Susan Napier - From Mistresses To Wives? - Mistress to a Bachelor / His Mistress by Marriage / Accidental Mistress

It took his disappearance into the bathroom to bring her back to life. Lying there in the darkness, she tried to sort out her tangled emotions. Tonight Zac had proved himself capable of a selflessness that stirred her to the depths. For a man to sublimate his own needs that way, there surely had to be some feeling other than just the physical on his part. Whether it was enough to survive the realisation that his altruism had been unnecessary was something else.

She turned out the bedside lights before he came back to bed, steeling herself when he slid in beside her. She’d tried out a dozen ways of saying it over the last few minutes, but when it came to the crunch she found herself tongue-tied still.

Zac drew her to him to kiss the tip of her nose. The brush of silk against her lower body proclaimed his use of pyjamas trousers.

‘A temporary measure only,’ he said on a humorous note.

Leaving an arm about her, he turned onto his back. Jessica yearned to press her lips to his bare chest, to feel the flat hard muscle beneath the wiry curl of hair and fill her nostrils with his clean masculine scent. She didn’t because it wouldn’t be fair. Not while he was still labouring under the same illusion.

It was a long time before she slept.

Sarah’s call on the Sunday morning was answered by Zac. His response to her greeting was easy enough, his reaction to the invitation that Jessica gathered was being issued surprisingly lacking in reticence.

‘We’ll see you this afternoon then,’ he concluded.

‘Hard to refuse when Sarah’s doing the asking,’ he acknowledged, replacing the receiver. ‘She’s a nice kid. Far too good for Brady!’

‘She doesn’t think so,’ Jessica returned mildly.

Zac slanted a lip. ‘Ah, well, they say love is blind! We’ll have lunch somewhere, and then head out to Sevenoaks.’

‘We can have lunch here,’ Jessica suggested. ‘There’s a ready-cooked chicken in the fridge, and plenty of salad ingredients. Unless you’d rather go out, of course?’

‘I thought you would,’ he said after a moment. ‘You’ve never given the impression of being very enamoured of playing the housewife.’

‘I’m not,’ she agreed lightly. ‘Not as a full-time job, at any rate. But I’ve no objection to preparing the odd meal, and chicken salad hardly calls for any great culinary expertise.’

Zac’s smile was brief. ‘True enough. Salad it is, then.’

Jessica had spoken the truth just now, but it was an attitude that was going to have to change to a great degree with a baby to care for, came the thought. Something she would just have to tackle when the time came. The problem right now was how and when to impart the news.

Large and imposing with its mock Tudor frontage, the Sevenoaks house was the antithesis of their own abode, though Jessica had no doubts about her preference. Brady made little effort to conceal the fact that it hadn’t been his idea to invite them over.

Richard Henry was already developing a distinct personality. Zac slanted a smile at the resounding raspberry blown in his direction.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.