“I can explain,” she said, but the words were hollow even to her own ears.

Thad turned to Rocco, trying not to focus on Saphire at all. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself to speak to her until his temper returned to earth. “What are you talking about?”

“I had her checked out,” Rocco said, as though it were of little importance.

“You had me investigated?” Her look was one of abject horror. “What the hell?” She pushed up from the table, shaking now from rage. It was a welcome relief from embarrassment and guilt. “Who the hell are you to think you have any right to meddle in my life like that?”

Rocco’s tone was impatient. “I have no care for your life. But as for my friend …”

“You don’t think he’s a big enough boy to take care of himself?”

“Apparently not,” Rocco responded harshly. “Or he would know better than to get mixed up with a woman like you.”

Thaddeus held a hand up to silence Rocco. Slowly, he turned to face Saphire. “Is it true?”

Guilt was back, bouncing through her like a fast-paced ball. “I’m not going to talk about it in front of him.”

Thad’s eyes dropped to her hand. There was no ring. Saphire had taken great satisfaction in ripping it off in the hallway of her home and throwing it dramatically against the carpeted floor seconds after discovering her husband’s infidelity.

“Is it true?” He repeated, his voice colder than she’d ever believed him capable of.

She gripped the side of the table for support. “It isn’t like it sounds.”

“You are either married, or you are not.”

“I …”

“Tell him,” Rocco urged, satisfied at least that she truly felt a weight of betrayal now that her dishonesty was revealed.

“Yes.” She nodded, every part of her numb. “I’m … married.” The sentence tasted like bile.

Thad pressed back in his chair and stared out at the ocean. The words kept chasing around his brain, and he could make no sense of them. Yes. I’m married. I’m married. I’m married.

“Thad?” She put a hand on his shoulder, but he angled his head to show his displeasure in the contact.

“You should go. I have no interest in getting in the middle of a marriage.”

“Thad,” she sobbed his name and squeezed his shoulder but he wouldn’t look at her.

“If I had known, I would never,” he turned cold, bitter eyes to face her, “have touched you. Not a hair on your head.”

She shook her head. “Please, let me explain.”

“You’re married.”

She nodded. “But …”

“No.” He shouted the word, timing it with a slap of his palm onto the table. She startled at the aggressive response. “Am I not being clear? Get out. Go.”

A sob bubbled from her and she pressed her hands to her mouth to stop any more. “How?” She whispered, for she was a virtual prisoner on this island.

“My helicopter can take her,” Rocco said softly. Now that his point had been made, he almost felt sorry for her.

“Fine,” Thad nodded without so much as a look in her direction.

She stared at him, her eyes overflowing with tears, her face blotchy. Silently she willed him to look at her. To see her for who she was, to see the love that flowed through her.

“Go.” He said again, his face autocratic.

“Is that really what you want?” She forced herself to ask the words.

“I want … what I want is to … erase everything we’ve shared from my memory.”

It was decisive and cutting, as he’d intended it to be. He watched her leave, and immediately felt a need to beg her to stay.

“I’m sorry,” Rocco said gently.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“To apologize?”

Thad’s expression was grim. “No. To … I don’t know. Why did you get your guy to look into her?”

Rocco toyed with his watch. “You sounded different.” He lifted his shoulders. “You were …”

Happy.

“I guess I should thank you.” Strange, given that Rocco had destroyed everything Thaddeus had been reveling in.

“It’s not necessary. I know you would have done the same for me.”

“God, Rocco.” Thaddeus turned to stare at the ocean. “Married?”

“Yeah. Only a few months.”

Thaddeus swore. “I cannot believe it.”

“I saw the certificate.”

“Perhaps there is a mistake. Or they have now separated.”

Rocco’s expression was apologetic. “The husband’s some sort of aspiring politician. I saw a photo of them at an event only a fortnight ago.”

Another curse escaped from Thaddeus’s lips. “What’s he like?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that. Knowing would kill me.”

Rocco’s laugh was without humor. “Come on. Forget her. She’s gone. And if there’s one thing you never have any trouble with, it’s meeting women.”

But he’d never met a woman like Saphire.

Not one.

And she owed him an explanation.

 

* * *

 

After several wrong turns and a couple of panic-attack moments, Saphire burst out of the house and into a courtyard. The helicopter was way across the grass, and there was a pilot-looking-person propped against the side. She ran towards it, her eyes blurred by the constant stream of tears.

She knew that she would never get over this.

That leaving him was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

But that she had to do it.

He’d given her no choice.

Her feet stumbled on uneven ground and she fell all the way to the grass. Her hands smashed against it and she cried out. The temptation to fall flat and sob and wail was great, but she pushed up instead, standing fluidly and resuming her journey to the aircraft.

