The Three-Year Itch

“So you want to play games, do you, Mrs. Lockwood?”

Abbie lowered her lashes, seductively. “Why, sir, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Then I’ll have to show—” The telephone began to ring. For a moment Grey gazed down at her, then he dropped the briefest kiss on her mouth. “It appears you have a reprieve.”

She didn’t want a reprieve and reached out for him. “Whoever it is will leave a message, Grey. Don’t go.”

“It’ll be Robert. I should have phoned him an hour ago.” He raised her hand absently to his lips. “Why don’t you see if you can rustle up something for supper?”

“Well, gee, shucks. Thanks, mister,” she murmured as he disappeared in the direction of the study. It was the first time she had ever come third. To a phone call and food.

Born and raised in Berkshire, England, LIZ FIELDING started writing at the age of twelve when she won a hymn-writing competition at her convent school. After a gap of more years than she is prepared to admit to—during which she worked as a secretary in Africa and the Middle East, got married and had two children—she was finally able to realize her ambition and turn to full-time writing in 1992.

She now lives with her husband, John, in West Wales, surrounded by mystical countryside and romantic, crumbling castles, content to leave the traveling to her grown-up children and keeping in touch with the rest of the world via the Internet.

You can visit Liz Fielding’s web site via Mills & Boon at: www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Three-Year
Itch
Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

ABBIE LOCKWOOD glanced sympathetically at the crowds milling around the luggage carousel as she walked by, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t have to. Travelling time was too precious a commodity to be wasted queueing for luggage, and she carried no more than the drip-dry, crumple-free essentials, packed along with her precious laptop computer and camera, in a canvas bag small enough to be carried aboard a plane with her.

She moved swiftly, eagerly through the formalities and into the airport arrival hall, glancing about her for Grey, her excitement deflating just a little as she didn’t immediately spot the heart-churning smile that told her he was glad she was home. She stretched slightly onto her toes, although at five feet ten in her drip-dry socks, she didn’t really need to. Besides, he wasn’t the kind of man you could miss. He stood a head clear of the most pressing crowd and she knew that if she hadn’t immediately caught sight of his tall, athletic figure it was because he wasn’t there.

Abbie’s sharp stab of disappointment punctured her brilliant feeling of elation at being home, at a job well done. Grey always came to meet her. Never failed, no matter how busy he was. Then she shook herself severely. It was ridiculous to be so cast down. He might just have been delayed, or a client might have needed him urgently—he might even be in court. She hadn’t been able to contact him directly, so he hadn’t been able to explain …

He’d probably left a message, she thought, fighting her way through the crowds to the information desk. It was unreasonable to expect him to drop everything and come running just because she had been away for a couple of weeks and was dizzily desperate to hold him in her arms and hug him tight. It was just that he had never failed her before. That was all.

‘My name is Abigail Lockwood,’ she told the young woman at the desk. ‘I was expecting my husband to meet me but he isn’t here. I wonder if he left a message for me?’

The girl checked. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing here for you, Mrs Lockwood.’

‘Oh, well,’ she said, trying to hide a sudden tiny tremor of unease, the totally ridiculous feeling that something must be wrong. ‘I expect we’ve got our wires crossed somewhere. I’d better take a taxi.’ The girl smiled on automatic; she had clearly heard it all a thousand times before.

All the excitement, the high of returning home had drained from her by the time the taxi set her down outside the elegant mansion block where she and Grey lived, and she just felt tired. But she found a smile for the porter, who gallantly admired her tan and asked her if she’d had a good trip.

‘Fine, thanks, Peter,’ she replied. ‘But I’m glad to be home.’ Two fraught weeks touring the sprawling streets of Karachi with a distraught mother in search of her snatched daughter in a tug-of-love case had not been a barrel of laughs.

‘That’s just what Mr Lockwood said not five minutes ago, when he got back.’

‘He’s home?’ In the middle of the afternoon? Something must be seriously wrong.

