The Millionaire's Christmas Wife

Wondering who’d partnered him, Miriam said brightly, ‘I’m starving,’ knowing she’d have to force every morsel down over the lump in her throat. Over the last months she’d just about got the hang of training her mind to stop picturing Jay with other women but tonight it was beyond her.

Jay helped her out of the cab and paid the driver, taking her elbow as he escorted her into the sumptuous confines of the restaurant. Immediately the maÎtre d’hÔtel was there, greeting Jay with a deferential warmth and leading them into a small lounge dotted with comfy leather sofas and low tables filled with nibbles as though they were royalty. Presenting them with two embossed menus which were works of art in themselves, he took their order for drinks and glided away.

Miriam looked down at her menu. It was in French and—thankfully—English. She’d been right, she thought dryly. There wasn’t a price to be seen and the choice was staggering.

‘See anything you fancy?’ Jay drawled a minute or two later as though they were in some backstreet cafÉ. They both knew if anyone couldn’t choose out of the incredible dishes on offer they didn’t deserve to be sitting there.

Miriam didn’t want to reveal how impressed she was. ‘I think so,’ she answered in like vein. ‘I’ll have the ginger-marinated salmon for starters and then tournedos of beef with wild mushrooms and orangespiced armagnac plums.’

The wine waiter returned with their cocktails. Miriam had no idea what the sapphire martini she’d ordered would taste like but it had sounded elegant. She took a tentative sip. It was delicious. The Parfait d’Amour at the bottom of the glass was very blue and the slightly spicy Bombay Sapphire gin gave the cocktail a real kick. Warning herself it was probably very potent, she put the glass down. She needed to keep a clear head tonight; she definitely couldn’t afford to be anything less than one hundred per cent compos mentis.

Jay surveyed her over his Manhattan. ‘Not to your taste?’

‘On the contrary,’ she said politely, ‘it’s lovely.’ She had forgotten what it was like to be with Jay, to be wined and dined and cosseted.

No, she hadn’t, she corrected herself in the next breath. That was silly. Shutting out such memories had been part of the self-survival technique, that was all. She hadn’t been able to afford to let the recollection of the good times—and there had been plenty—weaken her resolve.

Forcing her voice into neutral, Miriam tried not to let him see how he was affecting her. ‘How’s Jayne?’

‘Is that a social nicety or are you really interested?’

That was unfair. Miriam’s soft brown eyes darkened. From the day Jay had introduced her to his sister the two women had got on like a house on fire. Jay’s parents had been killed ten years ago, when he was twenty-five and Jayne was sixteen. They’d been touring the States and had been involved in a freak accident when a car had left the road, mounted the pavement and killed them both instantly. Jayne had been staying with Jay while their parents were abroad and had continued to live with him until she had married a few months before Miriam and Jay had met.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Jay said evenly. ‘You’ve only made the effort to speak to her once or twice since we split up, so it’s a fair question.’

‘I didn’t think it was fair to put Jayne in a position where she might have to take sides.’ This was perfectly true. ‘She thinks the world of you.’

‘Meaning the side she would have taken would have been yours?’

Miriam wasn’t going to be intimidated by the edge to his voice. ‘I wasn’t the one caught cavorting with someone else,’ she pointed out coolly.

‘Cavorting?’ He seemed amused by her choice of word, the dark expression on his face clearing. ‘Miriam, puppies cavort. Or very young children.’

She saw nothing funny in this. ‘I obviously have a different slant on adultery from you.’

‘You’re still set on believing what you want to believe.’

‘Want to believe?’ Coolness went out of the window. ‘Don’t you try and turn this round on me, Jay.’

The immaculate waiter who was to take their order appeared at the table and Miriam curbed her frustration. Dredging up a smile, she gave her choice of dishes and Jay followed with his. Once they were alone again, he said quietly, ‘Jayne’s just had it confirmed she’s pregnant, as it happens. They’re over the moon.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ Briefly their differences were forgotten. ‘I’m so pleased for her.’

‘Will you call her and tell her that yourself?’

Their eyes met and held. ‘I—I don’t want to upset her.’

‘You won’t,’ Jay said firmly.

Panic gripped her, squeezing her voice box so her words emerged tight and high when she said, ‘Jay, there has to be a cut-off point, you know that as well as I do. Neither of us needs complications…’ That hadn’t sounded right. ‘I don’t want to cause difficulties in your family.’

‘You’re my family, Miriam. Haven’t you realised that yet? Damn it, no one else—not even Jayne—impinges on us.’

For a second she drowned in the golden sea of his eyes, letting his words wash over her. She wanted to believe him more than anything else in the world, but she couldn’t.