She was almost there, about to step off the island and away from the dream that had quickly become the worst kind of nightmare. Her eyes and thoughts were focused solely on the escape route. She didn’t hear him running behind her. Nor did she see the way his face was etched with emotion when finally, he caught up to her.

The first indication she had that he was with her was his hand, hard and demanding, as it wrapped around her arm. “You are really just going to leave like this?” He shouted the question, his whole manner tautened by fury.

“You told me to get out,” she fired back, pulling her arm free with a force that she knew would quickly give way to weakness and grief.

A muscle moved in his cheek. “I need to know why.” Another shouted statement.

In contrast, her words were barely louder than a whisper. She couldn’t meet his eyes. The anger she saw in them was chilling. “Why do you think?”

“I have no idea. I would never have thought you capable of this.”

“Me either.” She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to stare up at his beautiful face. Intense wistfulness besieged her.

“Why? Just tell me why, before you go.”

His words were like little hammer blows of desperation against her stricken heart. “You really want me to go?”

“Of course,” he snapped. “You’ve made a fool of me. You’ve used me. You are dishonest. But I still need to know.”

She had carried the secret for days and she was so sick of its burden. “Please just let me speak.” Tears stained the words. “Don’t … don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Her eyes shimmered. “Like you hate me.”

“Just … tell me,” he commanded flatly, trying to suppress the betrayal from his features.

Her hair lifted in the breeze. The words came out with deceptive neutrality. “Remember I told you last night about my friend Anita?”

He expelled a harsh breath.  It was worse than he’d thought. “So? You wanted to compete with her? Do something just as sick to prove your friendship?”

Saphire blanched. “No. God, no.” Her blue eyes were filled with pain that he could, even briefly, believe her capable of such childish gamesmanship. “I was the other woman. The husband she’s sleeping with? That’s my husband.”

Comprehension slammed into him. Anger, love, sorrow, it all threaded through him. “Jesus. You are telling me your best friend slept with your husband?”

She nodded, and angled her body away, so that she could stare out at the ocean. Every thing seemed to still, as feeling enveloped them in its folds. “I found them in our bed together. The day I met you. I went straight from that particularly unpalatable scene to the airport. And I booked onto the first flight I could find with every intention of drinking myself into oblivion so that I didn’t have to remember what it was like to see my husband screwing a woman I’ve grown up with.”

“Saphire,” he groaned, positioning himself into her line of sight. He studied her with an increasing sense of worry. She was miserable. And he should have known. He should have read her vulnerability and pushed her to disclose its root. “I wish you had told me.”

Her lips twisted into a smile, though it was eerily humorless. “You were meant to be a stupid one night stand. Revenge sex.”

“Revenge sex?”

She nodded. “Stupid, idiot me decided that the only way I could ever go back to him and forgive him was if I did something just as horrible to him. Don’t you see that? It has a crazy kind of logic to it. I wanted to hurt him, Thad. I wanted to rip his heart out and stomp all over it.”

Thaddeus’s own heart was being shredded by her words. “So you planned to fuck me until you felt like you’d leveled the score, and then you were going to go back to him.”

She flinched at his harsh curse. “I’m not proud of it. I’m so not proud.” She sobbed again. “By the time you and I had gone beyond just stupid sex it was too late. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

He dragged a hand through his thick hair and stared at a point in the distance. “You were going to leave now and go back to him?”

Her shoulders were tiny as they shrugged her confusion. “This was a fantasy. Nothing more. That’s my real life. And I have to go back. I have to go back and face the music at some point.”

Thaddeus stared at her long and hard. “Is it the life you want?”

A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto her breast. Another followed but Thad caught it with his fingertip.

“What I want is for my husband to have not cheated with my best friend. What I want is to have not met you two months after I married him. What I want is to have realized sooner what a douche he is, and not to have wasted more than ten years of my life devoted to him.”

“Ten years?” Thad stared at her in disbelief. “He’s your only other lover. This moronic idiot who has left you for your best friend?”

“He hasn’t left me for her,” Saphire corrected automatically. “He claims to love me. To want me back.”

No. I won’t allow it. He strangled the words with a shake of his head. “I cannot believe you’re even thinking about that.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you.” And now her breath was almost impossible to catch; tears had given way to full-blown hyperventilating. “You were meant to be the guy I used! This was supposed to be simple. And now I feel like I’ve cheated on you. I feel like I’m cheating on you with my husband, and not the other way around. I don’t know what to do, but I know I can’t leave him. I can’t give up on him because of one stupid mistake.”

