Make-Over Marriage. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ them to go back-packing across the Arizona desert, she could not have been more surprised. ‘Moving?’ She sat bolt upright on the sofa and stared at him in dismay.

      They had started their married life in this mansion flat, brought up three lively triplets within its spacious walls, and stayed together there as a family, despite all the odds and the dire predictions of the few people who had known them at the very beginning. ‘Moving?’ said Anna again, only more faintly this time.

      Todd nodded. ‘That’s right. It isn’t such a bizarre suggestion, is it, sweetheart? Lots of people do it all the time! Think about it sensibly.’

      But Anna had discovered that thinking sensibly was easier said than done, especially since she had become a mother. Because in the ten years since she had given birth to the triplets her brain had gone completely to mush. From someone who at school could add up a whole line of figures in her head, she was sometimes reduced to counting on her fingers when the triplets had friends over to tea and she needed to calculate how many jam sandwiches they would need!

      She put it down to motherhood, and having to remember at least twenty things at the same time, but whatever the cause she was no longer terribly good at thinking through a problem logically. She tended to fire off at the deep end if she felt rattled—and rattled was exactly what she felt right now.

      That, and insecure.

      This flat was her nest and her haven; she had lived here for as long as she could remember—long before she’d married Todd. And they were happy here. The last thing in the world she wanted was to uproot them all. ‘But I don’t want to move anywhere, Todd,’ she told her husband firmly.

      A muscle moved dangerously by the side of his mouth. ‘No, I realise that. But you can’t just dismiss the suggestion like that, Anna!’

      No. He was right. She couldn’t. Not if she wanted to win him round to her way of thinking. Because Todd Travers was one of those infuriatingly cool and reasonable men who always had an answer for everything. And if Anna burst into noisy and hysterical tears—which was what she felt like doing at that precise moment—and made a passionate announcement stating that she couldn’t bear to leave, then Todd would simply demolish all her arguments by the sneaky use of logic.

      Anna drew a deep breath. ‘But Todd, why move?’ she asked him plaintively. ‘I mean, we’re happy here. Aren’t we?’

      He didn’t reply at first. Anna noticed him hesitate for the second time, and the subsequent silence filled the room like an unwelcome blanket of smoke.

      ‘Todd?’ Anna turned to look at him, her face suddenly pale and troubled. ‘Are you trying to tell me you aren’t happy?’

      He shook his dark head. ‘Sweetheart—it isn’t quite as simple as that.’

      Anna stilled as she heard the sombre note in his voice and immediately leapt to one very gloomy conclusion as to what her husband might really be trying to tell her. ‘Are you t-trying to tell me that you’re seeing someone else?’ she demanded shakily, because her stomach was tied up in tight little knots as she asked the question.

      Todd actually burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Anna—’

      ‘Don’t you “Anna” me!’ she stormed back, but her relief at his reaction was so immense that she found herself picking up a cushion and hurling it at him. He caught it as easily as blinking. ‘If there’s another woman in your life, then I darned well want to know about it, Todd Travers!’

      Todd put the cushion down and stood up, and Anna was horrified to find herself gazing lustfully at his thighs. How was it possible to be this angry with a man, she wondered, and yet to know that if that same man wandered over and started making love to her she would be hard-pushed to resist him? Not that he would, of course. Not right now, on the sofa, in broad daylight. Todd was a man who had always kept his formidable sexual appetites strictly under control... having three children born at the same time had made sure of that!

      ‘There is no other woman,’ he told her softly. ‘As well you know. I am simply not interested in other women—’

      ‘Aren’t you?’ she queried, only slightly mollified and unwilling to let the subject drop.

      ‘Even if I had the time or the energy—ouch!’ he exclaimed as a second cushion this time found its target. ‘You are a very good shot, Mrs Travers!’ he mused, rubbing at his shadowed chin where the embroidered cushion had hit him. ‘Perhaps you should take up golf?’

      ‘Please don’t try and change the subject, Todd!’ she warned him sweetly. ‘And if it’s not another woman, then you’d better start explaining why you’re not happy!’

      ‘Now you are putting words in my mouth,’ he accused quietly. ‘I didn’t actually say that, did I?’

      He moved to stand directly in front of her then, the loose cut of his Italian trousers not quite concealing the powerful shafts of his thighs, and Anna felt consumed with longing.

      ‘Can I sit down?’ he questioned, indicating the space beside her.

      ‘Since when did you start asking?’ she asked breathlessly.

      ‘Since you started hurling soft furnishings at me, and then decided to glower at me as if I were the most heinous villain in history,’ he responded silkily. ‘So can I?’

      ‘Suit yourself,’ she shrugged, aware that she was not responding in a very adult way, but quite at a loss to know how to stop it, since she suspected from the grim expression on his face that Todd was about to tell her something she most definitely didn’t want to hear.

      She noted that he positioned his long-legged frame at some distance from her, and was grateful for the physical space between them, at least. Because she was suddenly and quite overwhelmingly aware of him. And her hands were shaking...

      ‘You asked if we were happy here,’ he began, but he was frowning.

      ‘And you gave me an evasive answer.’

      ‘Well, try this for straightforwardness.’ He ran his fingers through the thick, already ruffled waves of his dark hair and stared at her. ‘Of course I’ve been happy here.’

      She noted his use of the past tense. ‘Well, then?’

      ‘I’m happy now,’ he amended softly. ‘I just think we could be even happier.’

      ‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’

      Todd sighed, wishing that he had opted for that drink, after all. He had been dreading this moment for too long now, but he could put it off no longer. ‘Just that we have been very, very blessed—I’m aware of that, Anna. We live in a large and very comfortable apartment—’

      ‘Which is situated right slap bang in the middle of the capital!’ she prompted immediately.

      ‘As you say.’

      ‘We couldn’t get more central if we tried, Todd! Could we?’

      ‘No, indeed. But we also have three rapidly growing daughters,’ he reminded her drily. ‘Who very soon may no longer be contented with sharing a bedroom, no matter how vast that bedroom might СКАЧАТЬ