There was another pause. ‘This is very difficult for me, Zara. Especially because I really like Nikolai and he’s opened up a load of doors for me.’
‘Emma, stop it—you’re scaring me. What is it?’
‘This.’ Pulling a newspaper from her bag, Emma threw it down on the table. ‘I know you don’t read the tabloids and it’s probably all a pack of lies, but …’
Zara snatched the paper up. It was folded so that the society pages were open—with its usual batch of PR plants thinly disguised as articles. And at the top of the page was a picture of Nikolai, taken near some stunning looking house, with a woman beside him who was even more stunning.
Zara hadn’t seen the latest blockbuster adventure film which was currently smashing records at the box office but she knew that the French actress pictured with Nikolai was starring as the obligatory love interest. And one look at her gamine beauty told her exactly why.
Her throat dried and her heart pounded as her eyes scanned the text. It said that they’d attended a party together. It said that they’d been engrossed in each other’s company. It said that he’d given her a lift home.
Of course he had.
It also said that the actress was currently promoting her new film in …
Zara’s mouth dried as the two words leapt off the page and punched her in the eyes.
New York!
She put the newspaper back down, noticing that her hands were trembling. ‘Thanks for showing me,’ she said hoarsely and drank down a large mouthful of wine. ‘Can I keep this?’
‘Zara—’
‘No. Don’t say anything. It’s fine, Emma—honestly. I’m not under any illusions about my affair with Nikolai. I mean, do you really think I thought it was going to last?’
She managed to sustain the brave face until she was back home—or, rather, back at Nikolai’s house—and then she went outside into the beautiful gardens as she thought about what she was going to do.
She remembered the night she had come here, oblivious to the fact that Nikolai had secretly summoned her to work for him, and she had seen him standing at the other end of the lawn, his eyes gleaming with ice-fire as he’d watched her. He had wanted her for all kinds of reasons and she had wanted him. It had been that simple. Her desire for him seemed to have been woven into her DNA and nothing which had happened since had made that desire lessen.
But what of the future? The future she had resolutely tried not to think about since they’d been reunited? Had she really been stupid enough to nurture hope that they might have a future together when international actresses of great natural beauty were there for the taking?
She’d just assumed …
What? That he was giving her fidelity? Why would she think that when he had never offered her his fidelity? Never offered her anything more than the physical attraction between them which burned so fiercely. Not even when they’d got back together after their break. The brief episodes of closeness they’d shared hadn’t really deepened, had they? And she had just turned a blind eye to it, caring more about smoothing over the surface of their life together than having the courage to explore what lay beneath it. What a pathetic person she was. Why wouldn’t a man treat you with contempt when you had shown him that you were prepared to settle for so little?
The homecoming she had planned for him was abandoned—the arty book of photographs of Moscow she’d bought was banished to the back of the wardrobe by hands splashed with her own hot tears. She’d planned on wearing some very naughty underwear—or at least some of it. She’d planned a saucy seduction when they got back from their party—but now all those plans made her feel sick.
Why, wasn’t she behaving like some kind of high-class hooker—the kind of woman she had always despised?
The hours until his return ticked by with excruciating slowness until eventually he rang to say that he was on his way back from the airport. She paced the floor until she heard the sound of his car drawing up outside and then the slamming of the front door, and Zara mentally composed herself to greet him. She wasn’t going to scream or shout or get hysterical. She was going to be grown-up and as calm as she could.
She had given the housekeeper the afternoon off—much to the woman’s surprise—and she supposed it was ironic that she should start behaving like the mistress of the house just before she left it. Her heart hammering, Zara went to wait for him in the big sun-room at the back of the house where the French windows were opened to the fragrant scent of the summer evening. On one of the coffee tables lay the newspaper, folded to show the black and white photo of her beautiful, duplicitous lover.
‘Zara?’
‘I’m in here!’
Her heart twisted with pain as she heard the sound of his footsteps approaching—a sound so unique and distinctive to him. How on earth could she have learned to know and love that particular sound in so short a time?
Nikolai halted in the doorway, his eyes narrowing at the sight of her frozen stance as she turned her unsmiling face to his. The last time he’d been away she had greeted his homecoming with all the pent up passion of a woman who had been left by a man while he went away to fight a war. She had hurled herself into his arms and covered his face with a thousand kisses and started tugging hungrily at his tie. But not tonight. Tonight her face was pale and there were shadows beneath her eyes. And there was no soft silk-satin caressing the curves of her body, either. Instead she wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt which bore the defiant and faded logo of her old college. Weren’t they supposed to be going straight out to a party?
‘Hello, Zara,’ he said softly.
‘Hello, Nikolai.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘No kiss?’
Did she kiss him and pretend nothing had happened? Maybe ask him later, when his guard was down and he might blurt out the truth, however hurtful that might be.