A Husband's Revenge

His mouth smiled, but his eyes were cold as green glass. ‘I wanted to own you body and soul.’

She shivered again. Then slowly, almost as if in accusation, she said, ‘You didn’t love me.’

With no reason to dissemble, he told her matter-of-factly, ‘I never pretended to. On the contrary, I went to great lengths not to mention the word “love”, so there would be no possibility that you could have any illusions, be under any misapprehension...’

Filled with a lost, bleak emptiness that was far worse than anything she had yet experienced, she accepted the fact that he had never loved her and she must have been aware of that.

Then why had she married him?

Recalling the overwhelming effect his kisses had had on her, one reason immediately sprang to mind. Yet surely common sense would have prevented her marrying a man simply because he attracted her physically?

Unless that attraction had developed into an infatuation and, more like her mother than she wanted to believe, she’d been unable to help herself...

‘And neither was I...’ Jos was going on, his voice like polished steel. ‘I knew perfectly well why you agreed to marry me.’

Shrinking inwardly at the realisation that her sexual enslavement must have been obvious, she waited for him to crow.

Incredibly, he said, ‘I was wealthy, and you wanted a rich husband.’

At that moment all she could feel was relief. The fact that he didn’t realise how obsessed she must have been went some way towards salving her pride.

‘Someone who could give you the right kind of lifestyle.’

‘It’s my impression that I already had that.’ Somehow she kept her voice steady.

‘Ah, but you didn’t. When you left your smart finishing-school, for some reason—you never told me exactly what—you struck out on your own. You rented a small cottage in the village and took a job in a real estate office while you waited for the opportunity to catch a suitable husband.’

‘Did I tell you that?’ she asked sharply.

‘You didn’t need to.’

‘And I suppose by “suitable” you mean...?’

‘Stinking rich.’ He spoke bitterly. ‘Because of the kind of life your parents led—jet—setting, champagne parties, lots of entertaining-they always lived above their income, and I suppose you must have realised there’d be nothing left when they died. Therefore, you needed to hook a man with money.’

The picture he was painting of her was a far from pleasant one. Pushing back a tendril of dark silky hair, she objected, ‘If I was an ordinary working girl, what chance would I have had of ever meeting any rich men?’

‘Hardly ordinary. You still had that air of good breeding, that finishing-school gloss, and Ashleigh Kent, the firm you worked for, was an up-market one, dealing mainly with wealthy clients wanting country estates and the like. In fact that was where I met you—when I was over in England on a business trip.’

‘And you blame me for hooking you?’ That explained at least some of the hostility she sensed in him.

To her amazement, he shook his head. ‘No, I don’t blame you for that. It would be different if you’d used your wiles to try and captivate me, but you didn’t, did you?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted huskily. ‘I don’t know what I did, how I acted...’

‘Like a perfect lady.’ His lips twisted into a smile that wasn’t a smile. ‘You intrigued me from the first moment I laid eyes on you. Though you were obviously attracted to me, you looked at me with such composure, such cool reserve.’

Whereas a lot of women, she guessed, would drool over a man with his kind of looks and that amount of blatant sex appeal.

Slowly, she said, ‘You seem pretty sure I was looking for a rich husband...so if I didn’t, as you put it, use my “wiles” to try to catch you...’ She hesitated. ‘Why didn’t I?’

‘When I first asked you to have dinner with me, you refused without giving a reason. I found out later that you already had Graham Ashleigh—who was worth quite a bit—in your sights.

‘Though I didn’t think the...shall we say attachment... on your side, at least, was too serious, and I had a great deal more to offer financially, it still took me over a week to persuade you to go out with me.’

He sounded annoyed.

Her smile ironic, she suggested, ‘Perhaps I was just playing hard to get.’

Privately she thought it far more probable that she’d been chicken—scared stiff by all that overpowering masculinity.

He shook his head. ‘Somehow I feel that playing hard to get isn’t your style... It certainly wasn’t your mother’s.’

She flinched at his deliberate unkindness.

‘But that’s enough delving into the past for the moment,’ Jos said decidedly. With a short, sharp sigh, he rose to his feet and stretched long limbs. ‘Now I suggest a breath of air. If you have no objection to New Yorkers en masse, Saturday afternoon is a good time to take a stroll in the park. Feel up to it?’

His tone was neutral, neither friendly nor unfriendly, and, only too happy to leave the confines of the bedroom, she agreed eagerly. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’ Then, unwilling to get out of bed while he was there, she added, ‘If you’ll give me a few minutes...?’

His smile sardonic, he said, ‘I’ll use the dressing room to change.’

As soon as the door closed behind him, Clare got out of bed and made for the sumptuous bathroom. Whether it was due to the food or to the prolonged sleep, she was pleased to find that the worst of the weakness had gone and she felt much better.

After cleaning her teeth and taking a quick shower, she donned a terrycloth robe while she looked for some fresh undies and something to wear.

A look at the clothes hanging in the walk-in wardrobe suggested that her tastes were quiet and classical rather than flamboyant. For which she was truly thankful.

Trying to rid herself of the feeling that she was rifling another woman’s things, she took out a grey and white patterned dress, a white jacket and a pair of high-heeled sandals. Rather to her surprise, everything fitted her perfectly.

When she was dressed she brushed the tangles from her shoulder-length hair. Seeming to be naturally curly, it settled in a soft, dark cloud around her face.

Wrinkling her nose in the mirror at the bruise on her temple, she looked for some tinted foundation to mask it. There was a range of light cosmetics in a pretty, daisy-strewn bag—cream, cleansing lotion and lip-gloss. No sign of any foundation or mascara. Perhaps with dark brows and lashes and a clear skin she didn’t use any?

In a side pocket of the bag she came across a narrow flat packet, and froze. Each pill was packed separately and marked with a day of the week.

But that didn’t necessarily mean she was like her mother, she told herself firmly. After all, she was a married woman—even if she didn’t feel like one...

Hiding her nervousness, her uncertainty, beneath a veneer of calm, she squared her shoulders and went to find Jos.

Everything was quiet and in perfect order. Too perfect. It struck her that the penthouse, with its impersonal opulence, was more like a luxury film-set than a home.

Without her knowing why, the thought made her sad.

In the living room, the long glass panels had been slid aside and he was standing on the terrace looking out across the green leafiness of Central Park. He’d changed into a lightweight suit, the jacket of which was slung over one shoulder and held by a crooked finger.

Clare could have sworn she had made no sound on the thick pale carpet, but, as though some sixth sense was at work, he turned to face her.

Though she didn’t know him, he was no longer a stranger. Outwardly, at least, he was achingly familiar, and she could have picked him out unerringly from a thousand other tall, dark men.