The Marriage Replay (11 page)

Lying back on the pillows, Reece drawled lazily, with a bad-boy smile, ‘So now you've got me here…what do you intend to do with me?'

He was—did he but know it—setting the tone for what Sorrel had in mind.

Moving over to his side, she swept her hand deliberately sensuously down his chest to the flat of his stom
ach. Immediately she sensed his almost violent reaction. Then he went very still, and all Sorrel could hear was the sound of his slightly quickened breathing.

‘Did you know…?' she said softly, letting the shoestring straps of her ice-green nightgown fall unchecked over her silky shoulders, exposing the darkened cleft between her breasts to his enraptured gaze. ‘…that there are more than seventy-two thousand nerve endings in your hands? Close your eyes…let me show you.'

Warming to her game, and to the unexpected sense of wicked anticipation that she was stirring inside him, Reece obediently shut his eyes. Lifting his hands, Sorrel placed his palms on her shoulders. She let them linger there for a moment, introducing them to the warmth and texture of her skin, then slowly, deliberately, guided them down to her breasts. She laid them on her tight aching nipples beneath the cool silk of her nightwear, biting her lip to control her own helpless desire to whimper and moan with pleasure at his touch. Then, when she sensed Reece's anticipation heighten, she pulled down the straps of her gown completely, exposing her bare breasts to the delighted and hungry exploration of his hands.

‘See what I mean about nerve endings?' she whispered, leaning forward to lightly stroke down his face with her fingertips.

He opened his eyes and gazed fully on the sight of her flushed absorbed expression, and the beautiful pale breasts with their rosy tips that poured into his hands.
Her beauty almost undid him there and then.
The only destination of every red blood vessel in his body was
south
…right down to the tip of where Reece ached to feel Sorrel's touch the most.

‘Let me kiss you,' he entreated, his voice no less than a grated hungry rasp.

Sorrel drew back with a teasing little smile around the edges of her lips. ‘Not yet.
I'm
the one in charge…remember?'

Remembering with a groan, he momentarily protested as she moved his hands away from her breasts and slid them down past her waist to her hips. Then, when he'd anchored them fully either side of her, everything in him jumped to startled attention as Sorrel leant forward again and started to stroke her warm silky tongue over his nipples. Just when she'd captured his attention for life, she started to lightly lick down his chest to his stomach, and the lower her mouth travelled the more tense and hungry Reece grew.

Finally, when he didn't think he had it in him to hold out for even one more second without breaking out into a sweat, she took him into her mouth and Reece literally thought she was going to have to scrape him off the ceiling. Because of their sexual drought, Reece knew he couldn't hang on for long—but he also knew that he desperately wanted to pleasure Sorrel, too. So gently, carefully, he guided her back to him, whispering soft entreaties of need and want and finally capturing her lips with his and kissing her so hard that she whimpered between ragged breaths and fell onto his taut, flat stomach in helpless surrender.

‘Now I want
you
on your back.'

Reece smiled, breaking contact momentarily, his lascivious green eyes making Sorrel feel as if she was going to melt into bliss right there. Then he manoeuvred her quite effortlessly into the position he wanted, his hands strong and determined.

It was
wonderful
to experience such intimacy again after so long, and Sorrel was only amazed that she had withstood the need for his touch for what now seemed like an eternity.

Stripping off her gown, he surveyed her semi-naked figure with a hot glance, a brief flare of regret and concern in his eyes as he regarded the black lace panties she was wearing.

‘Are you OK?' he asked, his voice dropping to a near whisper.

As he asked the question, he stroked the flat of his hand across her smooth, ever so gently rounded stomach, and Sorrel thought she saw him wince. Knowing that he was thinking about the baby she'd lost, she swallowed down the intense pain inside her own throat and touched her fingers lightly to his sculpted, shadowed jaw.

‘I'm fine,' she told him. ‘I can't go all the way—but we can still give each other pleasure, can't we?'

