"I'm sorry--' " And that makes it better? “He glared at her ruthlessly. "
Sex is the only real thing between a man and a woman and I'm going to prove that to you now. "
"No." Her voice was very soft.
"If we make love it will be just that on my side. Wolf, love. From almost the first day of meeting you I couldn't understand why I felt like I did. I fought it, I admit it. I felt I'd betrayed Matthew, let him down in the worst way possible because what I'd felt for him didn't even begin to compare with the emotions you called forth. I called it physical desire too." She stared at him, a touch of bitterness in her face now.
"But it is much, much more than that with me. I know you're incapable of loving a woman again, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I can't kill this feeling however much I try."
"You loved Matthew--' " Yes, I did. “She raised her chin slightly, unaware that her blouse was still open, her body revealed in all its softness, and that the gesture of brave confrontation _combined with the vulnerability her body presented hit him like a physical blow, causing his face to whiten.
"I loved him very much, but not in the way I love you. The love I had for him was undemanding, gentle. He'd always been there and I think we both misunderstood what we felt. He was an only child and so was I. Our love was more that of siblings, brother and sister, but neither of us realised it."
"You expect me to believe that?" he bit out harshly.
"No." She held his glance painfully.
"I don't suppose you'll believe anything I say."
"Dead right." His eyes narrowed on her face.
"Hell, you aren't worth this." His voice cracked and he turned on his heel in the same instant, flinging the chair aside with a viciousness that frightened her and banging the door behind him as he strode into the dark street.
It was some time before the stillness of the house reached her bruised, aching-senses, but then she rose slowly from the floor, her movements dull and sluggish and her face as white as a sheet. The tears had gone, burnt up in the fierce pain that had cauterised her mind so that all that was left was a numb, anaesthetising blankness.
She had told him, laid her heart bare before him, exposed her love in all its fragility, and he had ground it under his heel.
She locked the front door automatically, her limbs heavy and leaden and her mouth swollen and bruised with the evidence of his lovemaking, and climbed the stairs slowly, her movements automatic.
She had ruined everything, any chance they might have had. It was all her fault.
Mercifully sleep came immediately--a thick, empty blanket in which there was no feeling, no pulse, no life.
CHAPTER NINE
When Lydia awoke to the insistent ringing of the alarm the next morning the merciful covering had been lifted and the wound was exposed in all its raw agony. Somehow she got Hannah to nursery, returning home in a daze of pain and grief to an endless post-mortem that produced nothing but guilt and regret.
She had lied to him. She shut her eyes tightly in an agony of remorse.
Knowing that it was the one thing he wouldn't tolerate. And what a lie. She shook her head desperately against the sight of his face in those last few moments before he had left. There was nothing she could do, no way back. It was the ultimate betrayal.
The hours slipped by somehow; she was hardly aware of their passing although she forced herself to eat a sandwich and drink a cup of coffee at lunchtime.
She couldn't afford to indulge her misery at the cost of Hannah's peace of mind, and if she became ill it would only be her daughter who would suffer.
She paced endlessly up and down the small lounge after lunch. Tiger had made one or two tentative attempts to sit on her lap in the morning, but had now retired under the set tee for sanctuary, watching her carefully with big saucer-wide eyes, clearly thinking she had gone mad. She couldn't blame him.
She hadn't been reasoning like a sane woman lately. Why, oh, why hadn't she told _Wolf about Matthew long before this? There had been so many opportunities. She stifled a sob as she drove her fist into her mouth with a hard groan. And all this with Mike. He had obviously suspected she was in league with Anna's husband, at least initially. She should have given him a straightforward explanation after that very first incident, but she had been so horribly embarrassed it had been easier to push it to the back of her mind.
"Coward, coward, coward..." She looked out of the window bleakly. She wouldn't have thought a human heart could stand pain like this and not shatter.
Her mother phoned at two, her voice anxious.
"Lydia? Are you ill, darling? I phoned your office to see how Hannah liked her present, but there was another woman there. What's wrong?"
So he hadn't wasted any time ring securing her replacement. Her heart jerked and thudded painfully. He hadn't even waited to see if she would go back.
She clenched her teeth against the anguish. But of course he had known she wouldn't go back--how could she after the things they had said to each other?