A Vow of Obligation (Marriage by Command 3)

‘Has someone died? My gran—?’

‘Merde alors … no, it is nothing of that nature!’ Navarre hastened to assure her.

Tawny breathed again, slow and deep, striving to remain calm when all she really wanted to do was scream and be hysterical and childish because she had never wanted bad news less, and now she feared that he was about to tell her something or confess something that would destroy her and their marriage. If nobody had died or got hurt, what else was there?

‘I saw Tia while I was over in London. She took a hotel room and I visited her there. Yesterday an English tabloid newspaper published an account of the fact that we were in that hotel suite alone together for more than an hour and printed photos of us entering and leaving the hotel separately.’

Tawny drew her body up so stiff with her muscles pulled so tight that she stretched at least an inch above he

r normal height. ‘You went to an hotel with her … you’re admitting that?’

‘I won’t lie to you about it.’

‘You know a normal man would be rendezvousing with his secretary or a colleague between five and seven in the evening for clandestine sex before he comes home to his wife. That’s the norm for a mistress—you’re not supposed to be shagging a world-famous film star!’ Tawny condemned shakily, throwing words in a wild staccato burst while nausea pooled in her stomach because she immediately grasped the appalling fact that his confession meant that all her worst fears were actually true. She felt as if she had woken up inside a nightmare and did not know what to say or do. She hovered on the priceless Aubusson rug, swallowed alive by her anguish.

Navarre was watching every flicker cross her highly expressive face and he too had lost colour below his bronzed complexion. ‘Tia is not and has never been my mistress. We’re friends and we lunched in her suite in private, that’s all,’ Navarre declared, shifting an emphatic hand to stress that point. ‘The paparazzi never leave her alone. Her every move is recorded by cameras. She has to be very careful of her reputation because of her marriage and her career, which is the only reason why we usually meet up in secret—’

‘Never mind her. What about your marriage?’ Tawny asked him baldly, wondering if he could seriously be expecting her to swallow such an unlikely story. Lunch and no sex? What sort of an idiot did he think she was?

A hasty rat-a-tat-tat sounded on the bedroom door and, with a bitten-off curse that betrayed just how worked up he was as well, Navarre strode past her to answer it. Hearing Gaspard’s voice, Tawny rested a hand on a corner of the bed and slowly, carefully sank her weak body down on the comfortable mattress. Her legs felt like wet noodles and she felt dizzy and sick. It was nerves and fear, of course, she told herself impatiently. She wasn’t about to faint or throw up like some silly Victorian maiden. Her husband had slept with Tia Castelli. In fact he obviously slept with the actress on a very regular basis, for by the sound of it their meeting arrangements seemed to be set in quite a cosy little routine. That suggested that their private encounters had been taking place for at least a couple of years.

Navarre closed the door and raked long restive fingers through his short black hair. Momentarily he closed his eyes as he was struggling to muster his resources.

‘What did Gaspard want?’

Navarre expelled his breath in a hiss and shot her a veiled glance. ‘To tell me that Tia has arrived—’

‘Here? She’s here?’ Tawny exclaimed in utter disbelief.

‘We’ll talk downstairs and settle this for once and all,’ Navarre pronounced grimly. ‘I’m sorry I’ve involved you in this mess—’

‘Tia will be even sorrier if I get my hands on her,’ Tawny slammed back strickenly. ‘How on earth could she come here? What sort of a woman would do that?’

‘Think about it,’ Navarre urged tautly. ‘Only a woman who is not my lover would come to the home I share with my wife—’

‘That might be true of most women, but not necessarily when the woman concerned is a drama queen like Tia Castelli! I’ll get dressed and come down … but don’t you dare go near her without me there!’ Tawny warned him fierily while she dug frantically through drawers and wardrobes to gather up an outfit to take into the bathroom.

He’s having an affair and his lover has got the brass neck to come to the home he shares with his pregnant wife, she thought in shock and horror. Yet last night they had been so close, so happy together. How could she have been prepared for such a development? In a daze she pulled on her jeans and a loose silk geometric print top. She couldn’t even try to compete with an international star in the looks department.

He had belonged to Tia first, Tawny reasoned wretchedly, only choosing to marry Tawny because she was pregnant and possibly because he had wanted to make his own life away from Tia’s. After all, Tia was married as well. And she could have forgiven him for the affair if he had broken off his liaison with the blonde beauty to concentrate on his marriage instead. But he had not done that. Indeed Navarre appeared to believe that he could somehow have both of them in his life. Did he aspire to enjoying both a mistress and a wife?

‘What is she doing here in France?’ Tawny pressed Navarre on the way downstairs.

‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ Navarre forecast flatly.

A very large set of ornate pale blue leather cases sat in the hall and Tawny was aghast at that less than subtle message. Tia had not only come to visit but also, it seemed, to stay. Tia, sheathed in a black form-fitting dress that hugged her curves, broke into a tumbling flood of Italian as soon as Navarre and Tawny entered the drawing room.

‘Speak in English, please,’ Navarre urged the overwrought woman. ‘Let us be calm.’

Tawny dealt him a pained appraisal. ‘Only a man would suggest that in this situation.’

‘Luke’s thrown me out—he won’t listen to anything I say!’ Tia cried in English and she threw herself at Navarre like a homing pigeon. ‘What am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do now?’

Standing there as superfluous as a third wheel on a bicycle and being totally ignored, Tawny ground her teeth together. ‘Well, you can’t stay here,’ she told Tia loudly, reckoning that it would take a raised voice to penetrate the blonde’s shell of self-interest.

Slowly, Tia lifted her golden head from Navarre’s chest and focused incredulous big blue eyes on Tawny. ‘Are you speaking to me?’

‘You’re not welcome under this roof,’ Tawny delivered with quiet dignity.