LITMIR.BIZ

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The dam would burst soon enough and the back of a London cab wasn’t the place to cope with it.

      If only they’d stayed home tonight, she agonised futilely. But they’d been on the verge of their very first fight. One week back at work after their idyllic two-month honeymoon in the Bahamas, he had as good as demanded she hand in her resignation. He’d wanted to know why she hadn’t already done just that, and she had tried to explain her reluctance, put forward her own ideas, both of them getting more uptight by the moment until he’d pulled them away from the danger with that mind-shatteringly wicked grin of his.

      ‘Forget it, for now. We’ll eat out tonight, somewhere special. And go clubbing afterwards. Celebrate being married for two months and a week.’ His steely eyes had warmed in that special way, for her alone, and her insides had capered about, twisting with love for him as she’d hurried to change with no foreknowledge of how the evening would end...

      After the taxi had drawn away the mews was quiet, the single street lamp accentuating the black shadows. Nathan opened the front door, de-activated the alarm system and stood aside, allowing her to walk through to the cottage-style sitting room in front of him. His silence and the tight cast of his features were ominous.

      She switched on a parchment-shaded table lamp, dousing the main lights, preferring the subdued effect. The soft glow made the cottage antiques and the squashily upholstered twin sofas seem so safe and cosy—a much needed antidote to the arctic chill of the atmosphere Nathan was generating.

      ‘Were they foul lies?’ His voice abraded her.

      A give-away flicker of pain darkened her eyes, but only a flicker; she had it under control even though she felt she was coming part, her flesh being painfully stripped from her bones by the knife-edge of his lack of trust

      ‘How can you even ask?’ Her voice was cool, masking her desperate hurt, her body in the understatedly sexy white dress taut and slim and proud. ‘Don’t you know me better than that—well enough to make the asking of such a question totally irrelevant and completely offensive?’

      She lifted her chin higher, blanking out the shameful, hateful knowledge that not all of Hugh’s malicious gossip had been lies, and felt the deep ache of misery spread right through her as he answered tersely, ‘I only know what you choose to tell me.’

      He turned his back on her, moving to a side table and sloshing two inches of malt whisky into a glass, draining it in one swallow, his mouth tight as he reminded her, ‘We saw each other, were poleaxed and were married three weeks later.’ He dragged in a sharp breath, his eyes holding hers, adding more slowly, ‘I never thought such a thing could happen to me.’

      His lips curled wryly at the memory of that cataclysmic happening and her body leapt in ferocious response at the wonderful memories: the way they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, the way they hadn’t been able to handle being apart, the glorious, fated inevitability of it all.

      But then they were dragged back to the present, the brief bonding of shared and precious memories over.

      ‘Apart from the information that you are an only child and that your parents separated, I know two hard facts about your past,’ he stated. ‘First, you married when you were nineteen, his name was Max and he died six years later. Second, as a widow you became married to your career and that lasted for three years, until we met,’ he enumerated harshly.

      ‘Or am I wrong there? Does your career still come first? Is that why you won’t quit?’ His face tightened. ‘My work takes me all over the world—you know that. I want you with me, not stuck back here—you know that, too. Is being a PA to the head of Caldwell Engineering more important to you than being with me? Or does the attraction lie mainly with your boss, rather than the job itself?’

      Olivia shivered uncontrollably, despising herself for that small betrayal. They had come full circle, right back to where the disastrous evening had started. But, worse than that, he had taken the gossip on board, beginning to question her relationship with her boss, James Caldwell.

      She watched numbly as he dragged his black tie away from his shirt, tossing it onto one of the sofas, his jacket following a scant second later. And then he turned and met her wide and wounded eyes.

      Even as he held her gaze his expressive mouth softened. His brow furrowing, he dragged taut fingers through his midnight-dark hair. ‘God, I’m sorry, Livvy. Come here.’

      She went into his arms willingly, as she always would, the inescapable tug of the wicked chemistry that had sprung to inexorable life between them the moment they’d met working its unending magic.

      His arms enfolded her with savage passion, pulling her slender curves into his hard, lean frame, his voice thick and raw with contrition as he bent his dark head and covered her neck with scalding kisses. ‘Forgive me?’

      ‘Anything...’ Every inch of her body leaping in wild response, she found his mouth and kissed it. Hard. ‘I don’t want us to fight,’ she breathed raggedly. ‘Not us, not ever.’ And she fell apart, as she always did, when he caressed her cheekbones with his large, gentle hands. Slowly, and erotically, he eased her lips apart, sliding his tongue into the moist and receptive softness of her mouth, making her want him, hotly, hungrily. Her hands flew to his shirt buttons, dragging them apart, glorying in the heated hardness of his arousal as it thrust against the softness of her tummy. But...

      ‘Livvy, no. Not now.’ His voice shook but his hands were rock-steady and just as implacable as he took hers and eased them away, stepping back, putting distance between them, an empty distance that made her ache. ‘We have to work out what to do.’

      Do? Her pulses were beating erratically and she couldn’t think straight. It took his, ‘About the low-life back there. From what he said I gathered he’s related to your boss. We’ll sue. No one bad-mouths my wife and gets away with it...’ to bring her mind back on track.

      She gave him a small, wobbly smile, pushing her tumbled hair back from her face. ‘There were plenty of witnesses,’ she granted, dropping gracefully onto a chintzy sofa. ‘You could go ahead and sue for slander, if you think it’s worth the trouble.’

      ‘Trouble!’ he repeated from behind her, his voice tight. ‘He calls my wife a—’

      ‘I know what he said,’ she put in quickly. Her face was white with strain. She couldn’t bear to have him pick over it. The guilt was too much to live with. She couldn’t bear it if it started haunting her dreams again, doing its utmost to impinge on every aspect of her waking life, coming between them and, inevitably, sullying what she and Nathan had together.

      Hurriedly pulling herself together, she stated with a calmness she was far from feeling, ‘Hugh Caldwell has a vicious streak, a foul tongue. No one takes anything he says seriously.’ Not even when there’s a grain of truth in the murky mess? The unwelcome thought came unbidden and she thrust it aside, saying quickly, ‘Which is why he has no friends, simply a few dubious acquaintances who sponge off him.’ Then she added, quirkily, trying to take some of the weight out of the atmosphere, ‘I gather he was a terrible disappointment to his parents.’

      Deep silence. And then she heard the clink of glasses. He walked round, handed her a small whisky, took his own and dropped down onto the end of the sofa, angled into the corner, facing her, his clever eyes intent. He leaned forward, his hands between his spread knees, his glass held loosely in one hand.

      ‘Tell me about him. He’s your boss’s brother? He works for the company?’

      ‘If you could call what he does work.’ She tried to answer lightly, even though she felt she had been tied down in the witness-box, that every word she said would be carefully measured and weighed.

      But at least she was on marginally safer ground now that his immediate attention had been deflected away from court action whereby, even though the lies would be refuted, the grain of truth would be revealed, painting her guilty as sin.

      ‘His job title is sales director, but his job actually appears to consist of long, boozy lunches with anyone angling

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