MELANIE MILBURNE - Innocent Wife, Baby Of Shame

Keira put her hands on her hips. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Are you still going to blatantly deny it?’

He put the phone down with unnecessary force, his eyes almost black with anger. ‘How can you think me capable of betraying you with such a woman?’ he asked. ‘She is so very obviously making trouble. I have never touched her. I would not dream of doing so.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

His eyes went to her suitcases, his expression wry. ‘Obviously not.’

‘I want a divorce,’ she said, putting up her chin in defiance. ‘I don’t want to be married to you any more.’

His dark eyes took on a steely glint. ‘Is that so?’

‘Yes. I should never have married you in the first place.’

‘Why is that, I wonder?’ he asked, stepping closer.

Keira tried to step backwards but came up against the door, the sensation of being cornered triggering a primal response to escape. ‘Because I’m in love with someone else,’ she said.

Her words dropped like a bomb into the silence, splintering it into a million fragments of fury as Patrizio’s eyes narrowed into black slits.

‘What did you say?’ he asked in a low deep growl.

Her chin went even higher. ‘You heard me. I’m in love with someone else.’

‘Who is it?’ he asked. ‘Or am I allowed to guess?’

She held his laser-like gaze with glittering rebellion. ‘I don’t have to tell you anything if I don’t want to.’

His mouth tightened into a thin white line. ‘How long have you been in love with him?’

Keira had dug herself in so deeply she decided she might as well go for broke. ‘I have loved him all my life,’ she said. ‘I’m going to him now.’

Something seemed to snap in him at her words. He pulled her towards him, his mouth slamming down on hers, his arms like steel bands around her. The sheer animal intensity of it caught her off guard. Instead of pushing him away, she got swept away in the rough urgency of it. She kissed him back with blazing passionate heat, her teeth biting at him. She wanted him, needed him. He spun her around, her hands flat against the door, her skirt hitched up around her waist, the tiny barrier of her lacy knickers shoved to one side as he drove into her slick moistness with fast-paced deep thrusts that had her whimpering in pleasure within seconds.

She was still trying to get her breathing back in order when he withdrew from her. She slowly turned around, hot colour coursing through her at her own wanton weakness.

‘That should give you something to remember me by,’ he said in a flinty tone as he re-zipped his trousers.

And, with one last raking look, he left her standing there with the scent of her shame lingering in the air.

KEIRA was jerked back to the present when Patrizio got up from the bed. She watched as he paced the room, his hand going through the black silk of his hair, leaving it ruffled and disordered and devastatingly sexy.

‘My alleged affair,’ he repeated, his tone full of derision. ‘I thought you of all people had more sense than to be fooled by someone using computer Photoshop techniques that even a child could use.’

Keira felt herself cringing in shame. She had been so stupid, so blind with jealousy, she hadn’t taken the time to think things through rationally. ‘I’m sorry…’ she said, biting her lip until she could taste blood. ‘I wouldn’t have fallen for it if it hadn’t been for the messages as well. She rang the whole time you were away. I couldn’t help thinking the worst…’

He turned around to glare at her. ‘How could you do it to us, Keira?’ he asked. ‘I loved you so much. I would have given my life for you.’

Tears sprang from her eyes, her chest feeling far too tight to breathe. The knife of guilt twisting even further.

‘You were away so much,’ she said in a desperate attempt to justify her unjustifiable actions. ‘I couldn’t help being suspicious.’

‘You were suspicious because you were looking for a way out,’ he said. ‘You were in love with Merrick all the time.’

‘No!’ She got to her feet unsteadily. ‘I was lying when I said that to you. I didn’t love him…or at least not in that way.’

‘But you still slept with him.’

She had to look away. ‘Yes…’

‘We could have sorted it out,’ he said, his voice hoarse with held-back emotion. ‘Within twenty-four hours we could have sorted it out.’

She gulped back a sob and nodded. ‘I know…’

She heard him release a ragged sigh. ‘I cannot forgive you for what you did, Keira,’ he said. ‘I have tried to, but I just cannot do it.’

‘I understand…’ Keira bowed her head in shame. Pain racked her being; every joint seemed to ache with it.

‘You were intent on paying me back for an affair I did not have,’ he went on. ‘You did not stop to think of the consequences, you just went right ahead and ripped my heart out of my chest.’

‘I only did it the once,’ she said in her defence. ‘And, if it’s any comfort to you, I don’t even remember a lot of that night.’

He gave her a scathing look. ‘What sort of twisted mind do you have that you think that would somehow make it less offensive?’ he asked. ‘For God’s sake, Keira, you gave your body to another man. Do you really expect me to forgive and forget? I cannot do it. Every time I look at you I think of that creep’s hands on you and his body inside yours.’

‘He’s not a creep…’ she said with a tiny spark of defiance in her gaze.

The ensuing silence stretched and stretched to snapping point, every single beat of it like a hammer blow to her heart as his dark eyes bored like twin drills into the tender flesh of her soul.

She closed her eyes. This was too much. She couldn’t cope with this avalanche of feeling.

‘I loved you, Keira,’ he said, the slight break in his voice making guilt assail her all over again. ‘You killed that love.’

‘I know…I don’t blame you…what I did was unforgivable. I can’t even forgive myself…’

Patrizio moved to the other side of the room and stared sightlessly out of the window. He had prepared himself for her defiance, not her despair. She looked pale and vulnerable, as if her world had collapsed around her. It reawakened every protective instinct he had felt for her from the first moment he had met her. Her beguiling mix of wild child and sensual woman had been a devastatingly attractive package. He had broken all his rules and married her within weeks of meeting her. But it didn’t matter what desire still leapt between them now—the reminder of how she had given herself to someone else would stay with him for ever.

He had never been able to remove the vision of her lying naked in Garth Merrick’s bed. The morning after their heated argument, he had felt a little ashamed of how he had reacted to her request for a divorce, realising with hindsight that it was probably just a knee-jerk response. When he’d cooled down at bit he conceded she had been justifiably upset. The photos were very well done, and given the context of Keira’s deep-seated insecurity, which he knew stemmed from her difficult relationship with her father, it would be all too easy for her to think she had been betrayed. He wanted to find her and apologise for not taking her concerns more seriously, but instead of finding her taking shelter with her friend, she had done the very last thing he had expected her to do.

It still made nausea rise like a thick hot tide in his stomach when he thought of the gloating pride on Merrick’s face as he’d greeted him at the door of his flat…

‘Where is my wife?’ Patrizio ground out.

‘She’s in bed,’ Garth said with a combative look. ‘She doesn’t want to see you, Trelini.’