Susan Fox - Reclaiming His Wife

She slung it down, making a point, drawing herself up to her full height. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’

‘Good!’ He thrust the drawer closed, swung away from it. ‘Because I’m sure as hell afraid of you!’

Taylor eyed him with some surprise, a pained query darkening her eyes. ‘Am I so much of a harridan?’

‘A harridan?’ Coming back across the kitchen, he laughed rather harshly. ‘God! I wish you were. At least I’d know how to deal with that. It wouldn’t be any hardship to me to tame a shrew.’

She shuddered, thinking how lethal his brand of taming might be. What woman would stand a chance against his dark and dangerous sensuality? She might feign to put up a fight against it for a while but, in the end, all but the most indifferent would succumb.

‘Oh, no.’ His breath seemed to shiver through him as he stood there now, contemplating, regarding her. ‘You’re quite the opposite, Taylor. Reticent. Uncommunicative. Almost frighteningly aloof. Like a deep, mysterious lake. I used to think it was an admirable quality. In fact, my dear, I must confess, it turned me on—like hell! But there’s a limit to how much unmelted butter a man can get through, even if it’s the loveliest mouth he’s being tempted by. Tell me, Taylor, are you really as cold as you seem? Or is there a real warm woman in there somewhere trying desperately hard to get out? Begging to be rescued from her own worst enemy—herself!’

Is that how he saw her? As a cold, unfeeling human being? With a heart of ice, as other men had accused her of having? Was that why he had been so ready to believe she could hurt her unborn child? Care for nothing but herself? Her independence? Her job?

Pain clouded her eyes and swiftly her lashes came down to hide it. ‘And you think one night trapping me here with you,’ she uttered, cultivating even more of the apparent coolness he had ridiculed, ‘will loosen all my inhibitions— bring out the real warm woman—’ her tone was bitterly emphatic ‘—you seem so sure is there?’

‘Believe me, a man would have to be a genius and it would take more than one night and a diamond cutter to chip through that glacial shell of yours, Taylor. If it is a shell. And I’m hardly trapping you,’ he reminded her brusquely before she could say anything. ‘You came voluntarily.’

‘And I’ll be leaving voluntarily. First thing in the morning!’ she retorted, swinging away.

‘Of course.’ She heard a cupboard being opened, heard it bang forcefully closed again. ‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Taylor. You’re beautiful. Talented. Self-sufficient. But where relationships are concerned, it’s what you do best, isn’t it?’

‘What?’ she queried pointedly. Her eyes were dark and questioning as she turned around.

‘Running away.’

Because she had done exactly that. You’ll run away . Because it was inherent in her. You’ll always run away .

Her breath catching in her throat, she brought her cupped hands up to her nose and mouth, her eyes closing for a few moments while she steeled herself against retaliating.

‘Are you all right?’

He’d asked her that in the car park, she remembered, last Friday after that tense, disconcerting lunch she had shared with him.

He was standing right next to her now. Her body was absorbing his dangerous warmth like a soothing balm through her skin and his scent impinged on her nostrils like an intoxicating musk.

‘Taylor?’

When his fingers touched her arm, however, panicking she jerked away.

‘Of course I am! Why shouldn’t I be?’ she protested and, for the sake of her cold feet and her equilibrium, moved away from him, towards the hall.

He had discarded his anorak when he joined her in the sitting room and the thick black casual shirt he was wearing with his dark trousers was unbuttoned at the throat.

Standing, sorting through some books, Taylor glanced up, her senses leaping as her interest fell too willingly on the hint of crisp dark body hair peeping out over the top of his shirt, emphasising the corded strength of his throat.

‘I see you’ve eaten.’ His gaze was resting on the mug and the plate, which contained the remains of her sandwich. ‘Or put up some show of eating.’

Taylor snapped closed the poetry book she had been looking at. A book of love poems. A book he had bought for her to celebrate their being married for two weeks.

There was dark emotion behind the challenge in the green eyes that clashed with his. ‘Did you come here to start criticising my diet?’

‘No.’ His mouth tugged down on one side. ‘But it’s a darned good idea. Somebody needs to.’

‘Why? Worried about me?’ A little hint of sarcasm slipped out, unheeded, unchecked.

‘Of course.’

‘Well, don’t be. I can take care of myself.’

‘Can you?’ His gaze was tugging over the creamy polo-necked sweater she had been wearing when he had first turned up at Charity’s over a week ago, moving down over her small breasts and waistline and the barest suggestion of curved hips beneath her fitted jeans. ‘You could have fooled me.’

Why? she wanted to throw at him. Because I haven’t been able to eat properly since I saw you again? Because I can’t get you out of my mind and because when you’re around you dominate everything I think, say and do?

Instead, taking another book out of the bookcase, turning it over in her hands, she said, ‘When did you get here anyway?’

He slipped his hands into his pockets. ‘This afternoon. I switched on the heating and went into town to stock up on some things while the house was warming up,’ he told her.

Broodingly she watched him cross the room, pick up the plate and the used mug she had left on the side of the hearth.

‘This place always did bring out the best in you, didn’t it, Taylor?’ He gestured with the mug he was dangling from one finger, his mouth moving wryly. ‘Back in London this would have been in the dishwasher before it was even cold.’

She looked up from the book she was making a performance of studying. ‘Meaning?’

‘Your penchant for order is commendable but sometimes it can be bloody infuriating. It would do you good to be slovenly occasionally. Mess up your hair. Rough it for a while.’

She gritted her teeth against what she considered was yet another of his totally unjust analyses of her.

‘Don’t you have business to attend to?’ Pushing back a strand of the expertly cut hair to which he had metaphorically referred, she watched him move over to the door. ‘Something important you’ve left that can’t possibly proceed without you being around?’ It was one of the reasons for their arguments, she remembered; his always having to work late—something that hadn’t helped lessen her suspicions about him having an affair—and his going away so much, especially when he’d had the gall to accuse her of only being interested in her career!

‘No.’ He sounded remarkably decisive. ‘I meant it when I said that I think we should get back together. When two people have what we had, I think it’s no less than stupidity to throw it all away.’

‘What you had you mean,’ she said softly, hurting. Hadn’t he had a mistress—and the luxury of a convenient wife?

He moved back into the room, setting the mug and plate down on the low table that filled the space on the rug between the long comfortable sofa and a deeply cushioned chair.

‘Are you saying you didn’t get anything out of it too? Because, my pretty wife, it wouldn’t be too much punishment to me to have to remind you.’

‘No!’ She took a step back, seeing the steely resolve burning in his eyes, relaxing a little when he stopped, clearly thinking twice about carrying out his threat.