The Flawed Marriage

‘The bathroom’s through there,’ Joel Sinclair told her, indicating another door opening off the bedroom. ‘We normally have breakfast about eight. I have business interests in Kendal and try to leave the house by nine, although recently my schedule has been somewhat interrupted.’

Amber stared up at him, wanting him to leave and yet reluctant to be abandoned in a strange house.

‘Something wrong?’ he enquired dulcetly, watching the shadows chase across her golden eyes. ‘Or are you waiting for me to seal our bargain in the traditional manner?’

It was several seconds before Amber realised what he meant, and she cringed inwardly wondering if he thought she had been mutely hoping that he would kiss her.

‘Certainly not,’ she told him with as much cool composure as she could muster. ‘You’re buying my time, not my body.’

His suave, ‘Perhaps that’s just as well,’ left a bitter aftertaste long after he himself had gone, reminding her yet again that she was no longer a girl men would want to hold in their arms or kiss. For several totally irresponsible seconds she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by Joel Sinclair. His kisses wouldn’t be like Rob’s, she thought instinctively; there would be nothing tentative or rushed about them. He would know exactly how to arouse a woman’s desire; how to fan it until it threatened to become a raging inferno. Horrified by the train of her thoughts, she started to undress, realising almost too late that she had nothing to wear. Shrugging wearily, she decided that she was too tired to care whether she slept in a nightdress or the nude. Fortunately the bathroom, unlike the bedroom, was adequately heated, and she was able to wash out her undies and tights and place them on the hot towel rail to dry ready for the morning.

CHAPTER TWO (#uba272bdd-5eee-51ce-8f57-e42cc303eecf)

IT was the sound of a child crying that eventually roused Amber. She sat up in bed, listening in the darkness preceding dawn, and stretched her ears for the sound which had disturbed her slumbers. It came again—bitterly hopeless sobs; not the normal cry of a young child, and strangely moved, she slid out of bed, intent on discovering what was happening.

She was halfway across the room before she remembered she had no robe. The bathroom afforded a huge bathsheet which she wrapped sarong-wise around her too thin body, before opening her bedroom door.

It wasn’t hard to find Paul’s room; but what did surprise Amber when she opened the door was that the little boy was all alone, curled up in a small foetal ball in the middle of a rumpled heap of bedclothes.

‘Paul.’ She whispered his name, and had the satisfaction of seeing his tears stop as he registered her presence.

‘Who are you?’ The words were wrung from him between sobs.

Amber walked awkwardly towards the bed and switched on the lamp, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the small boy’s features properly for the first time. He was a perfect miniature replica of his father!

‘My name’s Amber.’ she answered matter-of-factly. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Paul Sinclair, and this is my daddy’s house.’

‘Were you having a bad dream?’ Amber asked him conversationally.

The small face closed up. ‘Sort of.’ The reply was deliberately uncommunicative.

‘Horrid, aren’t they?’ Amber sympathised, pretending she had not noticed his withdrawal. ‘Would you like me to get you a glass of milk?’

‘I’m not thirsty. What are you doing here?’

‘Your daddy brought me,’ Amber explained, starting to smooth the crumpled sheets. As she did so, she accidentally revealed the thin child’s body, dressed in over-large pyjamas which had ridden up to reveal a scarred and very frail-looking leg.

She could feel Paul going rigid when he knew she was looking at him, and her heart went out to the small child. She knew exactly what he was feeling. A thought suddenly struck her. Was this one of the reasons why Joel Sinclair wanted to marry her, because he thought she would have something in common with his son? But no; he had stipulated that their marriage was only to last six months, and besides, he didn’t strike her as the kind of man who would marry simply because of emotion.

Paul had turned away from her and was lying rigidly in the bed, his stiff little back expressive of all she herself had felt and never been able to say. She could almost feel him wishing her away.

She touched his arm gently. ‘Paul… You don’t have to hide your leg away from me, you know.’

If anything the little boy became even more stiff.

‘Look,’ she said lightly, ‘my leg’s the same.’

At first he didn’t move, and then very slowly and disbelievingly he turned towards her.

‘Let me see it.’

