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Authors: Diana Hamilton

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BOOK: The Faithful Wife
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He surely wasn't hearing a thing she said! His mouth had found the pulse points of the tender insides of her wrists. She didn't know how long she could hang onto her shaky control.
She dragged her hands away. ‘Listen to me!' She backed away, putting the tenuous safety of a small distance between them. ‘You walked in that night and found me in Guy's arms. And, yes, I guess it did look suspicious,' she agreed, seeing his body go tense again, his eyes take on that watchful, assessing look that told her he was weighing every word.
‘He was comforting me. Being a friend. I'd been crying my eyes out over you, and he was telling me you'd have a good reason for being delayed.'
The watchful look had intensified. It made her bones shiver. But she'd allowed his lack of trust to ruin what had been left of their marriage before; she wouldn't let it happen again. Besides, hadn't he said he trusted her now?
To escape his eyes she turned and picked up her coffee, drained her cup. Her hands were completely steady now. She was, she decided, inhabiting the calm eye at the centre of the storm.
‘You were to be home that Christmas Eve. I'd planned to make it special. You'd promised to be there, and, talking to you on the phone, I had the feeling that you wanted to get everything right again as much as I did. We both knew something was going wrong. But you didn't come. The meal had been prepared for hours. I'd put my glad rags on. My ears were sticking out on stalks listening for the sound of your key in the door. The phone rang—I thought it had to be you, telling me you'd been delayed, were on your way.'
She shivered, the memory of what had happened fraying her. ‘It was Guy, phoning to wish us happy Christmas and spread his good news. Ruth had had her pregnancy confirmed. They were expecting twins. I wasn't listening,' she confessed tightly. ‘I was bursting into sobs of disappointment because it wasn't you. And Guy and Ruth, like the good friends they are, came straight on round. Ruth was in the kitchen making fresh coffee and Guy was still trying to comfort me when you walked in, called me a vile name and walked out again. And didn't come back.
‘I should have told you all this, waited around until you did decide to show up,' she-whispered miserably. ‘Got Guy and Ruth in to confirm it, if you couldn't believe me. But pride got in the way. You didn't trust me, and at the time I couldn't live with that. I didn't know then that you'd heard the old gossip about me and Guy, let alone believed it.'
She felt his arms go around her waist, and leant back against the strength of his body. Her voice was shaky as she told him, ‘I want you to believe me now—not for my sake, but for yours. I don't want you to be hurt by doubt.'
‘Sweetheart!' His voice was rough with emotion. He turned her in his arms. ‘I hate myself for ever doubting you, for taking a later flight than I'd originally intended. But mistakes don't matter if we both learn from them. And I have learned, I promise.' His mouth claimed hers as he breathed, ‘Oh, God, how I love you!'
She would treasure those words for the rest of her life, do her utmost to deserve them.
For the second time that evening he scooped her into his arms, but this time those black eyes were glittering with another emotion entirely, his intended destination far removed from the back of a cab. He dropped her on the big double bed and joined her, their limbs tangling instinctively, inevitably, no parting conceivable, not in their lifetime.
 
