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She is your daughter!
The air at breakfast the following morning was still thick with tension. The unobtrusive staff had set out the usual Sunday morning breakfast buffet on the sunny patio next to the pool before disappearing back into the woodwork.
Justin didn't like distractions on Sunday mornings, so he preferred not to see the staff and usually, even though he insisted Isabella have all meals with him for "appearances" sake, he ignored her in favour of his Sunday Times.
That morning, despite the fact that he had the usual barrier of his newspaper up between him and the rest of the world, meaning her, she could all but feel his fury. Finally, after an unbearably tense half an hour, he balled the paper up between his fists and tossed it aside before glaring at her across the glass table.
"I want to know exactly where you were yesterday, Isabella," he demanded fiercely.
"Why do you even care?" She asked tiredly. "You've certainly disappeared without explanation enough times for the both of us."
"We're not talking about me here," he pointed out.
"No but I think it's time we do talk about you, about your outrageous behaviour, about the other women and the blatant disregard for the fact that you're married!"
"I don't feel married!" He sounded almost defensive.
"No?" She retorted recklessly. "Well maybe I don't feel married either! Maybe I'm ready to be outrageous. Maybe I'm ready for other men and extra marital affairs too!"
"This had better not be your way of telling me that you were with another man last night, Isabella," he warned ominously, his voice eerily calm. Isabella recklessly ignored the warning in his voice and plunged on regardless.
"So what if that's exactly what I'm telling you?" She asked daringly. "What will you do about it? Make my life hell? Well surprise surprise... it's already hell! Do your worst!"
"What's his name?" He insisted in a lethally calm voice that sent an involuntary shudder down her spine. She suddenly recognised that she had pushed him too far but she knew that even if she backed down now, it wouldn't assuage his anger. "Isabella, who the hell is he?"
Even though Isabella knew that he would never physically harm her, she couldn't help but feel an instinctive frisson of fear. She knew that he had a tight leash on his temper but right now that leash seemed strained to breaking point.
"I... I was speaking hypothetically," she stuttered, abandoning all pretence of bravado and feeling unbelievably intimidated.
