For a moment they both stared at each other, connected by the unique intensity of the experience that they’d shared.
No other man would ever make her feel like this, she thought dreamily as she stared up at him, still holding his arms for support. No other man.
And then he reached forward, straightened her dress and rescued Jake’s jacket, which had fallen to the ground.
He placed it gently round her shoulders, his dark gaze lingering on her face with brooding intensity.
And she waited.
Waited to hear him say the words she was longing to hear. I love you.
Surely he was going to say it any moment now. After what they’d just shared, how could he say anything else? What other words would possibly be appropriate in this situation?
Everything was going to be all right.
This was going to be a new beginning for them.
He grasped the lapels of the jacket and hauled her against him, moulding her against his lean, powerful frame with a strength that made her gasp.
‘You’re mine,’ he groaned, burying his face in her neck and trailing burning kisses over her bare skin. ‘Mine and no other man’s.’
Rigid with pent-up emotions and expecting an entirely different declaration, Christy froze. ‘I’m sorry?’ Her voice croaky, she pulled away from him, a warnin
g flash in her eyes. Had she heard him correctly? ‘Say that again?’
‘We belong together—and I won’t give you a divorce.’
Deciding that this wasn’t the time to point out that she’d never actually asked him for a divorce, Christy felt all the soft feelings melt away. ‘Is that was this was all about? You make love to me for the first time in more than two months and you do it as a gesture of possession?’
Immediately on the defensive, Alessandro’s dark eyes narrowed warily. ‘Of course not…’
But suddenly Christy was able to see the whole picture with an uncomfortable degree of clarity. ‘Until Jake kissed me, you didn’t lay a finger on me. You did it because he kissed me.’
He tensed. ‘I’m allowed to make love to my wife.’
‘I’ve been lying half-naked next to you in bed for the past week,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘and you haven’t laid a finger on me. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Jake was the reason you just ripped my clothes off in a public place in below freezing weather conditions. Permit me to tell you that I find your romantic streak less than impressive.’
‘I just made love to you.’
‘No, Alessandro,’ she snapped, her delicate chin jerking upwards and her eyes flashing with anger. ‘You just had sex with me. Sex, designed to stake your claim and wipe all thoughts of other men from my mind.’
A muscle worked in his lean jaw and his eyes gleamed dark as he lifted his head in an arrogant gesture. ‘And it worked—tell me you can feel that with any other man and I will know you’re lying.’
Goaded beyond reason, she lifted a hand and slapped him hard.
‘You may be a brilliant doctor, Alessandro Garcia,’ she choked, ‘but you’re a tactless, thoughtless, possessive ba—’ She stopped herself before she could say the word she wanted to say, her upbringing preventing her from giving voice to a word that she’d never before had reason to use.
It was bad enough that she’d hit him when she’d never before struck anyone or anything.
If she’d needed the evidence that he didn’t love her, she had it now, she thought miserably as she turned and stumbled down the path that led out of the maze
He didn’t love her but he didn’t want any other man to have her.
And she couldn’t see a future for their marriage.
* * *
Simmering with barely contained frustration, and cursing the inconsistencies of the female sex, Alessandro strode out of the maze after Christy, only to see her long, gorgeous legs folding into the back of a taxi, which promptly disappeared down the snowy drive.