Review: The Ultimate Betrayal

The Ultimate Betrayal by Michelle Reid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 ⭐⭐⭐ - OK, or decent reads
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He cheated because he could. In several scenes he treats her like a stupid child who must come to terms with what he has done and forget about it. He used the other woman because she was available while his wife dealt with sick children at home. WTF!

'Rachel,' she said, 'where is Daniel tonight?' The frown deepened. 'Working late,' she answered.

'He's been doing a lot of that recently, hasn't he?' 'Well, yes—but he's been very busy with that takeover thing with Harveys. You know about it, don't you?' she prompted. 'I'm sure I heard you both discussing it the last time you came to dinner...' 'The Harvey thing was over months ago, Rachel!'

'Wake up to what?' Like Mandy, she was beginning to get impatient herself. 'To that bastard you're married to!' Mandy cried. 'Dammit, Rachel—he's playing you for a fool! He isn't working late. He's out with another woman!'

'No, not tonight in particular,' Mandy answered heavily, obviously thinking the question as stupid as Rachel thought it. 'Some nights,' she adjusted. 'I don't know how often! I just know that he is having an affair, and all of London seems to know about it except for you!'

"They've been seen around town. In restaurants—you know—being too intimate with each other for a business relationship. But worse than that, I've seen them with my own eyes. My latest has a flat in the same building as Lydia Marsden,' she explained. 'I've seen them coming and going...'

But she was seeing now. His frequent grim moods recently. The way he snapped at her and the children, the many times he had remained downstairs in his study working instead of coming to bed with her—making love with her.

She was remembering the delicate scent of an expensive perfume emanating from one of his shirts one morning as she prepared it for washing. It had clung to the fine white cotton, all over it. The collar, the shoulders, the two front sections.

It had been the same delicate scent she had smelled but not quite picked up on each time she had kissed him when he came home at night—on his late nights. On his lean cheek. In his hair.

Seeing Daniel. Daniel with another woman. Daniel having an affair. Daniel making love, drowning in another woman's...

Then she remembered the perfume. And the times he had stayed out all night—blaming it on the Harvey contract.   

 

He was guilty. It was written all over him. Guilty as sin.

He had surrounded her with luxury, cherished her almost—as a man would a possession he had a sentimental attachment to.

'I was under pressure at work. The Harvey takeover was threatening to kill everything I had worked for.'

You were still recovering from the bad time you'd cad carrying Michael, and I seemed to be spending more me with her than with you.

She had never so much as considered adding husband taking up with another woman to her list problems. It had never entered her head!

'I never meant to do it. I never even wanted to do it! But she was there when I needed someone and you were not, and I just------' 'Oh—do shut up!'

'It's over, Rachel!' he repeated hoarsely, appealing to her in a voice she had never heard before. 'For God's sake, it's over!'

'And when was it over?' Tipping her head upright, she shrivelled him with a look. 'When my body became yours to indulge yourself in once again? Poor Lydia,' she drawled, the whisky having the desired effect and numbing her from the neck down. 'I wonder which one of us you played for the bigger fool?'

'It happened,' he stated grimly, raking a shaky hand through his neat dark hair. 'I wish it hadn't, but I can't turn back the clock, no matter how much I want to. If it helps any, I'll admit to feeling utterly ashamed of myself. But as God is my witness,' he added huskily, 'I give you my word that it will never happen again.'

'Until the next time,' she muttered, and was suddenly moving to get out of the room before all the ugly feelings working inside her overflowed in a storm of bitter bile.

'How many times?' she threw at him, grinding out the words on a complete loss of control. 'How many times you come home with the scent of her still clinging your skin? How many times did you have to f-force yourself to make love to me after losing yourself in her!'

she brought her hand up and hit him right across his unfaithful face.

'We have everything going for us if you'll just give it another chance. Don't throw it all away because of tee stupid mistake on my part. You can't throw it all’ he insisted thickly.

‘You did  the throwing away,' she countered,

"While you've been busy making your fortune, chasing your personal rainbows and having your affairs,' she threw at him bitterly, 'I've been quietly sitting here in this damned house—stagnating!'

'This is ridiculous. You're behaving like a child! It-----'

'In all my life I've never known a more sexually eager woman than you!' ‘Not even Lydia?'

