The Faithful Wife by Diana Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

as Jake’s wife. They had been languishing, unworn, at the back of a cupboard at the flat she shared with that devious, double-dealing sister of hers!
    She couldn’t trek out of here, heading for Aberwhatever-it-was, wearing a long slinky shirt or flowing silk trousers!
    Nearly spitting with rage she’d stripped off the comfy leggings and sweater, reserving them for the morning, and hugged into a clinging dream of white satin-sheen silk, the tantalisingly revealing lace top supported by the narrowest, flimsiest of shoestring threads.
    What had those two she-devils had in mind? A flaunting, a seduction, a reconciliation followed by Happy-Ever-After? What did they have between their ears? Fluff, or rocks?
    Her eyes savage with bottled-up temper, she dug her head into the pillow and dragged the duvet up over her ears to shut out the sound of the howling wind. And heard instead the squeak of the door hinges, followed one second later by Jake’s incisive voice.
    â€˜It’s time we talked.’
    â€˜Get out of here!’
    Bella shot up against the pillows, regardless of the next-to-nothing she was wearing, her eyes narrowed with temper. She had never been this angry in the whole of her life, and now she had someone to vent it on!
    Her formative years had been spent in a restless round of moving from one place to another, the family being dragged by her feckless father to wherever the grass was supposedly greener but never was. She’d become adept at keeping her head down, quiet as a mouse, in case she got noticed and hauled into her parents’ blistering, roof-raising rows.
    Then there had been marriage to the man who could have given her everything but hadn’t. And the only legacy she had from their marriage was bitterness.
    She had tried to be everything he wanted her to be: glamorous, cool, acquiescent, the perfect wife, anxious—too anxious—to hold onto a will-o’-the-wisp, workaholic husband who was here today and gone tomorrow.
    Here today and gone for at least a month! she amended in her head. Well, the black-eyed devil had finally walked out for good, and now she didn’t have to subordinate herself to him or anyone else!
    â€˜I said, get out,’ she repeated when he made no move.
    He was seemingly rooted to the spot in the open doorway, his straddle-legged stance familiarly dominant, thumbs hooked into the back pockets of his jeans, dark hair falling over one eye, the unintentional designer stubble adding to the aura of rakish danger that was coming off him in waves, filling the room...
    Â 
    Tantrums suited her, he thought, hooded eyes appraising the wild black tumble of hair falling over naked creamy shoulders, the hectic flares of colour on those perfect cheekbones, the silver fire of her eyes, the tempting glimpse of pert, palm-sized breasts glimmering beneath the lace of that piece of seductive night wear he remembered so well. One out of many such pieces of sorcery, designed to send a man out of his mind...
    He hauled his unwise thought processes back on line. Sure, she could still fire him up, but it was only common or garden lust, not the rare and precious bloom of love. That had died when he’d moved heaven and earth to get back to her for what had been left of their third wedding anniversary—and found her wrapped around Maclaine.
    Bleak anger settled in his heart, turning it to stone. Had Maclaine dumped her? Was that what this was all about? Had she set this thing up—wasting his time, trying his patience to the limit—because she was conceited enough or stupid enough to believe that she only had to bat those fabulous lashes at him to get him to take her back, live with her and miraculously forget she was an adulterous bitch?
    Sure, she’d told him in no uncertain manner to get out of her room. But that was only for openers; the end game would be something else entirely.
    She’d made no attempt to cover herself—and what