“Two babies at once! I’ll never have time to go to bed!” she wailed.

Dan began to worry as reality kicked in. It would be unbelievably tough on her. She’d need a lot of support. Now what?

“I can be here with you from now on,” he offered, before he could stop himself.

She froze. “What?”

And then she looked up with such an unhappy face that he found himself saying, “I mean it, Helen. I helped get you into this. I think I ought to be here with you, whenever you need me.”

Shining eyed, she stared at him with such naked trust that it made his heart turn over.

“You—you mean you’re coming back to live here…now?” she breathed.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, Dan!” she sighed. She seemed to wiggle and stretch with pleasure. Whatever it was, it had a startling effect on his hungry body.

For The Babies’ Sakes
Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Lorna and Karl and their prem babies,

Daniel and Rebecca, who inspired this story and

provided so much personal information. My thanks also

to Heidi for asking them all the right questions!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

WAS her husband having an affair?

Pale with horror, Helen stood motionless in the hall, so shocked that she didn’t notice the mud oozing from her sopping wet suit or the dirty puddle of water that was soaking into the new carpet.

Slowly she closed the front door, her appalled eyes fixed on the very pink, very minimal pair of briefs, resting on the first step of the stairs. She felt too scared to move, in case other intimate items of underwear decorated the rest of the stairs, which disappeared from view in a curving sweep of highly polished oak.

Helen’s heart pounded. The briefs were very feminine, and definitely not hers. It was the sort of underwear worn by well-endowed women on the front of saucy magazines. Somehow it had fetched up in her home. But how?

Grey eyes wide, she stared blankly at the ridiculous fringe that decorated the scrap of silky material. Who could own something so uncomfortable and impractical? And what was it doing there in the first place?

Suspicions crowded in on her. Too many things were adding up. She found herself almost incapable of breathing at all. Each gasp of air only increased the choking, bruised sensation in her chest.

Heck, she felt awful. With a small moan, she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the nausea and weakness of the flu which had plagued her all morning.

Cocking her head on one side, she listened nervously for the tell-tale sounds of an orgy—or female giggles at the very least. Yet with the builders absent for the next two weeks, there was nothing to be heard except the torrential rain, mercilessly battering away at the porch roof. Was this silence good or bad?

Helen shivered and raised a shaking hand to pluck the saturated clothes away from her body. It wasn’t the flu that was making her feel so wretched, but a sense of dread. It was sending icy fingers crawling over her skin and chilling her to the marrow.

The facts were beginning to frighten her. One. A sexually active female had dropped those briefs. Helen bit her lip, realising why she’d come to that conclusion. She wasn’t sexually active. She and Dan were so exhausted from working so hard that they rarely saw one another, let alone found time for making love. And so she wore practical underwear, cotton knickers not men’s magazine stuff.

Two. She’d been struggling to put on her wellington boots in the car—a Must Have item with all the rain they’d had that June—when she’d seen that the curtains of the master bedroom had been drawn, even though it was the middle of the day.

She’d been so startled by this that she’d jumped out in disbelief, leaving her umbrella on the passenger seat. The torrential rain had beaten down on her unprotected head while she’d stood looking at the window like an idiot, trying to understand what was going on.

Burglars! she’d thought. And then she’d grinned wryly at her wild imagination because surely burglars wouldn’t bother to draw the curtains in one room only while they ransacked the house.

That had led her to fact three. Just one other person had a key to the house. Her husband. Almost in slow motion, she’d turned to look at the barn, where Dan usually parked his car. It was a relief to see it there, rather than a burglars’ getaway van with a burly type in a balaclava riding shotgun.

Then she’d realised that Dan must have come home because he’d caught the same flu bug that had laid her low. That was why she had rushed to the house, recklessly scrambling over the huge lumps of soil that had been churned up by the builders’ trucks and lorries during the renovations.

Her haste to comfort him had made her careless and she’d fallen flat on her face in the mud, cursing the day they’d moved into the country. Nothing new there. But of course she’d hauled herself up, anxious to provide a bit of TLC, dreaming of cuddles by the fire and nose-blowing in unison.

Huh! He probably didn’t have flu at all! Her eyes glowed with resentful anger. Perhaps something else was laying him low! Someone else.

She winced, a rush of emotion bringing tears to her eyes. She loved Dan. Adored everything about him. As usual, she was jumping to dramatic conclusions when there was probably an innocent explanation.

But… Female knickers on the stairs. Her husband home. Curtains drawn. It all seemed horribly damning.

A scouring fear washed through her and she felt her legs begin to shake uncontrollably. With a trembling hand she pushed back her hair, smoothing its muddy strands back till it stopped dripping down her face and blurring her vision. She had to investigate.

Hardly aware she was still wearing her muddy boots, she stumbled over to the foot of the stairs and grabbed blindly at the newel post to prevent herself from sinking to the floor in a boneless heap.

Tears dammed up in her throat, choking her. She felt so shocked and weak that she could hardly collect her thoughts to make sense of what was happening.

But she knew there must be a rational explanation. He wouldn’t betray her, not Dan. She racked her brains desperately.

Perhaps he was ill. And some time before he’d felt really sick and had come home, he’d bought some sexy underwear to spice up their non-existent sex life, and had accidentally dropped something from his shopping foray as he’d staggered up the stairs to bed.

Her brain stalled, her headache intensifying, and she waited for a moment of dizziness to pass. Illness was so debilitating. She had crawled back from London after nearly fainting on the way to work. The trip had been draining: a long walk, two tubes, an hour’s journey on the train and a twenty-minute drive.

Normally she was out all day. Dan would expect her to be furthering her career as the financial executive for the ‘Top People’s Store’ in fashionable Knightsbridge. But she’d come home instead.

And she wished with all her heart that she hadn’t because the doubts were building up, terrifying her with the possibility that Dan could be upstairs in their bedroom with another woman.

Her head lifted in despair and, to her horror, she suddenly noticed something else, a few steps further up. It was a nylon stocking in a very fine denier, its twin casually twined around the banister.

‘Oh, Dan!’ she breathed, tragic-faced, desperately hoping against hope that there was some simple, obvious answer to this. ‘Don’t be there,’ she pleaded. ‘I couldn’t bear it!’

He was everything to her. She had even agreed to live in this awful house, with its wall-to-wall mud outside and an attic full of crazy squirrels who thundered about all night in clogs. She’d even tried to ignore the spiders who leered at her from every conceivable corner of the house and who waggled their spindly legs at her in a horribly menacing way. Anything, she’d thought, if it made him happy.

And they’d been happy, hadn’t they? He’d pledged un-dying love, had carried her over the threshold of the huge, thatched Deep Dene farmhouse after their marriage two years ago and had proudly pointed out its wonderful potential when all she could see was dereliction and isolation.

But for him she’d put up with the dilapidation, the constant presence of the builders, the temperamental boiler and scowling Aga stove.

City-bred, she had longed for decent pavements, traffic-filled tarmac and frequent inhalations of carbon monoxide. But Dan adored Deep Dene with its ancient beams, inglenook fires and five acres of landscaped gardens, so she had curbed her horror.

They had handed the place over to the workmen and had begun their hectic commuting to London from their future Dream Home in the Sussex Downs. Though it was more of a nightmare to her.

Her stomach churned as she stared blankly into space. Perhaps the commuting was the problem. They hardly saw one another nowadays. It was ages since they’d hugged, and weeks and weeks since they’d made love. She got home late and flung something in the microwave. Dan turned up at all hours, sometimes too shattered to speak.

Her face paled. He was too virile, too intensely masculine to be celibate.

That was when men strayed.

‘Dan! Don’t do this to me!’ she whispered, appalled.

