by Miranda Lee
He’d been amazingly patient with her, but she wasn’t a complete fool. She’d glimpsed the frustration on his face at times, had seen it increasing over the last month. He’d started working longer and longer hours, probably so that he didn’t have to be home with a wife who rejected him all the time. And she’d started spending more and more time down in her studio, painting. Sometimes she even slept down there.
Her letting James hold her hand might not seem like a big deal, but Megan could see that her husband was looking pretty pleased with himself just now. Pleased with her, too. He was sure to try to make love to her again tonight and he would be expecting her not to reject him this time.
The music started up—the traditional Bridal March—James’s fingers tightening around Megan’s as he pulled her to her feet. Their eyes met briefly, Megan startled by the sudden lurching of her stomach. She quickly looked away before he could see the shock in her face.
That couldn’t have been a spark of desire she’d just experienced, could it?
How perverse if it was. Wickedly perverse.
She didn’t want to want him. Ever again.
But if Megan was brutally honest with herself, this was what she’d been fearing all along, that, if she didn’t leave James, one day he would succeed in seducing her again. That was why she’d avoided all physical contact. And why she’d gone on the Pill. Because she’d known, deep down, that she was still vulnerable to her husband’s prowess in the bedroom.
Sex with James had far surpassed anything she’d ever dreamt about. Had from the word go, despite her virginity, and she’d simply thought him wonderful.
She’d thought him even more wonderful on their honeymoon. She’d been suffering a slight case of morning sickness during their two weeks in Hawaii and he couldn’t have been more considerate.
But when James had been away on business during the weeks leading up to their wedding, Megan had experienced a taste of what frustration was like. Memories of his expert lovemaking had tormented her every night during his absence, and she’d lain awake for hours as she’d relived every exciting moment.
By the time their wedding night had come around, she’d wanted him like crazy. She’d wallowed in their seemingly mutual passion that night, and had been upset when her nausea each morning had interrupted their lovemaking. She’d been looking forward to spending long hours every day in his arms. As it was, James had still made love to her each evening, and occasionally in the middle of the night as well, before her morning nausea kicked in.
By the time they’d returned from their honeymoon, Megan had become used to being made love to at least once a day. When James went back to work, however, their sex life had lessened somewhat. Megan had thought this was because James was tired. As the owner of one of Sydney’s most successful advertising agencies, he worked very hard. She realised now that he was probably bored with her. His mission had been accomplished, after all: she had been carrying his child and was blindly besotted with him.
She supposed it was possible that he thought she wouldn’t want him as much, once she became pregnant. Just the opposite was the case, however. She’d wanted James more than ever.
There’d been a few times when Megan was so frustrated that she thought of initiating things herself. Once, when they’d been swimming in the pool together on a hot summer night. Another time, when they’d been getting ready to go out on New Year’s Eve. James had been in the shower, whistling, and she’d suddenly been tempted to strip off and join him. She’d experienced a strong urge to do some of the things to him that she’d read about in books: bold, sexy things, with her hands and her mouth.
But, in the end, she hadn’t had the confidence.
Still, her desire for her husband, Megan now understood, had always been far greater than his desire for her. Which was only natural; she loved him.
She still loved him, despite everything. Loved him and, to her shock and shame today, still wanted him.
Where, in heaven’s name, was her pride?
Not much in evidence at that moment, her heartbeat quickening when he turned to her and smiled one of those super-sexy smiles which had used to turn her to mush.
In desperation, she managed to extricate her hand with the excuse that she always cried at weddings and needed to get a tissue from her handbag.
‘I have to admit,’ James said as she rifled through her handbag, ‘that I never thought this day would come. Hugh always vowed and declared that he would never get married.’
Megan recalled what she’d overheard Hugh saying at the hospital; that marriage should be the result of true love, and nothing else.
‘Still, I have a feeling he’ll be more successful at marriage than his father,’ James whispered to her. ‘Not that that’d be hard. I’ve lost count of how many wives Dickie Parkinson has had, each one younger than the last. Hugh’s chosen very well, I think. Kathryn’s a lovely girl. And very sensible. Oh, wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘What is it about brides that means they always look absolutely gorgeous?’
Megan was glad to have something to distract herself from the turmoil in her heart, her head turning to watch the bride walk down the aisle.
Megan didn’t know much about Kathryn Hart, only that she’d been Hugh’s PA. But James was right. She made an absolutely beautiful bride, dressed in a strapless white gown which had a tight beaded bodice and a gathered floor-length skirt. It was very similar in style to her own wedding gown, though hers had been ivory, not white. Kathryn seemed to float down the strip of red carpet which bisected the rows of seats, a long tulle veil trailing after her, her dark hair up and anchored in place by a tiara of white roses.
Megan’s eyes swung back to where the minister was standing along with Hugh and Russell, both looking resplendent in black dinner suits, white roses in their lapels. As handsome as both men were, neither of them could hold a candle to James, in her opinion.
Her eyes slid surreptitiously back to her husband, whose attention, thankfully, was elsewhere.
