In Need of a Wife

She groped for words and how to express them. She looked around the lounge, seeking inspiration. Such a beautiful room: chairs and sofas upholstered in silk brocades—peach, pale green, ivory and gold—their richness enhanced by a cream carpet that was both fine and thick. Elizabeth Maddox had fitted into this room. It was the appropriate gathering place for people of class to relax and enjoy each other’s company. Nathan Parnell looked right in it, too.

Sasha didn’t fit at all. Not only was her bright lipstick pink dress a jarring tone, she simply wasn’t used to an elegant lifestyle. It made her acutely conscious that she knew nothing of Nathan’s friends, or the society in which he moved.

She wished he would sit down, preferably in the chesterfield opposite her, but apparently he wasn’t going to. As though wanting to exorcise Elizabeth’s image from this room, he stood where she had stood, in front of the fireplace. His hands were linked behind his back. He appeared to be studying the subtle peach shades around the veining in the marble top of the table set between the two sofas.

Sasha tried to read his face. What thoughts were running through his mind? There was no sign of joy or relief. No glance of gratitude to Sasha. No flash of wicked blue from his eyes. His demeanour was gravely introspective.

‘Perhaps,’ she began nervously, ‘I acted somewhat hastily.’

In an instant his eyes were locked on to hers. ‘You were magnificent.’

It took Sasha’s breath away. No one had ever thought her that wonderful before. She was sorely tempted to bask in the sweet intoxication of his admiration, but it was like the blissful afterglow of great sex. It wouldn’t last.

‘I shouldn’t have let myself become involved,’ she said, trying to get things on to a more practical level.

‘Joan of Arc would have been proud of you.’

He was making it very, very difficult. ‘There has to be another way out,’ she said desperately.

‘There is.’

Sasha looked at him incredulously. ‘There is?’

The blue eyes bored into hers, intensely watchful. ‘If you want it.’

‘What do you mean, if I want it? You don’t imagine I really want to marry you, do you?’

‘It felt like a good idea to me.’

‘That’s because it’s convenient,’ she scoffed.

‘You haven’t felt a rather special feeling developing between us?’

Nathan Parnell had something up his sleeve. Probably an ace. Or a joker. Having seen him in action at the exhibition centre with the diamond, Sasha had little doubt it was a winning card. She could feel the confidence of the man and knew from hair-raising personal experience it would not be unfounded.

She had already entangled herself once. She was not going to do it again, not if there was a way out. She would treat Nathan Parnell with a great deal of circumspection, play her own cards very close to the chest, admit nothing. He was not going to get her more involved when she quite desperately needed to get herself uninvolved.

After her Joan of Arc triumph over Elizabeth, it was perfectly obvious that feelings could lead one badly astray. Sasha was not about to discuss such a dangerous and treacherous subject.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she answered warily.

‘Do you feel an animal magnetism between us?’

Sex, he meant, and that had to be trouble. ‘Absolutely not,’ she said primly.

‘Do you feel a real need to be together for the sheer joy of being together?’

‘I don’t mind talking to you,’ she conceded. That was relatively safe.

‘A rapport that’s beginning to be beautiful to share?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘When I don’t know half the things I need to know about you?’

‘Falling in love could have more to do with instinct than knowledge.’

‘I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life. How arrogant can you get, thinking I’m falling in love with you?’

He sighed and dropped his gaze, releasing Sasha from the disturbing directness that she had fended off with brick-wall effectiveness. She was congratulating herself on not letting down her guard when he shattered it with a sad personal reflection.