The Gold Collection: A Bride For The Taking: Distracted by her Virtue / The Lost Wife / The Brooding Stranger. Maggie Cox

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      ‘My sister always told me that the way to a woman’s heart was through the perfect cup of tea.’

      ‘Did she really?’

      ‘No. I’m only joking.’ His lips formed an unabashed grin. ‘Living by myself, I’ve learned to do most things. I draw the line at wearing an apron, though. Wouldn’t be at all good for my street cred if my family or friends were to see me in one.’

      ‘Why don’t you just pay someone to look after the domestic side of things for you?’

      ‘Ah …’ Jarrett knowingly tapped the side of his perfectly shaped aquiline nose. ‘Now you’re veering very close to discovering my Achilles’ heel.’

      ‘Which is?’

      ‘Clearly you believe in living dangerously.’

      The lowered husky voice that came back to her made the tips of Sophia’s breasts inside her bra surge and sting. ‘Don’t tell me, then.’ She endeavoured to sound nonchalant when she was feeling anything but.

      ‘I’m a boring perfectionist, I’m afraid,’ Jarrett admitted wryly. ‘I somehow always come round to thinking that I may as well do it myself rather than hire someone who won’t live up to my standards.’

      ‘You’re a bit of a control freak, then?’

      ‘That accusation is not unknown to me.’ He took a sip of his beverage, then grimaced. ‘But I hope I’m not controlling in a way that puts me in the category of typically macho male. With the right woman I’m sure I could learn to be a lot more flexible.’

      His glance was sheepish, and too endearing for her to take umbrage with, and she lightly shook her head as if to break free from the spell he so effortlessly cast. ‘It’s entirely up to you how you conduct yourself. One thing puzzles me, though. This house and the expensive cars on the drive, plus the fact that you’re not exactly ugly … women must view you as quite a catch. It makes me wonder why you’re still single.’

      ‘Clearly not all women think I’m such a catch. You’re not particularly impressed by my wealth or my looks. I know I’m risking denting my ego even further by asking, but why is that, Sophia? I’m feeling a little insecure here, knowing that none of my supposed assets can entice you.’

      Bravely she met his searching gaze, her mouth drying at the weight of hurtful memory that backed up inside her like a swelling wave, knowing that she could no longer let it recede. ‘I was married to a man who had wealth and good-looks—and it was like being married to the devil himself,’ she admitted softly.

      ‘Why? What did he do?’ Jarrett’s eyes were wild for a moment—the very thought of any harm coming to her was abhorrent to him.

      Glancing away, Sophia desperately tried to garner every ounce of courage she could find to continue. ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as my dad used to say, and my husband knew them all. He was a virtuoso in the art of being cruel. Unfortunately it wasn’t just me who bore the brunt of it.’

      Her companion’s sharp intake of breath was clearly audible. On his face, the shock that mingled together with disbelief was vivid too. ‘You mean he hurt Charlie?’

      ‘Not physically, thank God.’

      She quickly moved her head from side to side, wishing they could talk about anything but this. However, she had promised her companion that she would tell him everything. She had never even shared the full extent of what she’d experienced at her husband’s hands with her brother. To her mind, David had suffered enough, knowing that she lived with such a brute and that if he’d tried to take action to bring an end to her misery it might have made the situation worse for her and Charlie. There was no reasoning with a man like Tom Abingdon.

      ‘Mental cruelty was his speciality,’ she said out loud, ‘and he could be as sulky and petty as a spoilt child. He regularly demanded that Charlie pay him more attention, because our son naturally came to me if he wanted or needed anything. He’d go ballistic at him for doing that. It was an affront to him that our boy needed his mother. After all, he was the one who was clever and educated—as he so often reminded me. He was the one with friends who admired and envied him, whereas I was a nobody. A picayune from a very average, nondescript family. He even told Charlie that I was a useless mother as well as a useless wife to him, and that they both deserved better. In a bid to prove it, he brought his mistress home.’

      Sophia saw Jarrett’s jaw slacken in disbelief and bit down heavily on her lip. ‘I can see in your eyes that you’re wondering why on earth I would put up with something like that if I had any self-respect at all.’ Anger—defensive and bitter—crept into her voice. ‘Well … perhaps you’ll hold back your judgement until you hear the whole story. I hope that you will, because I’m so sick of being judged.’

      Somehow she made herself continue. ‘One evening when he brought this woman home—he’d been besotted with her for quite a while, I gather—he tried to convince our son that she would make a much better mother than me. She knew how to teach a boy to become a man, he said. She wouldn’t turn him into some “namby-pamby Mummy’s boy” like I was doing.’

      She swallowed hard across the burning cramp in her throat. ‘Tom thought he was justified in having affairs because after I’d had Charlie I locked him out of our bedroom. But I did that because he was always making eyes at other women, and when he didn’t come home nights I knew he was messing around.’ She freed a despairing sigh.

      Jarrett gave her a quizzical look. ‘He let you lock him out of the bedroom?’

      Sophia’s short burst of laughter was harsh. ‘I think that was the first time I made him realise that I wasn’t the gullible little schoolgirl he thought I would stay for ever when he married me. I was so furious with his behaviour that I didn’t care if he hit me. I discovered it’s a powerful thing to meet your fear instead of running away from it. But then he got back at me by other demoralising means. The worst thing of all was when he insisted on taking Charlie out for the day … away from my “despicable’ influence”, he used to say. I knew he’d be with his so-called friends. Friends who were as self-destructive and immoral as he was. I fought against him taking Charlie every time, and suffered not only verbal but sometimes physical abuse too for my protests.’

      Taking a deep breath in at the dreadful memories that flooded back—at the humiliation and hurt of being hit and disparaged, along with her growing fear at the time that her son would grow up to be just like his father if she didn’t find a way to get him away soon—Sophia laid her hand over her chest in a bid to calm her thudding heart.

      As soon he saw the gesture, Jarrett moved across to the sink and poured some water into a glass tumbler. Returning swiftly, he pressed it into her hand.

      Gratefully, she took a few sips and her companion moved back to his seat. Setting the glass down on a coaster, Sophia darted out her tongue to lick the moisture from her lips. Then she resumed her story. ‘Leading up to the time when Tom died—his heart stopped beating one night in his sleep—Charlie was clearly being adversely affected by his father’s behaviour. And why wouldn’t he be? He was wetting the bed at night, having nightmares that made him scream out loud, and hitting me if I said no to something he wanted. I’m afraid it was making him ill.’

      Jarrett scowled and looked disgusted. ‘The man must have been absolutely deranged.’

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