The Ultimate Betrayal

by Michelle Reid

  A single tear slid out from the corner of each staring eye and ran their slow meandering way down her pale cheeks. She, in her twisted need to prove some obscure point to herself, had lost in the end, because what she had gained in discovering she could still rock him she had lost in her own failure to respond. Her blind trust in him had gone, and taken with it her right to love and respond freely.

  It hurt, it frightened her, and it left her feeling more lonely than she could have felt if he’d just walked out and left her. Because she didn’t know how she was ever going to be any different with him now.

  ‘Rachel?’ She turned her head on the pillow to find him watching her, his eyes two dark and sombre points in the darkness. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.

  Sorry for failing her just now in this bed? she wondered. Or sorry for the whole damned blasted mess in its entirety? In the end, she decided, it didn’t really matter. Nothing seemed to matter any more. She was an empty husk, lost and alone, and no amount of sorrys was ever going to make her feel any better.

  The tears glazed her eyes again, seeping in a wretched spill on to her lashes. ‘I’m ashamed of myself,’ she told him, in a voice thick and quivering.

  Something suspiciously like moisture swam across his eyes and his answering sigh was decidedly shaky. ‘Come here,’ he said, and reached out to pull her to him. His arms enfolded her, his body drawing into a curve which almost totally cocooned her. ‘On the vow of a man who has never felt so wretched in his life, Rachel,’ he murmured into the tangled silk of her hair, ‘I swear I will never do anything that could hurt you like this again.’

  Could she afford to believe him? she wondered bleakly. It would be easy enough to let herself believe him. Forgive and forget and shove it all to the back of her mind in the hope that it would take the hurt with it.

  ‘I love you,’ he told her huskily. ‘I do love you, Rachel.’

  ‘No!’ She stiffened violently at that, all thoughts of forgiving gone with the utterance of those three false words. She had believed them once before and look where it had got her! ‘Don’t speak of love to me,’ she choked out angrily. ‘Love had nothing to do with what happened just now—or why you married me at all for that matter!’

  Breakfast the next morning was an awkward affair. The twins kept sending her glances which were both troubled and curious. She knew they must be wondering about her sudden disappearance yesterday, but it was obvious they were under orders from Daniel not to question her. She even allowed herself a small smile when Kate opened her mouth to ask something, only to close it again with a mutinous snap at the warning look Daniel sent her. Sam was different. He kept frowning at her but otherwise said nothing, and that was the worry—he hadn’t spoken a single word since coming down to breakfast.

  ‘Eat up, Sammy,’ Rachel said gently to him after watching him toy with his Weetabix for long enough. ‘You’ll be complaining of being hungry by mid-morning if you don’t.’

  Those eyes beneath their frowning brows, so like his father’s, glanced at her. ‘Where did you go yesterday!’ he burst out suddenly, sending a wary look towards his father’s pink newspaper.

  Rachel glanced at it too. ‘I—took the day off,’ she answered lightly, smiling at him to show him everything was all right. ‘You didn’t mind, did you?’

  He shifted uncomfortably, and Rachel felt her heart squeeze for him. He wasn’t like his irrepressible twin, who did her worrying all up front. Sammy did it all within himself, and for him to speak out like this meant he had to be really bothered about her sudden out-ofcharacter move. ‘But—where did you go?’ he persisted.

  Rachel sighed inwardly, instinctively reaching across the table to comb her fingers through his ruthlessly flattened-down hair. He did not jerk away or protest at her messing him about, as he would usually have done.

  ‘I was—tired,’ she explained, floundering in her effort to offer a reason fit for a six-year-old to understand. ‘Feeling—all shut-in and restless. So I went out on my own for a while, that’s all.’

  ‘But you aren’t used to going out without one of us to look after you!’ he said, glaring at the lowering pink paper, almost warning his father to stay out of this.

  ‘Who says?’ she teased, trying to make a joke of it when in actual fact she was appalled to realise that even her six-year-old son thought her incapable of looking after herself! ‘I am all grown-up, you know. And quite capable of looking after myself.’

