“I’m not living with Athene again!” she snapped in dismay.
An expression of icy derision tautened his strong, dark face. “Why would I take you there to live? You are no longer a teenager.”
Her head bent in comprehension. “You told her,” she muttered sickly.
“I told no one. But your sister…she was not so quiet. There were rumours,” he admitted tautly. “Unsubstantiated, but damaging.”
She refused to believe that Vickie had talked. But evidently word had somehow got out. Dear God, how humiliating that must have been for Alex! Lion of industry, betrayed by teenage wife.
“Naturally we will have our own home again,” he stressed drily. “When we first married, I rather innocently believed that you would be happier living with my family and free of the responsibilities of entertaining. I didn’t realise that my mother disliked you. It’s not always easy to see fault in someone close.”
“I did tell you.”
“Yes, I know you did, but until I witnessed her barely restrained pleasure at the failure of our marriage, I didn’t appreciate that you hadn’t been exaggerating.”
It was an admission of blame Alex would not have made four years ago, and it mollified her jangling emotions to some degree. She swallowed. “She…your family will be shocked by our remarriage.”
“I am head of my family,” he said with hauteur. “I will expect you and them to behave with civility and breeding when you meet again. I am answerable to nobody in my private life.”
He bent down, swept up the coat he had stripped from her and extended it to her. “It’s almost five. You will need time to dress for the party.”
She dug her arms stiffly into the sleeves, and was extraordinarily tempted to lean back into the strong, protective heat of him and weep for what she had done in the past and Alex’s inability to accept it. “You know…that night…” her tongue slid out to moisten her lips “…Vickie’s…”
His hands suddenly rested heavily on her tense shoulders.
“That man…we didn’t make love,” she whispered jerkily. “I know that. I don’t remember much, but I know that.”
Alex was intimidatingly silent, and then his breath escaped in a hiss. “It would be wiser if you didn’t mention that night again.”
She whirled round. But his embittered eyes made her bite back words of heated disagreement. Either he did not believe her, or she had surmised his feelings correctly. That she had got into the situation at all was sufficient for Alex.
“The car will be waiting for you,” he prompted her departure shortly. “I will see you later.”
The apartment had barely changed. It was all as she remembered, but for a couple of new paintings and a change of décor in the drawing-room. Umberto, Alex’s manservant, might have seen her only the day before. He betrayed neither welcome nor surprise as he politely showed her through to one of the guest-rooms. He opened the wardrobe to display the selection of clothes hanging there. Matching accessories sat on the shelves, and several lingerie boxes reposed untouched on the bed. Alex’s efficiency surprised her not at all. For Alex, such gestures were easy. He simply had to lift a phone.
She attempted again to phone her sister, who now lived in a flat in Chiswick which she had bought the previous year. This time, Vickie was home.
“Where the hell are you?” her sister demanded with unexpected shrillness. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours!”
“I’m in London, in Alex’s apartment.”
“You mean it’s true? It can’t be, you can’t be going back to him!” she argued. “You’ve got to be out of your mind after what he did to you!”
Kerry sighed. “Vickie, I…”
“I’ll come over.”
“No, don’t.” Kerry went on to explain about the party.
“I’ve got to see you!” Vickie flared. “You don’t understand…oh, God…” Her voice trailed away.
Her sister’s almost hysterical response to the news that she was returning to Alex surprised Kerry. Vickie very rarely lost control. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she promised. “Before I go home again.”
Vickie gave a curious laugh. “OK. I’ll stay home for you. Nothing earthshaking is likely to happen between tonight and tomorrow.”
Kerry came off the phone and went to examine the shimmering blue dress which Alex had mentioned. The light caught its glistening, iridescent folds. It was the sort of blatantly alluring gown which Alex would once have frowned upon. Pain snaked within her treacherously. Alex didn’t look on her as an innocent any more.
She dined in solitary state. It brought back unwelcome memories of too many other meals eaten alone with one eye to the clock. But this time she was not awaiting Alex with the feverish and resentful impatience of a teenager in love. She was afraid, terrifyingly afraid of the insanity that had taken hold of her in Alex’s arms, proving his point that she was ruled by her own physical responses. She had lied to herself all this time in telling herself that she hated him. It was her own self she hated for betraying him. In time, anyone could come to hate the reminder of a wrong. That was what Alex had become to her; an agonising reminder of that night and her own demeaning frailty.
She heard the thud of the front door while she was dressing. The gown was more daring than anything she had ever worn. The swell of her breasts rose seductively above the fitting fabric which hugged from beneath her arms to her hips. The colour was breathtaking against her hair. Picking up the toning bag and the high-collared jacket, she could linger in the bedroom no longer.
Alex entered the drawing-room a few minutes behind her. His eyes swept in rampant appraisal over her. “Take the jacket off. I want to see you.”
“No. Won’t we be late?” she said breathlessly. But she took it off to prevent Alex performing the task for her, and stood there feeling like a slave on the block.
Dark colour had risen to his hard cheekbones. He made no effort to hide his masculine appreciation.
“You really have grown up.”
The blaze of his sensual scrutiny made her shrug hastily back into the concealment of the jacket. He bit out a soft, grating laugh. “Surely not so shy? You’re almost twenty-four now.”
She was still a case of arrested development. She didn’t date. She had never taken another man to her bed. She had spent all this time suppressing an essential part of her womanhood, and presumed that that was why Alex’s hand on hers, even briefly, could send a shock of electrifying awareness through her. Frustration. That was all it was, and Alex was tormentingly familiar. She only had to look at him to recall the hard thrust of his all male body on hers, the feel of his satin damp skin beneath her caressing fingertips. Her complexion burnt up hotly, her pulses quickening. In bed there had never been distance between them. But there had been several women in Alex’s arms since she had last rested there. Accepting that cruel reality cooled her fluttering senses.
Despite the divorce, Kerry had never learnt to stop thinking of Alex as her husband. He had taken his revenge in full the first time she lifted a newspaper and saw a photo of him in a New York nightclub with a glamorous socialite clinging to him. She had been sick with jealousy, but she had not been entitled to the emotion. They had been divorced by then.
The party was a glittering crush which contained not a single familiar face. Alex kept one arm round her the whole time. They were the centre of attention, and Alex seemed content to be on display. When a well-known gossip columnist approached them, he smilingly announced their marital plans.
“What have you been doing since your divorce?” she asked Kerry bluntly. “You disappeared right off the social scene.”
Kerry tipped more champagne down her dry throat, an ignominious desire to giggle attacking her as Alex smoothly stepped in to speak for her, as he had done on several other occasions throughout the evening.
“My wife was living in the country.”
“Selling plates,” Kerry added brightly. “Atoning for my…” She coll
ided involuntarily with Alex’s dark eyes, and inwardly she collapsed like a pricked balloon. He made some witty remark, smoothing over her crazy outburst, and she studied the carpet, feeling like a child about to be put in the corner. Really, an ex-wife who had painted the town red would have been an intolerable threat to Alex’s idea of what was decent. Without even trying, she had done what would have pleased most, she acknowledged bitterly. She had lived like a nun.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Alex growled as the woman moved away. “And don’t drink any more. You’ve had enough. I’m surprised you can even touch alcohol after…”