The Marriage Surrender. Michelle Reid

with it. ‘Oh, good grief!’ she gasped, her eyes going wide in horror as they took in the carnage.

      ‘Get out!’ Sandro barked at her, swinging a look of such unholy savagery on her that she whimpered with a muffled choke and quickly stepped out of the room again, shutting the door behind her.

      ‘Th-there was no need to take your anger out on your secretary,’ Joanna murmured in tremulous reproach.

      Sandro disregarded the rebuke. ‘I never got your message,’ he bit out. ‘Did you think I would have ignored it if I had? You did,’ he realised, seeing the answer etched into her unguarded face.

      She had insulted him. Simply allowing herself to believe that he didn’t care about Molly’s death was probably the biggest insult she had ever given him.

      And she had given him a few, Joanna acknowledged. ‘I’m...’

      ‘Don’t dare say it,’ he warned her gratingly.

      Her mouth snapped shut, then on a shaky little sigh it opened again. ‘At first I refused to believe you would just ignore her death like that,’ she allowed. ‘But when I heard nothing from you, f-for days and days, I decided you...’ An awkward shrug finished what really no longer needed to be said. ‘And I was in shock,’ she continued huskily. ‘I could barely think straight. It was only after the f-funeral, w-when I’d moved from the flat and found somewhere else to live because I couldn’t bear to stay there without—without...’ She couldn’t say Molly’s name either, ‘It was only then that it really began to sink in that you hadn’t—hadn’t...’

      At last she stumbled into silence. Sandro didn’t say a word, not a single word, but just ran his uninjured hand across the top of his sleek dark head, dropped it stiffly to his side again, then turned away from her as if looking at her at all offended him.

      ‘I’m sorry’ hovered on the tip of her tongue again but managed to stay there while she simply stared at him, feeling helpless, feeling guilty, feeling hopelessly inadequate to deal with the fractured emotions clamouring around the two of them.

      ‘When?’ he asked suddenly. ‘When did this happen?’

      She told him the date, her low-pitched voice unsteady.

      ‘Madre di dio,’ Sandro breathed.

      Molly had been killed a year ago to the very day.

      Then he was moving, making her eyes instantly wary as he strode towards her, right past her, to angrily round his desk. His hand snaked out, catching up the telephone, while his other hand remained tensely at his side, the handkerchief bandage slowly staining red.

      ‘I want a print-out of all calls to this office on this date a year ago,’ he snapped at whoever was on the other end of the line. ‘And while you are about it you will bring in last year’s appointments diary.’ Slam. The telephone landed back on its rest.

      Joanna blinked, still staring, still stunned by the incredible display of emotional fury from this man who was usually so controlled. It was awful, she felt awful for being the one to cause it And it only got worse because, quite suddenly, he dropped into the chair behind his desk then slumped forward, both hands going up to cover his face.

      Once again the desire to say sorry was hovering precariously close to the edge of being spoken. She had truly believed that he was no longer interested in anything that happened to her. It had caused her so much hurt at the time—oh, not only because of her own wretched feelings of desertion, but also for Molly. Molly, who had thought the world of Sandro.

      Joanna had hurt him with her bitter and twisted view of everything life had to throw at her. Now she wanted to go to that desk and put her arms around him, hold him—offer him some kind of consolation for the shock she had just dealt him.

      But she couldn’t because her own maimed senses wouldn’t let her. So she turned and moved away a step or two, then just stood with her arms tightly folded across her body and her eyes grimly lowered from the temptation of Sandro, who looked still so in need of comfort.