Later? Never, Holly told herself, returning the phone to Jeremy,
blanking out his questioning appraisal. What was there to talk about?
Rio had said he hadn't had a choice, but in actuality he had made his
choice. Of course he was sorry. He had a conscience. But when push came
to shove
he just hadn't been able to resist the woman he really cared
about.
'Rio's a very decent guy,' Jeremy asserted forcefully. 'He's my cousin.
I know him. OK...I didn't see what actually happened but I'm certain
there's nothing for you to get upset about.'
'Are you?' Holly held back an hysterical laugh at that plea on Rio's
behalf. Decent guys don't walk out on their wives at parties. Only
besotted ones did.
'There has to be some explanation. Christabel was acting weird and her
antics were embarrassing Frank and Lily. Her date didn't stay long.'
Jeremy lowered his voice to a constrained mutter. 'You know, she wasn't
wearing anything under that dress.'
Slut, Holly thought, aghast and shocked, tears welling up in her aching
eyes. Christabel had got to him with sex. Real brazen-hussy stuff. She
was going to burn her stupid lace-topped stockings. Waste of time. She
should have known better than to try to appeal to a bloke on that level.
Especially when it was now painfully obvious that she was literally
still in the nursery league in that department.
An hour later Holly wrote the ubiquitous note.
It was really great while it lasted but now it's over.
Dry-eyed, she packed her plainer clothes and then called a taxi. Hadn't
she always known it wouldn't last? It had been wonderful while it had
lasted, she reminded herself doggedly. And he had never said he loved
her and she had never said she loved him. But he had given her a wedding
ring and only hours ago he had given her a second ring that looked very
much like an engagement ring. And suddenly she hated him with a hatred
that tore her apart and she was sobbing into her suitcase, stabbed to
the heart at
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the image of him with Christabel. It took her a good ten minutes to
plaster herself back together again.
Striving not to waken their nanny in her room next door, Holly crept
about her son's room, gathering up essentials. Timothy was going to miss
Rio so much, she reflected wretchedly. But what could she do about that?
Why was it that at the most awful moments of her life she always felt
powerless and guilty, as if everything that went wrong was her fault?
No, she caught herself up on that thought. She was making her own
decisions, not waiting on him. She was leaving him. She was going to
divorce him for adultery too. If he was expecting civilised forgiveness,
he had no hope. She might even make him wait the full three years before
she agreed to a divorce. Not that a hussy like Christabel was likely to
be put off by the prospect of living in sin. Stop it, stop it, her saner
self intervened. Let him go, let him have her if he loves her, and to
behave as he had he had to love her...
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'What have you done to that pastry?' Mary Sansom demanded in dismay. 'It
looks like you've been torturing it!'
Holly stared down at the shredded pastry and then glanced across the
kitchen at her mother, a sturdy little woman with iron-grey hair,
wrapped in a floral apron. 'I'll make some more.'
'I'll see to it.' The concern in her parent's steady blue eyes filled
Holly with guilt.
She had been trying so hard to be cheerful, but putting a happy face on
her misery was a challenge she had yet to meet. It had been almost three
weeks since she had left London. By the end of her first day home she
had been hoarse from making a clean breast of everything that had
happened to her since Timothy had been born. And there had been tears,
rebukes and regrets, but a lot of love too. That her parents could
comfort to Holly, as was her mother and father's loving acceptance of
their baby grandson. So she felt that they deserved more than the
continual sight of her drooping like a wet weekend.
Yet, as the days dragged by, her mother or her father would often come
up with some statement that unsettled Holly. Is this bloke you married a
fool, then?' her father had asked, infuriating her with that mere
suggestion. 'I reckon only a right fool would wed one woman when he
still fancied his chances with another.'
'You just never think before you act,' her mother had lamented. 'But
marriages have to be worked at and you
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should have talked to your husband. He was good to you. Why would he
suddenly take off with this other shameless piece? I can tell you, your
father would have no truck with a female like that,' her mother had told
her with staunch and touching pride. 'No decent man would want a woman
who carried on that way.'
Holly went up to bed that night and feared that the generation gap was
yawning. She lay in her pine bed and felt the tears trickling again. She
felt as if half of her had been brutally ripped away. She missed him
with every breath she drew. She turned a dozen times a day to tell him
something before she remembered that he wasn't there any more. She ached
for him and despised herself and kept on wanting to phone him but could
not begin to imagine what she could possibly say.