“You don’t know it was only one mistake!” He retorted with undisguised fury.

“I know.” She was dizzy. She wanted to reach out to him for support but she’d lost that privilege. She was alone. This was her mess to tidy. “I can’t just quit my marriage.”

“For God’s sake, Saphire, you’ve spent ten years with this prick and I’ll bet you any sum of money that he was cheating on you most of that time. No one could accuse you of quitting. Being obtuse, perhaps,” he tacked on scathingly.

And before she could guess his intentions, he bent down and scooped her up, carrying her tight against his chest.

“What are you doing?” She whispered against his ear, her arms wrapped around his neck.

“You’re not leaving me,” he muttered. “Not now, and not for him.”

“Don’t. You must hate me,” she whispered.

“Must I?” He stared resolutely ahead. Mustn’t he?

Her body was shifting with the force of her sobs, but she was silent. He shouldered the door and carried her upstairs, as he had done that first night. Had he already loved her then? He had fallen under her spell, without a doubt.

He moved to the room they’d shared and placed her on top of the bed. She was pale, her eyes red-rimmed, her lips swollen.

“You are not leaving me.”

Her blue eyes were enormous as they stared up at him. “He’s my husband,” she moaned, but her heart was begging her to reach for Thad.

“Fine. He is your husband.” Inside of Thad, something important died a little. “But you agreed to stay with me for the rest of the week. So stay.”

She shook her head. “It’s not right. Not to you. And not to me. Now that you know, surely you can’t still want to do this.”

He brought his body to straddle hers, and he trapped her wrists against the mattress. “Damn it, you know I do.” He lowered his mouth to hers. But he didn’t kiss her. He pulled her lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it just hard enough to make her startle up to his chest. Her heart was hammering.

“This is a mess.”

“Yeah,” he kissed her hard on the lips. “It is.”  He pushed at the blue shirt, lifting it off her head so that his hands could cup her breasts. There were red marks between the orbs, and down her chest. The wax had done that, and it brought Thaddeus pleasure in that moment to see her marked so clearly by their lovemaking.

“You are mine. Not his.”

“I’m not anyone’s,” she insisted, but her body was silently chastising her for the lie.

“You are mine,” he disagreed, and to prove his point he lowered his mouth to her nipple and began to flick it with his tongue. “You wanted to screw away the pain? You wanted to cheat on him so much it no longer mattered to you that he’s had an affair?”

She nodded, but the plan seemed utterly juvenile, particularly in light of the pain that had already been wrought.

“Did you know, Mrs Arana, that I could bring you to orgasm just by doing this?” And he spun her nipple with his tongue while his fingers teased the other. Her stomach was doing flips and flops and she could feel a fever breaking out on her brow.

“Don’t call me that,” she whimpered, her voice fragile from the sensations he was crashing over her body.

“You don’t like it? You do not want to be reminded that you are married?”

“Not by you,” she groaned as her whole body began to quiver and tremble.

His mouth was moist and warm and her body was over-sensitized. She felt the waves of pleasure building and she moved her hands to his pants, desperate to feel him take possession of her once more.

But he shook his head. “Not now. Tonight.”

And it felt, at that early hour of the day, as though he’d asked her to wait a year. She shook her head and pulled at his hips, holding him close to her.

“I have a friend to get rid of,” he muttered, wondering what Rocco would make of Thaddeus’s acceptance of this situation.

He ran his fingers down her naked chest, tracing each wax mark, and then he brought his lips back to her breasts. “Have you thought of him while we’ve been together?”

Saphire shook her head. “Never.”

“Have you slept with me but wished it was him?”

“No!” She shouted, digging her fingers into his shoulders. It was life-savingly imperative that he believed her. “Never. I wanted to hurt him at first. But then it was you and me. Nothing else mattered.”

“You were never at liberty to make that decision,” he ground out. “Did it occur to you, Saphire, that I might not like being pulled into the middle of your marital issues? That I may not relish playing the part you have cast me in?”

“Yes,” she said simply, but guilt made her flush. “But by then it was too late. I didn’t even want to know your name. I didn’t want your number. I thought …” the word trailed off as he rolled his hips again and the pressure from his erection began to send her tipping over the edge of control. She cried out and wrapped her legs around his waist, as wave after wave crashed against her. She was panting; she was exhausted. He held her, waiting for madness to give way to truth. His whole sense of the world no longer made sense.

“What did you think?” He asked, standing almost coldly and neatening his clothes.

She swallowed, searching for words. But everything was a mad jumble. “I thought we could sleep together and then I would leave. I didn’t imagine it would be like this. You weren’t supposed to bring me to your private island. You weren’t supposed to make me feel … to make me feel … anything!”

