Carole Mortimer - The Wade Dynasty

She looked at Nathan with dislike. ‘I'm sure both of us had good reason for disappearing; I know I did,’ she bit out tautly.

His eyes narrowed. ‘I'd be interested to hear it.'

‘Surely it's obvious?’ she challenged contemptuously. ‘The thought of marrying you is enough for any woman to want to make herself scarce!'

‘You didn't feel that way the night you spent in my bed!’ he grated.

Her cheeks were deathly pale. ‘It was my bed,’ she clarified that he was the one who had come to her. ‘And surely it's obvious I mean to imply that I must have been slightly deranged that night?'

Nathan looked at her coldly in that still way of his that had always unnerved her, and to her chagrin Brenna was the first to look away. She hadn't been deranged that night, she had been slightly intoxicated, but she had a feeling they both knew she wasn't intoxicated enough not to have known what she was doing when she invited Nathan to her room.

‘I'll go and make up the bed in the studio for you,’ she mumbled.

He nodded abruptly. ‘And I'll go out and buy those pyjamas,’ he jeered.

Brenna sat down heavily once he had left, not sure who had won that last argument. If anyone had! There was really no point in arguing about the fact that she had decided against marrying him; she had never said that she would, and they both knew that too! For a while, for the space of a single night, she had allowed herself the luxury of dropping the guard of bitterness she felt towards all the Wade family, for the space of that one night she and Nathan had seduced each other into believing they actually cared about each other. At least, she had allowed herself to be seduced; despite what Nathan had said to the contrary his motives had been much more basic.

His mention of marriage had unnerved her into agreeing to consider the possibility once she had finished college in the summer. And if her father hadn't re-instilled some of the Jordan pride in her she just might have done that. She was grateful for her lucky escape.

The cot-bed was made and a snack dinner partly prepared by the time Nathan knocked on the door just over an hour later. Brenna answered it, her denims and T-shirt replaced with a purple lounge dress.

‘Are we dressing or undressing for dinner?’ Nathan drawled as he walked past her.

Brenna paused at the door, willing her temper to remain under control. She should be used to Nathan's caustic tongue by now, she had been listening to it long enough! Besides, the dress was perfectly respectable, even if the softness of the material did more than flatter her curves. She always changed into something loose and comfortable during her evenings at home, and she wasn't about to change her routine for this man.

He had thrown his paper-bag-wrapped parcel into a chair, had taken off his jacket and was loosening the buttons on his shirt by the time she joined him. Her senses baulked at the sight of his tanned, hair-roughened, muscular chest, knowing there was a slight scar just below his left nipple, from a childhood accident. She willed her expression to remain bland as she remembered caressing that scar, and above it, the night in his arms.

‘What are we having for dinner?’ he drawled. ‘Bean sprouts and carrot fritters?'

He certainly wasn't making it easy to be polite to him! ‘We're having omelettes—cheese or mushroom, whichever you prefer, with salad and baked potato. And there's fruit to follow. It's all I could get together at such short notice.'

‘Sounds good. Better than the last time you fed me, anyway,’ he grinned. ‘Whoever heard of a girl brought up on a ranch being a vegetarian!'

Brenna's eyes flashed deeply green. ‘I wasn't brought up on a ranch, I was transplanted to one at an age when I could realise those lovely little calves born in the spring would ultimately be fattened up to be sent for slaughter!’ She shuddered at those childhood memories. ‘It isn't that I don't like meat, I'm as carnivorous as the next person, I just feel nauseous every time I think of some poor animal being murdered so that I can eat something I don't need in the first place! We don't need to eat cows, we can live just as well on the things they produce, the same goes for fowl, and sheep provide wool to keep us warm. We don't have to eat the poor creatures.'

‘Get off your soap-box, Brenna,’ Nathan ran a tired hand over his eyes. ‘I've heard it all before. Ranching is what I do for a living.'

‘That's probably what all those whalers say!'

He gave an impatient sigh. ‘There's no connection between the destruction of the whale and my ranching a few cows.'

‘It's thousands of cows,’ she corrected fiercely. ‘And the connection they both have is that they die for man's gain. You—–'

‘Could we have our omelettes—make mine cheese,’ he ground out. ‘It's been a long day, and I can do without this old argument. You don't accept the money that's due to you from the ranch because of your beliefs, and I respect that, but I don't expect to get lectures every time we see each other.'

The fact that she abhorred the slaughter of those beautiful animals that lived such a short time was only part of the reason Brenna had refused the Wade money, and the fact that Nathan had never realised that was just part of his insensitivity.

‘I'm sure you know where the shower is if you would like to freshen up before dinner,’ she suggested distantly. ‘The food will be ready in about fifteen minutes.'

‘Thanks.’ He picked up his parcel and carried it through to the studio, emerging a few minutes later with fresh clothes and accurately locating the shower; obviously he had found that too when he ‘looked around this morning'!

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