when her umbrella had chosen to turn itself inside out. She’d cannoned straight into him, the force of his hard, unyielding male body almost knocking her over but for his arms coming out to grab her. Corny, but it had been love at first sight. At least for her, she thought miserably, climbing into bed and pulling the duvet up to her chin. With hindsight she now saw, whatever he’d felt for her, it hadn’t been the love she’d believed it was.
They had married three months later after a whirlwind romance during which she’d lived on cloud nine, unable to believe a man like Jay—a wealthy, successful, handsome and charismatic entrepreneur with the Midas touch—wanted her, Miriam Brown. They had honeymooned for a month in Italy at the beautiful villa set in the hills that Jay had bought some years before, before returning home to his palatial apartment in Westminster which overlooked the river.
She had continued at her job in the law firm, not because she had to—Jay was rich enough for her never to work again—but because she wanted to. The thought of sitting at home all day twiddling her thumbs or becoming one of the ‘lunch’ crowd who drank g & ts, nibbled on lettuce leaves and then shopped all afternoon filled her with horror. Once she was expecting a baby she’d consider giving in her notice, she’d decided, but until then she’d carry on as before. Although now, instead of going home to the flat she had shared with three other girls she’d been at university with, she had Jay.
She had been so looking forward to their first Christmas together. Much to Jay’s amusement she’d spent a fortune on Christmas decorations in November and on the first weekend in December had turned the apartment into a vision of gold and red, transforming its rather masculine decor of coffee and dark browns mixed with off-white.
As a child her Christmases had, of necessity, been frugal affairs, her father having walked out on her mother and herself when she was six years old, leaving behind a mass of debt. He had disappeared off to some foreign destination with the woman he’d been seeing on the quiet, leaving her mother to pick up the pieces of their shattered life as best she could. They hadn’t seen him from that day to the time, ten years later, her mother had been notified of his death in a car accident. Her mother had remarried a year later.
Miriam turned over in bed, irritable and annoyed with herself for the trip down memory lane. She didn’t want to think about her father or Jay—they were two of a kind, she told herself bitterly. Egotistical and selfcentred, the sort of men who would never be satisfied with one woman for long. She had always been amazed at her mother’s lack of bitterness where her father was concerned; she’d never spoken ill of him, not even through the years when they’d lived in one flea-bitten dump after another, struggling to get by on what her mother earned as a dental nurse. She’d known, deep inside, that her mother still loved him, even though they’d never spoken of it. It was only after her mother knew he was dead that she ceased to give up hoping he’d come back. Then she’d begun to live again.
Well, she didn’t intend to waste years of her life doing the same thing with regard to Jay. The old adage of ‘like mother, like daughter’ wasn’t an option in this case, Miriam thought darkly. She sat up in bed and gave her pillow a series of thumps. It felt as if it had bricks in it. Lying down again, she stared, unseeing, in the darkness.
Would she have found out about Jay and Belinda if she hadn’t gone to his office the night before Christmas Eve when she had finished work early after the law firm’s Christmas party? She had to admit she had never liked the other woman from the day she’d met her shortly after she had first started seeing Jay. They’d bumped into Belinda and a man friend at the theatre one evening and she had noticed then the way Jay’s secretary had looked at him with hungry eyes. Perhaps it was from that point her unease about Belinda had begun to make itself felt. But she had trusted Jay then. Believed him when he said she was the only woman in the world for him and he would love her for ever and ever.
Full of the plans for the big Christmas Eve dinner party they were giving for family and a few close friends, she had sailed up to his office on the top floor of Carter Enterprises with nothing more on her mind than whether to ask the caterers to cut the Christmas cake before or during the coffee and brandy stage of the meal. Jay had held his firm’s Christmas party that afternoon too and most of the employees had already left, but there had been a light burning in his office as she had walked along the thickly carpeted corridor.
She’d entered noiselessly and so had seen them before they had seen her. Jay had been standing with his back to her, jacketless and with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, and Belinda had been perched on the edge of his desk, her tight skirt riding up high over her thighs and the buttons of her blouse undone, revealing the skimpiest of lace bras which did nothing to hide her voluptuous breasts. Belinda’s eyes had flicked towards her and whether it was that or whether she had made a sound herself Miriam didn’t know, but suddenly Jay had swung round and saw her.
‘Miriam!’As she had turned to run, his voice had cut through the air. ‘Wait, this isn’t what you think.’
She had reached the lift when he caught her, his hands fastening on her forearms as he had moved her to face him. ‘Listen to me,’ he’d said urgently. ‘Let me explain.’
‘I don’t want you to explain.’ She had been beside herself with shock and pain. ‘I saw enough to know exactly what was happening.’
‘You don’t, that’s what I’m trying to say. Listen, I didn’t know she was there—’
‘She’s your secretary, in your office, half-dressed and you didn’t know she was there?’ she’d all but screamed at him. ‘Surely you can come up with something better than that?’
‘It’s the truth. I’d been working and gone to get myself a coffee—’
‘Since when do you get your own coffees?’
‘Since everyone’s gone home for Christmas.’
‘Not everyone, Jay,’ she’d shot back, incensed he could think she was so gullible. ‘You’re here and so is she. If you wanted a coffee, couldn’t Belinda have got it?’
‘I thought she’d left with the others.’
‘And you’re telling me you came back and there she was, lying over your desk with her skirt up round her ears and everything on offer?’
Belinda had appeared behind Jay at that moment, her blouse fastened and not a hair out of place as she had purred, ‘Miriam, I’m so sorry,’ as her feline eyes had glittered with satisfaction.
‘No, you’re not.’ She’d stared straight into the carefully made-up face. ‘You’re not sorry at all. You’ve always wanted him, haven’t you? Well, be my guest. He’s all yours.’
The lift had opened right on cue and she had stepped into it, Jay following her a second later. As the doors closed Belinda stood watching them, her face impassive, but the green-flecked eyes narrowed on Jay as he said, ‘You’re not going like this, not until I tell you what happened. Surely you don’t think for one moment I want her?’
She had actually put her hands over her ears at that point. ‘Don’t treat me as though I’m as foolish as my mother, Jay, because I’m not. I saw what I saw.’ As he had reached out to touch her she had slapped his hand away with some force. ‘Don’t, don’t you dare,’ she’d shouted, on the verge of hysterics. ‘I never want you to touch me again.’
‘Stop this.’ His face had been white and shocked but now he was getting angry too, his voice harsh as he’d ground out, ‘I’m asking you to let me explain.’
‘And
