LITMIR.BIZ

       Two

      The door closed as Alice left them alone in the room.

      “She’s a piece of work, your grandmother,” Imogene said harshly. “How dare she do this?”

      “She dares because it’s what she does.”

      Imogene rose from her chair, her gown whispering with her rapid movement and her breasts heaving above the jeweled neckline.

      “What she does? Seriously? You’re condoning her behavior?” Imogene forced a short laugh from her throat. It was either that or scream.

      “No, I’m not condoning it. I’m as angry and as shocked as you are. I never thought in a million years...”

      She stared at Valentin as he rose to his feet and faced her. Always a big man, he dwarfed the room, but she wasn’t scared of him. She knew all too well how gentle he could be—how tender his touch was. Her pulse kicked up a beat and she fiercely quelled the direction of her thoughts. This wasn’t what she’d signed up for.

      “A million years wouldn’t be long enough,” she murmured, and turned her face from his piercing blue-eyed gaze.

      No, she thought. The end of time wouldn’t be long enough to undo the ravages of their first union. He’d taken her love, her adoration, her heart. Then he’d thrown it all away. She’d never forget that moment she’d walked into their small house and smelled the distinctive heady perfume one of his colleagues at the hospital had always worn. Nor would she forget walking on legs that had become stiff and wooden toward the bedroom where she’d discovered said colleague, still naked and drowsy in her and Valentin’s bed.

      The sheets of the bed had been tumbled in disarray. The combined scents of fresh sweat and sex had been heavy on the air. Imogene had heard the sound of the shower running in the tiny bathroom down the hall but she hadn’t waited to see her husband. When his colleague Carla had asked if she was looking for Valentin and gestured to the bathroom, she’d turned on her heel and marched straight back through town and stopped at the first law office she’d seen.

      Numbly she’d gone through the motions of filing to dissolve the marriage that had obviously meant so little to Valentin and yet had meant the world to her. He had meant the world to her. Until she’d been faced with his infidelity.

      She’d been in such a state of shock. Was it possible she’d misunderstood Carla? But then again, if she had, why had Valentin so easily given her up? If he was as innocent as he protested himself to be, why—at any time in the next few weeks—didn’t he find her at the hotel she moved her things into until she could be released from her teaching contract and get the next flight back to the States? Instead, he’d simply let her go, which smacked of a guilty conscience to her—both then and now. Besides, she didn’t want to think for a minute that she’d made a mistake, or that she’d behaved rashly in the heat of the moment. Carla had had no reason to lie, and Imogene knew the other woman and Valentin had been an item before her own arrival in Africa. Valentin himself had told her. More fool her, she’d believed him when he’d said it was over—that Imogene was the only woman for him.

      She was dragged back into the present by the sound of Valentin clearing his throat.

      “So I’m guessing you’re a no, then?”

      “You’re guessing right,” she answered adamantly.

      “Not even prepared to think about it?” he coaxed.

      “Not even,” she said firmly. “I will not marry a philanderer ever again.”

      “Imogene.” He said her name softly, with a tone of regret lacing the three syllables together in a way that struck her at her core. “I was never unfaithful to you.”

      “I know what I saw, Valentin. Don’t take me for a complete idiot.”

      He shoved a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “What you saw was—”

      “Your mistress, curled up in my sheets, in my bed, and stinking of you!” she answered viciously.

      “It wasn’t what you thought it was.”

      “Oh, so now you’re going to tell me you never slept with her?”

      “You know I can’t tell you that, but I told you the truth when I said that had all been in the past. I was never unfaithful to you,” he affirmed.

      “You say one thing. I saw another.”

      Valentin took a step toward her and she took a step back, but her motion was halted by the wall behind her. She looked up at him, her nostrils flaring, her mouth drying as she studied his oh-so-familiar features. Involuntarily, she stared at the lines that had deepened around his eyes, the new ones on his forehead, the stubble that persistently made its presence felt even though he would have shaved only a short time ago. His face had been so dear to her once. If she closed her eyes now she could recall every aspect of it—the color of his eyes in exquisite detail, the short dark lashes that intently framed those eyes, the way that special shade of blue darkened and deepened when he was aroused. The way they were doing now.

      A bolt of desire hit her. There had never been any other man who had this effect on her. Ever. Only Valentin. No one had ever come close to him, nor, she admitted ruefully, would again. Which left her between the devil and the deep blue sea, didn’t it? Go against everything she’d promised herself she would never accept, or settle for less than what she knew Valentin could give her.

      “Can we call a truce?” Valentin asked, his voice husky.

      She knew that sound, knew he was gripped by the same intense need for her that she suffered for him. But in her case it was only for him. Could he say the same? She doubted it.

      “Maybe,” she answered reluctantly.

      “What brought you here today?” he asked.

      “You tell me first,” she insisted, unwilling to show any weakness to this man who’d had the power to love her forever or destroy her, yet had chosen the latter.

      “Fine,” he said abruptly. “When I asked Nagy to find me a wife, I had a clear picture in mind. I wanted a companion, someone to come home to at the end of the day who I can share my innermost thoughts with. Someone, most of all, who wants a child, or children. After you left me, I thought I could live my life without a family of my own, but as I grow older I find I can’t see a future without a wife and children in it, nor do I want to be alone for the balance of my days. I guess it’s part of the human condition to want to be a part of something, to know a part of you will continue long after you’re gone.”

      Imogene felt unexpected tears prick at her eyes. The words he’d chosen, his reasons for being here today, they were so similar to her own. How could they have this in common and yet be so wrong for each other at the same time?

      Valentin continued, “Is that why you approached Nagy’s company, too?”

      “If I’d known it was your grandmother’s company, I would have run in the other direction as fast as I could,” she said defiantly. But then she softened, the fight spilling out of her. “Yes,” she said simply. “That’s exactly why I signed my contract. I want children in my life. Not just other people’s children. My own. To love. Unconditionally. But more than that, I want a partner. Someone I can rely on. Someone I can trust.”

       Trust.

      The word hung on the air between them. Valentin drew in a deep breath. Trust had been in short supply back in Africa, and not just within his marriage.

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