The Faithful Wife

by Diana Hamilton

  He sounded much too alert to have just this second woken. Why hadn’t he spoken to her? Why had he kept his eyes so firmly closed? In the past, he had loved to watch her getting ready for bed, lazily teasing her, suggesting which of her huge selection of night-wear she should choose, then wickedly speculating on how long it would take him to remove it.

  She almost switched the light back on so she could read his expression when she asked him. But she didn’t do either. At this early stage of their reconciliation it might be too soon.

  ‘Get some sleep, Bella.’ His voice, she noted sinkingly, was distinctly abrasive. He vacated the bed as soon as she slid beneath the duvet. ‘Watch the stars.’ He sounded softer now, the suggestion light. ‘It’s a beautiful night, and if you listen hard enough you might just get to hear sleigh-bells!’

  And then he was gone. Bella wanted to jump out of bed and run after him, but common sense stopped her. They’d been apart for a year, the break-up full of acrimony and distrust, their coming together again volcanic. He would need a little space to get things straight in his head, come to terms with the resumption of their marriage, let it sink in.

  Just because she had no doubts at all it didn’t mean he didn’t have a few lingering around somewhere. So she’d give him that space and time. For as long as it took him to shower and come back to bed, anyway.

  Then she’d wrap her arms around him and hold him close and tell him how much she loved him. How very much. Assure him that things would be different, that she wouldn’t ask for what he couldn’t give her. His love was all she needed.

  Whenever he had to be away on business she’d go with him. Take a crash secretarial course, perhaps, kill two birds with one stone—feel useful and be useful.

  Guy wouldn’t be pleased when she quit on him. But he’d soon find someone to fill her post and, valued friend though Guy was, being with Jake was far more important.

  Jake stood under the punishingly cold needles of the shower, his teeth gritted, his emotions in chaos. He’d never know how he’d kept his hands off her.

  When she’d dropped the bath towel her skin, in the dim light, had gleamed like magnolia petals, the gentle, sensuous curves and planes of her body a voluptuary’s dream.

  He’d closed his eyes and kept them closed, fighting to quell the need—the need to make love to her until there was no space in his head for thought. But that would be morally wrong.

  He loved her, and always would; that wasn’t in doubt. And earlier their lovemaking had been spontaneous, inevitable. He grimaced, turning off the shower and reaching for a towel. He wouldn’t touch her again until he knew he could take her back into his life without bitterness.

  Until he came to terms with her affair, put it out of his head and learned to trust her again, there was no real way they could make a future together.

  He was going to have to discover if that was possible.

  He hoped to hell it was.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘YOU’RE up early,’ Jake said.

  Christmas morning, not yet quite light. And, yes, Bella was up early. She’d been up for ages. She was moving around the kitchen doing housewifey things to keep her mind from brooding over everything else.

  ‘There’s fresh coffee in the pot, and orange juice in the fridge. Help yourself while I cook breakfast.’

  She sounded bright enough and normal, didn’t she? She looked OK, clad in the faithful leggings and sweater, her hair neatly scooped back and fastened at the nape of her neck, the skilful application of makeup hiding the tell-tale signs of a miserable, wakeful night.

  Just an ordinary woman doing ordinary things. Disguising the utter misery inside her, the hateful feeling of being used and discarded.

  She laid bacon slices and tomato halves on the grill pan, then reached for the eggs, and Jake said, ‘The full works, is it?’

  He was leaning against the worktop sipping his juice, and her head came up as she caught the thread of tension in his voice. Dark sweater, dark jeans, shadowed black eyes. He had shaved, but he still looked as if he had a five o’clock shadow, the harsh lines of his face telling the story of his own restless night.

  ‘As we’re leaving tomorrow I thought we should use as much as we can from the fridge. Such a waste, otherwise.’ She slid the bacon under the grill and drizzled some oil into the frying pan. Did she sound laid back and in charge of her life, all that inner despair and hopelessness nowhere in sight?

