In Need Of A Wife

In Need Of A Wife

Emma Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

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 ONE

HE WAS a complete stranger. He had brought his three-year-old son to the same harbourside park Sasha had brought her nine-month-old daughter. In half an hour of desultory conversation across a sandpit where their children played together, all she had learned about him was his name, Nathan Parnell. He was also the sexiest man Sasha had ever met.

He made a pair of jeans and T-shirt look like indecent exposure. The casual but open affection with which he touched his son conjured up visions of the tactile pleasure he would give a woman. It brought goose-bumps to Sasha’s skin.

And those riveting blue eyes. When she spoke they focused on her with concentrated interest as though she were the most important person in the world. Sasha found it difficult to tear her gaze away from him. Even when she forced her attention back to Bonnie, who was being entertained by his little boy, she was intensely aware of the man lounging on the grass on the other side of the sandpit.

‘What I need...’ he spoke in a musing tone, not so much to her as to the world at large, yet the deep baritone of his voice made her ears tingle with anticipation to hear what his needs were ‘...is a wife.’

Sasha’s head jerked up, her dark eyes wide with shock. She quickly flicked the fall of her long black hair over her shoulder to cover up her reaction to the startling statement. She had been secretly envying Nathan Parnell’s wife, and berating herself for having wasted so many years on Tyler Cullum while all the best men were taken. The whimsically appealing smile Nathan Parnell directed at her set her pulse racing.

‘Tell me honestly,’ he invited. ‘Would you consider the position?’

Warning bells rang in Sasha’s mind. Strangers who made odd propositions in a park were definitely to be avoided, no matter how sexy they were.

Her gaze quickly swept their vicinity. Most of the people who had been nearby earlier seemed to have wandered off. There was an old man sitting at one of the benches, reading the Saturday newspaper, a young couple under the trees closer to the water, two middle-aged women apparently watching the leisure craft sailing by on the harbour, all of them a fair distance from the sandpit and all of them strangers.

She probably looked like part of a family group, Mum and Dad and their two kids, and people in the city tended to steer clear of others’ troubles. This was time to get out.

‘I’d better be going,’ she said, trying not to look too hasty as she began gathering the plastic blocks Bonnie had thrown around.

‘You haven’t answered the question,’ Nathan Parnell reminded her, not exhibiting any discomfiture whatsoever. ‘I need a wife, and to satisfy my curiosity I’d like to know whether you’d consider the position.’

‘Definitely not.’

‘Is there something wrong with me?’ he asked.

With his attributes, he could probably have the choice of any woman in Sydney. He probably knew it, too. Sasha cast him a quelling look. ‘I thought you were already married.’

‘I was. Past tense.’

It gave her pause for thought. Maybe he was a widower in desperate need for someone to mother his little boy. Although why he’d pick on her, after the barest acquaintance, left a lot of questions up in the air. Was he impressed by her manner with Bonnie? Was that the only yardstick he had for a wife? Or did he find her attractive enough to fancy her in his bed, as well?

Curiosity prompted her to say, ‘I don’t want to raise a matter that might be painful to you, but what happened to your first wife?’

‘She’s gone. Hopefully to hell and perdition.’

It was certainly no salute to the woman he had married. Which gave Sasha every reason to be circumspect with this man. ‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out better for you,’ she said, resuming her block-gathering. To keep him talking until she could make her getaway, she asked, ‘How did she die?’

‘She didn’t. More’s the pity,’ he said with an edge of bitterness. ‘Though the marriage wasn’t a dead loss. I got Matt. Thank God he takes after me.’

‘Then you’re divorced,’ Sasha deduced, wanting the situation spelled out.

‘No other way out of the problem.’

Sasha knew how messy such problems were. She didn’t have to divorce Tyler Cullum because they weren’t married in the first place, but effecting a separation was just as traumatic as any divorce. She wondered how any mother could leave her child behind, as Nathan Parnell’s wife apparently had. Then, with a spurt of her own bitterness, she supposed there were women, as well as men, who didn’t want their lives loaded down with children.

