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THE PASSIONATE HUSBAND

Helen Brooks

Helen Brooks lives in Northamptonshire and is married with three children. As she is a committed Christian, busy housewife and mother, her spare time is at a premium, but her hobbies include reading, swimming, gardening and walking her old, faithful dog. Her long-cherished aspiration to write became a reality when she put pen to paper on reaching the age of forty, and sent the result off to Mills & Boon.

CHAPTER ONE

‘I BET YOU’RE the only woman in the room who hasn’t noticed the hunk with she who must be obeyed. Right?’

‘What?’

Marsha raised startled emerald-green eyes, and the small plump girl standing in front of her sighed resignedly. ‘I knew it. The whole place is buzzing with curiosity and there’s you—as serene and cool as always.’

‘Nicki, you know better than anyone else I need the facts and figures for the Baxter slot at my fingertips for the meeting tomorrow,’ Marsha said patiently, reaching for the glass of fizzy mineral water at her side and taking a sip. ‘As my secretary—’

‘I’m talking as your friend, not your secretary,’ Nicki responded smartly. ‘This is supposed to be a little get-together as a reward for the current ratings and all our hard work, and you’re the only one not taking advantage of the free food and booze. Don’t you like champagne, for goodness’ sake?’ She wrinkled her snub nose at the hapless mineral water.

‘Not particularly,’ Marsha answered truthfully. It was a vastly overrated beverage in her opinion. ‘And I like to keep a clear head when I’m working.’

‘Ah, but you shouldn’t be working,’ Nicki pointed out triumphantly. ‘It’s once in a blue moon that the powers-that-be acknowledge what a great team they’ve got below them. Can’t you take a few minutes to enjoy the moment?’

Now it was Marsha who sighed. When Nicki dug her heels in she could be formidable. This made her an excellent secretary in some respects, but, as there was a distinct mother hen quirk to her extrovert personality, it could also be irritating.

Nicki was only three years older than her, at thirty, but the other woman appeared positively matronly most of the time. She was also loyal, trustworthy, hardworking and discreet, and Marsha counted herself fortunate to have Nicki in her corner in the cut-and-thrust world of television, the sector in which she had decided to make her career.

She gave mental affirmation to this last thought now as she said, ‘Okay, okay, you win. One glass of champagne to keep you happy won’t hurt, I guess.’

‘Great.’ Nicki’s round pretty face beamed as she surveyed the slim delicate woman sitting on a sofa in a quiet recess of the bustling room. ‘I presume you are coming out of your hidey-hole to drink it?’

‘Hardly a hidey-hole, Nicki,’ Marsha said drily. The recess was in full view of at least half the room where the drink and nibbles get-together was being thrown, and she’d had every intention of being sociable for a while once she had finished working. Now, stifling a sigh, Marsha rose to her feet, smoothing a lock of silver-blonde hair away from her face as she followed Nicki into the throng of animated noisy folk whose conversation had risen and ebbed like the tide for the last hour or so.

‘So, where’s the hunk, then?’ Marsha glanced round the crowded room as Nicki handed her a glass of sparkling champagne. ‘Penelope can’t have eaten him already.’

Penelope Pelham was a top executive at the television company they worked for, with a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness in every sphere of her life. It was an accepted fact that one would consider appealing to Penelope’s kindness and compassion in the same way as a great white shark’s.

Gossip had it that Penelope ate men up and spat them out in the same way she did any employee unfortunate enough to fall foul of her temper, and no one doubted this was true.

Marsha had never had cause to cross swords with the beautiful flamboyant brunette since she had started working for the television company some twelve months before, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t as wary of the other woman as everyone else. Penelope was powerful and influential, and the force of her dominant personality was impressive.

‘Janie says they’ve just disappeared into Penelope’s office with strict instructions from the lady herself they’re not to be disturbed. Mind you, for once I have to say I see eye to eye with Penelope. If I had got my claws into a man like that, I’d want to be alone with him every moment I could get.’

Nicki gave a ridiculously hammed-up leer and Marsha began to laugh. She took a sip of the effervescent drink and found it to be surprisingly good. The bigwigs had pulled out all the stops for once. Normally the odd work do like this consisted of cheap plonk and sandwiches curling round the edges.