The awful feeling in her stomach became unbearable, though whether that was due to her illness or to fear of what she might find, she didn’t know.

Tentatively she lifted a booted foot, vaguely registering that it was thick with clay goo, and put it on the first step of the stairs. As she did so her hair swung forwards in a silky black arc. When she returned it to its proper place behind her ears, she found that perspiration was standing out in beads on her skin. She was sicker than she’d realised.

And then she heard voices. They were faint and distant, drifting down from the master bedroom. But immediately her pathetic theory of Dan’s saucy shopping spree was demolished because she clearly identified his firm, low tones and then the lighter purr from an unknown woman.

Her shocked eyes silvered with pain. ‘No! No!’ she denied futilely under her breath.

There was a strange woman in her house. Upstairs. Without knickers. With her husband. She swallowed hard. It didn’t need a genius to work out the scenario.

Something wrenched inside her, an inner agony that ripped into her heart and sucked away her very breath. She stood there, paralysed with shock, while her head grew dizzy from the manic activity of the horrid little voices, which were whispering in her brain and gleefully suggesting what was going on up there.

She couldn’t bear it. She loved him. Trusted him implicitly. It wasn’t true. There must be some mistake. Had to be.

Perhaps, she thought wildly, there was an alternative to solving the mystery. The coward’s way. She could just turn around. Slip out silently. Get into the car and make a lot of noise pretending to arrive. Then she could make believe that this had never happened.

In a stew of indecision she considered this. Pictured herself being fussed over by Dan and the mysterious woman as they fobbed her off with stories of an impromptu business meeting—or maybe pretended the planning of a surprise birthday party…

And then she imagined the questions screaming inside her, for ever silenced by her fear of facing the truth.

No, she couldn’t live with herself—or Dan—unless she knew whether he had been unfaithful. If he was cheating on her—in her own house, her own bedroom!—she must know.

Of course she had no choice but to go up. She was being a wimp. Helen sucked in a huge, rasping breath and eyed the stairs with dread, wishing she could come up with an innocent explanation. Her lower lip trembled. Nothing came to mind. Unless the woman was an interior designer or a fabric expert, who’d, who’d…drawn the curtains to…

Aware that she was floundering, Helen stuffed a fist to her mouth to stop a cry of despair. What about the briefs? The stockings? Who, or why, would anyone drop those? And…now she was peering around the curve of the stairs she could see that there were other…things further up, things she hastily averted her gaze from in case they might add up to a confirmation of Dan’s infidelity.

Surely he wouldn’t! she thought desperately. He loved her. Correction. Had loved her. She flushed, the heat flooding through her limp body. How long was it since they’d had time to be loving or even affectionate? Too long. They’d been leading separate lives.

Guilt crawled through every cell she possessed. She’d been too busy, too tired… Her eyes narrowed. It took two to tango. He too had pleaded tiredness! Tired from what? a nasty little voice asked and she bit her lip hard.

He’d always crawled in from work exhausted. It was like being married to the Invisible Man. Some days the nearest she got to him in waking hours was ironing his shirts. He wore two a day—sometimes three. After he’d burned two of them with the iron one morning, during his hectic scramble to catch the six-thirty to Victoria, she’d taken over the chore. But now she wondered if she’d merely been smartening him up for his mistress.

A wave of sickness took her by surprise, roaring its way through her. For a moment she remained motionless, waiting till the flush of heat had gone. And then she forced herself to confront Dan even though she dreaded what she’d find.

But her long legs simply refused to take another step. Sinking to her knees, she virtually dragged herself up, avoiding more than a cursory, horrified glance at a pair of discarded shoes which were bright cerise and glove-soft with courtesan heels. Tart’s shoes, she thought with unaccustomed viciousness.

A little further on, she encountered a sickly pink bra and suspender belt with a matching silk T-shirt. Beyond, she could see an abandoned navy suit, the skirt and jacket arranged almost artistically on the top step.

Her throat dried. All hope of an innocent explanation lay dead in the water. She dug her teeth into her lip till she felt the pain. Somehow she kept going, each step a mountain to climb as it brought her closer to the terrifying truth. She’d always been determined. And never more so than now.

Somewhere in the background she was aware that Dan and the woman were still talking but she couldn’t hear them properly because the blood was roaring so loudly in her ears. They could have been murmuring sweet nothings or discussing curtains to match the pink knickers for all she knew.

Her stomach plummeted like a lift. I love you, Dan! I love you! she screamed silently to herself. Don’t do this to me!

And she prayed for this to be a bad dream, a hallucination brought on by flu, that she’d wake up and later she’d tell Dan and they’d laugh and he’d sweep her into his arms and say that he’d never look at another woman because he loved her so much and he hadn’t minded not having sex or decent suppers and that he’d neglected her shamefully…

Oh, God. She’d arrived. The top of the stairs. Still on her hands and knees, she found to her dismay that she was weeping and gasping uncontrollably.

And that she was staring straight at a naked pair of female legs.

CHAPTER TWO

THEY were very shapely, she noted hazily. With scarlet toenails. Helen’s world spun around on its axis. She daredn’t look any higher. She wasn’t ready to be confronted by the full horror of her husband’s nude paramour.

‘Good grief! Helen!’ exclaimed the owner of the legs. ‘What have you got on your feet?’

Celine’s laugh seared through her. Celine, Helen thought dumbly, her gaze fixated on the blood-red toes that seemed to be curling possessively into the landing carpet as if claiming ownership of the house as well as her husband.

This was Dan’s PA. His right-hand woman. Angrily she amended that. Include her left hand in that description, too! And both legs, torso, boobs…all of Celine was apparently part of Dan’s domain! And the woman wasn’t even embarrassed!

A sudden fury shot Helen to her feet. Brimming over with outrage, she took in Celine’s triumphant and excited air, the carelessly draped blue towel over a stunning body—her towel, she thought furiously!—and slowly advanced across the wide landing, knowing she must look like a drowned rat from a sewer but far too mad to care that she shed rainwater and muddy clay all over the cream carpet.

‘I’m wearing huge clumping, mucky boots that can do a lot of damage to bare toes!’ she choked as Celine backed fastidiously away. And hoarse with anger and misery, she grated, ‘Now explain your novel outfit, Celine!’

‘Helen!’ came Dan’s horrified tones.

Her head jerked back to the open bedroom door where he stood. She closed her eyes tightly and swayed, her energy spent.

All hard masculine jaw and blazing black eyes, he was naked but for the small towel draped around lean hips, steam rising from his fantastic body, his hair wet and appealingly tousled from the shower. A post-sex shower, she thought, with a sharp intake of breath.

It was true then. He’d been unfaithful. Oh, sweet heaven…

‘You swine!’ she yelled furiously as her world crashed about her ears.

‘Oh, my God!’ Dan groaned.

Wounded beyond belief, she looked into his shadowed eyes and saw embarrassment and sick dismay written clearly for her to see. He was white-lipped, his honeyed skin drawn tautly over his incredible cheekbones. A guilty man if ever there was. Her stomach rolled dizzyingly.

‘Dan!’ was all she could croak in reproach before her voice shattered into tiny pieces of misery.

A spasm of pain jerked at his features.

‘Sweetheart!’

Dark brows drawn together in a frown, he stretched out a conciliatory hand of concern. Helen recoiled with disgust.

‘No! Don’t touch me!’

He flinched, his glittering eyes narrowed in hurt annoyance.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said sternly. ‘It’s not what you think—’

‘Isn’t it? Don’t lie to me! Don’t take me for a fool!’ Helen jerked in near hysteria.

He’d even come up with the classic male response. It’s not what you think. But it always was.