  ‘But Daddy said you weren’t,’ chipped in Kate. ‘He told Grandma. He stormed around the house. Up and down, in and out.’ As blithe as can be, Kate spoke about the forbidden and brought the newspaper all the way down. ‘And he kept on shouting down the phone at Aunty Mandy.’

  ‘That’s enough, Kate,’ Daniel said quietly, but his tone was enough to bring those wide innocent eyes around to his in surprise.

  ‘But you did!’ she insisted. ‘You were behaving like a—a mad bull!’

  ‘A what?’ Daniel choked.

  ‘A mad bull,’ she repeated poutingly. ‘That’s what my teacher calls us when we charge around all over the place. “Mad bulls belong in fields,” she says.’ Kate gave a very good impression of her teacher’s firm voice. ‘Well, you charged around here yesterday, didn’t you? And see—’ she smiled one of her deliberately beguiling smiles, usually guaranteed to have her father eating out of her hand ‘—Mummy came back all safe and sound, just like I said she would!’

  So at least one of her family thought her capable of looking after herself! Thanks, Kate, Rachel thought drily. ‘Eat your breakfast,’ was what she actually said. ‘As you all can see, I returned safe and sound, so let’s forget it, shall we?’

  ‘You can go to Birmingham if you want to,’ she told Daniel as soon as the children went off to collect their school things.

  He was checking his briefcase, folding away his newspaper and placing it inside when she spoke. He paused, his long fingers stilling on the leather lid, then continued to close and lock the case.

  He looked every bit the successful businessman this morning in his crisp white shirt and charcoal suit—suddenly very out of place in this homely kitchen with its mad clutter of family living. He would look just perfect in the breakfast-room of an elegant Georgian manor house, surrounded by rich mahogany furniture with the weak morning sunlight spilling in through a deep bay window. And it hit her suddenly that, while she had been standing still for the last seven years, Daniel had been growing further and further away.

  ‘It’s no longer necessary for me to go.’ He declined her offer coolly. ‘Jack Brice can handle things as well as I could.’

  Then why wasn’t he going in the first place? she wanted to ask, but didn’t because the answer could only hinge upon Lydia.

  ‘Are you worried that I might walk out on you if you do go?’ she asked, with a genuine interest in his reply. Daniel cared for her and the children, she knew, but would it be that much of a tragedy if they were no longer a part of his life?

  He spun away to go and stand by the kitchen window that overlooked the toy-cluttered rear garden, his hands lost in his trouser pockets. ‘Yes,’ he admitted grimly at last.

  And Rachel was shocked by the overwhelming sense of relief she experienced at his answer—which in turn made her angry, because it only exposed her own weakness. ‘It isn’t my place to leave,’ she pointed out. ‘You must know that prerogative is all yours.’

  ‘Yes.’ His dark head dipped for a moment before he turned back to the table. He didn’t look at her, but made a play of checking his briefcase again. ‘I know that if I had a self-respecting bone left in my body, I would be shifting my stuff out of here and leaving you with some semblance of pride intact. But I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to break up what we have—had,’ he corrected grimly. ‘I know I have to prove myself to you again. I know it’s going to take time. But I won’t give in, Rachel.’ He looked at her at last, his eyes dark and determined. ‘You can throw what the hell you like at me, but it won
’t be me who will do the walking.’

  ‘I could slap a separation order on you,’ she hit out at him suddenly, aware that she was only doing it to hide her own weak fears. ‘Make you move out.’

  Daniel frowned at her. ‘How the hell could you know about things like that?’ he demanded. He was wondering if she had already taken legal advice from somewhere. He didn’t really think her capable of it, but he wasn’t sure.

  She liked to see him looking uncertain. It lifted her ego, so she just shrugged indifferently and said with heavy sarcasm, ‘I watch a lot of TV.’

  ‘And are you going to?’ he asked. ‘Begin the end of our marriage?’

