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“I didn’t say that.” Calmly, he rummaged in one of the drawers for a corkscrew.
“Not in so many words, perhaps, but the implication is clear enough! And so is the evidence!” Brandishing the two-pronged fork, she gestured at the drawer. That drawer! “I saw what’s in there, so don’t bother denying it.”
He laughed. “And what is it that you saw, my dear? A body?”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me!” Hearing her voice threatening to soar to top C, she made a concerted effort to wrestle herself under control. “I found the apron and the hand lotion.”
“Well, as long as you didn’t also find high heels and panty hose, at least you don’t need to worry you’re married to a cross-dresser.”
“Worry? About you?” she fairly screeched, aiming such a wild blow at the chicken carcass that a wing detached itself and slid crazily across the counter. “Let me assure you, Max Logan, that I can find better things to occupy my mind!”
Suddenly, shockingly, he was touching her, coming from behind to close one hand hard around her wrist, while the other firmly removed the knife from her grasp and placed it a safe distance away. “Keep that up and you’ll be hacking your fingers off next.”
“As if you’d care!”
“As a matter of fact, I would. I don’t fancy little bits of you accidentally winding up on my plate.”
“You heartless, insensitive ape!” She spun around, the dismay she’d fought so hard to suppress fomenting into blinding rage. “This is all one huge joke to you, isn’t it? You don’t care one iota about the hurt you inflict on others with your careless words.”
“It’s the hurt you were about to inflict on yourself that concerns me.” As if he were the most domesticated husband on the face of the earth, he pushed her aside and started carving the chicken. “You’re already worried your parents might guess we’re not exactly nuts about each another, without your showing up at the airport tomorrow bandaged from stem to stern and giving them extra cause for concern.”
“Don’t exaggerate. I’m perfectly competent in a kitchen, as you very well know.”
He jerked his head at the unopened bottle of Pouilly Fuissé. “Then make yourself useful and uncork that.”
“Do it yourself,” she snapped, the thought of how quickly he’d taken up with someone else once she’d vacated the scene rankling unbearably. She had honored her wedding vows. Why couldn’t he have done the same?
“Now who’s being unnecessarily hostile?”
She detected marked amusement in his voice. Deciding it was safest to keep her hands busy with something harmless lest she forgot herself so far as to take a meat cleaver to him, she began preparing a tray with plates, cutlery and serviettes. “At least,” she said, “I haven’t given you grounds for divorce.”
“There are some who’d say a wife walking out on her husband is ample grounds for terminating a marriage.”
“Then why haven’t you taken steps to end ours?”
Finished with the chicken, he turned his attention to the wine. “Because we agreed there was no pressing need to formalize matters, especially given your parents’ age, health and religious convictions.” He angled a hooded glance her way. “Unless, of course, you’ve found some urgent reason…?”
“I’m not the one who went out shopping for a replacement within a week and had the bad taste to leave his possessions lying around for you to find!”
“Neither am I, Gabriella,” he said mildly, his mood improving markedly as hers continued to deteriorate. “The woman you perceive to be such a threat was a fifty-nine-year-old housekeeper I hired to come in on a daily basis to keep the place clean and prepare my meals. The arrangement came to an end by mutual agreement after one month because there wasn’t enough to keep her busy and she was a lousy cook. She must have left some of her stuff behind by mistake.”
Feeling utterly foolish, Gabriella muttered, “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“Because you immediately assumed the worst before I had the chance to explain anything. Now that we’ve cleared up the misunderstanding, though, I suggest you take that pout off your face, smile for a change, and join me in a toast.” He passed a glass of wine to her and lifted the other mockingly. “Here’s to us, my dear wife. May your parents be taken in by appearances as easily as you are, and go home convinced their daughter and son-in-law are living in matrimonial clover!”
Twenty minutes later, they sat at the glass-topped patio table on the west side of the terrace. The Pouilly Fuissé stood neck-deep in a silver wine cooler. A hurricane lamp flickered in a sconce on the wall.
Outwardly, they might have been any of a hundred contented couples enjoying the mild, calm evening. Inwardly, however, Gabriella was a mess. Poking her fork into her barely touched meal, she finally braved the question which had been buzzing around in her mind like an angry wasp from the moment he’d misled her into thinking his housekeeper had been a lover. “Have you really never…been with another woman, Max? Since me, I mean?”
“Why don’t you look at me when you ask that?” he replied in a hard voice.
Because, she could have told him, if she’d dared, it hurts too much. You’re too beautiful, too sexy, too…everything except what I most want you to be, which is mine.
“Gabriella?”
