‘As you can see, your concern was unnecessary. I am in good health.’
Celine Duroux gave an exaggerated shiver. ‘Don’t be so cold with me,’ she complained.
‘Am I being cold?’ Roel was playing for time.
The brunette pouted and sent him a provocative look through her eyelashes. The calculated artificiality that seemed to accompany her every word and gesture grated on him.
‘OK…’ she sighed. ‘I know I shouldn’t have come here because you think your mistress should be ultra-ultra discreet. But it isn’t the nineteenth century any more.’
Not by so much as a flicker of expression did Roel reveal the shock she had just dealt him. A four-letter exclamation that was a curse and a word he never utilised lit up like neon inside his brain. Finally he understood what had rocked Umberto’s fabled nerves of steel. Celine Duroux was his mistress and sufficiently confident to visit his home even though she had to be aware that he was a married man.
Unhappily his mistress’s attitude said a lot about what had to have been his own attitude towards his wife. It crossed Roel’s mind that that four-letter word he had mentally applied to the situation might also be reasonably applied to his own character prior to the car crash. It did not take great genius to work out why his marriage appeared to have been under strain or why his wife had informed him that he paid her little attention: he was having an affair.
‘I still think that it would have been wiser if you had resisted the urge to call here,’ Roel countered. ‘As you have, however, it’s only fair to tell you that I believe our relationship has run its course and must now end.’
While Celine surveyed him in angry surprise, Roel concluded that speech with conventional regrets. He knew he did not sound convincing, but then his sole motivation at that point was to get Celine out of the house before Hilary was slapped in the face by the sight of her. He was not accustomed to finding himself in the wrong and he was furious at the revelation that his personal life was a mess. Celine had referred to his failure to show up for an appointment with her only yesterday. So, there was no doubt about it: he had been unfaithful to his wife. No wonder he had sensed so much tension in their relationship!
Did Hilary know about Celine? Of course she knew there was another woman! That had to be why their marriage had not been consummated. Had Hilary refused to sleep with him while he was still keeping a mistress? Doubtless warned by Dr Lerther not to give her husband any disturbing information, Hilary had told him nothing that might trouble him. Had it not been for her inability to hide her distress and confusion after they had shared a bed, he would undoubtedly have concluded that she was still a virgin only because they were newly married.
Instead he had been confronted by a far less pleasant explanation and guilt was a new experience for Roel. In fact as a Sabatino male he was used to holding the moral high ground. Sabatino men prided themselves on their sense of honour. It was their undeserving wives who had in recent generations proven their unworthiness with greed, promiscuity and moral weakness. But Hilary already seemed rather an improvement on the women chosen by his forebears, he acknowledged, his wide sensual mouth compressing.
He remained silent while Celine endeavoured to tease him into changing his mind before sharply accusing him of being cruelly insensitive. He said nothing. She would be richly compensated for the sudden termination of their arrangement. Without his encouragement the scene could not escalate and, outraged by her failure to have a discernible effect on him, Celine finally stalked past him and out into the hall.
Having gathered her courage to go off in search of Roel because she was worried that he had vanished from his bedroom when everything she had ever heard about men had led her to expect him to fall asleep after sex, Hilary was just in time to see Celine Duroux crossing the hall below. Hilary fell still on the upper landing and stared at the stranger with her tumbling mane of chestnut hair, dazzlingly lovely face and legs that looked as long to Hilary as her own entire body.
She watched the brunette depart and wondered who on earth she was. Had she been visiting Roel? Could she have been a girlfriend? For goodness’ sake, why had it not occ
urred to her that Roel might be involved with someone? Overtaken by anxiety and unease, she hurried back to her own room and went to bed. Her last waking thought before exhaustion claimed her was that if Roel had had another woman in his life, his aunt would scarcely have contacted her in London.
Ten minutes later, Roel gazed down at his sleeping wife. Her lashes were clogged together as though she had been crying. The conscience he had not known he had until that moment slashed at him. He was such a bastard. There was nothing new in his awareness of that fact. Even as a teenager he had not wasted much time or thought on women. He had never loved and he had always left them. But this woman was in a class of her own because he had married her and made her unhappy. Her bitten nails spoke for her and she deserved better. She had not mentioned Celine. That was sensible; he would not raise that issue either. Some things were better left buried. In any case, as of tonight his wife was very much his wife and they would proceed from that point…As Hilary wakened she stretched and the unfamiliar intimate ache between her thighs shot her back to full awareness faster than anything else could have done.
She looked at her watch in dismay for it was afternoon. Uneasy dreams had given her a disturbed night and she had slept late. Scrambling out of bed, she flung herself into the activity of getting up but all the time her mind was betraying her. She was remembering how Roel had looked while he was making love to her: his black hair damp, beautiful dark knowing eyes savage in their intensity. She quivered. Just thinking about Roel made her go weak at the knees. His outer shield of ruthless cool concealed a hot and passionate temperament.
But her biggest thrill had been the simple joy of being able to pretend that Roel was her guy. Ridiculous as it was, that had been her dream come true. The night before she had been overwhelmed by guilt at having slept with Roel. She had always been a very honest and straightforward person. Unfortunately circumstances had made it impossible for her to be honest with Roel. But now as she flung back the curtains on the clear bright light of day she decided that she had been over-tired and too hard on herself.
So…she had made love with Roel. While that had been a very big deal on her terms she doubted very much that he attached similar importance to the act of sex. He was very rich and very good-looking and whether she liked it or not he had to be very experienced with women. She might be his wife but he had had no memory of her whatsoever. Yet he had still taken her into his bed and had wasted no time in satisfying his high sex drive with her. To be frank, though, she had no complaints on that score. In fact, she reflected with guilty amusement, she might even be at risk of fawning on him like a willing slave girl in the hope that he would feel free to repeat what for her had been an extraordinarily pleasurable event.
Did she have the soul of a slut? No, she was still madly in love with him and she could not imagine ever sharing something so personal and intimate with anyone other than Roel. Why shouldn’t she build up a few harmless memories for the future? Long after he had again forgotten that she even existed, she would be living alone and sleeping alone because she would always prefer that to settling for second-best. And next to Roel, who was fiercely handsome and sexy, not to mention intelligent and strong, other men just shrank in stature. That was why she had never managed to fall back out of love again. A sound came from the bedroom and she turned away from the bathroom vanity with a lipstick still clutched in her hand.
‘Oh…it’s you,’ she muttered unsteadily when she saw her husband lodged in the doorway.
‘Dormiglione…sleepyhead,’ Roel said huskily.
Her attention glued to his lean powerful face and her heartbeat went haywire.
‘You don’t need this stuff.’ Roel bestowed a frowning look of reproof on the sizeable collection of cosmetics scattered on the counter. ‘Get rid of it.’
His domineering streak had come to her rescue. Turning back to the mirror, Hilary tilted back her head to paint her lips with a defiant hand. ‘I like make-up.’
‘But you must know that I don’t,’ Roel informed her in a tone that hinted at his amazement that she should be wielding a cosmetic wand in his vicinity.
‘Well, it’s good that you have a free choice not to wear make-up,’ she pointed out.
‘Don’t be facetious. I dislike anything false.’
Hilary glossed her lips with a raspberry tint and gave him a forgiving grin. ‘You’re an amazing guy…you’re just so controlling and spoilt—’
‘Spoilt?’ Roel repeated with an edge of disconcerted rawness.