Christakis's Rebellious Wife(30)

                ‘Ah, boys together too...’ Belle trilled teasingly, not one whit perturbed by the awkward meeting. ‘Isn’t this cosy?’

                ‘Betsy...’ Cristo gave Betsy an uneasy smile that warned her that Nik had confided in him. She wondered if Nik’s brother even appreciated how extreme an honour that was, because Nik was one of the most secretive men she had ever met. She finally dared to shift her attention to Nik. His sheer physical impact as he stood there poised with his arrogant black head held high and his broad shoulders thrown back hit her like a thunderclap. The amount of stress she had been fighting at his office had shielded her from the full effects of his compelling sexual magnetism. Now suddenly she was bare to the elements, reliving X-rated moments of their passionate encounter weeks earlier. She remembered the hard, jolting thrust of his demanding body into hers, the wild, screaming sensitivity of every nerve ending and the mad excitement that had engulfed her. A flush of heat travelled from her pelvis up through her already tender breasts and burned her face.

                But behind that unwelcome response smouldered an anger and a resentment that Betsy had always repressed because as a child she had been taught to regard such emotions as destructive, rude and undesirable.

                ‘Betsy won’t need a lift from Morrison,’ Nik announced, tight-mouthed. ‘As I’m coming to the party as well, I’ll organise her transport.’

                Betsy could not credit her hearing because Nik had spoken as though she were a crate requiring shipping. Or a personal possession that he still had the right to move about at will. This, from a male who had deceived her, deserted her and who was racing to divorce her! Without warning a volcanic fury beyond anything Betsy had ever felt before funnelled up through her diminutive figure like hot, scorching lava and she stalked forward, blue eyes ablaze.

                ‘Where do you get the nerve?’ Betsy spat out, her small face a mask of raging indignation as she confronted Nik and jabbed a small forefinger hard into his shirtfront. ‘Where the hell do you get the nerve to think you have the right to organise anything for me?’

                As taken aback as if a chair had suddenly lifted up and attacked him, Nik gazed down in disbelief at Betsy, the most conciliatory person he had ever known and without an ounce of aggression, facing up to him like a miniature warrior on the battlefield.

                ‘I—’

                ‘Shut up...I don’t want to hear your voice!’ Betsy seethed up at him, head tipping back because she refused to focus on his chest, but it was a challenge to seek eye-to-eye contact when he was so much taller than she was. ‘You’ve got nothing to say that I could possibly want to hear! You don’t own me and you don’t have any say in what I do or where I go or who I do it with! Only last week you were wrapped round an Amazonian blonde at some New York party. I didn’t interfere. I didn’t offer you an opinion. Why not? Because it was none of my business! And my life now is none of your business either!’ she completed with a final stab of her forefinger on his broad chest. ‘Do you get that, Nik? Or do I need to write it down for you, put it in business language so that you might actually grasp it?’

                ‘That is enough,’ Nik warned her, hard cheekbones rigid beneath his flushed golden skin. ‘What has got into you?’ he demanded, incredulous at her daring in attacking him.

                ‘You’ve got into me, Nik...literally and figuratively. You were a rotten, selfish husband and you went out of my life on an even worse note—’

                Cristo swung wide the door of his study in an almost comically inviting gesture. ‘You and Nik can talk in there—’

                ‘But I wouldn’t miss a minute of the mouse finally roaring,’ Belle confided without shame. ‘You go, girl!’