The Unforgettable Husband

‘It was Raoul’s room!’ he threw back. ‘His bed you were both tangled upon! Look at the evidence, Samantha. How would you have responded if that had been me with another woman in there?’

‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head. ‘You are not going to divert the blame by shifting the argument. You were there. You saw. You drew your conclusion… I needed your help!’ she cried. ‘Instead I was called a whore!’

The truth cut deep; he went white. She was whiter. ‘It was spur of the moment.’ He defended himself. ‘I lost my head.’

She wasn’t impressed. ‘Raoul said you never knew whose bed I was in when you weren’t here,’ she told him tightly. ‘I didn’t believe him. But it was the truth, wasn’t it?’

‘No.’ He denied it, but he couldn’t look her straight in the eye as he did so because, damn himself to hell, he had suspected she might wonder what it would be like to make love with other men.

The downside of marrying a virgin and finding himself landed with a feisty, flirtatious witch for a wife was that he just hadn’t been able to trust her not to fly with her instincts and give those other guys a try.

‘You didn’t have to walk out of here the way you did.’ He heard himself grind out, and immediately acknowledged how weak that argument sounded.

Her eyes flicked green scorn at him. ‘What else did you expect?’ she asked. ‘You threw Raoul out, then you returned to cut me into little pieces before slamming o

ut yourself! I wasn’t hanging around here to see which brother decided to return first and finish what he’d started. So I got out.’ Her voice was shrill. ‘What sane woman wouldn’t?’

‘I went to the Bressingham,’ he explained. ‘Spent the night in your father’s old office getting drunk. Around dawn I had to finally admit that I had made a mess of the whole thing. So I came back here. You’d already packed and gone—so had Raoul.’

‘At which you drew your own conclusions,’ she inserted with a bitter little smile. ‘No wonder it took you a year to stumble over me.’

‘It wasn’t like that.’ He sighed. ‘I—’

‘I don’t want to know.’ Stiffly she turned back to the door.

‘Devon,’ he said, aware that he was clutching at straws now, to keep her here. ‘Why did you choose to go to Devon?’

‘Place of happy childhood memories,’ she mocked without turning. ‘We used to spend our holidays there. Staying at the Tremount Hotel, of all places,’ she added with heavy irony. ‘Which was probably why I felt so comfortable working there… Now you’ve bought it,’ she said, and her voice began to thicken. ‘Carla thinks you are wonderful and everyone is happy.’

‘Except for you,’ he responded gruffly.

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Except for me.’

‘But why not?’ he questioned frowningly. ‘I thought you would understand that I bought it for you.’

She turned her head at that. ‘Like you bought the Bressingham?’ she posed, then smiled a wretchedly bleak smile and turned away again, and this time he could see she intended to leave.

Frustration licked through him. They had resolved absolutely nothing. She hated him. He had no defence. If she left now, it would be over. He was as certain of that as he had ever been about anything.

‘Even a condemned man is allowed his moment to speak on his own behalf, cara…’

As he stood there, waiting to see what she would do, one of her hands fluttered up to touch her right temple. It was a gesture of uncertainty; already he had come to recognise it as such.

‘I just can’t stay here,’ she whispered unsteadily.

‘Fine,’ he said immediately. ‘Then we will go somewhere else.’

But the moment he began striding towards her she began to stiffen. ‘I want to be on my own,’ she murmured stubbornly.

‘No.’ The refusal was absolutely rock-solid. In any other situation he would have just taken hold of her and kissed her senseless, since he knew without a doubt that kissing was one sure way he could make her respond to him.

But that was just another scene they had played before, which now needed playing differently. So he sighed heavily and, ignoring her muttered protest, firmly turned her to face him.

‘Have you any idea how frail you look?’ he murmured gently. ‘Give yourself a break, Samantha. Give me one!’ he added. ‘One split-second swoon and you could be under the wheels of the nearest car out there. So I am asking you, please, to let me come with you…’

He wasn’t sure whether it was the please that did it, or the touch of his hands, or the way his eyes wanted to swallow her up whole. But something caused the wistful sigh of surrender.

‘Come if you want.’ She capitulated, then pulled out of his grasp.