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

She saw a muscle in his cheek twitch at her direct hit, but his voice was suddenly much calmer when he said, ‘Tanya again.’

She ignored that, continuing, ‘And my point still remains the same. You did not contact me after that night.’

‘Not physically, maybe, but surely the letter counts for something?’

‘Letter?’ She hadn’t received a letter and she didn’t believe for one moment he had written one. Whatever game he was playing, she wasn’t going to fall for it.

‘Oh, come on, Fuzz,’ he said wearily. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t receive my letter.’

His tone brought her temper to boiling point once more. ‘I never pretend,’ she said hotly, ‘and I don’t lie either. I did not receive a letter, although if I had it would have made no difference whatsoever to how I felt—feel. You had an affair with Tanya West and there had been others before her. I have that on good authority. You shared a double room in Germany reserved under the name of Mr and Mrs Kane. Don’t lie to me about that because I phoned the hotel myself to check.’

‘Tanya was my secretary and only my secretary,’ he ground out, swinging the car round a sharp corner at such speed Marsha had to stifle a little scream. ‘The room in Germany was booked in error. She had the double and I took the only other bed in the whole damn place, due to the conference, and spent three nights sharing a twin with a huge Swede who looked as though he weight-lifted for his country and snored like hell. I told you that on the night you left and reiterated it in the letter.’

‘Then why was I put through to Tanya when I asked for Mr Kane after the receptionist had confirmed the double room?’ Marsha asked as icily as her raw nerves would allow. The way he was driving they would be lucky to see another day.

‘I’ve told you, the room was booked in error. The Swede kindly allowed me to share his room when the hotel asked him, but the room was in his name, not mine. Maybe the receptionist you spoke to hadn’t been informed of what had happened. It was one of the biggest conferences of the year, damn it, and the place was heaving.’

He must think she was born yesterday.

‘You don’t believe me.’ As he accelerated to pass a staid family saloon she sat tensely silent because there was nothing more to say. ‘I gave you telephone numbers to ring in that letter, and not just the hotel. I had the Swede’s business card. I also made you a promise, because of the way you had reacted that night in the car, that I wouldn’t try to force you to see me until you were ready, and being ready meant an apology and a declaration of trust.’

The nerve of him. Even if all this with Tanya was a mistake—and she didn’t think it was for a moment—what about the other liaisons Susan had told her about? Taylor bought silence from people, but he hadn’t been able to buy Susan’s. Susan had been her friend as well as her sister-in-law, and the episode in Germany had been too much for the other woman to ignore. Susan had sworn her to secrecy at the time, making her promise she wouldn’t tell who it was who had informed on him—mainly because Susan’s husband worked for her brother and their livelihood depended on Taylor’s favour. Well, she hadn’t betrayed Susan eighteen months ago and she wasn’t about to do so now, much as she would have loved to fling his sister’s name into the arena.

She took a deep pull of air. ‘If the letter said you wouldn’t contact me until I was ready to apologise and trust you, why are we here now? I don’t trust you, Taylor, and I would rather walk through coals of fire than apologise to you.’

He muttered something under his breath before saying, his voice curt, ‘I am not going to allow you to wreck both our lives, that’s why. Not through foolish pride.’

Pride? If they hadn’t been travelling at such speed she would have been tempted to knock his block off, she thought poetically. As it was she contented herself with saying scathingly, ‘I’ve salvaged by life and it’s a good one, so speak for yourself.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

They were now in territory she recognised as being a street or so away from where Taylor’s palatial home dwelt, so in view of her safety, and everyone else’s within the immediate vicinity, she waited until the car had actually passed through the open gates and was travelling up the scrunchy drive before she said, ‘That’s your problem.’

He brought the car to a standstill at the bottom of the wide, semi-circular stone steps which led up to the front door, and Marsha forced herself to look about her as though her heart didn’t feel as though it was being torn out by its roots. She had been almost demented with bitterness and pain when she had last left here, and certainly in no state to drive. She had hoped if she ever saw this place again she would be able to look at it with a measure of peace in her heart, but it wasn’t the case. She felt nearly as wretched with misery as she had then.

Taylor hadn’t answered her before he slid out of the car and walked round the bonnet to open her door, and now, as she took the hand he proferred and exited the Aston Martin, the haunting fragrance of lavender teased her nostrils. A bowling-green-smooth lawn bordered both sides of the curving drive, and the huge thatched house was framed by two cooper beech trees, their leaves glowing in the last of the sunlight, but it was the tiny hedges of lavender which ran from the bottom of the largest step in a wide half-moon shape right up to the corners of the house which produced the most evocative memory.