Two days later Mary Sansom announced over breakfast that the house
needed 'a good going-over'. Knowing well that a thorough cleaning
session was intended, Holly suppressed a groan. By teatime even the
battered kitchen range shone from industrious polishing. Her parents
were attending a church social that evening and Holly noticed that her
mother seemed unusually quiet and anxious.
'You know, Dad and I...we always want what's best for you,' the older
woman remarked without warning as Holly carried cake tins out to the car
for her. 'It's not as though you've done so well on your own.'
Hurt by a comment that she was none the less well aware her mother had
grounds to make, Holly retreated back indoors and got on with putting
Timothy to bed. 'Da...Da?' he asked in a small mournful voice, from
which hope had pretty much gone.
Eyes overflowing with tears of regret, Holly was on the stairs when she
heard the back-door knocker sound that her mother had overlooked
something in her
father flustered departure, she hurried to answer it.
It was Rio. Stunned, Holly gaped at him, her tear-streaked face pale as
a ghost between the tangled bronze ringlets tumbling round her
shoulders. He gazed down at her with dark golden eyes that glittered
below the heavy fringe of his black lashes and it was as if he had
yanked a panic button in her heart, setting off a chain reaction that
went right through her slender body in a stormy wave. She parted dry
lips. 'How...how did you find me?' 'Finding you down here was easy.
Unfortunately I wasted over two weeks on the assumption that you'd taken
some job and stayed
on in London,' Rio admitted. 'Are you planning to
invite me indoors?'
At that pointed question, Holly coloured and stepped back. Clad in
fitted black jeans, a cream sweater and a loose-cut black fleece-lined
jacket, Rio cut a powerful figure, dominating the homely kitchen, his
dark head reaching within a couple of inches of the overhanging rafters.
'Watch out for the doorways,' she said automatically. "They're lower.'
Poised with his back to the low-burning fire, Rio was staring at her. As
his incisive gaze wandered intently over her she realised what a mess
she must look, for her hair needed to be tidied and she was wearing
ancient jeans and an even more ancient sweatshirt. 'You look about
sixteen...' Rio murmured huskily. Picturing Christabel's glittering
sophistication, Holly paled and tore her gaze away. She stared out
instead at the sleek red Ferrari parked in the yard. 'How did you get
that car up the lane?' 'Slowly.'
She could feel his tension as much as her own. It was as if he didn't
know how to talk to her any more. She
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marvelled that she had ever convinced herself that she could avoid a
final meeting with him. But, oh, how she wished that that had been
possible when he stood only feet away and she was aware of his presence
with every screaming fibre of her being. She was a mess of conflict:
hurting and hating and hungering all at once.
'How could you just walk out of our home with Timothy?' Rio asked with
raw-edged abruptness.
'It wasn't difficult after what you did at the party,' Holly replied
tightly.
'You don't trust me at all...'
Holly said nothing. Her experience of his sex had not taught her trust.
When she had first given her trust Jeff had broken it, and more than
once. With Rio, she had lived each day as it came, protecting herself by
trying not to look too far ahead but secretly always expecting
disappointment and heartbreak. That the worst had ultimately happened
had come as no surprise. It was as if she had been waiting for it all along.
'You want me to talk about Christabel...'
The nasty bit of her wanted to tell him not to bother, as it was a bit
late in the day for explanations. But common sense told her that, no
matter how much hearing the truth might hurt, some day in the future she
would be grateful that she had heard him out.
'OK...' Rio conceded, but the silence still dragged on like a hangman's
rope threatening to snap tight at any moment.
Is it the sex? That was what she wanted to ask, what she was forcing
herself to hold back because it would reveal too much. Only a woman
eaten up with jealousy would even consider asking such a thing. A woman
in love, desperate to reduce the breakdown to the lowest common
denominator in the hope that it would somehow make it more bearable.
'Where do you want me to start?' Holly spun right round in frustration.
Rio was raking a not quite steady hand through his luxuriant black hair,
pallor spread below his usually vibrant complexion and accentuated round
the tight line of his sensual mouth. For the first time she noticed that
his dark, devastating features had harder angles, as if he had lost
weight. She was delighted that he looked so downright miserable and
strained. Evidently life with Christabel was not one of unalloyed joy
and frolics.
