Afternoon passed into evening. Dinner was eaten. The children were put to bed. Sasha went to bed herself after hours of impatience, waiting for Nathan to return.
She was woken by a nibble on her ear. ‘Sasha, we’re going to marry.’ The words whispered through her mind. For a moment she wondered if she was dreaming. Then an arm curled around her waist and she rolled onto her back to check out the reality of the man lying in the bed beside her. Her lover. Her husband-to-be if he spoke the truth.
‘I haven’t set the date for a wedding,’ she said, feeling she should be annoyed with Nathan for keeping her in the dark.
‘I have.’ He dropped a kiss on her nose.
Sasha sighed. What was the point in being petty? She loved him. She wanted him. And he was offering her the ultimate commitment to their relationship. ‘What’s your plan, Nathan?’ she asked.
His lips grazed seductively over hers. ‘It’s a tight schedule.’
‘How tight?’
‘We get married an hour before I’m due to marry Urszula Budna.’
Sasha jack-knifed in shock, their heads bumping painfully as she knocked Nathan aside. She was too agitated to care. ‘You’re going to commit bigamy with her?’ she squawked.
‘No.’ He pressed her down onto the pillow again and stroked her hair soothingly. ‘If I’m already married to you, obviously I can’t specifically perform the terms of the contract with her. It’d be against the law. A married man can’t marry someone else.’
‘That’s true,’ Sasha agreed on a wave of deep relief. ‘But Urszula isn’t going to be happy. And she’s got Elizabeth as her lawyer.’
‘That’s where Tyler comes in.’
‘How?’
‘Firstly, he and Joshua McDougal will be witnesses at our wedding. Apart from showing Urszula our certificate of marriage, they can also swear to her that the deed has been done.’
Incredulity flooded Sasha’s mind. ‘You got Tyler to agree to that?’
‘Yes. Then he’ll marry Urszula in my place, giving her the right to stay in Australia and take out citizenship. Which was all she wanted from our contract before she got other ideas.’
‘Tyler? Marry Urszula?’ Sasha knew for a fact Tyler didn’t believe in marriage.
‘He doesn’t have to live with her. He doesn’t have to stay married to her. It’s only a convenient legality,’ Nathan explained patiently. ‘He understands that.’
‘How on earth did you persuade him into it?’
‘I promised to save him from going to goal. He needs legal representation for what he did to Elizabeth’s car. I’m going to defend him. No one else could bring the same feelings of sympathy, understanding and compassion to the case that I will. Already I’m working on my peroration to the jury. I’ll get him off.’
Sasha stared at him in dazed bewilderment. ‘But that case won’t come up before Wednesday. And Tyler thinks marriage is a goal.’
‘Not this one. No responsibility involved. It could be a perfect match. A marriage made in heaven. And it’s another poke in the eye for Elizabeth. Tyler rather relishes that.’
‘Ego. One-upmanship,’ Sasha murmured. It fitted Tyler’s character.
‘Apart from which, what I’m going to pay him for marrying Urszula...’ Nathan grinned. ‘In Tyler’s terms, it’s the equivalent of winning Lotto.’
‘A million dollars!’
‘Nothing like it. But enough for Tyler to think he’s got lucky for the first time in his life.’
Nathan started kissing her. His hands moved to do distracting things to her body. Sasha wanted to respond, but there was a clamour in her mind that insisted he was making a bigger mess out of the mess they already had. She lifted his head up, gulped in a quick breath and spilled out the worrying concerns he had raised.
‘Can you afford it, Nathan?’
‘For you, yes.’
‘After we’ve paid for all this, are we going to be impoverished for the rest of our lives?’