From Mistresses To Wives?. Lee Wilkinson

it all boils down. What you’d really like is for me to get pregnant to put you back on par. Well, abandoning the condoms isn’t going to do it, so you may as well forget it! I wouldn’t bring a baby into this travesty of a marriage for a pension!’

      Jessica broke off, aware of having gone a great deal further than ever intended. Zac was looking at her as if he’d never really seen her before. ‘Travesty?’ he said softly.

      ‘Well, isn’t it?’ she defended. ‘You married me to satisfy a self-centred old man who believes he has a Godgiven right to dictate the way others should live, no other reason. Your grandmother may have been brainwashed into following his every wish, but I refuse to go on paying court to his antediluvian ideas! I’m no docile little housewife, Zac. I have a mind and a brain of my own!’

      ‘I never had any doubt of it,’ he returned. ‘You knew what you were taking on when you agreed to marry me. Most people would consider you’d made a rather good deal on the whole.’ He shook his head as she made to speak, his face set, his eyes like steel. ‘If it isn’t enough for you, I’ll find you a job, but you don’t go back to this store. Right?’

      ‘I have to,’ Jessica protested. ‘I’ll need to give notice.’

      ‘So let them sue. I know someone in PR who’s in need of a new secretary. I’ll give him a ring first thing in the morning and tell him the good news.’

      ‘How do you know he’ll find me suitable?’ she asked on a somewhat deflated note.

      ‘He owes me a couple of favours,’ came the crushing reply. ‘Anyway, I’d say you were capable enough.’

      Jessica stood in silence as he turned away. She’d made her point, she’d even won her point, so why didn’t she feel any sense of satisfaction with the outcome?

      The answer lay in Zac’s demeanour towards her, so changed from the easy manner he usually employed. Not just the fact that she’d gone behind his back to take the job, but the very real probability that Brady would get to hear of it and lose no time in passing on the news to his grandfather. If Henry Prescott ran true to form, it could well result in a changed will. He was certainly capable of it.

      For the first time, Zac made no attempt to touch her in any way when they were in bed. He lay on his side facing away from her, an acre of space between them. Jessica fought the urge to tell him she’d changed her mind about having a job. It would be living yet another lie. And for what? There was more to life than the feel of a man’s arms about her.

      The interview in Holbourn a few days later proved no more than a formality. Whatever Leo Brent’s true impression of her capabilities, he showed no hesitation in offering her the job. She would be taking over from his present secretary who was leaving at short notice. He didn’t say why the other woman was going, and Jessica didn’t ask. Zac would hardly have put her in line for the job if there’d been anything untoward about the man.

      Having heard nothing from the shop, she could only assume that Zac had handled that matter too. She should have held out for a right and proper notice period, she knew, but she had to confess to a secret relief that she hadn’t had to fabricate reasons for leaving after such a short time.

      The bedtime stand-off had lasted no more than the one night. Jessica was sorely tempted to tell him to get lost when he drew her into his arms as usual the following night, but with her pulses already galloping, she lacked the strength of mind to carry it through.

      Sex might not be the answer to everything, but it certainly helped, she told herself cynically as she composed herself for sleep afterwards. Zac obviously thought so too.

      She spent a day learning the ropes from the retiring secretary. The other was to accompany her husband to America where his company was transferring him.

      ‘I didn’t want to go at first,’ she confessed over lunch. ‘I like the life we have here. Patrick would have turned the job down if I’d insisted, but I couldn’t do that to him. Anyway, it’s only for three years.’ She laughed. ‘Ten to one I’ll not want to come back when the time comes!’

      ‘Murphy’s law.’ Jessica smiled back. She waited a moment or two before saying casually, ‘What’s Mr Brent like to work for?’

      ‘Leo,’ the other corrected. ‘He’ll insist you call him that. He’s a nice guy. Divorced four years, but a real pussy-cat of a boss. It was a relief to him when your husband put you up for the job. Meant he didn’t have to carry out any more interviews.’ Her glance was curious. ‘I shouldn’t have thought you’d have need of a job, married to a Prescott.’

      ‘A whim on my part,’ Jessica told her smilingly.

      ‘A lasting one, I hope,’ came the candid reply. ‘Leo deserves a little devotion.’

      She moved on to other matters after that, leaving Jessica with the impression that there might have been more than one reason for her reluctance to move to America.

      It took her less than a week of working for Leo Brent to appreciate her predecessor’s feelings. No more than medium height and looks, with an unruly thatch of fair hair that made him appear younger than his forty-two years, he exuded the kind of benevolent charm most women would find a draw.

      He’d met Zac a couple of years before when working on publicity for the Orbis take-over Zac himself had gone out on a limb to promote.

      ‘Turned out a winner,’ he said with some personal satisfaction. ‘A smack in the eye for that cousin of his who voted against it. Of the two of them, Zac has by far the better business sense. It’s to be hoped he’s the one to take the chair when it comes up for grabs next year.’

      Which wouldn’t be likely if Brady inherited all their grandfather’s holdings, Jessica reflected. Henry Prescott’s death may no longer be imminent, but the pressure still existed. It could quite easily be another ten years or more before the man breathed his last. A lifetime, if he continued to hold the same threat over his grandsons’ heads.

      If word of her stint in the retail world had reached Brady’s ears, Zac made no mention of it. He made no reference to the job she was doing either. The atmosphere between them was like sitting on a volcano, waiting for something to erupt. When he made love to her it was with passion, but precious little tenderness. Hardly surprising, she supposed, when their whole relationship was based on the former rather than the latter.

      ‘I’m not sure how long I can stick this for!’ she burst out one night after waiting in vain for some sign of emotional involvement on his part—any sign. ‘I feel like a whore!’

      ‘Whores rarely experience orgasm,’ came the seemingly unmoved response. ‘If that was acting just now, you made the wrong career move!’

      There was a pause, a sudden heavy sigh. He drew her back to him, his kiss soft on her lips. ‘You’re right. I’ve been a boor. How about we agree to differ over the job thing, and start over?’

      Jessica didn’t hesitate. Compromise was better by far than warfare. She gave her answer in deed rather than word, rousing him to life again—though this time in far gentler mode.

      There was hope for this marriage of theirs yet, she thought in the hazy, lazy aftermath of their love-making, when they lay entwined in each other’s arms. They were closer at this moment in every sense than they had ever been.

      Chapter Eight

      SARAH’S totally unexpected call the following week coincided with Zac’s overnight trip to France on company business.

      ‘I thought it time the two of us got to know each other a little better,’ she said. ‘How about lunch tomorrow to start with? I know this little place in Covent Garden that does an absolutely glorious boeuf en croute!’ She laughed. ‘Food becomes all-important when you’re feeding two!’

      ‘I can imagine,’ Jessica sympathised. She hesitated. ‘You must be getting close now.’

      ‘Oh,