THE WAR BRIDE CLUB (25 page)

      He smirked. Like he had known what she was going to say. Like he had prepared his answers.

      “You’re not going to leave me.” His tone was cool.
 

      She gulped. Air seemed to be in short supply.
 

      “I will,” she affirmed.
 

      “How?”

      She was not going to have this conversation with him. Not now. Not when they could make things better, could stay together. She at least wanted to give their child a chance at a family. At a mother and father who loved him. A mother and father who had tried to make it work.
 

      “Madeline, you have no money to leave me. I won’t let you go.” He paused. “And you won’t be taking our child anywhere.”

      “We don’t have to be like this, Roy. Please, let’s just give this a go. Being here together.”

      He gave her that cold look again. “It’s all been organized. I’ll be giving notice on the lease as soon as my job is filled.”

      Tears started a steady pelt down her face. Her body started to shake. This could not be happening. Surely not now. Not when she was pregnant. Not when she had no options until after the baby was born.
 

      “I will leave you, Roy. I will. One message back home and I’m gone.”

      “We’ll see.”

      It was like he knew something she didn’t. She knew it was stupid, but the smug look on his face told her there was something going on.
 

      Roy walked out and left her sitting there, rocking in her chair. She felt her baby move inside her belly, but she couldn’t focus on it.
 

      All she knew was that she wasn’t going back to that farm. She just couldn’t.
 

      It was time to ask her father.
 

      
It was time to go home.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY

ALICE stood in the doorway and watched her husband. She had spent so many weeks, months, hating him, but now she just felt sorry for him.
 

      She didn’t know what to do. What she could have done differently, if there was anything she could do to help him.
 

      His mother obviously felt differently, but she wasn’t going to dwell on that. At least she lived half way across the country, so it wasn’t like Alice had to deal with her on a regular basis. There was the odd phone call when she was unlucky enough to answer it, but that was all. But then his mother knew what had happened and Alice didn’t. All she knew was that they were broke and the man she knew, had known, had disappeared.
 

      “Where are you going?”

      Alice turned. It was the first time Ralph had taken notice of her in as long as she could remember.
 

      “Just a work thing, I won’t be long.”

      Ralph studied her. Despite the drunken haze over his eyes, he was watching her, considering her.
 

      She should have felt guilty, but she didn’t.
 

      “What about my dinner?” He slurred the words and it made her snarl.
 

      Just listening to him like that, hearing his voice and seeing him so slovenly, it made her sick. All he cared about was filling his belly with food and alcohol.
 

      “There’s a casserole in the oven. Take it out when you want it.”

      She could hear the clipped tone of her voice as she acted out the part she wanted to play. She’d given up trying to change him. Trying to make him into the man she remembered.
 

      He had a distant look back on his face, eyes glazed over as he stared at the wall. He wasn’t even listening to the wireless. Wasn’t even looking out the window.
 

      “Goodbye, Ralph,” she said the words but they held no meaning.
 

      She only wished she was saying goodbye for good.
 

      Alice collected her purse and slipped out the door. She only had to walk a block before she saw the car she was looking for.
 

      He didn’t get out, but then she hadn’t expected him to. It was risky enough him picking her up, and she didn’t need anybody seeing them together, not so close to home.
 

      “Hello, darling.” Matthew seemed to purr the words.

      She snuggled deeper into the seat and enjoyed the feel of his hand on her thigh. Alice wanted to press close to him and kiss him, but she knew he liked to be discreet.
 

      “Hard to slip away?” he asked.
 

      She shook her head. “Not at all.”

      “Good.”

      Alice looked ahead and wondered where they were headed to.
 

      “I hope we’re eating, I’m starving.”

      Matthew responded by taking his eyes off the road to grin at her, and throw her one of his winks. “I was expecting you to have an appetite.”

      Alice suddenly wasn’t hungry any longer.
She was terrified
.
 

      They’d kissed passionately, gotten close to going further, but they hadn’t been intimate yet. No wonder he’d been so insistent about tonight.
 

      He’d planned it.
 

      This was the night she was to become her boss’s lover.
 

      After tonight, they weren’t just playing, they would be having a full blown affair. She would be the other woman. She would be committing the most serious act of adultery.
 

      But she couldn’t say no. They’d been secretly seeing each other after hours in the office and on lunch dates for weeks now.
 

      Alice looked at Matthew. Took in the smooth fall of his hair, the strong jaw, his immaculate clothes. She would never tired of the sight of him.
 

      “I’ve got a present in the back for you.”

      “For me?”

      He nodded. “Reach over and take a look.”

      The lid had fallen off a large black box. Alice wriggled to push it off further.
 

      “Oh my!”
 

      She wanted to squeal with delight.

      Matthew just kept smiling.
 

      “You like it?”

      Alice let her fingers trace over the soft, luxurious fur. Her own fur coat! She’d longed for one all her life, had imagined her husband would buy her one when she’d arrived here.
 

