A Whirlwind Marriage by Helen Brooks Read Free Book Online Page A

sitting room would have a floral theme, with its French windows opening on to the garden. The kitchen—the kitchen would remain exactly as it was. She loved the kitchen. She loved all the house! Oh, she was so happy .
    She called Zeke’s office as soon as she got to the apartment, but Sandra, his very able middle-aged secretary, was apologetic. ‘He’s had to fly up to Stoke again, Mrs Buchanan,’ she said quietly. ‘It all happened rather suddenly, a little while ago. He did try to call you but you’d already left Hertfordshire and he couldn’t contact you on your mobile.’
    ‘I forgot to take it with me,’ Marianne said flatly, feeling a slight sense of anticlimax before she told herself not to be silly. If they couldn’t go to see the house together this evening they’d go tomorrow; it really wasn’t a big deal. And he might be back in time anyway. Zeke had his own helicopter which he used for short trips like this one; he was forever nipping here, there and everywhere. It went with the territory.
    Zeke phoned at six o’clock and he sounded harassed. ‘I’m not going to be able to make it back tonight,’ he said through what sounded like a babble of voices at the otherend. ‘There’s still a long way to go before we clinch the deal. I’m sorry, Marianne.’
    ‘It’s okay.’ She bit back the disappointment and made her voice bright as she said, ‘The house was wonderful, Zeke. It’s the one; I’m sure of it.’
    ‘The house?’ And then immediately, ‘Oh, yes, of course, the Bedlows place. You liked it, then?’
    ‘I love it,’ she said a little flatly.
    ‘Good.’ The noise rose in a wave and then died down, and it was in that moment Marianne heard a familiar voice say, ‘Zeke? Are you coming, darling? I’m famished ,’ before the babble began again.
    Liliana. Marianne stood, the phone pressed to her ear and her body frozen, and stared straight ahead across the room. Liliana was there with him.
    ‘Look, it’s chaotic now. I’ll phone you later, when we get back from the restaurant.’
    She heard Zeke’s voice but the power to respond was just not there. ‘We’. He’d said we . Him and Liliana.
    ‘Marianne?’
    She barely knew what she was doing when she replaced the receiver, but then in the next instant she had whipped it up again, lying it down beside the phone with numb fingers.
    Liliana was in Stoke with him. He had taken Liliana with him. After all she had said to him about how she felt about the other woman he had chosen, deliberately, to take Liliana with him on this trip. And now they were staying overnight.
    She began to pace back and forth, her mind spinning. Had she made a mistake? It was possible. It was possible. She was clutching at straws and she knew it. Perhaps her mind had played a trick on her. You heard of such things. He wouldn’t have taken Liliana with him; there was noneed. The project he had employed the redhead for had nothing to do with the development in Stoke. She must have made a mistake.
    She glanced at the address book at the side of the telephone and then picked it up slowly. She shouldn’t do this; she really shouldn’t do this, she told herself sickly as she found Sandra’s home number. She should wait until Zeke came home and then ask him calmly and coolly; that was what she should do. But the way she was feeling right now she’d be a gibbering idiot by tomorrow night.
    She dialled the number.
    ‘Hallo, Amy Jenkins speaking.’
    ‘Hi, Amy,’ Marianne said carefully to Sandra’s twelve-year-old daughter. ‘Is your mother there? It’s Marianne Buchanan.’
    ‘Just a minute and I’ll get her.’
    Marianne’s heart was thudding so hard she was pressing her hand to her breastbone when Sandra’s concerned voice came on the line. ‘Mrs Buchanan? Is anything wrong?’
    ‘I’m sorry to bother you at home,’ Marianne said evenly, ‘but I’ve found a financial file regarding the Stoke project which Zeke has left here. Knowing Zeke