The Married Mistress by Kate Walker Page B

think that she remembered them. Didn’t want him to know that she still thought of herself as his wife in any way at all.
    ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’ she declared over-emphatically, waving her hand in a wild gesture to underline the point.
    ‘Careful…’
    But Damon’s warning came just too late. Sarah’s gesticulating arm caught her coffee-mug, knocking it to the floor, where it crashed noisily, shattering into fragments, the steaming liquid spreading everywhere.
    ‘Let me…’
    Before she could protest, Damon was out of his chair. He grabbed for a cloth in the same second that Sarah caught up a tea towel. Together they bent to the mess on the floor, reached to wipe it up. Then froze, eyes locking together.
    Sarah drew in her breath on a long, deep sigh.
    ‘Damon…’
    She couldn’t help it. She reached out a hand, just needing to touch him, to make contact. To somehow bridge the impossible divide that yawned there between them like a huge, gaping chasm.
    ‘Please…’
    For the space of a heartbeat it looked as if he might actually respond. But then he suddenly blinked hard, and she saw the change in his eyes with a terrible sense of dread.
    They froze over like ice on a pond, black as pitch and hard as polished jet.
    ‘I’ll see to this,’ was all he said, but the rejection and the callous coldness were there in his tone, if not actually in his words.
    Big mistake, you fool! Damon reproved himself savagely. He had meant to keep his distance, had told himselfthat if he could just keep space between himself and Sarah then he would be able to get himself back under control. He didn’t need the temptation of being close enough to smell the faint herbal scent of her shampoo, see the smudges of tiredness under those brilliant eyes. Already his heart had kicked into a heavier beat, making his pulse throb. If this was keeping his distance, then he was going to have to get a grip on himself and fast!
    Would it always be like this? Sarah wondered miserably. Would she always be so desperately vulnerable to his closeness, to just the scent and the warmth of his body? When she had been in his arms last night it had felt so right, like coming home. But the truth was that she no longer belonged in Damon’s arms, in Damon’s life, if in fact she had ever done so. He had never loved her, never really wanted her. He had only ever married her as a financial move. A way of getting what he wanted easily.
    She couldn’t take it any more. Tossing down the cloth, she jumped to her feet in a rush, unable to bear Damon’s closeness. It was impossible to guess what she felt most—regret or relief that he watched her go without protest or reaching out to hold her still.
    ‘I’ll make some fresh coffee.’ Anything to distract herself, she thought, wrenching open the fridge door. ‘Ah. No milk.’
    She had used the last of it in the mugful that now was splattered across the floor where Damon was dealing with the mess with swift efficiency.
    ‘Not to worry.’ Did her assumed nonchalance sound as forced and fake to him as it did in her own ears? She prayed it didn’t because it gave away far too much of her inner turmoil. ‘There should have been a delivery by now…’
    At least by going to the door she could gain herself some breathing space. A chance to still the racing judder of her heart, get her breathing back under control.
    There was no sort of warning. No sound that might have given her an indication that things were not quite as usual. No shuffle of feet or murmur of voices that was not the normal routine of things on a sleepy Saturday morning, where no one stirred much except perhaps to walk the dog or stroll to buy a morning paper.
    So Sarah fully expected to look out onto a silent, deserted street. She was totally unprepared for the chaos and tumult that assaulted her senses when she pulled open the door and stepped over the threshold.

CHAPTER FIVE
    I T WAS the lights that affected her first.
    The sudden,