Read Online The Virgin Bride (The Australians) by Miranda Lee - Free Book Online Page B

you?’
    â€˜Trust you to think something like that. No, Adele, Emma isn’t pregnant.’
    â€˜Emma. What a sweet goody-two-shoes name! Does she have a sweet goody-two-shoes nature to go with it? Or is she just a little bit naughty sometimes? Does she do for you what I used to do for you, darling? I can’t imagine you doing without that once in a while.’
    â€˜Emma’s a nice girl, Adele,’ he said icily.
    â€˜Nice, is she? Oh, poor Jase. I think you are going to be bored. But you can always drop up to Sydney once in a while. Make some excuse to the little wife. A conference is always good for a weekend away.’
    â€˜I have no intention of doing any such thing, Adele. I left you seven months ago and you’re staying left.’
    She laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. ‘You won’t forget me that easily, Jase. You might pretend to, but when you’re lying in bed with your nice little wife, and having sweet goody-two-shoes sex every night, you’ll think of me. I’ll guarantee it.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t count on it, sweetheart,’ he snapped back. ‘Thank you for doing the right thing by Jerry. It surprises me you didn’t just give him an antacid tablet and send him home to die. I guess even the worst doctor in the world gets it right occasionally. Don’t call me again, Adele. Goodbye.’
    He was shaking by the time he hung up. Literallyshaking. He dropped the phone on the passenger seat and lowered his sweating forehead onto the steering wheel, glowering down at his lap and the evidence of what she’d done to him with just her voice.
    Slowly, he pulled himself together, and put his logical mind into gear. Old tapes playing in his head, he decided. Not love. He’d lived with the woman for three years, made love to her countless times, become addicted to her brand of sex. Hard to wipe out any addiction in a few months. She was like a bad habit which was difficult to toss. Yes, his body had responded—out of habit, not out of true feeling. He refused to believe differently.
    You won’t forget me that easily, Jase…
    He groaned, gunned the engine and headed for Tindley.
    He didn’t tell Emma the woman doctor who’d called was Adele. He wouldn’t have told her it was a woman doctor at all except Nancy knew. And what Nancy knew the whole of Tindley would know, eventually. Thank God Adele hadn’t given her Christian name!
    He lied to Emma a second time as well, saying this particular lady doctor was a colleague from a different surgery from the one he’d worked at. She’d been given his number by Jerry, he said. Women doctors were common amongst GPs, he’d added, when she’d looked worried.
    They weren’t evil lies, he reasoned. Just little white lies so that Emma would not feel badly or think worrying things while he was away for the weekend.
    He might have taken her with him, except he didn’ttrust Adele not to show up at the hospital some time. He wasn’t fooled by her nonchalant attitude over the phone. Adele hadn’t taken at all well to the ‘woman scorned’ label. After his verbal insults today, he had no doubt she would love the opportunity to put a spanner in the works of his happiness. He didn’t think she’d go out of her way to do that—such as a trip to Tindley—but his coming to Sydney was an opportunity she might seize. Someone as soft and sensitive as Emma would be a perfect victim for her brand of malice. Adele would leave no stone unturned to cut away at any confidence Emma had in their marriage working.
    No, Emma and Adele had to be kept apart.
    Fortunately, Emma was up to her eyes making her wedding dress, and was planning on finishing it that weekend. Jason was glad he didn’t have to argue against her coming with him, as that might have made her suspicious. She didn’t seem to mind his going, either. She could be a very independent