Yesterday's Husband. Angela Devine
profitably by the end of three months. At that point you can resume control yourself if you wish.’
Emma’s brain raced.
‘And the second condition?’ she asked, her throat constricting.
Richard paused before he replied. In the flickering candlelight, his eyes had a glitter that was almost menacing and his voice when he spoke was low and husky.
‘That you come back to me as my wife—in the fullest sense of the word—during the three-month period in question.’ He spoke as drily as if he were outlining a business clause. ‘At the end of that time we can review the situation and make a final decision about our intentions. I imagine we’ll get a divorce then.’
Emma almost swooned with shock at the outrageous implications of this suggestion.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked in a voice sharp with alarm. ‘What do you mean “wife—in the fullest sense of the word"?’
Richard took another sip of champagne and smiled thinly.
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘I mean that we begin living together again. Sleeping together.’
He spoke the last two words with unmistakable relish.
Emma stared at him in disbelief.
‘Why?’ she burst out. ‘You’ve just told me I’m spoilt, disloyal, extravagant, wilful and heartless!’
‘All true,’ agreed Richard. ‘You left me for another man simply because of a stupid quarrel which wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference to any woman with an ounce of maturity or commitment. I’ve never forgiven you for that, Emma.’
‘So what possible reason could you have for wanting to sleep with me now?’ challenged Emma. ‘You’re not going to tell me it’s love, are you?’
Richard’s grip on her fingers tightened cruelly and his blue eyes glittered like chips of ice.
‘Oh, no,’ he murmured throatily. ‘Not love, Emma. Revenge.’
EMMA was stunned that Richard could sit there smiling so blandly while uttering words that cut her to the heart. She swallowed hard, trying to contain her dismay. The silence between them lengthened. Plucking a frangipani flower out of the cut-glass bowl in the centre of the table, she crushed it unthinkingly in her fingers and inhaled its piercing sweetness. But before she could make any reply, the waitress arrived with the satay, creating a welcome diversion. Mechanically Emma put two of the little sticks with their juicy morsels of chicken on her plate and added a generous dollop of crunchy peanut sauce before giving the girl a strained smile. Yet when the waitress had departed she made no move to eat.
‘Your food’s getting cold,’ Richard pointed out genially, as if his previous words had been nothing more harmful than a comment on the weather. ‘Aren’t you going to eat?’
She shook her head.
‘Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me coldly that you want to sleep with me not out of love but just out of some power-crazed lust for revenge?’ she blurted out at last.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ she cried.
‘Exactly for that reason,’ replied Richard, swallowing a morsel of chicken and smiling at her. ‘Power. I want to be in control of the situation for once instead of being some kind of bloody puppet for you and your father to manipulate.’
‘You were never that!’ exclaimed Emma indignantly.
‘Wasn’t I? Look, Emma, I married you because I fell in love with you and for no other reason, but right from the start your father tried to pretend I was after your money. And you were fool enough to believe him.’
‘I didn’t!’ exclaimed Emma. ‘I wouldn’t have cared if you had had nothing. I left home and married you, didn’t I? And lived in that horrid little house in Woolloomooloo?’
‘And kept running back to Daddy every two minutes trying to kiss up to him,’ retorted Richard scathingly.
‘Only because I loved both of you. I wanted you to be friends. Is that so unreasonable?’
Richard gave a mirthless jeer of laughter.
‘It was when you were dealing with someone like Frank Prero,’ he retorted. ‘He was determined to part us right from the start.’
‘He wasn’t! I know he didn’t like the idea of our marriage’at first, but he was coming around. Why do you think he gave you that big contract on the Manly shopping centre? Because he wanted to help you!’
Richard swore violently under his breath.
‘Like hell he did! It was another one of his sneaky moves to separate us, Emma. I’m damned sure he was the one who made it impossible for me to get the materials I needed to complete the contract on time. Trying to put me out of business was his way of punishing me for daring to get involved with you.’
‘Oh, it’s easy to make rotten accusations against someone who is dead and can’t defend himself,’ she flared. ‘But do you have any proof?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he said through his teeth. ‘But I’m sure of it all the same. Frank had a bad reputation in the dirty tricks department. But in any case, whatever your father had or hadn’t done, if you’d been any kind of a wife you would have stuck by me in that crisis.’
‘Oh, would I?’ gasped Emma. ‘Even when you stormed out of the house, insulting my father all the way, and didn’t show your face for five days? And not only that but.’
‘Listen, I don’t pretend I was the perfect husband,’ growled Richard, ‘but I don’t think my faults justify the kind of revenge you took. Any decent wife would have made allowances for the way I behaved that Christmas, instead of packing her bags and running home to Daddy.’
Emma’s hand closed so hard around the stem of her wine glass that she almost snapped it. Gritting her teeth, she fought down the impulse to fling the contents in Richard’s face. Oh, yes? she thought. Any decent wife would have just looked the other way while you had a squalid affair with another woman only eleven months after getting married, would she? Well, I couldn’t do that. I hated you then, Richard, and I hate you now for the way you hurt me! But when she spoke, her words came out smooth and cold and brittle.
‘Unfortunately I didn’t happen to be a decent wife.’
Richard gave a sneering smile.
‘Not then,’ he agreed. ‘But you have another chance now, sweetheart. This time round you can get it right. Come back to me and behave exactly the way I want you to.’
‘Why?’ demanded Emma in an unsteady voice. ‘Why do you want me to do that?’
‘I told you. I want to be in control of the relationship.’
‘And if I refuse?’
Richard shrugged. ‘Then you’ll go broke.’
Emma let out her breath in a ragged sigh of disbelief.
‘That’s inhuman.’
‘Any more inhuman than the way you treated me?’
Her hands would not be still. She picked up a satay stick and set it down again, fiddled with her knife, traced patterns on the tablecloth. And all the time a blinding misery like a tidal wave seemed to be building inside her. At last she could bear it no longer and she stared at him beseechingly.
‘Richard, please! You said you married me because you loved me. If you have any of that feeling left towards me, don’t torment me like this. It’s cruel. It makes a mockery