Nathan Parnell took her silence for complicity and resumed his proposition. ‘Consider the advantages. We could go back to the old way of doing things. Set up a marriage contract...’

‘What makes you think I’m free to marry?’ Sasha demanded, thinking he was assuming one hell of a lot in talking to her like this.

‘No wedding-ring.’

‘Many people think marriage isn’t valid any more,’ she argued, although it was Tyler’s opinion, not hers.

The blue eyes blazed incredulity. ‘You’re still living with a guy who didn’t bother to marry you when you had his child?’

‘It does happen these days,’ she flared at him, painfully aware of the mistakes she had made.

‘Why isn’t he with you?’

‘Because...’ It was none of his business, but somehow his eyes pinned her to a reply. ‘Because I left him,’ she finished defiantly. ‘He wasn’t good to me, and he wasn’t good to Bonnie.’

‘There you are. Same problem I had,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘We’d both be better served if we worked out a sensible contract. Set out what we’re prepared to give to the marriage, and what we can expect from each other.’

‘You’re talking about a marriage of convenience.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘What about love?’

‘Definitely out. It causes havoc and creates chaos. Turns sensible people into raving lunatics. The Greeks had it right. They called it Eros. The eighteen months of madness before passion cools and reality sets in.’

‘Well, you might not think it’s worth having, but I do,’ Sasha said emphatically.

She grabbed her holdall and stuffed Bonnie’s play blocks into it. Her dreams might have been tarnished by her experience with Tyler, but she was not about to give them up and become as cynical as Nathan Parnell.

‘What did love do for you?’ came the sardonic challenge. ‘How long did it take you to find out your lover was a dead loss when it came to commitment and responsibility?’

She faced him with grim determination. ‘It wasn’t love. Not real, deep-down love. And I’m not going to settle for anything less next time around. If there is a next time. I’d rather manage on my own than compromise myself again.’

‘How will you know this real, deep-down love?’ he asked sceptically.

‘I’ll know.’

She wasn’t at all sure of that but she stood up in disdain of any more of his arguments, then bent to lift Bonnie over her arm and brush the sand from her legs. She was conscious of Nathan Parnell swinging himself into a sitting position but he didn’t rise to his feet.

‘It’s pie-in-the-sky,’ he stated mockingly.

‘You can hardly say your attitude is normal,’ she retorted.

‘Normality is a fantasy. People aspire to it because they’re so frightened of being themselves.’

‘Well, now I’m free to be myself,’ Sasha tossed at him.

‘If you married me, you’d be even more free to be yourself.’

‘Free?’ She cocked a scornful eyebrow at him. ‘Wouldn’t I have to share your bed?’

‘Minimally. Marriage isn’t legal without consummation. Would once in a lifetime be asking too much of you?’

‘Once! What kind of marriage is that?’

His eyes danced over her from head to toe, openly admiring the shining fall of her long black hair, the curves of her figure which were faithfully outlined by her T-shirt and jeans, the shapeliness of her long legs.

‘Perhaps I could manage more if you really wanted me to,’ he suggested, flashing her a smile that had the kick of a mule. His eyes held a definite glint of earthy wickedness as he added, ‘You have lovely skin. Smooth and creamy. Must be like satin to touch.’

Sasha could feel the cream burning into fire-engine red as she remembered wanting to know how it would feel to be touched by him. Her gaze dropped to his hands, lightly resting on his knees, and she had a moment of lustful speculation that was totally unlike her.

Fortunately, Bonnie recalled her to her senses by squirming and crowing her eagerness to be returned to her playmate. Sasha hoisted her daughter up against her shoulder, holding her more securely, defensively.

‘This is getting beyond the pale,’ she said, her eyes flashing contempt for his concept of a convenient marriage. ‘Where do you get such ideas from?’

He shrugged. ‘They popped into my head.’

‘So you ask the first woman you meet, or happen to be with, to be your...’ Words failed her.

He grinned, totally unabashed. ‘There is a certain zest to it, springing into the unknown. It could be a glorious adventure for both of us.’

