The Virgin Bride (The Australians) by Miranda Lee Read Free Book Online

to do something about that, come Monday.
    â€˜I would have liked a big brother,’ she said wistfully. ‘But I was an only child. My parents were getting on when they had me. Aunt Ivy was my Dad’s sister.’
    â€˜Ivy mentioned your parents were killed in a helicopter crash.’
    â€˜Yes. A joy flight. Ironic term, don’t you think?’
    â€˜Tragic.’
    â€˜We were holidaying at this resort on the Gold Coast. I was ten. I was going to go up in the helicopter with them, but I’d eaten too much rubbish earlier, which hadn’t agreed with me, and they left me behind because they thought I might be sick all over them. I actually saw the helicopter crash. It clipped the top of a tree as it was taking off and just tipped head-first into the ground.’
    â€˜What a dreadful thing for you to witness,’ he sympathised.
    â€˜It was, I suppose. But, to be honest, I wasn’t as devastated at some children might have been. I never felt my parents really loved me. I was an unwanted pregnancy, you see. Totally unexpected. Mum often said to Dad in my presence that they were too old to have a child, that I was a nuisance and she should have had an abortion.’
    Jason didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never felt his father’s rejection because his father had never been around. To be constantly told you weren’t wanted must have been awful. And not too good for your self-esteem. He might have been dirt-poor, but he’d always known he’d been the apple of his mother’s eye.
    â€˜Anyway, when Aunt Ivy took me in,’ Emma went on, ‘I finally knew what it was to be loved and wanted. She was so good to me. So very, very good…’
    Tears welled up in her eyes, but she staunchly blinked them away and wiped her eyes with the red serviette from her lap. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, scrunching up the serviette and lowering it to her lap again. ‘I promised myself I would be good company for you tonight. But I haven’t been, have I? I won’t blame you if you never ask me out again, let alone ask me to marry you again.’
    He stared at her. What was that odd note in her voice? Had she had second thoughts since refusing him last night? Had she decided she was a fool to wait any longer for Ratchitt’s return?
    â€˜I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you, Emma,’ Jason said. ‘I will ask you out again. And I will ask you to marry me again. Again and again. I intend asking you till the answer is yes.’
    Her intake of breath was deep, but she let it out slowly. Her eyes never left his, as though she could plumb the depths of his soul if she looked long enough and hard enough. ‘You’re very strong-minded, aren’t you?’ she said.
    â€˜I know what I want. And I want you, Emma.’
    Her face twisted into a tight grimace and he thought she might cry again. But she didn’t. ‘I…I don’t think I’d make you a wonderful wife at all,’ she said in a wretched voice.
    â€˜Why’s that?’
    â€˜I… I…’ She shook her head again and fell silent, her eyes dropping. But not before Jason glimpsed something that looked like guilt.
    â€˜Tell me why, Emma?’ he demanded to know. If there was one thing he could not stand, it was beingkept in the dark about something. He always needed to know the truth, no matter how unpalatable. He could cope with the truth. What he could not cope with was deception and evasion.
    â€˜Emma, look at me,’ he ordered, and she obeyed, however reluctantly. ‘Now, tell me why you said that. And be honest. Don’t be afraid. Nothing you say will shock me, or make me angry.’
    â€˜You won’t want to hear this .’
    â€˜Try me, Emma.’
    She remained silent.
    â€˜ Trust me.’
    â€˜Even if I agree to marry you,’ she confessed on a whisper, ‘I know I’ll never forget Dean. And