He stared down at her, his face a mask of fury and pain. “I want you to stay.”

“Why?” She whispered, pressing her hands into her eyes so that she didn’t have to see his accusation and hurt.

“Because I am not ready to let you go yet.” His eyes were filled with cold cynicism. “Because you owe it to me to stay. And because you want to.”

 

* * *

 

“You’re working?” She murmured, lifting her glance to the clock in the hallway. It was after midnight.

He made a noise of agreement. “I have been neglecting matters for too long.” He didn’t lift his eyes from his computer. “It’s time to get back to reality.”

Saphire stood on the threshold to his study, feeling decidedly unwelcome. She’d agreed to stay, and then she hadn’t seen him for the rest of the day. She felt like a chastised schoolgirl, not sure how to behave, nor what she should do.

“He’s gone?”

Thad didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Rocco will be back in Rome by now.”

Good, she thought bitterly, still outraged that anyone would think it was acceptable to undertake something as devious as a background check on a woman they didn’t know.

“Do you want a coffee? A tea? A scotch?” Me?

“Nothing,” he grunted again, frowning as he scrolled down the spreadsheet.

Saphire bit on her lip and nodded. Something had shifted between them; something enormous. It wasn’t a surprise. Only an idiot would have hoped their relationship wouldn’t have been affected by the revelation of her marriage.

But she hadn’t been prepared for this. How could she brace for the effect his coldness would have on her? It was like going from a perfect spot in front of a raging fire and out into a blizzard.

“Okay,” she said softly, staring at his face and committing it to memory. When the week was over, she would leave, and they would never speak again. It was essential that she prepare for that.

She moved quietly from the room and down the hallway, towards the enormous kitchen. She knew by now that in addition to the housekeeper there were two chefs, a gardener, and a general helper, who ran the mansion.

No one was in the kitchen at that hour though, so she was free to flick the kettle on and stare broodingly at it while it boiled.

What did her husband think? Was he worried about her? Did he believe she might never come home? Did she care?

The kettle began to hum; she flicked it off impatiently and sloshed some boiling water over a peppermint tea bag.

She moved to her handbag on autopilot and lifted her phone from the inside pocket. It was off, as it had been since she’d last spoken to Jordan. She carried it with her through to the balcony and curled up on a large chair. The moon was full, bathing the black ocean in a milky light. It sent little beads of fairy cotton dancing up towards the heavens and despite the darkness of her mood, pleasure punctuated her mind. She placed her tea carefully on the armrest of the chair, then stared at her phone as though it were a snake, poised to bite her.

She couldn’t ignore reality forever. Thad had certainly decided to wade out of the fog of their romance, and perhaps it was time she did too.

With one deft movement she flicked her phone to life and stared at the screen.

It beeped frantically in response.

Text message after text message crammed in, and then a little phone icon flashed to indicate voice mails.

It was too much. She lifted her tea and sipped it, almost relishing the feeling of pain as it burned her throat going down.

Then, fortified, she clicked into the first text.

Why won’t you answer your damned phone!!!! You can’t ignore me, Saffy. Not forever.

Ten minutes later, the following had arrived: What do you want me to say? How many times do I have to apologize?

And at almost the same moment: Saphire, you’ve been my best friend for as long as I can remember. I am going through hell, and you’re the only person I can speak to, yet I can’t speak to you. Please, please, please call me. Love A.x

Saphire rolled her eyes. It was so like Anita to make this debacle about her, and yet Saphire had never realized how naturally selfish she was until then.

Darling, your husband says you’re not well. I’m worried. Call me. Mum.

I told your parents you’ve got a stomach bug and that you’re too sick to talk.. They don’t deserve to be put through hell with worry because you’re pissed at me.

Saffy, I married you because I love you. You are the woman I want by my side. You are the woman I want to have children with. You are the woman I want to grow old with. So I slept with someone else. Are you really going to let that ruin everything we’ve got??

I AM SORRY, OKAY????

 

He was sorry.

She got it.

But sorry for what? For cheating? For having her catch him?

How long had it been going on? How many times had they been together? Had Saphire climbed into bed, weary after a long day, and curled up on the same pillow Anita had buried her face into to soften her passion-fuelled screams?

There could be no forgiveness. Not without more information. And even then … could she be foolish enough to trust him enough? Or was she willing to accept that theirs was far from a perfect marriage but that she could make it work anyway?

Could she face the prospect of divorce, knowing that her parents would be proven right and their friends would be forced to choose between them? Could she divorce him and face life as what that made her? A divorcee at twenty-six, no job, no prospects of a job, living off alimony from a rich husband and money from her parents?

