Chantelle Shaw - To Wear His Ring Again

‘This is fine, thanks,’ she told the taxi driver as she stepped onto the pavement and leaned down to the cab window to pay the fare. The breeze lifted her honey-blonde hair from her shoulders.

Recognition dawned on the cabbie’s face. ‘I know who you are! You’re that singer Izzy Blake from the Stone Ladies. My daughter is a big fan.’ He thrust a notepad into Isobel’s hand. ‘Can I be cheeky and ask for your autograph for my Lily?’

She took the pen he handed her and signed her name. Being recognised by the public was something Isobel doubted she would ever be entirely comfortable with, but she never forgot that the band owed their success to their many thousands of fans worldwide.

‘Are you in London to give a concert?’ the cabbie asked her.

‘No, we finished our European tour in Berlin last week, but I think we’re due to play in London in the autumn.’ She had given up trying to remember the exact details of the band’s hectic schedule. For the past two years, her life had been a blur of airport lounges and hotel lobbies in whichever town, state, continent where the band was performing. She tore a page out of the cabbie’s notebook. ‘Give me your email address and I’ll make sure you’re sent a couple of tickets so you can take your daughter to the Stone Ladies’ next concert.’

The taxi driver thanked her, and when he drove away Isobel unconsciously clenched her fingers around the strap of her bag as she climbed the front steps of the house and rang the doorbell. Despite her determination to remain cool and calm, she could feel her heart thudding painfully hard beneath her ribs. She was not nervous at the prospect of seeing Constantin again, she assured herself. She thought of the divorce petition he had sent her, and the accusatory, condemning word desertion had the same effect on her temper as a red rag to a bull.

‘Damn you, Constantin,’ she muttered beneath her breath, just before the door was opened by a familiar figure.

‘Madam,’ Constantin’s butler greeted her gravely, his measured tone and imperturbable features revealing no hint of surprise at her sudden reappearance after two years.

‘Hello, Whittaker. Is my...husband...at home?’ She was annoyed by the huskiness in her voice as she stumbled over the word husband. He wouldn’t be for much longer and she would be free to move on with her life.

She had read in a newspaper that Constantin was in London to attend the opening of a new De Severino Eccellenza store—more commonly known by the company’s logo DSE—in Oxford Street, and she had planned her visit for Sunday morning because, even though he was a workaholic, it was unlikely that Constantin would have gone to the office on a Sunday.

‘The Marquis is downstairs in the gymnasium.’ The butler stepped back to allow her to enter the house. ‘I will inform him on the internal phone that you are here.’

‘No!’ Isobel stopped him. She wanted to retain the element of surprise. As Whittaker’s brow pleated in a faint frown she added quickly, ‘He...he’s expecting me.’ It was the truth of sorts, she assured herself. No doubt Constantin was waiting for her to meekly sign the divorce petition, but he probably did not expect her to deliver the document in person. She hurried along the hall towards the stairs that led down to the basement.

Constantin had had the gym installed soon after their marriage so that he could work out at home rather than stop off at his private health club after he’d spent all day at the office. Descending the stairs, Isobel could hear a rhythmic pounding noise. The door to the gym was open, and she had a clear view of him slamming his fists into a punchbag. He was totally focused on what he was doing and did not notice her.

Her mouth ran dry as she stood in the corridor and studied him. She had forgotten how big he was! He owed his six-feet-plus height to his American mother, who—on one of the rare occasions when he had spoken about his family—Constantin had told Isobel had been a successful model before she had married his father.

She guessed his slashing cheekbones and classically sculpted features were also a result of his mother’s genes, but in every other way he was pure Italian male, with exotic olive skin and dark, almost black, glossy hair that grew in luxuriant waves and refused to be completely tamed by the barber’s scissors. His shorts and gym vest revealed his powerful thigh and shoulder muscles, and the curling black hairs on his chest were damp with sweat as he powered his fists into the punchbag.

He would need to take a shower after his punishing workout, Isobel mused. An unbidden memory slid into her mind of the early days of their marriage when she had often come down to the gym to watch Constantin work out, and afterwards they had shared a shower. The two years that they had been apart melted away as she remembered running her hands over his naked, muscular thighs and stretching her fingers around his powerful erection while he smoothed a bar of soap over her breasts and continued down her quivering, shivering body until she begged him to end the torment and take her hard and fast, leaning against the wall of the shower cubicle.

Dear heaven! Scalding heat swept through her veins, and she could not repress a choked sound in her throat that immediately alerted Constantin to her presence. His head shot round, and for perhaps thirty seconds Isobel saw a stunned expression on his face before his chiselled features hardened and became unreadable. He pulled off his boxing gloves and strolled towards her.

‘Isabella!’

His deep voice was as sensuous as bittersweet chocolate, and his use of the Italian version of her name evoked a flood of molten desire in the pit of Isobel’s stomach. How could he have such a devastating effect on her after all this time? Working in the music industry, she was often in the company of good-looking men, but she’d never felt a spark of desire for anyone she’d met. She had put her lack of interest down to the fact that she was still legally married—for although she and Constantin had parted on bad terms she believed in fidelity within marriage. But with a flash of near despair she realised that no other man excited her as her husband did. For the past two years her sexual desires had lain dormant, but one look at Constantin was all it had taken to arouse her body to a fever pitch of lustful longing.

Utterly thrown by her reaction to him, she felt an urge to turn and flee back up the stairs. But it was too late; he halted in front of her, standing unnervingly close so that she inhaled the sensual musk of his maleness.

Beads of sweat glistened on his skin. Isobel found herself wanting to run her fingers through the lock of sable hair that had fallen forwards onto his brow and trace the close-trimmed black stubble that shaded his jaw and upper lip. Every muscle in her body tautened defensively as she fought the effect he had on her. She was unaware that she reminded Constantin of a nervous colt who might bolt at any second.

‘Don’t hide in the shadows, cara ,’ he drawled. ‘I don’t know why you’re here, but I assume you have a very good reason to let yourself into the house, two years after you ran away.’

His cynical tone hurtled Isobel back in time to the dying days of their marriage when they had been at constant loggerheads.

‘I didn’t run away,’ she snapped.

His heavy black brows rose, but it was his eyes that held her spellbound. The first time Isobel had met him—when she had been a temporary secretary sent by the agency to work for the CEO at the London office of the exclusive jewellery and luxury goods company, De Severino Eccellenza—she had been mesmerised by Constantin’s brilliant blue eyes that were such an unexpected contrast to his swarthy, Latin looks.