The Failed Marriage (Presents Plus)

by Carole Mortimer

‘Spent working, nothing else.’

  ‘And you let me think you were going away with her, that you would be sleeping with her. You told me to take a lover—lovers!’ she reminded him indignantly.

  ‘And it nearly killed me,’ he rasped. ‘When I first got back I thought Dan was your lover; I could have ripped him apart limb from limb! At the party—’

  ‘The party was for you, for your homecoming,’ she told him quickly. ‘But you didn’t come home, and the invitations had already gone out.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that,’ he shook his head. ‘I just thought you and Dan were giving the party, and he certainly went out of his way that night to give the impression that you were more than friends. When he didn’t stay the night I thought perhaps I’d been wrong after all, that he’d just been protecting you. He was, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Joshua—that last night, couldn’t you tell I loved you?’

  ‘I could tell you wanted me to make love to you. But I’d promised you a year, I owed you that much.’

  ‘But I didn’t want it,’ she told him desperately. ‘That night I came out of the cold daze I’d been in since Lindy died, I was even planning to come to the States with you. But in the morning you’d gone, to be with Angela, I thought.’

  Joshua shook his head. ‘I didn’t want any other woman after you, Joanna. In Canada, when I first started to notice you, I thought you were an attractive little minx. Then I realised you were getting under my skin, that I was even beginning to look out for you as the days passed. But I made no effort to get to know you better, I knew you were too young for me, that I should never have become involved with you. But I couldn’t resist you, and when you came to my cabin—’

  ‘I forced the situation.’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you I wasn’t forced?’ he bit out angrily. ‘I fell in love with you that night.’ ‘How could you have done?’ she gasped incredulously. ‘You didn’t even come and say goodbye to me the next morning.’ ‘Because I didn’t realise you were leaving that early! I slept late,’ his mouth twisted self-derisively. ‘Then I went out and had some breakfast. By the time I got to your cabin you’d already left. The manager of the cabins was of the opinion that you’d returned to England. I left the next day as planned, and when I tried calling your home I was told you were in Florida.’ His expression was grim.

  ‘You called my home?’ Her eyes were wide.

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed woodenly. ‘You’d gone off on another holiday, when you would probably take more lovers, I thought.’

  ‘I went with my parents straight from Canada. And it was the most miserable time of my life. You see, I came to your cabin that last morning, and when you weren’t there I thought you’d gone skiing as you usually did, that I’d meant nothing to you. I had no idea you had gone into town to get some breakfast. I just thought I’d been a holiday affair to you, like Mari was.’

  ‘No.’ His jaw tightened. ‘But I had the feeling that’s all I’d been to you.’

  ‘Was that the reason you thought I was pregnant by someone else?’ she frowned. ‘Because you thought I’d used you as my first sexual experiment?’

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘But then I realised you would hardly have come to me if it were another man’s child. Do you know what it did to me to know you only came to see me because you were expecting my child? When I saw your appointment in the book I had such high hopes, and when I knew the truth… God, it was hell! You felt so trapped—’

  ‘So did you!’

  ‘Not really. Admittedly it wasn’t the way I would have planned to marry you, but it did make you my wife. And for a while we were like any other married couple, living together, laughing together, buying things for the baby we were expecting. But when Lindy was born and we knew how ill she was you became distant from me—mentally, not physically. As the months, years passed, I just became grateful for the fact that you were my wife. When we were first married I’d given you a bedroom of your own so that you wouldn’t feel trapped into a physical relationship with me. There were nights after Lindy died that I was glad of that, nights when I almost went out of my mind thinking about you. If you’d been in the same bed as me every night I would have gone insane!’

  ‘I never knew, never realised…’

  ‘That I love you, that I’ve always loved you?’ Joshua sighed raggedly. ‘I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want your pity.’

  ‘But I’ve always loved you too. I tried to show you, when you came back from the States, that I wanted us to start again. I cleared Lindy’s room of all memories in an effort to show you I was ready to start afresh.’

