The Millionaire's Christmas Wife

‘I’d always be waiting for a real Belinda to come along.’

It didn’t make sense but Clara understood anyway. ‘But if he loves you like he says he does, he wouldn’t stray.’

‘My father said he loved my mother—he swept her off her feet, in fact. She thought the world revolved around him and when he left her she never really recovered. I…I don’t want to be like that, Clara.’

Clara was silent for some thirty seconds, a long time for Clara. Springing up, she fetched the biscuit barrel from the kitchen area and dug out a chocolate digestive. Her mouth full of biscuit, she mumbled, ‘I know I’ve only met your mother once, and that wasn’t exactly the hit of the century, but she didn’t strike me as the sort of woman to wait forever for a low life like your father.’

Miriam delved in the barrel. ‘Well, she did.’

‘Are you sure? I mean, have you ever discussed how she felt with her?’

‘I didn’t have to; I was there, remember?’

‘You were a child.’ Clara reached for another digestive. ‘People see things differently as a child.’

Miriam shrugged. ‘I know how it was, Clara.’ Purposely changing the subject, she said, ‘I didn’t like to call on you earlier in case Brian was there. How did things go?’

Clara said, almost apologetically, ‘Great, thanks.’

‘Hey, just because Jay and I have got problems it doesn’t mean I’m not thrilled for you and I want to hear every detail, all right? I mean it. Start at the beginning when you let him in.’

Clara started at the beginning and finished at the end and by the time she left it was close on midnight. Once snuggled down in bed, however, Miriam found she couldn’t sleep. Now her mind had fully emerged from the numb state of shock she found she couldn’t turn her thoughts off and they all featured Jay. His golden eyes, his sexy smile, the strong planes and angles of his handsome face, and his body…the broad expanse of hair-roughened chest, his lean muscled stomach, sinewy limbs and powerful arousal. She shivered. She could almost smell the scent of him on her skin, the places where Jay had kissed and caressed and nibbled.

At three o’clock she gave up all thoughts of sleep and after wrapping the duvet around her went and sat by the window. It had stopped snowing and the night was clear and sparklingly new, the rooftops virgin white and the odd light or two in the distance giving a Christmas-card magic to the view.

She’d thought she was all cried out but the lump in her throat indicated otherwise. Jay was probably in Germany now, in some hotel room fast asleep before an early start in the morning. She had always relished the moments she could look at him to her heart’s content when he was asleep. He had always appeared more boyish then, his thick eyelashes curling onto his cheekbones and his firm, faintly stern mouth relaxed. But very masculine. And beautiful. Virile. Dangerous.

She made a sound deep in her throat, a hundred and one conflicting emotions tearing at her. She was a mess, she acknowledged bitterly. And she didn’t know how to begin to unravel the tangle in her mind.

Gradually the peace and tranquility of the scene outside worked like a soothing balm on her overwrought nerves, her eyelids becoming heavy. She must have dozed for a while, sitting upright cocooned in the duvet, because suddenly it was six in the morning and she knew exactly what she was going to do. Something Clara had said had obviously permeated her subconscious while she slept. She needed to go and see her mother and ask her about her father.

Extracting herself from the duvet, she made a pot of tea, returning to her tiny table and chairs and drinking three cups, looking out at the pink-tinted sky where the first rays of dawn were breaking through. Soon the whole expanse was streaked with faint dusky pink, mother-of-pearl and deep charcoal, the white world beneath reflecting light.

She didn’t really know what good it would do to talk to her mother, Miriam reflected as she washed up the tea things, or even if her mother would want to discuss the man who had hurt her so badly. But she had to try. And it would have to be when George was at work.

She phoned her mother at eight o’clock once she was washed and dressed and had put the bedsit to rights.

‘Hello, darling.’ Anne’s voice reflected pleasure at the unexpected call, which made Miriam feel immediately guilty. ‘I was only saying to George last night I hadn’t heard from you for a day or two.’

More than a day or two. Miriam took the gentle rebuke without commenting. Instead she said, ‘I thought I might call and see you this morning if you’re not doing anything? We could have lunch somewhere.’

‘You’re not at work?’

‘No.’

‘You’re ill?’

‘I haven’t been feeling too good for a couple of days.’ That was at least the truth. She had never felt so hopelessly bereft and miserable in her life.

‘I’ll come to you and bring lunch if you’re feeling poorly.’

The thought of her mother sitting in the bedsit and inwardly criticising it every moment was too much. Even when Anne wasn’t verbalising comparisons with Jay’s luxurious apartment, her face said plenty. ‘No, it would do me good to get out. I’ll come about eleven if that’s OK and we can have coffee first.’

Her mother’s ‘All right’ was reluctant.

Two minutes later the mobile rang, just after Miriam had finished t

he call to her boss to tell him she needed another day off. Her conscience had led her to confess the problem was a ‘domestic difficulty’ rather than physical illness and she would be happy to take the two days as holiday entitlement if he wished. He’d told her not to be so silly, wished her well and said he’d see her the following day.