Gathering her courage, she lifted her head and took stock of him, feature by feature. He leaned back in his chair, returning the favor with equal frankness, his eyes a dark, direct blue, his gaze steady.
His hair gleamed black as the Danube on a starless night. His skin glowed deep amber against the stark white of his shirt. He shifted one elbow, a slight movement only, but enough to draw attention to the width of his chest and the sculpted line of his shoulders.
Miserably, she acknowledged that everything about him was perfect—and most assuredly not hers to enjoy. She knew that as well as she knew her own name. Devouring him with her eyes brought her nothing but hopeless regret for what once might have been, and painful longing for something that now never could be.
Nonetheless, she forced herself to maintain her steady gaze and say serenely, “Well, I’m looking, Max, so why don’t you answer the question? Have you been with anyone else?”
He compressed his gorgeous mouth. Just briefly, his gaze flickered. “You want me to tell you I’ve lived like a monk since you ran off to pursue a career?”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
He shook his head and stared out to where the last faint show of color from the sunset stained the sea a pale papaya-orange. “No, you don’t, Gabriella. As I recall, you’re not on very good terms with honesty and I doubt you’d know how to handle it in this instance.”
She flinched, his reply shooting straight to her heart like a splinter of glass. Normally the most brutally candid man she’d ever met, his evasion amounted to nothing but an admission of guilt delivered as kindly as he knew how.
Unbidden, the night she’d lost her virginity rose up to haunt her, most particularly the exquisite pleasure he’d given her after he’d recovered from the shock of finding her in his bed and before he realized her duplicity. How practiced he’d been in the art of lovemaking; how knowing and generous and patient. And most of all, how passionate!
Had she really supposed all that masculine virility had lain dormant during her absence, or that he’d feel obligated to honor wedding promises he’d made under duress?
If she had, then she was a fool. Because what right had she to expect either when he’d never professed to love her? When she hadn’t a reason in the world to think he might have missed her after she walked out on a marriage which had been a travesty from the start?
But the truth that hurt the most was the realization of how easy it would be to fall under his spell again. His tacit admission that there’d been another woman—possibly even women—was the only thing which pulled her back from the brink. Another minute, a different answer, and she’d have bared her soul to him!
Staggered by her near self-betrayal, she murmured shakily, “I see.”
“I suspect not,” he said, “but the real question is, does it matter to you, one way or the other?”
“Not in the slightest,” she lied, the glass sliver driving deeper into her heart and shattering into a million arrows of pain.
“Should I take your indifference to mean there’ve been other men in your life?”
“No,” she said forthrightly, unwilling to add further deceit to a heap already grown too heavy to bear. “I’ve never once been unfaithful, nor even tempted.”
“Not even by those pretty plastic consorts you team up with in your photo shoots?”
“Certainly not.”
He hefted the bottle from the cooler and splashed more wine in their glasses. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m telling the truth.”
A mirthless smile played over his mouth. “The way you were when you told me you were pregnant? The way you were when you intimated you’d had a string of lovers before me?”
“I’m not that person anymore.”
“Of course you are, Gabriella. People never really change, not deep down inside where it matters. They just pretend to.”
“When did you become so cynical, Max?” she asked him sadly. “Did I do that to you?”
“You?” he echoed cuttingly. “Don’t flatter yourself!”
The pain inside was growing, roaring through her like a fire feeding on itself until there was nothing left but ashes. For all that she’d promised herself she wouldn’t break down in front of him, the scalding pressure behind her eyes signaled how close the tears were, and to her horror she felt her bottom lip quiver uncontrollably.
He noticed. “Don’t you dare!” he warned her, in a low, tense voice, starting up from his chair so violently that its metal legs screeched over the pebbled concrete of the terrace. “Don’t you dare start with the waterworks just because I didn’t give you the answers you came looking for! I know that, in the old days, tears always worked for you, but they aren’t going to get you what you want this time, at least not from me, so save them for some other fool.”
When she first started modeling, there’d been times that she’d found it near impossible to smile for the camera. Days when she’d missed Max so badly, it was all she could do to get out of bed and face another minute without him. Nights when she hadn’t been able to sleep for wanting him, and mornings when she’d used so much concealer to hide the shadows under her eyes that her face had felt as if it were encased in mud.
But she’d learned a lot more in the last eighteen months than how to look good on command. She’d learned discipline, and become expert at closing off her emotions behind the remote elegance which had become her trademark.
She called on that discipline now and it did not fail her. The familiar mask slipped into place, not without effort, she had to admit, but well enough that she was able to keep her dignity intact.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, rising to her feet with fluid, practiced grace, “but I stopped crying over you so long ago that I’ve quite forgotten how.”
