve’s hand moved from hers to touch the cut and bruise on her right cheek just below her eye. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked concernedly.

  ‘Not too much now,’ she dismissed.

  ‘Reporting isn’t woman’s work—’

  Julie instantly shut out Steve’s heated tirade, similar words echoing in her memory—’You aren’t tough enough’, ‘I don’t like you exposed to such pain and suffering’, and finally, bitterly, ‘You’re so busy trying to do your job as well as a man that you’ve forgotten how to be a woman!’ They hadn’t been words Steve had spoken, but another man, a man who refused to accept compromise, especially in love.

  The last taunt had been the one that hurt her the most. Her femininity now was something that was never in doubt, but then neither was her ability as one of the top reporters the Daily Probe had. And she had achieved this aim at the sacrifice of one man, a man who demanded complete subjugation in a relationship, a man who had refused to see her as wanting a career as well as him.

  Up until today she had thought Steve lacking in chauvinism, her relationship with him was a sharing of interests and physical attraction. Steve satisfied both her intellectual and physical needs, although lately she had been aware of a growing impatience in him to deepen the latter.

  She shrugged dismissively. ‘As you said, the hijack was completely incidental.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he agreed grudgingly. ‘But it gave me a scare to know you were on that plane. Look, I know you want to rest now, but later on tonight, can I take you to dinner? I want to talk to you.’

  Julie couldn’t really look that far ahead yet, she just wanted to collapse into her own bed and sleep for a few hours. But she knew that once she had s
lept, dinner out would be nice. ‘I’d like that,’ she accepted.

  Her flat was just as she remembered it, clean and bright, and totally impersonal, intentionally so. She was away so much that her home had to be wherever she happened to be at the time, and as far as she was concerned this flat was just her base whenever she happened to be in London. But today it was more than that, and its familiarity made her feel tearful.

  ‘I used my key to stock up the fridge,’ Steve murmured softly.

  ‘Thanks.’ She gave a grateful smile, although food hadn’t been something she had thought of herself. She had given Steve a key to her flat after he had waited on the doorstep for her a couple of times when she had been delayed on a story, but so far he had rarely used it. She was glad that this time he had, knowing that once she got over this incredible tiredness she would start to feel hungry again.

  She had picked her mail up from downstairs on her way in, and flicked through it uninterestedly. Bills and more bills. There were a few personal letters, but most of them could wait, except the one from Connie; that one she would read as soon as she was alone.

  ‘Shall I put this in the bedroom?’ Steve gained her attention, indicating the single suitcase she had brought home with her.

  ‘Oh—thanks.’ She glanced up from her mail to smile at him, the pale wintry sunlight from the window behind her making her hair look like a deep red flame, the riotous curls resting lightly on her shoulders, kept easily in style- she just washed it and left it to dry!

  To the man looking at her she was everything that was feminine, her wide green eyes fringed by dark lashes, her nose small and straight, her mouth, unsmiling now, saved from sternness by the sensuality of the fuller lower lip. Her tailored suit showed the perfection of her slender figure, the smoothness of her long legs, and her height added to her graceful elegance.

  ‘To hell with this!’ Steve dropped the case on the floor. ‘I just want to kiss you, hold you. Julie…’ he groaned, his mouth coming down forcefully on hers as he kissed her with a hunger he didn’t try to hide. ‘God, Julie, I missed you,’ he gasped. ‘Let’s go into the bedroom. Darling, I want to love you!’

  ‘No!’ She pulled away from him, high colour in her cheeks. ‘You know how I feel about that.’

  ‘Julie, we have to talk—’

  ‘Not now,’ she groaned, looking suddenly fragile, her skin translucent. ‘Please, not now, Steve.’ She looked at him with pleading eyes.

  ‘All right,’ he drew in a ragged breath as he fought for control. ‘But later—I have to talk to you then. I need to talk to you, Julie.’

  She viewed the intensity of his expression with something like dismay. She knew that look too well, had seen it many times before, and she was no more willing now to commit herself body and soul to a man than she had been four years ago. At twenty-two she had met the man she had thought she would love for all time, and who claimed to love her in the same way, but it hadn’t been enough, and she doubted it ever would be.

  This same intensity she hadn’t expected from Steve, in fact it had been his casual, almost ruthless, attitude to relationships that had first attracted her to him. His attitude had suited her, their casual way of meeting two or three evenings a week had suited her too. And now it looked as if Steve wanted to change all that.

  ‘All right, later,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘But I really do have to get some sleep now.’

  ‘Of course!’ He was instantly contrite, releasing her. ‘I have to get back to work, anyway. You know Doug, he only gave me a couple of hours off to meet you.’

  ‘Sounds like Doug,’ Julie grimaced.

  ‘This doesn’t.’ Steve put her suitcase in her bedroom. ‘He’s given you the week off.’ He looked down at Juliet expectantly. ‘Nice, hmm?’

  She laughed lightly. ‘Considering it’s Thursday now he’s being very generous,’ she taunted.

  Steve laughed too. ‘I didn’t mean this week, I meant next week.’

  She frowned. ‘He’s given me that off too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Steve shrugged. ‘You went through a nasty ordeal, you deserve a break.’

