‘I can’t be your wife any more and survive, Jay.’

Her words rang with honesty. ‘If anything remains of the love you said you felt for me, you’ll let me go.’

He stood up, a muscle clenching in his square jaw and his voice as low as hers had been when he said, ‘If anything remains? Hell, Miriam, you’ve got no idea, have you?’

‘Don’t—don’t do this.’

‘What? This?’ He pulled her up and into his arms, kissing her hard.

Helen Brooks lives in Northamptonshire, and is married with three children and three beautiful grandchildren. As she is a committed Christian, busy housewife, mother and grandma, her spare time is at a premium, but her hobbies include reading, swimming and gardening, and walks with her husband and their Irish terrier. Her long-cherished aspiration to write became a reality when she put pen to paper on reaching the age of forty and sent the result off to Mills & Boon.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE ITALIAN TYCOON’S BRIDE

THE BILLIONAIRE’S MARRIAGE MISSION

A FAMILY FOR HAWTHORN FARM*

HIS CHRISTMAS BRIDE

THE BILLIONAIRE BOSS’S SECRETARY BRIDE

RUTHLESS TYCOON, INNOCENT WIFE

THE BOSS’S INEXPERIENCED SECRETARY

part of the Winter Waifs anthology

THE MILLIONAIRE’S CHRISTMAS WIFE

BY

HELEN BROOKS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘ONLY eight weeks till Christmas. Have you decided when you’re going to come up and join us all? I thought it might be nice if you tried to make it on Christmas Eve and then stayed over for the New Year.’

Her mother’s voice held the sort of briskness that said she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Miriam knew she meant well but the thought of spending several days with her mother and other well-meaning relatives and old friends verged on nightmarish. Everyone would be thinking about what happened at Christmas last year and being intensely careful not to mention it. Or ask any personal questions. Or behave naturally.

Miriam took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry but I shan’t be around this Christmas.’

‘Won’t be around?’ Anne Brown’s voice sharpened. ‘What does that mean? You’re not going to sit and mope in that awful little bedsit, are you?’

‘It’s not an awful little bedsit and no, I’m not going to sit and mope. I’m going to Switzerland, as it happens. Skiing.’

‘Skiing?’ Her mother’s voice was so shrill Miriam winced and held the phone away from her ear. ‘You can’t ski.’

‘I’m going to learn,’ Miriam said patiently.

‘When was this decided?’

‘Clara and I got our tickets yesterday.’

‘Clara? I might have known she’d be at the bottom of this.’ Now her mother’s voice was overtly hostile.

Enough was enough. ‘Actually it was me who mentioned to Clara at the weekend what I was going to do, and she asked if she could come along. I think it was because she feels like you and doesn’t want me to be without company at Christmas.’ Miriam’s voice had an edge to it. Her mother had only met Clara once on the day Miriam had moved into the bedsit in Kensington, but the other girl’s mauve spiky hair, panda eye make-up and Gothic clothes, not to mention her numerous piercings, had labelled her a bad influence as far as Anne was concerned. In truth Clara was one of the funniest, most sweet-natured and generous people Miriam had ever met, and she didn’t know how she would have got through the past ten months without her.

Her mother sniffed. Eloquently. ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Does Jay know you’re thinking of spending Christmas in Switzerland?’

Don’t lose your temper. She loves you and she’s concerned, besides which you don’t want her to do the wobbly-voiced long-suffering-mother routine. Forcing a calmness she didn’t feel into her voice, Miriam said measuredly, ‘Why would Jay know what I’m doing or not doing, Mother?’

‘Because he’s your husband, of course.’

‘In name only.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And you might as well know I’m going to ask him for a divorce soon.’ She didn’t know why she hadn’t done it before except she hadn’t wanted to contact him and face all the hoo-ha that would result. It had been easier to pretend he didn’t exist while she licked her wounds and attempted to regain her equilibrium. Which she had done now. She was much, much better, she assured herself silently. Back to normal really.

‘So you’re still determined not to believe him?’

How many times had they had this conversation since the day she had walked out of her beautiful marital home and into the bedsit? Too many. Miriam’s voice reflected this when she said, ‘This conversation’s going nowhere and I’m late for an appointment. I’ll ring you at the weekend, OK? Love you.’

She turned off her mobile. Her mother wouldn’t like it, of course, but it would be her poor stepfather who would have to put up with the martyr attitude that would invariably follow. The ‘I’ve got the most ungrateful and stubborn daughter in the world’ scenario.

Miriam shut her eyes tightly for a moment. She didn’t understand—and would never understand—how her mother could still continue to regard Jay as the best thing since sliced bread after what he’d done. But then after one glance from his tawny-brown eyes most women were putty in Jay’s hands. As she had been. Once.

Her mouth firming, Miriam picked up her keys and exited the bedsit after one glance round the bright, uncluttered room. It might, in all honesty, have been termed awful when she had first seen it on a bleak wintry day at the beginning of the year, she acknowledged, descending the steep stairs to Clara’s bedsit on the bottom floor of the three-storeyed Victorian terrace. But plenty of elbow grease, several tins of paint, new laminate flooring and her own furniture had transformed the place.

It was her tiny sanctuary, she told herself, pausing outside Clara’s room. Her cream sofa converted to a bed at night, and her bistro table and chairs set by the large window afforded a panoramic view over London rooftops and the wide expanse of sky above that never ceased to thrill her, night and day. The minute kitchen area in one corner served culinary needs fairly adequately, and the built-in wardrobe and cupboards along one wall—now painted barley-white—meant the room was always spick and span without stuff lying about. She’d learnt very quickly that even a jumper or jacket draped over a chair made the compact space appear untidy.

She knocked on Clara’s door. They cooked each other dinner now and again and tonight was Clara’s turn, but she didn’t think her mother would have appreciated knowing what her ‘appointment’ entailed.

The door opened immediately. ‘You’re bang on time as always,’ Clara said with a note of amazement. Punctuality wasn’t Clara’s strong point. Nor was tidiness, Miriam reflected, picking her way over the floor, which was strewn with clothes, magazines, shoes and umpteen other things, to the kitchen area.

‘Something smells fantastic.’ It was one of Clara’s quirks that she could take a load of ingredients and seemingly fling them together and they always came out utterly delicious. ‘What are we having?’

Clara wrinkled her snub nose. ‘I’d got nothing in so it’s onion and mustard mash with sausages; nothing special. Help yourself to a glass of wine,’ she added, inclining her head at the opened bottle on the tiny breakfast bar which separated the kitchen from the rest of the room. ‘It’s a good one. Dave brought it the other night.’

Since Miriam had known the other girl Clara had had a number of boyfriends, none of whom lasted for more than a month on average. As soon as Clara had got them interested she got bored and yet another hopeful beau was shown the door. The fact that they all fell madly in love with her seemed to be the death knell as far as Miriam could make out. It wasn’t that Clara was shallow exactly, but once the challenge was gone, so was Clara. Dave was two weeks strong at the moment but already a note of disinterest had crept into Clara’s voice.

Miriam eyed her friend. ‘You’re going off him, aren’t you?’ she accused mildly. ‘Don’t tell me he’s talking about for ever already?’

