The Marriage Surrender

Her eyes fluttered open to discover that they had indeed come to a stop without her even noticing it The doors were open and Sandro was already strolling out onto a plush grey-carpeted corridor. He walked off, obviously expecting her to follow him. After having to peel herself away from the lift wall, she stepped out on decidedly shaky legs, feeling as if she were pulling a whole load of heavy old baggage along behind her.

He was waiting for her by a closed door, stiff-backed and angry. Smothering a heavy sigh, because this was all becoming so damned fraught—and she hadn’t even got to the reason she had come here!—Joanna forced herself to walk towards him.

One of his long brown hands was resting on the door handle. He didn’t so much as glance at her, yet still timed the moment he threw that door open so he instantly followed her into a big airy office where a very attractive blonde-haired woman of about Joanna’s own age sat behind a desk.

She glanced up as they came in and smiled expectantly at them. But to Joanna’s further dis

comfort Sandro ignored the look, not intending, it seemed, to introduce the two women.

And why should he? Joanna asked herself as she followed him across the room to another door. I won’t be here long enough for it to mean much, even if he did!

When he opened the door he stepped aside again, obviously expecting Joanna to precede him. On an inner frisson of awareness to his electric closeness, she hurriedly brushed past him.

His office was a surprise—nothing like what she would have expected of the Sandro she used to know, she observed as she came to a halt in the middle of the room. This ultra-modern example of smoked grey executive decor bore no resemblance to the rich, dark wood antiquity of his private homes.

The door closed behind her. Joanna quelled the urge to stiffen up warily.

‘Take off your coat,’ Sandro coolly commanded.

Coat? She spun on her heel to stare at him, a fresh frisson of alarm stinging along her spine. She didn’t want to remove her coat. She wasn’t intending staying here long enough for it to be necessary!

‘I—’

‘The coat, Joanna,’ he interrupted, and when she still didn’t make a move to do it herself he began walking towards her, with his intent so clear that her fingers snapped up to begin undoing the buttons. He grimaced, mocking the fact that it took only the suggestion that he might try to touch her again for her to do exactly what he had told her to do.

Angry with herself for being so damned obvious, and annoyed with him for knowing her as well as he did, she drew off the coat and draped it across a nearby chair while he, thank goodness, diverted towards the big pale polished cedar desk standing in front of a huge plate glass window.

Then he turned and did the worst thing he could do as far as she was concerned. He leaned his spare hips against the front of the desk, crossed his ankles, folded his arms across his wide chest, then proceeded to study her slowly, from her tensely curling toes, hidden inside plain black court shoes, to the top of her shining head.

She flushed, lowering her face and gripping tightly at the strap of her shoulder bag. He always did have this knack for completely discomposing her with a look, just as he was doing now—deliberately, she guessed. And she hated it. Hated what it made her feel inside.

But she had a suspicion that he knew that, too.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ he remarked finally. ‘That suit hangs on you like an old sack. If you lose any more weight you will simply fade away. Why have you lost so much weight?’ he demanded.

‘I’m sorry,’ she snapped. But surely he could work out why she had got so thin! It didn’t take much knowledge of the last devastating year she had just lived through to understand it.

‘Sorry—again, Joanna?’ he mocked. ‘I remember that being your favourite word before. It used to infuriate me then. It still does now,’ he added grimly.

Her chin lifted, blue eyes flashing him a glinting warning that the very short fuse to her temper was alight. ‘You said you were busy,’ she reminded him curtly.

He dipped his dark head in wry acknowledgment of both the short fuse and the reminder that his time was precious. This was something else Sandro could never resist—riling her too-ready temper. He had once told her that it was the only really healthy emotion she had in her. He was probably right. It was the only one she had ever shown him during their short, disastrous marriage, anyway.

There was a knock at the office door. Joanna jumped nervously. Sandro grimaced at her nervousness, then his secretary was entering the room, carrying a tray set with coffee things.

The tension in the room must have been stingingly obvious, because she glanced warily at her employer, then skittered her gaze over Joanna, before murmuring some incoherent apology as she hurried across the room to place the tray down on a glass-topped coffee table set between wo low leather sofas.

No one else moved. Sandro wouldn’t, Joanna couldn’t, and the silence gnawed in the air surrounding them all as the poor woman did what she had to do then turned to leave again with a brief, wary smile aimed somewhere between the two of them.

Joanna watched Sandro watch the intruder leave, watched him run his eyes over the woman from the top of her sleek blonde head to the slender heels of her black patent shoes. It was born in him to study women like that, Joanna was sure he wasn’t even aware that he did it, but God she hated it!

Beautiful, she seethed in jealous silence. Of course the woman had to be beautiful! Sandro would not accept anything less in a woman who worked within such close confines!

‘Grazi, Sonia,’ he murmured rather belatedly, just as ‘Sonia’ was about to walk through the door.

She sent him a glance and it spoke volumes. Sonia was offended that he had not introduced her to his wife. But Joanna was only relieved. She had no wish to be nice to his secretary when she was too busy trying to subdue a second bout of jealousy that was so strong it literally fizzed beneath the surface of her skin.

Did Sonia do more than his typing for him? Could she be the very discreet mistress?