Icy cold reality crashed in a wave over her head. ‘Jay, it’s over.’

‘Never in a hundred years.’ He leaned forward, his body warmth enveloping her as she sat rigid and still. ‘You’re my wife; I’ve never felt about any woman the way I feel about you.’

‘It’s a pity you didn’t think about that before you got involved with Belinda.’

For a long moment his eyes assessed her, then she saw him breathe out slowly. ‘For such a soft, gentle little thing you’ve got a will of iron, haven’t you?’ he murmured wryly. ‘But you won’t win this one, Miriam. And do you know why? Because, at the very bottom of you, you don’t want to win. You know as well as I do that we were meant to be together.’

She looked into the hard, handsome face. He was deadly serious. The strong planes of his jaw, the determined thrust to his chin were evidence that he meant every word. Almost imperceptibly, she held herself straighter. ‘Don’t tell me what I want and don’t want,’ she said very clearly.

She saw the flash of surprise in his eyes. ‘Can you deny it?’

She wanted to shout at him, to pour all the hurt and anger and betrayal over his head in a bitter, acidic flood of hate, but that would be playing straight into his hands. She wouldn’t let him see how she was hurting; she’d rather walk on hot coals. And she wouldn’t make a scene, much as she would have loved to throw the rest of her cocktail into his face and march out of the restaurant.

Miriam took a deep breath. ‘I want a divorce,’ she said expressionlessly. ‘That’s the only reason I’ve come here tonight. You can believe me or choose to think there’s still something between us—it doesn’t matter in the long run.’

The words hung between them before falling like pieces of ice, the muted chatter from the other tables and soft music that was playing on the perimeter of their world for two.

‘You’ve changed.’ It wasn’t laudatory.

‘Yes, 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,’ Jay said silkily after a tense few moments had ticked by.

Feeling as though she had been hit by a sledgehammer, which was totally illogical as she was the one demanding a divorce, Miriam stuttered, ‘W-what condition?’

‘That you convince me it’s what you really want.’

‘I’ve told you,’ she managed to say more steadily.

‘That doesn’t do it.’

Miriam frowned. ‘If you don’t believe me when I say it, how can I convince you?’ Immediately she’d said it she knew she had played straight into his hands.

His firm, sexy mouth mocked her with its wryness. ‘Come back to the apartment and live with me again for the few weeks till Christmas,’ he said easily, as though he wasn’t asking the impossible. ‘See how you feel then.’

Her absolute amazement changed to outrage. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’

‘Not as man and wife if you don’t want to share my bed,’ he said calmly. ‘You can have the spare room if that makes you feel better.’

‘It wouldn’t.’ Dark eyebrows rose, and in answer to the glitter in his eyes she said quickly, ‘What I mean is, I’ve no intention of coming back to the apartment whether I could stay in the spare room or not. And I would stay in it, of course, if I was coming back.’

‘Which you’re not,’ he put in helpfully.

‘No, I’m not.’ Suddenly she realised she hated that apartment. It had always been Jay’s, never hers. She had never felt at home there, more like a visitor who was being tolerated by the masculine surroundings and ultra-modern gadgets. Other girlfriends had been there, of course, she knew that. She had never had the nerve to ask him if they had slept in his bed but they must have done.

‘What’s the matter? What are you thinking now?’

She hadn’t been aware that her thoughts had mirrored themselves in the painful twist to her mouth and the darkening of her soft brown eyes, but as always Jay saw too much. Swiftly she wiped her face clear of expression. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing didn’t put that look on your face,’ Jay said grimly. ‘Tell me.’

What the hell! He’d asked for it. ‘I never want to step foot in the apartment again, if you want to know,’ she said with a flatness that said far more than a raised voice could have done. ‘It was never a home to me and it was always yours, never mine. I was merely a guest there.’

Now it was his turn to be amazed. ‘You never said.’

Miriam shrugged. ‘It was your home and you loved it. The first time you showed me round I could see how much it meant to you. Besides which—’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t realise quite how much it would remain yours,’ she said, a trifle illogically.

He seemed to understand, though. ‘And how much did it?’

‘A hundred per cent.’

‘I see.’

‘Oh, it’s stunning,’ she said quickly, wondering why she was trying to sweeten the pill after what he’d done. ‘Absolutely fabulous and I can understand why you love it, of course, but it’s not…me.’

Jay’s jaw tightened. ‘But you didn’t think to tell me you hated it.’

‘I didn’t hate it—’ Miriam stopped abruptly. Why was she lying to make him feel better? ‘Actually I did,’ she said as much to herself as Jay. ‘Especially when we gave dinner parties and things like that. I always felt as though I was one of those hostesses who are hired for the evening.’

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