Her eyes were like diamonds. Sparkling and hard. But her gaze as she looked along the table at Theo was limpid, like clear, transparent water. She was hiding nothing from him—every word was the truth. Nothing but the truth.
Theo had stilled. Not a muscle moved in his body. His face was a mask. Then, lifting his highball to his mouth and lowering it again, the movement completely controlled, he spoke. His voice was casual, so very casual.
‘You’re a fortunate woman. Not every woman can boast a lover who’s happy to whore her out for cash.’
His eyes were blank. Expressionless.
‘Or aren’t you going to tell him how you got the money—by having sex with me?’
She pushed back from the table. Her chair scraped on the tiled floor. As she stood up, she had to cling on to the table to keep upright.
‘Will it just be our little secret? Is that it?’ he continued, his eyes still with that same strange, expressionless look in them. ‘So many secrets to keep, though. The way you like me to stroke your breasts, the way your body ripens for me, the way you give that cry in your throat when you orgasm, the way—’
‘You bastard!’
Her voice was shrill, ripped from her lungs.
His eyes still looked at her, but now there was a dark, black glitter to them. ‘The way you cry out my name as you climax. Will you tell him that, I wonder? Or will that just be another little secret from him?’
‘Shut up! Shut up! You unspeakable bastard!
He didn’t even register her outburst. His voice was as smooth, as unperturbed as ever.
‘No? Not planning on going into that much detail? Not even planning on saying how you whored yourself to me for it?’
Her hand crashed down on to the surface of the table, shaking the crockery violently. Pain shot up her arm, but it was nothing, nothing, to the tempest inside her.
‘It was my money! Mine! You had no right to keep it! No right to it! No right to make me do what you did! I don’t have to feel bad about it! It’s you, you who should feel guilty. You who—’
He was on his feet. His face was a snarl.
‘You shameless little bitch! You committed adultery—without the slightest ounce of shame or remorse or guilt!’
She stepped back. Her heart was pounding, pounding with fury and outrage.
‘Oh, that’s rich—that’s rich.’ Her voice was hollow. She had started to tremble, the way she had when he had eviscerated her that first, hideous time. ‘I committed adultery? God Almighty, every damn day I was here I had women falling over themselves to tell me they’d had affairs with you—’
‘Past tense! I never touched another woman while you were here!’
Her mouth opened, then closed. Then, simply staring at him, she spoke.
‘Why the hell not?’
For a timeless moment there was silence. A silence you could cut with a knife. The snarl left his face.
‘Why not?’ he echoed. ‘Because—’ he bit out each word ‘—I was married.’
Her brows drew together. She stared at him uncomprehendingly.
‘It wasn’t a real marriage. It was fake from beginning to end. A total sham.’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Are you telling me you never…you never carried on with any of your women? But you must have! It’s ludicrous to think otherwise!’
He was staring at her. ‘You really thought that?’
‘Of course I did! We weren’t really married! It was for show, that was all! Of course someone like you would have gone on having sex!’
His mouth tightened. ‘Unlike you, I am not in the market for adultery.’ His voice was as cold as ice.
Something snapped inside her. ‘It wasn’t a question of adultery! Adultery doesn’t come into it!’