Читать книгу In Need Of A Wife - Emma Darcy, Emma Darcy - Страница 5

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?’

Sasha tore her gaze away, fighting a turbulent range of feelings related to his closeness and the caring way he’d looked at her. She was not a little girl in need of his protection, and she was not going to succumb to his proposition of a loveless marriage for the sake of having him at her side. He was not a comfort to her at all. He was disruptive and disturbing and the sooner she got away from him, the better.

‘I’m quite sure Tyler has wiped his hands of me,’ she said stiffly.

She hoped so, anyway. She felt that Tyler had too much ego to leave himself open to another rejection. From now on he would only think bad things about her and consider himself well rid of a relationship that had demanded too much of him anyway. She wondered what explanation he would give to their mutual acquaintances, then decided she didn’t care.

None of them had been close friends. Although Joshua, Tyler’s business partner, had always been kind. And perceptive. Joshua McDougal had been the only constant associate throughout her four years with Tyler. Social convenience had dictated the pattern of their life. If people weren’t fun, they were quickly discarded.

Once she had thought Tyler’s merry-go-round of people was the answer to all of her dreams. No more loneliness. Lots of people, happy to know her, happy to have her in their company. But it hadn’t been real. Not deep-down real. And when it had come to the solid realities of life—responsibilities, commitment, building a solid future together, simply being there when needed—Tyler was, to use Nathan Parnell’s words, a dead loss.

She had made the right decision. But it did leave her with some weighty problems, as Tyler had so nastily reminded her.

Matt hopped up to join his father in escorting her and Bonnie from the park. ‘I didn’t know you were a police officer, Daddy,’ he said enquiringly.

It gave Sasha a mental jolt. She had accepted Nathan Parnell’s claim without question, but out of the mouths of children came innocent truth.

‘When did you become a police officer?’ Matt relentlessly pursued the question as children always do.

‘When needs must, Matt,’ came the quiet reply.

Sasha realised he had supplied what he considered the situation demanded. But who was he really?

The answer exploded through her mind. A man who needed a wife, that was who, and he’d just made the opportunity to proposition her again. Nothing like a white knight to the rescue to soften a woman’s heart and mush up her brain. Well, not this woman, thank you very much, Sasha vowed. For the time being, she was through with men.

She stopped walking.

They all stopped walking.

Matt looked up at her. ‘My daddy can do anything,’ he stated proudly.

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Sasha bit out. She turned to confront the man who considered when needs must a good enough reason for arranging matters as he saw fit. ‘Do you have anything at all to do with the law, Mr Parnell?’

His craggy, handsome face relaxed into a slow, heart-melting smile. ‘I don’t mind if you call me Nathan.’

Sasha battled to remain firm in her resistance to any tactics he might employ to persuade her to his way of thinking. ‘You didn’t answer the question,’ she said tersely.

The smile quirked into winsome appeal. The effect was so sexy, Sasha could feel certain nerves quivering in response. ‘I practised as a barrister for a while,’ he said in a voice that had undoubtedly swayed juries, especially if the jurors were all women.

Sasha refused to be swayed. ‘Did you get thrown out for malpractice?’ she demanded.

He looked affronted. ‘Of course not. I’m a very law-abiding citizen. I like legality. That’s the beauty of marriage. Or, at least it would be with a properly drawn-up contract.’

Sasha was not going to get sidetracked on to that issue. Just for once, she was going to pin this man to a proper answer. ‘Do you or do you not practise as a barrister now?’

‘I do not. I gave it up.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘The judges didn’t agree with me all the time.’

That didn’t come as a surprise. ‘I don’t agree with you, either,’ Sasha asserted.

‘Over what?’ He looked innocent. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘Threatening bodily harm. I don’t believe in violence, Nathan Parnell.’

‘Neither do I. None eventuated, did it?’

‘No.’

‘I rest my case.’

He looked positively smug. It exasperated Sasha into saying, ‘I bet you’re not always right.’

‘My daddy’s never wrong,’ Matt said, looking up at his father admiringly. ‘He told me so.’

‘Brainwashed,’ Sasha muttered, but she couldn’t stop a smile at the precocious little boy.

It was a mistake. Nathan Parnell read it as compliance with their company. ‘So, which way is home?’ he asked, gesturing for her to indicate direction. ‘Matt and I will see you safely to your doorstep. If you like,’ he added belatedly, but with a smile that could have buckled her knees if Sasha weren’t made of sterner stuff.

It was time to effect the parting of the ways. Nathan Parnell was not the law and Sasha was not about to let him take the law into his own hands any more than he had. She had the distinct feeling that he could twist anything to his purpose, including her if she didn’t take herself out of his orbit.

‘Thank you, but there’s no need.’ She looked around. ‘Tyler’s already gone.’

‘What did he mean about having trouble with your parents?’

‘I’ll have to find a place of my own.’ She heaved a rueful sigh. ‘It’s not easy. Work’s been hard to get, and I’m not exactly over-endowed with the world’s riches.’

Bonnie had fallen asleep. Sasha shifted her into a more comfortable position against her shoulder then held out her hand. ‘May I have my bag now?’

‘Sure you don’t want me to carry it? It’s no trouble.’

She resisted temptation and shook her head. ‘I don’t have far to walk.’

He handed over the bag. The blue eyes played a last bit of havoc with her pulse-rate as he said, ‘Well, good luck with your job-hunting, and I hope you find a decent place to live.’

She met his gaze steadily, resolutely. ‘Good luck with finding a wife.’

That was it. She set off and didn’t look back, determined to put everything that had happened today behind her. Somewhere, somehow, she would make a good life for herself and Bonnie, even if she never found a man who would love both of them.

‘Hold on a moment!’

Nathan Parnell’s voice trapped her into looking back. Then the sight of him jogging after her with Matt enjoying a piggy-back ride and happily shouting ‘Giddy-up, Daddy,’ trapped her into stopping and staring at them. They were both so...heart-tuggingly attractive.

She was still standing like a store dummy when Nathan pulled up beside her. ‘Here,’ he said, bending over to slip a piece of notepaper into her bag.

‘What is it?’

‘I just thought of a place where you might get friendly accommodation. I wrote down the woman’s name and her phone number. You could try it if you want to. The rent’s negotiable.’

‘Thanks, but...’

‘Don’t spoil it.’ He grinned. ‘That’s my two good deeds for the day.’

Then, leaving her with the image of twinkling blue eyes, he was off again, his son bobbing up and down excitedly as his father broke into an obliging canter.

He was, without a doubt, the sexiest man Sasha had ever met.