Susan Fox - Reclaiming His Wife

‘Humour me,’ he breathed.

So she did, telling him how she had moved north for a while, taking a short, intensive art course to further the basic grounding she had received at college. It was difficult though, keeping her voice steady, trying not to notice how strongly chiselled his face was, how his long lashes seemed to emphasise the darkness of his eyes and how his cruel mouth—a mouth that had once worked magic on her sensitive flesh—firmed now first with something like disapproval then with what…? Admiration? she wondered. Surely not!

‘I saw an opening for a make-up artist down here in London, grabbed it and moved back. So there you have it. My wild and exciting life in its most uncensored form.’

A contemplative smile touched his lips. ‘Can there be anything more wild and exciting than what we had, Taylor?’

The smoky quality of his voice played across her frayed nerves, working its own magic on her senses. Before her mind’s eye rose the image of his hard and superb physique, of his naked limbs entwined with hers, of strong, dark body hair grazing her softness.

No, she thought. Whatever else their marriage had lacked, it certainly hadn’t lacked sensuality.

That he still wanted her was obvious, in the most primitive sense at least. She could see it in those dark, dilated pupils, in the flaring of those proud nostrils that spoke of the huge hunting male catching the scent of a mate. She closed her eyes against it now, knowing that he would recognise an answering and involuntary response in her if for one moment she let her guard down, and with the instinct of self-preservation she forced herself to remember why he had come. Shakily she whispered, ‘If you try to press a settlement on me, I’d like you to know, I won’t accept it.’

When she looked at him again his heavy eyelids had come down over his eyes, cloaking any traces of desire. Grimness compressed his lips now and there was an unfathomable edge to his voice as he said, ‘We’ll talk about that later. In the meantime…’ he dropped a glance to the gold wristwatch peeping out from his immaculate cuff ‘… I think you’d better get yourself sorted out for your dental appointment.’

He had left the car in a nearby Pay and Display car park, a newer model of the type of low-slung saloon he had always driven.

The wind was biting as they crossed the tarmac towards it.

‘I thought spring was coming,’ Taylor remarked, struggling to keep her coat from being wrenched open by the tugging wind. She felt low and dispirited, seeing the turn in the weather as a reflection of how her life had suddenly changed over the past week.

On the surface, nothing was different. She and Jared were still living apart. She still had her job. Her interests. Her friends. But seeing him again had revived memories she didn’t want to think about; feelings she didn’t want to feel. Oh, if only he had stayed away! If only things could have stayed the same and she could have gone on with her life thinking…

Thinking what? That one day he might come and tell her that he missed her? Loved her?

‘What’s wrong, Taylor?’

Of course, he had always been able to pick up on her mood, even if sometimes he had misinterpreted—and grossly—exactly what she was feeling.

‘I was only thinking…’ Suddenly her stomach muscles were knotting painfully again. ‘What has today achieved, Jared? I mean, we haven’t talked about anything we couldn’t have said on the phone.’

He stopped abruptly, the speed of his action as he swung to face her making her recoil.

‘What do you want me to say? Here are the blasted papers? Sign them. Thank you and goodbye!’ His coat was flapping open, but he didn’t seem to notice. Obviously he didn’t feel the cold as she did, she thought, although his face looked taut, the skin stretched almost to transparency over his cheekbones, as though he weren’t totally unaffected by the ravaging wind. ‘Well, this might surprise you, Taylor, but that isn’t why I insisted on seeing you today. It isn’t my intention to sue for a divorce.’ And then, after the briefest hesitation: ‘I think we should get back together,’ he said.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE looked at him quickly, her eyes dark and disbelieving, her heart beating so fast she felt faint.

‘Why?’ she whispered, that one syllable strung with all the pain and suspicion she had endured throughout her short marriage.

‘Because I think it’s what we both want,’ he answered.

‘And what about…your mistress?’ It was a soft accusation over the sound of a van pulling out of the car park. ‘What will she have to say about it?’

‘There isn’t any… mistress , as you call it. I told you—it was over between Alicia and me before we were ever married. But you refused to believe me.’

‘Because of the way you were—the way you looked!— every time her name was mentioned.’

‘That was in your mind.’

‘Was it?’ She regarded him obliquely, green eyes tortured and accusing. ‘And I suppose those late-night phone calls from her were all in my mind!’

His skin seemed to blanch, and if that wasn’t an admission of guilt, what was? she thought bitterly, seeing the disbelief in his eyes, the tightening line of his mouth.

‘Did she… speak to you?’ Caution marked his words and his slanted appraisal of her.

‘No, she obviously didn’t expect me to be there! Just like I didn’t expect you to be in Philadelphia with her when you said you were going to New York!’

‘I was in New York,’ he stated bluntly, having no difficulty remembering the time to which she had referred. ‘I had an unscheduled stopover in Philadelphia to visit a sick client who couldn’t get to the main meeting. I didn’t think it was worth mentioning—particularly as I knew what graphic pictures that imaginative little brain of yours could come up with. OK. Maybe I wasn’t being entirely open with you…’

‘Not open with me! That’s an understatement!’ she breathed, still raw from the memory of his deception.

‘Taylor…’

As he took a step towards her she shrank back, shaking her head. ‘No,’ she murmured, denying him the right to hurt her for a second time, denying them both a second chance, though it was excruciating when all she longed to do was accede to his suggestion, throw herself like the helpless fool she had been back into his arms.

‘And that’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘With not even a backward glance?’ Some emotion she could have mistaken for pain had she not known him better clouded those beautiful eyes. He shook his head. ‘Without any regret? Surely, I would have thought that even you—’

He broke off, hearing the sound that had also caught Taylor’s attention. It was the pitiable crying of a small child.

She couldn’t have been more than three or four, Taylor realised, horrified, as the little girl wandered out from between two parked cars. Bundled up in a small pink anorak, she was looking lost and terribly frightened.

‘What is it?’ Taylor called, hurrying over to her, glad of the diversion from a conversation that could only have caused her more grief. Stooping down, she caught the child’s sobbed, barely coherent response. It was obvious that the little girl had lost her mother.

‘She can’t be very far away,’ Taylor gently reassured her, unprepared, as she stood up to look around for a likely candidate, for the tiny hand that instantly reached up to clasp hers.

How vulnerable they were, she agonised, assailed by a sudden deluge of emotions that were suffocating—almost overwhelming. And how trusting!

Tense lines scored her face and it was all she could do to keep it averted, not to let her feelings show as Jared joined them.