by Maggie Cox
‘Good trip?’
As Emmanuel chased after the ball, Reece’s gaze moved possessively over his wife, and the smile he gave her showed he was genuinely pleased to see her.
‘Fine.’
Unable to return his smile because of the torrent of jealousy that was flooding through her at the sight of Angelina, Sorrel deliberately glanced away. Her acknowledgement of the other woman was scant to say the least.
‘Hello, there.’
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Angelina replied in her loud sing-song voice, ‘but I had to come out this way today to visit a cousin of mine, so I rang Reece and asked him for your address. Emmanuel so loves to play ball, and your husband is so patient with him. He would make a wonderful father, no?’
‘Excuse me.’
Clutching her bag of shopping tight to her chest, Sorrel started to move towards the house again. ‘I’ve got to go and put some things away.’
In the bright kitchen she turned on the tap and filled a tall glass full of water. She drank it down, barely stopping to draw breath, perspiration sliding down her spine like honey down the side of a jar. Had the Spanish star’s comment about Reece making a ‘wonderful father’ been totally natural? A normal aside that anyone might make seeing the man and the small boy together? Or had it been a deliberate dig at Sorrel’s inability to carry Reece’s baby to term? Who knew what the two of them had discussed together…what secrets they had revealed? They seemed pretty close as far as Sorrel could tell.
Fear and jealousy swirled in her stomach, making her feel almost nauseous. Oh, why had the woman decided to visit her cousin nearby and invite herself over today of all days? Last night had been so good, and Sorrel had been hoping to spend the day alone with Reece, talking and making plans. Now everything was ruined.
‘Sorrel… Oh, what a charming kitchen! Did you design it yourself?’
Suddenly Angelina was there at the door, appearing impossibly cool and elegant in her dazzling white, while in contrast Sorrel felt dowdy and hot and sticky in her blue shorts and lime-green sun-top—her hair making a determined bid for freedom from its mother-of-pearl clasp.
‘I…er…no… That is…Reece and I discussed it with the Italian designers we hired.’
‘Well, they did a fabulous job! You must let me have their number. Now, darling, I need to have a little chat with you.’
Laying her empty glass upside down on the drainer, Sorrel turned around reluctantly to give the other woman her attention. Her straw basket tipped over just then, and oranges and apples spilled out across the blond pine of the large kitchen table. Angelina captured an escaping orange and, laughing, put it in the carved wooden fruit bowl that stood nearly empty except for a very small bunch of grapes.
‘I want to borrow your charming husband for the evening, if I may?’
Ignoring the disarrayed fruit, Sorrel tried to swallow over the suddenly harsh dryness in her throat. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I drove over to visit my cousin Alberto to ask him to be my escort tonight at a function I have been invited to. Unfortunately he has hurt his back and so cannot accompany me. This is not something I feel comfortable attending alone, so I was hoping that Reece could help me out. You do not mind if he comes with me, do you, querido?’
Feeling the immediate protest that surfaced from deep within lodge inside her throat, Sorrel shrugged. ‘I am not his keeper, Angelina. If he would like to go, then he must go.’
‘Si.’ Angelina rose to her feet, her brief smile barely moving her lips. Clearly Sorrel’s answer was not the happy response she’d expected. ‘That is what I thought. Excuse me, but I must go and see what little Emmanuel is doing.’
Reece could understand Sorrel being upset with him about agreeing to accompany Angelina to the function she’d been invited to, but at the same time he would have thought that after last night she would know that there was no other woman he was remotely interested in sexually except her.
This was a one-off situation, and if Angelina’s cousin hadn’t hurt his back then it wouldn’t have even arisen. He was going to be out for a few short hours and that was that. But as he donned the tuxedo he’d brought with him in the hope that he and Sorrel might have something to celebrate before they returned home, he could feel no pleasure in the exquisite tailoring that he wore. If the truth was known, he was damned furious with Sorrel for making him feel guilty about something entirely innocent—something he was doing merely to help out a friend.