Clara giggled. ‘He wants me to meet his mother,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, can you imagine me meeting anyone’s mother? They’d die of shock.’

Miriam smiled as she was meant to but inside she found herself envying Clara’s carefree approach to life and love. They were so different, she thought as she sipped at the wine—which was a very good one—but perhaps that was why they hit it off so well. Clara was the original free spirit, which was reflected in the way she looked and the clothes she wore; she, on the other hand, had aspired to be nothing more than a wife and mother since she was a little girl playing with her dolls. Clara was a television researcher, a job that was as varied as it was hard work, and she was brilliant at it. She was secretary to a successful lawyer and loved the fact her job was nine-to-five with no hidden panics or surprises. Clara was quicksilver, she was quiescent, which was probably why Jay had strayed so early in their marriage, she told herself broodingly. She was too dull, too uninteresting to hold a man like Jay Carter.

‘You’re thinking of him again, aren’t you?’ Clara said suddenly. ‘I can always tell. You get this haunted look. Has he phoned again?’

Miriam shook her head.

‘Written?’

‘No, we haven’t been in contact since the spring.’

‘Was that the time you told him you loathed even the thought of him and wished you’d never set eyes on him?’

Clara’s memory was too good sometimes. She hadn’t felt proud of that last conversation when she had said far too much. ‘Uh-huh,’ she mumbled, taking a big gulp of wine.

‘Then what’s prompted the face?’

‘I can’t help my face,’ Miriam said reasonably. And when Clara just raised one pierced eyebrow and waited, she added reluctantly, ‘My mother phoned and I told her about Christmas.’

‘Ah…’ Clara dished up two platefuls of fragrant, steaming mash and added three fat, done-to-a-turn sausages per plate. ‘And she asked if you had told Jay you were spending Christmas with the wild witch of the west, and you told her it was none of Jay’s business.’

It was moments like this that revealed why Clara was so highly regarded in the career she’d chosen, despite her outward nonconformity. Under the mauve hair was an acutely intelligent and discerning mind. ‘Something like that,’ Miriam murmured.

‘Right. We’re going to finish this bottle and open another and forget all about men. OK?’ Clara’s blue eyes held Miriam’s soft brown ones. ‘And then we’re going to talk about Switzerland and what clothes we need to buy for the evenings with all those gorgeous men about.’

‘I thought we were going to forget about men.’

‘Only the ones in the past and present. The future is something else. Oh, no, I’ve just thought of something. I can’t go to Switzerland.’

Miriam sat up straighter at the note of alarm in Clara’s voice. ‘Why not?’

‘How is Father Christmas going to fill my stocking if I’m in a different country?’

‘You’re a nut.’ Miriam smiled, nudging Clara with her elbow. But a very nice nut.

It was gone ten o’clock when Miriam climbed the stairs to her bedsit and she was in a far better frame of mind than when she’d left it earlier. Clara was a tonic, she thought, smiling to herself as she let herself into the room and switched on the lights. She had left her mobile in the bedsit because she hadn’t been able to face the thought of talking to her mother again that night, but as she passed it her conscience took over and she picked it up to check her messages.

There were two. The first one was from her mother, as she had expected, terse and to the point, saying of course Miriam must do as she wanted with regard to Christmas but everyone was going to be terribly disappointed not to see her, and with Great-Aunt Abigail’s health being so poor it might be the old lady’s last Christmas.

Miriam wrinkled her nose. Emotional blackmail. Her mother was a dab hand at it. But, considering she had never liked Great-Aunt Abigail and Great-Aunt Abigail had never liked her, she didn’t think her absence would cause too many tears.

She pressed the button for the next call. ‘Hello, Miriam.’ Jay’s deep, smoky voice was the same one that featured in her dreams far too often for her liking. ‘I think we’ve got things to discuss, don’t you? I’m not prepared for this state of affairs to continue any longer and, in spite of the fact that you don’t want to be on the same planet as me, I suggest we tackle this as adults rather than petulant children. I’ll call again if you don’t call back. Just so you know. Goodbye for now.’

Miriam sat down very suddenly. Jay. For a moment all she could do was repeat his name in her head. Taking hold of her whirling emotions, she forced herself to listen to the message again, and this time the cold, businesslike tone to his voice registered.

He had turned up unexpectedly a couple of times since the day she had left him and phoned frequently until the day in the spring when she knew she had mortally offended him, but never in all their dealings had his voice carried such an icy chill to it. It seemed she wouldn’t have to be the one to instigate divorce proceedings after all, she told herself sickly. It sounded as though he was ringing to set that particular ball in motion himself. Of course, she could be wrong. Bitter experience was proof she didn’t have a clue what made Jay Carter tick.

Rising to her feet, she walked across the room and made herself a cup of hot chocolate. She needed something to combat the butterflies in her stomach. Then she dialled Jay’s number.

‘Hello?’

The butterflies ignored the soothing effects of the hot chocolate and instead went for gold in the fluttering stakes. Swallowing hard, Miriam said, ‘Hello, Jay. You wanted to talk to me?’

‘Miriam?’

He knew jolly well it was her. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice clipped now. ‘I’ve been out.’

‘Does that mean you didn’t take your phone with you or you were too…busy to answer it when it rang?’

It was nothing to do with him either way. Ignoring the question, she repeated stonily, ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

‘I think we need to talk,’ he corrected silkily.

Miriam blinked. The snub had been delivered with a smooth flatness but was a snub none the less. Recovering immediately, she said coolly, ‘So talk.’

‘Oh, no, Miriam. This time we do it my way. Civilised, over a meal and a drink. That’s what grown-up people do.’

Her temper was slowly chasing away the last of the butterflies. ‘Really? I take it this is in the same realm as adultery being an accepted social pastime for grown-up men and women?’

There was a pregnant pause before he said, ‘I’ll ignore that. Tomorrow night. Are you free?’

She was but not for the world would she have admitted it. ‘Sorry, already booked.’

‘OK, we could go on like this for hours. When are you able to have dinner with me?’

Ridiculous, because he was only talking about dinner, but his dark, smoky voice was having an unwelcome effect on her equilibrium. Or perhaps it wasn’t so much her mental or emotional equanimity, she admitted with hot shame, as a throbbing warmth spread throughout her lower stomach. How she could still physically want him after what he had done she didn’t know, but it appeared her body was working independently to the rest of her. ‘Let me see…’ She allowed a moment or two to pass, more to gain control over her voice than anything else. A breathless stammer just wasn’t an option.

Today was Tuesday. ‘Friday?’ she said as steadily as she could, considering her whole body was quivering with something she labelled lust.

‘Yep, Friday’s good for me.’

He sounded insultingly relaxed about the wait, she noted with a mixture of hurt and bitterness. But then she had no doubt at all Jay could fill his evenings without any trouble whatsoever. From the first day she had met him she had known women found him totally irresistible. ‘Fine, Friday it is.’

‘I’ll pick you up at eight.’

