The Magnate's Tempestuous Marriage. Miranda Lee

he’d been stunned over her being a virgin. But not displeased. In fact, he’d seemed quite taken by the idea, confessing that he’d never been with a virgin before.

      Soon, she hadn’t been able to get enough of his big, strong body and his passionate but still considerate lovemaking. She’d adored how safe she always felt in his arms. How truly loved. Feeling truly loved was just as important to Sarah as the physical pleasure she experienced in bed with Scott.

      Or so she’d believed, till last Friday night...

      ‘Don’t think about that night any more, Sarah,’ she lectured herself aloud. ‘You’ll go mad if you do.’

      Shaking herself violently, Sarah went in search of her handbag and car keys. Ten minutes later she was heading across the harbour bridge, making a list in her head of what she had to collect from the apartment. Work clothes, of course. She couldn’t call in sick every day. Neither could she go in there wearing the jeans she’d worn all weekend, or one of Cory’s track suits, which was what she was wearing today. She needed toiletries too, of course. And the rest of her make-up. After her argument with Scott last Saturday morning she’d bolted out of the apartment with nothing much. Her going-out clothes could wait till another day, she decided. Sarah couldn’t see herself going out much in the near future.

      But what if there wasn’t another day? What if Scott threw her out and changed the locks? It was the sort of thing her husband might do. He was not a man who took kindly to being crossed, let alone betrayed. As much as she hated to admit it, those photos had made her look as if she were having an affair with Phil.

      No, she would have to collect all of her things today whilst she had the chance.

      Sarah took the exit that would lead her down to McMahon’s Point, her attempts at a more pragmatic mood disappearing with the sight of the tall block of harbourside apartments that she’d called home for the last year. A happy home, she’d thought, despite Scott’s many absences. She did understand that he’d been facing business difficulties during the last few months, with the mining industry not doing well, metal prices at an all-time low. His frequent business trips still irked her, however. But his returns were always extra joyful, last Friday night even more so after what she’d been through that day. She’d woken last Saturday morning with a delicious smile on her face.

      Of course, at the time, she’d still been ignorant of the true reason behind Scott’s insatiable sexual appetite. And whilst the memory of some of his demands was slightly shocking, she’d also been secretly thrilled that at last she’d taken a less passive role in their sex life. On top of that, if she was brutally honest, she’d found her husband’s highly erotic lovemaking wildly exciting and extremely satisfying, her many orgasms addictively powerful. So she’d dressed and gone in search of Scott the next morning, already turned on by the thought that they would have the whole weekend together.

      She hadn’t been turned on for long...

      Sarah groaned, annoyed with herself for revisiting that painful encounter one more self-destructive time.

      ‘What a bastard,’ she muttered angrily as she drove down the ramp that led to the underground car park, stopping at the bottom to swipe her key card through the machine so that the security gate would rise. It was annoyingly slow, but at last she could drive through. Despite telling Cory confidently that Scott would be at work, she was still relieved to see that his car space was empty. She parked her red hatchback into her own allotted spot, locked it up then hurried over to the bank of lifts that would carry her up to the luxury high-rise apartment that Scott had bought a week before their wedding. Clearly, he’d wanted to impress his new bride. And he had.

      It wasn’t the penthouse. But it was only one floor down from the top and was simply huge, its wide wraparound balconies having views to die for. The plate-glass window in the main living room formed a perfect frame for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with the Opera House underneath it in the distance. The same view applied to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the master bedroom. At night, it all looked magnificent.

      There were two guest bedrooms aside from the master suite, each with their own en-suite bathroom. Add to this two formal receptions rooms, a home theatre, another powder room, a gym and a kitchen that was large enough to satisfy the caterers Sarah employed whenever they had a dinner party. Which up till now was at least once a month. Sarah could cook but cooking several courses for a large number of guests—their dinner table seated twelve—and trying to play hostess at the same time was beyond her.

      After letting herself into the apartment Sarah stood in the spacious marble-floored foyer for a long moment, remembering how impressed she’d been when she’d first seen this place. Despite not having been brought up poor—Sarah came from a middle-class upbringing—she’d been overawed by the size of the rooms, the expensive fittings, the elegant imported furniture. She hadn’t wanted to change a thing.

      Sarah made her way down the carpeted hallway to the master suite. As she entered what had once been her favourite area in the house Sarah kept her eyes averted from the neatly made king-sized bed, trying desperately not to think of how it had looked last Saturday morning with its tangled oil-stained sheets, not to mention the long blue chiffon scarf that had been draped haphazardly over the black lacquered bedhead. But despite her best efforts, Sarah did think about it, her mouth drying at the memory of how turned on she’d been by Scott binding her wrists like that; how he’d poured body lotion all over her and proceeded to show her exactly how much he knew about a woman’s secret fantasies. When he’d flipped her over and poured more lotion over her entire back, she hadn’t protested. Just pleaded for him not to stop.

      And he hadn’t...

      Oh, God.

      Must not cry over last Friday night any more, she told herself sternly. Just get all your things and go!

      Sarah hurried on across the thick cream carpet and into her walk-in wardrobe, where she pulled down the two large cases that they’d taken on honeymoon to Hawaii. She’d been happy then. Very happy. Scott had seemed happy, too.

      Maybe that had all been an illusion. Maybe he’d always been a bit bored with her in bed. Sarah imagined most rich men eventually got bored with their trophy wives, which was why they traded them in for newer models a lot, or took mistresses, women who did even more kinky things than what she’d done with Scott last Friday night. Maybe those rumours about Scott and Cleo were right after all.

      No—no. She refused to believe that. She hadn’t really believed it then and she didn’t believe it now!

      Well, if you didn’t believe it, why did you rush into the hotel bathroom and throw up when the investigator said there was not a shred of evidence of Scott and Cleo having an affair?

      The truth was, at the back of her mind, where old tapes from the past were stored, she had believed it. Of course she had. She was programmed to believe that most husbands were cheaters, and their silly wives forgave them much too often. It haunted Sarah to think what she would have done if the investigator had said the opposite. That yes, Scott was having an affair with Cleo. Would she have confronted him? Would she have left him? Was she actually leaving Scott now?

      Perversely, the question of her forgiving him would probably never arise. Clearly, her husband believed she’d been unfaithful. More than likely, he would want a divorce. If there was one thing Sarah knew about Scott it was his black-and-white thinking. It was both his strength, and his weakness. Whilst she’d always admired his straight-down-the-line character, plus his total adherence to honesty and integrity, Scott could be slightly one-eyed over things. There was no grey in his thinking. Forgiveness would not come easily to Scott, not if he thought he’d been wronged. And he believed she’d wronged him.

      Pushing aside this distressing train of thought, Sarah turned to begin taking some clothes off their hangers when she suddenly caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the back wall of the walk-in wardrobe. Dear God, but she looked a fright. Her hair was awful, having not been washed properly in days. The need to recondition her straw-like locks with her own lovely products suddenly became a necessity. It wasn’t as though Scott was going to come home unexpectedly and