‘I thought she was as devastated as I was by the way our marriage seemed to be falling apart, but she laughed in my face when I tried to talk to her about it. She told me that the only reason she’d married me in the first place was to get back at her married lover for refusing to leave his wife; that and the fact that I was rich enough to give her a comfortable lifestyle.
‘After she told me, I discovered that not only did I not desire her any more, but that it was physically impossible for me to be in the same room with her, never mind actually touch her.
‘Then I found out that she had started meeting her married lover again.
‘I could have divorced her, of course—I had the grounds—but my pride wouldn’t allow me to admit what a fool I’d made of myself, and it didn’t suit her to divorce me… Not then… However, all that changed when her lover
’s wife left him.
‘In order to keep everything quiet and discreet, I agreed to the large divorce settlement she demanded… My pride again.
‘She died three weeks after the divorce became final…with her lover…I felt guilty about that…the car he was driving had been paid for with the money she got out of me. I felt guilty but I resented her as well for burdening me with that guilt.
‘I didn’t love her, but I didn’t hate her. I did hate myself, though…I told myself I’d only got what I deserved for being such a fool. That if I’d been less idealistic and more honest with myself, I’d have realised what I felt for her was only desire instead of trying to glorify it…to change it into something it wasn’t. I was too proud to admit that I could be that much of a victim to such a basic human drive…that I didn’t have more self-control… I swore I’d never fall into the same trap again.
‘And then I saw you and there was nothing I could say or do that was strong enough to make me stop wanting you. I was unfair to you, Livvy, totally wrong about you…but please try to understand that was the only way I had of defending myself.’
‘Defending yourself? From what?’ she demanded.
He looked at her for a long time before saying slowly, ‘From loving you.’
‘From loving me?’ Livvy wondered if she was having some kind of hallucinatory fantasy. She blinked and then blinked again, but no, he was still there.
‘Stop lying to me, Robert,’ she protested huskily. ‘You don’t love me. You told me in France that you—’
‘I told you lots of things,’ he interrupted her quietly, ‘but those were only words. I thought I’d shown you just how shallow and meaningless those words were. I thought I’d shown you in my arms just how much you do mean to me…’
‘By having sex with me?’ Livvy tried to make her voice sound scornful, but it wobbled very betrayingly instead.
‘No. By making love with you,’ Robert corrected her. ‘Why did you leave like that, Livvy? Have you any idea how much what you did has tormented me…how much…?’
‘I heard you on the phone to George,’ Livvy told him grittily, lifting her chin. ‘I heard what you said to him about knowing how to get rid of me.’
Robert was staring at her. She had shocked him now, she recognised, but there was no triumph in the knowledge, only a dull, aching pain that told her how much she had wanted to believe what he had said to her…how much she had ached to believe that he cared about her.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she repeated. ‘You said to George that you knew how to get rid of me…’
‘Not you… Oh, my God, how could you think…? Livvy, Livvy, I was talking about Sandra… That day—my secretary had rung me at the farmhouse; she had strict instructions not to get in touch with me unless it was absolutely urgent.
‘Gale had rung her demanding to talk to me about George. I already knew from you how angry she was, and apparently Sandra had been trying to make contact with me as well. I had to speak to George but I couldn’t do so with you around, so I drove into town to use the fax machine there.
‘When I eventually managed to make contact with George, I discovered that he had come to his senses where Sandra was concerned, but that she was trying to blackmail him over some letters he’d written to her.
‘When you heard me speaking to George later, it was Sandra I was talking about. Not you.’
Livvy looked at him. She could see that he was telling her the truth.
‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that you did lie to me about who you were,’ she told him shakily. ‘You say you love me…but how can I believe that when—?’
‘I lied to you because I was afraid, Livvy. You see, I knew the moment I set eyes on you how vulnerable I was to you, and the last thing I wanted in my life was that kind of vulnerability. When my first marriage broke up, I swore I’d never allow myself to get involved like that again. I didn’t love Claire and it was my pride that was hurt more than my emotions when I discovered the truth about her. My pride that made me determined never to let another woman get close to me.
‘I tried to convince myself that you were like her…to deny what I knew was happening to me; and then, when that didn’t work, I told myself it was just sex. Even then, though, I knew it wasn’t true. If it had been…
‘Well, work it out for yourself. If it had just been sex, would I have tried so hard to get you to leave? I knew then, you see. I knew that moment I touched you…held you…
‘And then, when it did happen. I didn’t even bother trying to fight it…I wanted you too much…’
He had closed the space between them and was reaching out to take her in his arms. Held close against his body, breathing in the wonderful, precious male scent of him, Livvy felt her anger starting to melt away.