Now he had got his own way he sounded almost uninterested, but then that was the nature of the beast, Miriam told herself silently. Jay was the ultimate alpha male, the leader, the hunter. How she could have been so incredibly stupid as to get mixed up with him in the first place she still didn’t know, but she had further compounded that mistake by believing him when he’d said he loved her and wanted her to marry him, that the two of them would be a forever witness to the power of true love. Her thoughts prompted her to say, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to communicate through our solicitors? I mean, we’ve said all we can say, surely?’

‘Perhaps.’ It was cold. Chilling. ‘But I’ll pick you up at eight.’

The kicked-in-the-stomach feeling she was experiencing didn’t give her any strength to argue. Suddenly a sense of fatalism was there. Maybe she had to go through the final death throes to emerge whole again, she thought a trifle hysterically. ‘You—you’ve got my address?’

‘I know where you live, Miriam.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Goodnight.’

When the phone went dead she continued to stare at it blankly for a moment or two. That was it. End of conversation. He had got what he wanted and so there was no need to prolong what had probably been to him a tedious exchange. ‘I hate you,’ she whispered into the silent room. She did, she really hated him.

But did she hate him enough? a separate part of her mind asked disturbingly. Enough to remain strong when they met, enough to refuse to let him walk all over her, enough to show him that she was finished with him for good?

Reaching for the last of the hot chocolate, she drained the mug and rose to her feet. She wasn’t going to do this—the endless soul-searching that she’d indulged in for so long in the caustic aftermath of their separation. It got her nowhere. Facts were what mattered. Jay had slept with another woman just six months after he had stood at the altar and promised to love, honour and cherish her. End of story.

Her mouth pulled tight with pain, Miriam placed the empty mug in the tiny sink in the kitchen area and walked over to the sofa. The beginnings of a headache drummed a persistent tattoo at the backs of her eyes and she pressed her fingers into the side of her forehead.

Perhaps it was as well Jay had phoned tonight, she told herself as she swiftly converted the sofa into a snug bed and got undressed. Once in her nightie she padded along to the bathroom at the end of the landing which she shared with the other occupant of that floor, a young student called Caroline, who was rarely at home since she’d found a boyfriend with his own flat. After a perfunctory wash she brushed her teeth and went back to her room, her mind still gnawing over the events of the last half-hour. Yes, all things considered, Jay contacting her wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He was right, they couldn’t go on as they were, in a state of limbo. Their marriage was over and the sooner it was made legally so, the better. He had never been right for her; from the beginning she had known she was out of his league. He was far more suited to a woman like Belinda Poppins.

Poppins. She made a sound in the back of her throat. If ever a woman had been misnamed, Belinda had. She was as unlike a magical nanny who made everything all right for everyone she came into contact with as it was possible to be. Tall and elegant, with a perfect figure that looked sensational in anything and everything, Belinda was the sort of private secretary that was every wife’s worst nightmare. The original man-eater.

Miriam stood for a moment in front of the full-length mirror in the bedsit, surveying her reflection critically. Soft brown eyes set in an oval face liberally sprinkled with freckles stared back at her, her shoulder-length chestnut hair and creamy skin completing a picture of gentle benevolence. She was the sort of person babies and animals liked instinctively, her aura of innocent non-aggression drawing any waif and stray within a fifty-mile radius to her side. Most of her boyfriends before she’d met Jay had had something of the lame duck about them once she’d got to know them; she seemed to attract such types. And then Jay Carter had blazed into her life.

She jerked away from the mirror, telling herself to stop thinking about him, but her mind was set on a certain course now and the memories were flooding in.

She’d met him on a wild, windy March afternoon in the middle of a torrential downpour when her umbrella had chosen to turn itself inside out. She’d cannoned straight into him, the force of his hard, unyielding male body almost knocking her over but for his arms coming out to grab her. Corny, but it had been love at first sight. At least for her, she thought miserably, climbing into bed and pulling the duvet up to her chin. With hindsight she now saw, whatever he’d felt for her, it hadn’t been the love she’d believed it was.

They had married three months later after a whirlwind romance during which she’d lived on cloud nine, unable to believe a man like Jay—a wealthy, successful, handsome and charismatic entrepreneur with the Midas touch—wanted her, Miriam Brown. They had honeymooned for a month in Italy at the beautiful villa set in the hills that Jay had bought some years before, before returning home to his palatial apartment in Westminster which overlooked the river.

She had continued at her job in the law firm, not because she had to—Jay was rich enough for her never to work again—but because she wanted to. The thought of sitting at home all day twiddling her thumbs or becoming one of the ‘lunch’ crowd who drank g & ts, nibbled on lettuce leaves and then shopped all afternoon filled her with horror. Once she was expecting a baby she’d consider giving in her notice, she’d decided, but until then she’d carry on as before. Although now, instead of going home to the flat she had shared with three other girls she’d been at university with, she had Jay.

She had been so looking forward to their first Christmas together. Much to Jay’s amusement she’d spent a fortune on Christmas decorations in November and on the first weekend in December had turned the apartment into a vision of gold and red, transforming its rather masculine decor of coffee and dark browns mixed with off-white.

As a child her Christmases had, of necessity, been frugal affairs, her father having walked out on her mother and herself when she was six years old, leaving behind a mass of debt. He had disappeared off to some foreign destination with the woman he’d been seeing on the quiet, leaving her mother to pick up the pieces of their shattered life as best she could. They hadn’t seen him from that day to the time, ten years later, her mother had been notified of his death in a car accident. Her mother had remarried a year later.

Miriam turned over in bed, irritable and annoyed with herself for the trip down memory lane. She didn’t want to think about her father or Jay—they were two of a kind, she told herself bitterly. Egotistical and selfcentred, the sort of men who would never be satisfied with one woman for long. She had always been amazed at her mother’s lack of bitterness where her father was concerned; she’d never spoken ill of him, not even through the years when they’d lived in one flea-bitten dump after another, struggling to get by on what her mother earned as a dental nurse. She’d known, deep inside, that her mother still loved him, even though they’d never spoken of it. It was only after her mother knew he was dead that she ceased to give up hoping he’d come back. Then she’d begun to live again.

Well, she didn’t intend to waste years of her life doing the same thing with regard to Jay. The old adage of ‘like mother, like daughter’ wasn’t an option in this case, Miriam thought darkly. She sat up in bed and gave her pillow a series of thumps. It felt as if it had bricks in it. Lying down again, she stared, unseeing, in the darkness.

Would she have found out about Jay and Belinda if she hadn’t gone to his office the night before Christmas Eve when she had finished work early after the law firm’s Christmas party? She had to admit she had never liked the other woman from the day she’d met her shortly after she had first started seeing Jay. They’d bumped into Belinda and a man friend at the theatre one evening and she had noticed then the way Jay’s secretary had looked at him with hungry eyes. Perhaps it was from that point her unease about Belinda had begun to make itself felt. But she had trusted Jay then. Believed him when he said she was the only woman in the world for him and he would love her for ever and ever.

Full of the plans for the big Christmas Eve dinner party they were giving for family and a few close friends, she had sailed up to his office on the top floor of Carter Enterprises with nothing more on her mind than whether to ask the caterers to cut the Christmas cake before or during the coffee and brandy stage of the meal. Jay had held his firm’s Christmas party that afternoon too and most of the employees had already left, but there had been a light burning in his office as she had walked along the thickly carpeted corridor.

