‘This one, of course.’

‘You’ve sold the house?’ she repeated very slowly, an unfamiliar feeling stirring inside her.

Anger.

How strange to feel angry again, she thought with a detached part of her brain. Strange to feel anything after all these months of feeling nothing at all. But that was definitely rage flickering along her veins, warming the iciness inside her.

Torr was watching her face with sardonic amusement. ‘I didn’t even have to advertise,’ he said. ‘There were so many buyers who’d expressed an interest if the house ever went on the market that it went straight to auction. Of course, the fact that the interior had been designed by Mallory Hunter just upped the price, as I’m sure you’ll be glad to know!’

Mallory surged to her feet, startling Charlie, who sat up and studied her worriedly. He had never seen her like this before, her face bright with fury, her hands clenching and unclenching.

Mallory had never felt like this before. The anger was crackling through her. She had once seen a film of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, and she had marvelled at the way it slowly spread its crumpled wings. That was how it was for her. The unfamiliar anger was filling her up, warming her, pushing into cracks and crevices until everything that had been weak and crumpled and collapsed about her was smooth and whole again, until she was Mallory Hunter, grown woman of thirty-two and successful interior designer, instead of the broken, beaten shell Steve had left behind.

‘Without even discussing it with me?’ she demanded of Torr, who regarded her with a kind of speculative interest, noting how the dark brown eyes, dull for so long, were suddenly flashing.

‘Why should I?’

‘I’m your wife!’

‘Only when it suits you,’ he said brutally. ‘Like when you needed me to pay off all your debts, for instance.’

Mallory flushed, but stood her ground.