A Passionate Affair: The Passionate Husband / The Italian's Passion / A Latin Passion

The deep voice behind them was relaxed and cool, but as Marsha’s head shot round she saw the sculptured features of the tall man standing with Penelope could have been carved in granite. Admittedly the hard mouth curled at the edges with something which could have been described as a smile by those who did not know better. But Marsha did know better. And how. She fought for control, willing herself not to stutter and stammer as she said, ‘Taylor. What a surprise.’

‘Isn’t it?’ The startling tawny eyes with their thick black lashes were fixed on her shocked face. ‘But a pleasant one…for me, that is.’

‘You two are obviously already acquainted,’ Penelope drawled sweetly, her smile not quite reaching the blue eyes set in a face which was faintly exotic and very lovely. Marsha noticed the way the other woman’s hand had tightened on Taylor’s arm in an instinctive predatory gesture which said volumes.

She drew in a long, body-straightening breath and squared her shoulders. So that was how it was. But she should have known, shouldn’t she, with Taylor’s reputation? ‘We knew each other once, a long time ago,’ she said clearly, her tone dismissive. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some work to finish—’

‘Once? Oh, come on, Marsha, you’ll have these good folk believing we were ships that passed in the night instead of man and wife.’

Nicki’s mouth had dropped open to the point where she looked comical, but no one was looking at her.

Marsha’s clear green eyes widened infinitesimally, even as she told herself she should have expected this. Taylor being Taylor, he wouldn’t let her get away with snubbing him. A vein in her temple throbbed, but her voice was quiet when she said, ‘Goodbye, Taylor.’

‘You were married?’ In any other circumstances Marsha would have enjoyed seeing the ice-cool Penelope dumbfounded.

‘Not were, Penelope. Are.’ Taylor’s voice was as quiet as Marsha’s had been, but the steely note made it twice as compelling. ‘Marsha is my wife.’

‘Until the divorce is finalised.’ She had turned, but now she swung back as she shot the words at him. ‘And that would have happened a long time ago if I’d had my way.’

Her voice had risen slightly, calling forth one or two interested glances from people around them who hadn’t heard what had been said but who recognised anger when they heard it.

‘But…but your surname is Gosling, isn’t it?’

Penelope was staring at her as though she’d never seen her before, and in spite of the awfulness of the moment there was an element of satisfaction in being able to reply, ‘Gosling is my maiden name. Personnel are aware of my marital status—albeit temporary.’ She flashed a scathing glance at the tall dark man at Penelope’s side. ‘But when I said I prefer to be known as Miss Gosling on a day-to-day basis they saw no reason to object.’

‘This is most irregular.’ Penelope had recovered her composure and her tone was frosty. ‘I should have been informed.’

Marsha could have said here that her immediate boss, Jeff North, was fully aware of her circumstances, but she wasn’t about to get into a discussion on the rights and wrongs of it all with Penelope. Not with Taylor standing there with his eyes fixed on her face.

The brief glances she’d bestowed on him had told her he was as devastatingly attractive as ever. He had never been textbook handsome, his appeal was too virile and manly for that, but the hard, rugged features offset by tawny cat eyes and jet-black hair radiated magnetism. And the strong, tough face was set above a body which was just as vigorous, its sinewy muscles and a powerful frame ensuring women everywhere gave him a second glance. Or three or four or more.

This last thought made Marsha’s voice every bit as cold as Penelope’s when she said, ‘Possibly. Now, if you’ll excuse me?’ And she left without a backward glance.

It wasn’t until she got in the lift and attempted to press the button for the third floor that Marsha realised how much her hands were shaking. She stood stiff and straight until the doors had glided to, and then leant limply against the carpeted side of the lift, her stomach swirling. Taylor—here. What was she going to do?

And then the answer came, as though from somewhere outside herself. Nothing. You are going to do nothing, because nothing has changed from how things were this morning. He is not in your life any more. He can’t hurt you.

But if that was true why was she feeling as though her whole world had collapsed around her right now? The world she had carefully built up over the last months?

Shock. The answer was there again. Shock, pure and simple. It was so unexpected, seeing him like that. You were unprepared, taken off guard. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t over him.

The lift had stopped, and now the doors opened again, but for a moment Marsha stood staring blankly ahead, her mind racing. She wasn’t over him. She’d never be over him. You didn’t get over someone like Taylor. You just learnt to live with the pain that it was over.

‘Enough.’ She spoke out loud, the courage and self-respect which had enabled her to leave him in the first place coming to her aid. ‘No snivelling, no crying. You’ve cried enough tears to fill an ocean as it is.’

Once in the office she shared with Nicki, Jeff North’s room being separated from theirs by an interjoining door, Marsha sat down at her desk with a little plump. Of all the places in all the world, why was Taylor here? And was he Penelope’s new lover? The thought brought such a shaft of pain she pushed it to the back of her consciousness to think about later, once she was home. For now she had to get out of this place with a semblance of dignity, and she’d do it if it killed her.

It was at that point she realised she’d left her handbag, along with the papers she’d been looking at when Nicki had pounced on her, downstairs in the alcove. She muttered something very rude before leaning back in the seat and shutting her eyes for a moment. Great, just great. She’d have to go and retrieve everything, which would totally ruin the decorous exit she’d just made.