  ‘And I thought you’d done it because you were ready to put our marriage and everything about it behind you.’ He heaved a deep sigh of regret. ‘How can two relatively intelligent people—’

  ‘Brilliant in your case, darling,’ Joanna murmured, moving into his arms, caressing his face with shaking fingertips.

  ‘How can we have been so damned stupid?’ he groaned.

  ‘Lack of communication,’ she shrugged dismissal of those troubled years. ‘But it won’t happen again. I intend telling you my every thought in future. I hope you’ll do the same?’ She looked up at him anxiously.

  ‘Oh, I’ll do the same,’ he said throatily. ‘For instance, right now I’m thinking—’ he bent lower and whispered the rest of his thoughts in her ear. A slow smile spread over her face. ‘Strange, I was thinking the same thing,’ she glowed up at him. ‘And I always thought one of these lovely couches in your consulting-room would be a perfect place to make love.’

  ‘Here?’ His eyes widened.

  ‘Why not?’ she teased.

  ‘Why not, indeed?’ he agreed throatily. ‘God, I love you, Joanna,’ he added raggedly.

  ‘Just keep telling me that!’ She melted against him.

  ‘Oh, I will!’ he gave her a lifelong promise.

  Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Sharon Kendrick’s next book,

  THE SHEIKH’S SECRET BABY

  Sheikh Zuhal is shocked to discover he has a son! To claim his child, he must get former lover Jazz down the palace aisle. And he’s not above using seduction to make her his wife!

  Read on for a glimpse of

  THE SHEIKH’S SECRET BABY

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS THE LAST place he’d imagined her living.

  Zuhal frowned. Jasmine? Here? In a tiny cottage in the middle of the English countryside, down a lane so narrow it had challenged the progress of his wide limousine? The woman who had loved the sparkle and buzz of the city, hiding herself away in some remote spot. There had to be some kind of mistake.

  His frown became a flickering smile of anticipation. Not that he had given a lot of thought to her accommodation. If ever he’d stopped to think about his lusciously proportioned ex-lover—something he tried not to do, for obvious reasons—then it had usually been a predictable flashback to her soft skin. Or the tempting pertness of her breasts. Or the way she used to rain kisses all over his face so that his heart used to punch with pleasure. His groin, too.

  He swallowed.

  And that, of course, was the reason for his unexpected appearance today. The reason he’d decided to drop in and surprise her.

  His throat dried. Why not? He liked sex and so did Jasmine. Of all his lovers, she had been the one who had really lit his fire. Sparks had flown between them from the start and it seemed a pity not to capitalise on that explosive chemistry with a little trip down memory lane. After all, it wasn’t as if either of them had entertained any unrealistic expectations. There had been no dreams to be shattered. They hadn’t asked for the impossible and had known exactly where the boundaries lay. They had conducted their affair like adults. What possible harm could it do to revisit the past and revel in a little uncomplicated bliss at a time in his life when he needed some light relief like never before?

  He felt the smile die on his lips as part of him questioned the sanity of revisit
ing the past—and a woman—like this. Because he never went back. If you reignited an old relationship, then a woman could almost be excused for thinking it meant more to you than it really did…and no relationship ever meant more than sex to Zuhal Al Haidar.

  And since Jazz was realistic enough to accept that, maybe this one time he could be excused for breaking one of his own rules, because destiny was leading him down an unwanted path—a path which had altered his whole future. Silently, he simultaneously cursed and mourned his foolish brother, but all the wishing in the world wasn’t going to bring him back, or rewrite the pages of history which had changed his own destiny. He wasn’t going to think about that. He was going to concentrate on Jasmine Jones and her soft body. To have her obliterate everything except desire and fulfilment. He was growing hard just thinking about it, because she was the sweetest lover he had ever known.

