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‘I…I…’ Baby-blue eyes were fastened on the pavement. She pulled in a shaky huff of breath and muttered, ‘I lied.’
‘And—?’ Javier prompted with a bite.
Glenda’s cheeks turned a dull red as she turned a look of loathing on Zoe. ‘Javier and I were finished well before he married you,’ she pushed out quickly, her voice low and sulky.
Zoe’s heart jumped like a landed fish. She wanted to believe what she was hearing but didn’t dare to. The other woman was putting on a convincing performance. But then the portrayal of mistress in residence back at the apartment had been spot on, too. They’d had a good three days to decide how to play this.
‘How do I know you’re telling the truth now? Did he put you up to this because he wants to keep me sweet? You did suggest it?’ Zoe reminded tersely, not knowing what to think or believe any more. ‘A way to keep my future wealth wedded to his.’
She felt Javier stiffen. She’d pricked that monumental pride of his. He’d hate to see his murky motives displayed. She should be experiencing triumph, vindication. So why did she want to cry?
‘Tell her what you were doing in our apartment,’ Javier demanded, contempt in his voice. Contempt for her or for Glenda, Zoe had no way of knowing.
Glenda shot him a look full of fury. ‘That’s between you and me. It’s none of her business!’
‘When you lied to my wife you made it her business.’
‘You were going to give me money!’ Glenda spat, hectic spots of colour high on her cheeks. ‘I was broke and homeless, I had no one else to turn to. Then that overgrown schoolgirl who calls herself your wife walked in and threw a tantrum! I would make you a far better wife!’
‘In your dreams,’ Javier stated with contempt. ‘So, broke and homeless, thrown out by your married French lover, you grabbed the opportunity to lie your head off, break up my marriage, then hang around long enough to console me for my wife’s desertion,’ Javier completed. ‘I want to hear you admit it.’
Silence. Javier released Zoe’s wrist and lifted his arm to lay it around her shoulders. Her legs felt hollow and she leant against him, grateful for the support. Had she misjudged him so badly?
‘Well?’ he pressed darkly, tacking on for good measure, ‘Do I have to remind you of that cheque?’
Glenda gave him a look of sullen rage then spat out, ‘OK, I admit it! Satisfied?’ She stumped off towards his waiting car. ‘Take me to that damned hotel—I’ve had enough of this!’
Five minutes later, Glenda and her suitcase deposited in the foyer of a country hotel, Javier turned a brief glance on Zoe as he returned to the driver’s seat. ‘Home now.’
The classic lines of his profile were grim. Her stomach flipped. She might have been naive in misjudging him, in accepting everything Glenda had said as the truth, but there were too many things left unspoken, so much she didn’t know, the foremost amongst them being the way he saw their relationship.
And he was saying nothing, just firing the ignition. She felt light-headed with stress and said in a breathy little voice she barely recognised as her own, ‘Take me back to Jenny’s to pick up my car.’
Javier’s hands tightened on the wheel as the Jaguar smoothly exited the hotel car park. ‘We’ll collect it in the morning. Until then I’m not letting you out of my sight. It’s time the real truth came out,’ he added grimly.
Having no idea what he meant by that, unless it had something to do with his relationship with the hateful Glenda, reminded her of something. ‘Why did it take you from Monday to Thursday to decide to haul that woman here to make her confession?’
His long mouth tightened. They’d passed through the village and he was taking the lanes out to Wakeham at speed. ‘It took me approximately three hours, not three days,’ he gave back on an exasperated snap, slowing right down to take a particularly tight bend then powering on. ‘Leave it for now.’
Good advice, Zoe had to admit, fiddling edgily with the strap of her seat belt. Clearly she was angering him, but never one to take orders easily she had to ask, ‘Was Glenda with you in Cannes?’
‘I met up with her there,’ was the rawly given admission as he turned into Wakeham’s long driveway, shocking Zoe back into silent misery, struggling to discover where the truth lay in all this mess.
Keeping her silent, a hand pressed in the small of her back, he urged her past Joe who was doing the evening rounds and checking the windows were closed, ignoring the older man’s stunned expression, marching her to the master suite.
‘Right,’ he gritted as he closed the door behind them. ‘I’m sick of playing games with our marriage.’ Tension pulled his bronzed skin tight over his impressive features, his narrowed eyes almost black, glittering with what she had to translate as rage.
‘Sick of pretending I had to work away from home just to move out of temptation’s way. Sick of acting like a real nice considerate guy when all I wanted to do was rip your clothes off and make love to you. Sick of suffering agonies of guilt because I might have made you pregnant, beating myself up,’ he emphasised with a savage bite. ‘So I’m telling you here an
d now that I love you. I want to make this marriage work, I want to give you children. I want to tie you so closely to me you’ll never escape!’
Zoe flopped down on the bed, her mouth dropping open. As a declaration of love it wouldn’t win any awards in the sensitivity and hearts-and-flowers stakes but it was all she needed—everything she needed.
Tears of sheer happiness sprang to her eyes as he stalked to where she was sitting, thrusting his rigid face in front of hers, impatience with her poleaxed silence etched on every dominant feature. ‘Well?’
She took his face between her hands and kissed him. At that precise moment it was the only answer she could give him. When his mouth returned the pressure of her lips with driven passion she knew her response to his question had been the right one. As he tumbled her back on the bed she felt the tremors that shook him as her arms closed around him, the heat of his virile body sending her flying on a giant wave of sensual excitement.
‘I’ve always loved you,’ Zoe managed at last to murmur against his erotically probing mouth. ‘Since I was little,’ she explained raggedly as he slowly lifted his head. ‘Then the feeling changed,’ she told his questing smoky eyes. ‘I loved you as a woman. I fell fathoms-deep in love with you. I told you, remember, and embarrassed us both.’
