In Need of a Wife

Blonde hair was tucked into a smooth French pleat but an artful fringe added a soft dash of femininity. Her make-up made the most of an interesting and very individual bone-structure. She was tall and excessively slim. The tailored cream suit she wore was pinstriped with navy. Pearls made the perfect accessory.

She strolled towards Sasha, one hand still nursing her drink, a smile playing on her rather thin lips, a superior smile, not one with any warmth in it.

‘I’m Nathan Parnell’s wife,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

BIGAMY leapt into Sasha’s mind. The bottom fell out of her world. Nathan Parnell hit the lowest rung of the ladder, and was shelved in the darkest, deepest recess in the basement.

Yet...he had been good to her. And kind. She forced out the necessary words with the necessary aplomb. ‘I thought ex-wife was the situation.’

The woman shrugged. ‘Life is change. Change is life. Discords can be turned into melodies. Who can say?’ Again the smile without warmth, an automatic mechanism that declared she was in control of herself and everything else.

But she was the ex-wife. Sasha was satisfied that Nathan Parnell had not lied. His position zoomed out of the basement cellar and returned to the top of the ladder. She might not want to marry Nathan Parnell herself, but she certainly didn’t want any other woman getting him before she made up her mind. Whether it was his ex-wife or not simply didn’t matter. Not to Sasha.

‘Don’t count on a melody,’ she said, wanting to shake the woman’s insufferable confidence.

‘Oh?’ The eyebrow lifted in supercilious amusement. ‘You’re in a position to judge, are you?’

‘I live here.’

The woman’s calculating grey eyes flicked to Bonnie, studied her for a moment, then dismissed the baby as of no account. She added a curl of condescension to her smile. ‘Nathan always was a sucker for down-and-outs.’

It ripped the mat out from under Sasha’s feet momentarily, but she came back fighting. ‘That’s to my advantage, don’t you think?’

‘Dream on.’

The derisive reply was cuttingly dismissive. Sasha struggled for a suitable riposte.

‘Elizabeth!’

The whip-like command in the call of the name snapped the friction between the two women. They turned to look at its source. Nathan Parnell had entered the lounge by the door from the hall. He did not look at all pleased to see his visitor.

‘Yes, darling. I’ve come back,’ Elizabeth drawled in a sacharine sweet voice.

‘What for?’

No warmth there. Good, Sasha thought. No move to greet his ex-wife in any welcoming way, either. He stood by the door, grim-faced, his eyes ablaze with bitter suspicion.

Elizabeth strolled away from Sasha, but not towards her ex-husband. She stopped in front of the fireplace, as though establishing her hold on a commanding position. The three of them now formed a triangle, all equally separated. Sasha began to realise how formidable this woman was.

‘You need a wife, Nathan,’ Elizabeth stated without preamble. ‘I’m qualified for the job. More experience than any other woman. I’ll even forgive you your indiscretion.’ She glanced at Sasha as though she were a mycobacterium leprae bacillus.

Nathan said nothing. His gaze did not shift from his ex-wife. Sasha suddenly felt very much out of place, an interloper in highly private business.

‘If you’ll excuse me...’

‘No.’ Nathan’s attention snapped to her, the blue eyes compelling in their intensity of feeling. ‘Please stay. I want you to hear.’

‘You’re always so cautious and conservative, Nathan,’ Elizabeth mocked.

‘If you’re sure,’ Sasha said uncertainly.

‘He wants you as a witness, you fool! Not that it will do him any good.’

The scorn stung. Sasha looked at Nathan’s supremely superior ex-wife and felt a slow, deep anger start to burn. Tyler, in his worst moments, used to call her a fool. He implied all women were fools, driven by their hormones. Here was a woman calling her a fool, and Sasha wasn’t about to take it, not from anyone.

‘I’ll bet she doesn’t have any hormones,’ she gritted between gnashing teeth.