She placed the box on the table in the living room and began packing, something she ruefully admitted she should have done months ago. She lingered over one or two items, and laughed and sighed over a few more. She glanced around the room and realised there was nothing else she wanted except a few mementos she kept in a drawer in the bedroom. Then a quick dust and a run over with the vacuum cleaner and she would be finished.
Jemma didn't hear the front door open, or the sound of someone mounting the stairs. She was sitting on the bed poring over a battered tin box holding her childish mementos of the past. An assortment of shells she had collected on summer holidays spent with her parents. A heart-shaped stone with a red ionised vein running through it in the same heart shape—a quirk of nature and as beautiful as any jewel made by man. Her eyes misted with tears as she recalled the day she had found it. Her father had been too busy at work, so Jemma and her mother had gone to Brighton for the day together and Jemma had dug the stone out of the sand. It was the last outing she had had with her mother before she died.
Wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, she sighed, closed the box and got to her feet. There was no sadness any more, only beautiful memories. She turned towards the door—and stopped.
Luke was framed in the doorway, dressed casually in a dark blue cashmere sweater and navy trousers, and her heart jumped in surprise and pleasure. 'What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting you back for another ten days?' she said with a smile.
The grey eyes were enigmatic as they surveyed her, but there was something in the slow twist of his mouth that made her inexplicably nervous. 'I thought I'd surprise you, and when you weren't at the apartment I called Flower Power, Patty told me you'd gone to your house in Bayswater,' he said smoothly. I thought you'd sold it long ago—but then I should have known you never had any intention of giving up this shrine to your last husband.'
'No, you're wrong.' She hastened to correct him.
'Am I?' Luke asked, walking towards her, his grey eyes sliding insolently over her. Something dark leapt to life in their depths as he viewed the rumpled but made up bed. 'You probably sleep here every time I'm away.'
'I don't,' Jemma quickly denied. His face was rigidly controlled, but she sensed anger simmering beneath the surface, and was perplexed by it. 'I only came today to collect a few mementos because the estate agent is due tomorrow.'
A black brow arched sardonically. 'Odd, but I seem to recall you telling me you saw an estate agent last year.'
Jemma flushed guiltily. 'Yes, well, that was a mistake. I never quite got around to it.'
'Don't bother lying, Jemma. I've heard it all before,' he jeered, and his hand snaked out, catching her wrist in an iron grip and pulling her towards him.
'It wasn't really a lie. But at the time you were rushing me,' she tried to explain, aware of feeling pleasure as his hard muscled thigh pressed against hers.
'I rushed you? I seem to remember you fell into my bed the minute you set eyes on me, and you didn't take much persuading the next time, either,' he said in a bitter tone of voice. For the first time she saw exactly how furious he was, and a frisson of apprehension ran down her spine. 'What do you take me for? A gullible fool? I come second best to no man—living or dead.'
Jemma stared back at him. Such anger over a tiny fib… Could it be that he was jealous? 'I never—'
'Shut up!' he snarled. 'I can't stand to hear any more of your lies. You hang on to your past love like a limpet. But your body has no such hang-ups, does it, my sweet wife?' He hauled her hard against him, the strong planes of his face taut with some dark emotion. 'I could have you on that bed in a heartbeat.'
Luke's long fingers came up to hold her head so that she couldn't move an inch.
'Luke, please…' she gasped in a low shaky tone.
Before she could say another word his mouth slammed down on hers, opening her lips and feasting on the sweetness within. When at last he released her mouth she tried to jerk away, trembling from head to foot, but, taking her by surprise, he tipped her back onto the bed.
The breath was knocked out of her body, and anger surged up inside her. Whatever she had done to enrage him, and whether he was jealous or not, she didn't care. She was damned if she was going to let him manhandle her. She struggled to sit up, but he came down on top of her, pinning her beneath him.
'Luke!' she cried.
'Yes, say my name.' His smile was chilling. 'I want you to know who it is that's taking you in this bed of cherished memories. You won't ever be able to sleep in it again without thinking of me.'
She put her hands between them, trying to push him away, but hardly moved the solid wall of his chest. His mouth descended on hers again, probing her lips apart and plundering them with a voracious passion. She could taste the anger in him, hear it in the thudding beat of his heart, feel it in the tension in his huge frame. Her eyes closed as his hands tore at her clothes. Her shirt was ripped open, her trousers unfastened and his hands feverishly caressed her flesh. His mouth was working havoc on her throat, her shoulders, her breasts, and she moaned out pleas for him to stop even as the familiar wild excitement flowed through her veins.
A muscled thigh thrust between her legs and he moved between them, his mouth ravishing hers yet again with a driven urgency that she wantonly met and matched. She was thrown into a vortex of passion, her head thrashing from side to side as her mouth opened on a groan of pure pleasure. Her hands reached frantically for him, one tangling in the thick black hair of his head, the other sliding beneath his sweater to feel the rapid thud of his heart, the warmth of his flesh. She was aware of the hard length of him moving purposely against her, the heat of their bodies at explosive pitch, when suddenly he stopped.
For a moment he lay still on top of her, dragging in ragged breaths, and slowly she raised her lids to look at him. He was watching her, his colour dark and his eyes fierce. 'What the hell am I doing?'
Drunk on passion, her body achingly aroused, she widened her eyes in shocked disbelief as he stood up and straightened his sweater over his trousers.
He stared grimly down at her and shoved his hands in his pockets. 'And to think I thought I might lo—' He stopped and shook his head. 'Thank God I found out in time. You're no better than any woman who's sold herself to the highest bidder.'
'That's a despicable thing to say!' Jemma cried, jerking up into a sitting position, but he avoided her gaze. Hopelessly confused, she asked, 'What's wrong with you?' and hated the plaintive tone in her voice.
'Can't you guess? I found you here, in your late husband's bed, crying.'
'I wasn't crying—' she began, but he wasn't listening.
'There's a Proverb—"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick". And I'm sick of you,' he ground out. Something shrivelled inside Jemma. 'I want a separation. You can stay here—it's obviously where you belong.' He gave her a sardonic glance. 'I was mad to think otherwise. I'll have your things sent over from the apartment. You can keep your allowance and do what you like with it. I don't want to see you ever again.'