‘I’m not lying!’ Grimly he folded his arms over his bare chest and she realised that, despite his defiant stance, he was having trouble with his breathing. She didn’t want to consider why that might be. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions—’

‘You bet I am!’ she wailed. ‘Look at you! Look at her!’ Violently she stabbed an accusing finger at the siren in the blue towel. ‘Wouldn’t you jump to conclusions, too?’

Dan glared ferociously at Celine as if it was all her fault he’d been found out.

‘Celine!’ he growled. ‘I told you—’

‘I don’t believe this! You can’t hold her responsible!’ Helen burst in, appalled that he was trying to wriggle out of this.

‘Why not?’ he flashed. ‘She is!’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dan!’ she stormed. ‘Don’t you have any shame, any sense of responsibility?’

‘Celine—’

‘No!’ she shouted. ‘Stop pretending it’s not your fault at all. It takes two to get to this stage of nudity! I thought better of you. It seems I was mistaken. I can’t believe you can be such a worm as to put the blame on her!’ She put icy fingertips to her hot forehead to stem the ache. ‘How could you do this?’ she cried, smoke-dark eyes awash with misery. ‘If you cared about me you wouldn’t have—’

‘Helen!’ He was frowning at her, his expression shocked.

‘What? What is it?’ she demanded brokenly.

‘You look terrible!’ he stated with cruel candour.

She winced. ‘Thanks a bunch,’ she muttered. ‘That’s all I need, right at this moment.’

Her sullen glance shot to the delectable Celine, who beamed at her and let the towel slip artfully to offer further revelations of her smoothly swelling breasts.

Celine wasn’t red-faced and blotchy from weeping. Her hair hadn’t been flattened by the rain, nor had the ends been sluiced by mud into rat’s tails.

Helen didn’t need Celine’s scathing scrutiny to make her aware of the contrast between them. Instead of being sophisticated and irresistible, Helen thought miserably, she was covered in mud and looking terminally ill. A drowned waif in wellies couldn’t compete with sex on legs.

Just when she needed to look fabulous, she had to impersonate a rugby scrum-half after extra time.

‘Well, you do look rough,’ Dan stated, frowning.

‘I reckon Cleopatra herself wouldn’t look so hot under the circumstances!’ she grumped in resentment. Her head flung up in defiance. ‘When did the Queen of the Nile ever come home to find her husband had ripped the clothes off another woman and flung them any-old-how on the stair carpet?’

‘Ripped what? Just what are you talking about?’ he demanded, a picture of righteous indignation.

‘That. There!’ she cried bitterly, her trembling finger pointing in the direction of the clothing on the stairs.

He dug up a puzzled expression and wore it convincingly, his long legs covering the ground between them in seconds, impatience in every stride.

‘Good grief!’ he said slowly, staring at the discarded items as if he hadn’t seen them before.

It was a brilliant performance. No wonder he’d successfully hidden his philandering from her, she thought waspishly. Stand back Hollywood. Make way for Dan Shaw and his impersonation of an innocent man wrongly accused.

‘Remember now?’ she snapped, glaring up at him. ‘Or were you in such a haze of lust that you never noticed at the time?’

She thought he’d explode with anger. A terrifying rage had taken hold of him, his fury directed at Celine, who put a hand to her mouth in a ‘weren’t we naughty?’ gesture.

‘You stupid woman!’ he growled savagely.

When Celine shrugged and batted her lashes, Helen feared for the woman’s safety. Dan seemed to be visibly swelling with rage, his expression black and thunderous as he sucked in a harsh breath, clearly in preparation for a stream of abuse.

‘Don’t you take it out on her!’ Helen spat, consumed by fury. ‘Look to your own failings! You caused this situation! You—’

‘No!’ he yelled, rounding on Helen. ‘How many times do I have to say it? I know nothing about this!’

Intimidated by six feet two of muscled fury looming over her, she hastily moved back. He was going to deny the undeniable, she thought in astonishment. Be offended. Make out she was doing him an injustice!

‘Really. Were you drugged? Date raped? I can’t believe you’re denying this!’ she muttered.

‘It’s true!’ he protested, but she could see from the widening of his eyes that he was beginning to panic. A nerve was quivering manically in his strong jaw and his nostrils had narrowed with an even sharper intake of breath.

‘Please!’ Helen jerked, her hand pressing her aching forehead again. ‘Save yourself the effort of protesting your innocence. I don’t want lies.’

Icy cold with hopeless despair, she lifted pained eyes to his and she almost wept when she saw his answering pity. She did not want pity, either. She wanted rock-solid fidelity.

‘I’m not lying,’ he repeated more quietly. ‘And I’ll deal with that in a moment. You need sorting out first, Helen. You’re wet through and covered in mud—’

‘As if I didn’t know!’ she flung miserably.

His mouth lost all its sensual curves and flattened into a forbidding line as he grunted with irritation.

‘Cut the sarcasm. What happened? Did you fall over?’ he demanded, in a taking-charge voice.

‘Yes, I flaming did!’ Huge tears of self-pity welled up, obliterating her vision. ‘I s-saw the bedroom curtains were d-drawn,’ she stammered, scrubbing crossly at her eyes. ‘I saw your car. I-I thought you were ill and I was…worried. Worried!’ she flung accusingly. ‘Huh! If I’d known… But like an idiot I wanted to look after you so I ran and—and slipped in the mud—’

‘Oh, my darling—’

All loving concern, he took a step towards her, his arms outstretched to embrace her.

‘Don’t come near me!’ she sobbed, cringing in horror. ‘Don’t touch me! And don’t you darling me!’

He bit his lip and swallowed, the hard-packed muscles of his torso tense with angry apprehension.

‘But, sweetheart,’ he insisted, ‘I swear, you’re getting the wrong idea—’

‘I’m not, but I wish I was!’ she cried desperately. ‘OK! Go ahead! Give me the right idea. This should be good! I can’t wait to know why you’re both virtually naked and—and—’ her voice wobbled ‘—and why Celine looks so darn pleased with herself!’

‘Celine,’ Dan said, suddenly icy quiet and remote, ‘collect your clothes and…get…dressed…’

Alerted by his halting speech, Helen shot a fierce glance at Celine. The towel around the woman’s body had dipped a fraction. Dan was blinking rapidly at the sleepy nipple that had appeared. He seemed stunned, as if his brain had been overcome by lust, and Helen felt her heart sink to her boots.

‘Of course,’ Celine purred accommodatingly, making sure that her cover-up involved a lot of jiggling around. Helen gritted her teeth, wanting to slap the woman for being so obvious. ‘Don’t forget, though,’ she fluttered, ‘the meeting’s in an hour—’

‘No!’ Dan threaded his fingers through his thick hair, causing small black curls to tumble haphazardly onto his forehead. He was clearly having difficulty getting his mind into gear, Helen thought angrily. ‘I… Oh, hell. Cancel the meeting,’ he said, suddenly decisive. ‘Call a taxi and get out of here. Be in my office tonight—’

‘Your office! I understand,’ his PA gurgled sexily.

Dan’s eyes blackened with fury as his breath hissed in. ‘I doubt it. You’ll be picking up your things and never coming back,’ he snapped.

Celine’s green eyes widened with astonishment and then her face tightened into malicious lines. ‘After all we’ve meant to one another?’ she objected. ‘Consider what you’ll be missing, Dan, shackled to this… boring jumble sale of a woman. We’ve had such fun. You’re one hell of a guy. We’re great together, you said so.’

Celine’s waggling eyebrows left no doubt in Helen’s mind that the woman was referring to Dan’s performance in bed. He was spluttering incoherently at Celine’s frankness, his fists clenched as if he might hit her because she’d ruined his hopes of lying his way out of this. A wild fury exploded inside Helen.

