She stared at him helplessly, opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again with a little snap as her thoughts raced on. She couldn’t tell him the truth and her mind refused to come up with a credible lie that would satisfy that sharp mind. Because it was true. They had been wildly, exquisitely happy. He knew it and, what was more, he knew she did.
The sunlight had turned his brown hair into the tawny mane of a large predatory lion and she shivered at the analogy as it slipped into her mind. There was no one around for miles—he wouldn’t actually hurt her, would he? She stared into the deadly cool eyes lit with a cold fire. She didn’t know. She didn’t recognise this stranger with Blade’s face and body.
‘Talk to me, Amy, communicate.’ His voice was a biting grate in the warm scented air, a total antithesis to the quiet peaceful scene around them bathed in tranquillity. ‘Don’t just sit there staring at me with those huge blue eyes as though I’m the devil himself.’
‘Whatever I say, it won’t make any difference now, will it?’ she said slowly as she forced herself to stand upright on legs that felt boneless. ‘I want to end our marriage, Blade, I want a divorce, and that’s what counts. And you want it now, you told me so. You don’t love me any more.’
He stared at her for a long time, something working behind the implacable remote mask that had settled over his face like a dark veil, something that she couldn’t read, and then he nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I know what I said.’ He sighed deeply. ‘But it’s difficult to believe where we are, what you have brought us to. We had it all, the love, the laughter, the sharing, but for some reason it wasn’t enough for you, was it?’ It wasn’t a question and she didn’t try to offer an answer. ‘Or maybe it’s just that you are shallow, unable to make a commitment that lasts? I’ve considered that too. I’ve told myself that you aren’t worth a minute more of my time.’
‘Then why are you still here?’ she asked painfully.
‘I’m really not sure.’ There was icy contempt in his voice, and as she tried to break the hypnotic power that had her eyes glued to his she found she couldn’t. The force of his personality, his iron will, was holding her as securely as any chains. ‘Maybe it’s as you said? Maybe I want to make you uncomfortable in this quiet little oasis you’ve made for yourself.’ His tone was cruel and mocking as he watched the effect of his words on her face. Words designed to sting and wound. ‘Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t make you suffer?’
‘No.’ She raised her head proudly. ‘Not one.’ She flung back her hair as she spoke, unaware of the glorious picture she made standing so straight and slim with her eyes huge in the pale silky smoothness of her skin and her hair a golden mass of light on her shoulders.
Blade’s eyes narrowed as he watched her, something dark and fierce springing to life as her gaze didn’t falter. ‘I thought not.’ He let his eyes wander purposefully over her legs outlined under the blue denim, raising his gaze very slowly to her breasts that flowered under his hungry appraisal as though by magic.
She brought her arms round her waist in an instinctive rejection of her body’s betrayal, her face scarlet, and heard him laugh deep in his throat, a dark humourless sound. ‘You still want me, my deceitful little wife, we both know it.’
‘I do not.’ She searched for something to say to deflect the situation, which was growing more dangerous by the minute. She needed something to put him off the scent and cut through the cool control; he was lethal when he was thinking calmly. ‘You just can’t imagine any woman leaving you, can you? The great Blade Forbes, invincible and mighty.’ She was being deliberately cruel; it was her only defence and if she didn’t use it he was going to make love to her. She could feel it. And then she would be lost. ‘You can’t accept that I decided I didn’t want you any more.’
‘No I can’t,’ he agreed with magnificent arrogance that opened her eyes wide. She had expected him to lose his temper, whip her with words, but there was something thoughtful in the back of his eyes that was more frightening than either of those options. ‘And especially not after seeing John. I satisfied you in every way, Amy, mentally, physically. Certainly physically. But there was more to it than that—’
‘No.’ She had to lie as she had never lied before. ‘No, there wasn’t. You don’t attract me any more—’ The last word was cut off with a high squeak of panic as he moved in front of her, his body taut and threateningly masculine.