‘Come and get some food.’ Nicki was on a roll now, and Marsha didn’t object when she was pulled over to the loaded table at the far end of the room. Knowing they were all expected to attend this gathering at the end of the working day, she’d skipped lunch in an effort to get the Baxter story under her belt. Now, as she looked at the very nice spread, without a curling ham sandwich in sight, she found she was hungry. Ravenous, in fact.

‘Ooh, I just love kebabs, don’t you?’ Nicki was busy stocking up her plate. ‘And this flan is delicious. And just look at those desserts. Janie had a free hand so she ordered them from Finns.’

Janie was Penelope’s secretary, and Nicki had made it her business to strike up a friendship with the other woman—when Janie had started working for the company six months before—on the premise that you could never have too many friends in high places. Marsha wasn’t sure if she agreed with this somewhat machiavellian viewpoint, but it was undoubtedly useful to have a secretary with her finger on the pulse, albeit secondhand.

‘I presume you’ve asked Janie for the dope on the hunk?’ Marsha asked idly, filling her own plate as she spoke and then picking up her glass of champagne and making her way over to a couple of vacant seats.

‘Uh-huh.’ Nicki demolished two bulging pastry hors d’oeuvres, licking her lips and rolling her eyes in appreciation, before she added, ‘She didn’t know anything.’

Marsha nodded. If she was being honest she would have said she wasn’t in the least bit curious about Penelope’s new man-friend, but she didn’t want to hurt Nicki’s feelings. Her secretary had been happily married to her childhood sweetheart for the last eleven years, but that didn’t stop Nicki being a romance addict who read every book and saw every film with even the tiniest bit of amorous intrigue in it.

Marsha knew she had greatly disappointed the other woman when she’d made it clear, a few weeks after starting work at the company, that she wasn’t interested in the opposite sex. And, no, she’d hastily added when Nicki’s expression had made it clear what she was thinking, she wasn’t interested in the female sex either! She had made the decision to concentrate on her career and only her career some time ago, that was all.

A few months later, when the two women had become friends as well as work colleagues, Marsha had admitted her decision had something to do with a man—once bitten, twice shy—but hadn’t elaborated further. It said a lot for Nicki’s strength of will that she had never brought the subject up again, merely confining herself to the odd remark about some dishy man she or her husband knew who had recently become single again, or pointing out that everyone indulged in one or two blind dates in their lives. Marsha normally responded to such obvious wiles by ignoring them and changing the subject.

‘How come,’ Nicki said thoughtfully, ‘you can eat like you do and not put on a pound of weight? It’s not fair.’

‘I did miss lunch.’ It was said gently. Nicki ate the equivalent of a three-course meal every lunchtime, and there was always a bag of sweets in her desk drawer which was replaced daily, not to mention hot sausage rolls from the canteen mid-morning, and cakes or biscuits mid-afternoon.

Nicki grinned. ‘I wish everyone was as tactful as you, but I do so enjoy my food. And then there’s those evenings when the urge to pig out is just irresistible, and chocolate just sort of leaps up and waves its hands. Know what I mean?’

‘Marsha has never particularly cared for chocolate. Now, coconut ice is something else. I’ve known her to eat a pound or so of that all to herself in one sitting.’

The deep voice behind them was relaxed and cool, but as Marsha’s head shot round she saw the sculptured features of the tall man standing with Penelope could have been carved in granite. Admittedly the hard mouth curled at the edges with something which could have been described as a smile by those who did not know better. But Marsha did know better. And how. She fought for control, willing herself not to stutter and stammer as she said, ‘Taylor. What a surprise.’

‘Isn’t it?’ The startling tawny eyes with their thick black lashes were fixed on her shocked face. ‘But a pleasant one…for me, that is.’

‘You two are obviously already acquainted,’ Penelope drawled sweetly, her smile not quite reaching the blue eyes set in a face which was faintly exotic and very lovely. Marsha noticed the way the other woman’s hand had tightened on Taylor’s arm in an instinctive predatory gesture which said volumes.

