The Faithful Wife Read Online Free PDF

teased him about in former, happier, long-gone times, knowing he had to shave twice a day if he wasn’t to look like a hooligan with piratical tendencies.
    â€˜Hardly.’ His voice was dry. Coming further into the room, he removed his coat, tossed it over the back of one chair and sprawled down in the other. The hard line of his mouth told her he was controlling his temper, but only just; her head was beginning to ache, and there was an insistent thrumming noise inside her ears.
    Both hands flew up to either side of her head, as if to hold it on her shoulders, as she rasped out thinly, ‘What are you doing?’
    Sprawled out in a chair while Evie was missing somewhere on the bleak, cold mountainside! Oh, how could he? Long legs in soft dark cords stretched out endlessly, only the tense, hard line of the hunky shoulders beneath the Aran sweater testifying that his pose wasn’t as relaxed as he was trying to pretend it was.
    â€˜You tell me,’ he came back, talking through his teeth. ‘I’m in your hands. You win, for the moment.’ He gave her a thin, completely humourless smile. ‘Remove the distributor cap, take the rotor arm and no one’s going anywhere. Evie’s final chore before she high-tailed it back to civilisation? Neat. But not neat enough. I’m walking out of here at first light. You can do what you damn well like!’

CHAPTER THREE
    â€˜I ’LL go with you,’ Bella said in a tight, emphatic voice. She would begin the long walk right now; her need to get away from here, and him, was enormous. But she knew it would be madness. Better and far less hazardous to make the trek in daylight.
    A strange calmness filled her. A kind of numbness. Everything began to slot into place, like the pieces of a hitherto exasperating jigsaw puzzle. She didn’t feel any pride in the achievement. On the contrary, she felt used, betrayed. A fool.
    â€˜We’ve both been set up.’ Was he feeling the same way? she wondered with a stab of sympathy. But she would need to develop a far more inventive mind to imagine him feeling foolish. Or used. He was always very much in control. Of everything.
    She glanced up at him, but his features told her nothing. Blank. So what was new? Hadn’t he always closed her out, guarding his emotions, keeping them to himself? Except when they’d been making love, she recalled unwillingly, feeling the colour come and go on her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, her voice thick.
    She didn’t know why she was apologising. His sister was just as much to blame as hers. She heaved another log onto the fire, for something to do with her hands. She didn’t know where to put herself; the sudden, swamping embarrassment at having been forced into this situation was intense.
    He said nothing. Just stared at her. Bella verbalised her thoughts, putting everything in order, hoping that that would help her cope.
    â€˜They’ve been friends ever since we married. But you know that, of course. They obviously hatched the idea of getting us back together.’ She smiled thinly, an acknowledgement of the vain futility of that forlorn hope. ‘Kitty was to get you here, on some pretext or other, while my devious sister drove me down and dumped me. It would have been Evie who hung around until she knew you’d arrived, then spiked your car.’
    She saw one dark brow slowly rise at that, but didn’t grasp the significance—not then. She moved, heading for the kitchen. ‘I’ll make tea. But I warn you, there won’t be any milk.’ She was trying to be adult about this—this dreadful situation. They were in it together whether they liked it or not, until the morning anyway, and there was no point in behaving like a pair of squabbling children, sulking and not speaking to each other.
    â€˜Try the fridge,’ he offered drily. He’d followed her through. She wished he hadn’t. It