He walked into the living room to find her busy dusting a bookcase, with the books she’d removed from the shelves stacked up high on the coffee table beside her. There was a smudge of dust on her nose as she turned to regard him, and Reece couldn’t deny the tug of need that arose inside him. It briefly doused his annoyance.
‘What are you doing that for?’
Glancing up at the question, Sorrel felt her vision captivated entirely by the arresting sight of her handsome husband. She longed to tell him how good he looked—longed to plead with him not to go out tonight—but she was too afraid her plea might result in another soul-destroying argument. He clearly considered Angelina’s needs to be more paramount than his wife’s right now, and Sorrel would just have to bite her lip and accept it. But the knowledge stung deeply.
‘I just thought I’d rearrange things a bit, that’s all.’
‘Ines would have done that for you if you’d asked her.’
‘I wanted to do it myself. You know me…I like pottering around the house, smartening things up.’
‘I know.’
Reece found himself smiling in spite of his admitted tension. Her assertion was another reminder that his wife was a natural-born home-maker. Why hadn’t he seen that so clearly before? But right now he was remembering that her behaviour earlier, when their visitors were at the house, had conveyed to him her complete mistrust of the situation between himself and Angelina and he could hardly believe it. He’d been frankly furious that she’d been so deliberately unwelcoming to his friend and client. He didn’t know if he could stand this blowing hot and cold behaviour of hers another second. His emotions were twisted inside out and that was a fact.
‘I might be back late, so don’t wait up for me.’
He glanced away, not wanting to kindle the fire of anger that he couldn’t deny simmered inside him.
‘OK.’
Hating her right then for what she was putting him through, Reece also knew a deep, underlying longing to regain the peace between them once more. Last night had been so good. He didn’t want either of them to pour cold water on the warmth of their loving so soon. ‘Look, I can change my mind. I can ring Angelina and tell her I’m not coming if you’d really prefer me to stay here?’
He saw the surprise in her eyes and breathed out when she briefly smiled. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly all right here until you get back. And I do trust you, Reece, so don’t worry about that. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did earlier, and I’m sorry. I know that Angelina is only a client. Just go and have a good time, and in the morning you can tell me all about it.’
She picked up a book from the table and turned to place it on the cleaned shelf.
Staring at her exquisite profile as she positioned the book more carefully, Reece felt his stomach relax. He was relieved that she obviously regretted her earlier unsociable behaviour and was making an effort to be more reasonable—and if that was the case then maybe they did have a real chance to put things right?
‘Well, don’t stay up too late and tire yourself out. Get an early night. It would probably do you good.’
‘I’m going to go to bed with a book and a nice cup of tea just as soon as I’ve finished this, I promise. Go on…you don’t want to be late.’
Suddenly wanting to linger, Reece bent his head and briefly grazed her cheek with his lips. When he heard her soft, surprised gasp he had to muster all his will to force himself to go to the door and leave her there.
‘Bye, then.’
&nbs
p; As the door closed behind him Sorrel released a long, heartfelt sigh and dropped her head towards her chest. The sensation that remained from the touch of his lips against her cheek and the beguiling scent of his cologne that hovered in the air almost undid her right then—such was her almost uncontrollable longing for him. She really did want to trust him, but she was afraid she had just given him implicit permission either to continue or begin an affair with the beautiful Angelina…
Tossing and turning, Sorrel kicked off all the bedcovers and then, finally surfacing out of the fog of distress that had been enveloping her, sat up and examined the time on the bedside clock with her heart pounding. She’d had a dreadful dream about Reece and Angelina together—giving rise to her growing fear that they must be having an affair. Finding herself alone in their bed had her anxiety rapidly escalating, like wildfire ripping through a dense dry forest. Reece had told her he might be late, but three forty-five in the morning? Something must be going on!
