Seasons of Sin: Misbehaving in summer and autumn... (Series of Sin)

by Clare Connelly

  “Okay,” she said softly, staring at his face and committing it to memory. When the week was over, she would leave, and they would never speak again. It was essential that she prepare for that.

  She moved quietly from the room and down the hallway, towards the enormous kitchen. She knew by now that in addition to the housekeeper there were two chefs, a gardener, and a general helper, who ran the mansion.

  No one was in the kitchen at that hour though, so she was free to flick the kettle on and stare broodingly at it while it boiled.

  What did her husband think? Was he worried about her? Did he believe she might never come home? Did she care?

  The kettle began to hum; she flicked it off impatiently and sloshed some boiling water over a peppermint tea bag.

  She moved to her handbag on autopilot and lifted her phone from the inside pocket. It was off, as it had been since she’d last spoken to Jordan. She carried it with her through to the balcony and curled up on a large chair. The moon was full, bathing the black ocean in a milky light. It sent little beads of fairy cotton dancing up towards the heavens and despite the darkness of her mood, pleasure punctuated her mind. She placed her tea carefully on the armrest of the chair, then stared at her phone as though it were a snake, poised to bite her.

  She couldn’t ignore reality forever. Thad had certainly decided to wade out of the fog of their romance, and perhaps it was time she did too.

  With one deft movement she flicked her phone to life and stared at the screen.

  It beeped frantically in response.

  Text message after text message crammed in, and then a little phone icon flashed to indicate voice mails.

  It was too much. She lifted her tea and sipped it, almost relishing the feeling of pain as it burned her throat going down.

  Then, fortified, she clicked into the first text.

  Why won’t you answer your damned phone!!!! You can’t ignore me, Saffy. Not forever.

  Ten minutes later, the following had arrived: What do you want me to say? How many times do I have to apologize?

  And at almost the same moment: Saphire, you’ve been my best friend for as long as I can remember. I am going through hell, and you’re the only person I can speak to, yet I can’t speak to you. Please, please, please call me. Love A.x

  Saphire rolled her eyes. It was so like Anita to make this debacle about her, and yet Saphire had never realized how naturally selfish she was until then.

  Darling, your husband says you’re not well. I’m worried. Call me. Mum.

  I told your parents you’ve got a stomach bug and that you’re too sick to talk.. They don’t deserve to be put through hell with worry because you’re pissed at me.

  Saffy, I married you because I love you. You are the woman I want by my side. You are the woman I want to have children with. You are the woman I want to grow old with. So I slept with someone else. Are you really going to let that ruin everything we’ve got??

  I AM SORRY, OKAY????

  He was sorry.

  She got it.

  But sorry for what? For cheating? For having her catch him?

  How long had it been going on? How many times had they been together? Had Saphire climbed into bed, weary after a long day, and curled up on the same pillow Anita had buried her face into to soften her passion-fuelled screams?

  There could be no forgiveness. Not without more information. And even then … could she be foolish enough to trust him enough? Or was she willing to accept that theirs was far from a perfect marriage but that she could make it work anyway?

  Could she face the prospect of divorce, knowing that her parents would be proven right and their friends would be forced to choose between them? Could she divorce him and face life as what that made her? A divorcee at twenty-six, no job, no prospects of a job, living off alimony from a rich husband and money from her parents?

  And could she leave Thaddeus?

  It made her feel sick.

  In that moment, Saphire despised herself, and her life. It yawned before, a chasm of boredom and pointlessness, a future she dreaded the very idea of stepping into.

  “Nice view, Mrs Arana?”

  She startled and spun around, her eyes showing a deep inner turmoil. He saw, he cared, but he didn’t visibly soften.

  “I told you,” she said, turning back to the ocean. “Don’t call me that.”

  He stayed where he was, reclined against the door with the appearance of nonchalance. “It is who you are.”

  She gripped her phone in her hand, and the gesture called his attention to the device. He narrowed his eyes, prowling towards her. “Are you speaking with him?”

  She lifted sad eyes to his face. He had been right about something. He shouldn’t have been dragged into the middle of her marriage. She was pouring misery onto him; and she had no business to do so.

  “No,” she said simply. She held her phone out, silently inviting him to check for himself. She had no concerns about privacy; she didn’t want to keep any of the mess a secret from him. But Thaddeus brushed the gesture aside.

  “I am not going to read your communications,” he said coldly, his tone making it obvious how beneath him such an invasive gesture would be. “What you and I were was founded on a lie, yet I believe you now. I have to believe you. I cannot continue if I think you capable of deceiving me with your every breath.”

  “I’m not,” she promised desperately. “I’m so messed up though, MK. I don’t know what I should do. I don’t even know who I am anymore.” She sipped her tea again, for something to do, and lifted her knees to her chest. She rested her chin on them and sighed. “Jordan — that’s my husband — is one of these people who just radiates confidence.”

  He stiffened. Did he want to hear about this bastard? No, and yet, morbid curiosity kept him fixed to the spot.

