Excerpt of The Ruthless Marriage Bid by Elizabeth Power

HE WAS standing at the kerbside waiting to cross the road. It was him! Taylor thought chaotically, battling through the gathering dusk and the sheer volume of rush-hour traffic to catch another glimpse of that proud, dark head, of the striking height and self-assured stance that were unmistakably his.

She heard the rear door of the taxi slam behind her, heard Craig issuing instructions through the driver's window. But her mind and body were in turmoil, and as the taxi shot forward she swivelled round on her seat, scanning with blood-pumping anticipation, the busy street through the rear window.

The man was nowhere to be seen. So she had just imagined him there, or been totally mistaken, she realised. As always.

Nervous tension dissipated beneath the familiar disappointment, the desolation that spread through her veins, as chilling as the late-winter afternoon. Beneath the thick grey overcoat she shivered, and was only warmed by the murmur of the infant waking in his car seat beside her, as the little starfish hand curled tightly around the finger that she readily proffered.

"You're a scamp," she cooed at the appealingly chubby face beaming up at her from its knitted blue bonnet, but her finely drawn features, framed by a bob of gleaming brown, were etched with obvious tension.

She had been so sure it was him. She had even neglected to wave to Craig, she berated herself, still trying to shrug off the unsettling aftermath of mixed emotions fifteen minutes later when the taxi dropped her in the lamp-lit suburbs.

Still clutching her purse, with the baby seat suspended from her other hand, she started walking towards one of the high, Victorian villas.

A shadow fell across her path, large and ominous, and she gasped, dropping her purse, fear for the child she carried tightening her fingers around the handle of the little chair as the tall dark figure loomed from out of the shadows.

"Jared!" 'Hello, Taylor." With one fluid movement, he stooped to pick up her purse, the long, dark overcoat he hadn't bothered to fasten spreading to remind her of a raven swooping to its prey, the hair that waved over his collar gleaming ebony beneath the streetlamp.

"So it was you." Jared Steele. A leader in enterprises covering everything from finance to the highest technology. Thirty-eight years old, now, she calculated — twelve years older than she was. Rich, powerful and, as she had found out to her cost, unscrupulous.

Too stunned to thank him, her fingers closed around the rectangle of black leather he had retrieved for her. Her hands were shaking and she had to swallow to try and moisten her uncomfortably dry throat. "Outside the studios. Crossing the road..." But he hadn't used the crossing. He must have flagged down a taxi... "You followed me!" she breathed, annoyance surfacing with the over-riding excitement that made her pulses race, her legs go weak, which owed more to coming face to face with him like this than her first, initial dread of being mugged.

"I wanted to see you." 'Why?" He didn't answer and following his gaze to the little baby seat, she realised suddenly what was going through his mind.

"You've been busy since I saw you last."

Of course. What other conclusion could he have drawn? "When was that?" she enquired pointedly, ignoring his hard unspoken question. In the eighteen months since that last bitter row he had never come looking for her. She wondered why he had decided to now.

He shrugged and, ignoring her in turn, said, "I must confess this was the last thing I expected." His mouth appeared chiselled out of granite as he dropped another glance to the sleeping infant. Those deep-set eyes were shielded by his dark and enviably long lashes, eyes that could reduce one to pulp with just one withering look, Taylor remembered, or evoke the most thrilling and dangerous thoughts in any woman under eighty. "After all your protestations about having babies. What was it? An accident?" His voice, which had always had the power to arouse her with its smoky sexuality held a derisive edge and his breath rose in a warm cloud on the frosty air. "We both know maternity wasn't on your agenda. Or perhaps it was just me you weren't partial to, not having children. That's one conclusion my ego's going to have to deal with, isn't it, Taylor?"

"Why?" His comments stabbed at her, opening old and painful wounds. "Because I was so obviously instrumental in losing yours!"

His head seemed to jerk back as though she had laid a whip across his face. But if he was recoiling from such frank and blatant words, she thought, pushing angrily past him, perhaps he would know what it was like — how it had felt — when he had used them — and so mercilessly — on her.

"I must congratulate you. You've done well for yourself. Make-up artist — and with a top production company." His voice lacked praise, his remarks only serving to let her know that it was no accident — this meeting; that he had actually been checking up on her. "But then you always were ambitious, weren't you?" he said.

A little shiver ran through her from his chilling tone because, of course, they had argued about that too.

"And lover boy outside the studios." He was right behind her, his deep voice insistent, taunting. "Might I hazard a guess that he'd be the child's father?"

So he had seen her with Craig; noticed that affectionate kiss the man had given her as he had handed her into the taxi. Some deep emotional pain stopped her from immediately putting him straight.

"How terribly astute of you," she breathed, hurting from the memory of the scarring rows that her miscarriage, if not wholly initiating, had only succeeded in exacerbating.

"Is he living here with you?" A toss of his chin indicated the three-storey house as he drew level with her along the short driveway.

"If you mean are we sleeping under the same roof..." Taylor forced herself to stay calm, keep her clear, mellow voice low as she reached the front door, put her key in the lock '...the answer's "yes.""

She didn't get to turn the key, her small gasp of shock the only emotion she allowed herself to show, as hard fingers on her wrist pulled her to face him. Under the stern glare of the security light his angular features looked grim and bloodless.