      Enough, she reminded herself. When she was with Matthew she was forbidden to even think about Ralph.

      She made herself calm down. Pushed the bubbling worries aside. Her husband didn’t care what she did or where she was, so he was hardly going to notice a fur coat. And it was he who should be feeling guilty about his behavior, not her.
 

      “Alice, you haven’t answered my question?” Matthew took his eyes off the road to watch her. “Do you like it?”

      “You’re the best, Matthew. Thank you so much!”

      She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek, nearly bursting with the pleasure of his gift, her worries cast aside.
 

      “I want you in that fur coat and nothing else.” He kept his eyes on the road now but his smile was wicked.

      A shiver of excitement tickled her skin.
 

      “Yes, boss.”

Alice slipped into the coat the moment she stepped from the car. It seemed to envelope her, caress her, make her feel wanted. She’d imagined Ralph would want to treat her like this. Spoil her. Worship her.
 

      How wrong she’d been.

      Matthew’s warm hand clasped hers. Firmly. Like they were meant to be connected.
 

      “You look beautiful.”

      She smiled at his words.
 

      Alice wiggled her fingers against his, then snatched them back.

      “Alice?”

      She shook the feeling away and forced her feet to keep moving, forced her mind to go back to happy place it had been before.
 

      But the cool indent of his wedding band grazed against her again as he reclaimed her hand, reminding her. Telling her that what she was doing was wrong. He would never leave his wife for her. Never think of her as anything more than a good time. He was betraying another woman to be here. The odd kiss and giggle and stolen moment before hadn’t concerned her, but this felt different. More dangerous. More serious.
 

      “You do realize I’m going to peel your clothes off and kiss every inch of your body tonight, don’t you?”

      His smile was infectious. She was nervous, yes, but excited too. She just wanted to feel
wanted
. Wanted to be his for the night. Wasn’t that enough? If he didn’t want to think about his wife then why did she have to?
 

      “I might play hard to get,” she murmured, trying to fall back into role again.
 

      He chuckled, before grabbing her wrist tight and raising her hand to kiss it, his lips wet as they trailed across her skin.
 

      “But I like to play.”

      Part of Alice’s brain told her to run. To scurry back home to her husband before she ruined her marriage completely.
 

      But the other part? That part was making her press tighter into Matthew and wish they could stay out all night.
 

Alice tried her hardest to smile, when all she really wanted was to hide her face, her body, in shame. To cover her nakedness and curl into a ball like she had as a little girl. To cry and cry until she had no more tears left to shed.
 

      “You need anything?”

      Alice shook her head. Like what? A second chance? If she’d known it would feel like this, so dirty and distasteful, she would never have gone through with it. What they’d done went way beyond the heated kisses and whispers of affection of their affair to date.
This wasn’t what she wanted. This wasn’t what she’d expected.
 

      “I’m fine, Matthew. Thank you.”

      He leaned over her, his undone belt buckle falling against her skin, cold to the touch. She tried so hard not to grimace as his moustache brushed her face, his wet lips over hers.
Before it had felt exciting, now it just seemed… disturbing.
 

      “I’m thinking lunch tomorrow? What do you say?” he asked, hands falling to her hair then to casually cup her breast.
 

      She wanted to scream, to slap his hand away and tell him not to be so improper. But she couldn’t.
Because she’d known why he wanted to bring her here, and had followed him with her eyes wide open.
 

      “Alice?” he asked, groping her now. “Another rendezvous like this when we should be drinking coffee and eating lunch is just what I’d like to look forward to.”

      Alice felt like a cheap whore. Revolting.
Betrayed
.
 

      “Darling, I need a few moments to tidy up. Do you mind awfully?” She did her best to purr, but talking to him like that, like he was her lover, no longer felt natural. It hadn’t from the moment he’d pulled her clothes off and flopped down on top of her. It had taken him a minute or so to find pleasure, with no thought to her needs, to making her feel good too.
 

      “Of course.” He finished buttoning his trousers and pulled on his shirt. “I’ll have a drink in the foyer while I wait.”

      Alice watched him go. She waited for the final click of the door, then stood, naked, in front of the mirror. She looked at herself, eyes touching over every inch of her reflection.
 

      She was trim. Curvaceous. Attractive.
 

      Only her face looked like a painted doll’s, make-up hiding the person beneath. Hair so bright and brassy she no longer recognized it.
 

      The woman she saw looking back wasn’t the woman she’d known all her life. That woman had had morals. That woman had turned down a married man when she was single herself. That woman would have made an effort to make her marriage work. She’d been fun, yes, but she’d also known right from wrong.
 

      This woman was cheap. She’d just given herself to her boss like some sort of tramp. And for what? She could never be anything more than a mistress to him. One gift and a handful of flattering words and she’d fallen at his feet.
 

      Alice turned away and reached for her clothes.
 

      The only thing she knew right now was that she was never, ever going to do this again.