‘You trollop! Get out of my house!’ she shrieked. ‘Out! Now—or you’ll end up needing a wig!’

Celine backed further down the landing and Helen’s eyes squeezed shut. Sweet heaven, beside Celine she was dull and dreary! Dan’s affair had been inevitable. He’d needed more than a stranger who passed in the night, thrust foil dinners at him and ironed his shirts.

That must be why he and Celine had become close. Worse, they had meant something to one another. And whatever he’d said, Dan wouldn’t sack his PA—she was too valuable an employee. He’d only been making an empty gesture, hoping it would pacify his irate wife and avert a row—because he was an abject coward.

A sob lurched into her throat. She’d thought him to be strong and brave and noble. Mr Reliable-but-sexy-with-it. In a few brief moments his pedestal had come crashing to the ground. Her respect for him had hit the dust and rolled out into the gutter to disappear down the sewers.

She wanted to scream in despair and disappointment. Ever since she could remember, her whole world had been wrapped around Dan. And now she knew there’d never really been anything there.

Dimly she was aware of his low, urgent voice as he spoke to Celine. Helen wouldn’t open her eyes. He sounded as if he was close to the woman, perhaps touching her, from the gravelly whispering.

Her marriage was over, she thought dully. Their love in tatters. And suddenly she felt horribly alone and vulnerable.

Hurriedly she clapped a hand to her mouth as her stomach heaved and a wave of heat rushed up her entire body. With a despairing cry, she blundered into the bedroom and headed for the en suite, leaving a trail of sticky clay to embed itself firmly in the fibres of the expensive carpet.

Dan had barked something at Celine and then he must have followed Helen into the bathroom because his hands were on her shoulders, ice-cold, heavy, imprisoning, the pressure of his half-naked chest against her back somehow intimate and shocking.

‘Darling…’ he coaxed, low-voiced and soothing.

Hysterically she shook them off with an impassioned, ‘I’m not your darling! Don’t pretend you care!’

‘Of course I do,’ he said sternly. ‘I’m worried about you. I think you’re ill—’

‘I am ill! And you’re making me feel worse! I came home because I’ve got flu!’ she cried miserably, hanging onto the basin as if her life depended on it. Her stomach churned horribly but she couldn’t be sick even though she felt as if she might.

‘Then you must get to bed—’

‘Bed!’

Her eyes met his in the mirror and he flinched from her scything glare.

‘What? What did I say?’ he demanded thinly.

‘Do you intend to change the sheets first?’ she hurled in anguish.

He gasped as if she’d lashed him with a whip. She saw his tight stomach muscles contract and recognised the pain that had rocketed through him. He looks ghastly, she thought. And tried not to care.

‘I don’t need to change the sheets!’ he grated.

Her eyes widened. Passion had struck somewhere else, then!

‘So you didn’t make it to the bedroom!’ she cried wildly, unable to bear the thought of Dan being so crazy for another woman. ‘You couldn’t wait, I suppose! Where, then? Tell me so I can avoid that place! Tell me! In the hall? The stairs? I’ll burn the carpet,’ she threatened. ‘Rip up the floorboards. Have them replaced—!’

‘Helen! Stop this! You’re being irrational—’

‘I know!’ she cried in distress. He’d made love to Celine. How could she ever get over that? ‘And with good reason!’ she sobbed. ‘You brute! I hate you for doing this to me!’

Unable to control herself, she whirled around and hammered her fists into his naked chest. He let her, taking the blows—presumably because he knew he deserved every one of them. And she was exhausted by her outburst.

‘Stop it, Helen. Calm down,’ he urged.

‘Then tell me what happened! I have a right to know!’ she moaned, suddenly going limp in his arms.

‘I will,’ he said gruffly, holding her up. ‘Don’t upset yourself, please. Just trust me—’

‘Are you mad?’ she railed, feeling his strength sustaining her. His wonderfully lithe, powerful body, she thought. Then jealousy struck as she imagined his eyes looking at Celine with desire, his hands touching, arousing… She sucked in a tortured breath, unable to bear it. ‘Go away, Dan!’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t want to see you or hear you or think of you ever again!’

‘Don’t say that!’ His grip tightened. His eyes blazed. ‘Don’t ever say that, Helen! I’m not going anywhere—’

‘You’ll have to. You can’t possibly explain this away.’

Her eyes were dead. She thought she’d never smile again.

‘I can. I will. But first you must get into bed before you get pneumonia. You look—’

‘I know what I look like!’ she raged. ‘Plug ugly! My hair is a mess and I look worse than a typhus victim. Oh, sidle off to glamorous, voluptuous Celine and leave me to crawl into bed on my own!’

‘Poor love. What a hell you’re in,’ he rasped, stroking her plastered-down hair with a masterly semblance of affection.

And she almost succumbed. She wanted to be loved by him so badly, wanted to be held and cuddled and cosied up so much, that she stood there with her eyes closed, longing, wishing, adoring. Smelling his familiar and much-loved body smell. Feeling his warmth and energy. Hearing that seductively coaxing voice and finding her muscles relaxing in response.

‘Come on, darling.’

Her eyes snapped open at the husky coaxing. His fingers were unbuttoning her jacket! Shocked rigid, she knocked his hand away, stricken by the fact that he’d done the same to Celine only a short time ago.

‘You—you animal! Is that your solution? Is that all you can think about? A quick roll in the hay? Don’t you have any conscience, any moral values at all? Just…leave…me…alone!’ she wailed, beside herself with grief.

‘Calm down! That wasn’t my intention at all. I was trying to help,’ he said tautly. ‘Or are you intending to get into bed fully dressed?’

‘Right now I don’t care! Just…don’t…touch…me!’ she flared.

‘Fine. If that’s what you want…’

Taking her at her word, he let go and her legs gave way. She slid to the floor, weeping with frustration, racked with misery. A pathetic little heap, she thought. A ludicrous idiot wearing wellies. Oh, how he and Celine would sneer at her later!

‘Stupid, stubborn woman!’ Dan muttered under his breath.

Angrily he pulled her boots off before she could stop him, flinging them in the bath. She retaliated by curling up in a foetal position, her body shuddering with huge, uncontrollable sobs.

‘G-g-go ’way!’ she mumbled through her tears, desperate to be alone.

‘No.’

Dan ignored her flailing hands and feet and grimly removed her clothes. Once or twice she scored a direct hit on him, judging by his grunts, but he wasn’t deterred.

In a hostile silence they wrestled and thrashed around the slippery floor, though her resistance was feeble. When he’d peeled off her stockings and she was down to her bra and pants she gave up the struggle, too weak, too resigned to his determination to humiliate her.

He’d be comparing her body with Celine’s. Would be thinking that women should wear man-trap underwear with lace and fringes and holes and tassels, she thought miserably. Not neat-fitting, passion-killer cotton.

And he’d be secretly glad she’d discovered his affair because that would give him an excuse to leave her and get a decent replacement. Someone svelte and gorgeous who made pets of spiders and loved muddy countryside.

‘I feel sick,’ she muttered weakly, wondering how the elegant Celine fitted into that description of Dan’s perfect woman.

With an exasperated grunt, he tightened his towel around his narrow hips and raised her, wrapping her up in a warm bath sheet. Her shivering body sank gratefully into its soft folds as she held onto the edge of the basin again, wishing she could be sick and get it over and done with.

The nausea subsided and she turned away disconsolately. Dan took hold of her again, towelling her wet hair and then washing her horribly blotchy, tear-stained face. It was dangerously lovely, like being nurtured by her mother when she was a child, after she’d been ill with measles and had been allowed her first bath for a few days.

