After the Loving Read online

‘I thought you said he wasn’t violent.’ Court looked troubled.

  ‘He isn’t—he hasn’t been,’ she amended, knowing that was no longer true. ‘Oh, Court, what am I going to do?’ she cried.

  ‘Don’t go back.’ He clasped her hands. ‘I have a spare bedroom at my flat. We could——’

  ‘I couldn’t stay with you,’ she shook her head. ‘The mood Raff is in, he would kill us both!’

  He frowned darkly. ‘Which is exactly why I don’t think you should go back to him!’

  She shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t hurt me,’ she claimed shakily.

  ‘That wasn’t the impression I got just now,’ Court said drily.

  Or her! Raff had looked as if he would like to crush her with his bare hands! ‘He’ll have got over his anger by the time he comes home,’ she said with more confidence than she felt. ‘And then we’ll be able to talk.’

  Court still looked worried. ‘If you’re sure you’ll be all right …?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ she dismissed lightly, all the time conscious of the man across the restaurant as he pointedly ignored her and Court in preference of charming his dining companions. And she didn’t doubt that he was aware of her every move! ‘I don’t think I’ll bother with lunch after all——’

  ‘You and the baby have to eat,’ Court told her firmly. ‘Just ignore him, as he’s ignoring you.’ He signalled the waiter to come and take their order.

  It was hard to ignore someone when their disapproving vibrations could be felt across the crowded room, but somehow Bryna managed to eat a small amount of the meal under Court’s indulgent coaxing. The five men were still sitting at their table when she and Court stood up to leave a short time later, and she deliberately kept her face averted, although she sensed Court’s movement as he gave a terse inclination of his head in parting.

  She was trembling once they got outside. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve had to be involved in this ridiculous situation,’ she told Court shakily. ‘I just can’t seem to make Raff see sense.’

  ‘Hm,’ he looked thoughtful. ‘I still wouldn’t rule out jealousy. You know, he——’

  ‘I would,’ she scorned firmly. ‘Jealous men don’t look at a woman with hate in their eyes!’

  ‘Maybe not,’ he acknowledged slowly. ‘But if he feels nothing for you why does he still doubt you when you claim our meetings have all been because of business?’ he reasoned.

  ‘Because I didn’t tell him about them at the time,’ she sighed. ‘I hadn’t been discussing my business with him for some time. You see, he always shut me out when it came to his business affairs, and so I thought if I stopped telling him about mine he would realise how shut out he makes me feel, and then perhaps open up to me a little,’ she explained with a grimace.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Court closed his eyes. ‘I recognise my own advice there!’ He looked at her apologetically.

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged ruefully. She and this man had become good friends during her relationship with Raff, and she had often confided in him, realising that he knew Raff much better than she did, than she ever would.

  ‘I’ll learn to keep my opinions to myself in future,’ he groaned.

  She squeezed his arm reassuringly. ‘It was very sound advice,’ she consoled him. ‘Unfortunately, I think the man in question has to be in love with you and sensitive to your feelings for it to work!’

  Court gave a grimace of regret. ‘If you need someone to talk to again, just call me.’

  Bryna had a feeling that was going to come sooner than she wished!

  Raff didn’t come home for dinner, and he didn’t telephone to say he would be late either, leaving her to wonder where he was and who he was with—and some of her conclusions were upsetting, to say the least.

  She kept remembering how angry he had been to see her with Court earlier, remembered clearly the reckless glint in his silver eyes. And she knew he was with another woman. Probably the willing—and waiting!—Rosemary Chater.

  The looks the other woman had shot at her during the wedding had been positively venomous. How she must be gloating now!

  Bryna spent the evening alternating between anger and despair, waiting downstairs in the lounge for Raff to come home.

  When he hadn’t arrived shortly after eleven she decided she might as well go to bed; it didn’t look as if he were coming home at all tonight!

