Tally was tempted to say that Robert Miller minded his own business but that would immediately reveal that theirs was a friendly rather than intimate relationship and she did not see why she should hand Sander that interesting information on a plate. No doubt he would be amused to learn that when she had last made love with a man it had been him; and that had been at least eighteen months ago. She knew Sander’s hot-blooded nature and was certain that he would have moved on much sooner than she had contrived to do. A bitterness she could not suppress rose like bile in her tight throat as she still could not bear to think of Sander with anyone else.
‘Robert knows better than to try and tell me what to do,’ Tally replied drily, her chin lifting, green eyes glinting as if to say: Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
Sander released a husky laugh that purred down her backbone like a taunting scratch. ‘You surprise me; you liked it when I did it …’
And that crack smashed through Tally’s superficial shell of civility like a brick and made her fingers flex like claws and her face burn as red and hot with mortification as any fire. She knew exactly what he was getting at. In the early months of their relationship, Sander had often told her what to do in bed while he explained what he enjoyed. Not only had she had no objection to that intimate education, but she’d also discovered that it turned her on.
‘That’s it … I’m leaving!’ Tally snapped furiously, stepping past him to snatch at the car keys she had tossed down on the side table. ‘You can dump my stuff. I don’t want any of it!’
But Sander’s reflexes were much faster than hers and long brown fingers scooped up the keys a split second before she could. ‘You’re not driving off in the temper you’re in—’
‘Give me those keys!’ Tally launched at him in a burning rage at his interference.
‘How long did you wait before you welcomed Miller into your bed?’ Sander enquired, relishing the sight of her all shaken up, stray strands of hair flying loose from the smooth bun at the nape of her neck while her green eyes crackled like fireworks. All of a sudden she was the woman he remembered again. No other woman of his acquaintance had ever equalled her passion, but the conviction that she had taken another man as a lover was like a knife in his chest and he couldn’t leave the subject alone.
‘You’ve got no right to ask me that!’ Tally hurled, her cheeks burning as she reached for the keys.
Much taller than she was, Sander simply held the keys out of her reach. ‘I’m still your husband and naturally I’m curious—you barred me from your bed for months before we broke up,’ he reminded her harshly, his hard jaw line grim.
‘We’re almost divorced. I’m not having this conversation with you—now give me those keys!’ Tally hissed back at him in vexation.
‘No,’ Sander responded in Greek. ‘I won’t enable you to get behind the wheel in a blind rage …’
‘Oh, so caring all of a sudden!’ Tally raked back at him in a furious hiss of condemnation that she could not restrain. ‘Where did that caring guy go when we lost our child?’
Sander froze as though she had struck him. His dark eyes blazed with hostility before he veiled them, and his superb cheekbones clenched into hard angular lines below his bronzed skin. ‘That’s not something I’m willing to discuss—’
‘No, I didn’t think it would be,’ Tally spat back with raw contempt. ‘Not with your track record for working eighteen-hour days, or being back at your desk the day after the funeral of our child. All you care about is making more money … it doesn’t matter that in comparison to most people you are already rich as Croesus, you never seem to have enough money to be satisfied!’
Thick black lashes lifted on blistering, dark golden eyes as direct as knives aimed at a target. ‘How dare you? You carried our son, so you’re the only one allowed to be sensitive and have feelings, is that right?’
Unprepared for the immediacy of that scorching comeback, Tally muttered, ‘Well, er …’
‘We all cope with grief in different ways. I could have got drunk and slept with other women to express my wounded feelings,’ he grated in a tone of derision. ‘But that’s not who I am. I’m not into therapy or wallowing in emotion either, wasn’t brought up that way … sorry In my family we don’t whinge or talk about stuff like that. I worked every goddamned hour I could because the same day that I lost my son I lost my wife as well and working was the only way I could handle it!’
Totally disconcerted by that explosive response, which roared from him like a tornado set suddenly free from a cage, Tally had fallen back several steps in shock. She was already regretting her attack on him, wincing at how unwise it had been to break open the wound of that painful subject when she was still in the process of healing. Now catching the sheer rawness in his voice, and the caustic charge of bitter reproach in his hard gaze, Tally was paralysed to the spot and recognising in Sander a depth of emotion she had not acknowledged he might possess. Her conscience was already censuring her ill-considered words. Now she was asking herself why she had so hugely underestimated what he might be feeling when their child was born dead.
‘What do you mean … you lost your wife?’ Tally prompted unevenly, reluctant to ask but unable to let the statement stand unchallenged.
‘You acted as if you had cornered the market on grief and you turned into a zombie. You wouldn’t talk to me or go out or do anything but cry. You were suffering from depression but when I tried to persuade you to see a doctor or even a counsellor you went bonkers and told me that I couldn’t possibly understand what you were going through!’
‘I didn’t think you did … I was all screwed up inside myself.’ Tally struggled to defend her past behaviour, her heart beating so fast with tension that she could hardly breathe.
But Sander was not yet finished. Seeing her back inside the house where everything had so suddenly fallen apart had brought the past alive again for him in a way he had not foreseen. He was also reacting in a way he had not known he might and it was one of the very few times in his life that he was not fully in control. He had tried to swallow back the furious words that had come out of nowhere at him but found that he could not silence them, for his sense of injustice still burned deep and strong. ‘When I suggested we have another baby you reacted like that was unforgivable and you screamed that you didn’t want another child!’ Sander bit out in wrathful reminder. ‘And when I made the very great mistake of trying to get back into bed with you again you behaved as if it was an attempted rape!’
To say that Tally regretted what she had invited with her emotional attack on him would have been a severe understatement. Pale as milk, she was trembling with perturbation and disbelief, reeling in dismay from the bitter accusing anger he could not conceal. One minute she had been fighting him for her car keys, the next…?
‘I’m sorry,’ she framed shakily, appalled that she had surrendered entirely to her own pain after their loss while flatly refusing to recognise that he was having a tough time as well.
Sander loosed a harsh laugh. ‘Sorry’s not enough, is it? Sorry doesn’t fix anything!’ he flung back at her without hesitation. ‘Our baby dying didn’t stop me wanting you, it made me need you more …’
Shame filled Tally in the instant that she recognised that they had let each other down. Neither of them had been capable of keeping their relationship alive in the maelstrom of grief and misunderstanding that had followed the arrival of their stillborn son.
Sander tossed the keys back down on the table and turned his darkly handsome head back to her, eyes as black as pitch in the sunlight and glinting with emotions she couldn’t read. ‘And I still haven’t learned how to stop wanting you,’ he breathed in a sizzling undertone that stung her like a hot jet of steam on tender skin. ‘Is there some magical combination of aversion responses that I lack? You did a hell of a number on my libido, Tally!’