Read Online A Daring Proposition by Jennifer Greene - Free Book Online
Authors: Jennifer Greene
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when he released her, her relief obvious. She hesitated. “Trust simply doesn’t come easily. Perhaps in time.”
He reached over and opened the door for her. “I’ll call you when I’ve got the marriage ceremony organized. You get hold of your doctor, Red, and let me know the time and place.”
He left her standing in the driveway as he backed up. She shivered suddenly in the semidarkness. The house—her home—had welcoming lights within. Leigh knew Robert would have prepared dinner in her absence. All she had to do was walk in there and she’d be enveloped in the soothing folds of familiar domesticity—of Robert and dinner and washing up her favorite hand-painted china, of the work she’d brought home from White’s for the weekend. She worked overtime from choice rather than need—she liked the anonymous facts and statistics that required all her concentration.
Yet she turned away from the lamplit windows to stare into the darkness where the Morgan had disappeared. She was out of Brian’s mind, she was sure. His dinner engagement no doubt involved a woman, and it did not take an extraordinary amount of perceptiveness to figure out that the woman wouldn’t be the type to hold hands in a museum, or to go all prudish and adolescent over a few kisses. Leigh could well imagine the kind of women Brian dated: elite women, the country-club set. Leigh had grown up with them. Hardly hand-holders, she thought wryly. One had to worry about appearances, and one’s hairdo and one’s makeup—at least until the evening was over and the lights were out, and such things no longer mattered. Cats’ eyes all looked the same in the dark, her stepfather had said once.
That had been the beginning, when Leigh had first started to hate David Hines. He had spoken in front of her mother that time, but his narrow eyes had been focused suggestively on Leigh. Andrea had found it amusing that her daughter had been so upset. Of course David was looking at her, she’d said later; Leigh had a lovely figure, didn’t she? A lot of men were going to look at her that way. “You’ll learn to love it, darling,” she’d concluded with a smile.
“But he’s your husband,” Leigh had blurted out, a very young and naïve sixteen.
“He’s a man,” Andrea had retorted. “And don’t you forget—they’re all the same in the dark, too.”
Leigh had been shocked by her mother’s cynicism. But there had come a time when she had been forced to believe her. Men were all alike. Leigh had tried, but she could never be the kind of woman her mother so admired—hard and invulnerable and cold, using her sexuality to get what she wanted from life. Leigh could deal with her fears far better than she could shut off her heart from all feeling, the way Andrea had done.
I have to trust you, Brian, she thought fleetingly, but only a moment later she thought that what she really trusted was his willingness to surround himself with anonymous tiger eyes in the night.
Chapter 5
Leigh’s hands were clenched tightly in her lap as she stared unseeingly at the series of brightly colored posters on the walls of the doctor’s office. Brian, next to her, hadn’t said one word from the time he had entered the office and taken the nearest chair to her. His face was impassive as a statue’s, but already she was too sensitive to him not to guess how he felt: He disliked everything about this, and he disliked Leigh for putting him through it.
Determinedly she tried to concentrate solely on babies, on the possible look, feel, touch and smell of the child she wanted so badly. The child was possible only because he was here, and for one minute she felt sheer exhilarating hope, but then came the dampening awareness of the procedure that was soon to take place, and the more dampening awareness of the man next to her, so virile, so…still.
A white-clad nurse emerged from the inner office and beckoned. Leigh stood up, trying with moist palms to shift her purse
He reached over and opened the door for her. “I’ll call you when I’ve got the marriage ceremony organized. You get hold of your doctor, Red, and let me know the time and place.”
He left her standing in the driveway as he backed up. She shivered suddenly in the semidarkness. The house—her home—had welcoming lights within. Leigh knew Robert would have prepared dinner in her absence. All she had to do was walk in there and she’d be enveloped in the soothing folds of familiar domesticity—of Robert and dinner and washing up her favorite hand-painted china, of the work she’d brought home from White’s for the weekend. She worked overtime from choice rather than need—she liked the anonymous facts and statistics that required all her concentration.
Yet she turned away from the lamplit windows to stare into the darkness where the Morgan had disappeared. She was out of Brian’s mind, she was sure. His dinner engagement no doubt involved a woman, and it did not take an extraordinary amount of perceptiveness to figure out that the woman wouldn’t be the type to hold hands in a museum, or to go all prudish and adolescent over a few kisses. Leigh could well imagine the kind of women Brian dated: elite women, the country-club set. Leigh had grown up with them. Hardly hand-holders, she thought wryly. One had to worry about appearances, and one’s hairdo and one’s makeup—at least until the evening was over and the lights were out, and such things no longer mattered. Cats’ eyes all looked the same in the dark, her stepfather had said once.
That had been the beginning, when Leigh had first started to hate David Hines. He had spoken in front of her mother that time, but his narrow eyes had been focused suggestively on Leigh. Andrea had found it amusing that her daughter had been so upset. Of course David was looking at her, she’d said later; Leigh had a lovely figure, didn’t she? A lot of men were going to look at her that way. “You’ll learn to love it, darling,” she’d concluded with a smile.
“But he’s your husband,” Leigh had blurted out, a very young and naïve sixteen.
“He’s a man,” Andrea had retorted. “And don’t you forget—they’re all the same in the dark, too.”
Leigh had been shocked by her mother’s cynicism. But there had come a time when she had been forced to believe her. Men were all alike. Leigh had tried, but she could never be the kind of woman her mother so admired—hard and invulnerable and cold, using her sexuality to get what she wanted from life. Leigh could deal with her fears far better than she could shut off her heart from all feeling, the way Andrea had done.
I have to trust you, Brian, she thought fleetingly, but only a moment later she thought that what she really trusted was his willingness to surround himself with anonymous tiger eyes in the night.
Chapter 5
Leigh’s hands were clenched tightly in her lap as she stared unseeingly at the series of brightly colored posters on the walls of the doctor’s office. Brian, next to her, hadn’t said one word from the time he had entered the office and taken the nearest chair to her. His face was impassive as a statue’s, but already she was too sensitive to him not to guess how he felt: He disliked everything about this, and he disliked Leigh for putting him through it.
Determinedly she tried to concentrate solely on babies, on the possible look, feel, touch and smell of the child she wanted so badly. The child was possible only because he was here, and for one minute she felt sheer exhilarating hope, but then came the dampening awareness of the procedure that was soon to take place, and the more dampening awareness of the man next to her, so virile, so…still.
A white-clad nurse emerged from the inner office and beckoned. Leigh stood up, trying with moist palms to shift her purse
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