She’d entered noiselessly and so had seen them before they had seen her. Jay had been standing with his back to her, jacketless and with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, and Belinda had been perched on the edge of his desk, her tight skirt riding up high over her thighs and the buttons of her blouse undone, revealing the skimpiest of lace bras which did nothing to hide her voluptuous breasts. Belinda’s eyes had flicked towards her and whether it was that or whether she had made a sound herself Miriam didn’t know, but suddenly Jay had swung round and saw her.

‘Miriam!’As she had turned to run, his voice had cut through the air. ‘Wait, this isn’t what you think.’

She had reached the lift when he caught her, his hands fastening on her forearms as he had moved her to face him. ‘Listen to me,’ he’d said urgently. ‘Let me explain.’

‘I don’t want you to explain.’ She had been beside herself with shock and pain. ‘I saw enough to know exactly what was happening.’

‘You don’t, that’s what I’m trying to say. Listen, I didn’t know she was there—’

‘She’s your secretary, in your office, half-dressed and you didn’t know she was there?’ she’d all but screamed at him. ‘Surely you can come up with something better than that?’

‘It’s the truth. I’d been working and gone to get myself a coffee—’

‘Since when do you get your own coffees?’

‘Since everyone’s gone home for Christmas.’

‘Not everyone, Jay,’ she’d shot back, incensed he could think she was so gullible. ‘You’re here and so is she. If you wanted a coffee, couldn’t Belinda have got it?’

‘I thought she’d left with the others.’

‘And you’re telling me you came back and there she was, lying over your desk with her skirt up round her ears and everything on offer?’

Belinda had appeared behind Jay at that moment, her blouse fastened and not a hair out of place as she had purred, ‘Miriam, I’m so sorry,’ as her feline eyes had glittered with satisfaction.

‘No, you’re not.’ She’d stared straight into the carefully made-up face. ‘You’re not sorry at all. You’ve always wanted him, haven’t you? Well, be my guest. He’s all yours.’

The lift had opened right on cue and she had stepped into it, Jay following her a second later. As the doors closed Belinda stood watching them, her face impassive, but the green-flecked eyes narrowed on Jay as he said, ‘You’re not going like this, not until I tell you what happened. Surely you don’t think for one moment I want her?’

She had actually put her hands over her ears at that point. ‘Don’t treat me as though I’m as foolish as my mother, Jay, because I’m not. I saw what I saw.’ As he had reached out to touch her she had slapped his hand away with some force. ‘Don’t, don’t you dare,’ she’d shouted, on the verge of hysterics. ‘I never want you to touch me again.’

‘Stop this.’ His face had been white and shocked but now he was getting angry too, his voice harsh as he’d ground out, ‘I’m asking you to let me explain.’

‘And I’m telling you I don’t want to hear.’ The lift doors glided open in Reception and now she lowered her voice, aware of the one remaining receptionist on duty as she said, ‘I suggest you get back to her because I don’t want you.’

‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Ridiculous or not, that’s the way I feel.’

‘I’ll take you home. Wait while I get my jacket.’

‘I’m not waiting for you, Jay. I thought you knew me well enough to understand that word doesn’t feature in my vocabulary. I watched my mother waiting for my father for years and years.’

‘You’re being unreasonable. I’m asking you, telling you to wait here for two minutes while I get my jacket, OK? If you’re not here when I get down there’ll be hell to pay, Miriam. I mean it. We’re going to talk this through and it’s not going to ruin our Christmas.’

Ruin their Christmas? She stared at him with huge eyes. Was he mad? She’d just caught him with another woman and he was talking about ruining their Christmas? What about the rest of their lives?

As soon as he had disappeared into the lift she left the building, hailing a taxi which had—miraculously in the circumstances—passed by empty. Once in the apartment she threw a few things into a suitcase, working purely on automatic and praying all the time Jay wouldn’t arrive before she had left. She had just exited the apartment block and crossed the road when a taxi screeched to a halt outside the building. Melting into the shadows, she watched as Jay leapt out of the car. It had been too dark to see his face clearly but she hadn’t had to to know he was furiously angry. It was evident in every line of his body.

Once he had gone inside she had made her escape. She hadn’t gone to her mother and stepfather, knowing that was the first place he’d try, but instead had booked into a hotel for the night. From there she had phoned her mother and told them the dinner party on Christmas Eve was off and why, and asked her to let everyone know. It was only when her mother had become somewhat tearful that she’d promised she’d go and see them the next day and stay over Christmas. Then she had had a long hot bath and cried enough tears to fill it twice over before falling asleep exhausted at some point in the evening.

When Jay had turned up at her mother’s the next day she hadn’t been surprised; he’d been phoning her mobile every few minutes but she hadn’t taken the calls. He’d given the same explanation, adding Belinda had had too much to drink at the Christmas party, which was why she’d acted as she had. He wasn’t excusing her, he’d said crisply, but apparently she’d gone to sleep in an empty office somewhere and then arrived in his while he was getting himself the coffee. He had walked in to find her reclining on his desk, half-undressed. She could believe him or not, but that was the truth. She’d said she chose not to believe him and he had left after telling her not to be such a little fool and to take time to think logically. He wasn’t going to beg and plead, he’d added. Trust was an essential ingredient in any marriage and it was about time she grew up and realised that.

His attitude had shaken her. He had seemed so staunch in what he said, totally unwavering in his explanation of what had happened. By the time she’d returned to work after the Christmas break—the worst time of her life—she had been weakening. Her mother had been insistent she’d made the biggest mistake of her life in walking out on Jay and—mainly, Miriam admitted, because she badly wanted to believe his version of events—she’d begun to think she might have got it wrong.

Then on that first morning back at work Belinda had phoned her.

Miriam sat up in bed. This was ridiculous. She was never going to be able to sleep now and why she was doing a post-mortem at this late stage she didn’t know. Everything was cut and dried and had been for ages. She had made her decision in January and it was irrevocable.

Switching on the light, she reached for a book on the table next to the sofa bed. She read a couple of pages without taking a word in; all she could focus on was the memory of Belinda’s sugary-sweet voice on that morning ten months ago.

She was so sorry, Belinda had murmured, that Miriam had had to find out about the affair the way she had, but she must believe it was over now. She wasn’t returning to work at Carter Enterprises—she had left Jay’s employ—so there was no chance temptation could rear its head again.

Miriam had listened, sickened, as the soft voice had gone on. With the benefit of hindsight she realised she should have put the phone down as soon as Belinda had spoken, but she had been like a rabbit immobilised and horribly fascinated in the glare of the headlights of the car that was going to destroy it.

She just wanted to explain, Belinda had gone on, that she didn’t make a habit of sleeping with married men but, as Miriam had probably realised by now, Jay was irresistible when he wanted something. She’d fallen madly in love with him even though she had known deep down that for him it was only a physical thing and that he was the sort of man who would always take advantage of the attraction he held for women. But she did wish Miriam well…

She had put the phone down at this point but it had been too late. Belinda’s words had burnt themselves like a branding iron into her mind. She had known then that her marriage was over.