Obligingly she raised the hem of the bathsheet, holding her breath as she waited for Paul’s reaction. For some obscure reason it had become overwhelmingly important that she win the confidence of this withdrawn, too thin and pale child. Perhaps it was an innate fellow-feeling that told her that he had been fibbed to and fobbed off too often to accept platitudes any longer, and for the first time since her accident she actually didn’t mind someone seeing the unpleasant scars.

Even when Paul’s small stubby fingers touched the ridged and puckered skin she didn’t flinch.

‘I was knocked down by a car—how did you get yours?’ she asked conversationally.

‘He was in a car accident—with his mother,’ drawled a mocking familiar voice from the doorway.

Shock jolted through Amber as she saw Joel’s lean frame propped up against the door, the brief terry towelling robe he was wearing doing nothing to conceal the potent masculinity of his body. As though it were a magnet it drew Amber’s fevered gaze, hot pulses beating insistently through her veins in mute reaction to the sensuality of the lean-muscled male body. What was happening to her? She had never felt like this with Rob. Was it something to do with the fact that she now knew that there would be no lover, no fulfilment for her? Was that what was making her so intensely aware of Joel Sinclair; a stranger?

‘Oh, don’t look like that,’ Joel drawled, totally misunderstanding the reason for her shocked expression. ‘She got off completely unscathed. You ought to be asleep,’ he told his son, walking across to the bed, which depressed under his weight.

‘I heard him crying,’ Amber explained the reason for her presence.

‘And like the compassionate motherly creature that you are you came to investigate.’

‘Her name’s Amber,’ Paul told his father, suddenly joining in the conversation. ‘And her leg is like mine.’

Over his head golden eyes met grey, and Amber knew that in some part she had been right, unbelievable though it seemed, and that Joel Sinclair had made her that offer of a temporary marriage because of his son’s damaged leg.

‘Are you going to stay with us?’ he demanded suddenly of Amber, adding to Joel, ‘I like her, Daddy—make her stay. I don’t want her to go away like Mummy did.’ Tears filled his eyes, and Amber’s tender heart was wrung with pity. Why wasn’t this child with his mother, wherever she was? It was obvious from what Joel had said that he wasn’t a widower, so where was his wife? Obviously she couldn’t ask in front of Paul.

‘I won’t, Paul,’ Joel assured him softly. ‘Amber is going to come and live with us for a while.’

‘Will she be my new mummy?’

The air was fraught with sudden tension. Amber could feel it in the sudden tensing of Joel’s body, the watchful expression in his eyes.

‘We’ll see, Paul. Now try to go back to sleep.’

‘I want Amber to kiss me first,’ Paul protested, turning towards her.

Amber’s own eyes were damp as she leaned down to kiss the soft childish skin. Paul put his arms round her neck, hugging her fiercely, and it was Joel who released the small clinging fingers and switched off the bedside light.

‘Perhaps I ought to stay with him until he falls asleep,’ Amber suggested in a soft whisper. There was a chair beside the bed, and she would be quite happy to sit in it until Paul drifted off.

‘If you’re sure you don’t mind? I didn’t get back until the early hours.’

It was very peaceful, listening to the gradually deepening sounds of Paul’s breathing, going over what she had just learned. Poor Paul! The accident must have been a traumatic experience for him; doubly so because his mother had been with him at the time. And what of her? How she must have suffered, Amber reflected, especially if she had been driving. She must ask Joel how seriously damaged Paul’s leg was. Slowly her own eyes started to close, and when dawn finally tinged the sky Amber herself was too deeply asleep to see it.

The warm male fingers on her shoulder felt vaguely familiar. Submerged in dreams, she murmured Rob’s name, rubbing her face against the male hand, a slight smile curving the soft warmth of her mouth.

‘Darling…’ The word left her lips of a faint sigh, her eyes opening, golden with happiness and love, trust in the shyly provocative manner in which she raised her face for Rob’s kiss.

Only there was no Rob any longer, but the knowledge came too late to stop the swift downward descent of a dark male head, predatory lips capturing the softness of her own in a kiss that tingled warmly right through her body to her toes, bringing it fully alive for the first time in months.