Trying to calm herself, Sorrel glanced disconsolately towards the telephone. Had he tried to ring her and she’d slept through his call? Even now the dawn was starting to creep into the shadows, illuminating every corner of the bedroom from the uncovered window. Unable to contain her anxiety and impatience, she threw on her robe, then left the room to go down into the kitchen. On the way she took a quick peek into the bedroom further down the hall, just in case Reece had decided to sleep there so as not to disturb her. The room was worryingly empty.
As she made tea and brought her cup and saucer to the big pine table to sit down, she pushed her fingers agitatedly through her hair, wondering what on earth was keeping him so late. As her mind dived into the worst-case scenario—that he was spending a passionate night of torrid lovemaking with the sultry diva—it was all she could do to hold back her tears.
She shouldn’t have waited so long to tell him that she loved him, she fretted, absent-mindedly stirring tea that she hadn’t put any sugar in. If he was in bed with Angelina then Sorrel had driven him there. All right, the other night she had tried to show him how she felt—but what if he thought she’d made love with him out of guilt, because he’d accused her of being cold? Or, even worse, that she was intending to leave him again? Wasn’t it only natural that he would seek solace in the arms of another warm and willing woman?
Finding it impossible to sit still even for a moment, Sorrel left her tea and went outside onto the terrace, to breathe in some early-morning air and watch the sun rise—her heart was almost bursting inside her chest at the thought that she might have left everything too late to make amends….
Everything had happened in a kind of surreal slow motion—like one of those dreams that seemed to last for ever but in reality only lasted for two or three seconds. Checking his mirror, Reece had been about to make a left turn when—seemingly out of nowhere, from the opposite direction—a black Porsche travelling at speed had crashed head-first into the right side of his car. Angelina’s side. Fortunately for them both, the driver of the Porsche had hit the brakes as soon as he’d seen Reece’s car, and the impact had not been as terrible as it might have been. But Angelina had still been badly hurt.
Right now the opera star was undergoing an operation to mend a broken leg and arm, and had several gashes to her beautiful face. She might easily have been killed. Not for the first time that shocking early-morning Reece sent up a prayer of thanks that he’d had the foresight to hire a car which had reinforced steel side impact beams in the doors. He was amazed and astonished that he didn’t have a scratch on him himself. Of course he was grateful that he wasn’t hurt—that he was still alive when the story might have been so different—but it didn’t help him feel any less responsible for what had happened to Angelina…
A few hours later, having seen and talked to Angelina in the recovery ward after a successful operation, and after assuring her that he would telephone the housekeeper who was taking care of Emmanuel, as well as her cousin Alberto to tell them the news, Reece procured himself a strong cup of black coffee and was shown into the doctor on duty’s office to make his phone calls in private.
It was only as he finished making both calls that he finally allowed himself to think about Sorrel. About to pick up the receiver again and dial their number, he left it untouched in its cradle. She would be asleep in all likelihood, and she needed her rest. He didn’t want to disturb her with news that might make her worry. It was probably wise to just let things be until he arrived home and could tell her to her face what had happened.
She came rushing out into the courtyard when she saw the unfamiliar red car pull into a space in front of the house. Realising straight away that it was a mini-cab, she stood dry-mouthed as she saw Reece disembark from the passenger seat and pay the driver. As the car pulled away, she stared at his unexpectedly dishevelled appearance. The dark shadow of stubble shading his jaw provoked all kinds of unpalatable suspicions, and she felt fear and nausea slam into her stomach all at once.
‘What happened? I’ve been almost out of mind with worry!’
Wanting desperately to know the truth, Sorrel anxiously held back when he merely glanced at her with no emotion whatsoever, then proceeded to walk past her into the house. Her footsteps slowing, because her legs had suddenly turned as weak as water, Sorrel followed him inside. In the kitchen he poured himself a glass of water and drank deeply. As she watched his throat convulse, Sorrel stared at him in near desperation.
‘Reece? Tell me what happened? Why are you back so late? Were you with Angelina?’
‘Of course I was with Angelina! Where the hell do you think I’ve been?’
So he admitted it? He’d been cheating on her, just as she’d suspected, and he wasn’t even bothering to deny it!
‘How could you? How could you do that to me?’