Of course, Jay had denied everything when she’d told him what Belinda had said later that day when he had called her to ask when she was returning home. Belinda was a woman scorned, he’d insisted. When he had told her there was no way they could work together again after what had happened she had become abusive, threatening all sorts of repercussions. This was her revenge for his rejection of her. It was perfectly obvious, wasn’t it? Transparent, even.

The conversation had rapidly developed into a fullscale row with things said on both sides that would have been better unsaid. In the end she had told him she was going to see about getting somewhere else to live in the morning; she wouldn’t be returning to the apartment. Ever. There had been a long pause and then his voice had been quiet, almost conversational, when he had said, ‘You must do as you see fit, Miriam. Whatever I thought we had, I was mistaken. You’ve never loved me, not if you’re prepared to bail out the first time we hit a problem.’

It had been the final straw. ‘A problem?’ she’d screamed down the phone. ‘A problem is leaving the top off the toothpaste every morning or forgetting a birthday or not cleaning the bath properly after you’ve used it. This isn’t a problem, Jay. This is a third person in our marriage and it’s one too many for me.’

‘You don’t trust me. You’re prepared to take Belinda’s word against mine. Damn it, you want to believe her.’

Maybe the harsh note of anger and resentment in his voice should have warned her. ‘If that’s the way you want to look at it,’ she’d replied, feeling as though she was dying inside.

‘Then perhaps some time apart is best. When you’re prepared to at least listen to what I have to say, contact me.’ And he’d put the phone down. Just like that.

Miriam slung the book to one side. Sliding out of bed, she fixed herself another mug of hot chocolate and took a couple of aspirin for the headache, switching the TV on and watching an old comedy programme while she drank.

It was nearly an hour later before she settled down in bed again and this time, with the help of the aspirin and not least because she was emotionally exhausted, she fell straight to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE you sure you’re doing the right thing? I could come with you if you like; your ex wouldn’t frighten me.’

Miriam smiled at Clara. ‘You haven’t met Jay.’

‘I don’t have to meet him to know that.’ Clara grinned. The day before she had dyed her hair a bright fuchsia red, leaving a halo of purple round her face. The effect was extraordinary. ‘I haven’t come across one of the male species yet who frightens me. It’s usually the other way round if anything.’

‘Thanks, but it’s better I get this over and done with as quickly as possible and without antagonising him before a word’s said.’

Clara nodded. ‘As long as you’re up to it.’

Up to it? Never in a hundred years. ‘Course I am,’ Miriam said brightly.

‘You ought to make it clear you’re going to take him for every penny you can get,’ the normally unmaterialistic Clara said darkly. ‘The rat.’

‘I don’t want his money,’ said Miriam simply. ‘I just want out with the minimum of fuss.’ She still felt too bruised, too sore to engage in a fight over who had what. Besides, she had brought nothing into the marriage; all the wealth was Jay’s and he could keep it.

Clara surveyed her under kohl-blackened lids. ‘He’s an idiot to have lost you.’

‘He doesn’t think so.’

‘You look great tonight anyway.’ Now Clara was bracing. ‘You’ll knock him dead.’

She wished. Miriam turned and looked at herself in the mirror. Clara had come round as soon as she had got in from work, announcing she intended to keep her company until zero hour, as she’d put it.

Miriam had appreciated the thought, but in truth she’d rather have got ready in peace so she could go over—for the umpteenth time—the question-and-answer scenarios she’d played endlessly in her head since Tuesday. She felt so incredibly nervous, and now she was wondering if the plum jersey wool dress with a deep V-neck was dressy enough for dinner with Jay. She supposed it depended on where he was taking her, but Jay invariably favoured the more upmarket places.

She surveyed her reflection. Her black stiletto court shoes and ridiculously expensive designer jacket, which she had bought especially for tonight, gave the outfit that exclusive edge though, she comforted herself after another sweeping glance. They should do; they’d practically emptied her bank account.

‘You’ll be absolutely fine.’ Clara had obviously read her thoughts. ‘You will, Miriam. Really. Look, you’re over him; that’s what you have to keep telling yourself. You’re the one in control now. OK?’

She could tell herself that all she wanted, but she knew the truth. Swallowing hard, Miriam muttered, ‘What’s the time?’ just as the buzzer in the bedsit sounded. ‘It’s him.’ Pure panic set in as she stared at Clara. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘Of course you can.’

‘I’m not like you.’

‘That’s true, you’re not. No one’s like me. At least, I hope not or else the effort I put in to being an original is totally wasted.’ Clara gave another of her Cheshirecat grins. ‘Do you want me to answer?’

‘No, I’ll do it.’ Taking a deep breath, Miriam pressed the button. ‘Hello?’

‘Miriam? It’s Jay.’

Miriam’s stomach did a somersault. ‘I’ll be right down.’ There was no way she was going to give him the satisfaction of seeing how she lived now. The house she had rented with her friends when she’d met him hadn’t exactly been the Ritz, but they’d had a lovely shared sitting room and kitchen-diner and each of their bedrooms had been a double. Not that she was ashamed of her bedsit, she told herself silently, but she wasn’t going to give him any chance of crowing about her reduced circumstances.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Clara said again after some moments when Miriam still hadn’t moved. ‘Here, take your bag.’ She handed it to her, adding, ‘Come on,’ as she opened the bedsit door. ‘I want to see him.’

‘You can’t.’ Miriam stared at her in horror.

‘I can. I’m going to get a paper at the shop down the road. Now, is it my fault your husband just happens to be standing on the doorstep when I open the door?’

‘Clara, he’ll know.’

‘So?’ Clara’s voice was determined. ‘Don’t worry, he won’t be in any doubt as to how I regard him, handsome or not.’

That was what worried her. Miriam followed Clara down the stairs as fast as her vertiginous heels would allow. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything,’ she begged frantically. ‘Promise me, Clara.’

‘I promise.’

‘Cross your heart and hope to die.’

‘If you insist,’ Clara said brightly over her shoulder.

‘Say it.’

They had just reached the lobby and as Miriam clutched at Clara’s arm the front door opened, the girl who shared Miriam’s floor choosing that moment—of all moments—to make one of her rare trips home. Miriam wasn’t really aware of Caroline’s cheery ‘Hi’ as she sashayed past them, making for the stairs; her whole being was taken up with the tall, dark man who had put out a hand to prevent the door closing again.

‘Hello, Miriam.’

She stared into the yellow-gold eyes that had fascinated her from day one. Everything about Jay had fascinated her, from his hard, handsome face with its thick eyelashes and sexy, slightly cynical mouth to his big muscled body that was as lean and toned as any prime athlete’s. From somewhere she found the self-control to say fairly steadily, ‘Hello, Jay.’

‘I’m going to get a paper,’ Clara announced to the lobby in general rather than anyone in particular, removing herself from Miriam’s grip.

Miriam saw Jay’s eyes widen as he took in the other girl, and he looked even more taken aback when Clara gave him a ferocious glare as she passed him without speaking. If she hadn’t been feeling so wretched it would have made her smile, Miriam thought. As it was, she cleared her throat and said quietly, ‘That was Clara. She lives here too.’

