Guilty Passion by Laurey Bright

This,” he said, looking down at the letter clutched in his hand, “is as near to being a suicide note as you’re ever likely to see.”
    â€œSuicide note?”
    â€œChapter and verse. He knew that you’d soon be leaving him—for someone younger, someone he had trusted.” He held the letter out to her. “Read it.”
    Recoiling from it, Celeste cried, “It isn’t true! He couldn’t have thought. . .”
    â€œAlec was a scientist. He didn’t jump to conclusions easily. He’d have looked at the evidence, weighed it carefully.”
    Celeste said, trying to be reasonable, “But in his private life he was different. You hardly saw him for years at a time. Do you really know what he was like? If I even spoke pleasantly to a man, he thought I was flirting. . . . It was all in his imagination.”
    â€œ
All
of it?” Ethan sneered.
    â€œEthan, you have to realise. . . he was abnormally sensitive about some things, and getting more so. . . . I wondered sometimes if he was mentally unbalanced.”
    Ethan gave a short, harsh laugh. “You expect me to believe that? About
Alec
?”
    Celeste gave a hopeless little shrug. Of course she shouldn’t have expected it. Ethan worshipped his older brother; it was the habit of a lifetime. Nothing she could say was going to alter his opinion. Bewildered, she stood with her hands clenched at her sides, staring at him.
    He said, “You can cut out the innocent act. I told you, I know all about you. I didn’t see much of Alec over the past few years, thanks to you and. . . certain related factors which we needn’t go into just now. But we were always close. He wrote to me often. Long letters, Celeste, very private letters in which he told me a lot of things that he would never have discussed with anyone face-to-face. It was a safety valve for him, to be able to pour out his heart over a marriage that had gone sour, over a wife who was. . . faithless.”
    Celeste cried, her cheeks losing all colour, “That’s not true! Ethan, you
can’t
believe that’s true.”
    â€œWhy not?” he said, unemotionally. “You might say I’ve had a sample of the evidence—at first hand.”
    Wordlessly, Celeste shook her head. “No,” she murmured. This couldn’t be real, she told herself. It didn’t feel as though it was real. It felt like a dream, a nightmare from which she must surely wake.
    She turned and headed for the house, wanting to get away from him, to be alone behind a closed door.
    Hard hands grasped her and swung her around. Ethan said, “Celeste!” and the hands on her shoulders tightened, gave her a little shake. She knew she was going to faint, and she thought,
Not again
.
    Vaguely she was aware that he had hoisted her into his arms and was carrying her. She felt cold and floaty, and very dizzy, quite unable to help herself.
    After what seemed a long while, she began to feel less sick and the blood seeped back into her veins. She opened her eyes and found that Ethan had placed her on the bed where she had slept last night, and dropped a light duvet over her. A folded facecloth lay over her forehead.
    Ethan frowned down at her. “Better?” he inquired curtly.
    She murmured, “This is becoming a habit. I’m sorry.”
    â€œMaybe that’s my line,” he said. “Lie still.”
    She did, closing her eyes, but said, “Are you apologising?”
    â€œIf I caused this, yes. I’m not a sadist.”
    â€œBut you’re not sorry for. . . what you think,” she said tiredly. “Are you?”
    For a moment he didn’t reply. Then he said evenly, “Don’t worry about it just now. The letter was a bit of a shock. Maybe I overreacted.”
    â€œBut if you really believe. . .” She moved her head, and her eyes fluttered open, finding his.
    â€œI said don’t worry about it,” he