To Wear His Ring Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

when she’d lost the baby. He’d been unable to talk about it, and had dealt with his emotions the way he always did, by burying them deep inside and concentrating on running a global business empire. He could hardly blame her for turning to her friends, but he had felt jealous of her closeness to the other members of the band, and in particular her obvious affection for the guitarist, Ryan Fellows.
    The cover of the Stone Ladies’ new album was an arty black and white picture of the two most photogenic band members—Isobel and Fellows—riding a unicorn. No doubt the romantic image would appeal to the band’s thousands of fans, but when Constantin had seen the album cover he’d felt an overwhelming desire to rearrange the guitarist’s pretty-boy features with his fist.
    The idea that Isobel and Fellows might be lovers evoked a corrosive acid burn in his gut. Isobel had accused him of resenting her friends, and he acknowledged it was the truth. He had been unable to control his possessive feelings, which in turn had made him afraid that he had inherited his father’s dangerous jealousy.
    He looked at her tense face. It must have taken a lot of guts for her to have come back to the house that he knew held poignant memories for her. He thought of the mural of farm animals that she had been painting on the walls of the nursery. The mural was unfinished and the room was empty. He’d sent the cot and nursery equipment back to the shop and never went into the room that had been destined for their daughter.
    The miscarriage had broken Isobel, and it was a measure of her strength of will that she had recovered to be this beautiful, self-assured woman—although close scrutiny revealed faint shadows in her eyes that Constantin guessed would never completely fade. One thing was certain. She deserved his honesty.
    â€˜Three years ago we were lovers briefly. The weekend we spent at my apartment in Rome was fun, but...’ he shrugged ‘...I had no desire for a prolonged relationship—and I thought you understood that.’ When he had ended the affair shortly after they had returned to London he had assured himself it was for the best to call a halt before things got out of hand. Isobel had needed to understand that the words long-term and commitment were not in his vocabulary.
    He exhaled heavily. ‘But then fate dealt an unexpected card. When you told me you were pregnant you must have realised that I would not allow my child to be born illegitimate. Marriage was the only option. I could not neglect my duty to my child or to you.’
    Isobel flinched.
Duty
was an ugly little word. The realisation that Constantin had proposed marriage because he had felt responsible for her evoked a bitter taste in her mouth. She had told Constantin she was pregnant with his baby because she’d believed he had the right to know. She had been stunned when he’d asked her to marry him. After all, it was the twenty-first century, and being a single mother was no longer regarded as unusual or shameful. When he had proposed, she had convinced herself that he must have some feelings for her. But the stark truth was that she had seen what she had wanted to see.
    Yet her stubborn nature still refused to give up the idea that they had shared something meaningful. ‘We had some good times in the beginning,’ she reminded him.
    â€˜I don’t deny it. We were going to be parents, and for our child’s sake it was important to build an amicable relationship with each other, additional to our sexual compatibility.’
    Isobel swallowed the golf ball that had become lodged in her throat. Had Constantin simply been building an
amicable
relationship with her when he had filled the house with yellow roses after she had mentioned that they were her favourite flower? Had she imagined the closeness between them that had grown stronger every day of their three-week honeymoon in the