Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,45

just for a cheap roll in the hay!” she stated matter of factly.

Vaughn abruptly stopped rubbing her wrist and pulled his hands away angrily, his eyes spitting fire as they glared at her across the table. Clearly not trusting himself to speak quietly he leaned forward and hissed instead, his voice menacing and cold.

“Don’t you dare to assume that anything we may have would be cheap. Just because you haven’t been tempted in the whole time that you have been married doesn’t mean that you are unattractive. You are a young, vibrant and beautiful woman who is stuck in an unhappy relationship – a marriage that most people would have walked away from long since. I’m not an idiot, Elise; I know when I touched your hips tonight that you were in pain and I know that he did that to you. Men like that don’t deserve to be alive and they certainly do not deserve the love of a woman like you.” The depth of passion in his voice took her by surprise as he continued to hiss across the table.

“I do not agree with cheating and nor do I agree with breaking up a marriage but I am damned if I will stand by, even as a friend, and watch you being used as a human punch-bag just because you lack the courage to face up to reality and get the hell out of there!”

Elise couldn’t speak. Her throat had dried up and all coherent thought had fled at the sheer level of anger on Vaughn’s face. She had seen Cole like this once or twice when he had been patching her up but for some reason on Vaughn it seemed much more deadly. She could deny it, pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about but that would just be pointless. He knew – and he still wanted to spend time with her. There was no point in prettying anything up for him.

Nervously she took a sip of her tea, her fingers shaking, making it difficult to get the mug to her mouth.

“How.....” she whispered, “how did you know?”

“I...” for a brief moment a look of pain flitted across his face and then it was gone, replaced by a look of calm concern.

“I heard most of what your husband said in the office the other day and it didn’t take a genius to work out the rest. To see Cole lay into your husband like that was unexpected and I spent a good while that evening trying to piece it all together. Why would someone as calm as Cole go off the deep end like that? There must have been a really good reason. From then on, I had my suspicions but it wasn’t until tonight when I touched your hips that I knew for certain.” He looked across at her and locked his eyes onto hers.

“How long, Elise? How long has this been going on?” he asked gently, taking both her hands this time and holding them steady in his warm grip, trying to stop the incessant shaking.

“I.....” she paused, hung her head, ashamed to admit to just how long she had suffered at the hands of her husband. Tenderly, Vaughn put a finger under her chin and lifted it so that their eyes could connect again.

“How long?” he prompted softly, his eyes never once leaving hers.

“Five years on and off” she whispered, her voice barely audible. ”Five long years.”

Chapter Thirteen

She watched the range of emotions playing across Vaughn’s face as her words sank in.

Dimly, she was aware of activity in the background; the University crowd packing up and leaving, the clinking of cups being cleared away, merry chatter coming from the kitchen and she found herself focusing on the cheerful decorations adorning the interior of the restaurant.

Christmas. In all the recent events she had almost forgotten that they were in the midst of the time of frivolity and cheer, goodwill to all men and so on. Goodwill – when on earth had she ever been the recipient of goodwill?

Christmas with Dale was always the same; there would be the usual bottle of perfume, wrapped haphazardly with last year’s paper, the television blaring achingly dull re-runs all day long and a growing mountain of empty bottles.

One year, she had decided to invite her parents over for Christmas Day, thinking that they could do the whole traditional shebang. She had bought a turkey and all the trimmings and had spent ages cooped up with Delia’s