To Wear His Ring Again. Chantelle Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ words had rankled. She hadn’t wanted him to think she was a sweet, silly girl; she’d wanted him to think of her as a woman. Perhaps her feelings had shown in her eyes, because he had given a faint sigh before he’d lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

      Her body had come alive instantly. It was as if he had pressed a switch and awoken her sensuality that had been untested until that moment. Constantin had kissed her as she had imagined a man would kiss a woman, as she had dreamed of being kissed. She had been intoxicated by his mastery, and responded to his passionate demands with a fervency that had made him groan.

      ‘Very soon I will make you mine, Isabella,’ he’d warned her softly.

      ‘How soon?’ she’d replied, not caring that her eagerness revealed her lack of sophistication.

      Now Isobel was three years older, but she was trapped by Constantin’s sexual magnetism and felt as though she had flown back in time to when she had been a shy junior secretary who had been kissed senseless by the most exciting man she had ever met. Her heart jerked against her ribs as she watched his head descend, but her stomach plummeted with disappointment when he halted with his lips centimetres from hers.

      ‘Why did you walk out on me?’ he said harshly. ‘You didn’t even have the decency to tell me to my face that you were clearing out. All I got was an insultingly brief note to say that you had decided we should end our marriage.’

      Isobel swallowed. It was impossible to think properly when his lips were tantalisingly close, and even more impossible to believe that she had heard a note of hurt in his voice. She longed to close the gap between them, to slide her hand into the silky dark hair at his nape and urge his mouth down on hers. It took all her will power to step away from him.

      ‘Why did you marry me?’ She countered his question with one of her own. ‘I’ve often wondered. Was it only because I was pregnant with your child? I believed our relationship was based on more than sexual attraction, but after I had the miscarriage you were so distant. I couldn’t get close to you, and you never wanted to talk about...about what had happened. Your coldness seemed to indicate that you wished I wasn’t your wife.’

      Constantin had always been able to read the emotions on Isobel’s expressive features and the pain reflected in her hazel eyes caused him a pang of guilt. He knew he had not given her the support she had needed when she’d lost the baby. He’d been unable to talk about it, and had dealt with his emotions the way he always did, by burying them deep inside and concentrating on running a global business empire. He could hardly blame her for turning to her friends, but he had felt jealous of her closeness to the other members of the band, and in particular her obvious affection for the guitarist, Ryan Fellows.

      The cover of the Stone Ladies’ new album was an arty black and white picture of the two most photogenic band members—Isobel and Fellows—riding a unicorn. No doubt the romantic image would appeal to the band’s thousands of fans, but when Constantin had seen the album cover he’d felt an overwhelming desire to rearrange the guitarist’s pretty-boy features with his fist.

      The idea that Isobel and Fellows might be lovers evoked a corrosive acid burn in his gut. Isobel had accused him of resenting her friends, and he acknowledged it was the truth. He had been unable to control his possessive feelings, which in turn had made him afraid that he had inherited his father’s dangerous jealousy.

      He looked at her tense face. It must have taken a lot of guts for her to have come back to the house that he knew held poignant memories for her. He thought of the mural of farm animals that she had been painting on the walls of the nursery. The mural was unfinished and the room was empty. He’d sent the cot and nursery equipment back to the shop and never went into the room that had been destined for their daughter.

      The miscarriage had broken Isobel, and it was a measure of her strength of will that she had recovered to be this beautiful, self-assured woman—although close scrutiny revealed faint shadows in her eyes that Constantin guessed would never completely fade. One thing was certain. She deserved his honesty.

      ‘Three years ago we were lovers briefly. The weekend we spent at my apartment in Rome was fun, but...’ he shrugged ‘...I had no desire for a prolonged relationship—and I thought you understood that.’ When he had ended the affair shortly after they had returned to London he had assured himself it was for the best to call a halt before things got out of hand. Isobel had needed to understand that the words long-term and commitment were not in his vocabulary.

      He exhaled heavily. ‘But then fate dealt an unexpected card. When you told me you were pregnant you must have realised that I would not allow my child to be born illegitimate. Marriage was the only option. I could not neglect my duty to my child or to you.’

      Isobel flinched. Duty was an ugly little word. The realisation that Constantin had proposed marriage because he had felt responsible for her evoked a bitter taste in her mouth. She had told Constantin she was pregnant with his baby because she’d believed he had the right to know. She had been stunned when he’d asked her to marry him. After all, it was the twenty-first century, and being a single mother was no longer regarded as unusual or shameful. When he had proposed, she had convinced herself that he must have some feelings for her. But the stark truth was that she had seen what she had wanted to see.

      Yet her stubborn nature still refused to give up the idea that they had shared something meaningful. ‘We had some good times in the beginning,’ she reminded him.

      ‘I don’t deny it. We were going to be parents, and for our child’s sake it was important to build an amicable relationship with each other, additional to our sexual compatibility.’

      Isobel swallowed the golf ball that had become lodged in her throat. Had Constantin simply been building an amicable relationship with her when he had filled the house with yellow roses after she had mentioned that they were her favourite flower? Had she imagined the closeness between them that had grown stronger every day of their three-week honeymoon in the Seychelles?

      She stared at his chiselled features and wondered why she had ever believed she had seen warmth in his eyes that glittered as hard and bright as sapphires. What a fool she had been. Despite everything that happened, his coldness to her in the last months of their marriage, deep down she had believed there was a chance that they might one day get back together. That fragile sense of hope had now gone and she was shocked by how badly it hurt.

      She turned her head towards the window. The sun streaming through the glass was so bright, and surely it was the glare that was making her eyes water? As if she were looking through a kaleidoscope, she saw the fractured images of a woman pushing a pram through the park with a tall, handsome man at her side. But when she blinked, the vision disappeared, just as her dreams had done.

      Somehow she marshalled her thoughts and emotions, and even managed a cool smile when she looked back at Constantin.

      ‘In that case there’s nothing more to be said. I’ll wait to receive a new divorce petition from your solicitor, which I will sign and return immediately. I understand that the legal proceedings are straightforward in an uncontested divorce.’

      ‘I’ve instructed my lawyer to offer you a financial settlement.’ Constantin frowned when she shook her head. ‘I don’t understand why you insisted on signing a prenuptial agreement that awarded you absolutely nothing.’

      ‘Because I want nothing from you,’ Isobel told him fiercely. ‘I’m lucky to be able to earn a high income, but even if the band hadn’t become successful I wouldn’t have accepted a handout from you.’

      Impatience СКАЧАТЬ