She drew in a long, body-straightening breath and squared her shoulders. So that was how it was. But she should have known, shouldn’t she, with Taylor’s reputation? ‘We knew each other once, a long time ago,’ she said clearly, her tone dismissive. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some work to finish—’

‘Once? Oh, come on, Marsha, you’ll have these good folk believing we were ships that passed in the night instead of man and wife.’

Nicki’s mouth had dropped open to the point where she looked comical, but no one was looking at her.

Marsha’s clear green eyes widened infinitesimally, even as she told herself she should have expected this. Taylor being Taylor, he wouldn’t let her get away with snubbing him. A vein in her temple throbbed, but her voice was quiet when she said, ‘Goodbye, Taylor.’

‘You were married?’ In any other circumstances Marsha would have enjoyed seeing the ice-cool Penelope dumbfounded.

‘Not were, Penelope. Are.’ Taylor’s voice was as quiet as Marsha’s had been, but the steely note made it twice as compelling. ‘Marsha is my wife.’

‘Until the divorce is finalised.’ She had turned, but now she swung back as she shot the words at him. ‘And that would have happened a long time ago if I’d had my way.’

Her voice had risen slightly, calling forth one or two interested glances from people around them who hadn’t heard what had been said but who recognised anger when they heard it.

‘But…but your surname is Gosling, isn’t it?’

Penelope was staring at her as though she’d never seen her before, and in spite of the awfulness of the moment there was an element of satisfaction in being able to reply, ‘Gosling is my maiden name. Personnel are aware of my marital status—albeit temporary.’ She flashed a scathing glance at the tall dark man at Penelope’s side. ‘But when I said I prefer to be known as Miss Gosling on a day-to-day basis they saw no reason to object.’

‘This is most irregular.’ Penelope had recovered her composure and her tone was frosty. ‘I should have been informed.’

Marsha could have said here that her immediate boss, Jeff North, was fully aware of her circumstances, but she wasn’t about to get into a discussion on the rights and wrongs of it all with Penelope. Not with Taylor standing there with his eyes fixed on her face.

The brief glances she’d bestowed on him had told her he was as devastatingly attractive as ever. He had never been textbook handsome, his appeal was too virile and manly for that, but the hard, rugged features offset by tawny cat eyes and jet-black hair radiated magnetism. And the strong, tough face was set above a body which was just as vigorous, its sinewy muscles and a powerful frame ensuring women everywhere gave him a second glance. Or three or four or more.

This last thought made Marsha’s voice every bit as cold as Penelope’s when she said, ‘Possibly. Now, if you’ll excuse me?’ And she left without a backward glance.

It wasn’t until she got in the lift and attempted to press the button for the third floor that Marsha realised how much her hands were shaking. She stood stiff and straight until the doors had glided to, and then leant limply against the carpeted side of the lift, her stomach swirling. Taylor—here. What was she going to do?

And then the answer came, as though from somewhere outside herself. Nothing. You are going to do nothing, because nothing has changed from how things were this morning. He is not in your life any more. He can’t hurt you.

But if that was true why was she feeling as though her whole world had collapsed around her right now? The world she had carefully built up over the last months?

Shock. The answer was there again. Shock, pure and simple. It was so unexpected, seeing him like that. You were unprepared, taken off guard. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t over him.

The lift had stopped, and now the doors opened again, but for a moment Marsha stood staring blankly ahead, her mind racing. She wasn’t over him. She’d never be over him. You didn’t get over someone like Taylor. You just learnt to live with the pain that it was over.

‘Enough.’ She spoke out loud, the courage and self-respect which had enabled her to leave him in the first place coming to her aid. ‘No snivelling, no crying. You’ve cried enough tears to fill an ocean as it is.’

Once in the office she shared with Nicki, Jeff North’s room being separated from theirs by an interjoining door, Marsha sat down at her desk with a little plump. Of all the places in all the world, why was Taylor here? And was he Penelope’s new lover? The thought brought such a shaft of pain she pushed it to the back of her consciousness to think about later, once she was home. For now she had to get out of this place with a semblance of dignity, and she’d do it if it killed her.