But her mother hadn’t picked her up, or carried her back, to bed and it was this that was almost her undoing. Clutched in the shelter of Dan’s strong arms, Helen fought to overcome a fierce urge to snuggle up to the glorious firmness of his naked chest and wrap her arms around his neck. This was her husband. It was the first time for months that they’d been physically close and her hormones were reacting accordingly.

Stone-faced, he undid her bra, his eyes lingering on her breasts. Her hopes rose. Perhaps he did find her attractive, despite everything…

Her spirits plummeted as, without comment, he pulled her sulkily compliant arms into a warm nightdress and tucked the bedclothes up around her neck.

It was then that she saw he was aroused. But was that, she wondered suspiciously, because he and Celine had been disturbed before…before…it had happened, and he was still unsatisfied?

Tormented by her thoughts, Helen turned her face away, her eyes tightly shut in a vain attempt to stop the tears from flowing again.

She wouldn’t cry. Her head had to be clear, her brain sharp. She had to make plans. Illness was making her act like a victim, but when she felt better she’d stand up for herself and fight for her rights.

The mattress shifted under Dan’s weight. His hand came up to brush dark strands of hair from her hot face.

‘I’m sorry you feel so rotten. What can I get you, sweetheart?’ he asked softly.

‘A divorce!’ she blurted out from the depths of her misery. ‘Now!’

CHAPTER THREE

THERE was a terrible silence. Helen didn’t breathe or move, appalled at the finality of what she’d said—and its inevitability. She could feel Dan’s shock like a seismic wave and sensed that his muscles were screwed up as tightly as hers.

And then he spoke, in a strangely halting and husky voice as if his heart was breaking, too.

‘I’ll get you a hot-water bottle and a thermometer. And a hot honey and lemon drink. When you’ve slept and you feel a little better, we’ll talk.’

‘Talk now! Before you have a chance to come up with some slippery explanation!’ she jerked.

He gazed at her with sad and unnervingly remote eyes.

‘Do you trust me so little?’ he asked quietly.

Helen felt bitterness scourging her insides. Trust? She would have staked her life on him. He had held her hopes and her love and her future in his hands. And he’d let her down.

She shuddered. It was as if she’d reached the depths of hell and suddenly she wanted to drag him there, too.

‘If you came home unexpectedly and found me half naked, surrounded by several pairs of boxer shorts and socks, riding boots, assorted spurs, scarlet jackets and a collection of plumed helmets,’ she retorted coldly, ‘wouldn’t you assume I’d jumped into bed with a Brigade of Guards?’

Dan went a sickly colour. His jaw worked as though his teeth were grinding together.

‘I’ll get that drink.’

He couldn’t get away fast enough, she thought, her face forlorn. Not only was she physically ugly to him, but she was showing a vicious, sarcastic side to herself she’d never known had existed. He’d always adored the funny slant she had on life. But now her tongue was turning to acid and burning her as well as him.

Was it any wonder, though, that she felt like lashing out? Miserably she burrowed deep into the bedclothes. She’d surrendered her heart to Dan and he’d rewarded her loyalty with the worst betrayal of all, just two years into their marriage. Of course, she thought glumly, it had been a farce for some time and she hadn’t even noticed.

All those late nights when he’d been supposedly expanding his already successful business, working with clients in the evenings and on weekends… He’d been with that woman. His exhaustion had been for other reasons than writing software, doing mega-buck deals and travelling around London till all hours of the night.

And, although she adored the career she’d chosen, she’d only worked overtime because she’d hated coming home to this vile house, to the emptiness and silence and the half-decorated rooms. Her eyes blazed in fury. All the while, he’d been cavorting with the luscious Celine and wining and dining her—

‘Here you are.’

At Dan’s voice, she shot up, furious at being deceived for so long. Her hand flew out, knocking the offered mug from his grip. Locking eyes, they both ignored the sticky mixture as it oozed over the duvet. She had questions in her glittering gaze. He seemed to be in deep shock.

‘Forget the ministrations. Let’s get the explanation over with,’ she scowled, secretly appalled by her uncontrollable feelings.

‘Better, I think, that it should wait,’ Dan said, stilted and withdrawn as he glared down at her. ‘You’re clearly in a foul mood—’

‘What do you expect?’ she spluttered.

‘A fair hearing! And I’m not going to get it at the moment, am I?’

Her mouth took on a bitter shape. ‘Did you give our marriage a fair chance?’

He blanched. ‘Yes. I did.’

‘Oh? How long for?’ she demanded. ‘A week? Or did you manage a month before you started playing the field? How long, Dan? How long has this been going on?’

‘It hasn’t. I have not been unfaithful,’ he said doggedly.

He swallowed and she thought there was the hint of moisture blurring his dark eyes.

Perhaps he was sorry now. There’d be all the problems of splitting up: sharing out the wedding presents and deciding who paid what for the furniture and carpets…

It was a nightmare. No wonder he looked sick.

She heaved in a huge breath. ‘You’ll forgive me if I find that hard to believe.’

With a face set like concrete, he handed her the hot-water bottle. She contemplated hurling it at the hideous vase his best man had given them, but grudgingly took it. She needed the warmth. Her body was as cold as Siberia.

Dan drew up a chair and sat heavily in it, the towel parting to show an expanse of tightly toned thigh. Incongruously, she wanted to touch the satiny skin.

‘Temperature,’ he said dully.

So he was miserable, she thought, jerking out of her mooning over him. Annoyed with herself for being so easily diverted by his long, powerful legs, she snatched the thermometer from him and stuffed it into her mouth, glowering at him from under her dark brows. After a moment he looked away, unable to hold her gaze. Guilt, she thought, and felt no pleasure in the certainty.

Hauling himself up as if his body were a lead weight, he moved slowly to stand by the window, the beautiful triangle of his back a stiff barrier between them. Incredibly, his dejection upset her. She tried to hate him but her heart kept betraying her efforts.

It was awful seeing someone as confident and unassailable as Dan look so diminished. He’d always given the impression that he could withstand anything that was thrown at him. All his movements had been vigorous and definite, his muscular body brimming with energy.

Now he looked as if the life-blood had been drained from him. Sympathy oozed from her and she felt herself crumple. Feeling weak, she slumped back into the plumped-up pillows, her mouth releasing a soft moan.

He was probably contemplating the future. The house would have to go, for a start. That was why he looked so bleak and depressed. He adored Deep Dene.

Whereas she was dreading the consequences of his adultery for a different reason: because she had loved him with all her heart. She pushed that from her mind, postponing the empty black hole that was her future without Dan.

She gave a little gasping intake of breath, realising that she still loved him. Madly and deeply—despite her low opinion of him. You couldn’t immediately switch off something that had been all-consuming and magical for years and years. Heck, they’d known one another since their teens and neither of them had ever looked at anyone else. Till now.

Her slender arm lifted and angled to cover her anguished eyes. It would take ages for the hurt to go away—if it ever did. Already it was searing her heart with a cramping agony and her mind seemed to be churning with disjointed thoughts…

The thermometer was slipped from her mouth and she sullenly opened dark and angry eyes to see Dan studying it, his face still bent over hers, close, touchable, the strong planes of his face achingly near.

‘Well. Let’s see.’ Low and husky, his voice seeped like hot lava into her bloodstream, startling her with unwanted sensuality. Breathing heavily, he stared at her shoulder and she hastily slid the errant satin shoulder-strap of her nightie back into place. ‘Normal,’ he declared in a tone that was anything but.

Collecting her ragged nerves together, she blinked and frowned in disbelief.

‘Can’t be. I feel rotten.’

‘See for yourself.’

She did, and was surprised. ‘Then I’ve eaten something dodgy,’ she muttered, unable to take her eyes from the sultry lines of his mouth.

