Read Online To Wear His Ring Again by Chantelle Shaw - Free Book Online Page B

when you paraded the members of your...your
harem
in public?’
    Isobel jerked her eyes from him and stared out of the car window, breathing hard. She was not going to admit how hurt she had felt when she’d seen pictures of Constantin with other women. If she was scrupulously honest with herself, she had not denied to the press the rumours of an affair with Ryan because she had hoped that Constantin would realise that she wasn’t pining for him.
    The simmering tension inside the car stretched her nerves to snapping point, and she felt relieved when he parked outside her apartment building.
    â€˜Thanks for the lift.’ She glanced at his handsome profile and bit her lip. ‘I don’t understand why you said you’ve changed your mind about the divorce. Separating permanently is the only sensible thing to do. Our marriage is well and truly over. The truth is that it would have been better if we had never met,’ she said in a low tone.
    His head shot round and his blue eyes glittered fiercely. ‘You don’t mean that.’
    If they had never met, she would never have held her tiny baby girl in her arms. Arianna had never lived in the world, but she lived on in Isobel’s heart.
    â€˜We were good together.’ Constantin’s husky accent caused her stomach muscles to contract.
    â€˜In bed!’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘But marriage has to have more than sex for it to work. Trust, for instance. You resented my friendships with the other members of the band. That’s clear from the way you were so ready to believe I was having an affair with Ryan. Sometimes I had the feeling that you wished you could lock me away in a tower, away from all other human contact.’ Her voice shook. ‘And yet you were so remote and cold towards me that you can hardly blame me for wanting to be with my friends.’
    An image flashed into Constantin’s mind of his father and stepmother, and inside his head he heard Lorena’s impassioned cry.
    I feel smothered, Franco. You’re jealous of my friends, and of any man I happen to glance at. You are even jealous of your own son!
    Dio!
Had Isobel felt smothered by
him,
just as Lorena had by his father? He had tried to fight his possessive feelings and the dark jealousy that he feared he had inherited from his father, but in doing so he had come across as cold and uncaring.
    Isobel got out of the car and Constantin watched her walk towards the front door of the apartment building. She was exquisitely desirable in her gold dress that clung to her slender figure. ‘Our marriage is well and truly over,’ she had insisted. He frowned as he thought of his uncle’s threat to appoint his cousin Maurio as Chairman of DSE.
    Nothing was going to stop him from claiming the position that was rightfully his.
    Growling a curse, he flung open the car door and strode after his wife.
    He caught up with her as she stood on the top step and searched in her bag for her door key. ‘Invite me in, Isabella, so that we can talk.’
    â€˜We have nothing to talk about.’ Isobel located her key in the bottom of her bag and gripped it tightly. Her composure was near to breaking point, and she was desperate to reach her flat before she did something stupid like fling her arms around Constantin and beg him to hold her close and never let her go. Her eyes were drawn to his, and the sensual heat in his gaze made her tremble. ‘We’re no good for each other,’ she whispered.
    â€˜Not true,
tesorino
.’
    His use of the affectionate term that he had often spoken to her at the beginning of their marriage undermined her defences, and she was unprepared when he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her towards him.
    His dark head descended and he claimed her lips, kissing her with a fiery passion that lit a flame inside Isobel.
This
had always been good for both of them, she acknowledged. Sex—white-hot and wickedly