A Convenient Husband

A Convenient Husband Read Online Free PDF

Book: A Convenient Husband Read Online Free PDF
Author: Kim Lawrence
been genuinely worried that Chloe might have done something drastic. ‘I thought a change of scene, away from people that knew her, might help. I imagined,’ she recalled, ‘that after the birth she’d…’
    â€˜Be overcome by maternal instincts.’ Rafe gave a scornful snort.
    â€˜People are,’ Tess retorted indignantly.
    â€˜A classic case of optimism overcoming what’s right under your nose. Chloe was never going to give up partying to stay at home and baby-sit. I can’t believe you were that stupid.’
    â€˜Why?’ she asked, roused to anger by his superior, condescending attitude. It was easy for him to condemn—he hadn’t been there; he couldn’t possibly understand what it had been like. ‘You don’t usually have any problem believing I’m an idiot!’ She shook her head miserably.
    â€˜I don’t know why I’m even telling you all this. It won’t make any difference. The fact is, Chloe is his mother and if she wants him there’s nothing, short of skipping the country, that I can do about it! I wish now I’d adopted him legally myself when she suggested it,’ she ended on a bleak note of self-condemnation.
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ she added, slanting him a small, bitter smile. ‘I haven’t got the cash to skip the country.’
    That was another thing that had been nagging away at him. Tess had lived a starkly simple life since she’d moved here, she owned this place outright, had no debts that he was aware of, and she must have made a tidy pile during her brief but successful career. Yet this place needed a lick of paint. In fact it needed a lot of things—not big things, but…And when had she stopped running a car? He couldn’t remember; it hadn’t seemed important at the time. But covering the primaries in the States had been? In light of Tess’s distress there was a big question mark hanging over his priorities.
    â€˜I could lend it to you.’
    Just as well he didn’t know how tempting she found his offer, even though she knew it was meant as a joke. “‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,”’ she quoted sadly.
    â€˜I can’t believe you’ve fooled everyone all this time.’ Rafe was looking at her as though he were seeing her for the first time. It had taken him long enough to get his head around the idea that she was a mother—now he’d have to unlearn something that had been surprisingly hard for him to accept in the first place.
    â€˜It wasn’t intentional, it just sort of happened,’ she replied, knowing her explanation sounded lame.
    â€˜You didn’t just sort of happen to give up a great job you loved. You didn’t just sort of happen to spend over a year of your life bringing up someone else’s child.’
    â€˜I forgot that sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘That he wasn’t really mine,’ she explained self-consciously. ‘And I know what I did must seem a bit surreal to you now, but it was never meant to be a permanent solution. Chloe didn’t want Ben, she wanted to give him up, have him adopted. It seemed so awfully final. You hear about women who have given up their babies suffering, never coming to terms with the regret.
    â€˜I didn’t want that to be Chloe ten years down the line. I thought it was only a matter of time before she realised, and then I suppose as time went on I lost sight of the fact I was just a stopgap.’ With a choked sound she buried her face in her shaking hands. ‘I was right, wasn’t I? She has realised that she wants him. Only it’s been so long I…’
    â€˜God, Tess!’ Rafe thundered, banging his fist angrily down on a blameless bureau. A dozen images he didn’t even know he’d retained of Tess with the baby drifted through his mind—she loved that kid and he loved her. Mother or no mother, they should be
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