The Faithful Wife

‘You work too hard,’ she chided when she eventually drove them from the airport car park. He looked exhausted. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘Nothing that a few days of your home cooking and tender ministrations won’t cure!’ For a moment the teasing, sultry note was back in his voice, the slow smile he turned on her wiping the exhaustion from his face for a fleeting fraction of time.

Bella bit down on her lower lip, and concentrated fiercely on her driving. Now wasn’t the right time to tell him she wouldn’t be around. She could hardly let Guy down at this early stage of their renewed relationship.

Questions about his latest business trip elicited perfunctory answers, but the gist was that it had been highly satisfactory so she stopped asking and told herself he had obviously worked himself to a near standstill. She enquired instead, ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Ravenous.’

‘Then we’ll find a restaurant; I’m low on provisions. OK?’

‘Fine. Somewhere low-key. Food, then bed. With you. Those are my priorities.’

Something in his voice told her that food came a very definite second on his list of two. Her whole body quivered. Their lovemaking was always spectacular, but his first night home after an absence that often stretched to weeks was sublime.

Without thinking—although later she was to wonder if it had been an unconscious wish to push the truth under his nose—she chose the small Italian restaurant in Canning Town where Guy had given her lunch and put his proposition to her. He often ate there, mostly in the evenings. His wife was again on a protracted visit to her parents, and as head of a thriving advertising agency he worked his socks off and couldn’t face having to make himself a meal.

Not smart, the tiny restaurant was warm and friendly, the aroma of cooking appetising. They chose simply—pasta with spicy vegetables and a carafe of gutsy red wine.

Jake ate as if he were starving, as if he needed the wholesome, hot food, and the light was back in his eyes as he took her hand across the table and told her, ‘I’ve missed you, Bel. Know something? You get more beautiful every time I see you. And know something else? I think I’ve made a decision—’

‘Ah—the lovely Bella!’ Whatever Jake had been about to tell her was cut short by the theatrical emergence of the proprietor from the kitchen. Carlo, Guy had introduced him over lunch that day. He had shiny black hair and a very big smile, and a tea-towel tied around his ample waist, tucked into his trousers at the back.

‘You come again! My good friend Guy brings often new customers—people who want no frills, just good Italian food, home cooked. I tell him he has good taste—especially in his choice of so beautiful a companion!’

Bella felt something happen to her spine. Something like an army of ants scurrying up and down wearing needles of ice on their feet! Big on friendliness Carlo might be, but he was lamentably short on tact. He was seemingly oblivious to the black hostility in Jake’s eyes as he beamingly asked, ‘Is everything OK? Dolce, maybe?’

‘Nothing.’ Jake’s reply was terse, his eyes hard as when they were alone again, he turned them on Bella’s suddenly white face, raking them over her features as if he was trying to read what was going on in her mind. ‘You come here often? You and Maclaine?’

‘No, of course not.’ The Italian had made it sound that way, but she’d only been here that one time. She twisted her napkin in her fingers. She was going to have to tell him now, and he wouldn’t be pleased! In the past, whenever she’d mentioned Guy’s name, Jake had changed the subject. He must have guessed, or heard, something about their former relationship. He was very possessive. ‘I had lunch here with him. Once.’

It was then, precisely then, that he withdrew from her—quite possibly from their marriage. It was the beginning of the end, although she didn’t know that then. She saw suspicion in his eyes, and did her best to counter it.

‘I need to do something with my life, Jake. Can’t you see that? Guy’s offered me work; I’ve taken it.’

‘Is that what you call it?’

Was he referring to her former modelling career? She knew he’d been happy when she’d given it up. As he’d said at the time, only half-jokingly, she suspected, he didn’t like every Tom, Dick and Harry lusting after his much photographed wife.

Or did he mean something much darker?

‘Jake, listen—’ Her voice shook with the intensity of her need to make him hear her out, understand. ‘This job, it’s—’

‘Leave it.’ He was slapping banknotes down to cover the bill. ‘If you want to work, go ahead. I wouldn’t dream of asking you not to. If being my wife isn’t “doing something with your life” then who am I to argue?’

He sounded indifferent.

He slept in the spare room that night, exhaustion his thin excuse. And over the following months he spent even more time away, and, when home with her, carefully avoided any mention of her job. And she, in turn, closed in on herself. Lack of communication became almost an art form...

Now the aroma of fresh coffee teased her nostrils as she walked through the kitchen. She ignored it, just as she made herself ignore the weakening effects of the past traumatic hours.

She’d used every last bit of her former expertise when she’d made herself up to match the clothes Evie’s skulduggery had forced her to wear, carefully hiding her pallor and the lines of strain around her eyes. She needed confidence, control; she couldn’t emerge from this nightmare with her self-respect intact without both held firmly in her hands.

She could hear him moving around in the living room. She took a deep breath, forced a serene expression and walked through.

Her eyes immediately went to him, lingering, drinking him in, as if her brain had no say in the matter. Changed into loose black denims topped by a rib-hugging black cashmere sweater, he should have looked menacing, intimidating. But he didn’t. He looked heart-twistingly sexy.

She only had to look at him to experience the scorching, ravaging flames of desire, feel them wreaking their fiery onslaught through every tingling cell in her body. She dragged in a shuddery breath and prayed her inner turmoil didn’t show.