From Mistresses To Wives?: Mistress to a Bachelor / His Mistress by Marriage / Accidental Mistress. Susan Napier
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his sister-in-law—my aunt—obviously made herself readily available.’
Jessica’s head was lowered, the lump in her throat hard to swallow. If his father had found pregnancy a sexual turn-off, then it was likely that he might too. Not a brilliant outlook for a marriage lacking anything else to hold it together—apart from those damned shares!
‘Lousy situation though it is, I don’t think you and Brady should allow it to colour your lives to the extent you do,’ she said thickly. ‘Your grandfather doesn’t help.’ She looked up as the thought struck her. ‘He did know?’
Zac gave a short laugh. ‘He didn’t at the time. If he had, he’d have cut Dad off pronto. Brady told him within days of hearing it himself. Hence the added pressure on me to make good.’
‘You can’t possibly be blamed for what your father did!’
‘As his son, I’m expected to atone for it.’
‘That’s unfair!’
‘That’s life,’ Zac returned drily. ‘We’ve been asked to make another visit, by the way.’
‘Asked,’ she flashed, ‘or commanded?’
The shrug was brief. ‘Tell it the way you see it. Whatever his faults, I’m fond of the old devil. Even more so of my grandmother. She’s devoted a lifetime to him. The least I can do is spend the occasional weekend.’ He paused, eyes veiled now as he regarded her. ‘I can’t force you to come with me, of course. That has to be up to you.’
‘But it will hardly do your image any good if I don’t.’
The sarcasm left him unmoved. ‘Probably not. Anyway, it’s been a long day. I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up too long. You look a bit washed out yourself.’
He was gone before she could comment. Not that there was a great deal she could have said other than to tell him the reason she looked washed out, as he so tactfully put it. Her pregnancy would certainly enhance his stature in Henry Prescott’s eyes, but how would he regard it himself? A baby was going to alter their whole way of living.
He was asleep when she finally went up, lying on his back, his breathing deep and even. Many men snored in that position, she’d heard, but she didn’t even have that much to find fault with.
The night was warm, and he’d pushed the duvet aside. Nude, as always in bed, his body gleamed like bronze in the soft light from the bedside lamp he’d left burning. Jessica studied the strong, clean lines, eyes traversing a route downwards over the broad chest with its tapering V of hair to the hard-packed midriff and narrowed hipline, the firmly muscled thighs enclosing the very essence of his masculinity.
Even dormant, he was well-endowed. She touched her tongue to lips gone dry at the image in her mind’s eye of how he looked when he was fully aroused. She wanted him desperately, but she wasn’t prepared to waken him. Not the way things were. He would have to know eventually, of course, but not yet. It was hardly as if she was going to give birth tomorrow.
Chapter Nine
CONCEALING the nausea which struck her every morning over the following couple of weeks wasn’t easy. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, and she was able to eat breakfast as normal. Zac appeared to notice nothing untoward, at any rate.
The doctor she finally signed on with confirmed the pregnancy, and arranged for her to start ante-natal clinic at twelve weeks. If he wondered why her husband hadn’t accompanied her, he kept the thought to himself. It was even possible, Jessica supposed, that he took the ‘Mrs’ as a self-bestowed title.
Zac hadn’t mentioned his grandparents again, and she had no intention of bringing the subject up. Her blood boiled whenever she thought about the way Henry Prescott had reacted to news of his son’s wrongdoing. Zac had obviously trodden a very dangerous line in holding out against the old man’s views as long as he had. As the major shareholder in the company still, his grandfather had to have been in a position to make life very difficult for him, to say the least. Some might say he could have walked away from it, but why should he land everything in his half-brother’s lap?
Life went on apace. They ate out most evenings, twice by invitation. While coping quite adequately on the surface with the hormonal changes taking place in her body, Jessica found the very thought of giving a dinner party of their own stressful. The dining room wasn’t big enough to hold more than six round the table in any real comfort, she protested when Zac said it was time they returned the hospitality, and she doubted her ability to prepare a meal of the standard expected anyway.
Zac shot down the first objection by saying they could split it into two parties, the second by suggesting a catering company could supply a meal all ready to serve on both occasions.
‘As a married man, it’s time I started returning the hospitality I’ve enjoyed as a bachelor,’ he said. ‘If you’re finding this place a bit too compact for comfort, we can always move somewhere larger.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ Jessica denied. ‘I love it here! All right,’ she added on a sudden reckless surge, ‘Make it next Saturday, and I’ll even do the cooking myself!’
It was a Saturday today. They were lazing over coffee in the sitting room with the weekend newspapers and magazines. Zac studied her reflectively where she sat with feet curled up under her on the sofa.
‘Not all it’s cracked up to be, is it?’ he said on a wry note.
The green eyes lifted to his were cautious. ‘What isn’t?’
‘Marriage.’
Jessica felt her heart take a plunge. It was all she could do to keep her voice steady. ‘It depends on the expectations, I suppose. Ours wasn’t exactly what you might call a match made in heaven to start with.’
The expression that flitted across the firm masculine features was come and gone too quickly for definition. His voice was equally steady. ‘Maybe not. Still, it has its compensations. Although those are in pretty short supply at present. Nature’s way, I know,’ he added before she could voice the reply he obviously heard coming, ‘but no less frustrating for the average male.’
He returned to his paper, his face closed against her. Jessica resisted the urge to apologise for the dig. He was the one who’d started it, she excused herself.
The realisation that he’d taken her lack of response to him these last few nights to be due to her period was something of a surprise considering how far past her due date she was. Yet how many men kept an actual tally, if it came to that? If it had crossed his mind at all, he would probably have taken it that she had an irregular cycle.
Her failure to feel any degree of desire for him at present was explained in the book she’d bought on pregnancy. Some women suffered a lowering of libido in the initial stages, it seemed. In a normal marriage, with love to fall back on, it wouldn’t matter as much, but deprived of the only consolation he had for his loss of freedom, a healthy, virile man like Zac might find the temptation to look elsewhere for solace too great to resist.
So tell him the truth, her inner voice urged. He was hardly going to look on the news with disfavour, taking his grandfather’s views into account. Except that she hated the mere thought of those views having any kind of bearing on his reaction, she admitted wryly.
At least his assumption gave her a few days’ breathing space. If her urges failed to return to normal, she would just have to put on an act. As Zac himself had pointed out, women had no physical evidence of arousal to produce.
Despite their differences, the day passed pleasantly enough. Zac had booked theatre tickets for the evening, followed by a late supper at Quaglino’s. The last thing Jessica felt like was eating at that hour, but she made a valiant effort. The least she could do, she considered, when he’d gone to such trouble to arrange things.
‘This time last year, I’d have thought myself lucky to be treated to supper at the local fish bar,’ she commented,