He's My Husband! - Lindsay Armstrong [35]
Nicola stood up and her hand flashed out, but he caught her wrist. ‘My, my, you are becoming a little wildcat, Nicola,’ he said gently, but lethally.
‘I’m not—you’re enough to make me...do anything,’ she retorted bitterly. ‘Let me go.’
‘No. Not until I’m assured you don’t have any further violent intentions towards me. Unless...’ He narrowed his eyes and looked her up and down, taking in the way her breathing was affecting the front of her ice-blue jacket, then his gaze returned to hers. ‘Unless this is something else?’
‘What?’
‘Another manifestation of your sudden desire to experiment? Test your powers of attraction, that kind of thing,’ he suggested.
‘Now why would I bother?’ she countered swiftly.
‘You made it so very clear that I was only to be taught a lesson. You could hardly,’ she said with irony, ‘expect me to believe there was any attraction on your side, and—’
‘That’s debatable,’ he broke in.
‘And...’ She paused with a frown. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You must have a short memory,’ he murmured, and his gaze roamed over her in a way that brought a tide of colour to her cheeks.
To make matters worse, she was again afflicted by the consciousness that this tall, clever man, even when she thought she hated him, as now, could reduce her body to an incredible desire to be one with his. Even now, she thought with some despair, I still want him.
She took a breath and said barely audibly, ‘Let me go, Brett.’
He released her wrist but made no other move, and she shook out her hair and ran her fingers through it. He watched enigmatically, and she sat down again and said tensely, ‘Where were we?’
The faintest smile touched his mouth. ‘Examining the possibility of you being jealous of Tara. Nicola, about what happened two nights ago—’
‘Look, you got me in very cleverly with a—fantasy you conjured up, but that’s all it was. I’m sure it meant no more to you than that.’
‘Well...’ he raised a wry eyebrow ‘...since you mention it, that’s what I thought this might be. Another fantasy—let’s say yet another fantasy.’
Her cheeks burned, but her eyes burned brighter—with anger. ‘That’s not fair, Brett.’
‘No? All the same, this time is a more exciting, rather dangerous encounter. Didn’t you know that to be thoroughly angry with each other can lend an extra dimension to sensual encounters? Or, to put it more bluntly, that slapping a man’s face can be an invitation of another kind?’ he said softly.
Nicola choked. Then she managed to say, ‘It’s not that. As for Tara, she does...yes—’ she gestured frustratedly ‘—she annoys me intensely. For example, what business is it of hers how I got on with Richard?’
Brett smiled faintly. ‘She’s probably got that message by now, too. But, to get back to the options I mentioned, there is another one. We could...’ He paused, and their gazes clashed as Nicola had a premonition of something momentous to come. ‘We could make this a real and very proper marriage.’
Her lips parted and her voice seemed not to want to work, until finally she said huskily, ‘Would you really do that, Brett? Marry—completely—someone you don’t love, for the sake of your children?’
His lips twisted. ‘Love...is not as simple as you may think, Nicola.’
She stared into his hazel eyes. ‘Is that a way of saying once bitten twice shy?’
A nerve flickered in his jaw and he hesitated, then answered, ‘Perhaps. But we have an awful lot going for us. We live in a lot more domestic harmony than many others—the Masons, for example.’ He looked wry. ‘We don’t drive each other crazy with any irritating little habits—I’m sure they’d have surfaced by now. And we cope pretty well with two children. Believe me, that’s quite a test. You could almost say we were very properly married in most respects.’
Nicola looked away and remembered wondering whether to tell Brett the truth this afternoon... But, if anything, this catalogue of what they had going for them said it all, she thought. He didn’t love her, perhaps he would never love again, but at least he’d been honest.
I could still do it, though, she