The Millionaire's Christmas Wife. HELEN BROOKS

I have.’ She marvelled at the calmness of her voice, considering how she was trembling inside. ‘I’m no longer the foolish young woman who married you. Who believed you when you said we’d grow old together, have children, grandchildren…’

      ‘You were never foolish, Miriam,’ he said quietly. ‘Wary, unsure—just how unsure I’ve only come to appreciate in the last months. I thought when I gave you the space you said you needed you’d work things out for yourself but I hadn’t bargained for how deep the hurt over your father had gone. You don’t trust men, do you? Any men. Not even me.’

      Especially not you. Her chin rose. ‘In other words our separation is all my fault? You’re whiter than white, I suppose?’

      ‘I’ve never been whiter than white.’ He smiled ruefully.

      Miriam stared at him, wondering how he could smile when her body was so tense it hurt. I can’t deal with this, she thought suddenly. I need to leave. I have to get out before I make a fool of myself.

      As the thought hit the waiter reappeared like a genie out of a bottle. ‘If you would care to follow me, your table is ready,’ he said smoothly, whisking their halffinished drinks onto the small round tray he was carrying and then preceding them out of the lounge and into the main restaurant.

      Miriam had no choice but to follow as Jay stood to his feet and took her arm. She glanced at him, trying to read his expression, but his face was wearing the cool, remote mask he could adopt at will. He obviously didn’t want her to know what he was feeling.

      Once seated at a table for two, Miriam glanced round the glittering room. It was elegant and chic, the quiet hum of conversation from the assembled diners and the light, easy music from the quartet in a corner of the restaurant making a pleasant background to a meal.

      Jay’s eyes were tight on her when her gaze came to rest on him. ‘I’ve missed evenings with you like this,’ he murmured softly. ‘Along with evenings at home, of course, Sunday mornings in bed with the papers, waking up together, walks on the heath—’

      ‘Don’t, Jay.’

      ‘Why?’ He swallowed the last of his cocktail. ‘It’s the truth, and if I can’t say it to my wife, who can I say it to?’

      ‘Your current girlfriend?’ Miriam suggested, as much to see his reaction as anything else.

      ‘I don’t have a girlfriend, Miriam.’ Jay’s smile said he knew what she was about. ‘I’m married, remember?’

      ‘It’s not me who has forgotten that.’

      The wine waiter appeared with the bottle Jay had ordered for the table. After Jay had given his approval to what turned out to be a richly flavoured red, the waiter poured a little wine into each of their glasses and then glided away.

      Miriam had used the time to remind herself that she couldn’t afford to let Jay see he could get under her skin. She had to remain aloof and composed; it was her only armour against his quick mind and charm.

      ‘Relax, Miriam.’

      His next words tested her resolve. Flushing, she forced herself to speak calmly when she said, ‘I am relaxed.’

      Before she was aware of it he had reached across the table and taken her cold hand in his, so close she could scent his male warmth. Straightening her fingers, which she only now realised had been clenched tight, he gently stroked her flesh. Tingles shot up her arm but she willed herself to remain perfectly still as he whispered, ‘Such soft, silky skin.’

      She wanted to tell him that he didn’t have the right to touch her whenever he liked, not any more. He had relinquished that last Christmas, but although the words were there she couldn’t get them past the lump in her dry throat.

      The tawny-gold eyes continued to search her face as the silence grew. Somehow Miriam managed to break their hold and turn her face away but Jay wouldn’t let her fingers go so easily. She still didn’t say anything, basically because she couldn’t. His touch was invoking so many memories, memories she had locked away and kept buried for ten long months.

      ‘Talk to me,’ he murmured huskily. ‘We have to talk, you must see that? We used to be able to say anything to each other.’

      She almost lost control at that moment. Pain and anger swept through her in equal measure and if they had been anywhere else she would have let them have free rein. How dared he remind her of how they had been, she thought with blind agony. When they had lived together they’d shared every thought, every problem, sometimes talking half the night away. He had been her rock, her fortress, and she supposed she had set him on some sort of pedestal in her heart, which had made it all the harder when she had had to face the fact that her idol had feet of clay.

      Easing the air past the constriction in her throat, she pulled her hand away. She was trembling and she prayed he couldn’t see it. ‘I don’t know what you want from me, Jay, but whatever it is, it’s no good. When I said it was over I meant it.’

      ‘I don’t believe that.’ He leaned back in his seat once more but didn’t take his gaze from her face. ‘I will never believe it.’

      ‘Whether you believe it or not doesn’t really matter.’ Her voice was calm but part of her was dying inside. It felt as though the pain and trauma of the night she’d seen him with Belinda was just as acute.

      She had been crazy to agree to see him like this, she told herself feverishly. She should have let the legal system take charge. She knew from her experiences through her work that once the machine began grinding little could stop it. Sentiment and emotion became lost under mountains of paperwork and the phrases the solicitors and legal experts did so well. Cold, clinical words that dissected and separated two lives with the minimum of feeling and fuss.

      ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ There was a touch of incredulity in his voice now. ‘You’re actually going to let that spiteful woman accomplish what she intended. Can’t you see she wanted to come between us all along?’

      ‘Of course I see that,’ she bit back; she’d never imagined anything else. Just because Belinda had set her sights on him that didn’t excuse what he’d done, though.

      ‘And you’re going to let her win?’

      ‘This is not a game, Jay.’

      ‘You’re damn right it’s not.’ His voice was not loud but edged with fury.

      ‘I’m glad we agree on something.’ Her words were clipped, tight.

      For a moment she thought he was going to stand up and grab her and march out of the restaurant, but as she watched she saw him breathe in and out and take control of the anger that had etched itself into the handsome features. Slowly the mask settled into place. It was an abject lesson on the amazing will of the man.

      When he next spoke his voice was low and quiet. ‘I love you. Do you still love me?’

      Her eyes enormous, she stared at him. It was the last thing she had expected him to say.

      ‘Do you, Miriam?’

      For the first time since she had met him Miriam realised what had made him so powerful and formidable in business. She knew he had a reputation for ruthlessness but he had never been that way with her, not for a moment. But now the big-cat eyes were unblinking and predatory as they scoured her white face, looking for a chink in her armour, for any sign of weakness. Somehow she managed to lie. ‘No,’ she said.

      Even to herself she didn’t sound very convincing.

      His expression remained impassive but she thought she saw something in his eyes, a glimmer of reaction, but she couldn’t be sure. Nervously she reached for her cocktail and finished it to give her hands something to do, glancing across the beautiful room and wondering if anyone else felt as wretched as she did.

      ‘I’ll give you your divorce—I’ll even make it nice and easy for you—on one condition,’