Bella awoke to a gentle rapping on the bedroom door. She yawned drowsily, delicately, like a cat, her body sated from passion.
She peered up at Jake through a tangle of black lashes. Sitting upright, propped against the pillows, his naked body gleamed like dull satin in the half-light of a winter's morning. His wide mouth was soft, tender, his eyes loving as he stroked the tumbled hair from her eyes then called ‘Come.' His eyes held hers as he told her, ‘Breakfast Something special to mark a new beginning.' He got up and took the loaded tray from the room service waiter.
Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. Bella forked up delicious mouthfuls as Jake poured champagne. He rejoined her amongst the wickedly rumpled sheets, holding his glass to hers, holding her eyes with his.
‘Happy New Year, sweetheart.' His eyes glittered with sinful intent. ‘Shall we start it as we mean to go on?'
Her heart quickened with immediate response. But there was something she really had to say. ‘About your giving up work—you made it sound as if you were taking a very early retirement.' She couldn't ask that of him, let alone expect it. It was too much for him to sacrifice.
‘I did some thinking,' she explained, idly running a fingertip across the rangy breadth of his chest. ‘I could take a secretarial course and help you out on trips abroad. That way we'd be doing things together. I know how much work means to you. I can't see you staying put and twiddling your thumbs.'
‘I have no intention of twiddling anything—well, certainly not my thumbs.' He grinned, planting a light kiss on the end of her nose. ‘I grew up with an obsession about security. When I was a kid we seemed to have it all—a good home, everything any of us wanted, within reason. Dad owned a successful highstreet hardware store, but he lost it, lost the house—everything. He found gambling on the stock market more exciting than selling screws and buckets.
‘He killed himself soon after he'd been made bankrupt, and we were forced to live on the State, try to make sense of what had happened. I would have trusted that man to the ends of the earth. After what happened, the way he just left us to cope without him, mistrust came easily.
‘I inherited Dad's fascination with the money markets,' he told her soberly. ‘But, fortunately, not his capacity to make mistakes. But it was always there, at the back of my mind—the fear that I could come unstuck in a big way. It drove me to work harder and harder, determined that any family of mine would never have to suffer the way my father's did. It became an obsession. I didn't stay still long enough to register the fact that I'd got enough financial security to last several lifetimes.'
He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. ‘I've at last woken up to the fact that I want to make a life with you. A real life. Now, if you're still of the same mind, shall we see if we can begin to make that family of ours?'
The sinuous, seductive twist of her body against his was all the answer he needed.
EPILOGUE
‘I
T's going to be a white Christmas,' Jake said, drawing the heavy brocade curtains, closing out the wintry landscape.
‘Perfect!' Bella fixed the diaphanous fairy on the top of the tree and shuffled round on the stool she was standing on, holding out her arms to her beloved husband.
He helped her down, holding her close. In spite of her condition, in spite of his objections, she'd insisted on dressing the tree herself, as she did every year. She rested her head against his chest, twisting sideways a little because of her bulk. He felt the new life they were expecting in a few weeks' time kick against his body, and his hand went to hold her glossy dark head exactly where it was for a few more moments.
She was the most precious thing in his life, and her happiness spilled over and made his whole life bright.
A crash, a delighted squeal and a definite chortle alerted him to the fact that the second most precious thing in his life was up to mischief.
Incorrigible mischief—which was why they'd put him in his walker while the tree was being dressed, out of harm's way—or so they had thought.
‘Bedtime, I think,' Jake stated, marching to the rescue, and Bella waddled after him, giggling as she retrieved the scattered brightly wrapped packages she'd stacked in a corner waiting to go under the tree after Jamie had gone to bed.
Starfish hands had found them. Jake gently ungripped the tiny fingers and lifted his son into his arms, where the grip was immediately transferred to his hair. ‘I'll bath him,' he said. ‘Put your feet up.'
‘I'll make supper.'
‘You'll put your feet up.'
Bossy, she thought, kissing her squirming son a fond goodnight and watching with love-drenched eyes as her husband walked from the room. She turned then, allowing the mellow homeliness of the room—one of over a dozen in this converted farmhouse—to soak into her.
Sometimes the perfection of her life overwhelmed her, filled her heart until she thought it would burst.
The perfect home, found only days after that ecstatic reconciliation. Deep in rolling countryside yet only an hour's drive from London.
The perfect child, and another to come.
The perfect husband. Oh, he still kept a finger decidedly on the pulse of his business affairs, but he worked from his study at the side of the house. It was a book-lined room, bristling with the technological monsters that allowed him to use his talents as an independent international financier, the head of a huge insurance company and a highly successful backer in the industrial and technological arenas of the world.
He still made time to share her life, care for her, taking a hands-on interest in helping her make a garden. manage the strip of woodland that bordered their very own lake.
The perfect husband, except for that bossy streak. Bella threw another log on the fire and went to make the supper, wondering if he'd like the gift she'd selected for him.
After a great deal of thought she'd decided on a chainsaw.
 
‘Keep still, young Jamie. Kicking's fine when I'm teaching you the rudiments of football. Right now I'm trying to get you into this sleeping suit.'
Jamie talked back at him in baby talk, very fast and rather loud, and, mission accomplished, Jake squatted back on his heels and eyed his son. His son eyed him back then yawned, his dark eyes drooping.
Jake grinned and scooped him up, holding him close to his heart as he carried him out of a bathroom that looked as if a hurricane had struck. Somehow, when he took over Jamie's bathtime, it always ended up that way. And he got soaked.
As soon as he'd got him bedded down in the nursery he'd change and then make supper. He hoped Bella was doing as he'd told her—resting.
He was creeping carefully from the dimly lit nursery when Bella joined him.
‘Asleep?'
He nodded. Their son had needed a whole bunch of stories, plus several not-very-tuneful renditions of lullabies—recalled out of desperation—before he'd consented to settle down.
Jake reached out and pulled her into the circle of his arms and Bella whispered, without a hint of contrition, ‘Supper's almost ready. You'll just have time to change out of your wet things.'
‘I thought I told you to rest,' he muttered gruffly as he helped her down the stairs, making sure she didn't trip. She had a mind of her own, and he loved her all the more for it. And he knew darn well he was only being allowed to help her down the staircase she used unaided twenty times a day because she liked him to touch her!
He wasn't what he'd call averse to it himself. As they successfully reached the foot of the stairs, just before he kissed her, he wondered if buying her a ride-on lawnmower had been the right choice of a gift for Christmas.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5224-0
 
THE FAITHFUL WIFE
 
First North American Publication 1999.
 
Copyright © 1997 by Diana Hamilton.
 
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited. 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
 
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
 
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books SA
 
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
BOOK: The Faithful Wife
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