Simone she began, ‘We don’t have to do this…’ Except that wasn’t what Simone wanted from her. What they’d all signed up to. She wanted, deserved, encouragement, the mutual support they’d promised each other. Not permission to bottle out at the first faint-heart moment from someone who was looking for an excuse to do the same.
A week ago in the clear, clean air of the Himalayas, in the company of two women who, for the first time in her adult life she’d been able to open up to, confide in, be totally honest with, she’d felt as if she’d seen a glimpse of something rare, something special that could be hers if only she had the courage to reach for it.
The minute she’d set foot in London, all the horrors of her childhood seemed to reach out from the pavement to grab at her, haul her back where she belonged and, terrified, she couldn’t wait to scuttle back into the safety of her gilded cage, pulling the door shut behind her.
She looked at the phone and realised that whatever message she sent now, fight or flee, would set the course of the rest of her life.
She closed her eyes, put herself back in the place she’d been a few days ago, then wrote a new message.
‘Scared witless, but we can do this.’ And hit send.
A fine sentiment, she thought as she climbed from the cab and stood, clutching her rucksack, outside the Belgravia town house that had been her husband’s family home for generations.
Now all she had to do was prove it.
CHAPTER TWO
BELLE walked through the open front door and, if her heart could have sunk any lower, the view through the dining room doors to the chaos of caterers and florists in full cry would have sent it to her boots. She’d arrived in the middle of preparations for one of Ivo’s power-broking dinners that her sister-in-law would be directing with the same concentration and attention to detail as a five-star general planning a campaign.
About to toss in the proverbial hand grenade, she kept her head down and headed straight for the library, where she knew she’d find her husband.
The fact that it was barely past nine o’clock on a Saturday morning made no difference to Ivo Grenville, only that he’d be working at home rather than at his office.
He didn’t look up as she opened the door, giving her a precious few seconds to look at him, imprint the memory.
One elbow was propped on the desk, his forehead resting on long fingers, his world reduced to the document in front of him.
He had this ability to focus totally on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, whether it was acquiring a new company, a conversation in the lift with his lowliest employee, making love to his wife. He did everything with the same attention to detail, intensity, perfectionism. If, just once, he’d cracked, had an off-day like the rest of the human race, seemed fallible…
The ache in her throat intensified as, with a pang of tenderness she saw the dark hollows at his temple, a touch of silver that she hadn’t noticed before threaded through the thick cowlick of dark hair that slid across his hand. He was tired, she thought. He drove himself too hard, working hours that would be considered inhuman if he’d expected his staff to emulate him, and she longed to be able to just go to him, put her arms around him, silently soothe away the stress…
Just be a wife.
He dragged his hand down over his face, long fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as, eyes closed, he gathered himself to continue.
Then, maybe remembering the sound of the door opening, he looked up and caught her flat-footed, without her defences in place.
‘Belle?’ He rose slowly to his feet, saying her name as if he couldn’t believe it was her. Not that surprising. He’d never seen her looking like this before. The advantage of not sharing a bedroom with her husband was that he never saw her with morning hair, skin crumpled from a night with her face in a pillow. Definitely not in clothes she’d been travelling in for the better part of twenty-four hours, with nothing on her face to hide behind but a thin film of moisturiser. It was little wonder that for a moment he appeared uncharacteristically lost. ‘I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.’
Not exactly an accusation of thoughtlessness, but a very long way from expressing delight that she was home a day early.
‘I switched to an earlier flight.’
‘How did you get from the airport?’ That was all the time it took him to gather himself, concentrate on the practicalities. ‘If you’d called, Miranda would have sent the car.’
Not him, but his ever present, ever helpful little sister. Always there. As focused and perfect as Ivo himself. Too rich to have to bother with building a career, she was simply marking time until some man—heaven help him—who met her requirements in breeding, who was her equal in wealth, realised that she would make the perfect wife.
It was Miranda, not her, who was the chatelaine here, running her brother’s social diary and his house with pinpoint precision. The person the staff looked to for their orders.
Who’d had a separate suite ready for her when they’d returned from their honeymoon so that her 4:00 a.m. starts wouldn’t disturb Ivo.
That was the inviolable rule of the house. Nothing must be allowed to disturb Ivo.
Not even his wife.
Little wonder, Belle thought, that she’d always felt more like a guest here. Tolerated for the one thing she could give him that not even the most brilliant sister could deliver.
Even now she had to fight the programmed need to apologise for her lapse of good manners in arriving before she was expected. The truth was that she hadn’t rung to tell Ivo the change to her schedule because to call would be to hope that just this once he’d drive down to Heathrow himself, join the crowd of eager husbands and wives waiting for that first glimpse of a loved one as they spilled out into the arrivals hall. Just as she’d hoped that he would, despite what she’d told Claire and Simone, fly to Hong Kong to meet her.
Her heart just wouldn’t quit hoping.
But his momentary lapse from absolute certainty had given her the necessary few seconds to gather herself, restore the protective shell she wore to disguise her true feelings, and she was able to shrug and say, ‘It seemed less bother to get the train. No,’ she said quickly, as he finally abandoned his papers, stopping him before he could touch her, kiss her. ‘I’ve been travelling for twenty-four hours. I’m not fit to be touched.’
For a moment he looked as if he might dispute that. For the second time she glimpsed a suggestion of hesitation, uncertainty. She was usually the one hovering on the edge of the unspoken word, afraid that the slightest hint of emotional need would bring the whole edifice of her marriage crashing down about her ears.
Outside, in the real world, wearing her Belle Davenport persona, she wasn’t like that. She could play that part without thinking.
And at night, in the privacy of her room where, with one touch, the brittle politeness melted away, his distance dissolving in the heat of a passion that reduced their world to a population of two, it seemed anything was possible.
But afterwards there was no tenderness, no small talk about their day. He
