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‘They would be nervous of me if I took them out alone. You will accompany us if I have to dress you myself.’
‘Just try it and see where it gets you!’
‘Mummy, are we going out soon?’ Ben asked gravely from the doorway.
The trip to McDonald’s was a great success. A triangular love-affair was blossoming right under Sarah’s nose. She was the intruder, the odd one out. The twins were enthralled by Rafael and Rafael was as gifted at amusing them as he was at keeping their excitement under control. A fourth participant was not required.
Reckless didn’t feel so good any more. Her Dutch courage was gone. Her conscience was in death throes. She had enjoyed pleasure for pleasure’s sake, and now she was paying the price. Rafael had not made love to her. He had had sex with her. He had cruelly divested the encounter of all sentiment, shredding her foolish dreams with the efficiency of a threshing machine. He had used her. And of one fact she was now certain: he would never receive an opportunity to do so again. She would be ice. She would be so cold he would risk frostbite if he attempted to repeat the experiment.
‘Sarah.’ A lazy hand caressingly swept a straying tendril of hair back behind her small ear and her heartbeat hit the Richter scale as she clashed unprepared with tawny golden eyes. He withdrew his hand calmly. ‘We’re leaving,’ he said prosaically.
CHAPTER SIX
THE twins slept practically before their heads touched the pillow. Rafael made some quite unnecessary last-minute adjustments to Ben’s duvet and picked Gilly’s teddy up off the carpet to restore it to the bed. Sarah switched out the light abruptly, determined not to be disarmed by the unashamed tenderness he could display when he chose to do so.
‘I have missed so much,’ he breathed with regret.
‘Yes,’ Sarah conceded grudgingly.
‘You didn’t tell them that I was dead. For that surprising restraint I am grateful but they know nothing about me.’
‘What did you expect? A little shrine in the corner?’ Sarah was sharply defensive.
He stared down at her with infuriating perception. ‘You don’t want to share them. That is not generous but I suppose it is human.’
‘Thanks for nothing!’
‘Sarah.’ Lean hands came down on her tense shoulders. ‘They are not my children or your children. They are our children. We are not in competition.’ It was a reprimand, cool and incisive as only Rafael could make it. ‘I did not exclude you this evening. You excluded yourself.’
‘You’re a tough act to follow.’ She headed into the lounge although she wanted to sag and weep with mental and physical exhaustion.
‘I liked you better without your barriers. You told me more about yourself over lunch than I learned in two years of marriage. It was not all pleasure.’ His beautiful mouth twisted. ‘But it was educational.’
He was lounging on the threshold with the supple grace of a wild animal, master of all he surveyed. Leashed vitality still emanated from him in waves. When she looked at him, she felt like a woman was not supposed to feel in these days of equality. She felt weak and feminine and breathless.
Forcing her attention away from him, she drew in a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m prepared to come to Spain for a few weeks—’
‘It is not enough. It would never be enough,’ he dismissed ruthlessly.
‘You’re telling me to give up my job and my home and tear up my roots just for your benefit? You’re being horribly selfish,’ she accused shakily.
‘Don’t make me fight you, Sarah.’ Fierce dark eyes without a hint of warm gold rested on her. ‘Don’t make me do something we will both regret. I want what is best for Ben and Gilly. I have no wish to deprive them of their mother or to deprive you of them. So, you and I…we must make a compromise.’
A shard of savage pain seized her. ‘I don’t like compromises.’
His strong dark features were taut. ‘I have never made one before. I do not want this one but I see no alternative.’
‘You haven’t even given yourself time to think about what you’re doing!’ There was a desperate edge to her trembling condemnation.
‘I knew,’ he contradicted very softly. ‘I knew, I think the very first night, what I would do but I fought it. I was still up at dawn. I made myself remember how it once was between us. We were both very young, es verdad? I expected too much and gave too little. Also…’ he spread lazy hands but the brilliant driven emotion in his eyes negated the careless gesture ‘…I am not very good at loving someone who does not love me.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Sarah lost all patience, all control. ‘Why the hell did I stay with you so long if I didn’t? What did you want? A written statement in blood? Don’t ask me why but I was crazy about you! I didn’t think I’d anything left to live for when you disappeared out of my life!’
‘Sarah…’ he breathed huskily.
Struggling for breath, she looked at him. He was wearing the most brilliant smile. It slashed his sensual mouth like diamonds in the sunlight and the pulling power of that smile made her tremble, batten down her hatches with the speed of a hedgehog sensing attack. ‘I think it’s time you were leaving. Suzanne must be ready to send out a search party for you!’
‘You still believe that I sleep with her?’ She was delighted to see that the smile had gone.
‘What I believe has precious little to do with sleeping,’ she said acidly.
‘I do not do this either,’ he returned levelly.
‘Never?’
The faintest bar of colour threw his high cheekbones into prominence. ‘It…it was a very long time ago.’
Why wasn’t she starring in a circus act where someone with a very poor aim threw knives at her? This was how it would feel when cold steel drove out her life’s blood. ‘While we were married?’ she pressed helplessly.
He was very tense. ‘I do not want to talk about this, Sarah.’
‘I thought you were all for speaking the truth and shaming the
devil! Don’t disappoint me.’
‘De acuerdo.’ He expelled his breath in a hiss. ‘It was after we parted, after I received your demand for a divorce…’
Hatred was a poison spreading within her. She was in a passion of pain. She wanted him struck down by lightning and retribution, punished into oblivion where he couldn’t hurt her any more.
‘I met her when I was very drunk and very depressed,’ he murmured harshly. ‘We made better friends than lovers. You wanted a divorce, Sarah. Do not judge me for this.’
‘I judged you five years ago and I haven’t any reason to change my mind.’ Valiantly she lifted her chin although she was dying inside.
‘Suzanne’s husband, Eduardo, is also staying in my apartment. Their little boy is having an operation at one of your famous London hospitals. He has been very seriously ill and now he is recovering. I offered them my apartment while they were here.’
Sarah gave no sign of having heard a word of his grated explanation. She was still hating him with so much venom that she marvelled that he did not drop dead at her feet. The front door shut with a quiet thud and she sagged and knew she was going to spend another night watching dawn break the dark skies beyond her bedroom window.
* * *
The next morning she handed in her notice at work. The personnel officer frowned but said nothing. Her departure would scarcely cause the company to grind to a halt. But Sarah had valued her job and was bitterly aware that in a few months time it would be well-nigh impossible to find another position as suitable. But what else could she do? The risk she would run in allowing Rafael to take her to court was unthinkable. Such a case would attract immense publicity, especially once the facts began emerging. She would be on trial and she could not afford to be put on trial. Thanks to her father she had spent almost two months in a clinic for the mentally disturbed. Who was ever going to believe that she had been put there when there was nothing the matter with her?