  She had only been in her room a couple of minutes when she heard the front door open and then slam shut, the sound of running feet on the stairs. Indignation and apprehension shone in her eyes as she turned to the door as it was flung open, her dress gaping at the front where she had just unbuttoned it.

  There was a dark flush to Raff’s cheeks as he slowly closed the door, the reckless glitter still evident in his eyes. ‘Ah good, I’m just in time for the floor-show,’ he bit out contemptuously, leaning back against the door to watch her with narrowed eyes, his arms folded across his chest.

  Bryna pulled the edges of her unbuttoned dress together. ‘If you want to see a show go to a striptease club!’ she snapped.

  He shook his head. ‘The thought of watching some woman I don’t know throw off her clothes in front of a room full of people does nothing for me! Where did you spend the afternoon?’ he suddenly rasped in a lightning change of mood.

  She blinked at the attack. ‘At my office,’ she replied grudgingly; what right did he have to question her?—he was the one who had been missing all evening!

  ‘I called there several times, but you weren’t there,’ he grated accusingly.

  Her head went back in challenge. ‘I was unavailable, that’s hardly the same thing.’ She had known of each of his calls and had told Gilly to tell him she was too busy to talk to him. Gilly had looked at her strangely at the request, but Bryna had offered no explanations for her behaviour. If she had even tried she would probably have broken down and cried. And once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  She had no intention of breaking down; she intended going on with her life with or without Raff’s love. She had survived the trauma of believing herself infertile, and now that she carried Raff’s child she could surely survive not being loved in return by him.

  But not if he continued to treat her with contempt, and demanded his rights in her bed!

  ‘Unavailable to me only, I’m sure,’ he bit out, moving away from the door to come towards her, the intent in his eyes unmistakable. ‘You couldn’t wait to get to your lover to tell him what a fiasco our marriage is, could you?’ he grated.

  ‘That isn’t the way it happened,’ she gasped protestingly. ‘I met Court——’

  ‘To discuss business?’ Raff quoted the past excuses she had given him.

  Colour darkened her cheeks. ‘No. Not this time,’ she added quickly as his eyes glittered silver. ‘But in the past, yes,’ she insisted firmly. ‘Today I—I just needed someone to talk to!’

  ‘And what better choice than your lover?’ he taunted. ‘What a pity neither he nor your secretary are here to tell me you’re unavailable now!’

  Bryna didn’t fear his lovemaking, she knew that he could never hurt a woman in that way, but what she did fear was that she would respond to him—and that he would know she did!

  She picked up her nightgown. ‘A bathroom door will do as well,’ she told him at the same time as she opened the door and then closed and locked it behind her, hastily moving to lock the other doors before leaning back against the wall, trembling in her apprehension, well aware that if he wanted to he could break the flimsy locks on any of the doors with one forceful kick.

  Complete silence followed her escape, and she moved to the door, listening intently.

  ‘We have all the nights of the rest of our lives, Bryna,’ Raff murmured suddenly against the closed door.

  He made it sound like a prison sentence!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DESPITE his threat, and her fear of it, Raff seemed to avoid Bryna more than ever during the next few weeks, always hav
ing left for the office before she got down in the mornings, rarely coming home for dinner, and when he did he asked for a tray in his study. The only time they had actually spent together had been her visit to the obstetrician.

  Raff was adamant that he be involved in all aspects of her pregnancy, asking the doctor more questions than she did, some of them making her blush.

  When she was sixteen weeks along in her pregnancy he insisted on coming along to the hospital with her while she had her scan, and the two of them watched in fascination as they saw the movements of their baby in her womb, every tiny part of it looking perfectly formed.

  After they had shared such a moving experience the antagonism between them seemed completely unworthy of the occasion.

  ‘I watched your face earlier,’ Raff spoke gruffly on the drive home. ‘You want this child very much, don’t you?’

  Some of her happy glow evaporated as she gave him a sharp look. ‘Of course I do!’