‘Sweetheart, your wish is my command. I'll pleasure you all night, if you want me to. And if that's not enough…then we've got all day tomorrow, too.'

But even as he joked with her, to take the sting out of the searing ache he felt inside, Reece knew that the innocence of their love had been nothing less than devastated by their shared experience of sorrow….

L
EAVING
Reece to sleep in, the next morning Sorrel jumped in the car and drove to the little seaside market town on her own. It was the first morning she'd woken in a long time with something near to optimism in her heart.

Last night in bed Reece had been both loving and tender, and even though Sorrel had sensed a certain amount of reticence in him emotionally, she told herself that she'd been brave enough and determined enough to show him that she really
did
want to work at rebuilding their marriage. She hadn't let the sun go down on another row, or started another new day with more bad feeling and resentment.

Seeing Reece with a beautiful woman like Angelina had spurred Sorrel into the realisation that she still loved her husband deeply and didn't want their relationship to break up for good. She really couldn't tolerate even the thought of him being attracted to someone else, let alone marrying again if they divorced. Together, she told herself, they would find a way to make things work. They would explore solutions to meet their different wants and needs, and maybe attain a compromise that would
satisfy them both. She could only hope and pray that it might be possible.

As she walked along the narrow uneven streets after purchasing some fruit and vegetables from the market stalls—taking her time to soak up the ambience and atmosphere—Sorrel lifted her face to the sun and felt her heart skip a beat at the idea of returning to the villa and seeing Reece again. She was planning on telling Ines that
she
would cook tonight, so their friendly housekeeper could have a night off. All she wanted to do right now was be alone with Reece and try and mend some bridges that had long been seared between them.

But when she got back to the villa and saw a gleaming Mercedes that she did not recognise parked in the front courtyard, Sorrel felt her heart skip a beat for a different reason. As she carried her straw bag of shopping towards the house, the happy sound of a child calling out fell on the air, quickly followed by the sound of delighted male laughter.
Reece.
Clearly they had visitors, but who?

Instead of going into the house, as she'd originally intended, Sorrel walked round to the back of the villa. And there on the beautifully kept sparkling green lawn she saw Reece throw a ball baseball-style to a small dark-haired boy in a checked shirt and red shorts. Sitting on a bench alongside, watching, was Angelina. Dressed from head to toe in white, with huge black sunglasses shielding her eyes, she looked just as if she'd stepped out of the pages of
Vogue
or
Marie Claire
.

Dry-mouthed, Sorrel caught Reece's eye and he waved—just as though everything was as it should be and absolutely nothing was amiss. But, apart from the blow she'd received at the sight of Angelina sitting there, Sorrel was also having trouble containing her emotion at
seeing Reece playing with the child…clearly Angelina's son Emmanuel. The thing that got to her was that he looked so heartbreakingly
natural
with the boy—as though it took no great effort on his part at all to be friendly or companionable with him. A shaft of pain moved through her at the idea that her own inability to carry a baby to term had deprived Reece of his own child…perhaps a
son
?

‘Good trip?'

As Emmanuel chased after the ball, Reece's gaze moved possessively over his wife, and the smile he gave her showed he was genuinely pleased to see her.

‘Fine.'

Unable to return his smile because of the torrent of jealousy that was flooding through her at the sight of Angelina, Sorrel deliberately glanced away. Her acknowledgement of the other woman was scant to say the least.

‘Hello, there.'

‘I hope you don't mind,' Angelina replied in her loud sing-song voice, ‘but I had to come out this way today to visit a cousin of mine, so I rang Reece and asked him for your address. Emmanuel so loves to play ball, and your husband is so patient with him. He would make a wonderful father, no?'

‘Excuse me.'

Clutching her bag of shopping tight to her chest, Sorrel started to move towards the house again. ‘I've got to go and put some things away.'