‘Or a trip to hell and perdition,’ she reminded him with waspish intent, hoping he felt the sting in the tail. ‘Don’t forget that,’ she added for good measure.

‘Doesn’t apply. No love involved.’

‘Which is where I opt out. Thanks for the offer but it has no appeal to me.’

She leaned down to pick up her bag, telling herself she was crazy to have listened to him for so long, crazier still to feel tempted into listening some more. Sex-appeal was a trap. It faded fast once one got down to the nitty-gritty of making a relationship work. Tyler had conclusively proved to her that a relationship without love had no hope of bringing any real or lasting happiness.

‘Can’t I play with the baby any more?’

‘I don’t think the baby’s mother wants to stay, Matt, and we have to respect other people’s wishes.’

It was a gentle answer. Sasha saw an arm reach out and gather the little boy into a comforting closeness with his father, a loving touch that put an ache of yearning in Sasha’s stomach. If Tyler had been like that with Bonnie... But he hadn’t, and any last hope of him ever changing had died the night she saw him shaking their child as though she were nothing but a rag doll.

As she straightened, the bag firmly clutched in her hand, Sasha tried her best to project proud independence in turning away from the disturbing influence of Nathan Parnell’s presence. But her heart caught at the mournful look in his small son’s eyes.

She was well acquainted with the loneliness of being an only child. But Matt did have the love of his father. And Bonnie had her love. The last thing children needed was to be caught in the warfare of a relationship that wasn’t based on love.

Reassured that she had done the right thing in leaving Tyler, and was doing the right thing in leaving Nathan Parnell, Sasha stiffened her spine and bestowed a warm smile on the little boy.

‘Thank you for playing with Bonnie.’

‘Can we play again another time?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid not.’ She saw the disappointment in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, then turned quickly and walked away, wondering how different their lives might have become if she could have given another answer.

In her abstraction she did not see the figure striding across the park on an intercepting course.

‘Sasha!’ he called.

She heard the strident anger in the voice. It arrested her mid-step. She turned towards the source, knowing already what she was about to see, knowing she was about to be involved in another confrontation, this one much more serious than the minor skirmish she had just played out with Nathan Parnell.

She knew the owner of the voice.

It belonged to Tyler Cullum.

CHAPTER TWO

SASHA watched Tyler approach. She had once thought him sexy, but now she saw him as nothing more than a slick sophisticate, consumed with self-interest. He was more smoothly handsome than Nathan Parnell, conscious of the latest fashions, stylishly lean, and affecting a temperamental moodiness that he considered artistic.

Why she suddenly thought of Nathan Parnell as warm and honest and earthy, she didn’t know. Contrast, she supposed. Nathan Parnell was a bigger man, his strongly boned face marked with expressive character lines, his dark hair an unruly toss of waves that looked finger-combed, if combed at all. There was nothing artificial about him. He was comfortable with who and what he was and not frightened to lay that out to anyone else.

Sasha told herself she had nothing to be frightened of, either. She didn’t have to please or appease Tyler any more. She was free to be herself and go her own way.

But all her fine resolutions didn’t stop her stomach from twisting into a knot of apprehension as Tyler came to a halt in front of her. She stared defiantly into stormy grey eyes, deciding she had a definite preference for vivid blue.

‘You could have told your parents which park you were going to,’ Tyler sniped. ‘This is the third one I’ve had to look through.’

‘I don’t understand what you’re doing here, Tyler,’ she said truthfully. ‘You were glad to see us leave a week ago.’

He made a visible effort to control his irritation. ‘Well, I was wrong, Sasha. Now that I’ve had time to think about it...’

‘I’ve had time to think about it, too. I wasn’t wrong, Tyler. For me, it’s finished.’

‘You’re being unreasonable, Sasha. Just because I’m not as patient as you are with Bonnie...’

Her expressive dark eyes flashed contempt at his hypocritical excuse. It forced Tyler to a concession.

‘All right. I’m sorry for blowing up, but she was driving me nuts.’

‘She won’t any more. If you’ll excuse us...’

