In Need of a Wife

She was amused by his admiration for her stand on giving as good as she got. Although initially she had been completely thrown. ‘There was a moment when I thought she might go so far as to check my muscle tone and sprinting ability.’

‘Your muscle tone is great.’ His voice throbbed with appreciation.

Sasha’s amusement died. Had last night’s embrace been a coldly calculated way of checking out her body? ‘If you’ve been summing me up for breeding potential...’

He grinned at her look of outrage. ‘Making babies wasn’t on my mind when I had you in my arms.’ The teasing twinkle melted into something much more direct. ‘Making love was.’

A flood of heat suffused Sasha’s body. She knew he was merely stating the truth, and she couldn’t deny she had been tempted, but it was time to spell out her position. Unequivocally.

‘That wasn’t love. It was passion. And it will not suffice.’

‘Pretty powerful stuff, all the same.’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Are you saying you don’t want to sample the experience again?’

She struggled between honesty and caution. His eyes wouldn’t let her lie. ‘No. But...’

‘Encouraging.’

‘...I want more than that,’ she finished emphatically.

‘You’ll get it,’ he said with relish.

‘No. I meant it’s not enough.’

‘I can do better.’

‘I’m not talking about sex, Nathan,’ she cried in exasperation. ‘I’m talking about...about sharing... and caring.’

‘Good manners. That’s what you’re talking about. If you’d like to tell me what gives you the most pleasure...’

‘Forget it.’ So much for a sense of togetherness, Sasha berated herself. She and Nathan Parnell were on a totally different wavelength when it came to love. ‘It’s too soon after Tyler,’ she argued. ‘I hardly know you. I don’t know that I want to know you. You could turn out to be as great a villain as Seagrave Dunworthy.’

Sasha gasped in horror at what she had said. She had just lost her accommodation for Bonnie and herself.

Nathan Parnell broke the strangling silence, his voice pitched low, but certainty behind every word, a seriousness she had never heard before, except for one occasion. ‘When needs must,’ he said. ‘We all have to do things we’d rather not. What do you know, really know, about Seagrave Dunworthy, apart from titbits of gossip? Who knows anyone? I could have sworn I knew my ex-wife. I bet you thought you knew Tyler. We were both wrong.’

He was right about that, but Sasha couldn’t bring herself to concede the point. She didn’t want to open her mouth again after the awful blunder over her benefactor. She was intensely grateful to Nathan for excusing it.

She pondered the unpalatable truth of what he’d said. It was all too easy to be fooled by images, never

really knowing what went on beneath the surface of a person. Maybe life was a lottery. Either good or bad luck ran with whom you drew as a partner.

On the other hand, she did have some freedom of choice in whom she selected and when she selected them. With Nathan Parnell, it was definitely too soon, and she would never accept his terms for marriage, no matter how attractive she found him.

She belatedly realised that Nathan had driven past the turn-off to the Mosman house. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, her head swivelling around to check she was not mistaken.

‘To the exhibition centre at Darling Harbour,’ he answered matter-of-factly.

The diamonds!

Sasha relaxed. Her curiosity was piqued. It would surely reveal another facet of Nathan Parnell’s extraordinary life.

It was a quick journey into the city. Nathan casually parked the car in a place reserved for VIPs at the exhibition centre. Sasha didn’t say anything. Let him take the consequences when he was found out.

Bonnie had slept through the entire trip. The sound of the car doors being opened and closed woke her. Nathan elected to lift her out of the carrycot and carry her in his arms, insisting she was no burden at all. Bonnie made no protest at this arrangement, snuggling happily against his shoulder and cooing approval at Nathan.

Sasha was privately amazed at Bonnie’s ready acceptance of him. Normally she cried if a stranger picked her up, especially a man. Even when Tyler had made an effort to appear fatherly, Bonnie had sensed his inner rejection of the role, exasperating Tyler with her non-co-operation in playing the adoring daughter.

Plainly it was different with Nathan. He looked perfectly comfortable with a baby perched in his arms. A big man but a tender one. A rock. A protector. Bonnie must sense that, Sasha decided. Maybe instincts were more trustworthy than any knowledge.