In the bright kitchen she turned on the tap and filled a tall glass full of water. She drank it down, barely stopping to draw breath, perspiration sliding down her spine like honey down the side of a jar.
Had the Spanish star's
comment about Reece making a ‘wonderful father' been totally natural? A normal aside that anyone might make seeing the man and the small boy together? Or had it been a deliberate dig at Sorrel's inability to carry Reece's baby to term?
Who knew what the two of them had discussed together…what secrets they had revealed? They seemed pretty close as far as Sorrel could tell.

Fear and jealousy swirled in her stomach, making her feel almost nauseous. Oh, why had the woman decided to visit her cousin nearby and invite herself over today of all days? Last night had been so good, and Sorrel had been hoping to spend the day alone with Reece, talking and making plans. Now everything was ruined.

‘Sorrel… Oh, what a charming kitchen! Did you design it yourself?'

Suddenly Angelina was there at the door, appearing impossibly cool and elegant in her dazzling white, while in contrast Sorrel felt dowdy and hot and sticky in her blue shorts and lime-green sun-top—her hair making a determined bid for freedom from its mother-of-pearl clasp.

‘I…er…no… That is…Reece and I discussed it with the Italian designers we hired.'

‘Well, they did a fabulous job! You must let me have their number. Now, darling, I need to have a little chat with you.'

Laying her empty glass upside down on the drainer, Sorrel turned around reluctantly to give the other woman her attention. Her straw basket tipped over just then, and oranges and apples spilled out across the blond pine of the large kitchen table. Angelina captured an escaping orange and, laughing, put it in the carved wooden fruit
bowl that stood nearly empty except for a very small bunch of grapes.

‘I want to borrow your charming husband for the evening, if I may?'

Ignoring the disarrayed fruit, Sorrel tried to swallow over the suddenly harsh dryness in her throat. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I drove over to visit my cousin Alberto to ask him to be my escort tonight at a function I have been invited to. Unfortunately he has hurt his back and so cannot accompany me. This is not something I feel comfortable attending alone, so I was hoping that Reece could help me out. You do not mind if he comes with me, do you,
querido?
'

Feeling the immediate protest that surfaced from deep within lodge inside her throat, Sorrel shrugged. ‘I am not his keeper, Angelina. If he would like to go, then he must go.'

‘Si.'
Angelina rose to her feet, her brief smile barely moving her lips. Clearly Sorrel's answer was not the happy response she'd expected. ‘That is what I thought. Excuse me, but I must go and see what little Emmanuel is doing.'

 

Reece could understand Sorrel being upset with him about agreeing to accompany Angelina to the function she'd been invited to, but at the same time he would have thought that after last night she would know that there was no other woman he was remotely interested in sexually except her.

This was a one-off situation, and if Angelina's cousin hadn't hurt his back then it wouldn't have even arisen. He was going to be out for a few short hours and that
was that. But as he donned the tuxedo he'd brought with him in the hope that he and Sorrel might have something to celebrate before they returned home, he could feel no pleasure in the exquisite tailoring that he wore. If the truth was known, he was damned furious with Sorrel for making him feel guilty about something entirely innocent—something he was doing merely to help out a friend.

He walked into the living room to find her busy dusting a bookcase, with the books she'd removed from the shelves stacked up high on the coffee table beside her. There was a smudge of dust on her nose as she turned to regard him, and Reece couldn't deny the tug of need that arose inside him. It briefly doused his annoyance.

‘What are you doing that for?'

Glancing up at the question, Sorrel felt her vision captivated entirely by the arresting sight of her handsome husband. She longed to tell him how good he looked—longed to plead with him not to go out tonight—but she was too afraid her plea might result in another soul-destroying argument. He clearly considered Angelina's needs to be more paramount than his wife's right now, and Sorrel would just have to bite her lip and accept it.
But the knowledge stung deeply.

‘I just thought I'd rearrange things a bit, that's all.'

‘Ines would have done that for you if you'd asked her.'

‘I wanted to do it myself. You know me…I
like
pottering around the house, smartening things up.'

‘I know.'

