The Ultimate Betrayal

He wasn’t there, and it was then that she heard the tell-tale sounds coming from the bathroom. He appeared a moment later, already dressed in a clean white shirt and the trousers of his iron-grey suit. He saw her almost at once and came to an abrupt halt.

In all the years of knowing him, she had never felt so vulnerable in his presence, or so aware of her tumbled appearance: her puffy eyes, made so by too much weeping, her tousled hair hanging limp and untidy around her pale face.

Nor so aware of him: his height, the length of his long, straight body and the tightness of its superbly honed muscles. Wide chest, flat stomach, narrow hips, long powerful legs with…

No. Dry-mouthed, she flicked her gaze warily up to clash with his.

He looked tired, as though he hadn’t slept much. He would have been thinking, working things out, trying to find the right solution to an impossible situation. He was good at that—making a success out of a disaster. It was the most fundamental source of his outstanding business success.

His gaze lingered on her face, his own a defensive mask. He had just shaved; his stubborn chin looked clean and shiny-smooth. Rachel caught the familiar scent of his aftershave, and felt her senses stir in response to it. Sexual magnetism held no boundaries, she acknowledged bitterly. Even now, while she was hating and despising him, she was disturbingly aware of him as the man she had loved for so long and so blindly.

Shifting jerkily, she moved over to the bed, lifting a knee on to the soft mattress so that she could lay Michael in the middle. It was only then that she realised that the bed had not been slept in, and the only evidence that Daniel had used it at all was in the imprint of his body on the smooth peach duvet.

Michael was kicking madly, trying to catch his father’s attention—attention that was firmly fixed on Rachel. The baby let out a frustrated cry, going red in the face in his effort to pull himself into a sitting position, and Rachel smiled instinctively at his efforts, capturing a waving hand and feeling the instant tug as the child tried to use it for leverage.

Daniel came over to the bed, stretching out to recline on the other side of their son and automatically reaching for the other small hand, which was all Michael needed to lever himself into a sitting position.

‘Da!’ he said triumphantly, twisting free of both of them so that he could pat his satisfaction on the soft duvet.

Rachel kept her eyes firmly on her son while she felt the searing appeal in Daniel’s gaze sting into her pale cheeks. ‘Rachel please look at me.’ It was a gruff plea that twisted at something wretched inside her, but one she refused to comply with, shaking her head.

‘No,’ she whispered, keeping her voice level with effort, and Daniel sighed heavily, then reached for Michael, lifting him to kiss the soft baby cheek before placing him further up the bed.

Alerted, Rachel moved to get up, but Daniel was too quick for her, his hand circling her wrist and pulling gently until he had hauled her across the small gap separating them, then enclosing her in the warm strength of his arms.

It’s not fair! she thought piteously as her insides dipped and dived with a need to immerse herself in the comfort he was offering her. Her chest became tight, then began to throb with the need to weep, and she let free a constricted gulp in an effort to stop the flood.

‘Don’t,’ he murmured unsteadily.

It had been the wrong thing to say, because the instant he showed her tenderness her control went haywire and she was sobbing deeply into his shoulder. He tightened his arms around her, and lowered his head on to hers. ‘Sorry,’ he kept saying, over and over. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry…’

But it wasn’t enough, was it? It would never be enough. He had killed everything. Love, faith, trust, respect—all gone, and sorry would never bring them back to life again.

‘I’m all right now,’ she mumbled, making the monumental effort to pull herself together and draw away from him.

But his hold tightened. ‘I know I’ve hurt you unbearably, Rachel,’ he murmured, trying to keep a rein on his own distress. She could feel the tension in his chest, in the erratic thump of his heart. ‘But don’t make any rash decisions while you’re in such an…’ Emotional state, she guessed he was going to say, but he stopped himself. ‘We have everything going for us if you’ll just give it another chance. Don’t throw it all away because of one stupid mistake on my part. You can’t throw it all away!’ he insisted thickly.

‘I didn’t do the throwing away,’ she countered, and this time, when she pulled, he let her go, his eyes dark and bleak as he watched her get up from the bed to begin moving around the room searching out fresh clothes, an electric current of suppressed emotion following her as she went from wardrobe to drawers then back again without really being aware of what she was choosing to wear.

All those years of blind trust she had given him, years of quiet understanding and acceptance of his deep personal need to achieve his ambitions. Through all those years she had stayed at home like some pampered pet dog and, so long as he gave her frequent pats of affection, fed the few basic needs she had, like food to eat and water to drink and the occasional trip out in the evening, she had been quite content with her lot.

What a pathetic creature you are! she jeered at herself now. What an utter bore!

Michael let out a wail, and they both started. He wanted his breakfast, and the playful game he had been having with himself had now turned into a demand for some attention.

Rachel stood hovering in the middle of the room, with her clean clothes clutched in her hands while her bemused mind grappled with the problem of what she should do next. Get dressed first or see to Michael first. A simple choice, but she couldn’t seem to make it.

It was, in the end, Daniel who lifted the baby into his arms and walked towards the bedroom door. ‘I’ll see to him,’ he said. ‘Take your time. It’s still quite early.’ He let himself out, and Rachel literally sagged beneath the strain of it all.

Breakfast was awful. She seemed intent on flying off the handle at the slightest provocation: from Kate for talking too much, Sam for not putting enough milk on his Weetabix so the biscuits congealed in his dish like two cement bricks which he proceeded to hack at with zeal. She put too much coffee in the filter bag so that it tasted so bitter it was barely drinkable. In the end, angry with herself for over-reacting to everything, frustrated with her inability to cope with her own distraught emotions, she turned on Sam, remembering that he had left his computer out the ni

ght before with his selection of games spread all over the floor. By the time she’d finished Sam was stiff and pale, Kate was appalled, Michael silenced and Daniel…Well, Daniel just looked grim. The rest of the morning routine went off in total silence. The children looking openly relieved when Daniel eventually sent them off to their rooms to collect their school things.

‘There was absolutely no reason for you to let fly at Sam like that!’ Daniel gritted as soon as there was only Michael left to listen. ‘You know as well as I do that he’s usually the tidiest one of us all! You’ll have all three of them a bag of nerves if you don’t watch out,’ he warned. ‘They’re good kids. Well-behaved kids for most of the time. I won’t let you take it out on them because you’re angry with me!’

She whirled on him. ‘And since when are you around enough to know how they behave?’ she threw at him, seeing to her deep and bitter satisfaction that he stiffened as the thrust went home. ‘You see them at breakfast, but only from behind your precious Financial Times! You don’t even know you have three children most of the time! Y-You love them like you 1-love that…Lowry painting you bought—when you remember you’ve got them, that is. So don’t…don’t you dare start telling me how to bring up my children when as a father you’re damned useless!’

What was happening to her? she wondered as she took a jerky step back and Daniel lurched angrily to his feet, glowering at her across the kitchen table and looking fit to hit her. I’m cracking up! she realised dizzily. I’m going to shatter into a million tiny pieces and I don’t know if I can stop it!