The Proud Wife. Kate Walker

his teeth against the impact of the memory.

      ‘She’s here at last,’ he said to Matteo, meaning to turn away from the window and step back into the room. But as he spoke the back door of the taxi opened and the woman stepped out on to the pavement.

      ‘She’s here,’ he said again on a very different note. As he spoke, the woman—Marina—suddenly looked up as if she had caught the words from across the street, staring straight at him; their focused gazes locked and held.

      Even from this distance he could see how her vivid green gaze widened and fixed on him. There was no mistaking the way her back stiffened, her head coming up, her chin lifting. There was defiance in every voluptuous inch of her and she held a document case against her body like some powerful shield used to deflect the power of any opposing force.

      It was the first time in two years that he had seen her and it hit him with a sense of shock that she was so much the same, totally unchanged—yet somehow totally different, alien and distant from him. And not just because of the barrier of the glass between them.

      Another second passed, two, the space of a single heavy heartbeat; their eyes held. It seemed that his breath had died, freezing in his lungs so that he was completely still, not even blinking once. But then another car roared past, spraying puddles everywhere. Marina stepped back hastily and the spell was broken.

      A moment later she was hurrying across the road, head down, long legs covering the space quickly, feet in neat black-patent shoes dancing between the puddles. He expected that she would put up the document case to protect her hair but instead she still held it close to her side. But then Marina had always loved the rain.

      A sudden vivid image flashed into his head—that of Marina dancing in the rain, her wild hair hanging loose over her shoulders, spinning round her face as she turned. She had been so alive, so full of fun. So beautiful. She had laughed in his face when he had told her to come indoors because she was getting a soaking.

      ‘It’s warm rain compared to the stuff in England,’ she had declared. ‘And I’m not going to melt because of a few drops of water!’

      When he had ventured out into the downpour to bring her back inside, she had caught hold of his hands and held him there, forcing him to dance with her too until they had both been soaked to the skin. Only then had she let him sweep her off her feet and up into his arms. He had carried her into the palazzo and up to their bedroom, where he had taken his revenge for his drenching in the most satisfying and sensual way possible.

      ‘Dannazione!’ Pietro muttered under his breath, cursing himself and his memories as he took a grip on his thoughts and got them back under his control. With a rough movement, he turned away from the window, focusing his attention back into the room and onto the battle that was to come.

      Now was not the time for sentimental memories, for recalling flashes of time when he had deluded himself that he was happy. When he had thought that the white-hot burn of passion he felt for Marina was actually love and not something far more basic, far more unmanageable.

      Passion had tumbled him into bed with Marina without thought, and the result of that passion had pushed him into a premature proposal of marriage in order to keep her there. To have and to hold. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of her being with any other man, and had seen her unexpected pregnancy as an excuse for putting a ring on her finger to ensure she stayed with him.

      Then he hadn’t been able to anticipate that there might be a day when he would decide that it was time to let her go. That he would see they no longer had a future together and that the fragile foundations on which their marriage had been built had crumbled to pieces under their feet. He would have laughed in the face of anyone who had told him that such a day would come. Yet now here he was, just waiting for her to sign the papers so that they could draw a line under the mess they had made of things.

      The sound of the lift coming to a halt, its metal doors sliding open, alerted him to the fact that she was here. Any moment now his estranged wife was going to walk through that door and …

      ‘Marina …!’

      With a struggle he caught back the exclamation, the way that her name almost escaped him. Even though he’d prepared himself for it, the moment she actually appeared in the room still managed to take his breath away. It was as if some force of nature, a blaze of sunlight or a wild whirling wind, had come in through the doorway, freshening and changing the atmosphere in the office.

      She looked sensational. The metallic-toned trenchcoat she wore was belted tightly at her waist, emphasising the slenderness there in contrast to the curves of her hips, the full breasts that pushed against the dampened fabric. Whatever she had on underneath had some sort of V-neck so that nothing hid the fine lines of her throat, the shadowy valley that drew his gaze inexorably downwards until he wrenched it away with a cruel effort. Her glorious hair was darkened by the rain; strands of it tugged free from the confining ponytail in which she wore it. And the weather—or perhaps the dash across the road—had whipped up the colour in her normally delicate, porcelain skin so that her cheeks glowed with colour. Above the slanting cheekbones, her green eyes were strangely dark, the colour of moss rather than the vivid emerald he remembered.

      The look she turned on him was blank and distant, totally closed off, as if she had never seen him in her life before. He knew that look; it was the one she had used so often in the last days of their marriage before she had walked out. When he had seen her, that is. Which hadn’t been often.

      ‘Signora D’Inzeo …’

      Matteo, ever the smooth professional, was moving forward, hand outstretched to greet her.

      ‘Good morning.’

      Her smile was brief, controlled, flashing on and off in a second. But it was more than she afforded her husband. The swift there-and-away-again flick of her eyes, the barest lifting of those long, lush eyelashes, granted him minimal acknowledgement as she curled her mouth around his name.

      ‘Pietro.’

      It was as if the word had a sour, unpleasant taste on her tongue.

      ‘Marina.’

      His own greeting echoed hers, with added ice, if that were possible. He inclined his head the slightest amount possible, then clamped ruthless control over every facial muscle, until even he felt the invisible barriers they had erected between them, the force field of distance and distrust which separated them.

      ‘May I take your coat?’

      Matteo was really trying to improve the atmosphere, or at least warm it up by a few vital degrees. But then he was a specialised divorce lawyer who handled cases like this all the time; he must be used to the mood of barely sheathed tension between his conflicted clients.

      ‘Thank you.’

      Did she know just how sensual that movement was? Pietro wondered—the tiny shrug that eased the garment from her, thrusting the rich softness of her breasts forward as she put her shoulders back to loosen the fit around them. She probably did, damn her, he admitted, his teeth clenching together in an unconscious response that tightened the muscles in his jaw against the need to make any response. So many times in the past he had performed just that small service for her, had felt the soft skin of her neck and shoulders under the back of his fingers, the silky slide of her hair over his hands as he’d freed her from the garment …

      She would turn to smile at him, rub her cheek against his hands, perhaps twist her head to press a kiss on his fingers …

      Hell and damnation, no!

      Fiercely Pietro dragged his primitive thoughts under control and made himself take a step forward, if only to break the spell that Marina seemed to have cast over him from the moment she’d walked into the room.

      ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Matteo was saying. ‘A coffee, perhaps?’

      ‘Some water will be fine, thanks.’

      The removal of the coat revealed a crisp, white V-necked blouse and narrow black