Roberta Leigh - The Wrong Kind Of Wife

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AS LINDSEY handed over her charge card at the supermarket checkout, her thoughts were not centred on the bill but on how she was going to tell her husband she had to go to Paris again. It was the second time this month, and Tim had barely got over his annoyance at her last trip.

It wasn’t as if she enjoyed going, but travelling to interview celebrities was part of her job as a television researcher, and if she wished to further her career there was no way she could refuse. Because of this she had just splashed out on an expensive bottle of wine, instead of the usual plonk, to accompany tonight’s meal. Tim would appreciate it, and hopefully would be in a better humour when she broke the news.

Balancing the carrier bags in one hand, she unlocked the front door with the other. A smell of burning fat greeted her and she sighed. Tim was cooking again!

Hurrying into a kitchen so tiny one couldn’t swing a cat in it, she saw him in the act of pouring a soggy black mess down the drain.

‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he greeted her, one hand raking back the errant lock of blond hair that was always falling across his forehead. ‘I thought I’d make the supper for a change, but I guess I misread the recipe!’

‘I wish you’d leave the cooking to me,’ Lindsey retorted. She was tired, cold and hungry, and her temper was at flash-point. With an effort she controlled it and moved towards the sink. ‘Fix me a drink, darling, and I’ll clean up,’ she said more gently.

‘Let’s have dinner out,’ Tim said, putting his arms around her.

As always, his touch excited her, even though she found his suggestion irritating. Had he forgotten they were supposed to be economising?

‘I’ve bought a stack of food,’ she pointed out.

‘It won’t go to waste. Come on, sweetheart, it will do you good to relax.’

‘I can relax better here. I’ve been out with a questionnaire the whole day.’

Tim frowned. ‘I hate the thought of you tramping round the freezing streets while I sit in a warm office doing nothing.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m only “tramping the streets” until I’ve finished my survey. And you don’t do nothing all day—you work damned hard.’

‘As dogsbody to a drunk! Beats me why Turlow hasn’t been fired.’

‘He’s considered an institution,’ Lindsey said drily. ‘Though I heard a whisper that he’ll be through in a year. And if you play your cards carefully—’

‘I still won’t get his job. I haven’t enough experience to be political correspondent on a national daily.’

‘Turlow wouldn’t have chosen you as his assistant if he didn’t think you capable of taking over from him. What’s happened to your confidence? If you—’

Tim’s mouth on hers silenced her, and though she was still cold and tired she responded to his touch.

‘How hungry are you?’ He nuzzled his face in her neck and breathed in the scent of her.

‘For food, or—?’

‘For or.’

‘Getting hungrier by the second,’ she murmured, relaxing as he swung her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, the one place where they were assured of perfect harmony.

Their coming together was quick and intense, expressing the fierce need they still aroused in each other, and with Tim’s manhood inside her Lindsey revelled in being the woman he loved, marvelling, as she so often did, that she was the one he had chosen to make his wife.

‘I love you,’ she whispered, running the tips of her fingers down his sweat-slicked skin. His sharp intake of breath and the swell of him inside her excited her, and she pressed her lips to the golden whorls of hair on his chest that arrowed down to his stomach.

Triggered by her touch, his thrusting movements grew stronger and he was no longer able to hold back, his body responding in a flash-flood of urgency that matched hers, sending them both spiralling among the stars, from which they seemed to descend a long time later.

Lindsey awoke first. Tim was lying on his side, an arm flung across her, his hand resting on her breast. Asleep, he looked younger than his twenty-six years. He often acted younger too, she reflected, then pushed aside the thought, feeling guilty for thinking it. Yet it was true. In every respect except years she was the more mature. Not surprising, given that she had spent most of her adolescence in an orphanage after her mother and stepfather had been killed in a motorway crash. It had been a tough grounding, and it had required determination and tenacity to escape from it and win a scholarship to university.

Even now she cringed at the memory of the raw, naïve young girl she had been. Luckily her outward appearance had not given her away. Tall and fashionably thin, with wild, dark red hair cascading past her shoulders, blazing green eyes and a naturally voluptuous red mouth that drew attention to her pale, creamy skin, she had looked every inch the confident feminist of the eighties.

Her aura of self-assurance had deceived Tim as well, and after their marriage she had made an effort to put the bitter memories of the past behind her, determined not to let them sour the happy present; and though there were occasional times when they returned to haunt her, she allowed no one to be party to her tears.

As if sensing her thoughts, Tim stirred in his sleep and pulled her close, and with a returning surge of tenderness Lindsey snuggled into the warmth of him and switched her mind back to how they had met.

It had been at a party in Cambridge—where else would two people of disparate backgrounds cross paths? Tim had grown up on the family estate in Somerset, near the town of Evebury where his father owned a successful engineering plant.

Within moments of seeing Lindsey across the room, Tim had pushed his way across to her. She had been flattered that the best-looking man in the room had eyes only for her, and felt as if she were Delilah and Jezebel rolled into one!

An hour later they were seated in a small but expensive restaurant on the outskirts of town—one that was way out of the price-range of herself and her friends—and Tim had teased her for weeks afterwards about her appearing more interested in the menu than him!

It was untrue, of course. Her concentration on the food had been a device to hide her discomfiture, for it was the first time she had been taken anywhere so elegant, and by someone who was clearly at home there. She had always dated men from her own background and avoided mixing with the rich set.

But with Tim it had been different. He had disarmed her with his warmth and natural charm, his innate good manners that made him treat her as if she were someone special. And to him she was special, her sharp tongue and fiery spirit a great contrast to the girls he usually escorted. Within days they were in love, spending every possible moment together, and regarding their hours apart as wasted ones.

‘You’re so caring about everything,’ he had commented on one occasion. ‘When I’m with you I see the world through your eyes.’

‘It isn’t such a comfortable world as yours,’ she had stated.

‘I know, and I’m sad for you. I want you to be happy always, Lindsey.’