Lee Wilkinson - A Husband's Revenge

‘Why does a woman do anything?’ he asked bitterly.

It appeared that he didn’t think much of women in general and her in particular.

‘But I would have had to have some reason, surely?’

After a slight hesitation, he said evasively, ‘It’s irrelevant as you have lost your memory.’

‘What makes you believe it now when you didn’t earlier?’

They stopped at a red light and he turned his head to study her. ‘Because you have a kind of poignant, lost look that would be almost impossible to fake.’

‘I still don’t understand why you think I’d want to fake it.’

He gave her a cool glance. ‘Perhaps to get a little of your own back.’ Then, as if conceding that some further explanation was needed, he went on, ‘We’d quarrelled. I had to go out. When I came back I found you’d gone off in a huff.’

Instinctively she glanced down at her left hand.

‘Yes—’ his eyes followed hers ‘—that was why you weren’t wearing your rings.’

It must have been some quarrel to make her take her wedding ring off. She racked her brains, trying to remember.

Nothing.

Giving up the attempt, she asked, ‘What did we quarrel about?’

For an instant he looked discomposed, then, as the lights turned to green and the car moved smoothly forward, he replied, ‘As with most quarrels, it began over something comparatively unimportant. But somehow it escalated.’

She was about to point out that he hadn’t really answered her question when he forestalled her.

‘I can’t see much sense in raking over the ashes. As soon as your memory returns you’ll be able to judge for yourself how trivial it was. Now I suggest that you try and relax. Let things come back in their own good time rather than keep asking questions.’

Questions he didn’t want to answer?

Yet if not, why not? Unless he didn’t want her to regain her memory?

Helplessly, she said, ‘But there’s so much I don’t know. I don’t even know where L..we...live.’

‘Upper East Side.’

That figured. It went with his obvious wealth, his air of good breeding, his educated accent. She frowned. His accent... Basically an English accent?

‘You’re not American?’

‘I was born in England.’

‘How long have you been in the States?’

‘Since I was twenty-one.’

‘How old are you now?’

‘Thirty.’

‘Do your family still live in England?’

Glancing at his handsome profile, she saw his jaw tighten before, his voice repressive, he replied, ‘I haven’t any family.’

Plainly he was in no mood to be questioned. But, needing to know more about this stranger she was married to, about their life together, she persisted, ‘Where did we meet...?’

He swung the wheel and they turned into a paved forecourt and drew to a halt in front of a huge apartment block.

‘Was it in England?’

Curtly, he said, ‘I thought I’d made it clear that I wanted you to rest rather than keep asking questions.’

Resenting the way he was treating her, she protested, ‘But I—

He put a finger to her lips. This is the Ventnor Building and we’re home. Any further questions will keep until tomorrow.’

The light pressure of that lean finger against her mouth stopped her breath and made her lower lip start to tremble.

Watching her with hooded eyes, he moved it slowly, tracing the lovely, passionate outline of her mouth, and she was submerged by a wave of sensation so strong that it scared her half to death.

She saw his white teeth gleam in a smile, and suddenly felt terribly vulnerable. He knew only too well what effect his touch had on her.

As he got out and came round to open her door a blue-uniformed night-security guard appeared from nowhere.

‘Mr Saunders, Mrs Saunders...’ He gave them a laconic salute. ‘Want me to park her for you?’

‘Please, Bill.’ Jos tossed him the keys and stooped to help Clare from the car. With a strong arm around her waist he led her past the main doors to a side entrance and slid a card into the lock.

The chandelier-lit marble foyer, ringed by glittering stores and boutiques, was vast and empty. Their footsteps echoed eerily in the silence as, watched by the glassy eyes of the elegantly dressed mannequins in the shop windows, they crossed to a bank of elevators.

He produced a key, and a moment later the doors of his private elevator slid to behind them.

‘You live in the penthouse.’ Her own certainty surprised her.

Brilliant eyes narrowed to slits, he turned to watch her like a hawk, his hard face all planes and angles. ‘What makes you so sure?’

As they shot smoothly upwards she pressed her fingers to her temples and struggled to pin down the elusive recollection. It was like trying to trace one particular shadow in a room full of shadows.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

They slid to a halt, and with a hand beneath her elbow he led her across a luxuriously carpeted hall and into an elegant living room. The room must be on a corner of the building, she realised, because two walls at right angles seemed to be made entirely of lightly smoked glass panels which opened onto a terrace and roof garden.

She could see the shapes of trees and bushes and hear the splash of a fountain. It seemed strange when they were so far above the city.

With some trepidation, she said, ‘I think I’m scared of heights.’

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t have chosen to marry a man who lives in a penthouse.’

With a sudden sensation of déjà vu, she felt sure he’d said those mocking words to her once before, used the same coolly cutting tone.

Though unable to recall the precise terms of their relationship, she was certain it wasn’t of the pleasant, friendly ‘rub along together’ sort, but rather the tempestuous ‘strike sparks off each other’ kind.

The kind where someone could get hurt.

No, not someone. Her. Every instinct warned her that Jos was dangerous, that he wanted to hurt her, would enjoy hurting her.

‘Why do you want to hurt me?’ The question was out before she could prevent it.

‘Why should I want to hurt you?’

Glancing quickly at him, she saw his dark face was cool and shuttered. It would only reveal what he wanted it to reveal. He would only tell her what he wanted her to know.

‘What makes you imagine I want to hurt you?’ he persisted.

She made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘I don’t know. I just get the feeling you don’t like me very much.’

He moved towards her.

Instinctively she backed away.

Reaching out, he caught her wrist and pulled her against him. One arm held her while his free hand came up to encircle her throat lightly.

Something about his stillness, the tension in his muscles, warned her that he was waiting for her to struggle.

When she stood as if frozen, he bent his dark head and let his lips wander over her cheek and jaw. She caught her breath, aware of the faint scent of his skin, the slight roughness of stubble.

His lips brushed her ear, making her shiver, as he said, ‘Liking is such a bloodless, insipid emotion. It has nothing to do with what I feel for you.’

Recognising something fundamental in his words, knowing she was close to an important truth, she felt her heart begin to race with suffocating speed. ‘What do you feel for me?’

The sudden flare of anger in his eyes made her blood run cold. Before she could do or say anything he covered her mouth with his own.

While he deepened the kiss, ravaging her mouth with a savage, punitive expertise, she lay against him, lost and dazed, knowing only that if he released his grip she would fall.

When he finally lifted his head she was trembling in every limb, her breath coming in harsh gasps.