"Didn't it seem to matter to you that you're still married?" Eyes, as dark as night, seemed to pierce the depths of hers, boring into her from a mask of anger and disbelief. "Didn't it ever occur to you to ask me for a divorce?"

Almost as tall as he was in her high-heeled boots, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her forehead, feel his anger beating against her like ravaging fire. But his nearness alone seemed to be stripping her of her self- possession, without the heat of his accusations that had she been in his shoes, she had to agree, she would have richly deserved. His accusations, however, only fuelled her own anger. Besides, Josh was growing fretful, sensing the insecurity of the situation, and forcibly she pulled herself free, saying, "Why? I seem to remember you had no qualms about having a mistress and a wife!" She opened the front door now, flicked on a switch just inside.

Light spilled out, illuminating the wide Victorian hallway. It was cluttered with toys, boxes and coats and a baby buggy.

"Are you going to ask me in?" For an answer she simply left the door open behind her, her shoulders stiffening beneath the stylish coat when she heard him close it, muting the growl of a car in the suburban road.

Without glancing back, she took the post she had picked up into the long, narrow kitchen, doing her best not to trip over the two yowling Siamese cats that had suddenly besieged her, vying for her attention, brown tails lightly flaying her calves.

Carefully, she set Josh down on the small sofa at one end of the narrow room, tossing aside a cushion, a shopping bag, a pile of folded garments, in need of ironing.

"Very domesticated."

The deep drawl from behind her had her turning sharply. Jared was standing in the doorway, looking, as his name suggested, like a man of steel. But with his hands rammed deep into his pockets, long legs planted firmly apart, he was too fine a male specimen for Taylor's eyes not to be drawn to the impeccable cut of the dark suit he wore under the long coat. With unsparing cruelty her gaze was dragged over the wide shoulders and the hard lean lines of his waist and hips and, as he stood there surveying the chaos of the cluttered kitchen with marked disdain curling his mouth, all she could think of was how it had felt to sink her nails into that broad, bare back while she had sobbed out his name...

The memory rocked her, threatening her equilibrium and, moving across to the fridge, in a less than steady voice she asked, "Why did you want to see me?"

He came in then, every footstep measured, slow, precise. "I don't think that takes too much working out." Wary green eyes clashed with darkest brown, her perfectly straight nose and softly tapered chin lifting as she opened the fridge, took out a tin of cat food. What was she supposed to deduce from that? Had the mysterious Alicia decided she had had enough of playing nursemaid to a husband she didn't love? Was she finally giving him up to be with Jared?

Pain cut deep, but she gritted her teeth. The cats were going mad, particularly Thai, the male Siamese who was making his demands known now by clawing at her coat and yowling vociferously. On top of that, Josh had started to make his presence felt with small whimpers from the sofa, depriving her of the luxury of any self-pity.

Dumping the opened can of food down on the worktop, Taylor slid off her coat. Then wished she hadn't when she noticed the way Jared's gaze skimmed over her, taking in the willowy lines of her body beneath her cream polo-necked sweater and the full, bottle-green skirt that fell in soft folds over the spiked-heeled black boots.

"You've got thinner," he observed, making no attempt to hide his blatant appraisal of her figure.

An insidious tension crept through her as she tossed her coat down on one of the high stools near the breakfast bar that Craig had made during one of his more adventurous DIY moments. Opening a drawer, she rummaged for a spoon, reached for the partially used can of cat food.

"I hardly think my weight's an issue here." She stooped to scoop the contents into the two bowls on the floor beside the breakfast bar. Two ravenous heads dived into them before she had even finished.

"I think it's very much an issue." Those dark eyes were still assessing her, raking over her flushed features and the chic hair, now unintentionally tousled, as she straightened from her task. "But then you were never much more than a reed at the best of times, were you?" he said, with an almost bored glance towards the cats who were putting on a show of not having eaten in weeks.

"If you say so."

Josh's demands had replaced the cats' with his sudden persistent crying, and Taylor swung away to free him from the confines of his seat. His little face was red and crumpled. "He needs feeding — and changing," she noted as she lifted him up, her tone suddenly weary, the shock of this unexpected meeting with the man she had longed, yet half dreaded, to see again, taking its toll on her nerves.

"And you look as though you could do with some help." He was there beside her, too big, too awesome and far, far too close.

"I'm perfectly capable," she returned with her voice cracking, and moved quickly away from him, wondering what he was thinking as he watched her carrying Josh across the kitchen. That the baby's hair, so close to hers, was almost the same rich brown? That Josh's wispy curls must have been inherited from his father since hers was so thick and sleek?

"As capable of wringing a man's heart?" Taking the baby bottle out of the fridge, she met those dark eyes with a guarded question in her own. "What?"

"How long was it, Taylor?" 'How long was what?" She slammed the fridge closed. Outside, in the hallway, she caught the sudden, unexpected sound of the front door being opened. "How long before you jumped into another man's bed after leaving mine?"

Something flared in her eyes, locking her jaw tight. "How dare you even ask that when —"

She bit back her words, her body stiffening from the footsteps moving along the hall, tension warring with anger inside of her. He had come here assuming the worst about her, and through a crazy desire to lash out at him she hadn't put him straight. Now she was torn between wishing she had and relishing his being taken down a peg when he realised that he had made a total fool of himself.