‘Yes, Mrs Lockwood, and very glad to see you back safe and sound, I’m sure. Leave your bag; I’ll bring …’

But Abbie, too impatient to wait for the ornate wrought-iron lift to crank her up two floors, was already flying up the stairs, her bag banging against her back, her long legs taking the steps two at a time, all tiredness forgotten in her need for reassurance. Then as she reached the door she felt suddenly quite foolish. If Grey had been ill, or hurt, Peter would certainly have said something.

It was far more likely that, realising that he wouldn’t make the airport in time, Grey had come home to surprise her. Well, she thought, her full mouth lifting into a mischievous little smile, she would surprise him instead. She opened the door quietly, put her bag on the hall floor and for a moment just enjoyed the wonderful sensation of being in her own home, surrounded by the accumulated clutter of their lives, instead of confined to the anonymous comfort of a hotel room.

She could hear sounds of activity coming from the small study that they shared and, easing off her shoes, she padded silently across the hall. Grey was propped on the edge of his desk, listening to the messages on the answering machine, pen poised above his notepad to jot down anything that needed a response.

For a moment she stood in the doorway, simply enjoying the secret pleasure of watching him. She never tired of looking at the way his thick, dark hair curled onto his strong neck, at the sculptured shape of his ear, the long, determined set of his jaw. She could see his beloved face reflected in the glass-fronted bookcase, the furrow of concentration as he noted a telephone number. She was reflected beside him but, head bent over the notepad, he had not yet noticed her.

Then, as he reached her message, telling him the arrival time and flight number of her plane, he swore softly, glanced swiftly at his watch and reached for the phone. As he did so he finally caught sight of her reflection and their eyes met through the glass.

‘Abbie!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry! I’ve only just got your message …’

‘So I heard,’ she said, her soft voice full of mock reproach. ‘And since I rang twenty-four hours ago I shall want a detailed itinerary of your movements to cover every last second of that time.’ She had been teasing, expecting him to respond in kind, with lurid details of an impossible night of debauchery and an offer to demonstrate … Instead he raked his long fingers distractedly through his hair.

‘I had to go away for a couple of days. I’ve only just got back.’

‘Oh?’ It was odd, she thought, flinging herself into his arms in the frenetic excitement of the arrivals hall at the airport had always seemed the most natural thing in the world, but here, in their own home, the atmosphere was more constrained, with the answering machine droning on the background and Grey poised on the edge of the desk, pen still in his hand. ‘And what exotic paradise have you been gadding off to the minute I turn my back?’ she asked.

For the space of a moment, no more, his eyes blanked. ‘Manchester,’ he said. ‘A case conference.’ If it hadn’t been so ridiculous, Abbie would have sworn he’d said the first thing that came into his head, but she had no time to think about it before he dropped the pen and closed the space between them, gathering her into his arms. ‘Lord, but I’ve missed you,’ he said.

She couldn’t answer, couldn’t tell him how much she had missed him, because her mouth was entirely occupied with a long and hungry kiss that scorched her in a way that the Karachi sun had quite failed to do. When finally he lifted his head, his warm brown eyes were creased into a smile. ‘Welcome home, Mrs Lockwood.’

‘Now that,’ she said huskily, ‘is what I call a welcome.’ Abbie lifted her hands to his face, smoothed out the lines that fanned about his eyes with the tips of her fingers. ‘You look tired. I suppose you’ve been working all the hours in the day, and half the night as well, while I’ve been away?’

‘It helps to pass the time,’ he agreed. ‘But you’re absolutely right. I am tired. So tired, in fact, that I think I shall have to go to bed. Immediately.’ Abbie squealed as he swiftly bent and caught her behind the knees, swinging her up into his arms. ‘And I’m going to have to insist you come with me. You know how very badly I sleep when I’m on my own.’

‘Idiot!’ she exclaimed, laughing. ‘Put me down this minute. I’ve been travelling all day, and if I don’t have a shower …’

‘A shower?’ Grey came to a sudden halt. Then his mouth curved into a slow smile that was so much more dangerous than his swift grin. ‘Now that is a good idea.’

‘No, Grey!’ she warned him.

He took no notice of her protest, or her ineffectual struggles to free herself from his arms, but headed straight into the bathroom and, stopping only to kick off his shoes, stepped with her into the shower stall.

