'What about us?'
'Us? There is no us.' He pulled her hand from his sleeve as if the contact offended him. 'As you pointed out, I'm a healthy man with needs and you were convenient.'
'It was more than that,' she protested. She couldn't let him reduce something that had been so fine and special to a sordid level.
'Believe that if it makes you feel better.' His amused contempt was like a slap in the face.
Ethan turned away abruptly; the sight of her bewildered, distressed face hurt too much. He couldn't let himself be sucked hi again. 'Did you enjoy your evening?' he rasped sarcastically. 'Was it business or pleasure, or just a convenient combination of both?'
'Ethan!' She had to try and get through to him one last time. The sight of his broad, uncommunicative back was eloquent enough to tell her that her efforts were wasted. 'You find it incredibly easy to believe badly of me,' she accused.
What he'd find 'incredibly easy' would be taking her in his arms and kissing her. He despised himself for wanting to. 'The facts speak for themselves.'
There speaks the lawyer, she thought with a sudden surge of anger. Why was he doing this? She'd never given him any cause to think she'd neglect the children, and yet he'd tried and sentenced her before she'd even said a word. Anger she could understand, but his reaction seemed out of proportion. When he wouldn't look at her, she moved so that he had to.
"Things aren't always what they seem,' she challenged.
'You're not. You want to go to university and you don't give a damn about how it affects anyone else! We've just been a convenient stepping-stone for you.'
She gasped at the sheer injustice of this. She'd spent most of the afternoon trying to work out how and when she could begin a course without disrupting their family life. 'It's all right for you to work all the hours God sends, but if I want to do anything it's selfish. Their mother worked, didn't she?' No woman could run a business and take part in sport at the sort of level Catherine had without a co-operative partner.
'We're not talking about Catherine!' he snarled.
Something in his expression made her wonder for a split second if that were entirely true. Had everything in the garden been as perfect as everyone told her? The notion was banished as quickly as it had come. She was just clinging to comforting straws, like any other soul going under for the final time.
'When my children need me, I'm here. After your behaviour today I'm surprised you can fling around a word like "selfish" without choking on it.'
'Well, I hope you choke on the truth when you finally realise what a fool you're being right now!' she cried, running from the room.
She paused on her way back to her own room to look in on the children. They were both asleep. Looking at Emma's sleeping face, she couldn't comprehend how anyone could put a child in danger. Ethan had been right—she might have wandered off. She was only a baby, after all. Hannah was tenderly stroking a lock of golden hair off the childish brow when some sixth sense told her she wasn't alone.
Ethan was standing in the doorway, watching her. Silently their eyes locked. Defiance was the only thing that kept Hannah's tears at bay. As she brushed past him she could smell the alcohol he'd obviously just swallowed, but she was helpless to prevent her response to his closeness, that warm rush that unfurled in the pit of her belly and the light, dizzy sensation in her head.
She closed the door quietly behind her. 'I see now that it was a mistake overstepping the boundaries of my job description. I take it you have no objections if I take the nanny's bedroom in the future. I'll move my things back tomorrow.'
He didn't object, but then she'd known he wouldn't. He'd made it quite clear that as far as he was concerned there was nothing special about what they had together.
CHAPTER EIGHT
emma was so excited she hadn't slept the night before. Hannah knew because she had shared the little girl's bedroom in the hotel suite.
'Yes, you look lovely,' Hannah said as she finally secured a blue ribbon in the silk locks. 'Bridesmaids don't bounce.' 'They don't?'
'No, they glide elegantly.' Hannah demonstrated, swaying her hips in a lazy, exaggerated fashion. 'Exactly like a princess.' 'Will we be going soon?'
'I hope so,' said Hannah with feeling. Getting the child to the church before the flowers in her hair curled up and died, or something indelible and probably noxious got spilt down the front of the pink satin, had taken on the aspect of a nightmare.
"The car is here. You look spec-tac-u-lar!' Ethan said, sweeping his daughter high into the air. Ethan didn't comment on his wife's outfit.
Hannah knew she was looking drawn; over the past six weeks she'd lost weight she couldn't afford to. The muted grey and blue striped silk suit didn't totally disguise this fact. 'Shall I get Tom down?'