The Married Mistress by Kate Walker Page A

thoughts, he totally missed the tart edge to Sarah’s voice.
    ‘Two, please. And, yes, butter and…’
    The faint thump of something hitting the back of the newspaper and then tumbling to the floor brought him up sharp, making him lower the defensive barrier and actually look at her properly for the first time. His puzzled frown was met by a brilliant emerald glare as Sarah turned a furious face to him.
    ‘So what did your last slave die of?’ she muttered angrily.
    ‘Slave?’
    Damon made a play of examining the newspaper wherewhatever missile she had launched at it had struck before heading to the floor. There was a sticky, greasy patch—toast crumbs, butter and… He tested it gingerly with a finger.
    ‘Lime marmalade! I haven’t tasted that in ages.’
    And that was something that Sarah knew only too well. In fact it was the marmalade that had been positively the last straw, driving her to rebel, to lose her temper and finally fling the toast she had prepared for him straight at the newspaper, desperate to bring him out from behind his protective shield.
    ‘Well, yours is on the floor!’ she snapped, pointing down at the slice of toast that lay, buttered side predictably downwards, at his feet. She found herself wanting desperately to provoke him. To put him into as spiky a mood as she found herself in.
    ‘My, we are in a bad mood this morning.’
    Infuriatingly, Damon seemed totally unprovoked. Instead he appeared mildly amused, a faint gleam of humour lighting in his deep eyes, incensing Sarah even further.
    ‘What’s the problem, did you—what is that strange saying you have? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?’
    ‘It’s get out of bed on the wrong side!’ Sarah flung at him through gritted teeth. ‘As I’m sure you damn well know! Your English has always been just about perfect—so don’t suddenly go all Greek on me! And no, I did not get out of bed on the wrong side!’
    ‘Then what did happen? Oh…’
    Abruptly his expression sobered, the teasing gleam fading from his eyes.
    ‘I’m sorry. I understand. I was being insensitive.’
    ‘You were?’
    Sarah’s head went back in shock at the sudden change in the man before her. Was she imagining things? Lettingher mind deceive her into seeing things she wanted to find in his face? Or was that truly an expression of some sort of sympathy she could read there?
    ‘Of course. You are missing Jason.’
    ‘Missing—Jason!’
    For a split-second, she actually couldn’t think who he meant. But then memory came back in an unwanted rush.
    ‘I’m doing no such thing! I was glad to see the back of him!’
    Too late she realised, as she saw the softer light die from his eyes, just what she was making him think. He truly believed that Jason had been her lover. That she had at least shared her bed with someone that she cared for. Her total indifference to his departure, her casual dismissal of it could only make her look shallow at best and at the worst cheap.
    But was that the worst?
    Wouldn’t in fact the worst of this be having Damon know the truth? The real facts of what she had been thinking and feeling which had made her react in the way she had?
    Wouldn’t it be far more difficult to have him know that in those few short moments since she had come into the kitchen she had somehow, unknowingly and unthinkingly, slipped into a once-familiar routine that she used to share with him?
    It was as if the time in between, their painful separation, had never happened. During their brief marriage they had shared so many lazy breakfasts in just this way. In those early days, foolishly blind and besotted with her new husband, Sarah had been only too happy to pour him coffee, make him toast. And this morning she had slipped right back into that role, buttering his toast, reaching into the cupboard automatically for the lime marmalade because Damon had always loved it so much.
    But she didn’t want to remember those times. Didn’t want Damon to