The Millionaire's Christmas Wife

Their plates having been deposited in front of them with a flourish and offers of extra sauces refused, the waiter disappeared with a polite, ‘Enjoy your meal.’

Jay had chosen hot-smoked trout and chive tartlet but he was staring at it ferociously. Raising his eyes to hers, he growled, ‘I can’t believe you felt that way and didn’t tell me. How can you blame me for something I was unaware of?’

‘I didn’t blame you.’ It was true; she hadn’t. Not at the time anyway. It was only after Belinda it had really begun to rankle. ‘I’d probably have never mentioned it if you hadn’t suggested me coming back to live in the apartment.’

If it was possible his face darkened still more. ‘That makes it worse, not better. What else are you holding against me, for crying out loud?’

‘Now you’re being unreasonable.’

‘Me?’ He took several long gulps of wine as though he needed it. ‘You sit there and tell me you hated every minute in our home, something you hid pretty successfully while you lived there, I might add, and you object because I ask you what else you didn’t like? It’s a pretty fair question from where I’m standing.’

He was sitting, but Miriam didn’t feel it was the time to point that out.

‘I’m beginning to feel I never knew you,’ he said darkly after a moment or two.

It hurt. Determined not to let him see, Miriam stared at him steadily. ‘Then you’re experiencing a little of what I’ve felt since Christmas.’

He swore, softly and under his breath, but it was so unlike him Miriam knew he was really angry. Still, that was all to the good, wasn’t it? she asked herself silently. He would be more likely to accept her decision that she wanted a divorce if he didn’t want her any more.

Miserably she picked up her knife and fork and began to eat. If she had needed any further convincing that their marriage was well and truly over, tonight had provided it.

CHAPTER THREE

‘SO…’ Their empty plates had been whisked away some moments before and Jay was surveying her thoughtfully. ‘If you don’t want to come and live in the apartment, how about I join you in the bedsit?’

For a second Miriam thought he was joking. Then she looked full into the hard, handsome face and saw he wasn’t. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said firmly, colour flooding her face. The thought of the two of them in her tiny home—not to mention her sofa bed—was too intimate for words.

‘Why?’

‘It’s only big enough for one—they all are.’ Then she realised she was actually giving credence to his crazy suggestion by her answer. ‘But that’s beside the point,’ she added quickly. ‘I want a divorce, Jay. Not to live with you again.’

‘I know that.’ He took a long swallow of wine, watching her for a moment. ‘But I can make a divorce easy or difficult, and when I say difficult, I mean difficult. You know me, Miriam. I don’t make idle threats.’ The yellow-gold eyes had hardened, his mouth set uncompromisingly.

It would be emotional suicide to live with him again; she knew that with every fibre of her being. However difficult he made things, she couldn’t do it.

Whether Jay read her thoughts she didn’t know, but the next moment he drained his glass, pouring himsel

f another before he drawled, ‘OK, how about we meet halfway? You live in your place and I’ll live in mine—’ he caught himself, smiling wryly as he corrected ‘—ours, but we see each other in our spare time.’

Miriam thought this must be the weirdest conversation ever between two people in their situation. Although perhaps not, she realised in the next instant. There had been a case at work between a married couple who were divorcing but had agreed to share their house along with their new respective partners and six children. The whole lot had lived together in practically a commune set-up, with even one of the mother-in-laws squeezed into the house somewhere and two dogs and three cats.

Oh, what was she thinking of the McBrides for right now? she asked herself impatiently. Shock, most likely. Her mind was retreating because it couldn’t believe what it was being asked to consider. Pulling herself together, she tried to sound stern and assertive. ‘You know as well as I do that that’s ridiculous.’

‘Impossible, ridiculous…When did you become so negative, Miriam?’ Jay drawled mildly.

‘It’s not being negative, it’s plain common sense.’

‘You mean like wearing a vest in winter and eating up all your greens and being in bed by ten every night?’

‘No.’ Her soft voice sharpened. He was making her out to be as dull as ditch water. ‘There’s just no point to it; anyone can see that.’

‘I’m anyone and I can’t.’

Jay Carter wasn’t anyone, Miriam thought faintly. Whatever he was, and her opinion on that changed countless times a day, he most definitely was not just anyone. Her freckles were threatening to explode off her pink face as she said, ‘Jay, why are you doing this?’

‘I’ve told you. I don’t want a divorce. I’ve never taken the easy way out of anything and I don’t intend to start now. I can see there are cracks wide enough to drive a car down in what I thought was a perfect marriage, not least the fact my wife hates my guts and our home and probably everything else we had together, but I’m not prepared to wind things up without at least attempting to try and iron out the problems.’ He had leaned back in his chair as he’d been speaking, the lights overhead turning his black hair ebony-blue and his chiselled features as classically pure as a work of art.

As Miriam gazed at him the old feeling that had been with her almost from the first time they’d met and which had never completely gone away, not even after they were married, returned in a flood. How could a man who looked like Jay did, a man who had everything—wit, personality, wealth and a body to die for—want her? One of her friends, in the aftermath of the separation, had voiced what Miriam knew lots of people were thinking. She hadn’t meant to be anything other than helpful but her words had confirmed more than anything else how folk saw her and Jay. Angela had taken her hand and said softly, ‘Miriam, look at it this way: Jay’s…extraordinary, and if he comes home to you each night, does it really matter if he strays now and again? A man like him, well, you’ve got to expect it, haven’t you? And he did marry you.’