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CHAPTER ONE

HE WAS a coht his three-year-old son to the sahter In half an hour of desultory conversation across a sandpit where their children played together, all she had learned about him was his name, Nathan Parnell He was also the sexiest man Sasha had ever met

He made a pair of jeans and T-shirt look like indecent exposure The casual but open affection hich he touched his son conjured up visions of the tactile pleasure he would give a wooose-bumps to Sasha’s skin

And those riveting blue eyes When she spoke they focused on her with concentrated interest as though she were the most important person in the world Sasha found it difficult to tear her gaze away from him Even when she forced her attention back to Bonnie, as being entertained by his little boy, she was intensely aware of the rass on the other side of the sandpit

‘What I need’ he spoke in a e, yet the deep baritone of his voice le with anticipation to hear what his needs were ‘is a wife’

Sasha’s head jerked up, her dark eyes ith shock She quickly flicked the fall of her long black hair over her shoulder to cover up her reaction to the startling state Nathan Parnell’s wife, and berating herself for having wasted so many years on Tyler Cullu s

‘Tell me honestly,’ he invited ‘Would you consider the position?’

Warning bells rang in Sasha’s ers who made odd propositions in a park were definitely to be avoided, no matter how sexy they were

Her gaze quickly swept their vicinity Most of the people who had been nearby earlier see at one of the benches, reading the Saturday newspaper, a young couple under the trees closer to the water, twothe leisure craft sailing by on the harbour, all of theers

She probably looked like part of a faroup, Mum and Dad and their two kids, and people in the city tended to steer clear of others’ troubles This was tiet out

‘I’d better be going,’ she said, trying not to look too hasty as she began gathering the plastic blocks Bonnie had thrown around

‘You haven’t answered the question,’ Nathan Parnell re any discomfiture whatsoever ‘I need a wife, and to satisfy my curiosity I’d like to knohether you’d consider the position’

‘Definitely not’

‘Is there so with me?’ he asked

With his attributes, he could probably have the choice of any woman in Sydney He probably knew it, too Sasha cast hiht you were already married’

‘I was Past tense’

It gave her pause for thought Maybe he was a er in desperate need for soh why he’d pick on her, after the barest acquaintance, left a lot of questions up in the air Was he impressed by her manner with Bonnie? Was that the only yardstick he had for a wife? Or did he find her attractive enough to fancy her in his bed, as well?

Curiosity proht be painful to you, but what happened to your first wife?’

‘She’s gone Hopefully to hell and perdition’

It was certainly no salute to the woave Sasha every reason to be circus didn’t work out better for you,’ she said, resu until she could etaway, she asked, ‘How did she die?’

‘She didn’t More’s the pity,’ he said with an edge of bitterness ‘Though the ot Matt Thank God he takes after me’