He straightened, taking away temptation. ‘Do want to sleep, or do you feel up to listening to me properly?’ Dan asked stiffly, the proud carriage of his head telling her that he was going to brazen this out.

‘Sleep? Do you think I could sleep with this on my mind?’ she cried, her body still pulsing with warmth.

‘No. Of course not. All right. But on one condition. I want you to avoid making any sarcastic remarks till I’ve finished,’ he said in a horribly distant tone.

Suitably chastened, she felt her lip quivering. She shouldn’t behave like a prize bitch. Shock seemed to have turned her into a different woman, someone who wanted to lash out and yell and behave like a wounded tigress. He’d done this to her. Made her no better than an animal.

‘I’m sorry. I lost control. I felt…’

‘I understand,’ he muttered, as if he didn’t want her to spell it out.

Her eyes blinked back treacherous tears. How could he know how deeply she mourned the man she had loved? How her very heart was shrivelling because her unconditional belief in him had been shattered? She felt more than empty. There was nothing good left in her life. Nothing to look forward to.

‘I doubt that you do,’ she whispered.

He looked down on her with an impassive expression, his tall figure dauntingly rigid.

‘It’s not surprising you’re on edge. You’re not well. And you had a shock.’

Helen drew in a shaky breath. They were talking like polite acquaintances. She was apologising for ranting at him, he was making allowances for her. It was bizarre.

Helen nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Helplessly she gazed at his handsome face, which had so often turned her to jelly. Her mouth had kissed those dark and haunted eyes and even now her memory could vividly recall the silk of his thick lashes against the softness of her lips. Her fingers had stroked the fine jaw and she’d marvelled at the strength of the underlying bone. Time after time, her body had lain against his, ecstatic, replete…

And so had Celine’s mouth, Celine’s fingers, Celine’s body.

Anguished, ripped apart by pain, she jerked her head away in a sudden, violent movement.

‘What is it?’ he enquired urgently, gripping the fragile bones of her bare shoulder. His voice gentled. ‘Helen, tell me!’ he coaxed. ‘Is it a pain? Where?’

Everywhere. She was hurting so badly. And he was trying to get round her with soft words of concern, imagining they could brush this aside and carry on as normal. But she’d lost the love of her life, her hopes for the future, father of her future children…

So many times she’d dreamed of their life together, of another, nicer house they’d have when they’d saved enough, a mews house in Chelsea perhaps; of the dinner parties with good friends; their much-adored children. Four, she’d thought. To make up for the family Dan had never had, for the bruising childhood and emptiness of his youth. There’d be jolly outings, holidays abroad, a life built on love and happiness, the security of their high-powered jobs.

All for nothing. Because she couldn’t ever let him into her heart again.

‘Helen!’ he muttered in alarm when she screwed up her body in despair. His grip tightened and he shook her slightly. ‘Please! What is it?’

‘You! Don’t you understand? I can’t bear to look at you!’ she yelled in misery.

Dimly she heard Dan thundering out of the room. To her confusion, she began to sob, because she’d wanted him to be there beside her, stroking, soothing… What a fool she was. It seemed she didn’t know what she wanted at all.

Weak and defeated, she slumped against the pillows. Perhaps he was leaving and she’d never see him again. Horrified, she began to wail in earnest, her whole body succumbing to the sense of terrible desolation she felt.

To be alone, without him. Never seeing his face, never hearing his breathing beside her as they lay in bed together, never lovingly and lingeringly smoothing out that dent in his pillow…

Oh, why hadn’t she seen the danger signs, noticed that they were neglecting one another, put her foot down and insisted that they had time together?

If only she could put the clock back! Then she’d never know he was really weak and flawed. But…was that so surprising? He’d had such a harsh and unloving upbringing… Maybe, she mused, he’d always covered up his faults, in a desperate attempt to make successive foster parents like him. And so he’d built his life on lies, on a mask that hid his true nature.

She almost felt sorry for him. And consequently was more muddled than ever. But she had to remember that he wasn’t the man she’d imagined. She’d married an illusion—and couldn’t live with the reality: someone who cheated and lied for his own selfish ends.

‘Helen.’ His voice was strangled, close to her ear. She put her hands up to shut him out but he hauled her up and roughly dabbed at her streaming eyes. ‘Don’t cry. Please don’t cry,’ he said rawly. ‘I’ve brought you some brandy. You must drink it—I insist. You’ll be so ill…’

She couldn’t be ill. She must be strong and organise her new life. See solicitors. Produce lists of things to do.

The jagged sobs came less frequently. She allowed him to hold the glass to her trembling lips, to enclose her feeble hands with his because they both knew she’d drop the glass otherwise.

The brandy silked a warm and beguiling path to her stomach and revived her. She kept her gaze fixed on the glass. On his hands. She’d always loved them. Big and capable but with long, slender fingers that had lain against her face while his mouth had slowly descended in a sweet or sometimes blistering kiss… She choked.

‘Just drink,’ he husked. ‘Don’t think about anything. Don’t torture yourself. It’s all right. Honestly.’

But it wasn’t. And the sooner she accepted that the better. Though she couldn’t help grieving.

‘How is it all right?’ she whispered mournfully, her voice cracking midway.

He swallowed, some unknown emotion overcoming him. ‘It is. Believe me. We’ll sort this out. I can’t bear to see you so upset,’ he husked.

‘You should have thought of that before you played hunt the dolly-bird,’ she muttered.

His mouth clammed up and he stalked over to shed the towel and grab his robe, turning around once he’d drawn it around his nakedness and had begun to yank the belt into an angrily tied knot.

‘You know how hard I’ve been working!’ he lashed. ‘I’m not Superman. I would never have had the energy for a dolly-bird!’

She fell silent. Energy could always be found for the things one wanted to do. And he’d proved a moment ago that his sex drive was still active.

He stood there, brooding, dark eyes narrowed and hostile.

‘I need you to be calm,’ he said flatly.

Her eyes silvered and she averted her head again. Calm? Yes, she was—but only because she felt numb with cold, as if the blood had stopped bothering to do the trip around her body.

She shivered and slid further under the bedclothes, suddenly scared of hearing some trumped-up explanation that had so many holes in it she’d be sieving out the lies for days to come.

‘Superficially I am,’ she replied in stilted tones. ‘But don’t let that fool you. Go on. Let’s have your explanation.’

Dan inhaled long and hard. ‘I can’t talk to the back of your head.’

Sullenly she turned over and glued her eyes to the ceiling, her body a taut mass of terror.

‘Get on with it,’ she whispered.

‘Give me a break!’ he protested.

‘Why?’ she blurted out.

His hands clawed into fists. ‘If you see no reason, then there isn’t much hope for us, is there?’

After that bitter statement, there was a long and painful pause. A sickening atmosphere of hate and suspicion thickened the air between them. She could feel Dan mentally leaving her, the bonds being severed. Despair entered every corner of her heart.

It was incomprehensible to her that he was angry. Surely he realised she was all but dying inside?

‘Tell me,’ she said in a flat monotone.

He was silent for a few seconds. ‘To my mind, it’s perfectly simple,’ he began eventually, so quietly that she had to strain her utmost to hear. ‘I’ve worked it out. I think that Celine had been planning this for a while.’

‘Sex in our home?’ she shot miserably before she could stop herself. ‘It’s the crowning triumph, isn’t it?’ she cried, more unhappy than she could ever have imagined. She glared at him. ‘Like a dog marking a tree on another dog’s territory!’

Oh, God! she thought. What awful things was she coming out with?

Dan winced. ‘You’re overwrought. Don’t say things you’ll regret—’

‘I’m not going to make this easy for you!’ she cried, her eyes huge in their hopelessness.