'Dio mio...maybe I should have rehearsed this first,' Rio breathed, his
jawline clenching hard. 'Christabel and I had a long-distance
relationship. Sometimes a month or more would go by without us seeing
each other. Her career took her all over the world and I had similar
commitments. I may well have spent more actual time alone with you than
I ever spent with her.'
Surprise assailed Holly, for she had not expected to hear
that.
'When we were together we usually had company. The less I saw of her,
the more I thought I loved her.' Faint dark colour burnished his
spectacular cheekbones. 'It's taken me a long time to work that out.'
'Work what out?'
"That, when the chips were down, I didn't know Christabel at all. What
we had was superficial but I would've married her without ever
appreciating that,' Rio admitted grudgingly.
'So what changed?' Holly almost whispered.
A faint sheen of perspiration overlaid his bronzed skin, and he turned
pale again right before her eyes. 'The night
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I met you, I let myself into her apartment to wait for her coming home.
She wasn't expecting me...surprise, surprise,' Rio framed grittily, his
dark, deep drawl slowing and tautening. 'When she came back she wasn't
alone...'
Comprehension came to Holly in a surge. 'She had another man with her?'
'I need a drink,' Rio said hollowly.
Holly was ready to poison him. He had forgiven Christabel for carrying
on with some other man? Incandescent rage at such injustice flamed
through Holly. Her parents were virtually teetotal but brandy was always
kept for emergencies. She poured him a glass and set it on the table so
that he would have to reach for it. Rio drained the measure in one gulp.
The silence came back then, thicker and heavier than ever.
Rio threw back his proud dark head. 'I should've told you weeks ago but
I didn't want to talk about it. She wasn't with a man...she was with a
woman.'
Holly's lips parted company and stayed parted while she attempted to
compute that rather more shocking slant to her inner picture of
infidelity and betrayal, but no matter how hard she tried she could not
fit Christabel into that context. 'Are you serious?'
Rio dealt her bemused face a sudden exasperated appraisal. 'They were
making love.'
'Oh...' Holly had no ready response to make.
'I promised her that I wouldn't talk about it...' Rio hesitated, intense
eyes darker than she had ever seen them. 'But, let's face it, that's not
why I kept quiet. I was shattered. I felt humiliated...sexually and in
every other way,' he admitted in a raw undertone.
Holly could see what it was costing him to confess to vulnerability and
it hurt her even to listen. But her own thoughts were in turmoil as she
tried to make sense of what he was telling her and make it fit more
recent events. Unfortunately that attempt only left her more confused than
ever.
:. Rio snatched in a deep, charged breath and gave her a bleak glance.
'Most guys like to think of themselves as studs. When you walk in on a
scene like that with the woman you're planning to marry it's
annihilating. I doubt that Christabel was ever faithful to me.'
'Then what do you still see in her?' Holly demanded in bewilderment. 'I
mean...you're describing a situation most men couldn't forgive.'
'Christabel is so screwed up right now, I'd have to be a real bastard to
walk by on the other side,' Rio countered grimly. 'Didn't you register
what was happening at that party? Lily begged me to get her out of their
house-'
'Our hostess, Lily...Frank's wife? Begged you?" 'By that stage,
Christab
el's escort had done a timely vanishing act, probably out of
embarrassment. She was out of her head on drugs-'
'Drugs?' Holly was totally disconcerted.
'Lily caught her in the act with cocaine and asked her to leave.
Christabel refused,' Rio explained ruefully. 'Frank and Lily lost their
eldest son to heroin a couple of years ago and Lily was very distressed.
I agreed to help, not just for their benefit but also for Christabel's.
She was out of control and making a total ass of herself.'
'But if you'd come and spoken to me first, explained-'
'You wouldn't have listened. You'd have lost your temper and I had to
get Christabel out of there fast and without a scene.' Dark golden eyes
rested on her in level challenge. Holly swallowed hard, for there was a
lot of truth in his
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forecast of how she would have reacted had he approached her first to
warn her.
'The circumstances were exceptional.' His lean, strong face hardened.
'But I made the mistake of assuming that you'd understand that there was
something really serious happening.'
'Yes...' Face burning, Holly gazed into the fire, no longer able to meet
his scrutiny. 'Were you aware that she did drugs?'
'Before that party I'd no idea Christabel had a problem, but then she
was too clever to take them around me. And that night I didn't want the