‘No!’ Her voice rose to a shriek as the jet of water hit them both. Then he was kissing her hungrily as the water ran over their faces, pulling her close as the water drenched her T-shirt, pouring in warm rivulets between her breasts and across the aching desire of her abdomen. Then she gave a whispered, ‘Oh, yes,’ as he eased her T-shirt over her head, unfastened her bra and tossed them into a dripping pile upon the bathroom floor.

His lips tormented hers as he hooked his finger under the waistband of her jeans, flicking open the button as with shaking fingers she reached up and began to unfasten his shirt. Then he slipped his hands inside her jeans and over her buttocks, easing them down her legs.

She was almost melting with desire by the time he turned her round and began slowly to stroke shower gel across her shoulders and down her back. A long, delicious quiver of pleasure escaped her lips and he laughed softly. ‘I thought you said no,’ he murmured, his tongue tracing a delicate little line along the curve of her ear as his hands slid round to cradle her breasts and draw her back against him.

‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to stop,’ she sighed, lying back against him, relishing the intense pleasure of his wet skin against hers, the touch of his hands stroking the soap over her body. She had dreamed of this in the sterile emptiness of her hotel room five thousand miles away and had determined that, no matter what the temptation, how good the story, she had accepted her last foreign assignment.

It would be a wrench. She loved her job. She was a good photo-journalist and knew the feature on tug-of-love children that she was putting together needed the on-the-spot reality of her Karachi trip. The desperate hunt, the endless knocking on the doors, an officialdom that seemed not to care about a woman deprived of her child, the photographs that would show the anguish when she had finally found her daughter, only to have her snatched from her grasp and bundled away once more, would make a heartbreakingly compelling story.

But no more. Every time she went away it seemed that her marriage suffered just a little. Nothing that she could put her finger on. Tiny irritations. But things happened to them while they were apart that they seemed unable to share. She came back impatient at complaints about a leaky washing machine or some other domestic drama when she had spent a week with refugees or the victims of some terrible natural catastrophe. But Grey was the senior partner in a prestigious law firm. He didn’t have time to deal with the minor domestic trivialities of life. He had once joked that they could do with someone else—a job-share wife to take care of the details while she was away.

‘I think I’d rather have a job-share husband,’ she had returned, easily enough, joining in with his laughter, but the warning had not been lost on her.

Grey Lockwood was the kind of man who turned women’s heads. And, like most men, he only had to look helpless and they flocked to mother him. Except that mothering wasn’t all they had in mind. She worked very hard to ensure that her absences were as painless as possible, but some things couldn’t be foreseen. How long would it be before some sympathetic secretary noticed the vulnerable chink in their marriage and began to lever it apart with personal services that extended beyond the use of her washing machine? Certain as she was that he loved her, she knew Grey was not made of wood. He was a warm, flesh-and-blood man—full of life, full of love. And she loved him as much as life itself.

She turned eagerly in his arms and began to soap him, spreading her hands across his broad shoulders, slipping the tips of her fingers through the coarse dark hair that spread across his chest and arrowed down across his flat belly until she heard him gasp.

‘I don’t know about you, Grey,’ she said, tipping her head back to look at him from beneath the heavy lids of her fine grey eyes, ‘but I think I’m clean enough.’

He said nothing, simply flipped the shower switch, pulled a towel from the rack to wrap about her shoulders, then, sweeping her up into his arms, he stepped out of the shower stall and carried her to bed.

The first time after she had been away was always special. A slow rediscovery of one another, a reaffirmation of their love. But now Grey seemed seized by an almost desperate urgency to know her, to reclaim her as his. Even as he followed her down onto the bed she saw something in his face, some savage, primeval need that excited her even as a quiver of apprehension rippled through her.

‘Grey?’ Her almost tentative query was brushed aside as he reared above her, his knee parting her legs, the dominant male driven by the desire to plant his seed.

She cried out as her breath was driven from her, her hands seizing the muscle-packed flesh of his shoulders, her nails digging in as he took her on a roller-coaster ride of meteoric intensity—a ride which she began as a passenger but then, as the pace, almost the fury of his driving passion set alight a hitherto unsuspected chord of wanton sensuality deep within her, she rose to him, matching his ardour thrust for thrust until they came crashing back to earth, satiated, exhausted, drenched with sweat.

