Free To Wear His Ring Again by Chantelle Shaw

erotic! She had been inexperienced when she had met Constantin but he had discovered her secret desires and had used his knowledge mercilessly to take her repeatedly to a sensual nirvana.
    She was melting inside. Heat flooded between her thighs and her body was impatient for more,
more
of the exquisite pleasure promised by the bold sweep of Constantin’s tongue inside her mouth. She wanted him. She would always want him, she thought despairingly. But he was no good for her.
    He traced his lips over her cheek and the slender arch of her neck. ‘Invite me in,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Let me remind you of how good we are together.’
    â€˜No!’
Determination not to take a path that she knew would lead to heartache gave her the strength to push him away. ‘Sex isn’t the solution. In our case, it was the problem,’ she said shakily. ‘We were drawn together by desire, and if we had just had an affair it would probably have burned out as quickly as your affairs with other women. When I fell pregnant you felt obliged to marry me.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I’ll never forget Arianna, but it’s time we both moved on with our lives, Constantin.’
    That was easy for Isobel to say, he thought grimly. The Stone Ladies were hugely successful, but his career at DSE, his
life
for heaven’s sake, was about to go into freefall unless he could persuade her to come back to him. He didn’t doubt that he
could
persuade her back into his bed. He had felt her tremble when he’d kissed her and knew she shared his hunger. If he drew her back into his arms, he was confident that she would offer little resistance. But his conscience stayed him. Her clear hazel eyes reflected her confusion. Undoubtedly she desired him. But for her, it wasn’t enough, and Constantin knew he was no more capable of satisfying her emotional needs now than he had been two years ago.
    As Isobel shut the front door on Constantin and walked across the lobby to the lift, she assured herself that she was relieved he had not tried to detain her. She knew she had been right to turn down having sex with him, but her body did not agree and the dragging ache in the pit of her stomach was almost as bad as the ache in her heart.
    â€˜Evening, Miss Blake,’ the concierge greeted her. ‘The parcel that you said you were expecting to be delivered didn’t arrive today.’
    â€˜I’ll have to phone the courier tomorrow. Goodnight, Albert.’
    As the lift carried her to the fourth floor she focused her thoughts on the missing parcel, the friend she’d arranged to meet for lunch the following day, anything but Constantin. Her life was good the way it was. Why alter the status quo and allow him to turn her world upside down again?
    She had no idea why he had suddenly decided that he didn’t want a divorce. There was a time when she would have immediately given in to him, in the desperate hope that perhaps he did have feelings for her. She had been pathetic, Isobel thought grimly. But after she’d had the miscarriage Constantin had let her down badly by failing to support her. She was no longer in awe of him, and, although she had a sneaking suspicion that she would always be in love with him, she understood that he was an ordinary mortal—a complex man, certainly, but he had his faults just as she did. Unfortunately she simply could not believe that they would be able to resolve the differences that had driven them apart.
    The lift stopped and the doors opened. The front door of her flat was a couple of hundred yards along the corridor. Isobel glanced down to select the appropriate key on the key ring she was holding, when something, a sixth sense, warned her that she wasn’t alone.
    â€˜Who’s there...?’ She looked over her shoulder down the brightly lit, empty corridor, and cursed her overactive imagination.
    â€˜Hello, Izzy.’
    She spun round, and her heart