Page 53 of Public Wife, Private Mistress

And if she faltered slightly as she recounted the mo­ment when a total stranger had climbed into her bed, then it was only because she saw the thunderous look in his black eyes.

Suddenly anxious, she glanced at him searchingly. 'I hope you weren't angry with Chiara. She so obviously regretted it and at least she confessed in the end.'

He stopped dead and turned to look at her, not a trace of emotion on his handsome face as his eyes clashed with hers. 'She has not confessed.'

Stasia stopped too. 'But you said—-' She broke off, trying to remember exactly what he had said. 'You said that you were here because Chiara had told you the truth—'

'No. That was what you said,' he breathed, streaks of colour accentuating his amazing bone structure. 'I said nothing. You assumed she'd confessed. As it happens, you assumed incorrectly.'

Feeling as though she'd just jumped naked into a freezing river, Stasia stared at him in consternation. 'No—'

'Yes. Chiara has said nothing to me.' Rico stated with lethal emphasis, a hard glint of anger in his black eyes, and Stasia gave a groan of self-recrimination.

'I don't believe this—' She covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. 'Are you seriously telling me that Chiara didn't—?' Her hand dropped to her side. 'Oh. what have I done—?'

'Something you should have done a year ago,' Rico said coldly, 'and something Chiara should have done a year ago. And what I don't understand is why she didn't tell me this herself.'

'I thought she had,' Stasia whispered, just mortified that she'd inadvertently told him. 'I never, ever intended to be the one to tell you—'

'Even though it might have meant saving our mar­riage?' He ran a hand over the back of his neck and swore fluently, first in English and then in his native Italian.

Trying to remember a time when she'd seen him so close to losing control, Stasia struggled to redeem the situation.

'Our marriage was already on the way out,' she said quietly, suddenly full of anguish but not knowing how to make the situation better. Of all the scenarios she'd imagined, this hadn't been one of them. 'The mere fact that you could even consider that I would have an affair showed that.'

'Did it?' He growled the words, his black eyes alight with anger. 'Think about it. You come home early, un­announced, and find me in bed with a stunning blonde. Naked. What do you think?'

She stared at him, speechless, the image he'd con­jured so painful she could hardly bear to consider it.

He took a step towards her, his expression grim. 'Come on Stasia. what do you think’

Suddenly her heart was thumping so hard she could hardly breathe. 'I—I don't—'

'You'd think I was having an affair.' he bit out harshly, turning away from her with an impatient sound, everything about his body language suggesting a man at the edge of his limits. 'We are both hot-blooded, passionate people. People like us don't react to a situ­ation like that with cool intellect. You would have as­sumed what I assumed. You would have thought the same.'

Stasia swallowed. Was he right? Would she have as­sumed that? 'Straight away, then yes. maybe I would have thought the same. But later, given time for reflec­tion—'

'Reflection?' His voice was a barely restrained growl of raw masculine frustration. 'When did you ever offer me the luxury of reflection, Stasia? When? You walked out. You left.'

'Because I was angry with you for not believing in me—'

He gave a humourless laugh. 'And I was angry with you for sleeping with another man in our bed. And then I was angry with you for leaving without even giving me the opportunity to vent my jealousy.'

Her face had lost every scrap of colour. 'But you assumed—'

'I assumed that you were sleeping with another man,' he interrupted harshly. 'A reasonable assumption in the circumstances, I think you'll agree. And then I assumed that the fact that you left me so precipitously meant that you no longer wanted to be with me. That you were guilty. Another reasonable assumption in the circum­stances.'

Her pulse was thundering round her body. '1 tried to call you—'

'You left.'

'I was innocent.'

'You left.'

She closed her eyes and struggled to regulate her breathing. 'Because I was angry with you. not because I was guilty. I couldn't understand how you could think it of me after everything we'd shared.'

'In the heat of the moment,' he said, his tone raw, 'but now, when the situation has cooled, can you un­derstand how I could have thought it? Can you under­stand it now?'

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