As he rolled away from her and lay staring at the ceiling a long shuddering sigh escaped him. ‘You’ve been away too long, Abbie.’ Then he turned to her. ‘Did I hurt you?’

She shook her head. ‘Surprised me a little, that’s all.’ She touched the score-marks her nails had riven in his shoulders in the heat of passion. ‘But I like surprises.’ And she reached forward to lay her lips against the slick salty warmth of his skin, sighing contentedly as he gathered her into his arms.

Tomorrow she would ache a little, but it would be a good feeling and she would carry it with her as a secret knowledge, a constant reminder of the fact that she was desired, loved.

Abbie was the first to wake, the weight of Grey’s arm across her waist disturbing her as she moved. For a moment she remained perfectly still, soaking in the pleasure of having his face buried against her shoulder, the pleasure of being home. Going away had its miseries, but without separation there would never be these blissful reunions. She lay quietly, her face inches from his, reminding herself of every feature, every tiny line that life had bestowed upon him, very gently touching an old childhood scar above his brow.

She could tell the exact moment when he woke. He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes. There was just the faintest change in breathing, the tiniest contraction of the muscles about his eyes. She grinned. It was an old game, this.

How long could he maintain the pretence? She began slowly to trace the outline of his face with the tip of one finger, moving slowly up the darkening shadow of his chin to his lower lip. Did it quiver slightly under the lightest teasing of her nail? She gave him the benefit of the doubt, this was not a game to be hurried. She dipped her head to trail a tiny tattoo of kisses across his throat, his chest, her tongue flickering across flat male nipples that leapt to attention.

Still he did not move, and she continued her teasing quest across the hard, flat plane of his stomach until the tell-tale stirring of his manhood could no longer be ignored. But, before she had quite registered the fact that the game was over and won, he had turned, flipping her over onto her back, his hands on her wrists, holding her arms above her head, pinning her to the bed, utterly at his mercy. ‘So, you want to play games, do you, Mrs Lockwood?’

She lowered her lashes seductively. ‘Why, sir, I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Then I’ll have to show—’ The telephone began to ring. For a moment Grey gazed down at her, then he dropped the briefest kiss on her mouth. ‘It appears that you have a reprieve.’ He released her, rolling away and rising to his feet in one smooth movement.

She didn’t want a reprieve and reached out for him. ‘Whoever it is will leave a message, Grey. Don’t go.’

‘It’ll be Robert. I should have phoned him an hour ago.’ He raised her hand absently to his lips. ‘Why don’t you go and see if you can rustle up something for supper?’

‘Well, gee, shucks, thanks, mister,’ she murmured as he disappeared in the direction of the study. It was the first time she had ever come third. To a phone call and food.

‘Grey?’ He lifted his head from his distant contemplation of the supper Abbie had thrown together from the rather sparse contents of the refrigerator. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Mmm?’ He had been distracted ever since he had talked to Robert; now he seemed to come back from a long way off, but as he looked up he caught her eye, became very still. ‘Go ahead, I’m listening.’

I want to have a baby. Your baby. It sounded so emotional, almost desperate put like that. Not a good start. But that heartfelt ‘You’ve been away too long …’ gave her the courage to press on.

‘I wondered what you thought about starting a family,’ she said.

He looked up, momentarily shaken, his eyes dark with something that might almost have been pain. Then he shook his head. ‘Leave it, Abbie. This is not a good moment.’

Whatever reaction she had expected, it certainly wasn’t that. ‘Not a good moment’? What on earth did that mean? ‘You did say we were apart too much …’ she began, trying to lift an atmosphere that had suddenly become about as light as a lead-filled balloon.

‘And a baby would fix that?’ Grey sat back in his chair, abandoning any further attempt to eat. ‘That’s a somewhat drastic solution, isn’t it?’

Drastic? The second she had opened her mouth Abbie had realised the moment was all wrong, but it shouldn’t ever be that wrong, surely? Confused, hurt, she said, ‘I … I thought we both wanted children.’