Before she could move, Tyler stepped forward and snatched her carrier bag out of her hold. ‘You’re not going anywhere until we’ve talked this out.’

Sasha fought to remain calm, disdaining any attempt to retrieve the bag. ‘Talking won’t make any difference to my decision, Tyler.’

She saw the struggle on his face. He found it difficult to accept that she could actually walk away from him without a backward glance. ‘Listen to me, Sasha,’ he demanded, mollifying the demand with a cajoling tone. ‘I miss you. I even miss the baby. The apartment feels empty without you.’

The glib persuasion didn’t have the substance to reach past other memories. Sasha eyed him with bleak weariness. ‘What you’re missing, Tyler, is a convenience you’ve got used to. Find another woman to look after your needs. The one you tumbled in your studio might oblige.’

It riled him. ‘I told you that was a one-off thing.’

‘You’re free to do whatever you like with whomever you like, Tyler. But not with me and Bonnie.’

His temper flared. ‘I came to say I was sorry. What more do you want?’

‘Nothing. There’s nothing I want from you, except for you to go away and leave us alone.’ She held out her hand for the bag. ‘Please?’

He ignored the appeal. ‘Where do you think you’re going to live? You’re being totally selfish squatting on your family. They don’t have room for you.’

‘I intend to find a place of my own.’

‘Sure! That will be real easy with a baby in tow and no steady income. You’re not thinking straight, Sasha. It’s time you stopped sulking and came to your senses.’

‘There’s no point in this, Tyler. Please give me the bag and let us go.’

‘You’re being stupidly stubborn. Come back home with me and...’

She started walking away without the bag, sick of the argument, sick of everything to do with Tyler, wanting to put him behind her once and for all.

He caught up with her and wrenched one of her arms away from Bonnie, his hand closing around it with biting strength and jerking her around to face him. ‘Don’t turn your back on me! I came to talk to you.’

‘It’s no use!’ Sasha cried, shocked at being forcibly held and struggling to free herself. Bonnie started screaming at the jolting.

‘You’re upsetting the kid,’ he accused.

‘Let me go and she’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine.’

‘You’re coming home with me.’

Pulling her after him, denying her any choice, he set off across the park, heading back to where he must have parked his car.

‘Stop it, Tyler!’ Sasha tried digging her heels in but that caused her to stumble when his relentless forward progress dragged her along with him. ‘I don’t want to go with you,’ she protested.

He didn’t so much as slow his pace. ‘You’re coming whether you like it or not.’

‘This won’t get you anywhere,’ she fiercely promised him, pulling and straining against his iron-tight grip. She was hopelessly incapacitated by the need to hold on to Bonnie who was now screaming at the top of her lungs. Sasha was reduced to pleading. ‘Let me go, Tyler. You’re hurting me.’

‘If you stop being a stubborn mule, you won’t get hurt.’

‘Let the lady go.’

The command startled both of them. In harnessing all her strength to resist Tyler’s caveman tactics, Sasha had forgotten about witnesses. Tyler turned to glare at the man who had suddenly thrust himself into an intervening role. Sasha stared at her self-appointed rescuer in dazed disbelief.

Nathan Parnell had shed his sexy air of relaxed indolence. He looked very big, very strong, and very determined.

‘Butt out, mister,’ Tyler snapped at him. ‘This is none of your business.’

Sasha felt a hot surge of humiliation. Being manhandled in public, and having her helplessness witnessed by Nathan Parnell and his son, was degrading. She should have handled this confrontation with Tyler more tactfully, although how she could have stopped him from turning it into an ugly spectacle she didn’t know.

‘Let her go or I’ll...break...your arm.’

The words were loaded with menace. Her uninvited champion stepped forward, obviously prepared to execute the threat.

The shock of it brought Sasha’s miserable train of thought to an abrupt halt. Why did men have to be so...so primitive? There was going to be a major physical confrontation unless she did something to stop it. And it wasn’t necessary.

‘It’s all right,’ she cried. When all was said and done, she was capable of standing up for herself. Tyler didn’t mean to do her any physical harm, she was sure of that.

