She had a couple of glasses of wine to bolster her courage. By the time she had finished perfuming and preening herself in the bathroom, she was feeling wanton, daring, and the very last thing on her mind was Nicky’s next feed. She even disconnected the baby alarm. Then, slipping on the satin peignoir that matched her slinky nightgown, she went off to find Alex.
He was on the phone in the room he used as an office, his back to the door, and he was laughing, so he didn’t hear the door opening.
‘Yes, Elise. But...it would be a little awkward if you came here... Yes, I’m glad you understand the situation. The ice is very thin right now. Yes, I know it’s my own fault but do you really have to keep on reminding me?’ he groaned. ‘No, she still hasn’t mentioned it. Why not lunch tomorrow? No, not a restaurant, definitely not. We can use my apartment. No, of course it won’t make her suspicious...how could it? Sarah doesn’t even know I have an apartment in Paris...’
Her heart in her mouth, Sarah closed the door so quietly and so carefully that she felt as if she was moving in slow motion. She didn’t remember climbing the stairs again. The unfaithful husband...the devious bastard, attacking her when all the time he had another woman in his life. Of course, but what better form of defence than attack? It was pitifully obvious to her that Alex was planning a divorce, but only when he judged the time right. In the meantime, he was sneaking around with Elise.
In an agony of pain, Sarah threw herself on the bed. Nothing had ever hurt so badly. Shock was coasting through her in waves. Why had Alex continued to sleep with her? Or was it only tonight that he had made his decision that their marriage was a hopeless charade? Vivien would have suggested strategy. The only strategy that Sarah could envisage was killing Alex on the grounds that, if she couldn’t have him, Elise couldn’t have him either.
Yes, Alex had been right. The ice was very thin right now, just the merest skim of frosting on emotions that were frighteningly primitive.
CHAPTER TEN
‘DAMON and Androula will be coming to the party,’ Alex announced, watching her intently with veiled eyes.
‘Yes.’ Sarah had no reaction. She was convinced that she was really dead and that he was breakfasting with a corpse. He could have told her the sky was green and the grass was pink and she would have agreed. All she could think about was Alex’s lunchtime engagement, the knowledge that her husband was about to embark on an adulterous affair and that she was doing absolutely nothing about it.
He hadn’t come to bed last night. He had slept elsewhere. At least he had that much decency, but her lower lip wobbled alarmingly. Why on earth was he still holding this party tomorrow? Why not make some excuse to cancel it? Why go to such enormous trouble and expense to launch socially a wife he had already decided to dump?
The post was delivered on a silver tray. There was a letter for Sarah with a London postmark. It was from a solicitor’s firm and it related to...Callie’s will. Callie’s will? Her sister had had a will drawn up? It was news to Sarah. Why should Callie have had a will drawn up when she had no assets to leave? Sarah read on and began to pale.
Callie’s bank account currently held an amount of money exceeding a quarter of a million pounds and this amount was increasing as large monthly payments were still entering the account. As her sister had left everything to her, would she please get in touch concerning her wishes?
‘Something wrong?’ Alex murmured.
Sarah’s stomach had flipped. Numbly she slung the letter down the table at him and covered her face with unsteady hands. It had to be Damon’s money and he must have been paying from the start. Damon had not left Callie to sink or swim without financial support as Sarah had believed. Once more, Alex had been proved right and Callie had been proved a liar, at least by omission.
‘I would suggest the money be returned to source,’ Alex breathed coldly.
Whatever reaction Sarah had expected, it had not been that. ‘Source?’ she queried.
‘The legal proceedings by which we will become Nicky’s adoptive parents have already begun. I do not require my brother to support a child whom I intend to bring up as my own,’ Alex extended with flat emphasis.
‘I wasn’t thinking of that angle,’ Sarah muttered, surprised that he hadn’t picked up on the more basic point. ‘You too think that that money must be Damon’s but I didn’t even know it existed. Callie didn’t tell me and—’
‘Whose idea was it not to cash the cheque I had given her?’ Alex cut in.
‘Mine, but—’
‘Your sister had a little more financial wisdom than you, then,’ Alex responded ruefully. ‘She was thinking of the future. No doubt she thought you would object to her making use of the money, so she kept quiet about it.’
He was handling the evidence that his brother had done exactly what he had assumed he would have done with unexpected generosity. He wasn’t crowing. Somehow that was no comfort to Sarah.
‘The lies she told me...’ she whispered helplessly.
Alex sighed. ‘She lied because she loved you and cared about your opinion of her. But occasionally it can be a little trying to live with someone whose moral principles are set higher and more rigidly than your own...’
Sarah took that assurance very personally, relating it to their relationship rather than her dealings with her late sister. The blood drained from her cheeks. Did Alex find her hard to live with? Had Alex decided she was a narrow-minded prig, whose principles were set in unforgiving stone? Was that how Alex saw her and was that why Alex was turning back to Elise, convinced that there was no hope for their marriage?
‘As unyielding as a brick wall,’ he had called her. And hadn’t she been behaving that way? The way she treated Alex did stem from one basic inner conviction...that if he didn’t love her he shouldn’t be making love to her. In a marriage currently at its last gasp, she had been maintaining unsustainable and unrealistic standards. Was it any wonder that Alex was on the brink of straying?
On the brink—that meant it wasn’t too late. It wasn’t too late to prove that she could be everything he could want within marriage, was it? But to prove that point would mean ditching not only her personal insecurities but also her pride. Could she do it? Could she turn herself into the sort of woman Alex would desire and need to the exclusion of all others? With only hours in which to achieve that miracle, she understood that she would be struggling to fulfil a pretty tall order and that it was going to take a pretty hefty demonstration to convince Alex that she could change...
Hooded dark eyes were studying her, a faint frown-line formed between his winged brows. He had spoken and she hadn’t heard him. ‘I said,’ Alex drawled, and then, meeting her far-away eyes, his mouth suddenly tightened. He rose abruptly from behind the table. ‘Forget what I said. I’ll see you at dinner.’
Before Sarah could retrieve her wits and her tongue, Alex was gone. Suddenly galvanised into motion by panic, she pelted after him, but he wasn’t on his own. He was striding out of the door with his pilot on his heels. Desperate as Sarah was, she could not quite bring herself to proposition her husband sexually in front of an audience.
And then he really was gone, the door thudding shut on her hopes and her dreams and her marriage, she reflected melodramatically. Alex was off to put in a few hours at the office before succumbing to Elise’s wiles. Olive Oil, she had called her! Talk about seriously underestimating the opposition! Elise might not have slept with Alex before he’d got married but evidently, in her eagerness to extract him from his marriage, she was prepared to get her hair mussed now.