Wife By Agreement

This was a patent untruth—all the main reception rooms had been redecorated a couple of months previously. The interior decorators had duplicated all the existing decor down to the smallest detail.

Emma’s explosive return into the room spared Hannah Alexa’s more obvious displays of dislike. She knew it went deeper than dislike. It sometimes felt as if the woman had made Hannah the focus for all her grief and anger over her daughter’s death.

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER a year of marriage Ethan came knocking on Hannah’s bedroom door for the second time in as many days. This time she heard him. It was Friday night and he was home late, as usual.

‘This is getting to be habit-forming,’ she said as he stepped into the room in response to her crisp invitation.

It was a line she’d been working on all evening, and she was quite pleased with her delivery. She might have been flustered to see him if Alexa’s actions hadn’t been so predictable. She’d known he’d appear at some point, demanding an explanation.

‘You getting into trouble?’ Elbow against the wall, he loosened his tie and looked at her in a distinctly unfriendly fashion.

In her innocence she’d imagined that with love off the menu she might settle for the closeness of a special friendship. Being ignored had been a lot easier to bear than his open dislike.

‘Am I?’ She didn’t appear too bothered at the possibility, which she could see surprised him. She’d discovered a perverse pleasure in surprising him over the past day or so. It was satisfying, shaking him out of his iron certitude. It was only natural, she decided, to resent the person you loved when he didn’t even notice you existed—at least not in that way.

‘I suppose you’ve received reports of me inviting my hordes of lovers to cavort on the Aubusson carpet in the drawing room.’ The mental image of bacchanalia brought a tiny smile to her lips.

‘You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.’ He ran a hand over the dark growth of stubble that shadowed his angular jaw.

‘I’m only amazed that you are,’ she fired back wearily. ‘No, actually I’m not, because you don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you, Ethan?’

She’d worked so damned hard to be what he wanted, but that had counted for nothing when she’d disrupted the smooth running of his life. One little slip, and he was looking at her as though she had something contagious. So her little slip had been spectacular—she hadn’t asked him to get involved personally.

‘You’ve always done what I’ve asked of you,’ he observed noncommittally. Despite his words, she didn’t detect any wholehearted endorsement in his slightly uncomfortable stance. He looked as though his wife’s bedroom was the last place in the world he wanted to be. Anger was her best response to the pain this knowledge brought.

‘You’re just wondering what else I’ve done besides.’

‘When the woman I married starts behaving like a teenager rebelling for the hell of it, I do start wondering—yes!’ he agreed in a driven voice. ‘You’re acting completely out of character.’

‘And you’d know all about my character?’

Her mockery brought an angry gleam to his narrowed eyes. ‘I’m sorry if you didn’t have the opportunity to get the rebellion out of your system when most of us do, but I’ve no desire whatever to become the focal point for your childish aggression. I don’t feel even vaguely paternal towards you.’ His lips twisted into a grimace of distaste.

‘I wasn’t looking for a father-figure when I married you!’ Please, God, don’t let him ask what I was looking for, she prayed, as she recognised the opening she’d given him. She needn’t have been concerned—Ethan thought he knew all about her motivation.

‘No, you were looking for security, which is understandable. Only now you’re discovering that there’s more to life than comfort. There’s excitement.’ Her fragile poise deserted her completely as his grey eyes raked her face. ‘And sex.’

Her chest felt so tight she could hardly breathe. ‘How dare you talk like that to me?’

‘I dare because our lives here only work because we accept certain limitations,’ he said brutally. ‘It’s a very delicate balance, and when you start flirting with French studs…’

‘I expect Jean-Paul would find the stereotyping very flattering,’ she breathed, furious that he could calmly taint an innocent friendship—God, it wasn’t even that!—with his nasty innuendo! ‘If you hadn’t tried to run my life for me, Ethan, Jean-Paul wouldn’t even have come here. You’ll be relieved to hear it wasn’t my body he was after,’ she hissed sarcastically. ‘But then I’m sure you didn’t think that. You played safe when you picked me, didn’t you?’ she accused bitterly. ‘You picked the plainest female you could find in the knowledge that, no matter how much you ignored me, there wasn’t going to be anyone else queuing up to show me a good time!’

‘If Jean-Paul wasn’t here to show you “a good time”—’ her face flamed as he quoted her heated words ‘—why did he come?’

‘He wants me to do a degree—in French.’

He gave a short, hard laugh. ‘It’s more original than wanting to show you his etchings,’ he conceded.