  He stepped over a cracked flagstone, through which a healthy-looking weed was pushing through. It had crossed his mind that she might have replaced him in her affections during the eighteen months they’d been apart, but deep down Zuhal refused to countenance such a scenario—mainly because his ego would not allow him to.

  And if she had?

  If that were the case, then he would graciously bow out. He was, after all, a desert king, not a savage—even if at times Jazz Jones had possessed the ability to make him feel as primitive as it was possible for a man to feel. He would wish her well and take his pleasure elsewhere, although he couldn’t deny he would be disappointed not to revisit her enchanting curves and seeking mouth.

  He pushed open the little gate, which even his untrained eye could tell needed a coat of paint, and made a mental note as he walked up the narrow path. Perhaps he would send someone out here to do just that. He lifted the loose door-knocker, which clearly had a screw missing, and frowned. Maybe even get someone to fix that for her, too.

  Afterwards.

  After he had enjoyed some badly needed solace.

  He lifted the knocker, and as it fell heavily against the peeling paintwork he could hear the sound echoing through the tiny house.

  * * *

  Bringing the whirring drone of the sewing machine to a halt, Jasmine lifted her head to hear the sound of loud knocking, and she narrowed her eyes. Eyes which were tired and gritty from sewing until late last night. She rubbed them with the back of her fist, and yawned. Who was disturbing her during this quiet time when she’d got a rare opportunity to do some work? For a moment she was tempted to ignore it and stay there, neatly hemming the velvet curtains which needed to be delivered to her demanding client by next Wednesday, at the latest.

  But she chided herself as she got up from her work spot in the corner of the sitting room and went to answer the unexpected summons. Surely she wasn’t being suspicious just because someone was knocking at the door? If she wasn’t careful she would become one of those sad people who became nervous at the thought of an unplanned caller. Who twitched whenever they heard a loud noise and were too scared to face the world outside. Just because she’d recently completed a radical lifestyle change and moved out of the city lock, stock and barrel didn’t mean she had to start acting like some kind of hermit! Especially since she had discovered nothing but friendliness from the locals since arriving in this quiet hamlet—a factor which had helped cushion her sudden and dramatic change in circumstances. It was probably somebody selling raffle tickets for the local spring fayre.

  She pulled open the door.

  It wasn’t.

  It most definitely wasn’t.

  Shock coursed through her like a tidal wave. She could feel the physical effects of it and fleetingly thought how much they resembled desire. The rapid increase in her pulse and the rush of blood to her face. The wobbly knees, which made her glad she was gripping the door handle for support. And most of all, that slightly out-of-body sensation, which made her think this couldn’t be happening.

  It couldn’t.

  Heart still pounding, she studied the man who was standing on her doorstep—as if he might disappear in a puff of smoke if she stared at him long enough. But he stayed exactly where he was, as solid as dark marble and as vital as the mighty oak tree which towered over the nearby village green. She wanted to somehow be immune to him but how could she, when just seeing him again made her heart clench with longing and her body quiver with long-suppressed lust?

  His face was angled—slashed with hard planes and contours which spoke of an aristocratic lineage, even if his proud bearing hadn’t confirmed it. With hair as black as coal and eyes a gleaming shade almost as dark, his rich gold complexion was dominated by a hawk-like nose and the most sensual lips she’d ever seen. Yet the suit he wore contradicted his identity for it was urbane and modern, as was the crisp white shirt and silken tie. But Jasmine had seen photos of him in flowing robes, which made him look as if he’d stepped straight from the pages of a fairy tale. Pale robes which had emphasised his burnished skin and hinted at a hard body which had been honed on the saddle of a horse, in one of the world’s most unforgiving desert landscapes.

  Zuhal Al Haidar—sheikh and royal prince. Second son of an ancient dynasty which ruled the oil-rich country of Razrastan, where diamonds had been discovered close to its immense mountains and world-class racing horses were bred. The man to whom she had given her body and heart—although he had wanted only her body and she had pretended to be okay with that because there hadn’t been an alternative. Well, the alternative would have been to have spurned his unexpected advances and that had been something she’d found herself unable to do. There hadn’t been a day since they’d parted that she hadn’t thought about him but she’d never thought she’d see him again because he had cut her out of his life completely.

