Savage Obsession

Beth pushed herself away from the sink and straightened her shoulders. She refused to think about it any more. She had enough to do to keep herself calm. Telling Charles that she wanted that divorce was going to require a single-minded strength of purpose she only hoped she possessed.

She had a meal to produce and she would con­centrate on that, but even so the steaks she had found in the fridge were only just beginning to sizzle when Charles came down and she shot him a quick, questioning look—which told her nothing about his mood, about anything, except that he had showered, changed into a black cotton sleeveless T-shirt and hip-hugging denims.

'Anything I can do to help?' he offered blandly.

She made her voice crisp and did her best to look extremely efficient as she bustled about, spreading the breakfast bar with the checked cloth, setting out the bread and the salad, telling him, 'No, not really. Thanks,' meaning that the only thing he could do for her was give her permanent amnesia, make her forget that she had ever met him, ever loved him.

'In that case, I'll open the wine.' Toneless. Polite. She wondered frenziedly when he would ask for her decision, then mentally slammed that enervating thought out of existence. He would ask when he was ready and in the meantime there was some­thing she could do for him. One last thing.

She turned the steaks and took the glass of red wine he held out to her, drank it down in two long swallows and immediately felt better. Dutch courage was better than no courage at all, she informed herself sagely as she reached into the wall cupboard for the mustard and marmalade.

'Templeton's lavish hand with the champagne must have given you a taste for the bottle,' he said drily. 'The most I've ever seen you put back before is half a glass, and you've made that last all evening.'

Nevertheless, he refilled her glass and she ig­nored that taunt about the Pol Roger he must have noticed when he'd walked into William's home and dragged her out. It wasn't important. What she had to say to him was.

Forking the steaks on to two plates, she carried them over, sucked in her breath and told him, not quite meeting his eyes, 'What you said earlier—about feeling guilty. You mustn't. What happened wasn't your fault. No one could have avoided that accident.'

She did look at him then because the silence was so long, burdened with tension, and when her green eyes locked with his narrowed grey gaze she turned her head quickly because what she had seen was compassion, pity. She couldn't handle that.

And he said huskily, 'You were so happy until then. I knew how badly you wanted that child. How could I not have felt the burden of guilt? It was like a ton weight.' He seated himself beside her and reached for her, tilting her small chin between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, forcing her to meet the shadowed power of his eyes. 'And I was right, wasn't I? It was something you couldn't spring back from. Your jealousy of Harry cut me like a knife. During that weekend I watched you freeze, die a little more inside. You can't imagine what it did to me. Culpability isn't easy to live with.'

Culpability. A draining word, defeating them, slicing through the tenuous bonds there had once been between them. Little wonder he had shut her out of his life, had sought out the warmth and vi­brancy of the woman he had been unable to stop loving. And discovering she had borne him a son had only fuelled his obsession.

Compressing her lips, she twisted her head away and picked up her cutlery. Jealous of young Harry she had been, but only because the little charmer was his son. His and Zanna's. Not for the reasons he had manufactured in his head. She didn't know how he could be so blind, so insensitive to her feelings.

On the other hand, she knew very well, she thought drearily as she cut into her meat, suddenly and inexplicably ravenous. Even during their most intimate moments he had never pretended he loved her. And, because of that, she had never been able to confess how she felt. Protestations of love on her part would only have embarrassed him, made him feel trapped by the weight of it. And increased her own sense of vulnerability, which had been ter­rifying enough as it was.

And nothing she had said, it seemed, had les­sened his unreasoning sense of guilt over the loss of their child. She didn't know how she could further help him over that hurdle, except by telling him that the consultant's dire prognosis had been unfounded, that she had, in fact, conceived again.

From the corner of her eye she saw him begin his own meal. He didn't seem to have much of an appetite. She sighed. She could help him to lose some of that sense of guilt, but she had no in­tention of doing so. Not yet. Perhaps not for a long time to come. Because for the first time in her life she was going to be utterly and completely selfish.

She was going to keep the fact of her pregnancy secret until she had sorted out a new life for herself and was better able to handle the future ramifica­tions of the visiting rights, the watchful interest he would insist on taking in his child. It would be ap­palling to have to meet him at regular intervals. The only way she could kill off her futile, hopeless love for him was to cut him completely out of her life, never see him again. If he knew about the coming child he would make that impossible.

'The steak's good.' She had to say something, didn't she? Something, anything, to break the aching silence. Any moment now he would ask for her decision. And she would give it. And that would, irrevocably, end the marri

age that had once been her whole existence.

But she wasn't going to think of that right now. Her metabolism was demanding sustenance and the meat was good, but needed something…

Her mouth watering, she reached for the mar­malade she had unconsciously put out and un­thinkingly spread it thickly over her steak, cut into it and popped a morsel into her mouth. Delicious.

And at her side Charles said tightly, 'You're pregnant.'

Beth swallowed convulsively, her face going scarlet. She felt as if she had been discovered doing something shameful. And unbidden, swift memory blazed across her mind.

Two months pregnant the last time. She and Charles dining out. Both choosing Chateaubriand. And then that sudden craving for, of all crazy things, marmalade on her meat…

The discreet hit of the waiter's eyebrows had, to give him his due, been hardly discernible. But Charles had lounged back in his chair, and even now, in memory, she could see the indulgent curve of his mouth, the warm pride in his eyes as he'd drawled amusedly, 'My wife is in what is politely known as an interesting condition, and has de­veloped a few outrageous eating habits.'

And she had glowed then, then and for the re­mainder of the evening, secure with him, so secure…

Her eyes winged up to his, her cheeks still stained with hectic colour, and she saw a blaze of some­thing she could only translate as that one closely shared memory in those narrowed grey depths, and she couldn't for the life of her, even attempt to lie to him.

'You've always blushed easily,' he said with soft irony, his shadowed eyes dropping from her warm, shell-shocked face, down over her rounded, thrusting breasts to her narrow little waist. 'When were you going to tell me? Or weren't you?'

'I—' Oh, lordy, how could she answer that? 'When I'd got used to the idea myself,' she tem­porised after a frantic search through her scrambled brain.

But all he said, his voice dark, was, 'I wonder.' He gave her a tight cynical smile before he got to his feet, removing her glass of wine. 'In your con­dition, you don't drink,' he told her in a hard, ac­cusatory tone. 'Eat. I'll make the coffee.'