  “There can only be one person like that in a relationship. He shone and I admired.” She shook her head. “I adored. He led, I followed. And now? I don’t know how to be that woman anymore.”

  Thad turned his back on her. His chest was heaving with the effort of his harsh breaths. “You should never have been that woman,” he commented with acidity a minute later. “You are no wallflower. And someone who loved you would have pushed you to follow your own dreams without feeling any success of yours would diminish theirs.”

  “He didn’t make me like this,” she defended out of habit.

  “That’s naïve. Of course he did. You don’t think it suited him to have a beautiful, obedient, loving girlfriend and wife? You don’t think he got off on knowing that you were sitting at home waiting for him while he screwed his receptionist, his accountant, your best friend and God knows who else?” She physically recoiled from his hateful words. “You do not believe it suited him to have you with no job of your own to distract you and engulf you, no friends he did not know?”

  “You make it sound like he was abusive,” she snapped, her teeth chattering despite the warmth of the night.

  “It is abuse,” he agreed grimly. “He married you knowing he would never uphold his end of the bargain.”

  “Yeah, he cheated,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

  “I am not referring to his infidelity. That’s just one piece of a much bigger picture. He doesn’t love you. He might love something about you, but it is a selfish love.”

  “How do you know?” She demanded. “You don’t know him.”

  “But I know you,” he spun around and crouched before her. “I know you.” He put his hands on her hips and stared into her eyes. She felt like he was peeling back the layers of her soul one by one. She was vulnerable and scared. “I know that you deserve a man who puts you ahead of everyone and everything else, including himself.”

  “That’s not realistic. I don’t think a man like that exists.”

  “How would you know?” He murmured. “You’ve been with this guy since you were a child. Lots of men would be a better husband to you in this way.”

  “Oh, like yo
u, I suppose?” She snapped, moving to stand up. But he held her where she was. His eyes were wary.

  “I never promised you more than this week,” he said finally, and Saphire was surprised to learn, even then, that she wasn’t yet done hurting. Her heart pinged painfully as his words shook through her.

  “No,” she agreed slowly. “That’s true.”

  “But you deserve better than this guy.”

  “Maybe.” She angled her head to look out to the ocean. “But I married him. I can’t just wave a magic wand and put an end to that.”

  “But you can call a lawyer and begin divorce proceedings.”

  She let the sentence sink in, and she stowed the words somewhere in the recesses of her brain. Then she shook her head. “You make it sound as easy as ordering pizza.”

  “Yes, I do. Because there is no alternative. You cannot stay with him, Saphire. He will continue to treat you like a doormat, and you will continue to be hurt by him. And one day, you will wake up with your life half gone, and wonder why you didn’t have the courage to walk away at the first sign of his character.”

  “He’s my husband,” she said quietly, squeezing her eyes shut against the feeling of nausea that battered her sides.

  “And yet you beg me not to call you Mrs Arana,” he said softly.

  It was misery; there was no escape.

  “Come to bed, Mrs Arana.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The words she’d been thinking for days breathed from her lips finally. “What’s in Paris?”

  His fingers were tracing patterns down her back, teasing goosebumps over her pale skin.

  Paris.

  The city had taken on a new significance for him, one he had swiftly come to hate. For the next morning they would leave the island as a pair, and part at the airport as what they really were — two strangers going on separate journeys.

  “MK?”

  He startled. “A meeting.”

  “I gathered. What’s it about?”

  Would her husband make love to her when she returned? Would Saphire let him? What was their sex life like? Was she as wild with him? With Jordan? He frowned. She’d said that she’d never known it could be like this. That, at least, was something.

  “A business I’m buying.”

  “What business?”

  He leaned forward and kissed her shoulder. “So many questions.”

  “Yeah.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m trying to distract myself.”

  He understood that completely.

  “It is not particularly interesting,” he ran his hands lower, to her perfect, round ass. He cupped it and felt himself harden immediately. She was so relaxed. So perfect. With him, she could be completely herself. He would never have stifled her as Jordan had.

  Jordan. How he hated the man!

  Saphire yawned. It was late, but neither of them wanted to sleep. To sleep on their last night would be a waste.

  “My business will only take a day or two.” He reached for a nearby candle and trickled some of the wax onto his finger.

  Beneath him, Saphire’s heart kicked up a gear. “And then?”

  He shook his head. “Not London,” he responded instantly. “Nothing would please me more than to see you again. But I will not share you. Not with him, not with anyone.”

  Her pulse fired like a torrent of volcanic lava. “I don’t want to be shared.” A single tear leaked from her eye and dribbled down her cheek. “I’m not cut out for this. I could never cheat. I hate it.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not being with you. I love … that.” It was the closest she could come to admitting her feelings; to go further would have been the ultimate indulgence, but it wouldn’t have been fair to Thaddeus or Jordan. “I just feel so horrible. I thought this would atone for his sins. Instead, I’ve just created a heap of my own.”

  Thaddeus compressed his lips.

  “I thought I’d be able to go back and throw this in his face. I don’t even know how I’ll look at him.”

  He dragged his mouth over her shoulder. “You have other options.”

