Bond of Hatred

‘Alex...I got us into this. Yesterday I was furious with you,’ she admitted with difficulty and some understatement. ‘But I shouldn’t have been and I see that now. If you want to run around with a lot of women, that’s your business, because we’re not really married, not in the strictest sense of the word.’ She paused, disturbed by the dull coins of colour rising over his taut cheekbones. ‘Neither one of us went through that ceremony meaning what we said.’

‘I did not make love to any of those women,’ Alex said harshly, and reached for her hands again with unhidden anger. ‘Have you ever heard of the concept of a second chance? Here I am practically on my knees begging for that chance and you sit there like a little stone Buddha being bloody forgiving but as unyielding as a brick wall!’

Shattered by the attack, Sarah watched him spring upright and stride across the room, aggression in every line of his long, lithe body. Was it true that he hadn’t made love to another woman since their marriage? None of those women, he had said. He might not have been to Athens but he was in Paris practically every damned day! His anger had astonished her. She realised that he was deadly serious about staying married for Nicky’s benefit and frustrated by her lack of response.

‘I can go and get laid anywhere I want, any time!’ Alex threw up two expressive hands, shooting her a look of such volatile fury that she paled. ‘Dios...my father would have killed to marry a woman like you! But if you tell me one more time that I can screw around, I’ll strangle you! Do you hear me? How can I feel married if you do not set standards for me to live up to?’

So much passion, so much fire. It fascinated her, lay at the very heart of his attraction for her. Until Alex had come into her life, she had never succumbed to any excess of emotion. She had been quiet and calm and always very, very sensible. Alex had knocked her sideways and then reached inside her to inspire an unholy passion quite beyond her control.

‘You told me your standards on our wedding night,’ she reminded him gently.

‘But you are not the woman I thought you were then. You confused me,’ Alex said with natural arrogance. ‘If this marriage is to have a hope of success, certain standards must naturally be observed. I know what I am talking about.’

‘Really?’

Alex’s sensual mouth compressed. ‘My father’s relationship with Vivien was a living hell for the first few years. Infidelity breeds distrust and insecurity. Even when he had abandoned his extra-marital forays, Vivien was suspicious. They loved each other very much but that bad beginning undermined their whole marriage. Because she did not trust him, she played games...’

Keeping him on his toes, Vivien had called it.

‘I could kill her for bringing those games into our marriage,’ Alex confessed abrasively and then, seeing Sarah’s alarm, he sighed. ‘She has to be told and it is my place to do it but I will try to be kind about it.’

‘She knows about Nicky...about Damon and Callie,’ Sarah dropped tautly, awaiting the storm.

Alex froze, frowned, then suddenly shrugged. ‘What the hell? Let Andy and Damon deal with the fallout.’

Sarah was amazed by his attitude.

‘Our marriage is more important and I suppose it was inevitable that Vivien would find out,’ he said dismissively.

Sarah knew she was staying now, knew she had been protesting the inevitable once Alex had made it clear that he wanted her to stay. So they would make another, more meaningful attempt at being married for Nicky’s sake. Could she live with that? Her world would revolve around Alex and Nicky but she would only be a tiny part of Alex’s world, she reflected painfully. The wife he would make the best of, not the wife he would have chosen, not the wife that he loved.

She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll stay if you want me to.’

‘At least until Nicky is eighteen,’ Alex told her smoothly.

The qualification so casually stated turned her stomach over sickly. Careless words that bit and hurt because they underlined Alex’s emotional detachment. ‘I’d like to get dressed.’ Standing up, she gave him a small, tight smile.

‘Why don’t we take Nicky out somewhere together...like a real family?’ Alex suggested abruptly.

* * *

It had been a gorgeous day. He had taken them to the town of Chinon and they’d played tourist, wandering the medieval streets in the sunlight, lunching in a superb restaurant and talking as they had never talked before. It had been curiously like being on a first date, Sarah reflected sleepily in the car on the way home. Alex had been very restrained, excruciatingly polite and considerate, and Nicky had risen magnificently to the occasion of his first family outing by dutifully eating, napping and bestowing fat smiles on them both.

Sarah went to bed at ten. Alex had disappeared into the library after a phone call. She was half asleep when he slid into bed beside her. She stole a glance at him, her heart leaping wildly behind her breastbone. He reached for her simultaneously, incandescent golden eyes literally defying her to object.

She didn’t want him to touch her and he knew it. Shivering, she closed her eyes, hiding her pain and disillusionment, and knew that this was the price, this was the bottom line if she wanted to hang on to him. Alex needed sex the way she needed air to breathe. Fidelity meant that he now had to satisfy those needs in the marital bed.

She was just a body, and if anything had been required to prove that point his silence did so. In this new brave relationship, lies were no longer permissible, so Alex was not about to tell her how ravishingly irresistible she was. She was fanciable enough to arouse him but that was the height of her pulling power and, with a male as physical as Alex, maybe it didn’

t even take that much...maybe he just fantasised about somebody else. A choked sob escaped her.

He thrust her away from him with positive violence. Her eyes flew open as he threw back the sheet and sprang out of bed.

‘Alex...you misunderstood!’

He spun back, dealing her an incredulous glance.

‘I was thinking about something else... It wasn’t—I mean...’ she stumbled in desperation, knowing that the whole future he had offered her was in the balance. The tip of her tongue stole out and darted along her taut lower lip. ‘I want you,’ she whispered finally.