Free A Matter of Trust by Radclyffe Page B

Stricken, she stared at Sloan as if just beginning to really understand. “He wants everything I am.”
    Sloan clenched her hands in her pockets, trying to ignore the almost irrational fury that pounded in her head. God, if he touched her... Very gently, she prompted, “Tell me.”
    Michael stopped pacing as abruptly as she had begun, standing in the middle of the room, her expression vague and disoriented again. “I was asleep when he returned last night. It must have been close to midnight.” She shivered. “I didn’t expect him. The light in the hall woke me, and the next thing I knew, he was in the room.” She laughed shakily. “I never realized how big he is, until just that moment. He seemed to take up all the space.”
    The memory was undiminished by fatigue—clear and razor edged, each image etched in her mind.
    “Are you awake?” he’d asked, leaving the lights off and moving about in the faint illumination coming through the windows.
    “Yes.” She sat up, holding the sheets to her breasts. “I thought you were still in L.A.”
    He dropped his raincoat over a chair and began to undress. “I finished up earlier than I expected, and I’m damned tired of hotel rooms. I want to sleep in my own bed.”
    As he’d approached, naked except for his briefs, Michael saw enough of his face in the dim light slanting into the room to read his expression. Her heart sank. She recognized his intent, although she hadn’t seen that look in his eyes for months. She rarely thought about what it signaled until it happened, and she gave it little thought after. It was simply part of their life, part of what had become the routine of their existence together. It was something she neither missed nor desired.
    “And I want to sleep with my wife.” There was no tenderness in his voice, only a cold statement of fact.
    As he’d reached for the covers, Michael knew with absolute certainty that she could not sleep next to him, let alone have sex with him. She slid from the opposite side of the bed and reached for a robe from a nearby chair. He stared at her across the bed, clearly surprised.
    “What are you doing?” he asked sharply.
    “I’m going to sleep in the guest room.”
    “What?” he demanded, clearly astonished. “Suddenly you’re refusing?”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why now, all of sudden?” He sounded confused, but there was an edge of anger rising in his tone.
    “I meant to tell you when you returned from this trip,” she said quickly. “It wasn’t something I wanted to do on the phone. I want a divorce.”
    He stared at her open-mouthed for what seemed like an interminable length of time, his expression frozen. Then his body went rigid, but whether it was anger or shock she could not tell. When he finally found his voice, it was even, controlled, and exceedingly cold.
    “And is this open to discussion or is your decision final?”
    “I’m certain.”
    He nodded once and walked across the room, slipped into his trousers, and pulled a shirt from the closet. She watched him, waiting for something to happen, realizing that she had no idea what he would do. How extraordinary to be witnessing the beginning of the end of their marriage and to discover that her husband was a stranger. Why had she not known that before? How could she have been blind to what had been missing for a decade? They had been sexual but never intimate. Why had it never mattered before now?
    When he was finally dressed, he walked to the windows that overlooked an expanse of gardens. His profile in the moonlight was sharp enough to have been have carved from stone. Without looking at her, he pronounced, “You can divorce me, if that’s what you want. But don’t think I’m just going to walk away from the company.”
    Then he made it abundantly clear to her that he would fight for control of the business, despite the legal agreements they had entered into previously. Throughout his entire discourse, he barely raised his voice as he