  He was clever; she had to give it him. With one blunt question he had neatly dropped the responsibility into her lap. ‘You began the deterioration of this marriage, Daniel,’ she threw back levelly. ‘But—no,’ she answered his question. ‘I’m not intending doing anything about the situation—just yet.’

  ‘Then why not now?’ he sighed out wearily, unhooking his jacket from the back of the chair and shrugging it on. Rachel watched him, saw the flash of gold on his left hand, put there all those millions of years ago. It was nothing but a slender band of gold, very plain, very cheap. They had not been able to afford anything better. She had a matching one of her own—and an engagement ring bought for her several years after they were married and finances were beginning to get a little easier. It was just a single diamond solitaire, small but neat on her slender finger.

  He had told her he loved her then, she recalled. ‘I love you, Rachel,’ he’d said as he slid the little ring on her finger. ‘Without you and the twins, all the hard work would have no meaning.’

  But he was wrong. Without them, Daniel would be twice the success he was today; she was sure of it.

  He was studying her now with that shuttered look while he waited for her to answer his question. She found his eyes, and held on to them for a moment before dropping her gaze to her cup. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered honestly. ‘But I think I want to see you bleed.’

  Surprisingly, he smiled, a hand going to his neck where the evidence of her attack last night just showed above the collar of his shirt. ‘I thought you’d already done that,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Not enough,’ she said, flushing slightly despite her determination not to apologise for that particular attack.

  ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Ah.’

  ‘So I am about to enter a period of—retribution.’ He smiled again, then bent to drop a kiss on top of Michael’s golden head. ‘So be it,’ he said, and strode arrogantly from the room, leaving Rachel feeling ever so slightly—flattened.

  But, oddly, it didn’t quite work like that. Instead of meeting him with a cold face and a biting tongue, she found herself avoiding anything that could even hint at trouble. And over the next few weeks they seemed to slip into a weird kind of limbo, as though their marriage had fallen into a coma—a period where they were being given time to recover a little before having to face the future for what it was to be.

  She did not go back to sleeping in Michael’s room. But she didn’t know why she went back to sleeping with Daniel. Neither did she refuse him when he would reach for her in the dark silences their nights had become. But even though they shared a kind of loving, it never quite managed to reach any real level of satisfaction for either of them, she guessed. She would go with him, move with him, and travel that long sensual path towards fulfilment—want to travel it! But suddenly she would see herself in her mind’s eye, entwined and pulsing with desire in his arms, feel his body trembling against her own, his breath just soft gasps of sensual urgency against her sensitised flesh—then see Lydia in her place, Lydia in his arms, Lydia driving him to the same state of mindless passion. And she would pull frantically away from him, halting their loving as effectively as switching off the power that drove them.

  Then she would lie, curled up and away from him, shivering her distress in lonely torment while Daniel would lie beside her, an arm covering his face, knowing, even though they never spoke about it—never tried to resume making love—that Lydia had come between them as surely as if she’d crawled into the bed with them. The hurt and betrayal, the cruel twist of jealousy would all rush back to flay her, and Rachel could not bear him so much as to touch her. And Daniel never tried.

  She spent her days worrying about it, frightened because she knew that if anything was likely to send him back into Lydia’s arms, then it was surely her stupid if unintentional hot and cold tactics.

  That Daniel saw this as the form her retribution was to take only made her feel worse, because retribution was the very last thing on her mind when he would reach for her in the night.

  And knowing this only made her more tense, more aware of how her own self-respect suffered every time she let him try to love her, because she knew she should be scorning him even before it started. Yet she needed him, even while her ability to respond was sadly retarded, she needed what small amount of succour she could glean from his loving—and she needed to know that Daniel needed her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DANIEL’S mother began spending more time with her during the day. She never mentioned the Sunday Rachel had escaped, but it was always there in the careful guard she kept on her expression, in the stealthy way she trod around certain subjects.

  Jenny Masterson was proud of her son. He had dragged himself up from lean beginnings, made a success of his career when all the advantages had been stacked against him. But she wasn’t blind to what temptation could be put in the way of a man of Daniel’s calibre. He was quick, shrewd, and clever. He was nearly thirtytwo years old and already a respected member of the business community. The whiz-kid who had to be watched.

