Elizabeth Power - A Passionate Affair

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ he growled, raking back his hair with an angry gesture which spoke volumes. ‘I came home after three days in Germany which had been pure hell to find you already packed and waiting to leave. You came at me all guns firing and accusing me of goodness knows what, and when I tried to make you see reason you walked out of the door. I followed you to your car to prevent you leaving and you slammed the door on my hand, breaking several bones in the process.’

‘That was an accident,’ she defended quickly. ‘I said so at the time, if you remember. I didn’t know you’d got your hand in the way of the door.’

‘It didn’t prevent you from driving off though, did it?’ he reminded her heatedly.

Marsha took a moment to compose herself. He was turning this all round, as though she was the one who had had an affair! ‘Hannah was there to take care of you—’

‘Damn Hannah,’ he said furiously, as though he hadn’t just accused her of being unfeeling. ‘I drove after you, if you remember, and do you recall what you said when we stopped at those traffic lights? If I didn’t stop following you, you’d drive into a wall. Tell me you didn’t mean that.’

She had meant it. She had been so desperate and hurt that night it would have been a relief not to have to think or feel ever again.

He nodded grimly. ‘Quite,’ he said, as though she had just confirmed what he’d said out loud. ‘So I let you go. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought I’d rather see you alive than dead.’

‘Call me old-fashioned, but I always thought there were two in a marriage, not three—or more.’

She saw a muscle in his cheek twitch at her direct hit, but his voice was suddenly much calmer when he said, ‘Tanya again.’

She ignored that, continuing, ‘And my point still remains the same. You did not contact me after that night.’

‘Not physically, maybe, but surely the letter counts for something?’

‘Letter?’ She hadn’t received a letter and she didn’t believe for one moment he had written one. Whatever game he was playing, she wasn’t going to fall for it.

‘Oh, come on, Fuzz,’ he said wearily. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t receive my letter.’

His tone brought her temper to boiling point once more. ‘I never pretend,’ she said hotly, ‘and I don’t lie either. I did not receive a letter, although if I had it would have made no difference whatsoever to how I felt—feel. You had an affair with Tanya West and there had been others before her. I have that on good authority. You shared a double room in Germany reserved under the name of Mr and Mrs Kane. Don’t lie to me about that because I phoned the hotel myself to check.’

‘Tanya was my secretary and only my secretary,’ he ground out, swinging the car round a sharp corner at such speed Marsha had to stifle a little scream. ‘The room in Germany was booked in error. She had the double and I took the only other bed in the whole damn place, due to the conference, and spent three nights sharing a twin with a huge Swede who looked as though he weight-lifted for his country and snored like hell. I told you that on the night you left and reiterated it in the letter.’

‘Then why was I put through to Tanya when I asked for Mr Kane after the receptionist had confirmed the double room?’ Marsha asked as icily as her raw nerves would allow. The way he was driving they would be lucky to see another day.

‘I’ve told you, the room was booked in error. The Swede kindly allowed me to share his room when the hotel asked him, but the room was in his name, not mine. Maybe the receptionist you spoke to hadn’t been informed of what had happened. It was one of the biggest conferences of the year, damn it, and the place was heaving.’

He must think she was born yesterday.

‘You don’t believe me.’ As he accelerated to pass a staid family saloon she sat tensely silent because there was nothing more to say. ‘I gave you telephone numbers to ring in that letter, and not just the hotel. I had the Swede’s business card. I also made you a promise, because of the way you had reacted that night in the car, that I wouldn’t try to force you to see me until you were ready, and being ready meant an apology and a declaration of trust.’

The nerve of him. Even if all this with Tanya was a mistake—and she didn’t think it was for a moment—what about the other liaisons Susan had told her about? Taylor bought silence from people, but he hadn’t been able to buy Susan’s. Susan had been her friend as well as her sister-in-law, and the episode in Germany had been too much for the other woman to ignore. Susan had sworn her to secrecy at the time, making her promise she wouldn’t tell who it was who had informed on him—mainly because Susan’s husband worked for her brother and their livelihood depended on Taylor’s favour. Well, she hadn’t betrayed Susan eighteen months ago and she wasn’t about to do so now, much as she would have loved to fling his sister’s name into the arena.

She took a deep pull of air. ‘If the letter said you wouldn’t contact me until I was ready to apologise and trust you, why are we here now? I don’t trust you, Taylor, and I would rather walk through coals of fire than apologise to you.’

He muttered something under his breath before saying, his voice curt, ‘I am not going to allow you to wreck both our lives, that’s why. Not through foolish pride.’

Pride? If they hadn’t been travelling at such speed she would have been tempted to knock his block off, she thought poetically. As it was she contented herself with saying scathingly, ‘I’ve salvaged by life and it’s a good one, so speak for yourself.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

They were now in territory she recognised as being a street or so away from where Taylor’s palatial home dwelt, so in view of her safety, and everyone else’s within the immediate vicinity, she waited until the car had actually passed through the open gates and was travelling up the scrunchy drive before she said, ‘That’s your problem.’

He brought the car to a standstill at the bottom of the wide, semi-circular stone steps which led up to the front door, and Marsha forced herself to look about her as though her heart didn’t feel as though it was being torn out by its roots. She had been almost demented with bitterness and pain when she had last left here, and certainly in no state to drive. She had hoped if she ever saw this place again she would be able to look at it with a measure of peace in her heart, but it wasn’t the case. She felt nearly as wretched with misery as she had then.

Taylor hadn’t answered her before he slid out of the car and walked round the bonnet to open her door, and now, as she took the hand he proferred and exited the Aston Martin, the haunting fragrance of lavender teased her nostrils. A bowling-green-smooth lawn bordered both sides of the curving drive, and the huge thatched house was framed by two cooper beech trees, their leaves glowing in the last of the sunlight, but it was the tiny hedges of lavender which ran from the bottom of the largest step in a wide half-moon shape right up to the corners of the house which produced the most evocative memory.

It had been this perfume which had remained with her the first time she had ever visited the house, on her second date with Taylor, and which had scented their nights in their big billowy bed when they had made love till dawn with the windows open to the scents and sounds of the night.

The pain which gripped her now wasn’t helped by the warm contact with his skin, which sent a hundred tiny needles of sensation shivering up her arm, and as soon as she was standing she extricated her hand from his.