Dan muttered under his breath and bowed his head. Buried his face in his hands. He who had always been invincible. Her rock. She was still finding that she couldn’t cope with his distress. It was worse than her own.

What did that mean? she wondered. That she still loved him enough to forgive him? Would she have him back if he begged? Could she ever let him come near her again without thinking of that woman?

‘I can’t cope with your hatred,’ he whispered rawly.

An incredible agony ripped through her flesh, tearing her nerves into ragged strings. And she could not stop shaking, misery and sickness forcing their way up till she had to repeatedly swallow them back down.

He’d been rejected all his life. In his own mind he must see this as yet another rejection. But what did he expect, when he’d behaved so badly? She was hurting. She’d been wronged.

‘Cut out the emotional appeal,’ she said jaggedly. ‘Give the facts.’

He drew himself up and his hands fell away from his eyes, which he kept lowered to the ground. Helen stared. His dark lashes were wet and glistening. Her gaze flicked to his hands where they lay loosely on his knees and she saw that there was moisture on his fingertips.

But sorrow didn’t equal innocence. She steeled herself. And in a halting rasp, he began.

‘I had an appointment in Brighton. Celine came, too. Unusually, she brought a flask of coffee.’ His mouth took on a harsh line. ‘I thought it was an accident, but I can see it wasn’t—’

‘What was an accident?’ she asked in confusion, unnerved by his uncharacteristic rambling. He was always incisive and clear-headed. Or was it her brain that was woolly?

‘What? Oh, the coffee. I was driving along and she suddenly poured it out and somehow it spilled all over my shirt and trousers. Black coffee, four sugars, she said. You can’t go to the meeting like that, she said. We’re near your house. Better go home and change.’ He grunted. ‘What an idiot I was! Oldest trick in the book.’

Helen waited. He looked sour, as if it had truly happened that way. And she could almost believe that it had…

Except for the abandoned clothes on the stairs, and Celine’s implication that this wasn’t the first time they’d had ‘fun’ together. Her head drummed with the questions he wasn’t answering.

‘And?’ she prompted dully.

‘We were running late. It was an important meeting and I was annoyed,’ Dan growled, his hands doubled into tight fists again. ‘I left Celine in the drawing room with a pile of magazines, stormed up the stairs, got out of my ruined clothes—’

‘Where are they?’ Helen asked suspiciously.

Dan frowned, his eyes flicking up to meet hers. ‘What?’

She felt her stomach loop the loop.

‘They weren’t in the bathroom or I’d have noticed—’

‘I left them on top of the laundry basket,’ he answered with convincing confidence.

They both looked. The basket sat in pristine solitude in the corner of the bedroom. Dan muttered something rude and strode over to lift the lid but his movements were already uncertain.

‘Well?’

Helen could hardly breathe. She wanted them to be there, for some part of his story to be true. Her desperate hope was that he’d stuck to the facts so far—that there had been an accident, and Celine had taken the opportunity to wander in while he was half dressed—and had come on so strong that no red-blooded man could have refused—

Dan’s expression destroyed her hopes. She flinched, a hollow sensation gnawing at her stomach. His lie had been found out.

‘My clothes aren’t there,’ he announced, his eyes burning feverishly in his face.

‘No,’ she said, her tone clipped and glacial as she watched him grimly flinging open wardrobe doors and hunting through drawers. ‘I never thought they would be.’

‘They were!’ he insisted, flashing her an irritated glance.

This was awful, she thought as he pretended to search for his supposedly stained clothes. He was making a good job of it, becoming more and more incensed and baffled as he explored every possible hiding place in the room.

‘Stop this,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m not impressed.’

He whirled, hot anger turning his eyes to glittering jet. His legs were planted apart, his entire body fired with suppressed fury. Helen gulped. He was beginning to believe his own lies, she thought, aghast.

‘Just listen to me,’ he hissed through his clenched teeth. ‘My clothes were splashed with coffee. I put them on the basket and went to take a shower—’

‘While Celine silently dashed up the stairs, grabbed your suit and shirt, stuffed them down her cleavage and then raced downstairs to hide them—only to lay a trail of clothes as she came back up again!’ she suggested sarcastically.

‘Yes! Something like that!’

‘Oh, come on, Dan!’ she scoffed.

His hand mussed his hair. ‘I know it sounds mad—’

‘Not mad. Preposterous,’ she said coldly.

‘Well, I don’t know how she did it…’ Dan continued to thrust an exasperated hand into his hair till it was as confused as his manner. ‘All I do know is that I came out of the shower to find Celine wearing nothing but that blue towel.’

That part could be true, she thought grudgingly. Before she’d left for work, she’d taken a fresh one out of the airing cupboard on the landing and had flung it on a bedroom chair ready for her shower later that evening.

‘And?’ she muttered, not sure she wanted to hear the rest.

He made an impatient gesture with his hand. ‘What do you think? I asked her what the hell she was doing, of course.’

‘And?’ Helen goaded. ‘What happened then?’

Dan’s eyes blazed at her temerity. ‘And nothing!’

‘I mean, what reason did she give for stripping off without any encouragement from you?’ she persisted.

A frown pulled his brows together. He appeared to be taking a while to think of an answer.

‘As a matter of fact, she seemed disconcerted at first, as if she hadn’t expected me to find her there—’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘I know! Don’t ask me to read the damn woman’s mind!’ he snapped irascibly. ‘I employ her because she’s got a brilliant imagination and can think around corners. I’m the straightforward sort.’

‘Well, I’m a woman with the same talents as Celine,’ she said, ‘so let’s see if I can unravel the mystery. She deliberately threw the coffee over you, waited downstairs till you went up for your shower and then she stripped. After that, she went up the stairs arranging her things enticingly in reverse order, and slipped into our bedroom to take your suit away—perhaps to send it to the cleaners, like a good PA should,’ she suggested acidly. Dan glowered. ‘But you came out too soon and caught her snitching my towel, whereas her real plan was that you’d follow the trail of clothes down the stairs, getting progressively more and more excited. And she’d be reclining in a seductive pose on a rug, with a glass of champagne in her hand, a rose in her teeth and a huge smile of welcome on her face.’

He stared, appalled. ‘Do you really think—?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Dan!’ she scathed. ‘Can’t you recognise sarcasm?’

Two high spots of colour fired his cheekbones. ‘Well, women can be unbelievably devious,’ he said angrily. ‘I’m beginning to discover that to my cost. I can only give you my version.’

‘Which is?’ Helen asked, sweetly saccharine.

‘I came out of the shower and saw her. When she recovered her composure she just started talking in this odd, husky kind of voice. Saying that this was our opportunity. Stuff like that,’ he mumbled.

‘Details,’ she demanded.

‘No.’

‘Can’t think of any?’ she taunted.

He glared. ‘It was embarrassing.’

‘So relive it.’

‘It…was all about her feelings for me. The kind of man she thought I was,’ he said shortly. ‘I told her not to be so stupid and to get dressed.’

He was lying. He looked ashamed of himself. She would have preferred him to admit his adultery and to beg her forgiveness. This was just cowardly.

‘So you’re saying that you were confronted with a gorgeous, almost-naked woman who admitted that she worshipped the ground you walked on and said, “How about it?” and you said, “No, thanks, I’m married.’”

Dan’s astonished indignation was masterly. ‘Of course!’

‘You’re a saint among men.’

‘Don’t be sarky!’ he said angrily, his brows lowered over glittering eyes. ‘There’s no point in talking to you if you’re not going to listen—’

‘Oh, I’m listening, Dan,’ she replied despondently. ‘I’m just sickened by what I’m hearing.’

