Marriage at His Convenience

Amber crawled around the floor trying to find her remaining pills, and then, placing the box back in the drawer, she climbed into bed. Lucas’s reaction puzzled her—it had been out of all proportion, and totally out of character.

The bathroom door opened and Lucas approached the bed, a small white towel flung precariously around his hips, and with another towel he was rubbing his damp hair. Helplessly Amber’s eyes trailed over his magnificent tanned torso, and she forgot their brief argument, her body warming at the sight of him.

Lucas slid into bed and, leaning over her, brushed a few strands of hair from her forehead, his fingertips stroking down the curve of her cheek. ‘Do you like children, Amber?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured, but warning bells rang in her brain.

‘So why the pill? You’re a married woman,’ he asked silkily, his dark eyes intent and a little speculative on her lovely face.

Amber didn’t want this conversation, not now, not yet… Easing away from his side, she looked up at him, and, choosing her words carefully, she said, ‘You told me to take it the first time we were together, so naturally I do now.’

‘And if I told you to stop? If I told you I wanted you to be the mother of my child,’ he suggested, ‘how would you respond?’

Her heart missed a beat, but her own sense of self-preservation made her cautious. ‘That it was not a very sensible suggestion if we are to part in a few months.’ She waited with bated breath, hoping and praying for him to ask her to stay for ever, tell her he cared. She was disappointed…

For a space of ten seconds he didn’t speak. She saw the muscles bunch at the edge of his jaw, and if she had not known better she would have thought he was shocked. ‘That could be ignored,’ he finally offered.

‘Why?’ She had to know. She had swallowed her pride once where Lucas was concerned and she wasn’t doing it a second time. It was his turn…

‘I’m forty-one, it is time I had a family, and you are twenty-nine next week. It makes sense.’

There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to have his baby, but the cold calculation in his words and his unsubtle reminder of her age were not what she had wanted to hear and her disappointment was intense. ‘I’ll take it under consideration,’ she mocked, evading a direct answer. ‘But right now, I’m tired, can we have this conversation some other time?’

‘There is nothing more to say.’ Amber flinched at the finality in his tone, the cold derision in the eyes that met hers, and when he turned his back on her and went to sleep she had a sinking feeling the honeymoon was over.

Wednesday afternoon she answered the telephone in her study, and smiled at the sound of her father’s voice. She needed something to cheer her up, as her marriage was going down the pan fast. Yesterday Lucas had buried himself away in his study, only surfacing for meals. Last night they had lain in the same bed, but as far apart as it was possible to be. Amber could sense him both physically and mentally withdrawing from her and she could do nothing about it. But realistically she knew a relationship built only on sex was bound to fail. The only question was when?

Five minutes of listening to all the city and family gossip cheered her up.

‘We had visitors at the weekend—your friend Clive.’ Her father chuckled.

‘Clive?’ Amber responded in surprise.

‘Yes, he wanted to know if you will be back for your birthday next week.’

‘Not next week, but I will be back soon.’ Amber didn’t see Lucas standing at the open door of her study or the murderous expression on his face as he turned and left. A few minutes later she concluded the conversation.

Turning back to the computer, she tried to work. The mood Lucas was in there was no point in joining him, she thought acidly.

‘Are you busy?’ The man occupying her thoughts walked into the room.

Amber swung around on her chair. ‘Not if you can think of something better to do,’ she teased with determined cheerfulness. He was wearing a beige linen suit, and the desperate thought occurred to her that, if she got him almost naked in the pool, perhaps they could get back to the way they had been. ‘It’s so hot I thought I might go for a swim.’ Rising to her feet, she walked towards him.

‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he said bitingly. Her golden gaze winged to his and she froze at the contempt she saw in his black eyes.

‘I thought you might join me,’ she said quietly.

His mouth twisted into a mockery of a smile. ‘Sorry, but I have to go to Athens after all, something has come up.’

‘I thought the helicopter—’

‘It is repaired,’ he said, cutting her off. Anger gleamed cold as ice in the darkness of his eyes, but there was reluctant desire too, and it was the desire she responded to when he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with a fierce, possessive passion. Then just as fiercely he put her away from him.

‘I won’t be back until Saturday. If you need anything, call me—Tomso has the number.’ He strode out of the room.

What she needed he could not give her, she realised with a despairing sigh, the sound lost in the whirring sound of the helicopter arriving. He had not even said goodbye.

Amber watched from the window as the helicopter rose in the air and vanished. It was happening all over again— Lucas running out on her. The truly sad part was, Amber realised stoically, she wasn’t even surprised she had no faith in him. She’d been expecting it.