‘What?’ He stared at her as if she was someone he’d never seen before. ‘What are you talking about?’
Sorrel could hardly breathe for the pain in her lungs. ‘You spent the night with Angelina. I’ve been going crazy with worry, and all the time you’ve been in bed with that woman!’
‘Where the hell did you get that idea?’
‘What am I supposed to think when you didn’t even ring me to let me know where you were or that you’d be so late? Instead you just walk in here in the early hours of the morning, looking like some lascivious, cheating—’
‘Go on, Sorrel…why not go for the jugular? You were saying…?’
Something about the way his eyes were piercing her, and the edgy stance of his broad, hard-muscled shoulders beneath his tux, told Sorrel that something was very wrong here…and it wasn’t what she thought.
‘We were in an accident.’ Reece’s voice was low and harsh, his green eyes regarding her icily, frighteningly bitter. ‘Another car hit us and Angelina was hurt. I’ve just come from the hospital…not her bed.’
Unable to stifle her gasp, and in spite of his austere expression, Sorrel automatically moved towards him. In response, Reece deliberately moved away from her. Trying to push aside her hurt and fear at his obvious rejection of the comfort she’d been going to extend—and at the colossal mistake she’d made as to the reason for his lateness—she nervously crossed her arms in front of her chest instead.
‘Was she badly hurt?’ she asked, small-voiced, wishing that she’d been far kinder to the other woman than she had been when she’d visited yesterday with her small son. Wishing too that she hadn’t spoken in such appalling haste until she’d heard the facts.
Throwing her a look that said What do you care?, Reece replied, ‘She has a broken leg and arm and some cuts to her face.’ His face more grim than Sorrel had ever seen it before, he unknotted his tie and discarded it on the table. ‘She certainly got more than she bargained for, going out with me last night.’
‘Oh, God—I’m so sorry! And…and what about you? Are you hurt?’
‘Not a scratch.’ His mouth twisted in a black-humoured smile. ‘Guess I must have a guardian angel.’<
br />
Clearly deriving no pleasure from the thought, he rubbed a weary hand round the back of his neck.
‘I don’t have time to stand here and row with you, Sorrel, so I’m warning you right now…don’t even think about it. I don’t think I can forgive you for such a crass insinuation, so I’m not even going to go there. I need a shower and a shave, and then I’m going to have to get to the police station to make a statement. Can you phone Ricardo and ask him if he’ll come and pick me up?’
‘Of course. But—’
He raised a dark blond eyebrow in warning. ‘This conversation will have to be concluded some other time. And make no mistake…it will be concluded.’
Biting back her desperate need to apologise and beg his forgiveness for being so mistrustful, and her need to get him to talk about the accident—specifically about how he felt and what could she do to help—Sorrel nodded unhappily. He had to be feeling doubly bad because he had been driving Angelina, and she instinctively knew the burden of guilt would weigh heavily on him. She so wanted to alleviate that burden if she could. She loved him. He needed to know that.
But, because he looked so utterly bleak and so worryingly uninterested in anything she might have to say other than the bare minimum, Sorrel kept quiet yet again. ‘I’ll phone Ricardo right away. Why don’t I make you some coffee before you go and shower? You look as though you need it.’
He stared at her as though her presence was too insignificant for him to acknowledge. ‘I don’t want any coffee. I don’t want anything from you, as a matter of fact. All I want you to do is make that phone call and leave everything else to me.’
When he left the room it was as though an arctic chill had blown in that would never thaw in a million years….
Having visited Angelina for the second time that day, and witnessed the other woman’s distress—first her shock and pain at the accident, and secondly her sadness at having to get her cousin and his wife to take care of Emmanuel, when she so desperately wanted to be with her child herself—Reece couldn’t help but wish he’d said no to accompanying her to the dinner they’d gone to. If he had, then this appalling nightmare would never have happened. And Sorrel had had no right to accuse him of infidelity when he’d never even flirted with another woman—either in her presence or out of it—let alone slept with one!