  And that was the thing she needed to remember. That he hadn’t wanted her. He’d cast her aside like yesterday’s newspaper. She bit her lip as questions flooded through her mind.

  Why was he here?

  And then, much more crucial…

  She mustn’t let him stay here.

  But Jasmine wasn’t stupid. At least, not any more. She might once have acted like a complete idiot where Zuhal was concerned, but not now. She had grown up since splitting with him. She’d had to. She’d learned that you sometimes had to stop and think about what was the best thing to do in the long term, rather than what you really wanted to do. So she resisted the urge to close the door firmly in his face and instead forced a polite smile to her lips.

  ‘Good heavens, Zuhal,’ she said, in a voice which sounded strangely calm. ‘This is a…surprise.’

  Zuhal frowned, irritation dwarfing the anticipation which was shafting through him. It wasn’t the greeting he had been expecting. Surely she should have been rapturously hurling herself into his arms by now? Even if she had decided to act out a little game-playing resistance for the sake of her pride, he still would have expected to see her eyes darkening with desire, or the parting of those rosy lips in unconscious invitation.

  But no. Instead of desire he saw wariness and something else. Something he didn’t recognise. Just as he didn’t recognise the woman who stood before him. He remembered Jazz Jones as being a bit of a fashion queen. Someone who was always beautifully turned out—even if she’d made most of her clothes herself because her budget had been tight. But she had always had a definite style about her—it had been one of the things which had first drawn him to her, and presumably why the Granchester Hotel had employed her as manager in its sleek London boutique.

  He remembered her honey-coloured hair swinging to her chin, not grown out and tied back into a functional plait, which hung down the back of a plain jumper, which inexplicably had some unidentifiable stain on the shoulder. Her legs weren’t on show either; their shapely curves were covered by a pair of very ugly jeans—a garment she’d never worn in his company after he’d explained his intense dislike of them.

  But he told himself that her clothes didn’t matter, because he didn’t intend her to be wearing
them for much longer. Nothing mattered—other than the yearning which was already heating his blood like a fever. And wasn’t it ironic that Zuhal found himself resenting this sensual power she’d always had over him, even while his body hungrily responded to it? He let his voice dip into a velvety caress as it had done so often in the past, adopting the intimate tone of two people who had once been lovers. And who would soon be lovers again. ‘Hello, Jazz.’

  But there was no lessening of her wary expression. No answering smile or impulsive opening of the door to admit him to her home and her arms. No ecstatic acknowledgement that he was here, after nearly two years of not seeing each other. Instead, she nodded in recognition and once again there was a flash of something he didn’t recognise in her eyes.

  ‘How did you find me?’

  He raised his eyebrows, because her unwelcoming attitude was something he wasn’t familiar with—and neither was her bald question, which was bordering on the insolent. Was she really planning to interrogate him as if he were a passing salesman? Did she think it acceptable to leave the future King of Razrastan standing on her doorstep?

  His words became tinged with a distinct note of reprimand, which had been known to make grown men shudder. ‘Isn’t this a conversation we should be having in the comfort of your home, Jazz, even if it doesn’t strike me as very comfortable?’

  She flinched. She actually flinched—before seeming to pull herself together. She was smiling now, but he could sense it was forced, as if she were pushing her mouth against the soft resistance of slowly setting concrete. He was confused. Hadn’t they parted on good terms—or as good as they could be when a man was terminating what had been a very satisfying relationship? Although Jazz had been that little bit different from his other lovers, he recalled. She alone had refused to accept the keepsake piece of jewellery he always offered his ex-lovers as a memento. To his surprise—and, yes, his annoyance too—she had carefully repackaged the emerald and diamond pendant, along with a polite note telling him she couldn’t possibly accept such a generous gift.