  Star quality, with the looks to go with the label.

  Women had to be interested in him because those dark good looks and his ability to make money out of nothing made him interesting to them. And, although nothing had been said to her as to why her son’s marriage was suddenly very rocky, Jenny was no fool, and most probably had had a fairly accurate idea of the truth. So she spent more time with Rachel, offering moral support in her quiet solid way, and Rachel was grateful, for she had also come to the bleak realisation that Jenny was her only friend in this new alien world she was living in right now.

  Which in turn made her feel restless, utterly dissatisfied with herself and the empty person she had allowed herself to become. Her home, which had once been her pride and joy, now became a place to see criticism in every corner. It was good enough for her, but not for Daniel. His advancement in life meant he deserved something grander—something which would reflect the successful man he had become. And she would flay herself by remembering all those times when he had tried to talk her into moving into something bigger, better, and, with this new way she had developed of looking at him, she began to understand why. No wonder he never brought any of his business colleagues home with him— he was most probably ashamed of the place!

  Then, contrarily, she would be angry with him for not letting her into that other world he moved in. She might be guilty of being a silly blind fool who had barely changed in seven long years, but he had helped keep her that way by hiding her away like some guilty secret that did not fit his smart successful image!

  Anger became resentment, and resentment a restlessness that made her quick-tempered and irritableunpredictable to the point where she knew those around her trod warily, yet she couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

  What are you, Rachel? she asked herself one evening when—as had been perhaps inevitable after weeks of being home on the dot of six-thirty—Daniel was working late, and the restlessness grew worse because he wasn’t there and she wanted him to be—needed him to be to feel any kind of peace with herself.

  You can’t blame Daniel for everything that has gone wrong, she told herself. You’ve been existing in oblivion. So wrapped up in your own cosy little world that you didn’t even bother
to wonder about the one he moves in beyond your sphere! You knew he went to business dinners a lot. You knew he had to move in certain circles if he was to keep his ear to the ground, but you never once wondered whether you should be moving there with him, listening with him—helping and supporting him!

  You didn’t even know the Harvey take-over had been wrapped up until Mandy told you! And the only reason you knew there was a thing called a Harvey take-over was because Daniel’s mother had risen in his defence one night when you were bickering on about never seeing him. ‘He’s tied up with this Harvey take-over!’ she’d said. ‘Don’t you realise how important it is that he wins this one?’

  No, she hadn’t, and no, she still didn’t, because she had never bothered trying to find out! What did that make her in this marriage between two people that was nothing more than a house and a bed and three children they shared?

  ‘I’m not even beautiful!’ she sighed into the mirror one morning. Not in the classical sense of the word anyway. My figure is OK, I suppose, when you take into account that I’ve had three children. And my legs aren’t that bad. But my face wouldn’t stop traffic. It isn’t the kind of face you would expect to see on the wife of a man like Daniel Masterson, is it? My eyes are too big, nose too small, mouth all cute and vulnerable-looking.

  She scowled at her reflection in distaste.

  And just look at my hair! she thought, lifting it up so that the long twisting strands fanned out on a crackle of golden static. I’ve been wearing my hair like this since I was Kate’s age!

  ‘Talk about Peter Pan!’ she muttered in disgust. ‘He has nothing on me!—even my choice of clothes is utterly juvenile!’

  Then do something about it, an impatient-sounding voice inside her head challenged.

  Why not? she mused, on a sudden new surge of restless defiance.

  ‘I tell you what, Mike,’ she turned to say to the baby playing happily on the bedroom carpet, ‘I’m going shopping for a whole new wardrobe of clothes! We’ll see if Grandma will come and look after you. And if she won’t, well—’ her full bottom lip took on a mulish pout, just as Kate’s did when set on some determined course ‘—we’ll just go and dump you on your papa for the day—and let him stew in that for a change!’