page6 (1/2)

With Luc’s lips caressing hers it had been extraordinarily easy to forget their quarrels and the harsh words they had said to one another in the final, agonising dying throes of their e and oh, so easy to remember instead the love they had once shared

Had once shared?

Shakily Belle closed her eyes Ither feel like this, ret…wish… But the way she had felt just nohen Luc had kissed her, had been the reaction of the woed with painful honesty She had wanted hie-old female response to his nearness and his touch as the worown into

Not wanting to pursue such a dangerous train of thought, Belle punched her pillow and told herself that she ought to be trying to sleep and get herself better

Belle was asleep when Luc let himself back into her small house several hours later He had found her spare keys hanging on a hook in the kitchen, neatly labelled He had been reluctant to leave her on her own, having seen how ill she looked She was far too thin, far too pale, and no doubt she orking far too hard and neglecting to look after herself properly

A wry smile curled his mouth One of her complaints about him had been that he fussed too much

‘When I’ry, I’ll eat,’ had been her standard response to him in the old days, when he had complained about their lack of ordered meal times

These days he could sympathiseho for himself, and as a consequence he found that he tended to snatch s But at least he could dine in hall if he wanted to—the academic’s version of the businessed ruefully as he cliroceries he had bought whilst he was out

No doubt she would be furious with him for what she would undoubtedly consider to be his unwarranted interference But, deny it though she would, there was still, on his part at least, a sense of there being a bond between them, a relationship, and he could nowith fellow acadeht than he could have walked ahen she’d opened the door to him and he had seen how ill she looked

It was true that all those years ago, after the initial shock, and his instinctive atte, he had been forced to acknowledge that, given the growing frequency and intensity of their quarrels, and the disharmony between them, he’d had no option but to accept Belle’s decision that she wanted a divorce Certainly it had seemed irowing differences, but in the years since then his position had given hies taking place in the way the sexes related to one another and ran their relationships

It was no extraordinary thing at all now for a female student to take on the financial responsibility of helping to support her partner, or to go on to become the main breadwinner whilst he opted to continue his studies; why, even soues were openly outspoken about the fact that they, as highly qualified woood salaries, actively preferred to have a partner as happy to take a more passive but nevertheless extremely important and supportive role in their relationship

‘It’s just too exhausting battling to accoue had told hi the subject ‘Quite honestly, whilst there’s a part of h-powered “Alpha”-typewoman, I know that I have a far better chance of happiness and a far pleasanter life with a man who is prepared to let me take the lead role’

Not that he and Belle’s relationship had been quite like that

He personally had always considered Belle to be his equal in every way, although sexually she had tended to look to hies of their relationship If he was honest, Luc had to admit that his own inflexible old-fashioned ot which had eaten away at the foundations of their h he had always been too proud to admit it to her, it had irked him, hurt him, that she had been the one to provide the major part of their incoenerous in sharing the pleasure it had given her to buy things for their home…and for him

Yes, there had been faults on both sides, but…

But it was too late now to go back and rewrite the past Not the past, maybe, but there was still the present…and the future Luc paused in the act of closing the fridge door

Holding Belle in his arms earlier, he had been overwhelhtfully hecurled up like a se bed And she had let her guard down enough with him to imply she had not shared that bed with anyone else

Which put the

Luc knewwithout a partner drove them to irrational excesses of behaviour and unsuitable relationships… But, desperately though he had , he had never experienced any desire to fill her place with another woman, another body…any body…just to ease the sexual ache of her absence And yet earlier today, holding her, he had been sharply and shockingly reminded of just hoerfully potent the erously it could overrule reason and logic

If the intensity hich he had once wanted Belle, and loved her, had di so close to her had certainly given him a sharp reminder of just how it had once been

Luc sat down on the bed beside her, watching her, re

The first time he had held her, really properly held her, she had literally trembled with exciteh he had instantly become Master of the Universe, Lord of Eternity, noand powerful that there was nothing, no goal beyond his reach, and at the saly vulnerable that she could have reduced hi him her smile