And could she leave Thaddeus?

It made her feel sick.

In that moment, Saphire despised herself, and her life. It yawned before, a chasm of boredom and pointlessness, a future she dreaded the very idea of stepping into.

“Nice view, Mrs Arana?”

She startled and spun around, her eyes showing a deep inner turmoil. He saw, he cared, but he didn’t visibly soften.

“I told you,” she said, turning back to the ocean. “Don’t call me that.”

He stayed where he was, reclined against the door with the appearance of nonchalance. “It is who you are.”

She gripped her phone in her hand, and the gesture called his attention to the device. He narrowed his eyes, prowling towards her. “Are you speaking with him?”

She lifted sad eyes to his face. He had been right about something. He shouldn’t have been dragged into the middle of her marriage. She was pouring misery onto him; and she had no business to do so.

“No,” she said simply. She held her phone out, silently inviting him to check for himself. She had no concerns about privacy; she didn’t want to keep any of the mess a secret from him. But Thaddeus brushed the gesture aside.

“I am not going to read your communications,” he said coldly, his tone making it obvious how beneath him such an invasive gesture would be. “What you and I were was founded on a lie, yet I believe you now. I have to believe you. I cannot continue if I think you capable of deceiving me with your every breath.”

“I’m not,” she promised desperately. “I’m so messed up though, MK. I don’t know what I should do. I don’t even know who I am anymore.” She sipped her tea again, for something to do, and lifted her knees to her chest. She rested her chin on them and sighed. “Jordan — that’s my husband — is one of these people who just radiates confidence.”

He stiffened. Did he want to hear about this bastard? No, and yet, morbid curiosity kept him fixed to the spot.

“There can only be one person like that in a relationship. He shone and I admired.” She shook her head. “I adored. He led, I followed. And now? I don’t know how to be that woman anymore.”

Thad turned his back on her. His chest was heaving with the effort of his harsh breaths. “You should never have been that woman,” he commented with acidity a minute later. “You are no wallflower. And someone who loved you would have pushed you to follow your own dreams without feeling any success of yours would diminish theirs.”

“He didn’t make me like this,” she defended out of habit.

“That’s naïve. Of course he did. You don’t think it suited him to have a beautiful, obedient, loving girlfriend and wife? You don’t think he got off on knowing that you were sitting at home waiting for him while he screwed his receptionist, his accountant, your best friend and God knows who else?” She physically recoiled from his hateful words. “You do not believe it suited him to have you with no job of your own to distract you and engulf you, no friends he did not know?”

“You make it sound like he was abusive,” she snapped, her teeth chattering despite the warmth of the night.

“It is abuse,” he agreed grimly. “He married you knowing he would never uphold his end of the bargain.”

“Yeah, he cheated,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

“I am not referring to his infidelity. That’s just one piece of a much bigger picture. He doesn’t love you. He might love something about you, but it is a selfish love.”

“How do you know?” She demanded. “You don’t know him.”

“But I know you,” he spun around and crouched before her. “I know you.” He put his hands on her hips and stared into her eyes. She felt like he was peeling back the layers of her soul one by one. She was vulnerable and scared. “I know that you deserve a man who puts you ahead of everyone and everything else, including himself.”

“That’s not realistic. I don’t think a man like that exists.”

“How would you know?” He murmured. “You’ve been with this guy since you were a child. Lots of men would be a better husband to you in this way.”

“Oh, like you, I suppose?” She snapped, moving to stand up. But he held her where she was. His eyes were wary.

“I never promised you more than this week,” he said finally, and Saphire was surprised to learn, even then, that she wasn’t yet done hurting. Her heart pinged painfully as his words shook through her.

“No,” she agreed slowly. “That’s true.”

“But you deserve better than this guy.”

“Maybe.” She angled her head to look out to the ocean. “But I married him. I can’t just wave a magic wand and put an end to that.”

“But you can call a lawyer and begin divorce proceedings.”

She let the sentence sink in, and she stowed the words somewhere in the recesses of her brain. Then she shook her head. “You make it sound as easy as ordering pizza.”

“Yes, I do. Because there is no alternative. You cannot stay with him, Saphire. He will continue to treat you like a doormat, and you will continue to be hurt by him. And one day, you will wake up with your life half gone, and wonder why you didn’t have the courage to walk away at the first sign of his character.”

“He’s my husband,” she said quietly, squeezing her eyes shut against the feeling of nausea that battered her sides.

“And yet you beg me not to call you Mrs Arana,” he said softly.

It was misery; there was no escape.

“Come to bed, Mrs Arana.”