  And what right did he have to look as if he’d spent last night tossing and turning, agonising, when she knew differently?

  Waiting for him, all done up in slinky oyster satin, she’d snuggled into the blissful warmth of the duvet, watching the stars just as he’d suggested, rehearsing exactly how she’d tell him how much she loved him, how she’d changed her plans for the future so they’d fit happily with his. That he mustn’t think she was making sacrifices because, when it came down to it, all she wanted was him.

  She’d sort of mesmerised herself into falling asleep, waking in the early hours and not finding him beside her. Bewildered, disorientated and alone, she’d switched on the light and checked the time. Two o’clock. He couldn’t have been in the shower for two whole hours!

  Anxiety had taken over then. Had he slipped on the soap and knocked himself out? Leaping from the bed, she’d scurried to check. That vividly imagined disaster hadn’t happened. But another one had. She’d discovered him sound asleep in his own bed.

  He hadn’t been lying awake, pretending, had he? She hadn’t taken time to check. Just flicked the light on, viewed the rigid mound under the duvet that was similar to her own, and flicked it back off again. She’d crept back to her own room on leaden legs, saturated with that hateful, hurtful feeling of having been used.

  He’d had no reason to pretend to be asleep. The facts punched holes in her brain. He hadn’t wanted to be here, that was for sure. He’d even said their separation was a relief. He was a very physical man and she’d been around, and willing—more than—and was still his wife, of sorts. So he’d done what any man with rampaging male hormones would have done—taken advantage.

  Used her and discarded her.

  If he’d seen a future for them and their marriage he sure as hell wouldn’t have gone back to his own bed! He would have come back to her, if only to talk, maybe suggest they try again, make a go of their marriage this time.

  Suddenly aware that she was rapidly losing her precious control, rattling cutlery like castanets, practically hurling the china onto the table, and that Jake was watching her with narrowed eyes, she did her best to calm down.

  She dragged in a deep and wobbly breath, and Jake took the knives and forks from her shaky hands.

  ‘I’ll see to the table; you keep an eye on the food.’

  She turned away jerkily. She couldn’t meet his eyes, not wanting to see cynical understanding or, even worse, lurking amusement.

  Bacon was sizzling; eggs were popping and almost jumping around in the pan. She turned the heat down under them and rescued the bacon, making her movements smooth and contained now, forcing herself to keep calm because he was more than astute enough to read her mind, to laugh at her inside his head for being dumb enough to think that a couple of hours of mind-bending sex could alter anything.

  He’d made the toast, and was dropping it into the rack when she slid the loaded plates down on the linen place-mats.

  He held her chair out for her and she arranged herself in her seat, praying she looked relaxed enough to put him off the scent.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Bella.’ It sounded more like a question than a salutation. He joined her at the table. ‘I don’t have a gift for you, but you’ll understand why, given the circumstances.’

  Last year he’d chosen diamonds in New York. The only stones he knew that could come anywhere near the brilliance of her eyes.

  The velvet-lined box had been in his breast pocket when he’d walked in the door and found her wrapped around Guy Maclaine.

  He�
��d handed the gems over to charity.

  ‘I could give you the perfume I’d brought along as a gift for Evie, only I don’t quite see you ever using it,’ she offered, the lightness of her tone achieved with enormous difficulty.

  It was a silly, pointless conversation to be having, when the air they breathed was full of tension. Well, for her, at least. But she supposed the show had to go on—and all that stiff upper lip stuff. She picked up her cutlery and unconsciously emulated Jake, cutting her bacon into very small pieces and pushing them around her plate, unaware of his suddenly narrowed eyes focusing on her.

  ‘You said Evie had meddled in your life before?’ He gave up all pretence of eating and poured coffee for them both. Hot and strong and black, the way they both liked it. Could she have been telling the truth? Had she had nothing to do with this set-up at all?