‘Right.’ His eyes had narrowed. ‘I take it she knows about our current situation?’

‘She’s my friend.’

‘So I gathered from the way she looked at me.’ He waved his hand in the direction of the street. ‘The taxi’s waiting.’

He took her arm as she reached him and it took every ounce of Miriam’s will for her not to reveal the trembling his touch caused.

He smelt as good as always. The thought was there at the back of her mind as they walked to the taxi-cab and Jay helped her inside with the natural courtesy that was an integral part of him. And he looked fantastic in a beautifully tailored suit and cream shirt and tie. But then he always looked fantastic, with or without clothes.

She turned her head to look out of the window as he sat down beside her, thankful he didn’t have the power to read her wanton thoughts. And that last thought had started a process that was making her hot all over.

The taxi passed Clara, who had just reached the paper shop, and as Miriam saw the pink and mauve hair disappear into the confines of the building it was all she could do not to yell to the taxi driver to stop the car so she could dash in after her.

Jay had leaned back comfortably in the seat, his thigh touching hers and the big body relaxed. ‘How are you?’ he murmured as the tawny gaze glittered over her profile.

Miriam forced herself to glance briefly at him as she said, ‘Very well. And you?’

‘Oh, I’m great, Miriam. Just great. A different woman for every night of the week, of course; isn’t that what you want to hear?’ And then he said swiftly, ‘Sorry, forget I said that. I attack when I’m nervous but then you know that.’

She had forgotten how seductive Jay’s particular brand of ruthlessness married with vulnerability was. From their first date he had let his defences down when they were alone, something he didn’t do with anyone else. At least, that was what she’d believed once. Along with the fact that he was a one-woman man.

Her thoughts made her voice tight when she said, ‘I don’t think this evening was a good idea, Jay. Whatever needs to be said could have been said over the phone.’

He made no comment to this, saying instead, ‘You look beautiful tonight, but then you always do.’

Miriam knew she wasn’t beautiful. She wouldn’t break any mirrors but she had the sort of innocent, soft looks that maiden aunts called sweet and other women dismissed as no competition. Her mother’s pet name for her as a child had been ‘little dove’, which said a lot really. What wasn’t so obvious was that the temper that went with the red in her chestnut hair was there but hidden under layers of gentle friendliness. It rarely came into play but when it did it was fiery.

Aiming to keep the conversation as impersonal as possible, she said crisply, ‘If you’re wondering whether I intend to claim for anything, I’m not.’

Jay’s eyes became gold slits. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘In the divorce settlement. I don’t want anything. It’s all yours anyway—the house, the cars, everything.’

There was a long pause. When Miriam nerved herself to look at him she saw his face was grim. ‘Who’s talking about divorce?’

‘We are, surely.’

‘You might be. I’m not.’

‘But—’

‘Have you instructed anyone at the practice?’

‘Of course not. I’d discuss it with you first rather than you just having the papers arrive in the post,’ Miriam said with a touch of indignation in her voice.

‘How thoughtful.’ The sarcasm was biting.

Her soft mouth tightened. ‘But it’s clearly the next step.’

‘It might be clear to you but that’s as far as it goes, Miriam. For the record, when I stood at the altar I meant what I said. Till death and so on.’

If he carried on like this the death part might come quicker than he expected. Her anger rising, Miriam snapped, ‘And I didn’t? Is that what you’re insinuating?’

‘You’re the one wanting a divorce.’

‘And you’re the one who slept with your secretary.’

Surprisingly, her lack of control seemed to restore his equilibrium. Leaning back in the seat again and slipping an arm along at the back of her, he said lazily, ‘Don’t shout, it makes you sound like a fishwife.’

Smouldering, she glared at him. ‘I hate you.’

‘Now you merely sound childish.’

Miriam had never been prone to any kind of physical violence but her fingers itched to wipe the mocking smile off his face. Instead she contented herself with moving as close to the edge of the seat as she could and keeping her eyes on the bright lights flashing by outside.

‘Are you sulking?’ Jay asked interestedly after a while.

‘Isn’t that what children do?’ she bit back without looking at him, knowing her cheeks were burning and furious with herself for letting him get under her skin.

There was silence for a moment. ‘You look lovely when you’re angry,’ he said, deadpan.

Suddenly—worryingly—she wanted to smile and she knew she couldn’t. She was being subjected to the Carter charm and she knew from past history it was lethal. He could turn it on and off like a tap to get his own way. Forcing a calmness she didn’t feel, Miriam said carefully, ‘Jay, if this evening isn’t going to be a complete disaster I suggest we keep things on a businesslike footing, OK?’

When she glanced at him there was a twist to the stern, sexy mouth that suggested he was amused. It ought to have made her more angry but it only served to remind her how much she still fancied him.

‘You’re my wife, Miriam. Not a business colleague.’

Fair comment—not that she’d acknowledge that. ‘You know that’s not the point,’ she said evenly. ‘We’ve been separated for ten months—’

‘Not by my choice.’

She cleared her throat. ‘Nevertheless, nothing’s the same.’

‘No, you’re right; it isn’t.’

Taken aback, she stared at him. She had expected him to argue, not agree with her. Ridiculously, it hurt. Recovering herself, she said weakly, ‘There you are, then.’

‘Where we are is the restaurant.’ The cab drew up outside a brightly lit, glass-and-chrome type building as Jay spoke, the doorman standing outside and a glimpse of the swish interior convincing Miriam it was one of those places where the menu would be devoid of anything so crass as the price. ‘I hope you’re hungry. I’ve been here a couple of times since it opened in the summer and the food’s great.’

Wondering who’d partnered him, Miriam said brightly, ‘I’m starving,’ knowing she’d have to force every morsel down over the lump in her throat. Over the last months she’d just about got the hang of training her mind to stop picturing Jay with other women but tonight it was beyond her.

Jay helped her out of the cab and paid the driver, taking her elbow as he escorted her into the sumptuous confines of the restaurant. Immediately the maÎtre d’hÔtel was there, greeting Jay with a deferential warmth and leading them into a small lounge dotted with comfy leather sofas and low tables filled with nibbles as though they were royalty. Presenting them with two embossed menus which were works of art in themselves, he took their order for drinks and glided away.

Miriam looked down at her menu. It was in French and—thankfully—English. She’d been right, she thought dryly. There wasn’t a price to be seen and the choice was staggering.

‘See anything you fancy?’ Jay drawled a minute or two later as though they were in some backstreet cafÉ. They both knew if anyone couldn’t choose out of the incredible dishes on offer they didn’t deserve to be sitting there.

Miriam didn’t want to reveal how impressed she was. ‘I think so,’ she answered in like vein. ‘I’ll have the ginger-marinated salmon for starters and then tournedos of beef with wild mushrooms and orangespiced armagnac plums.’