“Don’t hand me that. I know what I saw.”
She executed a smooth half turn and tossed her parting remark over one provocatively tilted shoulder. “What you saw was a flicker of regret for the mistakes I’ve made in the past—a passing weakness only because weeping does terrible things to the complexion, especially when one’s face is one’s fortune. Good night, Max. I’ve worked hard enough for one day, so if you’re feeling energetic, you might try loading our plates and cutlery into the dish-washer—always assuming, of course, that you remember how to open it. Oh, and one more thing. Please don’t disturb me when you decide to turn in. I really do need to catch up on my beauty sleep.”
CHAPTER THREE
IF THERE’D been any plausible alternative, he’d have spent the night anywhere but in the same room with her. Since he didn’t have that option, he gave her a good two hours’ head start before he went up to join her.
She was asleep—or pretending to be—perched so close to the far edge of the mattress, all it would have taken was a gust of air from the open window to topple her to the floor. Being scrupulously careful to leave enough space between them to accommodate a third body, he inched carefully between the sheets on his side of the bed.
Her breathing was light and regular, which made him think perhaps she really was out cold, and eventually he must have dozed off as well because the next thing he knew, it was four in the morning and somehow, while they slept, they’d gravitated toward each other. She lay spooned against him, with her back pressed to his front.
She was wearing a soft cotton nightshirt and it was either very short to begin with, or it had ridden a long way up from where it was supposed to be. He knew because his hand had found its way over her hip so that his fingers were splayed across the bare skin of her warm, taut little belly. A few inches higher and it would have been her breast he was fondling, a realization which put his nether regions onto instant and standing alert.
She stirred. Stretched a little, like a lean, pedigreed cat. Rolled over until she was half facing him. In the opaque light of predawn, he saw her eyes drift open. Then, as awareness chased away sleep, she grew very still and very, very wary.
For about half a second, they stared at one another, then simultaneously rolled away from each other. She retreated to her side of the bed again and he slunk off to the bathroom, telling himself his problem was that he had to pee.
It hadn’t been the problem then, and it wasn’t the problem three hours later when he found himself suffering the same physical reaction all over again at the sight of his wife—his estranged wife! he reminded himself for about the fiftieth time—presiding over the breakfast table and looking even more delicious than the food on his plate.
“Are you coming with me to the airport this afternoon?” she asked him, her tone suggesting she’d be hard-pressed to notice whether he did or not.
Regarding her over the top of the morning paper, Max had found himself wondering if there was something in the bottled drinking water she favored which allowed her to remain so cool and aloof, when it was all he could do not to break out in a sweat at the thought of the night just past.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said, trying to match her nonchalance. “It’s been a while since your parents last saw you. I imagine they’d like to have you to themselves for a while.”
Nonchalant? What a laugh! He sounded as stilted as a rank amateur trying out for a spot on some third-rate TV commercial! Not that she noticed. She simply gave that impassive little shrug of hers, waved the coffeepot under his nose, and said, “May I give you refill?”
He didn’t know what time she’d slipped out of bed, but it must have been early. Not only had she ground fresh coffee beans and made fresh fruit syrup for his waffles, she’d also found time to repair her manicure. Her nails gleamed pale rose against the brushed steel of the carafe.
As for the rest of her…oh, brother! Sleek and elegant in a floor-length, blue-and-purple patterned thing which was neither bathrobe nor dress but something in between; with not a hair out of place and looking as fresh as the morning dew, she gave new meaning to the term “picture perfect.”
“No,” he said, slapping down the paper and shoving back from the table. “I have to get going.” Quickly, before his imagination ran riot feeding itself on memories of the night before and he made a further fool of himself!
“When do you expect to be back?”
“As late as possible. That way, there’ll be less risk of us screwing up the charade.”
Her eyes, pure turquoise in the morning light, pinned him in an unwavering stare. “But you will join us for dinner?”
“Of course. That’s part of our arrangement.”
“And you will remember it’s going to take more than just your putting in an appearance to carry all this off?”
“How much more?” he asked, more to annoy her than because he cared about her answer.
“As much as it takes,” she said.
The remark stayed with him all day, a major but not, he was surprised to discover, unpleasant distraction. By the time he let himself into the penthouse late that afternoon, his dread at what the next two weeks might bring had been diluted by a peculiar anticipation. Damned if he understood why, but having Gabriella underfoot again charged his energy like nothing else had in months!
Stopping by his office to drop off his briefcase, he stood a moment at the partially open sliding doors, unnoticed by the threesome seated a few yards away at the table on the roof garden. He didn’t need to understand the language to recognize a certain tension in the conversation taking place between his wife and his in-laws.
