Wife by Agreement

CHAPTER FOUR

when the car drew to a halt outside The Manor House Hannah didn't move. She had to know.

'Why did you kiss me, Ethan?'

He clicked open his seat belt and turned slowly in his seat. From what she could make out in the semi-darkness he was less surprised by her question than she was.

'I thought I'd get in first.'

'First?'

'Before someone else did. You look very kissable tonight, Hannah.'

She caught her breath at this husky admission. 'I didn't kiss anyone else tonight.' And she hadn't wanted to, she thought, clasping her hands tightly in her lap to stop herself reaching out for him.

'Only because I brought you home before the wolves closed m.' His jaw tightened as he recalled the increasing rage that had built up inside him as he'd watched men ogling his wife. The last man to say something complimentary about her to him had received a murderous glare and retreated looking shaken. Ethan had felt slightly ashamed. In the darkness he paused soberly to examine the violence of his revulsion.

This fanciful description of his very respectable friends brought a gurgle of laughter to Hannah's lips. She felt the silent disapproval of his response to her amusement in the darkness.

'Isn't that a tad dramatic?' she asked.

"You really are determined to make up for lost time, aren't you?' She could hear him grating his teeth. 'Don't you realise what you could destroy if you insist on experimenting?'

'I only cut my hair and bought a new dress,' she protested. 'It's not my fault if people are so influenced by superficial things.' And he was as bad as any of them, she thought resentfully. Kissing her, dancing with her...inviting her lurid imagination to go into overdrive.

'The change goes a lot deeper than that, Hannah.'

'Welt I'm sorry if you don't like it, Ethan, but I'm a lot happier being myself. Don't worry, I'm not going to jump into bed with the first man who tells me I'm beautiful. That would be taking gratitude to extremes.' It was insulting that he imagined she'd be such a push-over.

'What if that man is your husband?' It wasn't a sudden notion—it just came out that way. He'd been turning the idea over in his head all week. Tonight just made the need for action more urgent.

'What?' she whispered, unable to believe he'd actually said what she thought.

'If you need to discover your sexuality it would be safer for all concerned if you did so with me,' he observed casually. The darkness concealed the fact he was looking far from casual as he tensely awaited her reply.

'I'm touched by your willingness to make such a sacrifice,' she said, her voice shaking. 'Thanks, but no, thanks, Ethan! I'm not that desperate. What's wrong? Didn't you believe me when I said I wouldn't try for an annulment? Did the ultimate sacrifice seem the best way to close off that avenue of escape?' Now she thought about it, it all made awful sense.

She struggled with the handle of the passenger door. Her free hand flailed wildly back at him as he tried to prevent her getting out. As Ethan reached out to stop her escaping his hand came into contact with the spot where her lace-topped stocking ended and her bare thigh began. It had seemed for a split second that his fingers had begun to move experimentally, but he drew back so abruptly she knew she must have been mistaken.

'You imagine I'd be that cold-blooded?" His voice sounded strange and forced in the enclosed space of the car.

'I think you can be ruthlessly practical when it suits you. The facts do speak for themselves. You never looked twice at me before I suggested a divorce.' To her intense relief the door finally opened and she half fell out of the car. Happily this one was stationary.

'You can't think of any other reason why I want you in my bed?' he yelled after her.

Just as well their nearest neighbour was a field away. She could hear his long legs catching up with her shorter stride as she reached the front door. The housekeeper always stayed overnight on the occasions she babysat and she would be long since in bed. Short of waking the entire household, Hannah didn't have much choice but to wait for Ethan.

'I don't have a key.' Her back was pressed against the door as she faced him.

Ethan was breathing hard; his face was shadowed, but she could see he was angry—really angry. She'd never seen him so close to losing control before. A small, objective portion of her mind was amazed that she'd been responsible for this. The rest of her brain wasn't objective—it was a mess of scattered half-formed thoughts.

Her intense visceral reaction to his suggestion wouldn't have been so intense if she hadn't been so hopelessly in love with him. The pragmatic proposal seemed a cruel parody of what she'd longed for and it had cut painfully deep.

He pressed one hand against the wall beside her head as he silently unlocked the door. In the shadow of his body she felt as if she were cocooned in a cave, only the walls weren't cold stone, they were warm, living flesh. As the door swung open she ducked under his arm.