He slung her a furious glare as if she was doing him an injustice. Past experience told her that this kind of reaction was common when people were in the wrong. They dealt with their fall from grace by seeking excuses for their behaviour, or finding fault with the accuser. It was the only way they could live with themselves.

‘If you ask me,’ she said coldly, ‘you’re lucky you’re not splattered all over the wall.’

Rage crackled in his eyes. ‘That’s it. I’m going. You’re not prepared to believe me—’

‘You’re giving up?’ she cried, sitting bolt upright, her whole body taut with outrage. He wasn’t walking out on her! Not till he’d been forced to tell the truth. ‘Don’t you have faith in your own story?’ she challenged.

‘You don’t. That’s the problem.’

He studied her with a chilling coldness. Fear clutched at her heart as she realised that his love had now died. Nothing would resurrect their marriage now. Other than a miracle.

Please let there be one. She couldn’t live without Dan. Close to breaking-point, she clasped her trembling hands over her knees, her eyes huge and pleading.

‘I want to believe you,’ she croaked. ‘I honestly do.’

Her words seemed to placate him slightly. The high jut of his shoulders inched down a little.

‘OK. I left her in no doubt that I was furious with her. I went back into the bathroom and locked the door to make it clear I wasn’t interested. And I waited so she had time to get dressed. Clearly she didn’t bother. I assume she heard you and went out onto the landing. When I came out into the bedroom, I heard your voice too and realised you’d come home.’

‘That must have been a shock,’ she muttered.

‘My whole life passed before my eyes,’ he admitted grimly. ‘When I saw Celine still in that towel, I realised how bad it would look.’

‘Bad is an understatement. And you’re telling me that I came back just in time to prevent anything taking place?’

‘Yes! I mean—no, dammit, I mean nothing would have taken place—’

‘Supposing I go along with your version. What was her purpose in all this?’

‘To get me into bed, I imagine!’ he yelled, looking annoyed.

‘And yet up to now she hadn’t given you the least suspicion that she might be interested in you?’

‘No.’

He scowled and thrust his hands into the pockets of his robe aggressively. Even he was seeing that his story was unlikely.

Helen closed her eyes. ‘It won’t wash, Dan. There are no coffee-stained clothes. And the idea of Celine nipping up and down the stairs like a demented yo-yo is ludicrous.’

‘That doesn’t make it untrue!’ he declared.

She inhaled harshly, stoking up her courage to face the truth and accept it before moving on. Maybe they could pull things together. He could be made to see that you had to be straight with people and earn their love by never letting them down.

‘Why don’t you admit you’ve been having an affair,’ she said shakily, ‘and we can go on from there?’

‘Because I haven’t! I wouldn’t!’ he seethed, beginning to stride up and down. ‘It’s the last thing on earth I’d do. You don’t really know me at all, do you?’

‘No. I don’t,’ she agreed unhappily, stunned by his air of deep injury.

His shoulders slumped. ‘Well, that’s crystal-clear. You can’t have any idea how much you disappoint me.’

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish coming up for air. ‘I disappoint you? How arrogant can you get? You’re in the wrong, Dan, and yet you won’t unbend your stupid pride and confess! Instead, you come up with a story so weak that it’s laughable! I don’t believe any part of it!’

‘You must!’ he warned. ‘Or we’re finished.’

How dared he issue an ultimatum? Stifling an urge to cry, she fixed him with a steely gaze.

‘I’d like to be alone. You’d better use the guest bedroom tonight. Unless, of course,’ she added bitterly, her heart one huge ache, ‘you prefer to stay at Celine’s.’

Dan’s mouth tightened into a thin line of anger. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he muttered scathingly, collecting up fresh clothes with feverish haste. ‘Nice to know how highly you rate my moral values and my commitment to this marriage.’

Bristling with wounded pride, he spun on his heel and headed for the door, the ferocity and speed of his stride leaving her in no doubt as to his mood.

After a short while she heard the front door bang, the sound of his car starting up and being wrenched violently into gear. The shriek of wheels spinning on mud. And then a hostile silence.

That was it, she thought bleakly, shocked by the cold reality of his departure. They were enemies now. The end.

CHAPTER FOUR

TO HELEN’S surprise she didn’t burst into tears. Perhaps, she thought morosely, that was because her brain had turned to stone and it was incapable of thought any more.

Staying in bed was impossible. Her own restlessness was driving her mad. Desperate to do something, she got up and put on one of Dan’s T-shirts and a pair of his walking socks.

They were her comfort clothes, she supposed. She’d often wear them on a Sunday when she allowed herself a precious few hours of leisure.

Perhaps she’d do some housework. Despite not feeling very well, she was too angry to sit still. Cleaning would pass the time and use up some of her suppressed anger as she imposed her will on the hated farmhouse. So she gathered up some cleaning equipment and set to work.

In an odd way, she almost enjoyed the activity, and felt grimly satisfied to see that Dan’s study curtains quivered in subdued terror after she’d whacked the dust from them with a table-tennis bat.

‘Be afraid,’ she muttered, glowering at the rest of his room. ‘Be very afraid!’ And she cleaned it within an inch of its life.

All of the rooms had borne a sad and neglected air when she’d started. Housework had never been high on her list of priorities because the builders and plasterers kept ruining her efforts.

But by the time she’d polished and dusted and hoovered everything with manic attention to detail, the spiders had fled in shock and each habitable room hummed with the energy she’d expended.

The house almost looked homely, she mused grudgingly and pretended not to notice the deep sob which lurched up from nowhere into her throat.

It was only when she’d cleared rubble and plaster from the builders’ latest extension project—ironically the nursery-to-be—that she paused for breath, remembered where she was and suddenly found herself convulsed with weeping.

That was it. She spent a chilly hour in the nursery hunched up in the dust, mournfully twisting the knife into herself by gazing at the place where she’d planned to put the cot and its precious occupant.

The floodgates opened. Her burst of displacement activity was over. Almost too blurred to see through the curtain of tears, she dispiritedly made herself a fresh hot-water bottle and dragged herself up to bed.

Eventually her howling turned to intermittent sobbing and she found herself listening for Dan’s car, every sound outside rocketing her hopes up to a peak of anticipation, only for disappointment to follow. Dan didn’t come back at all. In her heart of hearts she knew he wouldn’t, not with Celine panting eagerly on the sidelines.

Most of the night she spent awake, morbidly cuddling his pillow, reflecting that she’d never been really unhappy before. Unlike Dan, she’d had a childhood unblemished by tragedy or trauma. Her parents—now enjoying life in the Californian sun—adored her. She’d been popular at school and clever enough not to worry about exams.

This feeling of deep misery was totally alien. For the first time she understood what it was like to be unhappy and to lose a person you loved. It was frightening, she mused, to surrender your whole self to someone and to have that commitment flung back in your face as if it were worthless.

She felt as if he’d crushed her. Trampled on her dreams, knocked the confidence out of her. He’d chosen someone else, effectively telling her that she wasn’t good enough. So her self-esteem was at an all-time low.

Wearily she crawled out of bed the next morning and rang in sick. All through the day she continued her onslaught on the house, with frequent breaks for a crying fit whenever she came across something that reminded her of Dan. Which was often. Yet she slogged on with dogged determination.

She still felt sick but she was learning to ignore that. The house needed to be in good shape if it was going to be photographed and put on the market. Tomorrow she’d speak to her solicitor. At the moment she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t bawl down the phone. She had her dignity, after all.

Dusk was now falling. She’d been working since dawn, clad as before in Dan’s big T-shirt and the cosy socks.

A sudden dizziness made her clutch at the table in the hall that she was polishing. The duster floated to the floor and she stared vacantly into space, weak from her stomach bug, from exhaustion and lack of food.

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