not conceiving yet. She’d started reading books on the subject, and had circled the days on the kitchen calendar when she was most likely to conceive. Tonight was not optimum but it was close enough.
Back at the reception, he’d reasoned that no way would Alanna let this day end without sex, especially since they hadn’t made love last night. She’d been busy with Holly on last-minute wedding preparations whilst he’d been out having a few drinks with Richard and Mike. When he’d finally come home around one o’clock, Alanna had been in bed, sound asleep.
So he felt quite confident that some of his desires would be satisfied tonight. Although not all.
For a few seconds tonight he’d glimpsed a different Alanna, one who’d almost agreed to have a quickie. Her gorgeous green eyes had glittered wildly with the idea.
He wanted that Alanna to surface again. He also wanted a wife who didn’t lock the bathroom door after her any more. One who wasn’t so darned protective of her privacy.
Such thinking revived his frustrations. All of a sudden, he wanted to snap at her. Taunt her. Challenge her.
Do you only let me make love to you because you want a baby? he felt like flinging at her. Do you fake your orgasms? Do you care for me at all, or am I just a means to an end?
Actually, Reece didn’t believe she faked her orgasms. But there was something fake about Alanna. He just didn’t know what. Up till this point, it hadn’t bothered him how much of herself she’d kept to herself. As long as he’d got what he wanted, he hadn’t made waves.
But everything had changed tonight. Reece wanted more from Alanna now, and, by God, he aimed to get more!
Alanna sat in the passenger seat of Reece’s red Mercedes sports, her face turned away from him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
She knew Reece was angry with her. She could feel it. If there was one thing Alanna had become adept at over the years, it was sensing a husband’s anger.
Not that Reece’s anger was anything like Darko’s. She’d trembled with fear when he’d been angry.
Alanna wasn’t even close to trembling at that moment. But she was agitated. And upset.
She hated having made Reece angry. Hated herself for her silly overreactions. He’d hardly behaved badly. So he’d been a little possessive of her. A forgivable sin, considering he’d been turned on at the time and she’d been off teaching another man to dance.
In hindsight, however, Alanna suspected most of his anger came from the fact that he’d witnessed her momentary willingness to go along with what he’d wanted. Seen it in her eyes, he’d said.
She’d acted like a tease. Going hot, and then cold, on him. No wonder he was mad.
She should apologise. She knew she should. But the words simply wouldn’t come, and before long Reece was turning into their driveway and braking abruptly to a halt. He zapped the automatic gate-opener, then waited, his fingers tapping impatiently on the steering wheel till they opened.
Once again, Alanna tried to force herself to say something. She turned her head in his direction, but still could not find her tongue, gazing past him instead at the impressive fac
Every now and then—usually at the oddest moments—Alanna took a mental step back from her present life and tried to see it as others saw it.
All of her girlfriends thought her a very lucky woman. Which she was. She lived in an extremely beautiful home. Drove a snazzy car, and had a fabulous wardrobe.
But it wasn’t any of these material things that were the main subject of her girlfriends’ ‘you-are-so-lucky’ remarks.
No, it was Reece himself they envied Alanna the most. Her charismatic and very handsome husband.
Admittedly, he was a dream of a husband. Hardworking, cheerful, complimentary and generous. A great lover, too, who, till tonight, had not been at all demanding where their sex life was concerned. He seemed content with fairly straightforward lovemaking. In bed. Tonight had been the first time he’d wanted something different.
So, yes, on the surface, she was a very lucky woman.
But all that would mean nothing, she realised with a pang in her heart, if she never had a child.
Reece hadn’t been the only person to feel unexpected jealousy tonight. When she’d accompanied Holly upstairs to help her change out of her wedding dress, Holly had confided to Alanna that she was already pregnant.
Alanna had done her best to express delight at the news, but, down deep, she’d been worried. Reece had been making love to her very regularly since she’d come off the pill three months ago, but still no baby. Was there something wrong with her? It was possible. You couldn’t throw yourself out of a speeding car and not sustain some internal damage.
The doctors had assured her that she would be fine, that her recovery would be complete in time.
But maybe they were wrong.
Perhaps she should go for some tests…
‘I presume you are coming inside.’
Reece’s sharp words snapped Alanna back to the present, where she was surprised to see they were already parked in the garages, the door had shut be hind them and Reece had taken his keys out of the ignition.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, and opened her door with a weary sigh. Clearly, Reece was still angry with her. ‘I was daydreaming,’ she added as she levered herself up onto her red high heels.
‘What about?’ he asked as he climbed out also, banging the car door after him. ‘Becoming a dancing teacher?’
His nasty crack shocked Alanna. He was never like this. ‘You’re not still going on about that, are you?’
‘Why not? A man doesn’t like his wife to enjoy another man’s company more than his own.’
She stared at Reece over the roof of the Mercedes. ‘I usually don’t. But if you keep acting like this, I just might in future.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘I meant nothing.’
When she came round the front of the car and went to walk past him, heading for the internal access to the house, Reece grabbed her arm and spun her round to face him.
‘I won’t tolerate you sleeping around on me, Alanna,’ he ground out. ‘We might not love each other but we promised before God to be faithful.’
‘I would never break my marriage vows,’ she denied fiercely. ‘But I might ask for a divorce if you keep manhandling me.’
He didn’t let her go. Just glared down into her face, his own flushed and frustrated-looking.
‘That won’t get you a baby,’ he snapped. ‘Which is the only reason you married me, isn’t it?’
‘It