Reece found himself smiling in spite of his admitted tension. Her assertion was another reminder that his wife was a natural-born home-maker.
Why hadn't he seen
that so clearly before?
But right now he was remembering that her behaviour earlier, when their visitors were at the house, had conveyed to him her complete mistrust of the situation between himself and Angelina and he could hardly believe it. He'd been frankly furious that she'd been so deliberately unwelcoming to his friend and client. He didn't know if he could stand this blowing hot and cold behaviour of hers another second. His emotions were twisted inside out and that was a fact.

‘I might be back late, so don't wait up for me.'

He glanced away, not wanting to kindle the fire of anger that he couldn't deny simmered inside him.

‘OK.'

Hating her right then for what she was putting him through, Reece also knew a deep, underlying longing to regain the peace between them once more.
Last night had been so good.
He didn't want either of them to pour cold water on the warmth of their loving so soon. ‘Look, I can change my mind. I can ring Angelina and tell her I'm not coming if you'd really prefer me to stay here?'

He saw the surprise in her eyes and breathed out when she briefly smiled. ‘Don't be silly. I'm perfectly all right here until you get back. And I
do
trust you, Reece, so don't worry about that. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did earlier, and I'm sorry. I know that Angelina is only a client. Just go and have a good time, and in the morning you can tell me all about it.'

She picked up a book from the table and turned to place it on the cleaned shelf.

Staring at her exquisite profile as she positioned the book more carefully, Reece felt his stomach relax. He was relieved that she obviously regretted her earlier un
sociable behaviour and was making an effort to be more reasonable—and if that was the case then maybe they
did
have a real chance to put things right?

‘Well, don't stay up too late and tire yourself out. Get an early night. It would probably do you good.'

‘I'm going to go to bed with a book and a nice cup of tea just as soon as I've finished this, I promise. Go on…you don't want to be late.'

Suddenly wanting to linger, Reece bent his head and briefly grazed her cheek with his lips. When he heard her soft, surprised gasp he had to muster all his will to force himself to go to the door and leave her there.

‘Bye, then.'

As the door closed behind him Sorrel released a long, heartfelt sigh and dropped her head towards her chest. The sensation that remained from the touch of his lips against her cheek and the beguiling scent of his cologne that hovered in the air almost undid her right then—such was her almost uncontrollable longing for him. She really
did
want to trust him, but she was afraid she had just given him implicit permission either to continue or begin an affair with the beautiful Angelina…

 

Tossing and turning, Sorrel kicked off all the bedcovers and then, finally surfacing out of the fog of distress that had been enveloping her, sat up and examined the time on the bedside clock with her heart pounding. She'd had a dreadful dream about Reece and Angelina together—giving rise to her growing fear that they
must
be having an affair. Finding herself alone in their bed had her anxiety rapidly escalating, like wildfire ripping through a dense dry forest. Reece had told her he might
be late, but three forty-five in the morning? Something
must
be going on!

Trying to calm herself, Sorrel glanced disconsolately towards the telephone. Had he tried to ring her and she'd slept through his call? Even now the dawn was starting to creep into the shadows, illuminating every corner of the bedroom from the uncovered window. Unable to contain her anxiety and impatience, she threw on her robe, then left the room to go down into the kitchen. On the way she took a quick peek into the bedroom further down the hall, just in case Reece had decided to sleep there so as not to disturb her. The room was worryingly empty.

As she made tea and brought her cup and saucer to the big pine table to sit down, she pushed her fingers agitatedly through her hair, wondering what on earth was keeping him so late. As her mind dived into the worst-case scenario—that he was spending a passionate night of torrid lovemaking with the sultry diva—it was all she could do to hold back her tears.

She shouldn't have waited so long to tell him that she loved him, she fretted, absent-mindedly stirring tea that she hadn't put any sugar in. If he
was
in bed with Angelina then Sorrel had
driven
him there. All right, the other night she had tried to show him how she felt—but what if he thought she'd made love with him out of guilt, because he'd accused her of being cold? Or, even worse, that she was intending to leave him again? Wasn't it only natural that he would seek solace in the arms of another warm and willing woman?