  “Such as?” She whispered.

  “Stay here.”

  The words were just sinking in when she felt the first trickle of hot wax on her back. It sent a spiral of beautiful discomfort into the pit of her stomach. She jerked involuntarily and he smiled. But it was a sad smile; what she had become and what she had made him become … these were not good things.

  He was moving the candle methodically, covering much of her back. After the first burst of heat, it felt perfect. Amazing. Sensual. She groaned and felt her insides clench.

  “I need you.” She blinked her eyes rapidly. “I think I will always need you. Always want you.”

  “Stay.” He said again, sitting up straighter to stare at the wax pattern on her pale skin.

  “For how long?” She sighed heavily. “This situation is making you think you want something that you don’t. You’re not interested in me. Not really. You just can’t stand the fact that I’m leaving you for him.”

  “You are damned right about that,” he snarled. He gripped her wrist and lifted his hips just high enough so that she could flip onto her back. “But I want you, too. If there was no Jordan, and only you, I would still want you here, Saphire.”

  The words should have made her happy but they didn’t. What he was offering felt like a billion miles away from something she could grasp.

  “I live in London.”

  “With a husband you despise and who certainly doesn’t respect you, no job, friends who sleep with your husband, and parents who love you enough to visit you anywhere in the world as often as you’d like.”

  Everything he said rung with truth but she whipped her head away, outraged and upset. Sometimes, the truth really did hurt.

  “You don’t have to see him again to begin divorce proceedings. Send the letter. Have your parents move your stuff out. And start a new life.”

  She lifted her hands to his chest. “That’s not the right way.” Her mind was heavy with thoughts. “You know it isn’t.”

  “Who gives a flying f… who gives a crap about the ‘right’ way. Did he? When he was screwing Anita on your bed?”

  “No,” she groaned. “But I do. I don’t know if I’ll be able to move on from this. I just know that I owe it to what we used to be to try. To at least talk to him. If I hadn’t met you, I would have flown back after a couple of days. I would have faced him already, and who knows? Maybe everything would have been fine by now.”

  His laugh was scathing. “You are kind of delusional, you know. It’s sweet, except that it is causing you to make the most fundamentally ludicrous decision of your life.”

  “Stop.” She held up a hand. “I get it. You don’t agree with me. But I have to do this. I know myself. And I know that I won’t ever accept it’s over if I don’t go back to him and at least try to … to …”

  “To what?” He demanded.

  “To understand.”

  “And us?” He said leaning down and kissing her with all the passion he felt. “You think you are not going to live with regrets over this decision? You don’t think leaving me will make you wake up in a cold sweat? When you reach for me in the middle of the night and find only him?”

  Already the ache was spreading, killing off the sensual desire Thaddeus had awakened. “I can’t.” She ran her fingers up his chest. “I don’t deserve you. I never did.” She ran her thumb over his lips and he opened his mouth, nipping it between his teeth.

  “Please, MK, please, just make love to me. Just hold me. I don’t want to fight on our last night.”

  Their last night … and he was going to make sure it was one she never forgot.

  He kissed her as though she was the salvation of his dying breath. His tongue pushed into her mouth and with his body he said the words he couldn’t utter. Don’t go. I need you.

  His hands were firm on her softness as they ached to touch her everywhere; to commit
to memory the nuances of her form. He made love to her slowly, gently, achingly soft, because all of him was weakened by the specter of her departure.

  He held her tight, their breaths mingling and their chests moving in unison, until the sun crested and he took her again, imprinting himself on her and silently asking her to put aside her foolish, slavish devotion to convention and agree to stay.

  But she did not.

  When the sun shone brightly across the carpeted floor, Saphire eased herself out of the bed with a renewed sense of determination. She was shutting down on him. He could practically see her wrapping ribbons around her heart, tightening her resolve and removing what he had meant to her.

  Her nakedness was spectacular. Her back, though, was scored with red marks from the candle wax. Remorse punched through him but he didn’t give it any room to move.

  She had enjoyed it. She had been his equal and partner in every way.

  And at least he had some insurance that she wouldn’t be jumping straight back into bed with her husband.

  “Holy hell,” she murmured, as her eyes caught sight of the marks in the large mirrors. She angled herself so that she could see it properly and slowly, comprehension dawned. Her eyes moved from the clearly written initials ‘T K’ that he had inked in wax, to the artist who had marked her.

  His expression was unapologetic.

  “You wrote your initials on my back?”

  His eyes flashed with a dark, heated emotion, but he didn’t answer.

  “Why?” She reached around and ran her finger over the bottom of the K.

  “Why do you think?”

  Her stomach felt like it had been knifed. “I don’t know.” She looked like a fawn in the forest, completely helpless and confused. “Please tell me you didn’t mean to mark me in some way. To … put your name on me like a possession.”

  Again, something seared through his face. “You do not think you are?”

  “No!” She was appalled, and it radiated from her every pore.

  “Of course you are. As I am yours. How do you not see that?” He hadn’t moved an inch, but she felt as though he was touching her. “I have slept with a lot of women.”