Nathan Parnell didn’t back off but he stopped. ‘It certainly will be,’ he said, ‘when the gentleman releases you and returns your bag.’

To Sasha’s knowledge, Tyler had never been faced with the threat of physical violence before. With imminent danger temporarily averted, shock gave way to bristling bravado. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he demanded.

‘Parnell. Police officer. Off duty.’

The economy of words reinforced the command of the man and the identification made his stance even more intimidating. It gave Tyler pause for thought. He finally decided discretion was the better part of valour and released Sasha’s arm.

Sasha reacted rather than acted. Her self-protective instinct made her step back out of Tyler’s reach. Her maternal instinct urged her to soothe Bonnie’s alarm. She was too shaken by what had happened to initiate any further resolution to this dreadful scene.

The erstwhile stranger from the sandpit stood his ground, eyeing Tyler as though he were a prime suspect in a murder case.

‘You don’t understand, Officer,’ Tyler blustered. ‘This is nothing but a domestic argument.’

‘Want to come down to the station and have a friendly chat about it?’

Tyler didn’t care for that challenge, either. ‘This is ridiculous. Cops everywhere. Isn’t there any freedom left in this country?’

‘Yes, sir, there is. Freedom for women and children as well as men. Now, if you don’t mind, hand over the lady’s bag.’

‘She has her hands full with the baby. Our baby,’ Tyler argued.

Nathan Parnell turned to Sasha who was still trying to calm Bonnie. He addressed her quietly, politely, giving no indication that they had met and talked before.

‘Would you like me to carry the bag for you, ma’am? I’ll give you safe escort to wherever you want to go.’

Sasha felt confused. The authority he had brought to the situation was helping to end it, but she didn’t want to get involved with the law. She didn’t want to get any further involved with Nathan Parnell, either. He was just as bad as Tyler in wanting a convenience, and his he-man display didn’t impress her any more than Tyler’s did.

‘You go with him, Sasha, and you’ll never see me again,’ Tyler vowed, fuming at having been put in the wrong.

It made up her mind for her. She didn’t want to see Tyler again. ‘Thank you, Officer. I would be grateful for your help.’

He turned back to Tyler and held out his hand. ‘The bag please, sir.’

Tyler tossed it at Nathan Parnell’s feet, glaring intense hostility at Sasha for her part in his humiliation. ‘Don’t think you can come crawling back to me. This is it, Sasha. I gave you your chance.’

She made no reply. Nathan Parnell scooped up the bag, stepped between her and Tyler, and took a gentle hold on her elbow to steer her in the direction he wanted her to go. ‘If you’ll come this way, ma’am...’

Sasha hesitated, unsure what she would be getting herself into by going with him. Leaping into the unknown was not her idea of a ‘glorious adventure’. Then she remembered his son and realised he must have left the little boy somewhere. Matt should be getting his father’s attention.

She moved decisively, submitting to Nathan Parnell’s escort, embarrassed by the trouble she hadn’t been able to avoid, but relieved to put Tyler behind her. She wondered if it made her a coward, taking the easy way out, but what possible good could it do to continue a post-mortem argument with Tyler? The decision was made. There was no going back.

Matt was, in fact, sitting on the grass a little distance away, gravely watching their approach. Sasha wished he hadn’t seen that ugly tussle. It must have disturbed him as much as it had disturbed Bonnie. It rocked children’s sense of security when adults fought together.

‘Get the rest of your things out of my apartment tomorrow or I’ll throw them out,’ Tyler shouted after her. ‘Your parents will really love having to house all that. They won’t have room to move.’

Sasha shuddered, hating the vindictiveness, hating the fact that four years of commitment had come down to this horrible parting.

‘Just keep walking. Don’t look back,’ Nathan Parnell murmured.

She would never have guessed he was a police officer, although he certainly fitted the part, now that she knew. His height, his strong physique, the aura of being in command, unruffled by anything.

‘I don’t want to make any charge against Tyler,’ she said, casting an anxious glance at him.

The compelling blue eyes gently probed hers. ‘You don’t think he’ll trouble you any more?’