It was at that point she realised she’d left her handbag, along with the papers she’d been looking at when Nicki had pounced on her, downstairs in the alcove. She muttered something very rude before leaning back in the seat and shutting her eyes for a moment. Great, just great. She’d have to go and retrieve everything, which would totally ruin the decorous exit she’d just made.

Footsteps brought her eyes snapping open and her back straightening, but it was Nicki who emerged in the doorway, and she was clutching the Baxter file and Marsha’s handbag. ‘You forgot these,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Sort of.’ Marsha managed a weak smile. ‘Thanks for these.’

‘All in a day’s work.’

Marsha had expected a barrage of questions the next time she saw Nicki, but when the other girl sat down at her own desk and began packing her things away, all she said was, ‘They’ve gone, by the way, Penelope and your—and him.’

‘Right.’ She’d explain a little tomorrow, but tonight she couldn’t face it. ‘I’m off too. We’ll talk in the morning, Nicki,’ she said, rising to her feet and reaching for her jacket. It was her brisk boss tone, something Marsha used rarely, but when she did Nicki knew enough to take the hint.

Once she was in the lift again, a thousand butterflies began to do an Irish jig in Marsha’s stomach. What if Nicki was wrong and he was waiting for her in Reception? She wouldn’t put it past Taylor. She wouldn’t put anything past Taylor Kane.

Reception was the usual madhouse at this time of night, but it was Taylorless and that was all Marsha asked. She responded to a couple of goodnights, raising a hand in farewell to Bob, the security guard, with whom she often had a chat when she was working late and it was quieter. He regaled her with tales of his six children, who had all gone off the rails in some way or other and who drove Bob and his long-suffering wife mad, but tonight Marsha felt she would swap places with them like a shot.

Once outside, in the warm June evening, Marsha looked about her, only relaxing and breathing more easily after a few moments of scanning the bustling crowd. Everyone was walking fast and every other person was talking into a mobile phone. Irate drivers were honking car horns, there was the occasional screech of tyres and the odd person or so was dicing with death by ignoring pedestrian crossings and throwing themselves in front of the rush hour traffic. A normal evening, in fact.

It was too warm for the jacket she’d worn that morning, and now she tucked it over her arm as she began to walk past Notting Hill towards Kensington. Somehow she couldn’t face the jam-packed anonymity of the tube or a bus tonight. It would take a while to get to her tiny bedsit deep in West Kensington, but the walk through Holland Park was pleasant on an evening like this, and she needed some time to collect her whirling thoughts and sort out her emotions. And then she wrinkled her small straight nose at the thought. Since when had she ever been able to get her head round her feelings for Taylor?

‘I had a feeling you’d walk.’

Her pulse leapt as the deep voice at her elbow registered, and in that moment she knew she had been expecting him to make an appearance. She didn’t turn her head, and she was pleased her voice was so cool—considering her racing heartbeat—when she said, ‘Clever you.’

‘How are you, Fuzz?’

His pet name for her caused her traitorous heart to lurch before she quelled the weakness. Fuzz had come into being on their second date, when he had said he thought goslings were supposed to be all fluff and down, his eyes on her sleek shiny hair. She’d smiled, answering that fuzz and feathers weren’t compulsory, and from that moment—whenever they were alone—he’d whispered the name in a smoky tone which had caused her knees to buckle. But that was then and this was now. Her voice tight, she said, ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why? You used to like it.’

His arrogance provoked her into raising angry eyes to meet his gaze, and she knew immediately it was a mistake. He was too close, for one thing. She could see the furrows in the tanned skin of his face, the laughter lines which crinkled the corners of his eyes. She caught her breath, steadying herself before she said, ‘I’m glad you used the past tense.’

He shrugged, a casual easy movement she envied. ‘Past, present, future—it’s all the same. You’re mine, Fuzz. You’ve been mine from the first moment we met.’

For a moment the urge to strike out in action as well as words was so strong it shocked her, but it acted like a bucket of cold water on her hot fury. Men like him never changed, she knew that, so why had she expected any different? Everything about Taylor whispered wealth and power and limitless control. She had married him knowing he was dangerous, but she had hoped she’d captured his heart. She had been wrong. ‘I don’t think so, Taylor. We’ll be divorced soon, and that is the end of the road.’