Still strikingly handsome despite failing health, Zoltan sat ramrod-straight in one of the cushioned chairs, his dark eyes watchful as Gabriella replied to something her mother had said. Maria Siklossy, a little heavier than she’d been two years ago, leaned forward, consternation written all over her face.
Gabriella, polished and perfect as ever in a dress which he’d have called washed-out green but which probably deserved a fancier description, traced her finger over the condensation beading her glass. From her stream of fluent Hungarian, only three words had meaning for Max: Tokyo, Rome, and Vancouver.
He didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure she was trying to justify keeping three addresses while her husband made do with one, and that neither Zoltan nor Maria was buying any of it. Loosening his tie and rolling back the cuffs of his shirt, Max waded in to do his bit toward easing the old couple’s concerns.
If the relief that washed over Gabriella’s face when she saw him was any indication, he’d timed his entrance perfectly. Springing up from her chair like a greyhound let loose on the racetrack, she exclaimed, “You’re home, Max! I didn’t expect you until later.”
“Missed you too much to stay away any longer, baby cakes,” he said, immersing himself in his appointed role with gleeful relish.
Her mouth fell open. “Baby cakes?”
The opportunity was too good to pass up. Sweeping her into his arms, he planted a lengthy kiss on those deliciously parted lips. She smelled of wood violets and tasted of wild cherries.
Her eyes, wide open and startled, stared into his. Briefly, she resisted his embrace, then sort of collapsed against him. Her small firm breasts pressed against his chest. Their tips grew hard. Her cheeks flushed pink.
Fleetingly, he considered wallowing in the moment, if only to enjoy her disconcertion. Why not? He hadn’t asked to be cast as the romantic hero in her little production, but since it had been thrust upon him anyway, he might as well get his kicks wherever he happened to find them.
At least, that’s how he tried rationalizing his actions. But, just like the night before and the morning after, another part of his anatomy had different ideas and showed itself ready to play its part with animated enthusiasm. So, reluctantly, before she realized the state she’d reduced him to, he backed off slightly but kept her anchored next to him as he turned to greet her parents.
“Good to see you again, Zoltan,” he said, shaking his father-in-law’s hand. “You, too, Maria. Welcome to Canada.”
He bent to kiss her cheek, peripherally aware of the tears in her eyes as she held his face between her palms and murmured approving little Hungarian noises, but most of his attention remained focused on Gabriella. Her waist, half spanned by his hand, felt shockingly frail. Though he didn’t test the theory there and then, he was pretty sure he could have counted every rib through her clothes.
Pasting on his most affable expression to disguise his concern, he said, “So, what’s everyone drinking?”
“Iced tea,” Gabriella murmured faintly. “Would you like some?”
He smiled into her eyes which had a sort of glazed look to them. “We can celebrate your parents’ arrival with something more exciting than that, surely? How about champagne—unless you’d prefer something stronger, Zoltan?”
“A glass of wine would be pleasant.”
He might have temporarily quieted Maria’s suspicions, but he had a long way to go with the old man, Max realized. Zoltan was watching him like a hawk about to dine on a very fat mouse.
“Fine. I’ll go do the honors.” Suddenly feeling about as uncomfortable as he had the night he’d been discovered almost stark naked in the Siklossy palace, Max took off around the southeast corner of the terrace to the kitchen entrance, and left Gabriella to clear the iced tea paraphernalia off the table.
She followed soon after and plunked the tray of glasses on the kitchen counter with a clatter. “What was that all about?” she demanded, her color still high.
“Being a good host,” he said, knowing damn well she wasn’t referring to his suggesting champagne, but deciding to play dumb anyway. “What are you serving for dinner?”
“Broiled salmon. But another stunt like the one you just pulled, and you might find yourself being the one shoved in the oven!”
“Your English gets better all the time, Gabriella,” he remarked, hauling a nineteen ninety-seven Pol Roger out of the refrigerator and inspecting the label. “Very idiomatic indeed. I’m impressed.”
“Well, I’m not! Who did you think you were fooling just now with that ridiculous exhibition?”
“Your mother, certainly. And if your father still has any doubts about us, I’ll make short work of them, as well.”
“Not with a repeat performance like the one you just put on, I assure you.”
“Are you saying you didn’t enjoy our little exchange?”
“Certainly not!” But she blushed an even deeper shade of pink.
“Keep telling fibs like this, Gabriella,” he informed her genially, “and your nose will grow so long, you’ll never model again. Come on, admit it. You practically fainted with pleasure when I kissed you.”
“That wasn’t pleasure, it was shock.”
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