  ‘There’s no need to be on the defensive,’ he sighed. ‘I wasn’t being nasty.’

  Bryna turned to stare out of the window beside her, blinking back the tears. She had been plagued with none of the morning sickness that such a lot of women complained of, she felt in extremely good health, but she was so emotional that she cried at the slightest thing; a sad programme on the television, a beautiful love story, watching small children with their parents in the park.

  ‘As you looked at our baby your face glowed with pride,’ Raff told her huskily.

  ‘It’s a miracle,’ she told him with more feeling than he could ever understand. If they had been closer perhaps she would have been able to tell him of that operation in her youth and the years of emptiness afterwards, and he would have understood the wonder she felt at actually seeing the tiny baby inside her body. But they were further apart now than they had ever been.

  ‘Bryna, is it too late for us?’

  She turned to him frowningly, seeing the regret in his eyes before his attention returned to the road in front of them. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘We’re married, in another twenty-four weeks we’ll have a child of our own; don’t you think we should try to make this marriage work?’ he prompted huskily.

  She wanted nothing else but for their marriage to work, but she didn’t see how that was possible when he believed she was having an affair with another man. ‘And Court?’ she probed frowningly.

  His mouth tightened. ‘I can’t change the way I feel about you and him, but I realise you’re making an effort, that you haven’t seen him since that day in the restaurant.’

  She hadn’t; she had felt it best not to aggravate the situation any further—but how did Raff know that? ‘You’ve spoken to Court?’ she said eagerly, willing the two men to be friends again.

  ‘No,’ he rasped harshly.

  ‘Then how did you—Raff, no!’ she cried as she shook her head, feeling suddenly sick. ‘You haven’t had me followed?’

  His head went back arrogantly. ‘How else was I supposed to find out what my wife has been doing with her life lately?’

  ‘You could have asked me,’ she groaned, hating the thought of some faceless person following her every movement. ‘I hope he’s entitled to boredom money,’ she added disgustedly. ‘Because watching a woman leave home for work, and then seeing her come home again and staying in for the evening, must be the most boring assignment he’s ever had!’

  ‘Bryna——’

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ she avoided his hand as he reached out for her. ‘Just take me back to my office, I have some work to do.’

  He frowned. ‘It’s after five——’

  ‘So I’ll take a leaf out of my husband’s book and “work late”,’ she snapped tauntingly, sure that working was the last thing he did on those evenings he arrived home late, even though Raff did always telephone now and give that excuse. ‘I hope you’ve warned your latest lover that you’re having her followed!’ She and Court had been ‘seen’, he had said; he hadn’t told her it was by a professional snooper!

  ‘I don’t have a lover,’ he bit out grimly. ‘And I’ve only had you watched since that day at the restaurant.’

  ‘Why?’ she groaned. ‘Couldn’t you trust me? Couldn’t you——’

  ‘Bryna, as soon as you got back to work you ran to him,’ Raff grated. ‘What was I supposed to think?’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t think you’ve been doing much of that at all lately!’

  He breathed raggedly. ‘Bryna, I’ve been through one marriage where my wife took a lover——’

  ‘You told me you both had lovers,’ she protested the accusation.

  ‘At first we did,’ he conceded. ‘And then I became sick of the lies—to the women involved, not to Josey. Oh, I still went to bed with a woman when I felt the need, but it was always only the one time, and always with a woman who expected nothing else from me. Josey’s answer was somewhat different,’ he added grimly. ‘She found herself one lover and stayed with him, all the time refusing anything permanent with him because of the children.’

  ‘How unhappy you must both have been,’ Bryna sighed at the waste of it all.

  He nodded. ‘Which is why I don’t want it to happen again with you. We were happy together once, Bryna, we could be again,’ he added encouragingly.

  ‘With you having me followed and personally avoiding me every chance you get!’ she scorned.

  ‘I’ve been working late because I had no reason to come home,’ Raff told her quietly. ‘But we could start again, tonight——’

  ‘And your “employee"?’ she bit out tautly.