‘You think a piece of paper makes any difference one way or the other?’ He took her arm, pulling her to a stop as he encircled her with his arms. ‘This nonsense has to stop. Do you understand? I’ve been patient long enough.’

His height and breadth dwarfed her slender shape, and the familiar smell of him—a subtle mixture of deliciously sexy aftershave, clean male skin and something that was peculiarly Taylor—sent her senses reeling. Control, control, control. He was a past master of it—she had learnt it day by painful day in the months they had been separated. She couldn’t let all that agony be for nothing. She ignored the longing which made her want to melt against the hard wall of his chest, saying instead, her voice clipped, ‘Let go of me or I’ll scream my head off. I mean it.’

‘Scream away,’ he offered lazily, but she had seen the narrowing of his eyes and the tightening of his mouth and she knew she had scored a hit.

She remained absolutely rigid and still in his arms, her eyes blazing, and after another long moment he let her go. ‘You’re still not prepared to listen to reason?’

‘Reason?’ She forced a scornful laugh, taking a step backwards and treading on some poor man’s toe with her wafer-thin heels. His muffled yelp went unheeded.

‘Yes, reason. Reason, logic, common sense—all those worthy attributes which seem to be so sadly lacking within that beautiful frame of yours,’ he drawled, deliberately provocative.

Marsha gritted her teeth for a moment. He was the one person in all the world who could make her madder than hell in two seconds flat. ‘Your definition of reason and logic is different from mine,’ she said scathingly. ‘I go by the Oxford Dictionary.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning I don’t hold with your clarification that reason means a promiscuous lifestyle where anything goes, and logic says you only begin to worry if you are caught out.’

He surveyed her defiant face expressionlessly, the magnificent tawny eyes glittering in the tanned darkness of his face. After an eternity, and very softly, he said, ‘I see.’

Marsha stared back at him, determined not to let him see the quiet response had taken the wind out of her sails. She had been married to this man for three years, eighteen months of which she had been separated from him, but she’d had no idea how he would react to what she had said. Which summed up their relationship, really, she thought wretchedly. And was one of the reasons why she had left him and would never go back. That and the other women.

Her small chin rose a fraction, and now her voice had lost its heat and was icy when she said, ‘Good. It will save me having to repeat myself.’

‘You look wonderful.’ It was as though her previous words had never been voiced. ‘Businesslike…’ His gaze roamed over her curves, neatly ensconced in a jade-green pencil-slim skirt and a blouse of a slightly lighter hue. ‘But still good enough to eat,’ he added as his eyes returned to hers once more.

Marsha ignored the way her body had responded to the hunger in his face and concentrated on maintaining her equanimity. ‘Don’t try the Kane charm on me, Taylor,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m immune now.’

‘Is that so?’ His hand came up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering for a moment at her neck and setting off a chain reaction she knew he could sense. ‘I don’t think so.’

She hated him: his arrogance, his supreme confidence in his mastery over her mind, soul and body… She caught the bitterness, forcing it down where the astute amber eyes couldn’t see and taking a deep hidden breath before she said, ‘Then you must believe what you like. It really doesn’t matter any more. In a month or so we will be divorced and free agents, and—’

‘The hell we will.’

She ignored the interruption and hoped she hadn’t revealed her composure was only skin-deep. ‘And we can put the past behind us,’ she finished evenly.

‘You really think I will just let you walk away from me for ever?’ He raised dark brows. ‘You know me better than that.’

‘I have never known you.’ She had answered too quickly, her voice raw for a moment, and immediately she knew her mistake. She had to be calm and collected in front of him; it was her best defence. ‘Just as you never really knew me,’ she added quickly. ‘We both thought each other was someone different. That was our mistake.’

‘Our mistake?’ The dark brows rose even higher. ‘Did I hear correctly? You’re actually admitting you’re capable of being wrong occasionally?’

She would have given the world to sock him right on the jaw. Her neck and shoulders were stiff with the effort it was taking to remain poised and dignified, but she conquered the desire to wipe the slight smile off his face, although not without some gritting of teeth. When she could trust herself to speak, she said sweetly, ‘I’ve nothing more to say to you. Goodbye, Taylor,’ turning on her heel as she spoke his name.

