He ignored her. “He’s always been your dreamboat, hasn’t he?” He sneered. “I don’t think you realized how often you dropped his name. My God, seven, eight years after high school, who the hell remembers their teachers? But not you. ‘Mr. Chapman this,’ and ‘Mr. Chapman that.’ I only thought you were enthralled because he had gone to Washington. Now I know better, don’t I? With his seedy reputation, I’d think your adolescent infatuation with him would be crushed. Or does what he did to that girl in Washington only make him more dashing?”

She wasn’t going to defend Grant to this buffoon. Turning her back on him, she walked to the door and opened it. “Don’t bother to come see me again, Daryl. Good-bye.”

He strode across the room and slammed the door shut. Grabbing her shoulders, he shook her roughly. “Are you sleeping with him?”

“Yes,” she emphasized, looking up at him triumphantly. “And loving every minute of it.”

“You bitch,” he lashed out, and Shelley knew she’d hurt him in the worst possible way. She’d punctured the ego that had needed deflating for years. He couldn’t take it. “Do you know what a laughingstock you’re making of yourself? Do you?” He shook her harder, but she never flinched.

“I’m making a laughingstock of you, Daryl, and that’s what has got you upset. What did your friend do? Go back to the city and tell everyone that your pale, shy wife didn’t look so pale and shy any longer? Did he tell everyone that she doesn’t need you after all? That she’s happier every hour of her life without you than you made her in five years? If so, he’s right.”

“Shut up,” he shouted. “I don’t give a damn what you do with your life, but I care how you affect mine. I’ve made a name for myself. I’m going to marry the chief of staff’s daughter. Can you imagine what a match like that can mean to my career? But if word of your sleazy affair with your professor gets out, it could send all my career plans to hell in a handbasket. You’ll stop this ridiculous affair immediately. At least until I’m married again.”

She laughed up at him, making him all the madder. “Your name, your marriage, your career. Do you think I care about any of that?”

“You never did!”

“Oh yes, I did.” She ground out the words. “I cared enough to work long, hard hours to support us while you finished medical school. I cared enough to do research for you and type your tedious, endless papers. But when you graduated third in your class, it wasn’t me you thanked with a vacation or even a night out. You went on a three-day trip to Mexico with two of your classmates.”

“I deserved a rest.”

“So did I!”

“So the little stunt you’re pulling now is to get back at me for all the injustices I heaped on you, is that it?”

She shook her head in incredulity. “Your ego never ceases to amaze me,” she said laughing. “I wouldn’t waste such precious energy on you. You can become the most famous doctor in the world, or you can rot in hell for all I care, Daryl Robins. You excised me from your life and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He leaned down closer to her. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me, too. To think that I gave up my freedom to marry an iceberg like you. You played a gruesome joke on me, honey. Making me want you so much I married you, only to find out you’re made of stone. I’ll bet your professor was in for a shock, wasn’t he? Or were you kind enough to warn him that making it with you is about as exciting as making it with a corpse?”

She paled, struck by his degrading words. But before she could form a comeback, he was yanked away from her and plastered to the wall. Grant’s forearm was like an iron bar across Daryl’s neck.

Bare-chested, having taken only enough time to pull on his jeans, he was barbarously fearsome. His hair fell over his forehead with primitive disregard for convention. Unshaven, his jaw looked even more determined. His eyes blazed into Daryl’s face with pagan blood lust. “If you ever talk to her that way again, I’ll wreak havoc on that pretty smile you put such great stock in,” he growled.

Daryl swallowed nervously. Unsuccessfully, he tried bravado. “So you’d add assault and battery to all your other crimes.”

Grant laughed, though there was no mirth in his smoldering eyes. “Say what you want about me. Insult me if it makes you feel better. Believe me, I’ve been bombarded by many bigger and better than you, Robins. You can’t touch me. But I could easily kill you for talking to Shelley that way.”

“What I said is true,” Daryl squeaked out.

“What you said is trash. I wouldn’t insult Shelley by giving you the details of our lovemaking, but I assure you it’s the highest experience I’ve ever had in my li

fe. And while you’re lying in the cold sterile bed of your convenient marriage, I want you to think about all you’re missing, all you threw away because of your monumental, misplaced self-esteem.”

A warm glow burned inside Shelley, but it wasn’t embarrassment over Grant’s words; it was gratitude and love. She didn’t even see Daryl’s darting look in her direction. He looked at her with a new interest, but she only had eyes for Grant.

“Then you’re going to continue your shoddy little affair?” Daryl asked on a deprecating note.

“No,” Grant said softly.

Shelley’s bubble of love burst and her eyes widened in alarm. Without lessening his hold on Daryl, Grant turned his head toward her. “No affair. We’re going to be married.”

Her lips parted in surprise but she didn’t utter a sound. Daryl, too, was rendered speechless as Grant turned back to him.

“And I’m smarter than you are, Robins. I’ll love her the way you were too stupid to. I respect her intelligence and ambition. Her career will be just as important as my own. The marriage will be a partnership. I’ll make her forget the days she spent as your muddy doormat.”

With one last threatening look, Grant released him. “Get out of here. You’ve spoiled our morning all you’re going to.”

Daryl almost slumped to the floor with relief. Recovering quickly, he straightened his coat and cast a disdainful glance at Shelley. “Congratulations,” he said with cocky assurance. Then he made the mistake of turning his back on Grant.

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