The wine waiter returned with their cocktails. Miriam had no idea what the sapphire martini she’d ordered would taste like but it had sounded elegant. She took a tentative sip. It was delicious. The Parfait d’Amour at the bottom of the glass was very blue and the slightly spicy Bombay Sapphire gin gave the cocktail a real kick. Warning herself it was probably very potent, she put the glass down. She needed to keep a clear head tonight; she definitely couldn’t afford to be anything less than one hundred per cent compos mentis.

Jay surveyed her over his Manhattan. ‘Not to your taste?’

‘On the contrary,’ she said politely, ‘it’s lovely.’ She had forgotten what it was like to be with Jay, to be wined and dined and cosseted.

No, she hadn’t, she corrected herself in the next breath. That was silly. Shutting out such memories had been part of the self-survival technique, that was all. She hadn’t been able to afford to let the recollection of the good times—and there had been plenty—weaken her resolve.

Forcing her voice into neutral, Miriam tried not to let him see how he was affecting her. ‘How’s Jayne?’

‘Is that a social nicety or are you really interested?’

That was unfair. Miriam’s soft brown eyes darkened. From the day Jay had introduced her to his sister the two women had got on like a house on fire. Jay’s parents had been killed ten years ago, when he was twenty-five and Jayne was sixteen. They’d been touring the States and had been involved in a freak accident when a car had left the road, mounted the pavement and killed them both instantly. Jayne had been staying with Jay while their parents were abroad and had continued to live with him until she had married a few months before Miriam and Jay had met.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Jay said evenly. ‘You’ve only made the effort to speak to her once or twice since we split up, so it’s a fair question.’

‘I didn’t think it was fair to put Jayne in a position where she might have to take sides.’ This was perfectly true. ‘She thinks the world of you.’

‘Meaning the side she would have taken would have been yours?’

Miriam wasn’t going to be intimidated by the edge to his voice. ‘I wasn’t the one caught cavorting with someone else,’ she pointed out coolly.

‘Cavorting?’ He seemed amused by her choice of word, the dark expression on his face clearing. ‘Miriam, puppies cavort. Or very young children.’

She saw nothing funny in this. ‘I obviously have a different slant on adultery from you.’

‘You’re still set on believing what you want to believe.’

‘Want to believe?’ Coolness went out of the window. ‘Don’t you try and turn this round on me, Jay.’

The immaculate waiter who was to take their order appeared at the table and Miriam curbed her frustration. Dredging up a smile, she gave her choice of dishes and Jay followed with his. Once they were alone again, he said quietly, ‘Jayne’s just had it confirmed she’s pregnant, as it happens. They’re over the moon.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ Briefly their differences were forgotten. ‘I’m so pleased for her.’

‘Will you call her and tell her that yourself?’

Their eyes met and held. ‘I—I don’t want to upset her.’

‘You won’t,’ Jay said firmly.

Panic gripped her, squeezing her voice box so her words emerged tight and high when she said, ‘Jay, there has to be a cut-off point, you know that as well as I do. Neither of us needs complications…’ That hadn’t sounded right. ‘I don’t want to cause difficulties in your family.’

‘You’re my family, Miriam. Haven’t you realised that yet? Damn it, no one else—not even Jayne—impinges on us.’

For a second she drowned in the golden sea of his eyes, letting his words wash over her. She wanted to believe him more than anything else in the world, but she couldn’t.

Icy cold reality crashed in a wave over her head. ‘Jay, it’s over.’

‘Never in a hundred years.’ He leaned forward, his body warmth enveloping her as she sat rigid and still. ‘You’re my wife; I’ve never felt about any woman the way I feel about you.’

‘It’s a pity you didn’t think about that before you got involved with Belinda.’

For a long moment his eyes assessed her, then she saw him breathe out slowly. ‘For such a soft, gentle little thing you’ve got a will of iron, haven’t you?’ he murmured wryly. ‘But you won’t win this one, Miriam. And do you know why? Because, at the very bottom of you, you don’t want to win. You know as well as I do that we were meant to be together.’

She looked into the hard, handsome face. He was deadly serious. The strong planes of his jaw, the determined thrust to his chin were evidence that he meant every word. Almost imperceptibly, she held herself straighter. ‘Don’t tell me what I want and don’t want,’ she said very clearly.

She saw the flash of surprise in his eyes. ‘Can you deny it?’

She wanted to shout at him, to pour all the hurt and anger and betrayal over his head in a bitter, acidic flood of hate, but that would be playing straight into his hands. She wouldn’t let him see how she was hurting; she’d rather walk on hot coals. And she wouldn’t make a scene, much as she would have loved to throw the rest of her cocktail into his face and march out of the restaurant.

Miriam took a deep breath. ‘I want a divorce,’ she said expressionlessly. ‘That’s the only reason I’ve come here tonight. You can believe me or choose to think there’s still something between us—it doesn’t matter in the long run.’

The words hung between them before falling like pieces of ice, the muted chatter from the other tables and soft music that was playing on the perimeter of their world for two.

‘You’ve changed.’ It wasn’t laudatory.

‘Yes, I have.’ She marvelled at the calmness of her voice, considering how she was trembling inside. ‘I’m no longer the foolish young woman who married you. Who believed you when you said we’d grow old together, have children, grandchildren…’

‘You were never foolish, Miriam,’ he said quietly. ‘Wary, unsure—just how unsure I’ve only come to appreciate in the last months. I thought when I gave you the space you said you needed you’d work things out for yourself but I hadn’t bargained for how deep the hurt over your father had gone. You don’t trust men, do you? Any men. Not even me.’

Especially not you. Her chin rose. ‘In other words our separation is all my fault? You’re whiter than white, I suppose?’

‘I’ve never been whiter than white.’ He smiled ruefully.

Miriam stared at him, wondering how he could smile when her body was so tense it hurt. I can’t deal with this, she thought suddenly. I need to leave. I have to get out before I make a fool of myself.

As the thought hit the waiter reappeared like a genie out of a bottle. ‘If you would care to follow me, your table is ready,’ he said smoothly, whisking their halffinished drinks onto the small round tray he was carrying and then preceding them out of the lounge and into the main restaurant.

Miriam had no choice but to follow as Jay stood to his feet and took her arm. She glanced at him, trying to read his expression, but his face was wearing the cool, remote mask he could adopt at will. He obviously didn’t want her to know what he was feeling.

Once seated at a table for two, Miriam glanced round the glittering room. It was elegant and chic, the quiet hum of conversation from the assembled diners and the light, easy music from the quartet in a corner of the restaurant making a pleasant background to a meal.

Jay’s eyes were tight on her when her gaze came to rest on him. ‘I’ve missed evenings with you like this,’ he murmured softly. ‘Along with evenings at home, of course, Sunday mornings in bed with the papers, waking up together, walks on the heath—’

‘Don’t, Jay.’

‘Why?’ He swallowed the last of his cocktail. ‘It’s the truth, and if I can’t say it to my wife, who can I say it to?’

‘Your current girlfriend?’ Miriam suggested, as much to see his reaction as anything else.

‘I don’t have a girlfriend, Miriam.’ Jay’s smile said he knew what she was about. ‘I’m married, remember?’

‘It’s not me who has forgotten that.’

