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To Wear His Ring Again. Chantelle Shaw
Читать онлайн.Название To Wear His Ring Again
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Автор произведения Chantelle Shaw
Жанр Современные любовные романы
Издательство HarperCollins
She had read in a newspaper that Constantin was in London to attend the opening of a new De Severino Eccellenza store—more commonly known by the company’s logo DSE—in Oxford Street, and she had planned her visit for Sunday morning because, even though he was a workaholic, it was unlikely that Constantin would have gone to the office on a Sunday.
‘The Marquis is downstairs in the gymnasium.’ The butler stepped back to allow her to enter the house. ‘I will inform him on the internal phone that you are here.’
‘No!’ Isobel stopped him. She wanted to retain the element of surprise. As Whittaker’s brow pleated in a faint frown she added quickly, ‘He...he’s expecting me.’ It was the truth of sorts, she assured herself. No doubt Constantin was waiting for her to meekly sign the divorce petition, but he probably did not expect her to deliver the document in person. She hurried along the hall towards the stairs that led down to the basement.
Constantin had had the gym installed soon after their marriage so that he could work out at home rather than stop off at his private health club after he’d spent all day at the office. Descending the stairs, Isobel could hear a rhythmic pounding noise. The door to the gym was open, and she had a clear view of him slamming his fists into a punchbag. He was totally focused on what he was doing and did not notice her.
Her mouth ran dry as she stood in the corridor and studied him. She had forgotten how big he was! He owed his six-feet-plus height to his American mother, who—on one of the rare occasions when he had spoken about his family—Constantin had told Isobel had been a successful model before she had married his father.
She guessed his slashing cheekbones and classically sculpted features were also a result of his mother’s genes, but in every other way he was pure Italian male, with exotic olive skin and dark, almost black, glossy hair that grew in luxuriant waves and refused to be completely tamed by the barber’s scissors. His shorts and gym vest revealed his powerful thigh and shoulder muscles, and the curling black hairs on his chest were damp with sweat as he powered his fists into the punchbag.
He would need to take a shower after his punishing workout, Isobel mused. An unbidden memory slid into her mind of the early days of their marriage when she had often come down to the gym to watch Constantin work out, and afterwards they had shared a shower. The two years that they had been apart melted away as she remembered running her hands over his naked, muscular thighs and stretching her fingers around his powerful erection while he smoothed a bar of soap over her breasts and continued down her quivering, shivering body until she begged him to end the torment and take her hard and fast, leaning against the wall of the shower cubicle.
Dear heaven! Scalding heat swept through her veins, and she could not repress a choked sound in her throat that immediately alerted Constantin to her presence. His head shot round, and for perhaps thirty seconds Isobel saw a stunned expression on his face before his chiselled features hardened and became unreadable. He pulled off his boxing gloves and strolled towards her.
‘Isabella!’
His deep voice was as sensuous as bittersweet chocolate, and his use of the Italian version of her name evoked a flood of molten desire in the pit of Isobel’s stomach. How could he have such a devastating effect on her after all this time? Working in the music industry, she was often in the company of good-looking men, but she’d never felt a spark of desire for anyone she’d met. She had put her lack of interest down to the fact that she was still legally married—for although she and Constantin had parted on bad terms she believed in fidelity within marriage. But with a flash of near despair she realised that no other man excited her as her husband did. For the past two years her sexual desires had lain dormant, but one look at Constantin was all it had taken to arouse her body to a fever pitch of lustful longing.
Utterly thrown by her reaction to him, she felt an urge to turn and flee back up the stairs. But it was too late; he halted in front of her, standing unnervingly close so that she inhaled the sensual musk of his maleness.
Beads of sweat glistened on his skin. Isobel found herself wanting to run her fingers through the lock of sable hair that had fallen forwards onto his brow and trace the close-trimmed black stubble that shaded his jaw and upper lip. Every muscle in her body tautened defensively as she fought the effect he had on her. She was unaware that she reminded Constantin of a nervous colt who might bolt at any second.
‘Don’t hide in the shadows, cara,’ he drawled. ‘I don’t know why you’re here, but I assume you have a very good reason to let yourself into the house, two years after you ran away.’
His cynical tone hurtled Isobel back in time to the dying days of their marriage when they had been at constant loggerheads.
‘I didn’t run away,’ she snapped.
His heavy black brows rose, but it was his eyes that held her spellbound. The first time Isobel had met him—when she had been a temporary secretary sent by the agency to work for the CEO at the London office of the exclusive jewellery and luxury goods company, De Severino Eccellenza—she had been mesmerised by Constantin’s brilliant blue eyes that were such an unexpected contrast to his swarthy, Latin looks.
He shrugged. ‘All right, you didn’t run. You sneaked out while I was on a business trip. I came home to find your note informing me that you had gone on tour with the band and wouldn’t be coming back.’
Isobel gritted her teeth. ‘You knew I was going to go with the Stone Ladies—we had discussed it. I left because, if I hadn’t, we would have destroyed each other. Don’t you remember the row we had the morning before you went to France, or the argument we’d had the day before, or the day before that? I couldn’t take it any more.’ Her voice shook. ‘We couldn’t even be together in the same room without tension flaring. It was time to end our train wreck of a marriage.’
A throb of pain shot across her brow, causing her to draw a sharp breath and reminding her of the tension headaches she’d suffered during her marriage. She and Constantin were arguing already, mere moments after meeting each other again.
‘Besides, I didn’t let myself into the house,’ she said in a carefully controlled voice. ‘I left my door key with my wedding ring on your desk two years ago.’ The symbolic gesture of pulling her gold wedding band from her finger had dealt the final devastating blow to her heart, Isobel remembered painfully. ‘Whittaker let me in.’ She opened her handbag and pulled out the divorce petition. ‘I came to return this.’
Constantin flicked his eyes to the document. ‘You must be in a desperate hurry to officially end our marriage, if you couldn’t wait until tomorrow to put the paperwork in the post.’
Riled by his mocking tone, she opened her mouth to agree that she was impatient to sever the final links between them. She was wearing four-inch heels but Constantin towered over her and she had to tilt her head to meet his cobalt-blue gaze. It was an unwise move, she realised as her eyes dropped to his sensual, full-lipped mouth and her pulse quickened. Her tongue darted out to moisten her suddenly dry lips, and she glimpsed a dangerous glitter in his eyes as he followed the betraying gesture before he roamed his gaze over her in a leisurely inspection that made Isobel’s skin tingle.
‘You’re looking good, Isabella,’ he drawled.
Her stupid heart performed a somersault, but she managed to respond coolly, ‘Thank you.’ The old Isobel had struggled to accept compliments graciously, but maturity had given her the self-assurance to be able to look in a mirror and acknowledge that she was attractive.
That did not mean she hadn’t spent ages debating what to wear for her meeting with Constantin. Her aim had been to look sophisticated yet give the impression that she hadn’t tried too hard and she had eventually settled on dark blue jeans from her favourite designer, teamed with a plain white tee shirt and—for a confidence booster—a pillar-box-red jacket. She had left her long, layered hair loose, and wore minimum make-up—just mascara to emphasise her hazel eyes, and a slick of rose-coloured