Lovers Not Friends. Helen Brooks

market cross and thirteenth-century church, and up the steep one-in-four hill on the other side that the powerful car took completely in its stride. He didn’t speak again, concentrating on the narrow twisting road contained within old stone walls that were as ancient as time. After long taut minutes she risked a glance under her eyelashes at the harsh, handsome profile, her stomach tightening as she took in the clear tanned skin, straight nose and heavy shock of burnished brown hair. His face had been etched in her mind with painful clarity for the first few days after she had left, but it had been three months now and the image had begun to fade. She loved him, how she loved him, she would never stop loving him—

      ‘Right, now we’ll have it all.’ He swung the car off the road into a small gateway that looked across a huge backcloth of walled green fields, scattered farmhouses and rolling undulating hills that seemed to stretch into infinity. ‘And I do mean all, Amy, and a word of caution.’ He turned in his seat and took her chin in his hand, drawing her face round so that her eyes met the stony hardness of his. ‘If you lie to me and I find out, I’ll make you regret the day you were born. I want the truth, however unpalatable. Do you understand?’

      Yes, she understood all right, she thought miserably as her heart pounded with fear. But the truth was the one thing she could never give him. She couldn’t bear to see the knowledge dawn on that loved face of what the future would hold, the pity, the despair he would feel for her, the desperation to put things right that were for once totally out of his control. And then the waiting for the monstrous thing to happen. No. She had been right to leave and now, somehow, she had to cement the break into place. But how could she begin? How could she look him in the face and tell him she didn’t love him, without him guessing it was a lie?

      ‘If it helps you start, I know about John Davies.’ The cold voice at her side was now quite expressionless, and he turned to stare out of the windscreen into the world beyond lit with sunshine. ‘The private detective I hired to find you also found out about your “friend”. Unfortunately he wasn’t there when I called,’ he finished grimly.

      ‘You went to John’s house?’ she asked faintly. ‘But why—’

      ‘Don’t give me that, Amy!’ He turned with such savagery that her stomach lurched into her mouth. ‘How long have you known him? When did it start?’

      ‘Start?’ She heard him literally grind his teeth in his rage, and forced her mind into gear. He thought she had left him for John? Sweet, uncomplicated John who had been her friend for years?

      ‘I remember his name from the wedding invitation list.’ Blade’s voice was as hard as stone. ‘But he didn’t come. Now I understand why.’

      ‘He didn’t come because he’s been in Spain for the last three years,’ she said tightly. ‘He’s—’

      ‘Dead when I get hold of him,’ Blade finished grimly.

      ‘John has nothing to do with this.’ She found she was wringing her hands in her anguish and forced them into tight fists in her lap. ‘He sent me a postcard a few months ago with his new address to say he was back in England, and when I left it was the only place I could think of to go. I didn’t even stay a night with him. He put me in touch with a lady in the village who takes in the occasional guest—’

      ‘Mrs Cox,’ Blade stated stonily. ‘Yes, I know. I also know that you see him on a pretty regular basis, so do us both a favour and cut the bull, Amy.’

      She stared at him helplessly as her mind flew on. Maybe she should let him think she had left him for John? She felt his impatient movement at her side, and turned quickly to speak. The note she had left had stated only that she considered their marriage had been a terrible mistake and that she had decided, unequivocally, that it was over. That she wanted no settlement, nothing from him, and that divorce proceedings would start immediately. He was a fiercely proud, implacable man. If he thought she had left him for a lover, that knock to his male ego would be unspeakable and final. And this had to be final.

      ‘My relationship with John is nothing to do with you,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t—’

      ‘The hell it isn’t!’ he ground out through closed teeth as he studied her set face with harsh black eyes. ‘You took me for one hell of a ride, sweetheart, and no one, no one, does that. When I get hold of him …’ His voice stopped but the look on his dark face was lethal.

      ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said, with as much calm as she could muster through the racing fury of her heart-beat. ‘Hurting John won’t do any good, I’ll never come back—’

      ‘You’ll never get the chance,’ he interrupted brutally. ‘You’re soiled merchandise and I only have the best.’ She knew he was lashing out through his own hurt, but hearing him speak like this was agonising. After all they’d shared, all the dreams for the future … ‘By the time I’ve finished with him no other woman will want him, that much I promise you.’

      ‘Blade—’ She caught herself abruptly. What could she say now? The hole was getting deeper and deeper, but she couldn’t let John take the brunt of this when all he had done was to offer comfort and refuge. ‘John is a friend, nothing more.’

      ‘Sure he is.’ He opened the car door abruptly and stepped out on to the springy coarse grass beyond. ‘I need some fresh air, something stinks in there.’

      ‘I mean it, Blade.’ She sprang out of the car, her voice desperate now. ‘Please listen to me.’

      ‘Listen to you?’ He swung round with such ferocity that she shrank back against the comforting bulk of the car, her eyes wide with fear. ‘Listen to you? Honey, you’re garbage plain and simple. You think lover-boy is in for a good hiding? How right you are.’ The black eyes were narrowed onyx slits. ‘And there hasn’t been a day in the last three months when I haven’t wished you were a man so I could exact the same punishment on you personally. But—’ he surveyed her with a bitter smile ‘—there are more ways than one to skin a rat.’

      ‘Blade—’ Her breath caught in her throat and she almost choked with fear. ‘Can’t you just give me a divorce and leave it at that—?’

      ‘You’ll get your divorce.’ A pair of rooks suddenly swooped down over their heads from a large oak tree at the side of the road, their harsh, raucous cry fitting the moment perfectly, and as Blade’s eyes followed the birds she flinched at the bleakness of his profile. But she had to do this. She had no other choice. This might hurt now, but if she stayed with him it would destroy him in the end. She had no other choice.

      ‘Why, Amy?’ As he turned to confront her, it was the Blade she had been dreading through long restless nights of tossing and turning and tormented dreams. In his face was a glimpse of the Blade only she had known, vulnerable, assailable, with a capacity for tenderness that was unlimited. She could cope with the fierce hostile stranger breathing fire and damnation, but not this, never this. ‘What went wrong? I thought everything was so—’ He stopped suddenly, turning in one harsh movement to stare out over the hills again, his hands clenched fists in his pockets. ‘But I didn’t know you, did I? It was all make-believe, all of it.’

      Oh, my darling. As she looked at the back of his head, the sunlight turning the burnished brown gold, she knew she was experiencing the worst that could ever happen to her. The future, with its promise of a living nightmare, was nothing compared to the piercing agony that was gripping her soul in a stranglehold, killing every spark of joy, every good thing. She would exist from this day but she wouldn’t really be alive. But she loved him too much to take him with her into the pit. This way he could recover and live his life. And he would recover. He was a survivor. He’d forget her in time and there would be countless women only too ready to help him.

      Her eyes were dry. This pain was too deep for tears, and she turned blindly to look at a tiny farmhouse far in the distance from which a plume of smoke was slowly rising into the blue sky. ‘It was just one of those things,’ she said slowly as she forced the words out through stiff lips. ‘Life’s like that …’

      ‘Amy?’ She hadn’t been aware that he