was the role of wife—beyond the basics of the bedroom—that she’d never been able to fully master. But then, with Miranda immovably entrenched in every other aspect of the role, there had never truly been a vacancy for a wife. Only a concubine.
Hard as this was going to be, she knew it could not be as difficult as staying. ‘Can we talk, Ivo?’
‘Talk?’ His frown was barely perceptible, but it was there. ‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’
‘Don’t you want to sort yourself out? Take a shower?’ He glanced back at his desk. He didn’t have to say the words; it was plain that he had more important things to do.
‘For heaven’s sake, Ivo, it’s Saturday,’ she snapped, losing patience, needing to be done with this. Get it over. ‘The stock markets are closed.’
‘This isn’t…’ he began. Then, ‘It’ll take ten minutes, fifteen at the most.’
She’d been away for weeks. Any other man would have dropped whatever he was doing, eager to see her, talk to her, ask how she was, how it had been. Tell her that he was glad to have her home. If he’d done that, she thought, the words sitting like a lump in her throat would have dissolved, evaporated. She could not have said them. But for Ivo business always came first, while she was an inconvenience, a constant reminder of his one weakness…
‘Why don’t you go up? I’ll be there just as soon as I’ve finished this,’ he suggested and, without waiting, he turned back to his desk. ‘We can talk then.’
No. That wasn’t how it worked. Not that he wouldn’t come. Fifteen minutes from now she’d be in the shower and he’d join her there, demonstrating with his body, as he never could with words, exactly how much he’d missed her.
The only thing they wouldn’t do was talk.
Afterwards, after the drugging pleasures of his body that would drive everything from her mind, she’d wake, as always alone—he’d have gone back to work—and there would be some trinket left at the bedside: something rare and beautiful, befitting her status as his wife, an acknowledgement that he’d been selfish, unreasonable about the Himalayan trip. She would wear whatever it was at dinner, a wordless acceptance of his unspoken apology.
Not today, she promised herself, her hand tightening around the tiny cellphone in her pocket—a direct connection to Simone, Claire. Women who knew more about her than her own husband. They’d spent every free minute of the last few days talking about their lives, the past, the future; they had listened, understood, cared about her in ways he never could. With them to support her she would find the strength to break out of the compartment he’d made for her. He might be satisfied with this relationship—and why wouldn’t he be?—but she needed more, much more…
‘No, Ivo.’ Already, in his head, back with whatever project she’d interrupted, he didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I’m afraid it won’t.’ He stopped, turned slowly. ‘Wait.’
His skin was taut across his face, emphasising the high cheekbones, the aristocratic nose, a mouth that could reduce her to mindless, whimpering jelly and, looking at him, Belle found it achingly hard to say the words that would put an end to her marriage.
He did nothing to help her but, keeping his distance, the tips of his fingers resting on the corner of his desk, a barrier between them, he waited, still and silent, for her to speak. It was almost, she thought, as if he knew what she was going to say. If so, he knew more than she did.
‘This is difficult,’ she began.
‘Then…then my advice is to keep it simple.’ His voice, usually crisp and incisive, was slightly blurred. Or maybe it was him that was blurred behind a veil of something she was very afraid might be tears.
‘Yes,’ she said, and blinked to clear her vision. No tears. She’d learned a long time ago not to show that kind of weakness. ‘Yes,’ she said again. This was not something that could be wrapped up in soft words. Somehow made less painful with padding. Simple, direct, to the point, with no possibility of misunderstanding. That was the way to do it. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t live with you any more, Ivo. I’m setting you free of our deal.’
‘Free?’
‘We said, didn’t we, that it wasn’t a till-death-us-do-part deal. That either of us could walk away at any time.’ Then, when he did not respond, ‘I’m walking away, Ivo.’
Predicting his reaction to such a bald announcement had been beyond her, but if she’d hoped that his cool façade would finally crack, she’d have been disappointed. There was no visible reaction. He looked neither shocked nor surprised, but then he’d made a life’s work of being unreadable, keeping the world guessing. The fact that he could do it to her confirmed everything she had known about her marriage, but until last week had been too weak to confront.
His response, when it finally came, was practical rather than emotional. ‘Where will you go?’
That was it?
Not, ‘Why?’ Or did he believe he already knew the answer to that? Assumed that the only reason she would leave him was because she’d found someone else? The thought sickened her…
‘Does it matter?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Yes, it matters…’ He bit off the words, shook his head. ‘Manda will need to know where to forward your mail.’
On the point of saying something very rude about his sister, she stopped herself. This was not Miranda’s fault. And she was not hiding from him, running away. Just distancing herself. For both their sakes. ‘The tenants moved out of my flat last month,’ she explained. ‘I’ll stay there.’
‘That won’t do—’
‘It’s what I want,’ she cut in before he could take over and set about organising accommodation that he considered more acceptable for someone who bore his name.
He didn’t look happy about it, but he let it go and said, ‘Very well.’ Then, ‘Is that it?’
No!
Her heart cried out the word, but she kept her mouth closed and, getting no answer, he nodded and returned to his desk to resume the work she had interrupted.
Numb, frozen out, cut off by a wall of ice, she was left with nothing to do but pack her immediate needs and leave.
Miranda emerged from the dining room as she headed for the stairs.
‘Belle? What are you doing here? I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow.’
‘It’s lovely to see you too,’ she said, without stopping, without looking back.
Ivo Grenville was staring blindly at the document in front of him when his sister, taking advantage of the door that Belle hadn’t bothered to close on her way out, walked into the library.
‘What’s the matter with Belle?’ she asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, ‘Honestly, she might have had the good manners to let me know she was coming back today.’
‘Why