It was only a moment or two before she realised he was walking alongside her. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked frostily.

‘Walking you back home.’ He didn’t actually add, Of course, but he might as well have.

‘I don’t want you to.’

‘Okay.’ He stopped, but as she walked on, head high and heart thumping a tattoo, he called, ‘I’ll pick you up at eight, so be ready.’

‘What?’ She whirled round, causing a middle-aged woman with a huge bag of shopping to bump into her. When she had finished apologising she marched over to where Taylor was standing, arms crossed, as he leant against a convenient lamppost. ‘Are you mad?’ she asked in a tight voice.

‘Me?’ The innocence was galling. ‘It was you who nearly knocked that poor woman off her feet.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She glared at him, wondering how she could have forgotten quite how attractive he was. There were very few men with truly black hair, but Taylor was one of them, and the contrast between his eyes and hair had always been riveting. Brushing this traitorous thought aside, she continued, ‘I have no intention of having dinner with you, Taylor. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. We’re getting a divorce, for goodness’ sake.’

He smiled. Marsha caught her breath. His smile had always affected her, like warm sunshine flooding over a stormy sea, possibly because he did it so rarely. Not genuine smiles anyway. ‘Then what are you so afraid of?’ he asked silkily. ‘I’m merely suggesting we have dinner together, not that we finish the evening in bed.’

Her pulse jumped and then raced frantically as her body remembered what it had been like to be in bed with this man. To be loved, utterly and completely. To be consumed by him until all rational thought was gone and all that existed was Taylor. But then it hadn’t been love, had it? At least not as she interpreted the word. Love and marriage meant commitment, faithfulness and loyalty as far as she was concerned, and she was blowed if she was going to apologise for feeling that way. ‘I’m not afraid,’ she said shakily. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’

‘Then have dinner with me. For the time being at least we are still man and wife, Fuzz. Can’t we try to be civilised?’ His eyes were searching hers in that old way she remembered from when they had still been together. He had always looked at her like this in moments of stress or importance, as though he was trying to see the inner core of her, the essence of what made her her.

Marsha blinked, breaking the spell the glowing tawny colour that circled fierce black centres had wrought. She clutched at a reason for refusal. ‘What about Penelope?’ she said. ‘Won’t she mind?’

‘Penelope?’ He repeated the name as though he didn’t have the faintest idea who the woman was, and then he said softly, ‘Penelope Pelham is a business colleague, that’s all. I’m quoting for new sound equipment and a load of stuff and she is my contact.’

Oh, yes? Who was kidding who? It had been as plain as the nose on her face that Penelope had decided Taylor was her next bedfellow. Kane International might well be putting in a tender for the new equipment they had all heard was being acquired, but if Taylor’s firm won the work it would be because he had provided proof that his equipment was the best in more ways than one. Marsha blinked again. That last thought was not like her—but that was Taylor all over, she thought irritably. Bringing out the worst in her. ‘I don’t think dinner is a good idea,’ she said firmly.

‘It’s an excellent idea,’ he said, even more firmly.

‘I’m trying to say no nicely.’ She eyed him severely.

‘Try saying yes badly.’

He was so close his warm breath fanned the silk of her hair, and for a moment she wanted to breathe in the smell and feel of him in great gulps. Instead the intensity of her emotion acted like a shot of adrenalin. ‘It might surprise you, Taylor Kane, but you can’t always have what you want,’ she said steadily, the blood surging through her veins in a tumult.

‘Not always, no.’ This time he didn’t smile. ‘But tonight is not one of those times. Eight on the dot. I’m quite prepared to break the door down if you play coy.’

She was so surprised when he upped and walked away that for a good thirty seconds she was speechless. Then she called after him, oblivious of the passers-by, ‘You don’t know where I live!’

He turned just long enough to say, ‘I have always known where you are, every minute since you’ve been gone.’ And after that she found she was unable to say another word.

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A Passionate Affair

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A Passionate Affair

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THE PASSIONATE HUSBAND

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