Reclaiming His Wife. Susan Fox P.

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      ‘What’s all this? What’s all the fuss about?’ The tone he used with the child was gentle and consoling. Anguished, Taylor tried not to remember how much he had wanted children of his own.

      A young woman, looking very fraught, was hurrying from the direction of the nearby Pay and Display machine.

      ‘I told you not to run off!’

      Reaching them, grabbing the errant child by the arm, she smiled apologetically at Taylor and Jared. But it was Jared for whom she spared a second glance before thanking them both profusely and pulling the now merely whimpering child back to her car.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Reaching Jared’s saloon, Taylor could feel those shrewd eyes studying her across the gleaming black roof.

      ‘Am I all right?’ She still couldn’t face him head on, risk his seeing the emotion that still misted her eyes. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

      His mouth moved in a rather speculative way. ‘You look…upset,’ he remarked.

      The car alarm system bleeped as he disengaged it. His eyes were still resting on her as he opened the driver’s door.

      ‘Why should I be upset? It’s this infernal wind,’ she prevaricated with her chin lifting in an unconscious gesture of defence against his probing. ‘It’s making my eyes water.’

      Scepticism showed in the arching of an eyebrow, but Taylor was glad when he let it go at that.

      What was he thinking? she wondered, sitting beside him in silence while he drove the short journey to her dentist. Was he wondering perhaps if she was remembering their marriage—her accidental and short, ill-fated pregnancy? If she was harbouring any regrets about losing her baby? Or even—from the cruel insinuations he had made at the time—any remorse?

      Her chest ached from the misery of those memories, from recalling those bitter rows and the insecurities, brought on by the suspicions of his disloyalty, which vetoed any suggestion of their getting back together. Fortunately, however, he didn’t seem to be pressing the point about trying again.

      ‘I’ll wait for you,’ he said suddenly, bringing her back to the present with a jolt to realise that he was pulling up outside the dental practice.

      ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said in a flat voice, keen to get away from him. Seeing him again like this wasn’t doing her any good at all. ‘The station’s just around the corner and it’ll be easier and quicker for me to take the tube back to the studios.’

      Fortunately he acknowledged this with a slight tilt of his head.

      ‘In that case I’ll call round next week.’

      Why? she wanted to throw at him bitterly. Why СКАЧАТЬ