waggling eyebrows left no doubt in Helen’s mind that the woman was referring to Dan’s performance in bed. He was spluttering incoherently at Celine’s frankness, his fists clenched as if he might hit her because she’d ruined his hopes of lying his way out of this. A wild fury exploded inside Helen.
‘You trollop! Get out of my house!’ she shrieked. ‘Out! Now—or you’ll end up needing a wig!’
Celine backed further down the landing and Helen’s eyes squeezed shut. Sweet heaven, beside Celine she was dull and dreary! Dan’s affair had been inevitable. He’d needed more than a stranger who passed in the night, thrust foil dinners at him and ironed his shirts.
That must be why he and Celine had become close. Worse, they had meant something to one another. And whatever he’d said, Dan wouldn’t sack his PA—she was too valuable an employee. He’d only been making an empty gesture, hoping it would pacify his irate wife and avert a row—because he was an abject coward.
A sob lurched into her throat. She’d thought him to be strong and brave and noble. Mr Reliable-but-sexy-with-it. In a few brief moments his pedestal had come crashing to the ground. Her respect for him had hit the dust and rolled out into the gutter to disappear down the sewers.
She wanted to scream in despair and disappointment. Ever since she could remember, her whole world had been wrapped around Dan. And now she knew there’d never really been anything there.
Dimly she was aware of his low, urgent voice as he spoke to Celine. Helen wouldn’t open her eyes. He sounded as if he was close to the woman, perhaps touching her, from the gravelly whispering.
Her marriage was over, she thought dully. Their love in tatters. And suddenly she felt horribly alone and vulnerable.
Hurriedly she clapped a hand to her mouth as her stomach heaved and a wave of heat rushed up her entire body. With a despairing cry, she blundered into the bedroom and headed for the en suite, leaving a trail of sticky clay to embed itself firmly in the fibres of the expensive carpet.
Dan had barked something at Celine and then he must have followed Helen into the bathroom because his hands were on her shoulders, ice-cold, heavy, imprisoning, the pressure of his half-naked chest against her back somehow intimate and shocking.
‘Darling…’ he coaxed, low-voiced and soothing.
Hysterically she shook them off with an impassioned, ‘I’m not your darling! Don’t pretend you care!’
‘Of course I do,’ he said sternly. ‘I’m worried about you. I think you’re ill—’
‘I am ill! And you’re making me feel worse! I came home because I’ve got flu!’ she cried miserably, hanging onto the basin as if her life depended on it. Her stomach churned horribly but she couldn’t be sick even though she felt as if she might.
‘Then you must get to bed—’
‘Bed!’
Her eyes met his in the mirror and he flinched from her scything glare.
‘What? What did I say?’ he demanded thinly.
‘Do you intend to change the sheets first?’ she hurled in anguish.
He gasped as if she’d lashed him with a whip. She saw his tight stomach muscles contract and recognised the pain that had rocketed through him. He looks ghastly, she thought. And tried not to care.
‘I don’t need to change the sheets!’ he grated.
Her eyes widened. Passion had struck somewhere else, then!
‘So you didn’t make it to the bedroom!’ she cried wildly, unable to bear the thought of Dan being so crazy for another woman. ‘You couldn’t wait, I suppose! Where, then? Tell me so I can avoid that place! Tell me! In the hall? The stairs? I’ll burn the carpet,’ she threatened. ‘Rip up the floorboards. Have them replaced—!’
‘Helen! Stop this! You’re being irrational—’
‘I know!’ she cried in distress. He’d made love to Celine. How could she ever get over that? ‘And with good reason!’ she sobbed. ‘You brute! I hate you for doing this to me!’
Unable to control herself, she whirled around and hammered her fists into his naked chest. He let her, taking the blows—presumably because he knew he deserved every one of them. And she was exhausted by her outburst.
‘Stop it, Helen. Calm down,’ he urged.
‘Then tell me what happened! I have a right to know!’ she moaned, suddenly going limp in his arms.
‘I will,’ he said gruffly, holding her up. ‘Don’t upset yourself, please. Just trust me—’
‘Are you mad?’ she railed, feeling his strength sustaining her. His wonderfully lithe, powerful body, she thought. Then jealousy struck as she imagined his eyes looking at Celine with desire, his hands touching, arousing… She sucked in a tortured breath, unable to bear it. ‘Go away, Dan!’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t want to see you or hear you or think of you ever again!’
‘Don’t say that!’ His grip tightened. His eyes blazed. ‘Don’t ever say that, Helen! I’m not going anywhere—’
‘You’ll have to. You can’t possibly explain this away.’
Her eyes were dead. She thought she’d never smile again.
‘I can. I will. But first you must get into bed before you get pneumonia. You look—’
‘I know what I look like!’ she raged. ‘Plug ugly! My hair is a mess and I look worse than a typhus victim. Oh, sidle off to glamorous, voluptuous Celine and leave me to crawl into bed on my own!’
‘Poor love. What a hell you’re in,’ he rasped, stroking her plastered-down hair with a masterly semblance of affection.
And she almost succumbed. She wanted to be loved by him so badly, wanted to be held and cuddled and cosied up so much, that she stood there with her eyes closed, longing, wishing, adoring. Smelling his familiar and much-loved body smell. Feeling his warmth and energy. Hearing that seductively coaxing voice and finding her muscles relaxing in response.
‘Come on, darling.’
Her eyes snapped open at the husky coaxing. His fingers were unbuttoning her jacket! Shocked rigid, she knocked his hand away, stricken by the fact that he’d done the same to Celine only a short time ago.
‘You—you animal! Is that your solution? Is that all you can think about? A quick roll in the hay? Don’t you have any conscience, any moral values at all? Just…leave…me…alone!’ she wailed, beside herself with grief.
‘Calm down! That wasn’t my intention at all. I was trying to help,’ he said tautly. ‘Or are you intending to get into bed fully dressed?’
‘Right now I don’t care! Just…don’t…touch…me!’ she flared.
‘Fine. If that’s what you want…’
Taking her at her word, he let go and her legs gave
