Public Wife, Private Mistress

He tensed, obviously struggling with the knowledge that his own behaviour had contributed to the situation. 'It was a particularly busy time for me at work—'

'Was it?' Stasia's voice was soft and she looked at him curiously. 'I had no idea. I assumed that was nor­mal for you. I didn't know you well enough to know differently. I assumed that you really only wanted to spend your nights with me.'

He winced, visibly discomfitted by her accusation. 'Not true.'

'But that was what we had. Rico.' she said sadly. 'And I didn't help, I can see that now. Chiara wasn't responsible for the death of our marriage. We did that all by ourselves. By not spending time with each other. My days were lonely and I filled them with work. And, as I saw less and less of you, I became more and more convinced that you thought that our marriage was a mis­take.'

'So you worked because you thought you would need an income,' he said grimly. 'After what you revealed about your father when we were in Sicily, I finally un­derstand your need to feel financially independent. But you need to understand that I would never have left you without money, whatever the state of our relationship.'

'But I didn't want your money,' she croaked with a helpless shrug. 'I understand now why the drive to pro­vide for your family is so important to you but you have to understand that I never wanted your money. I didn't want it when I married you and I certainly didn't want it when we separated.'

He glanced round her cottage, a strange smile playing around his firm mouth. 'So I see.'

She stiffened defensively. 'I love it. I adore the English countryside.'

'My quarrel is not with the English countryside,' he drawled, a wry expression on his handsome face, 'but with the height of the ceilings in quaint cottages. This quaint cottage in particular. I would rather not have to walk round bent double. Which brings me to the other reason it has taken me two weeks to come after you.'

Her heart missed a beat. 'What other reason?'

He gave a frustrated sigh and muttered something under his breath. 'This meeting is not going at all the way I planned it.'

'How did you plan it?'

'I was going to come here, apologize, and you were going to forgive me. Then I was going to give you my present and we were going to live happily ever after.'

Happy ever after?

Another present. Hadn't he learned that it wasn't gifts that she wanted?

She stared at him in silence as she digested his words. She was still the same woman. And he was still the same man. Or was he? She frowned slightly. 'You were going to apologize? But you didn't know about Chiara—'

'I wasn't apologizing for that,' he muttered. 'I was apologizing for everything else. Now I don't know where to start. One apology obviously isn't going to cut it.'

She looked at him dubiously. 'Start with what you were going to say before I told you about Chiara.'

He looked at her for a moment and then let out a ragged breath. 'All right.' A muscle flickered in his bronzed cheek. 'But first you have to understand that you were just so different from all the women I'd ever met before.'

She bit her lip. 'I was too different—'

'Let me finish.' he growled, a muscle flickering in his lean jaw. 'Apologies are not my speciality and if I'm interrupted in mid flow I may get it wrong and I'm not sure I can do it twice.'

Despite the emotions churning inside her, she had to hide a smile. That was so like Rico. Always a perfec­tionist, even in the art of apology! 'Go on. then.'

'I loved the fact that you were different,' he con­fessed roughly, 'and I loved the fact that you were un­conventional. But then we married and I expected you to fit into my very conventional life. And I can see now that I chased away the woman that you were. It was like picking a wild flower and expecting it to thrive indoors. It is not surprising that you were unhappy. I was having an exceptionally stressful time at work and coming home too exhausted to do anything but fall into bed.'

A smile flickered in her eyes. 'You had the energy for some things—'

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nbsp; He didn't return the smile. 'I know that, and I still remember the things you said to me in Sicily. You were right when you said I treated you like a mistress. I did and I'm very ashamed of that fact, cara mia. I see now how you could have believed that. But you have to un­derstand that the women I'd known before you were perfectly happy to spend the day using my credit card and the evenings thanking me.' He gave a smile of self-mockery. 'I thought that you would be more than happy to be left to your own devices during the day.'

She smiled. 'Your credit card company must have loved me.'

'You spent nothing—'

She gave a self-conscious shrug. 'I've told you hun­dreds of times that it isn't your money that interests me. But I didn't know about your work. I didn't know you were so busy. And until that conversation we had in Sicily I never understood why it mattered to you so much.'

'No woman has ever shown the slightest interest in how I generate my capital.' he drawled, a wry expres­sion on his handsome face, 'so naturally I assumed you would be the same.'