Undertaking Love

Chapter Twenty-Seven




‘Rupert, we need to talk.’

Hmm. Too clichéd.

‘Rupert, did you lie to me about the fireworks on July Fourth?’

Bad idea. Too confrontational.

‘Rupert. I don’t want to marry you.’

Too honest. Too true.

As she waited for Rupert to arrive at the chapel to take her to lunch, Marla ran through several other possible ways to open the conversation. Her stomach had been churning with nerves and questions had been buzzing around inside her head since she’d left Emily and Jonny in the pub last night.

The crunch of tyres on the gravel ratcheted her nerves up another notch, and she peeped out of the window just in time to see Rupert climb out of his sports car and cast a furtive look over towards the funeral parlour. As she watched, Melanie opened the door and gave Rupert a smug little wiggly finger wave, and Marla felt her temper rocket from a low simmer to totally furious in two seconds flat.

By the time Rupert waltzed through the chapel doors, she’d backtracked on her plan for a civilised discussion over lunch and decided to just get things over with here and now in the chapel.

‘Hey gorgeous.’ Rupert breezed in and flicked his hair back in that way that was really starting to get on her nerves.

‘Hey yourself,’ Marla said.

Something in her flat tone must have alerted him to incoming thunder clouds, because he dropped his keys on the nearest chair and pulled her into his arms.

‘You okay?’

He frowned as she ended his kiss a nano-second after it started and squirmed out of his embrace.

‘Not really.’

Marla watched his jaw work furiously as he tried to decide how to play things.

‘Bad morning at work?’ he tried.

She shook her head and sighed.

‘It’s not work, Rupert, it’s us.’

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He ran a finger around his neckline to loosen his collar.

‘It’s lunch, isn’t it? You’re too busy. I’ll call and cancel, we can just walk down to the café and grab a sandwich if you like?’

‘It isn’t the lunch arrangements Rupert. It’s us.’

Marla repeated the ‘us’ more firmly this time to stop him from attempting to side step the issue again.

‘Okaaaaay.’ He dragged the word out as if he were trying to reason with a five year old. ‘What about us?’

She detected a note of irritation in his voice and tried not to rise to it.

‘I … I feel as if we’re rushing into things. You know, the wedding and all.’

He nodded slowly.

‘Riiiiight.’

He dragged that word out too, and Marla fought back the urge to slap him.

‘So we’ll slow it down, then. Get married later on. No big deal,’ he said brightly. ‘Grab your jacket, we’ll miss our table.’

Marla sucked in air and looked out of the window for a second before meeting his eyes again.

‘That’s the thing though, Rupert. I don’t want to get married – sooner or later.’

The spoilt schoolboy in him surfaced instantly.

‘But you said yes!’

‘No. I didn’t. You assumed it.’

‘Marla, we had a whole audience who would beg to differ! You can hardly back out now.’

His outrage would have been funny in any other situation.

‘Can’t I?’

‘No you bloody well can’t. You’ll make me look a total fool.’

‘That’s your main concern, is it?’

‘Don’t be stupid, I love you,’ he protested, and then for good measure, he added, ‘and you love me.’

‘I do?’

‘Well … don’t you?’

Marla bit her lip and frowned. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than was necessary, but this wasn’t the moment to pull any punches.

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think I do,’ she whispered.

Disbelief hit his face first, followed hot on the heels by self-righteous anger.

‘So you’ve been stringing me along then?’ He was like a petulant child.

‘No! I was fine with dating, but then you got all heavy and proposed.’ Marla knew her voice was rising but she couldn’t control it. ‘And for the record, I did not say yes!’

He glared at her, shaking his head slowly.

‘There’s a name for women like you,’ he said with a nasty laugh. He took a few steps closer.

‘What are you talking about?’ Marla whispered in shock, taking a few small steps away from him.

‘Women who lead men on.’ He moved closer still.

‘I didn’t lead you on Rupert, I never …’

She backed up again, now halfway up the aisle.

‘Prick tease.’

He made a lunge for her and she stumbled on her high heels.

‘Get your hands off me!’ she yelled, as his fingers gouged into her upper arms.

He made a noise in his throat that sounded horribly like a snarl as he yanked her hard against him. Panic kicked in hard when she felt his excitement bulge against her thigh, and she sent a chair flying as she tried to scrabble out of his grasp. The thud of footsteps echoed through the chapel as Jonny flew down the stairs and dragged Rupert off her.

He floored him with a hard left hook.

‘You’ve broken my nose!’ Rupert wailed as he struggled to stand up, blood all over the turned up collar of his pristine shirt.

‘And I’ll break your f*cking neck if you come within fifty foot of Marla again!’ Jonny roared, dragging Rupert along the aisle by the scruff of the neck.

He karate kicked the front doors open and flung him unceremoniously out onto the path.

‘I’ll sue you for assault,’ Rupert squawked from his lowly position on his backside.

Jonny loomed over him menacingly. ‘Do you want me to kill you?’

‘And you can add threatening behaviour to the list!’ Rupert tried to get up but Jonny pushed him back down again with a size ten crocodile skin cowboy boot.

‘Just try it, twat-bag, and the police will be knocking on your door for sexual assault,’ Jonny glowered, aiming a sharp kick at Rupert’s ribs.

‘You okay, sweets?’ He shepherded Marla back inside, putting his hands on her shoulders and scrutinised her with concerned eyes.

‘God, I’m so glad you were here, Jonny,’ she said, her voice shaky with relief. ‘You are officially the most macho gay man in the world.’

He pulled her against his chest and laughed softly. ‘And you thought these guns were just for show.’

‘You’re my hero.’

‘Well, he certainly wasn’t, was he?’ Jonny said with a grim nod towards the door.

Marla shuddered in revulsion. She hadn’t expected Rupert to take it on the chin and shake hands, but she’d never have imagined he would turn on her like that. She’d glimpsed a darkness in him that he’d never let her see before, and she felt completely relieved to be free of him. A shaft of sunlight bounced through the window, and the glint of metal caught her eye. His keys. He’d left them on the chair. A quick double check outside confirmed that he was too scared of Jonny to come back in and retrieve them. He had scarpered without his car.

‘Leave it to me, sugar, I know the perfect place for that little beauty.’

Jonny grinned as he pocketed the keys, already thinking about the hot guy who worked at the local scrap yard. It was a warm sunny day. With any luck he’d be shirtless and oily.



Over at the funeral parlour, Melanie sat at her desk, watching the events unfold with interest. A knife had twisted in her gut when Rupert ignored her on the doorstep earlier, so to see him upended onto his backside a few minutes later brought a certain karmic pleasure. She’d been stewing over what to do about him for a while now. Hats off to him, it had been a bold move to propose to Marla right in front of her when she could so easily have spilled her guts about their affair. His physical ejection from the chapel just now, however, indicated that things were no longer rosy between Marla and Rupert, affording Melanie pleasure and pain in equal measure.

On the one hand, it served him right. May the pain of rejection hurt even more than his nose, which looked rather like it was broken. But on the other hand, Marla had better not look towards Gabe for a shoulder to cry on. Melanie stabbed her pencil repeatedly into the mouse mat until the nib snapped, leaving a latticework of holes across the sponge surface.

She’d seen Marla Jacobs off once, and she’d do it again in a New York minute.