Their Wedding Day

It was a bold and subtle sliding in of the knife.

“No. It was my decision,” Rowena replied, silently challenging the other woman to make something belittling of that.

Adriana Leigh raised perfectly arched eyebrows at Keir. “This is rather different from the usual bounds of work requirements, Mr. Delahunty,” she pointed out, maintaining her decorum while questioning the propriety of his authority in what they all knew to be a personal matter.

“Sometimes extraordinary situations arise,” Keir answered smoothly. “I understood your position as personal secretary to one of my executives requires an ability to handle delicate matters with courtesy and patience.” He paused. Was there a threat left hanging? “However, if you feel unable…”

“Not at all, Mr. Delahunty. As you say, I am used to dealing with such situations.”

“I thought you would be.” A touch of dry irony.

“I’ll do my best to give Mrs. Goodman satisfaction,” she said with her own touch of irony as she started forward, showing no further reluctance to join them by the table. A smart, intelligent career woman would do no less after Keir had put her skills in question.

Rowena concentrated on assessing everything about Adriana Leigh before they were left alone together. She had long, toffee-coloured hair, liberally streaked with blonde and deliberately styled in a casually tousled look. It was not only suggestive of a recent tumble in bed but a ready receptiveness to repeating the pleasure at any time.

She wore a long-sleeved, transparent cream blouse with a lace-trimmed, silk camisole underneath. Her full breasts jiggled freely. Her hips swayed, their voluptuous curve from a small waist emphatically outlined by a tan gaberdine figurehugging skirt that was buttoned down to thigh level and left free to swing from a side split. She wore high heels. High, high heels.

This woman exuded sexuality, flaunted it, and Rowena doubted any man would be a hundred percent proof against it. There was no problem in understanding the attraction for Phil. The question was how deeply did Adriana Leigh have her claws into him?

“Rowena.” Keir took her hand, pressing it to pull her attention to him. “I’ll be in my secretary’s office. You have only to call me.”

Part of Rowena’s mind registered his earnest concern and caring. She felt the warmth and strength of his touch. She had a craven urge to cling to it, but the purpose that had brought her here made it inappropriate. Badly inappropriate. Didn’t he realise that?

“I’m all right, Keir. Thank you,” she said in deliberate dismissal.

He gently squeezed her hand before letting it go. Adriana noticed it. Her amber eyes gleamed feline derision at Rowena before she turned her gaze to watch Keir make his departure. The moment the door was closed behind him, she opened hostilities.

“How did you come to be so cosy with our Mr. Delahunty?”

Rowena ignored the dig. “Do you love my husband, or is he simply another conquest to you?” she asked with quiet dignity.

It won a flicker of surprise. “Well, you’re certainly direct.”

“I’d appreciate a direct answer.”

Adriana led from the chin. “I love Phil and he loves me and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“You must have known he was married.”

“So what? He knew he was married, too. I didn’t take anything from you. You’d already lost it. Phil came to me.” Gloating triumph. Power. No sense of guilt whatsoever.

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“Divorced?” Perfect and obviously expensive make-up gave Adriana Leigh’s face a youthful glow, but Rowena had no doubt this woman was in her thirties, possibly older than Phil, who was thirty-three.

“No.” She was amused by the questioning.

“Children?”

Her laughter was mocking. “Two abortions.” There was a hardness in her eyes as she added, “I won’t go down that road again.”

It made Rowena wonder if previous lovers had let Adriana down, and she felt a twinge of sympathy, remembering the pain of being left without Keir’s support when she was pregnant with Jamie. The sympathy was short-lived. There was none coming from Adriana for the situation Rowena faced.

“Has Phil ever mentioned our children?”

She shrugged. “Emily is five and Sarah is three. They’re young enough to get over the separation without any lasting trauma. The boy is old enough to look after himself. It’s not as though their father has played a great role in their lives.”

“Is that what Phil told you or what you want to assume?”

“I know the hours Phil works,” she said smugly.

“Since you entered his life.” That truth was obvious now. Rowena silently castigated herself for not realising Phil’s long hours and overnight trips could have another purpose besides work. How complacent she had been to attribute it to ambition!

“Doesn’t his desire to stay with me tell you something?’ Adriana taunted.

Rowena hated her mocking amusement. She might be guilty of complacency, but she hadn’t gone out hunting another woman’s husband to fill in the lonely hours. It took all her will-power to keep her voice steady, her demeanour unruffled. She would not give her antagonist the satisfaction of goading her out of control.

“I suppose you think you’ve rearranged his priorities. For the short term,” Rowena emphasised, wanting to shake Adriana Leigh’s complacency. “Passion does tend to burn out.”

“You don’t know much about men, do you?” Pitying condescension. “They have two brains. Keep the one below the belt satisfied and you can bend the other any way you like.”

Such heartless calculation sickened Rowena. Phil preferred this woman to her? “If that’s the case, I find it odd that you haven’t been able to hold onto one of the many men you’ve obviously had in the past,” she retaliated.

“I haven’t wanted to until now.”

“Then your theory hasn’t exactly been tested, has it?” Rowena pointed out, to no effect whatsoever.

“Face it, darling, you’re beaten. You’ve never satisfied Phil as I do. That’s a fact.” The cat’s eyes glittered down Rowena’s classic navy suit and up again. “I daresay you’re too much of a lady.”

“There’s more to a relationship than sex,” Rowena declared with conviction.

“What?”

“Companionship, sharing goals and achievements, caring about each other, understanding…”

Adriana laughed. “Tell that to a sex-starved man. And there’s so many of them around. Especially fathers.”

The unexpected singling out of fathers bewildered Rowena. She stood, speechless, as enlightenment came in a shower of scorn.

“You dedicated mothers tend to focus all your energy on your children. Your attention is divided. You get tired. You have headaches. And the door opens for another woman to give a man back what his children have taken from him. Quite suddenly he doesn’t give a damn about his children any more. He wants a woman in his life, not a mother.”

“I’m sure that’s what you’d like to think,” Rowena said tersely, disturbed by Adriana’s knowingness. Had Phil complained to her that his wife ignored his needs?

“I’m giving you some good advice for the next time around. The world is full of discontented married men.”

“Why pick on Phil?”