To Wear His Ring Again by Chantelle Shaw Read Free Book Online

friends.’ Fellows grinned at Isobel and she smiled back at him. ‘I may be making an announcement in the near future,’ the guitarist added.
    What did the blasted pretty-boy rock star mean by that? Anger boiled Constantin’s blood as it occurred to him that the reason Isobel had insisted he could not cite her desertion as a reason for their divorce might be because she did not want to look bad to her fans when she went public about her relationship with Ryan Fellows.
    Santa Madre!
It was clear she had already got another man lined up to take
his
place. She had insisted that her relationship with Fellows was an innocent friendship, but as Constantin watched Isobel and the guitarist on the TV the closeness between the golden couple was evident for the world to see. Bile rose in his throat. How dared she flaunt her lover in public when she was still married to him? When they had married three years ago, their low-key wedding had gone unnoticed by the press.
But, hell, he felt like a cuckold.
    Constantin reached for the whisky bottle and filled his glass once more, while his mind worked furiously. If Isobel was involved with Ryan Fellows, why had she looked at
him
with a hunger in her eyes that had tempted him to bend her over the arm of the sofa and pull her jeans down so that he could give them both the satisfaction they craved? Could it be that the pretty-boy guitarist did not satisfy her?
    His wife was a highly sensual woman, Constantin brooded.
Dio!
The scorching sexual chemistry between him and Isobel had been beyond anything he’d ever experienced with any other woman. When they had first been married they had spent hours indulging in erotic and highly satisfying lovemaking.
    Did Isobel miss those wildly passionate sessions? When she had surprised him in the gym the other night, the sexual chemistry between them had been tangible. He had come so close to tumbling her down onto the gym mat and taking her hard and fast—and she would not have stopped him. She had pretended to be outraged, and had denied that she wanted him, but her body language had betrayed her.
    Constantin’s thoughts turned to his uncle’s threat to deny him the chairmanship of DSE. When he had stormed out of Alonso’s office it had not entered his mind to comply with the old man’s ultimatum to resume his marriage in order to secure the position of Chairman. But as he stared at the TV screen and watched Isobel rest her hand on Ryan Fellows’s thigh as they sat close together on the sofa, the burning rage inside him grew cold and congealed into a hard knot of fury.
    DSE was his birthright. The company was the only thing that made him feel proud of being a De Severino. What was he otherwise? He was the son of a monster, taunted a voice inside his head. He dared not look too deeply inside himself for fear of what he might discover. He could not risk having a relationship that involved his emotions. DSE was his all-consuming mistress, his raison d’être, and he would do whatever it took to claim what was rightfully his.
    By walking out on him two years ago, Isobel had jeopardised his chance of becoming Chairman of DSE. But if he could persuade her to return to him, his uncle would appoint him Chairman—and once his position as head of the company was unchallengeable he would have no more need of his beautiful, fickle wife.
    * * *
    â€˜Come in.’ Isobel turned away from the mirror when she heard a knock on the door of the hotel room that she had been allocated as a dressing room.
    â€˜Wow,’ Ryan said when he saw her, ‘you look stunning.’
    â€˜You don’t think the dress is over the top?’ She gave another doubtful glance in the mirror at the gold sequined evening gown that hugged her body like a second skin and left one shoulder bare.
    â€˜The Duke of Beaufort’s charity dinner is one of the most prestigious events in London’s social calendar, and everything