Bride Of Convenience. Susan Fox P.

      And considering her financial circumstances, six years might as well be twenty for all the good the trust fund would do her now. Her grandfather’s attorney had been so “sincerely regretful,” but there was nothing he could do.

      As McClain opened a cab door and gently ushered her in, Stacey managed a brief smile of thanks. He slid in beside her and lifted his arm to rest it on the seat behind her, effectively distracting her from her unhappy thoughts.

      Though he didn’t actually touch her anywhere, the heat from his big body seared her from shoulder to ankle, and she couldn’t seem to keep from melting a little. It took quite a lot to keep from leaning into the heat of him.

      Why was it so natural to want to press close to him? This couldn’t be love, because love was a far more tender and delicate emotion. Wasn’t it? Love surely couldn’t be this craving for the feel of a hard, masculine body or the gentle touch of a callus-rough hand. A craving that had little or nothing to do with high-minded and hazy romantic sentiment but yet everything to do with bodily urges and lust.

      Yes, that was it: lust. Something that could be powerfully and potently felt, but something too volatile and flesh-driven not to burn up quickly. Love was something pure and tender and sweet, something that occurred in the mind and in the heart, and endured.

      Lust was primitive and indiscriminate, and involved only baser sensibilities. Lust was all around, but it certainly didn’t make for a better society, and it certainly was nothing to base a marriage on.

      And neither was the desperate need for money. Stacey folded her hands together in her lap and resisted the impulse to introduce some harmless bit of conversation to help pass the time on the ride home. It was better that Oren McClain realized now how little they had in common.

      Since many men relied on their women to take care of the social niceties of polite conversation, dropping the burden in his lap might make him realize that a little sooner and he’d lose interest.

      There were better women in the world who were more suited to him and his rural way of life, and it would be a shame if he wasted any more time or thought on a frivolous ninny like her.