  Whoever had arranged it had done him a huge favour; he accepted that now. His hurt, the sense of bitter betrayal, had been too great to let him seek her out. Being forced into her company had allowed him to accept that he still loved her.

  At first he’d disbelieved everything she’d said, colouring every word that came out of her mouth with the dark shades of that final betrayal. But he’d come to see that a lot of the blame for what had happened had been his, and he didn’t want to believe that most of what she’d said to him was lies.

  If he could get to the bottom of what had happened here it would be a start. She hadn’t answered, was staring into space, apparently, cradling her cup in her long white hands. ‘So what happened? What did she do?’ He gave her a gentle verbal prod.

  What did it matter? Bella gave an involuntary shrug and replaced her cup on its saucer. Still, she supposed the subject was unimportant enough—it certainly didn’t have any bearing on what had happened between them last night—a subject he wouldn’t want to have to discuss—and it would beat sitting around in silence.

  And if last night hadn’t meant a damn thing to him, had been simply a way of assuaging lust, then she could pretend it had been the same for her. Couldn’t she?

  ‘She entered a photograph of me for a nationwide competition to find what they called “the face of La Donna”—to launch the then-new exclusive range of cosmetics and fragrances. I didn’t know a thing about it until I heard I’d won.’

  She gave him a level look, hoping she was boring his socks off. The rags to riches storyline wouldn’t mean a thing to him. As far as she knew he took the privilege of wealth for granted. All he’d ever wanted, in her experience, was more of it.

  ‘At first I was embarrassed,’ she remembered, ‘then furious with her. A modelling career had never entered my head. But she was little more than a kid—only thirteen at the time—and we’d always been close, so I couldn’t stay mad with her for long.’

  ‘It must have changed your life.’ He had always assumed she’d gone out for fame and fortune herself, capitalising on her fantastic looks. A slight frown indented his brow as he replenished their cups from the pot.

  Had he assumed too much? If he’d been wrong about one thing, could he be wrong about others? Why hadn’t he asked her more than the most basic questions about her earlier life? Because, to him, the past hadn’t mattered. Only the present. He had won the only woman he’d ever truly wanted, and the time he’d spent with her had been filled with the wonder of the achievement, the wonder of her.

  And the rest of the time—me majority of it, as she’d reminded him—he’d been bent on achieving success on success in the world of high finance. So what did that make him?

  An over-achiever with no room in his head for the little things, the things that mattered. His self-esteem reached rock bottom.

  ‘Dramatically,’ she agreed, oblivious to his mental turmoil, gone away from him into the past. ‘I was still in shock when I went for that first meeting with Guy. He was, and still is, of course, head of the agency which was running the launch campaign. I was painfully awkward, stiff and shy and terrified. He took me right under his wing,’ she recalled, her mouth softening fondly. ‘Guy made me see there was nothing to be frightened of and everything to go for. I honestly don’t think I could have gone through with it without him.’

  ‘Well, bully for him!’ Everything inside him froze at her repeated and doting mention of that hated name. His reaction was instinctive, the bitterness of a man for his enemy.

  Bella gave him a look of shock which quickly turned to angry, defensive castigation.

  ‘He was the only person I could trust in those early days. He was my friend!’ A true friend.

  She gathered up the breakfast dishes with an angry clatter and dumped them on the drainer, her back to him as she snapped out, ‘Without his monumental kindness I’d have backed out of the whole thing. Without his patience and expertise I would have frozen rigid the first time the cameras pointed in my direction!’

  She turned the hot water on with a savage twist of her wrist. ‘And I’d have missed out on the opportunity to give Mum an easier life, provide her with the things she’d never been able to afford to have.’ She swiped their uneaten food into the wastebin. ‘And because when Dad was with us we were always moving around Evie’s education had been as patchy as mine. So we could then afford a private tutor for her, right? And first-rate secretarial training later. So I owe all that to Guy. Right?’