Footsteps brought her eyes snapping open and her back straightening, but it was Nicki who emerged in the doorway, and she was clutching the Baxter file and Marsha’s handbag. ‘You forgot these,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Sort of.’ Marsha managed a weak smile. ‘Thanks for these.’

‘All in a day’s work.’

Marsha had expected a barrage of questions the next time she saw Nicki, but when the other girl sat down at her own desk and began packing her things away, all she said was, ‘They’ve gone, by the way, Penelope and your—and him.’

‘Right.’ She’d explain a little tomorrow, but tonight she couldn’t face it. ‘I’m off too. We’ll talk in the morning, Nicki,’ she said, rising to her feet and reaching for her jacket. It was her brisk boss tone, something Marsha used rarely, but when she did Nicki knew enough to take the hint.

Once she was in the lift again, a thousand butterflies began to do an Irish jig in Marsha’s stomach. What if Nicki was wrong and he was waiting for her in Reception? She wouldn’t put it past Taylor. She wouldn’t put anything past Taylor Kane.

Reception was the usual madhouse at this time of night, but it was Taylorless and that was all Marsha asked. She responded to a couple of goodnights, raising a hand in farewell to Bob, the security guard, with whom she often had a chat when she was working late and it was quieter. He regaled her with tales of his six children, who had all gone off the rails in some way or other and who drove Bob and his long-suffering wife mad, but tonight Marsha felt she would swap places with them like a shot.

Once outside, in the warm June evening, Marsha looked about her, only relaxing and breathing more easily after a few moments of scanning the bustling crowd. Everyone was walking fast and every other person was talking into a mobile phone. Irate drivers were honking car horns, there was the occasional screech of tyres and the odd person or so was dicing with death by ignoring pedestrian crossings and throwing themselves in front of the rush hour traffic. A normal evening, in fact.

It was too warm for the jacket she’d worn that morning, and now she tucked it over her arm as she began to walk past Notting Hill towards Kensington. Somehow she couldn’t face the jam-packed anonymity of the tube or a bus tonight. It would take a while to get to her tiny bedsit deep in West Kensington, but the walk through Holland Park was pleasant on an evening like this, and she needed some time to collect her whirling thoughts and sort out her emotions. And then she wrinkled her small straight nose at the thought. Since when had she ever been able to get her head round her feelings for Taylor?

‘I had a feeling you’d walk.’

Her pulse leapt as the deep voice at her elbow registered, and in that moment she knew she had been expecting him to make an appearance. She didn’t turn her head, and she was pleased her voice was so cool—considering her racing heartbeat—when she said, ‘Clever you.’

‘How are you, Fuzz?’

His pet name for her caused her traitorous heart to lurch before she quelled the weakness. Fuzz had come into being on their second date, when he had said he thought goslings were supposed to be all fluff and down, his eyes on her sleek shiny hair. She’d smiled, answering that fuzz and feathers weren’t compulsory, and from that moment—whenever they were alone—he’d whispered the name in a smoky tone which had caused her knees to buckle. But that was then and this was now. Her voice tight, she said, ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why? You used to like it.’

His arrogance provoked her into raising angry eyes to meet his gaze, and she knew immediately it was a mistake. He was too close, for one thing. She could see the furrows in the tanned skin of his face, the laughter lines which crinkled the corners of his eyes. She caught her breath, steadying herself before she said, ‘I’m glad you used the past tense.’

He shrugged, a casual easy movement she envied. ‘Past, present, future—it’s all the same. You’re mine, Fuzz. You’ve been mine from the first moment we met.’

For a moment the urge to strike out in action as well as words was so strong it shocked her, but it acted like a bucket of cold water on her hot fury. Men like him never changed, she knew that, so why had she expected any different? Everything about Taylor whispered wealth and power and limitless control. She had married him knowing he was dangerous, but she had hoped she’d captured his heart. She had been wrong. ‘I don’t think so, Taylor. We’ll be divorced soon, and that is the end of the road.’

‘You think a piece of paper makes any difference one way or the other?’ He took her arm, pulling her to a stop as he encircled her with his arms. ‘This nonsense has to stop. Do you understand? I’ve been patient long enough.’

His height and breadth dwarfed her slender shape, and the familiar smell of him—a subtle mixture of deliciously sexy aftershave, clean male skin and something that was peculiarly Taylor—sent her senses reeling. Control, control, control. He was a past master of it—she had learnt it day by painful day in the months they had been separated. She couldn’t let all that agony be for nothing. She ignored the longing which made her want to melt against the hard wall of his chest, saying instead, her voice clipped, ‘Let go of me or I’ll scream my head off. I mean it.’

‘Scream away,’ he offered lazily, but she had seen the narrowing of his eyes and the tightening of his mouth and she knew she had scored a hit.

She remained absolutely rigid and still in his arms, her eyes blazing, and after another long moment he let her go. ‘You’re still not prepared to listen to reason?’

‘Reason?’ She forced a scornful laugh, taking a step backwards and treading on some poor man’s toe with her wafer-thin heels. His muffled yelp went unheeded.

‘Yes, reason. Reason, logic, common sense—all those worthy attributes which seem to be so sadly lacking within that beautiful frame of yours,’ he drawled, deliberately provocative.

Marsha gritted her teeth for a moment. He was the one person in all the world who could make her madder than hell in two seconds flat. ‘Your definition of reason and logic is different from mine,’ she said scathingly. ‘I go by the Oxford Dictionary.’

‘Meaning?’