'Then get out!' she told him shrilly. 'Why don't you just do the honourable thing, Daniel, and get the hell out of here! No one's making you stay! There's nothing left here to stop you going to your precious Lydia!' 'Will you stop mentioning her bloody name?' he grated. 'Lydia,' she chanted instantly. 'Lydia—Lydia—Lydia’

even though they never spoke about it—never tried to resume making love—that Lydia had come between them as surely as if she'd crawled into the bed with them.

Her home, which had once been her pride and joy, now became a place to see criticism in every corner. It was good enough for her, but not for Daniel.

He ignored that, his expression slightly guarded when he suggested casually enough, 'A dress worthy of dinner in one of London's most exclusive restaurants, with maybe a little dancing later?'

Daniel was the stranger she had loved blindly, married blindly, and lived with blindly for seven whole years.

'Once or twice.' With Lydia? She could not stop the thought from coming and, once there, it left her quiet and even more subdued for the rest of the journey.

'Well, Daniel Masterson, as I live and breathe!' a smoothly sardonic voice drawled. 'Damn!' Daniel muttered, his grip tightening on Rachel's hand before he let go of her abruptly, schooled his expression into a fascinatingly bland mask, then looked up into the face of their intruder. 'Zac,' he acknowledged, coming smoothly to his feet. 'I thought you were in the States.'

'Been back several weeks now,' he replied. 'It's you who seem to have been out of circulation recently...' His glance swept curiously down towards Rachel—then darkened with pure male interest. 'Could this beautiful creature be the reason why?' he mused softly. Then, boldly to Daniel, 'So what happened to the lovely?’

'My wife,' Daniel cut in, editing out whatever the other man had been going to say—but not before Rachel had added the last word for herself. 'Rachel.'

"This is Zac Callum. We use the same legal firm,' he concluded tautly.

'No wonder Daniel has been noticeable for his absence over the last few weeks,' he murmured as Rachel placed her hand in his. Long, incredibly slender fingers closed over hers. 'A wife,' he added softly. 'Your taste has certainly improved, Daniel.' He means Lydia, Rachel thought wretchedly. 'Thank you,'

Don't, her eyes pleaded with him. Don't tell them the truth! He knows about Lydia. Don't put me up for ridicule by telling them you've had a wife for seven years and children for six when he obviously knows about your mistress!

'Does anyone in this other world you move in know about me and the children?' she asked heavily then. He took exception to her reference to his other world, but bit the bullet on it.

But the way Zac was looking at her made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. And his eyes kept on telling her that he was remembering that kiss they'd started in his car, whereas Rachel had spent the last few weeks trying to dismiss it from her mind.

'Why do you put up with him when he's such a selfish bastard?' Zac bit out suddenly. 'Aren't all men?' she countered tartly. 'Not like Daniel,' he muttered. 'I still find it hard to believe that he's married to someone like you.' He glanced at her. 'The Lydia Marsdens of this world suit him much better, you know.'

'And Mandy Sales,' he added tauntingly. 'That was quite a revealing confrontation you all had on the dance-floor that night, wasn't it?'

I bet that news, when it got out, hit Lydia right where it hurts the most. She was after marrying him, you know. Daniel was the ideal choice for an up-and-coming corporate lawyer like her.'

So Lydia was a lawyer, not Daniel's secretary, as she had assumed.

'If you've been married for seven years, then that means you caught him before Daniel made his meteoric elevation into the killing-fields of finance. So what does that make you, Rachel?' he asked. 'A hanger-on from his reckless youth?'

'Did your ego need a bit of a lift? Has it begun to get to you at last that he gets a bigger kick out of bedding his legal adviser than he does his wife?' She hit him then, her hand striking at his cheek while her own face went white with pain. Then she made a grab for the door-handle, her other hand fumbling to unfasten her seatbelt so that she could get away. But Zac grabbed her arm, his fingers biting. 'Oh, no,' he muttered. 'You don't get away with that so easily.'

Damn Mandy for waking her up out of it! She added bitterly as she began the walk home. Damn Daniel for his infidelity and damn Lydia for giving in to his expert seduction! But most of all-damn herself!

"The high-powered lawyer who is far more Daniel Masterson's type than pathetic little Rachel is!'

'Well, I think it's true,' she asserted thickly. 'We've grown apart, Daniel! You going one way while I've stayed still, and I think the Lydia Marsdens of this world are far more your type now!'

"This is Lydia Marsden,' the cool voice explained, and Rachel went absolutely still.

Her hand lifted to her cheek, ice-cold fingers resting on equally cold flesh. 'Lydia just called,' she told him blankly. 'She wants you to call her back.'

