Second-Best Husband by Penny Jordan

Author:Penny Jordan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1991-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

‘TIME to take a break. I’ve made some coffee and there’s toast in the kitchen if you want it.’

Sara looked up from the VDU, frowning slightly as she focused on Stuart.

She had been so deeply engrossed in what she was doing that she hadn’t even heard the door open, but now that he had mentioned coffee she realised how much she was longing for a cup, and as for the toast… Her stomach made a gently discreet protest, reminding her that it had been several hours since lunchtime.

‘That sounds great,’ she told him, turning away from the screen and stretching her torso, relaxing her taut muscles.

‘I hardly dare ask how it’s going,’ Stuart told her five minutes later when they were both seated at the kitchen table.

‘It’s going well,’ Sara assured him. ‘The software is good, the program fairly flexible, although I must confess it is a little advanced perhaps for a beginner.’

‘There’s no need to be tactful,’ Stuart told her ruefully. ‘When it comes to growing trees, I pride myself on knowing what I’m doing, and I’m likely to take umbrage if anyone says otherwise. When it comes to handling a computer, we’re in a different ballgame altogether.’

Over their coffee and toast, Sara explained to him as simply as she could what she intended to do, whilst he listened and watched her ruefully, commenting when she had finished, ‘If I were that boss of yours, I’d be beating a path to your parents’ door, and begging you to come back…’ He broke off, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean…’

‘It’s all right,’ Sara told him shakily. ‘I’ve already accepted that Ian and all I’d hoped to share with him is in the past. It was all an idiotic dream anyway. I’m beginning to realise now that even if he had loved me it would never have worked.’

She saw Stuart was frowning, and explained wryly, ‘We’re too different—our views on life, our values. I’m still very much a country woman at heart. I would want to bring my children up somewhere like this, somewhere, anywhere other than in a city, especially a city like London; whereas Ian, even if he had agreed to have children, would have expected me to hand them over to a nanny. He loves city life. He loves being at the centre of everything. He would loathe living somewhere like this, and he’s the kind of man—’ She broke off, biting her lip, not wanting to admit what she was coming to realise: that Ian was too shallow, too vain ever to be the kind of man who could bear to be anything other than the centre of a woman’s life. Children to him would be competitors, rivals. He would expect and demand always to come first, and, while she believed that a woman’s relationship with her husband, the father of her children, must always be special and treasured, there were bound to be times when the claims

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