Free Bachelor's Wife by Jessica Steele Page B

mentally defended him, it wasjust her—she just couldn't ask him.
    Madge repeated the same words Trevor had said to her on Friday as they were leaving at the end of the day. 'I should have an early night if I were you,' she advised.  Perry blamed Nash entirely that the spontaneous 'Not tonight, tonight Trevor and I are celebrating our engagement' was never made.
    'I will,' she promised instead, and went home so fed up with herself she knew she had reached the end of the road.  When Trevor called, before they went out she would invite him in, would tell him everything. She loved him, she couldn't bear the thought of losing him, but if after what she had told him he no longer wanted to take her out, then she would have to accept that. But tell him she was going to; she couldn't go on like this one minute more than she had to.
    But barely had she closed the door of her sitting room after stopping at Mrs Foster's to leave the small bits of shopping she had picked up for her in her lunch hour than her landlady was calling her down to the telephone.
    Trevor, she thought, hurrying down the stairs so as not to keep him waiting, smiling her thanks to Mrs Foster as she limped into the kitchen so she could take her call in private.
     But it wasn't Trevor, and Perry's dislike of Nash Devereux rose to the top as she heard his voice, easy, supremely self-assured and enquiring if she'd just got in from work. If he had telephoned just to enquire jibingly if she had the five thousand for him yet, then regardless of
    the damage to Mrs Foster's phone, Perry was certain she would be sending the instrument crashing down with a force that would shatter it.
    'As a matter of fact, yes,' she replied as evenly as she could.
    'Good,' was her answer. 'I wanted to catch you before you began cooking your evening meal.' And while her brain was trying to make sense of that remark, he was adding,
    'Have dinner with me.'
    Of all the nerve! Who did he think he was? Not only had he seemed to have forgotten she had stormed out of his office on Friday, but his voice sounded fully confident she wouldn't refuse. Just as though she was one of his little dillies who went into ecstasies at the mere sound of his voice, ready to drop anything they were doing at the merest hint he might like to take them to dinner, she fumed:   
    'The kindness of your invitation overwhelms me, Mr Devereux,' sweetness fairly dripped before anger soured it and had her snapping, 'I'd sooner jump fully clothed in the Thames than dine with you!'
    The sound of genuine laughter in her ear, telling her that instead of offending him she had managed only to amuse him, arrested her when she would have slammed the phone down. She hesitated a moment too long and heard his voice again, still confident damn him:
    'We never did get down to seriously discussing our divorce, did we?'
    He had her hooked and he knew it, Perry seethed. But she was still hanging on to the phone.
     'I thought we had,' she said stubbornly, not allowing hope to rise —-she had been fooled before.
    'You didn't think I was serious when I asked you to return the money, did you?'
    'Of course I did.' Hope was there despite what her brain was telling her, that this was some game he was playing purely for his own amusement. 'You meant me to think you were serious.' She waited, hoping he would insert something, but when it was all silent his end, she just had to add, 'Are you now saying that you weren't—that you were just—just baiting me?'
    'I think,' he spoke at last, and she didn't like at all that there was a mocking note in his voice when he said, 'it really is a case of "my wife doesn't understand me".'
    'I'm not your...' She stopped. For all Mrs Foster wasn't in sight she might well overhear what she was saying.
     'I have a paper that proves it,' said Nash.
    'Unfortunately so do I,' Perry said frigidly—then became all hot and bothered that he would think it mattered that much to her that she had sent for such a