The Ultimate Betrayal

‘A what?’ Daniel choked.

‘A mad bull,’ she repeated poutingly. ‘That’s what my teacher calls us when we charge around all over the place. “Mad bulls belong in fields,” she says.’ Kate gave a very good impression of her teacher’s firm voice. ‘Well, you charged around here yesterday, didn’t you? And see—’ she smiled one of her deliberately beguiling smiles, usually guaranteed to have her father eating out of her hand ‘—Mummy came back all safe and sound, just like I said she would!’

So at least one of her family thought her capable of looking after herself! Thanks, Kate, Rachel thought drily. ‘Eat your breakfast,’ was what she actually said. ‘As you all can see, I returned safe and sound, so let’s forget it, shall we?’

‘You can go to Birmingham if you want to,’ she told Daniel as soon as the children went off to collect their school things.

He was checking his briefcase, folding away his newspaper and placing it inside when she spoke. He paused, his long fingers stilling on the leather lid, then continued to close and lock the case.

He looked every bit the successful businessman this morning in his crisp white shirt and charcoal suit—suddenly very out of place in this homely kitchen with its mad clutter of family living. He would look just perfect in the breakfast-room of an elegant Georgian manor house, surrounded by rich mahogany furniture with the weak morning sunlight spilling in through a deep bay window. And it hit her suddenly that, while she had been standing still for the last seven years, Daniel had been growing further and further away.

‘It’s no longer necessary for me to go.’ He declined her offer coolly. ‘Jack Brice can handle things as well as I could.’

Then why wasn’t he going in the first place? she wanted to ask, but didn’t because the answer could only hinge upon Lydia.

‘Are you worried that I might walk out on you if you do go?’ she asked, with a genuine interest in his reply. Daniel cared for her and the children, she knew, but would it be that much of a tragedy if they were no longer a part of his life?

He spun away to go and stand by the kitchen window that overlooked the toy-cluttered rear garden, his hands lost in his trouser pockets. ‘Yes,’ he admitted grimly at last.

And Rachel was shocked by the overwhelming sense of relief she experienced at his answer—which in turn made her angry, because it only exposed her own weakness. ‘It isn’t my place to leave,’ she pointed out. ‘You must know that prerogative is all yours.’

‘Yes.’ His dark head dipped for a moment before he turned back to the table. He didn’t look at her, but made a play of checking his briefcase again. ‘I know that if I had a self-respecting bone left in my body, I would be shifting my stuff out of here and leaving you with some semblance of pride intact. But I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to break up what we have—had,’ he corrected grimly. ‘I know I have to prove myself to you again. I know it’s going to take time. But I won’t give in, Rachel.’ He looked at her at last, his eyes dark and determined. ‘You can throw what the hell you like at me, but it won

’t be me who will do the walking.’

‘I could slap a separation order on you,’ she hit out at him suddenly, aware that she was only doing it to hide her own weak fears. ‘Make you move out.’

Daniel frowned at her. ‘How the hell could you know about things like that?’ he demanded. He was wondering if she had already taken legal advice from somewhere. He didn’t really think her capable of it, but he wasn’t sure.

She liked to see him looking uncertain. It lifted her ego, so she just shrugged indifferently and said with heavy sarcasm, ‘I watch a lot of TV.’

‘And are you going to?’ he asked. ‘Begin the end of our marriage?’

He was clever; she had to give it him. With one blunt question he had neatly dropped the responsibility into her lap. ‘You began the deterioration of this marriage, Daniel,’ she threw back levelly. ‘But—no,’ she answered his question. ‘I’m not intending doing anything about the situation—just yet.’

‘Then why not now?’ he sighed out wearily, unhooking his jacket from the back of the chair and shrugging it on. Rachel watched him, saw the flash of gold on his left hand, put there all those millions of years ago. It was nothing but a slender band of gold, very plain, very cheap. They had not been able to afford anything better. She had a matching one of her own—and an engagement ring bought for her several years after they were married and finances were beginning to get a little easier. It was just a single diamond solitaire, small but neat on her slender finger.

He had told her he loved her then, she recalled. ‘I love you, Rachel,’ he’d said as he slid the little ring on her finger. ‘Without you and the twins, all the hard work would have no meaning.’

But he was wrong. Without them, Daniel would be twice the success he was today; she was sure of it.

He was studying her now with that shuttered look while he waited for her to answer his question. She found his eyes, and held on to them for a moment before dropping her gaze to her cup. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered honestly. ‘But I think I want to see you bleed.’

Surprisingly, he smiled, a hand going to his neck where the evidence of her attack last night just showed above the collar of his shirt. ‘I thought you’d already done that,’ he said ruefully.

‘Not enough,’ she said, flushing slightly despite her determination not to apologise for that particular attack.

‘Ah,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Ah.’

‘So I am about to enter a period of—retribution.’ He smiled again, then bent to drop a kiss on top of Michael’s golden head. ‘So be it,’ he said, and strode arrogantly from the room, leaving Rachel feeling ever so slightly—flattened.

But, oddly, it didn’t quite work like that. Instead of meeting him with a cold face and a biting tongue, she found herself avoiding anything that could even hint at trouble. And over the next few weeks they seemed to slip into a weird kind of limbo, as though their marriage had fallen into a coma—a period where they were being given time to recover a little before having to face the future for what it was to be.

She did not go back to sleeping in Michael’s room. But she didn’t know why she went back to sleeping with Daniel. Neither did she refuse him when he would reach for her in the dark silences their nights had become. But even though they shared a kind of loving, it never quite managed to reach any real level of satisfaction for either of them, she guessed. She would go with him, move with him, and travel that long sensual path towards fulfilment—want to travel it! But suddenly she would see herself in her mind’s eye, entwined and pulsing with desire in his arms, feel his body trembling against her own, his breath just soft gasps of sensual urgency against her sensitised flesh—then see Lydia in her place, Lydia in his arms, Lydia driving him to the same state of mindless passion. And she would pull frantically away from him, halting their loving as effectively as switching off the power that drove them.

Then she would lie, curled up and away from him, shivering her distress in lonely torment while Daniel would lie beside her, an arm covering his face, knowing, even though they never spoke about it—never tried to resume making love—that Lydia had come between them as surely as if she’d crawled into the bed with them. The hurt and betrayal, the cruel twist of jealousy would all rush back to flay her, and Rachel could not bear him so much as to touch her. And Daniel never tried.