Lydia had called, and Daniel had run like a man possessed! She was nursing Michael in the sitting-room when Daniel came looking for her.

Daniel was looking fixedly at Rachel. 'I apologise,' he said roughly. 'She's been told never to ring here.'   'It doesn't matter.'

'She's been told never to call here,' he repeated tautly. 'She was told to get the damned cleaner to call me if it was that urgent! But never to do it herself!' 'As I said, it doesn't matter.'

'How is it that she still works for you?' she questioned tightly. 'If you say it's over.' It had been a bitter blow that, finding out that Lydia still worked for him.

She didn't believe him. She could still see the expression on his face when she had told him Lydia rang. She could still feel the way he had moved her roughly to one side. She shuddered. 'Then what is she doing calling here?' she asked.

'It wouldn't be so bad if the damned house was big enough for me to get lost in if I felt like it. But because you refuse to move to something better,  have to lose my home comforts, Me’ he choked. 'A damned cash millionaire-living in a poky little cardboard box with three noisy little brats and a wife who...'

'W-Why don't you go to Lydia, then?' she suggested shakily, her throat swelling on the thickness of unshed tears. 'Perhaps sh-she would  give you a better time all round!' Spinning, she ran out of the room before he could say another thing! He thought her vindictive! He thought their home a poky little box!

And his children! Those dear, sweet babies who loved him so utterly—he called them brats!

Lydia had faded into the background over the past months. She no longer haunted their lovemaking, though Rachel still needed the darkness to hide in if she was to respond to Daniel at all. But at least she seemed to be coming to terms with a betrayal that had almost wrecked their marriage.

Then the ghost of her hell came back to haunt her, and she snapped her eyes tight shut, whimpering in wretched frustration as her body began to tighten in rejection. 'No!' Daniel rasped, wretchedly. 'What if I can never accept what you did to us?' 'Then you'll never have me again,' he answered grimly. 'Because I know I can't keep on making love to a woman who has to hide behind her closed eyes before she can accept me inside her.'

He was, in short, telling her that she had to learn to trust him again or forget the physical side of their marriage.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered after a while. 'What for?' His head shot round to stare at her. 'For being a poor mother to your children,' she said. 'For intruding,' she added, 'here.' 'Sometimes, Rachel,' Daniel sighed impatiently, 'I wonder what actually goes on in that head of yours!'

'It—it isn't a case of forgiveness,' she murmured. 'It's trying to forget it I find I can't do. You shattered my whole world, Daniel!'

'Then why did you do it?' she asked in wretched bewilderment.

'Because she was there,' he answered brutally, and winced at Rachel's dismayed gasp.

'Lydia was a safety-valve. Pure and simple, very basic' He fixed her with a grim look. 'I was under terrible pressure, and I used her, quite frankly, to relieve some of it.'

'So now I'm supposed to forgive—forget,' she said. 'And sit back and wait for the next time you're under pressure like that and feel the need to relieve it with some other accommodating fool who happens to be available?'

She'd suspected it, Rachel thought wretchedly. Ever since Lydia had opened her eyes to what she and Daniel really were to each other, she had suspected her pregnancy had trapped him. Daniel had not wanted to marry her; he simply hadn't been given the choice.

'I resented the whole bloody lot of them! I needed you, Rachel! But you couldn't be reached! And—God forgive me—Lydia could.'

'With Lydia's frankly brilliant help,' he conceded, 'I won the battle with Harveys. But for some reason that same God only knows, because I know I can't work it out, the relief of it sent me staggering over those limits of endurance I mentioned, and right into her arms.'

'How long, what?' 'Did you have her as your mistress—how long?' she repeated rawly.

'I didn't blame you. After all, I'd been unfaithful to you in every way but the ultimate act, indulging in my own light relief from all the pressures by taking Lydia out instead of coming home to you. Wining her, dining her...' His shoulders hunched as if the memory clenched at something vicious inside him. 'Mandy told me you were seen coming out of Lydia's flat,' Rachel put in huskily. He nodded. 'After my battle with Harveys, I went a little crazy,' he confessed.

Oh,' he added with a cynical twist to his mouth, 'don't get me wrong. She knew what she was doing and I knew what she was expecting of me when I let her take me there but-----' he stopped to smile bleakly. 'In the end, I couldn't.

I fell into a drunken stupor and awoke in a strange bed the next morning.

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