  She was angry enough to do him physical damage. She skittered round on her heels and faced him. There had been no need for him to use that sarcastic tone. What had Guy Maclaine ever done to him? She had already countered his wretched suspicion of an affair between them. Or didn’t he believe her?

  The absence of trust had ended their marriage, but it hadn’t ruined their reconciliation because there hadn’t really been one. Just a cruel slaking of lust on his part and the obliteration of a stupid dream she’d had no right to indulge in on hers.

  Or didn’t trust really come into it as far as he was concerned? When he’d found her with Guy on that dreadful night, might it have been the escape route he’d been looking for? Had he grown tired of her? Bored?

  She spat the new and hateful suspicions at him, her hurt at the way he’d used her love for him last night not letting her hold anything back. ‘You want to believe I had an affair with Guy! It gave you the excuse you’d been looking for, didn’t it? You never questioned what he was doing at our apartment that night, did you? You just called me a vile name and walked out!’

  ‘If I’d stayed I wouldn’t have trusted myself not to wring both your necks!’ He was on his feet now, black eyes slits, tormented by the memories of the thing he was trying so hard to come to terms with. ‘I came back when I’d cooled down. You’d gone. Not to him, of course; he was still married. The note you left told me our marriage was over. I had to accept that—it made sense, after all.’

  Bella stared at him, the pent-up emotions inside her making her shake. So little faith, and no trust at all.

  She could have told him exactly why she’d been wrapped up in Guy’s arms, but she wouldn’t demean herself by offering explanations he wouldn’t believe. Possibly because he wouldn’t want to believe them.

  ‘Believe what the hell you like—I’m beyond caring!’ she ground out untruthfully, and, snatching her coat from the peg on the door, she walked out into the bright dawn of Christmas morning.

  Jake forced back his instinct to go after her. She needed time to calm down. There was no doubt about it, he had a tigress on his hands.

  There was a hidden emotional depth that he had never taken the time to plumb—that was going to change. If she’d agree to start over, he’d spend the rest of his life getting to know her. The real Bella, not just the fantastic face and body that had bewitched him from the moment he’d first seen her.

  Keeping a watchful eye on her ferociously stamping progress up and down the cleared track, he methodically cleared up in the kitchen and lit a roaring fire. She’d come back inside when she’d got rid of all that fury.

  And he’d treat her like s
pun glass, so gently, win her back to him.

  The sensation of being at peace with himself at last flooded through him. He believed now that Evie had meddled with Bella’s life in a big way for the second time, with the help of his own sister this time. But that didn’t matter—or only inasmuch as he was back on course, trusting her not to lie to him.

  What really mattered was the way he’d finally and suddenly come to terms with her infidelity.

  He could easily understand how the affair had begun. Maclaine was attractive to women, and she’d been very young when he’d met her. And she’d been grateful to him for helping her to achieve the financial security she and her family had never known.

  And later his own long absences, his dedication to his work, his thoughtless prevarication when she’d mentioned babies, telling her they’d discuss all that some time in the vague future, had eventually driven her back to her former lover—the man who, or so it now seemed, had given her one hundred per cent of his attention.

  His shoulders were broad enough to carry all of the blame, and in the future—if she’d give them a future—he would provide her with everything she craved for. He’d sort that out as soon as they got away from here.

  But until he could show her that his good intentions were more than the hot air and vague promises he’d carelessly tossed at her in the past, and could offer her the solid physical proof that everything had changed, he’d walk as if he were treading on eggs. He wouldn’t use their physical need for each other to blackmail her into being part of his life again.

  The release from the canker of bitterness and anger was exhilarating. It had been nudged out of sight by the one great constant in his life—his love for her.

  He crossed again to the window. Halfway down the track her slender body was dwarfed by the icy immensity of the snow-clad mountains. His heart surged with the determination to make their future as perfect as it could possibly be, keep her close to him, as much a part of his life as she was a part of his heart.