The Sister Swap
Page 18
‘Oh, and I thought the letter was being sarcastic about my dreams of being an author,’ Anne blurted out in relief, a star-burst of happiness forming in her breast. She shrugged happily. ‘That roving translator thing…it’s not set in concrete, you know. It’s only one of so many wonderful possibilities. Who knows what I might turn out to be best at by the time I graduate? Whether I might rather teach, or start my own language school…And people do travel with children, you know. Nowhere does it say that babies have to be chained forever to their birthplace—travel is very broadening for the young mind…’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You’re doing it already. Don’t be so bloody accommodating—’
‘I can if I want to, that’s what freedom of choice is all about,’ she said tartly. He loved her, and she was going to make him admit it if she had to arm-wrestle him to the floor. ‘I can be as accommodating as I like and no one can stop me!’
‘Least of all me. Yes, I finally managed to work that out. But I was so caught up with my noble act of self-sacrifice that it took me a few miserable weeks to realise that I was doing exactly what I had walked away to stop myself from doing—denying you your right to choose freely your own destiny. For better or worse. So, Anne…’
He paused and looked around the crowded, noisy café with a pained expression before he turned back, visibly composing himself.
‘Yes, Hunter?’ Anne asked innocently.
From the corner of her eye she saw Alexei, chin on hand, watching in amusement as his big, bullish, fearsomely confident friend toyed with a spoon, shifted the vase in the middle of the table left and then right again, and cleared his throat.
‘Alexei says that St Petersburg in springtime is a lovely place for a honeymoon.’
Anne’s eyes suddenly stung as she looked at him, the square chin and the mouth that had cut at her a hundred times, and kissed her even more. She struggled for her ragged breath. She would begin as she meant to carry on…
‘If you’re asking me to marry you, Hunter Lewis, you’d better do it right, so there’s no misunderstanding about it later! I would hate you to accuse me of assuming that you had proposed when you were just making an idle comment on the tourism industry…’
His answer was to pluck a ring from his pocket and the red rose from the vase on the table and present them to her with a smoulderingly aggressive look.
‘You want me to be more explicit. All right. I love you and I know damned well you love me, so will you please drive me crazy for the rest of my life by marrying me, Anne Tremaine? and giving me children and helping me raise them, and dragging me around the world at your heels whenever you get the restless urge to stray?’
‘I do believe the only correct response to such a question in the circumstances is—Da,’ translated their fascinated witness with a deep chuckle.
Anne looked at Hunter, so brightly expectant, so intense, and yet mellowed with the merest hint of male complacency. Hunter’s belief in the strength and the quality of her love was so complete that he had always known what her answer would be.
And it would be no sacrifice to give it, wholeheartedly and without reservation.
The temptation was utterly irresistible.
She lowered her lashes demurely.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said sweetly.
She was on her feet and out of the door, laughing, before the vibration of Hunter’s outraged roar became sound in her ears.
He caught her ten metres up the footpath, leaving Alexei to foot the bill. And it took him all of ten seconds to get the answer he wanted.
eISBN 978-14592-7603-1
THE SISTER SWAP
First North American Publication 1996.
Copyright © 1995 by Susan Napier.
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