Ally Blake - Marriage Material

‘Mr Fox,’ she began, ‘I think my client has the right to a great deal larger settlement than you have suggested and here is a small selection of the innumerable irrefutable reasons why…’

In an hour it was all over.

Before Romy had even hit her stride in her savage roast, Sebastian capitulated.

He glanced at his watch, said, ‘Sorry to cut the game short, guys. It’s been a blast but I have a date. Give Janet whatever she wants.’

Now, that was one heck of a surprise! As, although the guy was a renowned playboy who had left behind a daisy chain of well-kept women who had kindly kept him company on those long, cold Melbourne nights, he had never even suggested a pre-nuptial agreement before marrying. So Janet getting what she wanted was a fair whack.

Sebastian grabbed a pen from the table, signed Romy’s contracts with a flourish, patted his lawyer on the back and left without a backward glance.

He had given up an exorbitant amount of money so as not to break a date. For a guy who seemed to go through women as if they were going out of fashion, Romy couldn’t help but wonder who could be that important to him.

And in some small, ridiculous part of Romy’s anatomy, she felt a pang of something akin to envy towards someone who could mean that much in Sebastian Fox’s life.

AN HOUR later Sebastian was still trying to push the thought of the lawyer and her stinging criticism from his mind.

A thin, high voice called out from across the oval. ‘Hey, Seb. Heads up!’

Sebastian scooped the ball up and weaved in and out of the group of youngsters running at his side, relishing the heat and sweat and opportunity to exercise away the niggling frustration that had tagged him all day. He eventually slowed enough for his elder nephew to tag him but not enough to make it look as if he wasn’t trying.

‘Tagged!’ Chris called out in glee.

‘Aah, you got me there, Chris.’ Sebastian shook his head in disbelief as he handed over the football to his opposition. ‘You’re just too quick for an old man like me.’

Chris grinned proudly and yanked the ball from Sebastian’s hands.

‘Everybody ready?’ Chris called out to the group straggling across the football field before taking off towards the goals.

A madly waving hand on the end of an adult arm on the sideline caught Sebastian’s attention. He looked up-field and made sure another couple of adults were keeping control of the game before he jogged off the oval.

‘Good to see you, Tom.’ He gave his brother-in-law a bear hug.

‘Hey, watch the threads. You’re sweating all over me.’

Sebastian made sure to wipe his hands vigorously on the back of Tom’s clean shirt before pulling away.

‘You’re getting thrashed out there, mate.’

Sebastian grinned. ‘You think you can do better? You join us.’

Tom held up his palms in defeat. ‘No, thanks. I’ve got this bad knee, remember.’

Sebastian raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Melinda told me all about that. Didn’t you walk into the coffee-table? Three weeks ago?’

‘That table has a really sharp corner.’

‘Fine.’ Sebastian turned and watched Chris weaving across the field, the ball in his possession again. ‘You’re just lucky you’ve got me around to make sure your kids get the exercise they need.’

‘Sure, mate. Sure. Hey, Melinda told me today was D-day. Divorce day, right?’

‘Yep.’ The easy smile swiftly melted from Sebastian’s face. He kicked at a tuft of grass on the edge of the field.

‘So what did she get?’ Tom grabbed Sebastian by the arm, the slick sweat coating him suddenly of no importance. ‘You’d better not have given her the beach house. Melinda and I promised the kids a week there this summer.’

‘She would never have even asked for the beach house.’

Tom’s raised eyebrows showed he disagreed. ‘I think you proved you were the last one to know what Janet might or might not do to get what she wants.’

Sebastian shrugged. ‘Anyway, she got plenty.’ Tom let loose with a great laugh. ‘For a girl who seemed easy come, easy go, she sure turned out to have a killer streak.’

‘So we now know. But this wasn’t Janet. This was the lawyer.’

The lawyer. So much for pushing her to the back of his mind. The instant action replay running constantly through his mind all afternoon, and frustrating him to distraction, had been all about the lawyer. Long legs, startling eyes, and that hair. And most of all the cutting accusations about his lifestyle she had flung at him with such vigour. He’d been brandished a playboy before. And even a cad. And maybe with good reason. But the lawyer had labelled him ‘a neurotic caveman for whom women were merely bandages for his over-inflated ego’. And that had been rough.

‘Must have been a real hot-shot,’ Tom said, thankfully drawing Sebastian back to the comparative comfort of his current surrounds. ‘What’s his name?’

‘ Her name is Romy Bridgeport.’

Tom stopped laughing though his grin went from full-screen to wide-screen. ‘You poor fellow. A couple of guys at work have been on the losing end of her counsel. But I thought if any guy had a chance against her charms it would have been you. She must be really something. Was she the man-hater I heard she is?’

‘Well, I don’t think she liked me much.’

‘No? But I thought they all liked you, what with you being so cute and all.’

Tom reached out and gave Sebastian’s cheeks a rough pinch. Sebastian playfully slapped his hands away. But he did not feel so playful.

It was true. She had not liked him one bit. She had not even tried to hide the fact for civility’s sake. Yet despite it all he had been patently attracted to her. Attracted physically went without saying, but it was her vitality that kept him engaged even after she let fly with her unremitting accusations.

‘Apparently she is engaged to some American,’ Tom said, again dragging Sebastian back to the present. ‘How ironic—a divorce lawyer getting married. You’d think she would be cynical about the whole deal.’

Sebastian did not remember seeing a sparkling diamond. But he had been blindsided by the significance behind the adorably short fingernails, so maybe… ‘Engaged to an American, you say?’

‘Mmm. Thing is, from what I’ve heard nobody has ever seen the guy or if they have they are keeping quiet about it. Maybe it’s all a diversionary tactic to fend off hot-from-the-oven divorcees. Don’t even think about it, I’m engaged.’

Sebastian looked up as a yell of glory erupted from the other end of the field. One of his team had scored a try. He looked back to Tom and shuffled from one foot to the other, itching to get back to the game.

‘Saved by the yell,’ Tom said. ‘Go on, then. Get back out there. But I want details. Come for dinner and stay over tonight?’

‘Fine,’ Sebastian conceded as he ran backwards onto the field. ‘Tell Melinda I’ll be there at seven.’

Romy stumbled into her apartment-building foyer after ten o’clock. She had spent the evening with her divorced-singles group, with once battered wives, with cheated-on husbands, with a woman she had comforted in a quiet corner, and with a pair who had the amazing news that they had become engaged…to one another! They were serious people looking for serious relationships, and if Romy knew anything about anything, she knew about that.

She shuffled into the antiquated lift, pulled the doors shut and endured the interminable ride to her top-floor apartment. Rhythmic creaks and groans took the place of the electronic music you would find in most modern apartment-building lifts. In an atypical fit of whimsy she had picked the apartment for the beautiful restored lift with its open-cage design, and she’d had to endure its resultant slowness and periodic breakdowns ever since. That would teach her!