Torn Asunder by Ann Cristy

up being very bitter. No doubt he would even end up
divorcing her, just so that he could marry someone of his own kind."
    "My
dear
Lydia
,
that's twaddle. Your trouble is that you're jealous...."
    "Jealous?
Me? Damn you, Clive—"
    Cle
didn't wait to hear any more. She felt as though she had just stepped through
hot glass. She could feel the burning cuts all over her body as she walked with
a fixed stare toward the stairs and the powder room.
    She
was sure she heard her name, that she heard Dev's voice but she kept the
sleepwalker's pace toward the nebulous sanctuary of the ladies room. God, all
the ghostly doubts that she had buried in her mind flared into painful life.
Dev couldn't be hers...

 
    CHAPTER
THREE
     
    Cle
stood there shaking, her hands clenching and unclenching at her side, the
slamming of the door reverberating through the apartment. Dev was gone. The loud,
angry confrontations between them for the last three days seemed to echo
through the now silent apartment. Dev was gone. He was gone to
England
and she
was here.
    For
the past three days, Dev had ranted and raved at her, trying to make her tell
him why she had changed her mind about accompanying him to
England
. No
matter what reason she gave him he shouted her down, saying that he didn't
believe her and asking why she was doing this.
    "Damn
you to hell, Cle," he had snarled at her. "What are you keeping from
me? Why didn't you ask Toner...No, damn it why didn't you tell Toner you were
going? Better yet I would have told him. What game are you playing? I won't
have it."
    "I
told you I'm not going with you. You can't make me go."
    "Damn
you, I'll tie you in a bag and drag you on that plane." There was murder
in his green eyes.
    Cle
had watched him openmouthed just before he left. She saw the smooth,
sophisticated lawyer, the polished solicitor peeled away, stripped to the raw
menacing man who looked at her as though he wanted to flay her. That was his
last look at her before he flung himself out the door.
    She
readied herself for work three times. She ran her pantyhose, smeared her lip
gloss, pulled a button from her blouse. When she finally looked at the finished
product in the mirror, she saw a wraith with banjo eyes, the circles beneath
almost the same blue. Her skin was paper white and not even blusher disguised
the parchment look. The five pounds that had melted from her frame in the last
three days made her skirt swivel at her waist.
    When
she reached the salon, she went right to her little cubicle, planning to tell
Jaime that she would miss the regular conference because she was too busy with
the line.
    Jaime
forestalled this by coming down to her. When he shut the door, closing the two
of them into the cell like room, Cle took a deep breath. "You might well
sigh. You were thirty minutes late today. I called you every five minutes
before phoning the doorman and telling him to buzz me when Her Highness made her
entrance. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you sick?" Jaime wrenched
her chin around, leaning over her as she sat at her drawing board. "Tell
me, Cle. What happened? Are you under the weather?" Jaime's narrowed eyes
widened in comprehension. "It's his lordship, isn't it? Has he skipped out
on you?"
    For
a moment Cle wasn't going to answer. She hugged her misery to her like a winter
coat in a snow storm. Then she felt too full to hold any more and it
    spilled
from her mouth. "In a way you could say that. He's gone to
England
. I
didn't go with him."
    "Good.
It wouldn't have been right for you, Cle. His kind aren't for you. This is
where you belong. We're your people."
    "I
love him Jaime. That's my problem. I think that's been my problem from the
start. Oh, I know I loved him right away but I thought it was a modern easy
love that I could walk away from with a sad smile and a lot of good memories. I
can't. I'm cut to pieces." Cle could feel the smile on her face slip
sideways. Shudders crashed through her body like incoming tide on a