‘Eventually,’ he agreed coolly. ‘But we had an agreement, Abbie. No children until you’re ready to give them your full-time care.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Do you really think you can have it all?’ he demanded, cutting off her protest, and she saw to her astonishment that he was now genuinely angry with her. ‘Most of your friends manage it, I know, by cobbling their lives together with nannies and living from one crisis to the next. But they don’t disappear into the wide blue yonder for a couple of weeks whenever a tantalising commission is dangled in front of them.’

‘Neither do I! I never go anywhere without discussing it with you first.’

‘But you still go,’ he declared. ‘That was the deal we made. God knows I miss you when you’re away, Abbie, I’ve never made any secret of that fact—but it’s a choice we both made right at the beginning. You said you’d need five years to establish yourself in your career, then you could take a break.’

‘I don’t remember carving it on a tablet of stone!’ Suddenly the discussion was getting too heated, too emotional, but she couldn’t stop. ‘I … I want to have a child now, Grey.’

‘Why?’

Because I love you and having your baby would be the most wonderful thing that could happen to me. His detached expression did not invite such a declaration.

In the absence of an immediate answer, he provided one for her. ‘Because all your friends are having babies,’ he said dismissively.

‘Rubbish!’

‘Cogently argued,’ he replied.

‘God, I hate it when you go all lawyerish on me,’ she declared fervently. ‘What would you do if I simply stopped taking the pill?’ The words were out. It was too late to call them back.

But his expression betrayed nothing. ‘Is that emotional blackmail, Abbie,’ he asked, very quietly, ‘or a statement of intent?’

Her face darkened in a flush of shame. She had always considered their marriage an equal partnership. Right now it didn’t feel that equal, but a child needed two loving parents and it was a decision they had to make together. Slowly, deliberately she shook her head. ‘I’ve been thinking about this for months, Grey,’ she told him.

The planes of his face hardened imperceptibly. ‘And now you’ve made up your mind, you’ve decided to inform me of your unilateral decision?’

‘It wasn’t like that, Grey. I … I just wanted to be sure.’

‘Well, I want to be sure, too,’ he declared. Then, as if trying to claw away from the edge of some yawning precipice, he went on, more gently, ‘What about your career? You’re beginning to make a real name for yourself—’

‘I don’t intend to stop working, Grey,’ she said, interrupting. Lord, if that was his only concern then there was no problem. ‘I thought if we had a nanny I could get on with—’

The tight constraint finally snapped. ‘Damn it, Abbie, a baby is not an accessory that every professional woman needs to prove that she’s some kind of superwoman. I won’t have a child of mine dumped at six weeks with a nanny while her mother gets on with her real life.’ He flung his napkin on the table, pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

‘You don’t understand!’ she flung at him. ‘Why won’t you listen to me?’

‘I’ve listened. Now it’s my turn to think. Months you said you’d been thinking about this? How many months? I think I should at least be granted as long as you.’

‘Don’t walk away from this, Grey,’ she warned him. ‘I’m serious.’

‘So am I.’ For a moment they stared at one another across the table as if they were strangers. Then Grey gave an awkward little shrug. ‘We’ll talk about it again in six months. Now, since I’m really not very hungry, I’ll go and deal with the messages that have piled up on the machine.’

Abbie, stunned into silence, remained where she was. She didn’t understand what had happened. One moment they had been sitting quietly having their supper and the next they were tearing emotional lumps off one another.

‘Well, you really made a mess of that, Abigail Lockwood,’ she told herself aloud. More of a mess than she would have thought possible. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he didn’t want her to have his child … But that was ridiculous. Grey loved to be around children. She had been the one who’d wanted to wait a while to give her career a chance. She almost wished she hadn’t been so successful …

With a sigh, she gathered the plates, cleared away and collected her bag from the hall. If he had decided to work, then so would she; while he dealt with his calls she could download her laptop onto the PC. But before that she would insist that he listen to her. He might still oppose the idea of starting a family, but at least he would know she had no intention of dumping her longed for baby with a nanny and de-parting for all corners of the globe at a moment’s notice. Hardly any wonder he was angry if he thought that was her intention.

