suddenly swooped down over their heads from a large oak tree at the side of the road, their harsh, raucous cry fitting the moment perfectly, and as Blade’s eyes followed the birds she flinched at the bleakness of his profile. But she had to do this. She had no other choice. This might hurt now, but if she stayed with him it would destroy him in the end. She had no other choice.
‘Why, Amy?’ As he turned to confront her, it was the Blade she had been dreading through long restless nights of tossing and turning and tormented dreams. In his face was a glimpse of the Blade only she had known, vulnerable, assailable, with a capacity for tenderness that was unlimited. She could cope with the fierce hostile stranger breathing fire and damnation, but not this, never this. ‘What went wrong? I thought everything was so—’ He stopped suddenly, turning in one harsh movement to stare out over the hills again, his hands clenched fists in his pockets. ‘But I didn’t know you, did I? It was all make-believe, all of it.’
Oh, my darling. As she looked at the back of his head, the sunlight turning the burnished brown gold, she knew she was experiencing the worst that could ever happen to her. The future, with its promise of a living nightmare, was nothing compared to the piercing agony that was gripping her soul in a stranglehold, killing every spark of joy, every good thing. She would exist from this day but she wouldn’t really be alive. But she loved him too much to take him with her into the pit. This way he could recover and live his life. And he would recover. He was a survivor. He’d forget her in time and there would be countless women only too ready to help him.
Her eyes were dry. This pain was too deep for tears, and she turned blindly to look at a tiny farmhouse far in the distance from which a plume of smoke was slowly rising into the blue sky. ‘It was just one of those things,’ she said slowly as she forced the words out through stiff lips. ‘Life’s like that …’
‘Amy?’ She hadn’t been aware that he had turned and was watching her, and now, as she met his eyes, she quickly schooled her features into an acceptable mask. ‘There isn’t something more, is there? Something you aren’t telling me?’
She stared at him, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. She should have been on her guard every second, she shouldn’t have relaxed for a moment. He was too intuitive, too perceptive. How many times had she seen him go straight for the jugular in the past and marvelled at his ability to see beyond the obvious, to expose every little weakness? The same attributes that made him so formidable in business were in force now and she must be careful, very careful.
‘Aren’t the facts enough?’ she said tightly. ‘Do you want more skeletons from the closet? Well, I’m sorry, I can’t oblige you, Blade. You’ll have to hate me for what you know; there isn’t more.’
He stared at her for a whole minute, his eyes searching her face with an intentness that made her breath stop, and then he shook his head slowly, his mouth a thin white line in the starkness of his face. ‘There couldn’t really be more, could there?’ he said with biting cynicism. ‘It was just that for a minute—’ He stopped abruptly and indicated the car with a violent wave of his hand. ‘Get in, I’ve had more than enough.’
They didn’t speak on the return journey, and as he drew up outside Arthur’s little restaurant he leant across her and opened the door in one easy movement. ‘Goodbye, Amy.’ The tone was flat, all emotion gone.
‘Goodbye.’ She never did know how she got out of the car, but it took all the will power she possessed to walk away. She opened the door of the restaurant without looking round, hearing the car pull away with a furious roar of the powerful engine as she did so. She just made it through the kitchen door before she collapsed in a heap at Arthur Kelly’s feet, her eyes big and stunned.
‘Amy?’ Arthur pulled her to her feet, guiding her to the one and only small stool by the back door, his lined face tight with concern. ‘What on earth is it, lass? What’s happened?’ He patted ineffectually at her hands as he spoke, obviously quite out of his depth.
‘Arthur, can I go home?’ She couldn’t speak for several seconds but when she did her voice was a tiny whisper. ‘I feel awful.’
‘You look it.’ He peered distractedly through the pane of glass in the kitchen door at the customers beyond. ‘I can’t really take you now; I’ll call a taxi, yes?’
‘No, please don’t.’ The nearest taxi-cab service was in a small market town miles away and she needed to be alone now. ‘I’ll be home in ten minutes, I’d rather walk.’
‘You don’t look fit to walk, lass, let me—’
‘Please, Arthur.’ She faced him, her blue eyes enormous. ‘I’d rather.’
‘OK, lass, have it your own way.’ He wrinkled his brow worriedly. ‘But give me a call once you’re home, eh? Just to keep an old man happy.’
‘I will. And I’ll see you tomorrow as usual.’
Much later that night, as Amy sat in her darkened room filled with evening shadows, after a meal cooked by the reputable Mrs Cox of which she hadn’t been able to eat a bite, she forced herself to face the fact that had emerged from her meeting with Blade earlier. She had been hoping subconsciously against all reason and all logic that when she saw him again—and she had known, knowing Blade as she did, that she would see him again—that somehow he would work a miracle and things would be all right. It was ridiculous, insane, like a fully grown adult insisting in believing in Father Christmas when the magic had been dead for years, but a tiny part of her had clung on to the hope without her being aware of it.
In all she had had nine months with him, three of those as his wife, and it had been heaven on earth. She had been terrified that first day, as a relatively new employee of the large catering firm she worked for, when she had been called upon to liaise with the great man’s secretary about a formal dinner Blade was holding that weekend. She had ventured into the massive office block with the warnings and admonitions of the other staff ringing in her ears.
‘He’s incredibly difficult to please, so make sure you get every little detail down on paper.’
‘He never tolerates mistakes; go through things with his secretary at least twice to make sure you’ve got it right.’
‘Don’t question anything he asks for; his word is law.’ The list had been endless and had reduced her to a nervous wreck before she knocked on the door to his secretary’s office, which was more luxurious than her own little flat.
The room had been empty, and as she had stood in the midst of the ankle-deep carpeting, the hushed atmosphere reaching out to intimidate her still more, the catch to her case containing all the firm’s literature had broken and the whole mess of papers cascaded out on to the floor. She had been on her hands and knees retrieving them with frantic haste when a deep cool male voice from the doorway froze her in her tracks.
‘Miss Myatt? From Business Catering?’ She raised doomed eyes to the laconic unsmiling figure leaning lazily in relaxed scrutiny as her brain had died on her. ‘My secretary is indisposed today, Miss Myatt; I’m afraid you will have to talk to me.’
He was afraid? She had followed him weakly into the sumptuous office beyond the interconnecting door, setting the case down quickly, which caused it to spill open again in a repeat of the fiasco.
‘Miss Myatt, this is not your day …’ He moved round the desk to help, dark eyes filled with wicked amusement at her discomfiture.
Later he told her he’d fallen in love with her at that moment. ‘Like