There was no doubt James was a striking-looking man: very tall and well-built, with a masculine face and deep-set, extremely dark eyes that commanded immediate attention. His cheekbones were prominent, his nose strong and straight, his mouth nicely shaped. His ears sat flat against his well-shaped head, which was just as well, because he always wore his dark brown hair very short, giving a tough-guy edge to his otherwise conservative image.
Women would still have thrown themselves at him, Megan conceded, even if he hadn’t been rich and powerful.
On top of that, he was always superbly dressed. The white-jacketed dinner suit he was wearing today was no off-the-peg variety. It had been tailored especially to fit him. But he looked just as good without clothes, she knew, his shoulders naturally broad and his muscles well honed from regular workouts in the gym. His quite magnificent male body was well-equipped to satisfy a woman in every way.
He satisfied me, she recalled. Every time.
And he’d satisfy you again, a devilish voice piped up in her head. All you have to do is let him…
Her face flushed at the temptation, a small groan escaping her lips.
When James’s head whipped round, she brought the tissue up to her mouth and tried not to look embarrassed.
‘You’re not crying already, are you?’ he said, but with an indulgent little smile.
‘Not yet,’ she croaked out.
‘You are a real softie, aren’t you? But I love that about you.’
Do you? she wondered as she wrenched her eyes away from his. Do you actually love anything about me?
Russell had said he was fond of her. That could be true, Megan conceded. James was always very nice to her.
But being fond of someone was a wishy-washy, lukewarm feeling, no match for the mad passion James had evoked in her from the start, and which she’d believed was mutual. How much of his so-called passion on their wedding night had been pretend? Did he have any real desire for her? Or was she just a means to an end?
Megan was well aware that men could not fake an erection. But it didn’t take much for a man in his prime—and James, at thirty-six, was still a young man—to become aroused. It was a well-known fact that men didn’t need love to want to have sex; just a willing woman in most cases.
She’d been very willing. And very naïve.
But not so naïve any longer.
If she ever went to bed with James again, she would have to do so with the full knowledge that he didn’t love her.
Could she do that? Could she really?
Before today, she would have said no. Definitely not!
Now she wasn’t quite so sure…
‘I hope Russell hasn’t forgotten the rings,’ James said. ‘We don’t want any dramas like we had at his wedding. Remember how that dreadful mother of Nicole’s showed up at the last minute and accused him of marrying her daughter for revenge?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Megan said tautly.
‘Stupid woman. As if any man would marry for revenge. Anyone with half a brain could see that Russell was madly in love.’
Megan glanced at Russell, who was right at that moment smiling at Nicole, who’d preceded the bride down the aisle and looked absolutely exquisite in pale green. Megan recalled their wedding very well; recalled actually standing up and clapping when Nicole had said love was all that mattered. Megan had not long been back from her honeymoon at the time, her blind belief in James’s love having given her a new confidence and self-esteem, all of which had vanished the day she’d lost her baby boy. And, with it, her innocence.
James’s low chuckle dragged her back to the present. ‘Poor Hugh,’ he said. ‘If that look on his face is anything to go by, then Kathryn is going to run rings around him.’
Megan stared at Hugh as he stared at his bride, his expression one of total adoration and admiration. His eyes even filled with tears as she drew close.
That’s what I want, she thought, her heart squeezing tight. For James to look at me like that. For him to really truly love me.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? came the voice of brutal honesty. And you’re never going to leave him. Not now that you want him again.
Megan had never imagined that she would actually cry. She’d been beyond tears for some time now. But suddenly, there they were, flooding her eyes, her one single tissue totally inadequate to mop up the flood.
James came to the rescue with a clean white handkerchief before putting a tender arm around her shoulders.
‘What a silly billy you are,’ he said gently. ‘Weddings are happy occasions, not sad.’
‘I…I want to go home,’ she cried. ‘Please take me home.’
James sighed. ‘I can’t, Megan. Not yet. Look, I promise we won’t stay late but I can’t just up and leave. Hugh is one of my best friends. You know that.’
The arrival overhead of a helicopter hired by the media drowned out the rest of her weeping. Fortunately, it didn’t come low enough to ruin hairdos and blow hats off, but it was still quite noisy, the minister having to talk louder and louder. The helicopter finally left just after Hugh and Kathryn were pronounced man and wife, by which time Megan had stopped crying. But the release of emotion had left her feeling totally drained.
She only just managed to get through the next few hours, though she did hide in one of the luxurious powder rooms for a while. Megan had always found making idle conversation difficult when faced with people she didn’t know, which meant most of the guests at this wedding. There was also a measure of guilt when faced with the few people she did know, especially Russell and Nicole. She felt terrible that she’d rejected all of their social invitations over the last few months, and never invited them back.
More guilt followed when they were so nice to her.
And all the while she was cripplingly aware of James, and the physical effect he was suddenly having on her. Even when he wasn’t by her side, she found herself watching him. Jealousy raised its ugly head whenever she saw him chatting to other women—attractive women.