The wine waiter appeared with the bottle Jay had ordered for the table. After Jay had given his approval to what turned out to be a richly flavoured red, the waiter poured a little wine into each of their glasses and then glided away.

Miriam had used the time to remind herself that she couldn’t afford to let Jay see he could get under her skin. She had to remain aloof and composed; it was her only armour against his quick mind and charm.

‘Relax, Miriam.’

His next words tested her resolve. Flushing, she forced herself to speak calmly when she said, ‘I am relaxed.’

Before she was aware of it he had reached across the table and taken her cold hand in his, so close she could scent his male warmth. Straightening her fingers, which she only now realised had been clenched tight, he gently stroked her flesh. Tingles shot up her arm but she willed herself to remain perfectly still as he whispered, ‘Such soft, silky skin.’

She wanted to tell him that he didn’t have the right to touch her whenever he liked, not any more. He had relinquished that last Christmas, but although the words were there she couldn’t get them past the lump in her dry throat.

The tawny-gold eyes continued to search her face as the silence grew. Somehow Miriam managed to break their hold and turn her face away but Jay wouldn’t let her fingers go so easily. She still didn’t say anything, basically because she couldn’t. His touch was invoking so many memories, memories she had locked away and kept buried for ten long months.

‘Talk to me,’ he murmured huskily. ‘We have to talk, you must see that? We used to be able to say anything to each other.’

She almost lost control at that moment. Pain and anger swept through her in equal measure and if they had been anywhere else she would have let them have free rein. How dared he remind her of how they had been, she thought with blind agony. When they had lived together they’d shared every thought, every problem, sometimes talking half the night away. He had been her rock, her fortress, and she supposed she had set him on some sort of pedestal in her heart, which had made it all the harder when she had had to face the fact that her idol had feet of clay.

Easing the air past the constriction in her throat, she pulled her hand away. She was trembling and she prayed he couldn’t see it. ‘I don’t know what you want from me, Jay, but whatever it is, it’s no good. When I said it was over I meant it.’

‘I don’t believe that.’ He leaned back in his seat once more but didn’t take his gaze from her face. ‘I will never believe it.’

‘Whether you believe it or not doesn’t really matter.’ Her voice was calm but part of her was dying inside. It felt as though the pain and trauma of the night she’d seen him with Belinda was just as acute.

She had been crazy to agree to see him like this, she told herself feverishly. She should have let the legal system take charge. She knew from her experiences through her work that once the machine began grinding little could stop it. Sentiment and emotion became lost under mountains of paperwork and the phrases the solicitors and legal experts did so well. Cold, clinical words that dissected and separated two lives with the minimum of feeling and fuss.

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ There was a touch of incredulity in his voice now. ‘You’re actually going to let that spiteful woman accomplish what she intended. Can’t you see she wanted to come between us all along?’

‘Of course I see that,’ she bit back; she’d never imagined anything else. Just because Belinda had set her sights on him that didn’t excuse what he’d done, though.

‘And you’re going to let her win?’

‘This is not a game, Jay.’

‘You’re damn right it’s not.’ His voice was not loud but edged with fury.

‘I’m glad we agree on something.’ Her words were clipped, tight.

For a moment she thought he was going to stand up and grab her and march out of the restaurant, but as she watched she saw him breathe in and out and take control of the anger that had etched itself into the handsome features. Slowly the mask settled into place. It was an abject lesson on the amazing will of the man.

When he next spoke his voice was low and quiet. ‘I love you. Do you still love me?’

Her eyes enormous, she stared at him. It was the last thing she had expected him to say.

‘Do you, Miriam?’

For the first time since she had met him Miriam realised what had made him so powerful and formidable in business. She knew he had a reputation for ruthlessness but he had never been that way with her, not for a moment. But now the big-cat eyes were unblinking and predatory as they scoured her white face, looking for a chink in her armour, for any sign of weakness. Somehow she managed to lie. ‘No,’ she said.

Even to herself she didn’t sound very convincing.

His expression remained impassive but she thought she saw something in his eyes, a glimmer of reaction, but she couldn’t be sure. Nervously she reached for her cocktail and finished it to give her hands something to do, glancing across the beautiful room and wondering if anyone else felt as wretched as she did.

‘I’ll give you your divorce—I’ll even make it nice and easy for you—on one condition,’ Jay said silkily after a tense few moments had ticked by.

Feeling as though she had been hit by a sledgehammer, which was totally illogical as she was the one demanding a divorce, Miriam stuttered, ‘W-what condition?’

‘That you convince me it’s what you really want.’

‘I’ve told you,’ she managed to say more steadily.

‘That doesn’t do it.’

Miriam frowned. ‘If you don’t believe me when I say it, how can I convince you?’ Immediately she’d said it she knew she had played straight into his hands.

His firm, sexy mouth mocked her with its wryness. ‘Come back to the apartment and live with me again for the few weeks till Christmas,’ he said easily, as though he wasn’t asking the impossible. ‘See how you feel then.’

Her absolute amazement changed to outrage. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’

‘Not as man and wife if you don’t want to share my bed,’ he said calmly. ‘You can have the spare room if that makes you feel better.’

‘It wouldn’t.’ Dark eyebrows rose, and in answer to the glitter in his eyes she said quickly, ‘What I mean is, I’ve no intention of coming back to the apartment whether I could stay in the spare room or not. And I would stay in it, of course, if I was coming back.’

‘Which you’re not,’ he put in helpfully.

‘No, I’m not.’ Suddenly she realised she hated that apartment. It had always been Jay’s, never hers. She had never felt at home there, more like a visitor who was being tolerated by the masculine surroundings and ultra-modern gadgets. Other girlfriends had been there, of course, she knew that. She had never had the nerve to ask him if they had slept in his bed but they must have done.

‘What’s the matter? What are you thinking now?’

She hadn’t been aware that her thoughts had mirrored themselves in the painful twist to her mouth and the darkening of her soft brown eyes, but as always Jay saw too much. Swiftly she wiped her face clear of expression. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing didn’t put that look on your face,’ Jay said grimly. ‘Tell me.’

What the hell! He’d asked for it. ‘I never want to step foot in the apartment again, if you want to know,’ she said with a flatness that said far more than a raised voice could have done. ‘It was never a home to me and it was always yours, never mine. I was merely a guest there.’

Now it was his turn to be amazed. ‘You never said.’

Miriam shrugged. ‘It was your home and you loved it. The first time you showed me round I could see how much it meant to you. Besides which—’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t realise quite how much it would remain yours,’ she said, a trifle illogically.

He seemed to understand, though. ‘And how much did it?’

‘A hundred per cent.’

‘I see.’

‘Oh, it’s stunning,’ she said quickly, wondering why she was trying to sweeten the pill after what he’d done. ‘Absolutely fabulous and I can understand why you love it, of course, but it’s not…me.’

Jay’s jaw tightened. ‘But you didn’t think to tell me you hated it.’

‘I didn’t hate it—’ Miriam stopped abruptly. Why was she lying to make him feel better? ‘Actually I did,’ she said as much to herself as Jay. ‘Especially when we gave dinner parties and things like that. I always felt as though I was one of those hostesses who are hired for the evening.’

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