In Need of a Wife

Not exactly selfless, Sasha mentally corrected him. She didn’t want to interrupt when he was speaking so well.

‘There’s so much I find admirable about you, Sasha. Others will admire you, too. We should get to know each other better. Having you at my side tomorrow night...it’s a first step. It would commit you to nothing, Sasha, and I promise you’ll have a good time. Let’s have one night together.’

It was similar to granting one last favour to a condemned man. Nathan had certainly done her some favours. It ill behove her to refuse him this simple boon. Besides, it was a long time since she had let her hair down and had a good night out.

Nathan wasn’t married yet. Perhaps...

‘All right. Just this once,’ she said with pointed emphasis. Sasha didn’t want him to get any wrong ideas about what this party might lead to between them.

He gave her a sparkling smile that danced down Sasha’s spine and hit her solidly in the solar plexus. ‘I’ll make the arrangements with Marion to mind the children.’

He was off before she could have second thoughts.

The second thoughts came anyway.

It was quite safe to go with him. Nothing would happen unless she wanted it to happen. But it was living dangerously.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SASHA knew she shouldn’t wear

the red satin evening dress. It was strapless. It was figure-hugging. It had a slit up the centre seam at the back of the skirt for ease of movement, but there wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t see that slit as provocative.

Tyler had chosen the dress. His professional eye admired dramatic effect. With Sasha’s pale skin, her thickly lashed dark eyes and long black hair, her above average height and her fair share of feminine curves, the red satin dress delivered dramatic effect. It could be said...with oomph.

It was almost certainly wrong to wear it to a judge’s Christmas party. The women there would probably be in black or cream or white, all understated class but extremely elegant and expensive. Not that the red satin dress was cheap. It wasn’t. But it wasn’t subtle. It was, to put it succinctly, a traffic-stopper.

What did it matter, Sasha reasoned to herself, if she raised eyebrows or drew stares tonight? She didn’t know the people who would be at the party. She would probably never meet them again. She could please herself without any regard to what others thought, taking a leaf out of Hester’s book and not caring a fig.

She had the right to be colourful. She was free to do as she liked. No obligation to anyone. Committed to nothing. That was what Nathan had said. He had also said she would look stunning in red.

Sasha had to admit to a deep primitive urge to stun his socks off. It would teach him a lesson for getting tied up with his Polish woman and not waiting for her. As for thinking she would have an affair with him, he had been undeceived on that matter in no uncertain terms when she’d told him she wanted love and commitment.

Sasha took another look at herself in the mirror. She was playing with fire. She was living dangerously. The cautious, common-sense side of Sasha knew all along she shouldn’t wear the red satin evening dress. The devil made her do it.

The arrangement was that she meet Nathan in the foyer at eight o’clock. She didn’t go down the back stairs. She had left Bonnie with Marion an hour ago, bathed, fed, and ready for sleep. This was her one night with Nathan before he married, and Sasha saw every reason to get full value out of it right from the start. She heard the grandfather clock in the foyer strike the first of eight strokes as she reached the head of the grand staircase.

He was waiting for her.

The clock tolled again as she stared at him. The note seemed to reverberate through her heart.

He was dressed in a formal black dinner suit, black bow-tie, white dress shirt. Why men always looked their most handsome and distinguished in such clothes, Sasha didn’t know. All thought processes halted. Nathan Parnell was stunning.

He glanced up and saw her. An involuntary look of sheer wonderment passed over his face. He turned towards her, slowly, as though he might be deprived of a life-promising mirage if he wasn’t careful. A hand lifted, impulsively reaching out its invitation to come to him. His vivid blue eyes consumed her.

Sasha had the sensation of floating down the stairs. She was barely aware of her legs moving. She reached the foot of the staircase and Nathan was there to meet her, and she put her hand in his, and there was silence for several dream-like moments, silence except for the swirl of feelings that whispered dreams could come true.

‘Stunning,’ he said simply.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’ve already made it a night to remember.’

As gratifying as that statement was, it brought Sasha back to reality. ‘You’ll have plenty of nights to reflect on that,’ she reminded him pertly.

‘All the more reason to live for the moment,’ he replied, not the least bit abashed as he took her arm and tucked it around his.

It was the gentlemanly way to escort her to the car, Sasha reasoned, so she let him get away with it. However, she was intensely aware of him matching his steps to hers, his closeness, their togetherness. She could even smell his aftershave lotion. Somehow it was sexy, too; spicy, enticing and very male.