Part Time Marriage Read Free

nice Tommy Fielding and a string of others likehim, that was why, Elexa answered her own question. And there was that prospect of promotion she should be concentrating on instead of evading her mother's water wearing-away-stone tactics.

    'Elexa!'Lois exclaimed when she heard her voice. `I was just thinking about you and wondering if you fancy doing anything at the weekend.'

    `It's the christening this weekend,' Elexa reminded her friend. Lois had often stayed weekends in Elexa's home when they had been schoolgirls, and knew all of Elexa's family.

    `Joanna's sprog?'

    `She's rather cute,' Elexa replied-and broughtherself up short. Goodheavens, where had that come from? She wasn't getting all mumsie, was she? Just because she had been toying with some far-fetched idea of having a baby, she wasn't going all broody, was she? 'Er-I need a favour,' she said quickly. `If it's in my power, it's yours,' Lois answered without hesitation.

    `You don't know what it is yet,' Elexa laughed. But even as she laughed, she knew that she was delaying asking the question because she didn't want to ask it. It was as if, once asked, it would commit her to carrying through her only half-thought-out plan.

    `If I know you, it won't be anything too diabolical. Give?' Lois requested.

    'I-er...' Lois was her oldest and most trusted friend, Elexa reminded herself. `I um-need Noah Peverelle's private number,' she plunged. `And I can't tell you why,' she added hastily.

    There followed a small silence. `Intriguing,' Lois ruminated. 'But,' she added after a moment, `I don't know it. I only ever met him that one time. Uh!' she exclaimed. `You know that I know a man who may know it, right?"

    'Marcus and Noah Peverelle are great friends,' Elexa volunteered. `You sound as if you know them both very well,' Lois opined. , `I don't,' Elexa had to confess. `Is there a chance you could ask Marcus without telling him why you need Noah's number?"

    'If they're such good friends, Marcus Dean isn't going to tell me without wanting to know why,' Lois commented. `Hang on, though.tinny Dean owes me a favour! I'll ring Marcus's wife and get back to you.'

    Elexa put down her phone after her call, wondering what she had done. She had involved Lois in something which Elexa wasn't certain she was going to take any further anyway.

    Though, in thinking about it more deeply, more logically, instead of panicking that family pressures had become too intense past bearing, she suddenly realised that, while her career was all-important, yes, there was every probability that she would at some stage rather like to have a child.

    It shook Elexa a little that she had childbearing instincts. It was something she had never considered before. But, in delving more deeply, she recalledd how, when Joanna had given her the baby to hold one time, she had been more than happy to nurse the sweet, sleeping infant in her arms. For a few minutes Elexa lived with the discovery that she was no different from most other women-and that she did have the same maternal instincts. Then she gave herself a mental shaking-that still didn't mean that she wanted a husband. She most definitely did not. In her view they were vastly overrated.

    Noah Peverelle wouldn't be your normal run-of-the-mill husband, though. For a start it sounded, with his talk of according to his work schedule he'd land round about three years next Palm Sunday, as if he wouldn't be around much anyway. Not that she had any intention of' living with the man. And in any case, in three years' time she would be married and divorced from him. Not that she wanted to marry the man in the first place, but...

    Elexa abruptly cut off her thoughts midstream. Good grief, woman, don't start making plans. You haven't so much as got his phone number yet, much less plucked up the courage it will take to suggest what you have to suggest. But-she was still feeling quite desperate, and desperate problems called for desperate solutions.

    But what if