  He sighed. ‘I’ll get rid of him. Bryna,’ he clasped her hand with his as it rested on her thigh, ‘let’s try!’

  She was tempted, oh, so tempted; she still loved him in spite of the bitterness of their marriage. And maybe if they could become close she could convince him that there never had been anything between Court and herself. It still distressed her that she was the cause of the rift in the friendship.

  ‘I’d like to—’

  ‘Then let’s do it!’ he encouraged firmly.

  She looked at him searchingly. ‘And what happens the next time I have to see Court? I do want to do further business with him, you know.’

  Raff’s jaw clenched. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to learn to live with that. As long as you can assure me nothing is going on between you except business I’ll believe you.’

  ‘You haven’t believed me so far,’ Bryna reminded him wearily, wondering if this sort of truce between them could really work, but like him, doubting their marriage could survive as it was for much longer.

  ‘My trust has taken a pounding the last few months, that’s all,’ he sighed. ‘We’ll learn to cope with that.’

  His trust in her had been damaged. Not his love for her, or his need of her, only his trust. It wasn’t much of a foundation for marriage. But what else did they have?

  ‘I can’t sleep with you, Raff,’ she looked at him unblinkingly. ‘You see, although you doubt me when I say Court has only ever been a dear friend to me, I know the truth, and your lack of faith in me has badly shaken my trust in you!’

  He gave an abrupt inclination of his head. ‘I understand your reasons for choosing to keep your own room, but maybe in time even that physical closeness will come back again. For the moment, we’re starting again from the beginning, like strangers.’

  ‘I think our son or daughter might have something to say about that!’

  Raff returned her teasing smile, the two of them sharing a brief moment of camaraderie. And as he smiled Bryna realised how strained he had looked until that moment, the leanness of his body and the lines about his eyes revealing that he was just as unhappy as she.

  ‘Well, almost like strangers,’ he mocked. ‘Have I told you how much being pregnant suits you?’ he added huskily.

  They both knew he hadn’t, that he had rarely spoken to her at all since her pregnancy began
to show. Her blush of pleasure at the compliment added a glow to her cheeks, and a sparkle to her eyes.

  She wasn’t to know, as she smiled at him shyly, that Raff’s trust in her would be tested sooner than she would have wished!

  Their relationship didn’t change overnight; there was still a strain between them that couldn’t be banished no matter how much they talked and laughed and spent time together. And they did a lot of those things during the next few weeks, often managing to lunch together as well as being together in the evenings.

  They were closer to being friends now than they had ever been, having become lovers so quickly in the first place that they hadn’t really taken the time to get to know each other as well as they probably should have done. Now they had time to discover the things they had in common, and surprisingly enough they found that was quite a lot. Raff even began to discuss his work with her, something she had thought he would never do.

  And yet that underlying strain persisted between them.

  It was physical rather than mental, Bryna either withdrawing or trembling almost uncontrollably if Raff should touch her, and she could feel his tension if she should accidentally touch him in any way.

  They wanted each other.

  They had gone back to the beginning, started again, had formed a sort of friendship, and now they wanted each other so badly it was starting to affect that very friendship they had striven for.

  Bryna was more confused than ever; she had no idea where it would all end.

  But she was grateful that the two of them were at least friends enough to be able to accept Kate’s invitation to dinner in the certainty that they wouldn’t cause any friction by their presence. The young girl had given them a formal invitation to what she called her belated moving-dinner-party, and Raff had accepted just as formally.

  ‘I just hope she’s learnt to cook since the time she served up rice pudding and potatoes!’ he said ruefully on the drive over to the flat. ‘Together!’

  Bryna laughed softly at the disgusting concoction. ‘How old was she then?’

  ‘Nine,’ he grimaced. ‘She was trying to act the “little mother” after Josey died, and Paul and I ate it because we didn’t want to hurt her feelings.’