It came to her suddenly that maybe her handsome husband—the one who didn’t love her—might not have been as frustrated as she’d imagined these past three months. Maybe he hadn’t been working when he came home so late every other night. Maybe he’d been having sex with one or more of the many beautiful women whom he met on a daily basis. Running an advertising and management agency brought him into constant contact with actresses and models, most of them beautiful and glamorous, all of them sophisticated women-of-the-world. He wouldn’t have any trouble finding a casual bed-partner.
When James finally said his goodbyes to the happy couple, Megan was more than ready to leave, her jealousy by then bubbling up inside her like a rumbling volcano.
She wanted to erupt, wanted to throw angry accusations at him. Wanted to tell him that she knew he didn’t love her, that he’d only married her to have children. She wanted to start a fight.
She almost did. They’d stopped at a set of traffic lights and she actually turned towards him, her mouth opening to launch into her tirade.
If only James hadn’t chosen that moment to bend over and kiss her. Not sweetly but hungrily, his right hand cupping her chin, keeping her mouth captive beneath his onslaught.
If Megan had been in any doubt earlier that her desire for James had been well and truly revived, then his kiss quickly cemented that realisation. The kiss went on and on, James’s head only lifting when the car behind them beeped impatiently.
‘Keep your skirt on,’ he muttered, his mouth still hovering close to her lips. ‘I’m busy, kissing my wife.’ And then he kissed her again, ignoring the now blaring horn, ignoring the other driver’s verbal abuse as he was forced to angle past their still stationary vehicle.
By the time James stopped kissing her, Megan’s volcanic anger had been replaced by a desire so intense that it threatened what was left of her sanity. This was even worse than she’d feared, much worse. This wasn’t just wanting to be made love to. This was a craving so strong that it would not be denied.
Her skin crawled with the need to be touched. Her body ached to be filled. At that moment nothing else mattered. Not the fact that he didn’t love her, or that he’d probably been unfaithful.
Thank goodness that she’d had the forethought to go on the Pill!
When more cars started to honk their horns at them, James sighed and turned his attention back to the steering wheel.
The drive home saved her. Or was it the last vestiges of her pride that came to the rescue? Whatever, by the time James went through the gates of the six-bedroom mansion he’d bought shortly after their marriage, Megan had managed to get some control over her treacherously weak flesh.
‘Do you fancy a nightcap?’ James asked as they both climbed out of his car.
‘No, nothing,’ Megan replied quickly. ‘The thing is, James, I have this terrible headache. I’m going to take some tablets and go straight up to bed.’
He stared at her over the bonnet of the car, his dark eyes not happy. ‘A headache,’ he said slowly.
Megan didn’t say a word.
‘You do realise this can’t continue, Megan.’
‘Yes,’ she replied tautly, then looked away from his probing gaze.
‘We’ll talk in the morning. Before I go to work. Make some decisions about our future.’
Her eyes flew back to his. Maybe he was going to make it easy for her and ask for a divorce himself. Maybe he’d finally lost patience with her. Part of her hoped so.
But not the part which tormented her for hours that night as she lay in their marital bed, her back to James, pretending to be asleep when all the while she was wide-awake.
In the end she could bear it no longer. Rising quietly, she drew the matching silk robe over her nightie and made her way downstairs and out onto the back terrace. The moon was up, moonlight dancing on the water of the swimming pool as she hurried past it down to her studio, shivering in the cool night air as she went.
Once inside what had once been the pool house, she turned on the lights and the air-conditioning and made her way over to the easel that was set up under the skylight which James had had put in for her. Lifting the dust sheet off the canvas, she studied the painting she’d been working on for ages.
It was not what she wanted to work on tonight. Tonight, she would work on something very different indeed.
Quickly she replaced the canvas with an empty one, hiding the other painting in a cupboard. After that, she sat down on the stool in front of the easel and began to mix her paints, every now and then glancing up at herself in the long mirror which hung on the wall opposite.
Could she capture that look on canvas? she wondered.
What did it matter if she couldn’t? No one would ever see this painting, or the other one, but herself.
CHAPTER TWO
JAMES emerged from the bathroom and stood there for a long moment, glowering at the king-sized bed which dominated the elegantly furnished master bedroom and which, at that moment, looked as if it had been in the path of a herd of stampeding elephants.
The dishevelled state of the sheets and pillows wasn’t the result of a night of satisfying lovemaking with his wife, something he’d been hoping for when he’d kissed her in the car last night and she’d responded like the Megan of old.
Instead, the moment they arrived home from Hugh’s wedding, she’d claimed a headache and bolted for bed straight away, although it hadn’t been late, only about eight-thirty. Then, soon after he’d finally come to bed around eleven, she’d upped and fled the room altogether, leaving him to toss and turn, the meagre hours of sleep he’d managed to get being peppered with darkly erotic, highly arousing dreams. He’d woken this morning and even after a fifteen-minute cold shower he’d felt extremely frustrated.
Tightening his tie, James marched across the plush cream carpet and flung open the French doors which led out onto the sun-drenched balcony. Dark brows bunched together, he gripped the curved railing top and peered down at the pool house which sat at the far end of the swimming pool.
