The Married Mistress Read Online Free PDF

intention of letting her pass until she told him something.
    ‘I want to go and strip the sheets off the bed that—that Jason and his fancy piece used!’
    Distaste curled her lip, tasted bitter on her tongue.
    ‘I have to put them in the wash immediately—though if I’m honest I’d prefer to burn the damn things!’
    To her relief Damon sidestepped neatly, moving out of her way, but as she mounted the first of the stairs she realised that he was right there behind her, following close on her heels.
    ‘I’ll come with you.’
    ‘No!’
    But he totally ignored her protest and just kept on coming.
    ‘Damon…’
    She whirled on the stairs until she was facing him. Looking down into his handsome face, she saw the determination stamped hard on it, the unyielding set to his jaw.
    ‘I don’t need you!’
    Just the thought of having this man, the man who had been her husband for such a brief time, follow her into her bedroom spoke of an intimacy that she was totally unwilling to allow herself to recall. I don’t want you, she should have said. But the words had other, much more disturbing implications that meant her voice would not actually speak them with the conviction she needed.
    ‘It’ll be easier with two,’ Damon returned, and just kept on coming so that she was obliged to skip backwards hastily up the stairs if she was not to have him collide with her.
    ‘I’ve done it by myself many times…’
    ‘I’m sure you have.’
    Another step upwards necessitated another couple of hasty jumps back and away to avoid a crash.
    ‘But I’m here now, so there’s no reason for you to have to do it alone today.’
    ‘Damon, it’s my room!’
    Exasperation, a touch of breathlessness from the undignified scramble up the staircase, and a shockingly sensitive awareness of the man below her put a betraying shake into her voice. The physical strength of his chest and shoulders was emphasised from this angle, the gleam of the sunlight on the dark waves of his hair made it shine like glossy silk, and the flash of white teeth as he grinned up at her was startling against the olive skin of his face.
    ‘Sarah, it’s my house!’ he retorted, with an infuriatingly deliberate echo of her own tone, her own emphasis.
    And what could she say in response to that? There was no answer she could give him. At least not one that he would accept, pay any heed to. It was his house, and that was the fact. She hadn’t wanted to take anything from him, but she had desperately needed a roof over her head. And for all she knew Damon had already built on her disputed land. He was perfectly capable of ignoring any morality in the case and just going right ahead.
    With inelegant haste she hurried up the remaining stairsand arrived safely on the landing, facing him with determined defiance.
    ‘You said I could live here!’ she protested, and shivered as she saw a dark tide of change cross his face, shadowing his eyes.
    ‘I said you could live here,’ he acceded. ‘Not you and sundry assorted hangers-on.’
    Now was the time to tell him the truth, Sarah knew. The time to point out that, no matter how it had seemed, Jason had had neither her agreement nor her permission to be in the house. At least not in her bedroom, and certainly not in her bed.
    So why did the words stick in her throat? Why could she not just fling them in his face and be done with it?
    Because he had no right to interfere in her life. He had given up any rights to that when he had betrayed her trust and treated her as a thing, a chattel, something to be used for his own ends, not as a true wife of his heart.
    Wife of his heart!
    Hah! That was a joke. A very sick, very black sort of joke. One that slashed at her heart, her soul, like a rusty knife, reopening old wounds that had barely even begun to heal.
    She had never really been Damon’s wife, not in the truest sense of the word—not in any sense of the word, except perhaps the sexual one. She had been his wife in bed