Grey, on the telephone, stopped speaking and looked up as she entered the study, placing his hand over the receiver. ‘Give me a minute will you, Abbie?’ he asked. ‘This is—’ She didn’t wait to find out what it was, but backed out, closing the door behind her with a sharp snap.

‘Abbie?’ He found her a few minutes later, loading the washing machine.

‘Where’s your bag, Grey? You must have some washing if you’ve been away.’

‘In the bedroom. Abbie, about the phone call …’

She didn’t want to listen to him explaining why suddenly he had secrets where there had never been secrets before. She knew some of his work was highly confidential, but they had always shared a study; he trusted her discretion … Or maybe it wasn’t work at all. The thought leapt unbidden into her head. She straightened, pushed past him and crossed the hall to the bedroom, where she unzipped his bag and began to remove his clothes.

Then she collected the clothes they had so carelessly jettisoned while under the shower. Two pairs of wet jeans? She glanced at the pair she was already holding which had come from his bag. What kind of lawyer took jeans to a case conference, for heaven’s sake? Not Grey. He had a wardrobe full of sober, well-cut suits that he kept for the office. And as she scooped up the pair he had been wearing she caught the faintest scent of woodsmoke that clung to the cloth, reminding her of the cottage.

He was still in the kitchen standing in front of the washing machine when she returned, so that she had to ask him to move before she could load the clothes.

‘Excuse me, Grey,’ she said stiffly.

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to move. Then he shrugged, shifted sideways. ‘Abbie, will you stop fussing about and let me explain?’ he demanded as she pushed in the clothes, keeping her eyes determinedly upon her task.

‘Explain? You wanted to make a private telephone call. What’s there to explain about that?’ Everything, she thought as she banged the door shut, set the programme, and when she turned away he was standing in front of her, blocking the way.

‘I know you’re angry with me for not wanting you to have a baby right now—’

‘Give the man a coconut,’ she interrupted flippantly as she tried to sidestep him. But it wasn’t true. She was angry with him for not wanting to talk about it, for not listening. It was so unlike him.

He caught her arm as she brushed past, held her at his side. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed as if I didn’t care. I do. And I will think about it … it’s just that it’s been a difficult couple of weeks.’

‘Difficult?’ She was immediately contrite. ‘What’s happened? Is it Robert?’ she asked, remembering the earlier telephone call.

‘Robert?’ At her mention of his brother his eyes narrowed.

‘You rang him earlier. I just wondered …’ She hesitated in the face of his guarded expression. ‘I thought perhaps Susan had been causing more trouble.’

‘No. It’s not Susan …’ He gave another of those awkward little shrugs that were so out of character. ‘I can’t explain right now.’

‘No?’ She stiffened abruptly. ‘Then I can’t understand. If you’ll excuse me, Grey?’ she said with polite formality. ‘It’s been a very long day, and if I don’t lie down right now, I think I might just fall down.’

He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Well, that was fine with her. That made two of them who were having that kind of trouble today. He stepped back abruptly to let her pass, his jaw tight, a small angry muscle ticking away at the corner of his mouth. ‘Then I certainly won’t disturb you when I come to bed. Goodnight, Abbie.’

She made it to the bedroom before the tears stung her eyes. What on earth was happening to them? They had been married for three years. Three blissfully happy years. Of course they’d had rows. Loud, throwing-the-china rows on more than one occasion, rows that had lasted for seconds, blowing away the tensions, before the most glorious and lengthy reconciliations. But never a row like this, that you couldn’t put your finger on. A tight-lipped, hidden secrets, polite kind of row.

Something was wrong. She had sensed it from the moment of her arrival at the airport when he hadn’t been there to meet her. He would normally have checked the answering machine from his hotel while he was away. He’d had plenty of time to get her message last night. But he hadn’t. Something had happened while she was away. But what? She curbed the instinct to turn back and confront him. Demand to know. Things were bad enough.

True to his word, Grey didn’t disturb her when he came to bed. Despite the long hours of travelling, sleep eluded her, but hours later, when Grey finally came to bed, she closed her eyes, and whether he believed it or not he didn’t challenge her pretence. He didn’t put on the light, but quietly slipped out of his clothes and lowered himself gently into the bed beside her, and after a moment he turned his back.