It had been this perfume which had remained with her the first time she had ever visited the house, on her second date with Taylor, and which had scented their nights in their big billowy bed when they had made love till dawn with the windows open to the scents and sounds of the night.

The pain which gripped her now wasn’t helped by the warm contact with his skin, which sent a hundred tiny needles of sensation shivering up her arm, and as soon as she was standing she extricated her hand from his.

‘You loved this place when the lavender was out.’ Taylor spoke quietly, his eyes tight on her pale face.

Her green eyes shot to meet hot amber. He had waited and planned to bring her here when the conditions were just right for maximum effect. She could read it in his face even if his words hadn’t confirmed it. The words she hissed at him would have shocked the motherly Hannah into a coma.

Taylor surveyed her flushed face thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure that last suggestion is anatomically possible?’

She glared at him. ‘You are the most manipulative, scheming, cunning man I’ve ever met.’

A corner of his mouth twitched. ‘Thank you. I think you’re pretty exceptional too.’

Suddenly the anger and resentment left her body in a great whoosh of sadness and regret for what might have been if he had been different. Or maybe if she had been different? If she had been bright and beautiful and sophisticated, like the women he had dated before he’d met her, maybe then he would have continued to love her and wouldn’t have needed anyone else. Maybe then she would have been enough for him?

She wasn’t aware of the expression on her face, or the droop to her mouth, so when he said, very softly, ‘I want you back, Fuzz. I don’t want a divorce,’ she stared at him for a moment, her breath catching in her throat at the matter-of-fact way he had spoken.

‘That…that’s impossible; you know it is.’ She took a step backwards away from him, her eyes wide.

He shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t. It’s incredibly simple. I tell my lawyer to go to hell and you do the same with yours.’

‘Nothing’s changed,’ she protested shakily.

‘Exactly.’ He eyed her sternly.

‘What I mean is—’

‘I know what you mean,’ he interrupted. ‘What I mean is I was faithful to you before you left and I’ve been faithful since. No women. Not one. That’s the bottom line.’

She stood straight and still, her chin high and her body language saying more than any words could have done.

He stared at her a moment more before saying quietly, ‘When I find out who whispered the sweet nothings in your ear, they’ll wish they’d never been born. Who was it, Fuzz? Who wanted to destroy us so badly they fed your insecurities with the very thing you most feared?’

‘What?’ She reached out to lean against the car, needing its solid support. If he had yelled at her she could have taken it in her stride, but the almost tender note in his voice frightened her to death. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not insecure. Just because I’m not the sort of woman to turn a blind eye to—’

‘Insecurities which came into being when your mother dumped you in the hands of the social services,’ he interrupted again, his voice flat now, and holding a ruthlessness which was more typical of him. ‘Insecurities which grew in that damn awful place you were brought up in and which crippled you emotionally. The ones which told you no one could love you or want you or need you, not for ever anyway. Why would they when the one person in all the world who should love you beyond life gave you away like an unwanted gift?’

‘Stop it.’ Her face was as white as lint. Even her lips had lost their colour. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘To kick-start the process of making you wake up,’ he said, no apology in his tone. ‘I’d been waiting eighteen months for it to happen naturally before I realised I could wait eighteen years—or eighty. I’m not that patient.’

‘I hate you.’ She stared at him, wounded beyond measure by the things he had said.

‘No, you don’t,’ he said evenly. ‘You just think you do.’

She was saved having to make a reply when the front door opened on a delighted screech of her name. ‘Marsha! Oh, Marsha, honey.’ Hannah’s plump bulk fairly flew down the steps, and the next moment Marsha was enfolded in a floral scented embrace that took the breath out of her lungs.

‘Don’t throttle her, woman.’

She was released to the sound of Taylor’s mordant voice and Hannah moved her back a little, staring into her face as she said, ‘You’re thinner. You’re too thin. You’re not eating enough.’

‘Oh, Hannah.’ It was as if she had only seen her the day before, Marsha thought wonderingly. The last eighteen months had been swept away in a moment of time and now she couldn’t prevent the tears flowing as she said, ‘I’ve missed you.’

Hannah hugged her again, and there was no reproach in her voice or manner when she said, ‘Not as much as I’ve missed you, child.’

They clung together a moment longer before Taylor’s voice brought them apart once more, saying, ‘Much as I hate to mention it, I’m starving. Can we continue the reunion inside?’

‘Oh, you, thinking of your stomach at a time like this,’ Hannah chided smilingly through her own tears.

Marsha walked up the steps and into the house with her arm in Hannah’s, and once in the beautifully light-oak panelled hall the Jamaican housekeeper pushed her in the direction of the drawing room, saying, ‘The cocktails are all ready. You go in and sit down a while, and I’ll call you through in a few minutes.’