Just One Last Night

le to believe that what had happened in the last hour was real.

He had had women before he’d met Melanie, and when he’d first seen her at a mutual friend’s wedding he’d thought all he wanted to do was possess her like the others, enjoy a no-strings affair for as long as it lasted. By the end of their first date he’d fallen deeply in love and found himself in a place he’d never been before. They had married three months later on her twenty-sixth birthday and taken a long honeymoon in the Caribbean, which had been a magical step out of time.

His body hardened as he remembered the nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms. For the first time he’d understood the difference between sex and making love, and he’d known he never wanted to be without this woman again for a moment of time.

They had returned to England where Melanie had spent the next little while giving his house in Kingston upon Thames a complete makeover to turn it into their home, rather than the very masculine bachelor residence he’d inhabited. She had given up her job working for a garden contractor when they’d got married; Melanie had wanted to try for a baby straight away and whatever she’d wanted was fine with him. He knew her history, the fact she’d never had a family home or people to call her own, and had understood how much she wanted her own children, little people who were a product of their love.

He frowned in the darkness, still studying her sleeping face. What he hadn’t understood, not then, was that her haste to start a family was motivated more by fear than anything else. She’d been like a deprived child in a sweet shop cramming its mouth with everything in sight because it was terrified it would soon find itself locked outside once again in the cold.

And then the miscarriage happened.

He groaned in his soul, shutting his eyes for a moment against the blackness of that time.

And everything had changed. Melanie had changed. He felt he’d lost his wife as well as his child that day. He hadn’t doubted at first that he would get through to her, loving her as he did, but as weeks and then months had gone by and the wall she’d erected between them had been impenetrable he’d begun to wonder. When he had returned home one night and found her gone—clothes, shoes, toiletries, every personal possession she had—and read the note she’d left stating she wanted a divorce, it almost hadn’t come as a surprise.

He had been so angry that night. Angry that she could leave him when he knew nothing on earth could have made him leave her. And bereft, desperate, frantic with fear for her.

Melanie stirred slightly before curling even closer, her head on his chest and her hair fanning her face. His arms tightened round her; she seemed so small, so fragile, so young, but in part that was deceptive. She had walked away from him and made a new life for herself over the last months, managing perfectly well without him. Whereas he… He had been merely existing.

He hadn’t expected this tonight. Hell, the understatement of the year, he thought wryly. Would she regret it in the morning? His chin nuzzled the silk of her hair. He’d have to make damn sure she didn’t, he told himself grimly. He had told her, in one of their furious rows after she had first left him when she had been staying with friends, that he would never let her go, and he meant it. But he’d also seen then that she was at the end of her tether, mentally, physically and emotionally. So he’d drawn back, given her space. But enough was enough. Tonight had proved she still wanted him physically however she felt about their marriage, and that was a start.

He lay perfectly still in the darkness while Melanie slept, the acutely intelligent and astute mind that had taken him from relative obscurity to fabulous wealth in just a few short years dissecting every word, every gesture, every embrace, every kiss they’d shared. When the sky began to lighten outside the window he was still awake, only finally drifting off after the birds had finished the dawn chorus, Melanie still held close to his heart.

CHAPTER THREE

THE sun was well and truly up when Melanie’s eyes eased open after the first solid night’s sleep she’d had since leaving Forde. She had slept so deeply that for a moment she was only semiconscious, and then memories of the previous night slammed into her mind at the same time as she became aware that she was curled into the source of her contentment.

Forde.

Frozen with horror, she stiffened, petrified Forde would open his eyes, but the steady measured vibration beneath her cheek didn’t pause, and after a moment she cautiously raised her head. He was fast asleep.

She disentangled herself slowly, pausing to look into his face. Her gaze took in the familiar planes and hollows, made much more boyish in slumber; the straight nose, high cheekbones, crooked mouth with its hint of sensuality even in repose, and the dark stubble on his chin. A very determined chin. Like the man himself.

How could she have been so unbelievably stupid as to sleep with him again? Her breath caught in her throat as her stomach twisted. And it was no good blaming the wine. She had wanted him last night; she had ached and yearned for him since the time they’d parted, more to the point.

But she didn’t need him, she told herself stonily. She had proved that; she had lived without him for seven months, hadn’t she? And she was getting by.

She had barely survived losing Matthew. She had wanted nothing more than to die, the grief and guilt crucifying. She didn’t ever want to be in a place where something like that could happen again. She wouldn’t be in such a place.

She slid carefully out of bed, the trembling that had started in the pit of her stomach spreading to her limbs. She had to get out of the house before Forde woke up. It was cowardly and mean and selfish, but she had to. She loved him too much to let him hope they could make a go of their marriage. It was over, dead, burnt into ashes with no chance of being resurrected. It had died the moment she’d begun to fall down those stairs.

But he would be hoping, a little voice in the back of her mind reminded her relentlessly as she gathered her clothes together as silently as a mouse. Of course he would. As mixed messages went, this one was the pièce de résistance.

Once in the kitchen she dressed swiftly, scared any moment there would be movement from upstairs. Then she wrote him a note, hating herself for the cruelty but knowing if she faced him this morning she would dissolve in floods of tears and the whole sorry mess would just escalate.

Forde, I don’t know how to put this except that I’m more sorry than I can say for behaving the way I did last night. It was all me, I know that, and it was inexcusable.

Melanie paused, her stomach in a giant knot as she considered her next words. But there was no kind way to say it.

I can’t do the together thing any more and that’s nothing to do with you as a person. Again, it’s all me, but it’s only fair to tell you my mind is made up about the divorce. I’ll still do the work for Isabelle if you want me to. Ring me about it tonight. But no more visits. That’s the first condition.

Again she hesitated. How did you finish a note like this? Especially after what they’d shared the night before.

Tears were burning at the backs of her eyes but she blinked them away determinedly. Then she wrote simply:

I hope at some time in the future you can forgive me. Nell

She owed him the intimacy of the nickname at least, she thought wretchedly, feeling lower than anything that might crawl out from under a stone. He had been attempting to comfort her last night when they’d first come into the house, and she had practically begged him to make love to her. She had instigated it all; she knew that.