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He stared, his face grim. 'Are you sure that was all that sent you running? Not the handsome Texan, your secret valentine?'
'I always thought you sent the cards. You pretended you had sent the last one,' she said, with a grin that quickly vanished under his scowling frown.
'I followed you the last day; I saw you at the airport.'
'I swear it was pure coincidence that I met Wayne in the departure lounge.'
He caught her hand in his, his fingers tightening painfully around hers. 'And was it coincidence that you shared his house?' he said, with an edge of cruelty.
'Necessity.' She stared up into his strong, attractive face and willed him to believe her. I had to wait until he'd arranged my finances, and I had nowhere else to go; I was a whimpering wreck without you. But Wayne and I were never more than friends.'
Slowly the pressure on her hand relaxed, and he said deeply, 'I believe you, Zoe.' He kissed her long and tenderly. Picking her up in his arms and rolling on to his back, he held her close against his strong body. 'I have to.' He groaned as he kissed her again with aching sweetness. 'I love you.'
She wanted him to make love to her, but she wanted him really to believe her, and, forcing herself to lift her head, she leant back, her hands splayed across his muscular chest.
'And I love you.' She gazed down, her eyes wide and pleading on his handsome face. 'And I only allowed you to think Wayne was my lover because when you arrived in California you were so cold.' She shuddered with remembered pain. 'So remote, and you never wanted to see me again.'
'I lied; I came to fetch you home, but when I saw you in that man's home, looking so sleek and content, I was so hurt, so angry that I could barely speak. I had to get away.'
'But you refused to divorce me.'
He tensed suddenly, and looked at her with hard eyes. 'I love you, I would do anything for you, but I'm not the kind of generous soul who would hand over the love of his life to another man.'
She studied him from beneath lowered lashes. 'Then why tonight did you say I could have a divorce?'
'Because the male ego is a fragile thing and you severely dented mine and I was furious.' He laughed and kissed her mouth. 'But by the time I got up here I'd calmed down.
'It wasn't so much the fact that you'd seduced me into bed to get yourself pregnant.' His black eyes lit up with amusement; he chuckled again. 'Actually I had the sameidea that night, and I was as mad as hell when you told me you were protected.'
A wide smile curved Zoe's soft mouth, and, leaning forward, she bit his chin lightly. 'Devious devil; I did wonder who was seducing whom at the time.'
'Yes, well, what really hurt today was the realisation that even after the last few days when I thought we'dfinally got it together his hand slid down over her buttocks, pressing her into his hard thighs '—certainly in bed,' he said thickly, capturing her mouth for a quick, hard kiss, 'you still didn't trust me enough to tell me the whole truth regarding Val.
'If you'd simply told me another child might be another chance for our son. . . Instead I had to hear it from a doctor—a total stranger. If there's no trust between us, we have nothing,' he said with blunt conviction.
'I'm sorry.' She sighed. She'd thought love was enough, but suddenly she saw that it would never be enough, not for her and certainly not for Justin. She glanced at his handsome face and shivered at his bleak expression.
'I do trust you,' she said urgently. 'I was too afraid— the last few months with Val, the worry, the uncertainty; I wasn't thinking straight.'
She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat, and struggled to contain her tears. 'I was going to tell you I was pregnant in California until you dismissed me so coldly. But deep down I always knew you would do anything to help. Why else do you think I kept your name and made it Val's? Why else would I have told him about his father?'
She could do no more; she had told him everything. She waited, heart pounding. His body wanted her—she could feel the hard weight of him beneath her—and she wasn't above using sex if that was what it took. 'I dolove you,' she whispered, moving sensuously against him, her slender limbs twining with his.
He gave a hoarse groan. 'I believe you. As I said before, I have to. It would kill me to lose you again.' And then his mouth closed over hers with ravishing sweetness, the kiss so poignant, so tender that her eyes swam with tears.
'Justin,' she said hoarsely as she felt his strong hands move over her, tracing her spine, curving her buttocks, and swiftly their positions were reversed.
His deep voice whispered husky words of love and need and explicit intent as he shaped her to his passion. Then his hard mouth found hers again, his hands cupped her breast, his fingers teasingly tormenting on the taut peaks, and his mouth slid slowly from her lips to her throat and lower until her body writhed in wild desire.
She gloried in his impassioned, guttural moan when her small hands explored his massive, hard, muscled body; she nipped his shoulder with small teeth in a paroxysm of delight when he finally slid between her trembling thighs, filling her with almost unbearable ecstasy.
Consumed by a wild, raw passion, he lifted her bodily from the bed and she clung to him with legs and hands and teeth, buffeted by the force of his possession. They rolled around the huge bed in a delirious frenzy of passion.
She saw his dark head rear back; his features were cast in stone, rigid with desire, then his muscular body moved with savage ferocity, his weight forcing her deeper into the bed. His dark eyes blazed with primeval need, and she revelled in his total loss of control until she cried his name, her body convulsing in endless, great, surging waves of earth-shattering pleasure.
Justin stiffened. Head thrown back, he grated her name, then his big body, finding its release, sank against her in a long, frenzied moment of soul-shaking oblivion.
Later, when she lay beneath him, aware of the weight of him and the hot dampness of their sweat-slicked bodies, she lifted her hand and swept a curl of black hair away from the beads of perspiration running down his proud forehead. 'I love you,' she whispered, exhausted but filled with a wondrous peace. She had her husband back, her marriage back.
