Chapter 86 Six Months On

• “Mummy looks so-o-o beautiful,” Alicia breathed on an ecstatic sigh.
• Vikki Chan smiled at the child’s focus on her mother, who did indeed look as beautiful as a bride should. Truly Jared’s bride, Vikki thought indulgently—a tiara of pearls holding her veil, a magnificent necklace of pearls around her throat and pearls studding the diamond pattern on the guipure lace of her strapless bodice. A big silk taffeta skirt billowed out from her hips—extravagant, graceful and lustrously sensual. Altogether, Christabel presented a vision that surely had Jared’s cup of pleasure running over.
• She was right for him—her wonderful little boy who had become such a man. Tommy was a delight. Nathan was Lachlan all over again. But Jared had always been her favourite—so sensitive and perceptive and receptive, his mind alive to the life in everything, almost Chinese in his appreciation of how nature shaped both good and bad for reasons of its own, the unseen influences that nevertheless did influence important outcomes—winning or losing.