He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [28]
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, to face Brett over the breakfast table the next morning, but he, at least, appeared entirely unconcerned by the events of the night before.
It was a sparkling morning again, and the sea, beyond the louvres of the family room where they ate informally, was a pale blue reflection of the sky.
‘How did you sleep?’ he asked.
She buttered some toast for Sasha. ‘Not too badly. How about you?’
‘OK. What’s on today?’
‘The usual.’
‘No flying lessons?’
She grimaced, and thought how pleasant it would be to soar above the clouds—not that there were any today—and forget all the complications of her life below them. ‘My instructor is on holiday.’
‘I see.’ He poured himself some coffee. ‘I thought we might have a barbecue on the beach this evening.’
Sasha and Chris snapped to attention and chorused, ‘Yes, please!’
But Nicola eyed their father suspiciously.
He said to the children, ‘I’ll drop you off at school this morning, which means you’ve got fifteen minutes precisely to be ready. Off you go.’
They scampered off.
‘As you said to me last night, Nicola—’ he eyed her lazily ‘—what’s that supposed to mean? The way you’re looking at me,’ he added satirically, in case she was tempted to feign misunderstanding.
She held onto her temper and shrugged. ‘That I’m not a five or six-year-old who can be placated by a barbecue on the beach, probably. Excuse me,’ she added and put her napkin on the table. ‘I’ll help them to get ready.’
‘Stay where you are, Nicola,’ he said quietly, but with a wealth of command in his steady hazel gaze. ‘It’s about time they learnt to do a few things for themselves.’
‘I—are you criticising—’ She broke off and stared at him angrily.
He smiled dryly. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not criticising your management of them—rather, your desire to scuttle away from me. Because it means you’re still in a state of high dudgeon over what happened last night.’
She looked around the bright, comfortable family room, with its rattan furniture, and picked up her napkin to clench her fingers round it. ‘Strangely enough, I am. Further reflection, you see, on top of the way you’re acting—like some absolute autocrat—’
‘Nicola, let’s not get dramatic. It’s a bit early in the day for it,’ he murmured prosaically. ‘I merely thought, for their sakes, a barbecue on the beach—which is a special treat they love, and you usually love too,’ he said significantly, ‘might restore some tranquillity to the household. For all of us, but them most of all.’
‘They don’t know—they...’ She stopped frustratedly.
‘They’re geniuses at picking up any kind of vibes flying around, wouldn’t you agree?’
Nicola eyed him. He was wearing a cream shirt and a lightweight fawn suit, the jacket of which was hung over the back of his chair. His tie was a cinnamon-brown with narrow diagonal cream and red stripes. Both the tie and the shirt had been a Christmas present from her, but it gave her no pleasure at the moment to see him wearing them.
Nor did it please her much to think that this crisp, shaved man of the world, with his thick brown hair tidy and gleaming, and all that barely concealed sharpness of mind, all that barely subdued aura of power that affected women so dynamically, was about to set forth into the world.
While I stay at home like a good little wife—is that it? she wondered. Or is it the thought of Tara Wells out there, being all professional and equally intelligent, although at the same time no doubt beautifully presented? She glanced down at herself ruefully. She’d woken late and thrown on a pink T-shirt with denim shorts and hurriedly tied her hair back in a ponytail. She felt, she found, far from sharp of mind and unusually powerless.
But she straightened her spine. ‘Whatever you say, bwana!’
‘Been catching up on your Wilbur Smith, Nicola?’ he asked lazily.
‘Now there’s a thought,’ she retaliated. ‘Scrub Tibet—I’ve always wanted to go to Africa.’
‘I would scrub Africa too, if I were you at the moment,’ he drawled. ‘Why don’t you stick to one thing at a time? Pottery,