  ‘But it isn’t like Doug—’

  ‘Orders from upstairs, I suppose. Besides,’ he grinned, ‘it says in the paper that you’ve been given time off to recover from the hijack. They can hardly go back on such a public announcement. ‘

  ‘They’ll have to,’ Juliet told him firmly. ‘There’s no way I’m going to spend a week ratting about here,’ she explained. To be alone all day, every day, for a week, was not something she wanted right now. She wanted to be around people, to be assured that the danger was finally over.

  Steve sighed. ‘I told Doug you would say that. I even asked him if I could take a week off so that we could go away somewhere. ‘

  ‘And?’

  He pulled a face. ‘His generosity didn’t extend that far. In fact, he’s sending me off to Yugoslavia first thing in the morning.’

  ‘The political series again?’

  ‘Mm,’ he nodded. ‘Yugoslavia after Tito— that’s the angle.’

  ‘Should be an interesting one.’

  ‘The best yet,’ he agreed. ‘But it means I’m going to be away when you need me.’

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ Julie shrugged. ‘And I have no intention of staying off work. I’ll go mad sitting here all day.’

  ‘They’ll probably bar the door and not let you in,’ he grinned.

  ‘I’ll give Doug a call, see if I can’t change his mind.’

  Steve grimaced. ‘You won’t.’

  ‘I can try,’ she said stubbornly.

  ‘Okay, love,’ he kissed her briefly on the mouth. ‘Get some rest now and I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock.’

  ‘Mario’s?’ she said hopefully.

  ‘Mario’s,’ he agreed laughingly before leaving.

  Mario’s was a quiet little Italian restaurant in the back streets of London. They had gone there on their first date together, finding the relaxed atmosphere conducive to talking, and they had talked about everything and nothing until the early hours of the morning. Julie knew that its informal friendliness was all she could stand today.

  Her telephone call to Doug did absolutely no good. He had decided she was to have next week off, and that was the end of the matter as far as he was concerned. Argument seemed futile, and so by the time the call came to an end she had accepted that the next week was all hers. Although she had no idea what to do with it, especially as Steve was going to be away most of that time.

  She put off reading Connie’s letter for as long as she could, wanting to read the letter from her childhood friend, and yet dreading any mention of Zack. But after showering and washing her hair she couldn’t put it off any longer, knowing she would never sleep, no matter how tired she was, until the letter had been read.

  The first couple of pages were Connie’s usual chatter about Ben and the children, three-year old Nicholas and year-old Suzanne. Mention of the latter reminded Julie that she hadn’t seen the little girl for almost six months; the last two times she had met Connie it had been in town for lunch, her more than capable housekeeper taking care of the children for her.

  She was beginning to think Connie wasn’t going to mention Zack when suddenly she came to the paragraph about him. What she read made her blanch. Zack was going out with someone—someone called Teresa! She was nice, Connie said, and little Nicholas and Suzanne liked her, and you couldn’t fool children, could you, her friend chattered on. They had been dating a few months now, and Zack seemed quite serious about her.

  Oh God! Julie crumpled the letter into a tight ball, her hands clenched in front of her as she bent her head in pain. Three years—three years since she and Zack had broken up, and yet the knowledge that he might be going to marry someone else still had the power to wound her emotionally.

  It was dog-in-a-manger, she knew that. She and Zack weren’t suited, had never been suited, only it had tak
en Zack longer to realise that than it had her, for him to accept their break-up as final. Well, he had accepted it now, was in love with a woman called Teresa. And she had Steve, so why should the fact that Zack had found someone he could be serious about bother her so much?

  It shouldn’t bother her, she knew it should not, their lives were separate now and would remain that way. She hadn’t even seen him for three years! But, she could remember him, could vividly remember every detail of the man she had once loved. Tall and lean, with a boundless vitality that made him a success at everything he did. Incredibly handsome, styled dark hair, jutting brows, icy grey eyes, a long hawkish nose, sensual mouth, his jaw square and firm. Yes, Zachary Reedman had everything a woman could ever want, and they had wanted him, his wealth a bonus few women could resist. And yet he had been faithful to Julie during their year together, she had never doubted that.

  He would be thirty-nine now, just, and he had always told her he intended having a wife and family by the time he was forty. Maybe this Teresa was it. Zack would make a good father, firm but fair, and it looked as if Teresa were going to be his children’s mother.

  She couldn’t sleep now, her mind was too active, her thoughts too disturbing. Zack had seen other women during the last three years, she knew that, just as she had seen other men, but they had been only fleeting affairs, according to Connie. This Teresa must mean something more than that for Connie to have mentioned her at all.

  She jumped nervously as the telephone rang at her bedside, picking it up to automatically recite her number.

  ‘Julie? Is that you?’

  She instantly recognised Connie’s voice. ‘I was just reading your letter.’

  ‘Oh, I wrote that a couple of weeks ago,’ her friend dismissed. ‘How are you, Julie?’

  ‘Very well. How are you and Ben? And the family? Has Suzanne cut all her teeth yet? And how does Nicholas like nursery-school—’

  ‘Really, Julie,’ Connie cut in impatiently, ‘I didn’t call you to tell you about Suzanne and Nicholas. I read the newspaper this morning, and I’ve been so worried about you. You must be exhausted!’