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She should have listened to them. She'd been too sure of her ability to make him forget the other woman, learn to love her. She had been so sure he would, especially when she gave him the child he had told her he wanted.
'Come, we'll walk.' His deep voice was thick with what had to be regret for what he was about to do to her. But she didn't want his pity. She wanted his love but had never had it. And never would now.
'Come,' he repeated, and held out one hand. But she pointedly ignored it, stepping aside, giving him a wide berth as she began to walk up the lonely forest track. And he followed, overtaking her easily, anger back in every rapid stride as he thrust onwards, taking a narrower, rarely used track, and she tagged after him because there was nothing else to do and he would only drag her along, the mood he was in, if she gave in to her instincts and sat down on the loamy floor of the forest and put back her head and howled.
And just when she thought she was fated to follow him through this lonely place for all time he flung over his shoulder, 'When you walked out on me you should have said you couldn't bear to touch me. I just might not have bothered finding you!'
'I don't know why you did!' she hurled right back, her breath coming rapidly, due more to the knowledge that they were at last beginning the final confrontation than the pace he had set.
As long as he never discovered just how much she longed for his touch and how often, during the past three months, she had cried herself to sleep, aching for the physical intimacy they had once shared and which he, for obvious reasons, shunned, she would be able to hang on to the new beginnings of her self-respect.
'I would have thought you'd be far too busy back at South Park with Zanna—and young Harry!'
They had reached a clearing, the tall trees like a cathedral vault overhead, golden sunlight filtering through, making the silent shadows dimmer. And he stopped, and turned, facing her, and, for a moment, an image of pain flickered over his face. And then nothing. His features could have been carved from marble as he told her, 'I understand your jealousy. But don't let it warp your very existence. I promise you, Beth, there will be others for you.'
She didn't know how she stopped herself from slapping him, stopped herself from yelling out all her disgust and rage. But she managed it, remembering in time that, believing as he did that their marriage had been without love on both sides, he would naturally assume that she would find someone else.
And now was the time to get everything straight, and she steeled herself for that, wondering if he could hear the heavy, panicky beat of her heart in this dim green silence.
Taking a hold on herself, she told him calmly, 'I know why Zanna came back with Harry. I overheard you talking together the day they arrived.'
There, it was out. He had no need now to break the 'news'. And she heard him drag in his breath and then expel it slowly, the tight span of his shoulders relaxing beneath the soft dark fabric of his sweatshirt.
'So at least you understand about that.' His fine eyes darkened with something she couldn't put a name to and, almost too late, she saw the trap she had walked into.
She had told him she'd overheard that conversation, and she knew he would be remembering, too, the things that had been said. How he'd already told the woman he loved that the ill-begotten marriage he'd entered into with the unsuitable Beth Garner was over. And how, because of that, Zanna had returned, bringing their son. She'd done her best as a single parent, but Harry needed his father, too.
Fleetingly, Beth wondered why Zanna had walked out on Charles in the first place. Their deep, obsessive love for each other had been the talk of the neighbourhood gossips for months.
Then, quickly, she pushed those thoughts out of her head, painfully aware of Charles's intent gaze. One way or another she had to extricate herself, step back from the trap she had almost walked straight into.
Somehow, Charles had to be made to believe a lie, believe that she had walked out on him, not because Zanna had returned and Charles wanted a divorce, but because she, Beth, had decided she'd had enough.
Walking out on him before he could ask her to go was the only way to salvage her pride. She had nothing else left.
'Of course I understand,' she told him crisply, resisting the impulse to hug her arms around her slender body because, despite the warmth of the day, she was cold inside, aching with it. 'But it isn't really important. It was nothing to do with my reasons for wanting a separation.'
'Which were?' He had moved closer to her and the very forest trees seemed to hold their breath. Beth couldn't speak, her heart beating crazily, making her head spin.
She couldn't lie to him, not about a thing like that, she agonised, looking up at him, the bones of his face tight with tension. She simply couldn't do it. How could she deny her love for him? The love that had been growing, maturing and strengthening since she was fifteen years old?
'Your reasons, Beth?' he pressed darkly, his eyes narrowing as they swept her anguished features.
She flung out breathlessly, retreating, 'The same as yours, I imagine. We both know what these last few months have been like. The marriage simply didn't work out.'
And he could translate that any way he wished, she thought distractedly, trying to stifle a betraying sob. And the most likely interpretation he would put on her evasive answer would be to believe that she, like himself, had grown tired of the sterile relationship, had long since reached the stage when even physical interest was totally dead. The way she had refused to take his hand back there, avoiding his touch, would reinforce that opinion.
'I don't believe this.' He looked as if she had slapped him, and she didn't understand—her brain was too confused and tired to work anything out. And why didn't he simply take what she had handed him on a plate, cut and run—right back home to the eagerly waiting Zanna? Why drag this awful confrontation out?
She couldn't stand much more of this. Her emotions had been dragging her down ever since she had eavesdropped on that conversation, trying to avoid the inevitable, running away when he'd told her that he and Zanna had something to say to her.
Weakly, she closed her eyes, doing nothing to prevent the hot salty tears that trickled down her cheeks. All she wanted was for him to leave her alone, allow her some dignity. He had got exactly what he wanted, hadn't he? Did he have to have his pound of flesh, too?
'Beth. Don't.' His voice was raw and before she knew what was happening his arms were around her, dragging her close into his body, and for one insane moment she allowed herself to melt, to cling to him, blocking her mind to the way things were.
'Tell me what's wrong,' he whispered darkly, one strong hand cradling her head into the solid angle of his shoulder, and the blood began to beat thickly through her veins, drugging her, and only when his other hand began a slow caressing movement along the length of her spine did she realise what she was doing.
She was allowing him to take the initiative, all over again, as he always had in their relationship. Not content with tossing her aside as soon as the woman he really loved appeared back on the scene, he wanted a run-down on her battered feelings.
