LITMIR.BIZ

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a twinge of something close to that emotion as he turned his critical, hostile gaze on the man who had invited this laughter...husband...lover...? As the thought slid through Seb’s head the man in question turned and placed a hand under his partner’s chin, drawing her face up to his.

      This time, the sense of recognition Seb experienced was not to be wondered at: the lucky man was the husband of the local GP. Alice Drummond was a woman Seb had time for. She juggled a demanding career with two children and a husband who, at twenty, had written one book someone had called insightful, which was the sum total of his achievements to date, and he was still living off the kudos.

      When he wasn’t having romantic weekends with redheads with endless legs.

      It was none of his business if a casual acquaintance cheated on his wife with some little... His jaw clenched, Seb turned away. Then she laughed again, the sound so light, so carefree, so damn sexy that something snapped inside him. First his mother, now this woman... Another selfish, beautiful woman who didn’t give a damn about the collateral damage they caused as they went about pleasing themselves, leaving a trail of broken hearts and broken marriages in their destructive wake.

      There was a corner of his mind where enough sanity lingered for him to know this was not a good idea, but it was a mere whisper compared to the din of the outrage hammering inside his skull as he strode across the grass, embracing the rage that was colder than the snowflakes that were falling in earnest now.

      * * *

      ‘So Alice couldn’t make it tonight, Adrian...’

      Mari struggled to keep her balance as Adrian let her go. No, had he pushed her away?

      Adrian didn’t see her hurt, questioning look; his attention was on the owner of the deep, harsh voice. Mari had to turn her head to bring the man into her line of vision.

      Before she absorbed the details of the stranger’s tall, impressively athletic frame, expensively tailored suit and face that was combined arrogance and beauty, Mari felt the raw power he exuded.

      She felt it like a dark prickle under her skin as he turned his obsidian stare on her.

      The tightness in her chest loosened when she managed to break contact with those incredibly penetrating pitch-black eyes—eyes that belonged to the most incredibly beautiful man she had ever seen.

      Beside him, dark, brooding Adrian, whom she had fallen for as he read poetry in his beautiful voice looked less of both, almost...soft... She pushed away the disloyal thought and waited for Adrian to introduce her. Would he say girlfriend? It would be the first time; at college they had to be discreet. Students and lecturers dating was frowned on, though, as Adrian said, it happened all the time.

      For some reason the fact she was even more beautiful up close increased the level of Seb’s anger by several icy notches. Her eyes, kitten wide, were the deepest shade of violet blue he had ever seen, her mouth was lush and full and her satiny skin was almost translucent...and it turned out husband stealers could have freckles. The detail softened the sultry siren look into a deeply deceptive wholesome innocence.

      ‘Mr... Seb... Well, this is...is...is...’

      He let the stuttering loser, for once at a loss for words, suffer for a moment before suggesting ironically, ‘Nice?’

      ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’ The cheating husband took another step to distance himself from the girl who was standing there, quite beautiful, quite still; she could have passed for a statue.

      The music had stopped and everyone around them, sensing the drama, busily pretended not to be listening while hanging on every word. The girl moved towards her lover, who held out a hand as though to fend her off. She froze in response to the rejection, her big eyes radiating hurt and confusion. Seb thought of hard-working Alice, all the Alices out there, and cast out the seed of pity before it took root in his head.

      ‘Is Alice... You know, your wife... Is she working, or is she looking after the kids? How does that woman cope?’ He shook his head in wondering admiration and drawled, ‘A busy medical practice, a mother of two and a husband who cheats on her?’

      Mari waited for Adrian to say something, willed him to say something, to tell this terrible man who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere like some sort of sleek and dark avenging angel—in a world where angels wore very expensive tailoring—that this was all a mistake.

      They’d laugh about it later in bed when they were sharing the bottle of champagne that he had ordered.

      But the only sound was the shocked mutters from the other guests. Mari didn’t turn her head, but she could feel the hostility and disapproval of their stares like daggers in her slender back.

      ‘I couldn’t help myself. She... I love my wife but... Well, just look at her!’

      Her last hope vanished.

      Every word that man had said was true.

      She was the other woman. She hadn’t known, but that didn’t lessen Mari’s sense of crushing guilt and shame. Her sense of total isolation was complete; she had never felt more alone in her life. Pressing a hand to her stomach, she breathed her way through a wave of intense nausea. When was Adrian going to tell her? After, stupid.

      Seb, tuning out the rest of the other man’s words, followed the line of his accusing finger. The woman standing there represented everything he despised in a female, yet he had no control over the hot hunger that slammed afresh through his body.

      While his mind rejected and despised her, his body wanted her. You had to recognise a weakness to control it, and Seb valued control.

      Control or not, it was still salt in a raw wound to acknowledge that she stood there looking like a piece of porcelain about to shatter, and there was a part of him that wanted to comfort her.

      She could have had any man she wanted, and she had decided she wanted a married loser? When she could have... Who, Seb? You?

      He ignored the mocking words in his head and launched a fresh invective, this time directed at the woman. ‘Do you care that he’s got a wife and children waiting for him at home?’

      Mari cringed under the man’s interrogative stare, literally paralysed by misery and guilt.

      Her silence whipped his anger to a fresh high as he turned his inner rage on her and snarled contemptuously, ‘Is it just a bit of fun?’ He shook his dark head, a harsh sound of disgust escaping his clamped lips as he suggested with withering distaste, ‘Or just because you can?’

      She swayed and Seb heard the catch of her breath above the wind and the litany of excuses that were free falling from Adrian’s lips, telling everyone who would listen how this was not his fault, he was a victim.

      With an exasperated growl Seb turned his head and dealt the cheating husband an arctic glare. The other man gulped and whined.

      ‘You won’t tell Alice, will you? It’ll only hurt her, and this will never happen again.’

      ‘Wow, you really are a prize, aren’t you?’ Seb’s attentions swivelled back to the girl. ‘Did you think he would marry you, or is this real love?’ he mocked. ‘So that makes it all right?’

       ‘I’m sorry.’

      The whisper made Seb’s tenuous grip on his self-control slip another fatal notch.

      ‘Sorry...?’ he blasted back, six feet five of towering contempt moving in a step closer. ‘You think that makes it somehow better, that it makes the people whose lives you trashed happy again? Love or not, sweetheart, what you’ve done makes you the worst sort of slut... Oh, and just for the record, men take sluts to their beds, but rarely in my experience marry them.’

      Every word the man was saying was true; every word was making something shrivel and die inside her.

      With a final horrified stare from the swimming blue eyes, she gave

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