The Secret Sinclair

by Cathy Williams

  ‘How does it complicate everything?’

  ‘I don’t want to get into a relationship with you. Oh, God—I forgot you don’t like the word relationship. I forgot you find it too threatening.’

  Raoul could feel her trying to impose a barrier between them and he didn’t like it. It annoyed him that she was prepared to waste time dwelling on something as insignificant as a simple word.

  ‘I want you to admit what’s obvious,’ he told her, turning so that he was facing her directly, not giving her the slightest opportunity to deflect her eyes from his. ‘You can’t deny the sexual chemistry between us. If anything, it’s stronger than it was when we were together five years ago.’

  It terrified Sarah that he felt that too—that it hadn’t been just a trick of her imagination that she was drawn to him on all sorts of unwelcome and unexpected levels. In Africa they had come together as two young people about to take their first steps into the big, bad world. They had lived in a bubble, far removed from day-to-day life. There was no bubble here, and that made the savage attraction she felt for him all the more terrifying.

  ‘No …’ she protested weakly.

  ‘Are you telling me that if I hadn’t interrupted our lovemaking you would have suddenly decided to push me away?’

  Sarah went bright red and didn’t say anything.

  ‘I thought so,’ Raoul confirmed softly. ‘You want to push me away but you can’t.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.’

  ‘Okay. Well, let me tell you this. The past few weeks have been … a revelation. Who would have thought that I could enjoy spending so much time in a kitchen? Especially a kitchen with no mod-cons? Or sitting in front of a television watching a children’s programme? I never expected to see you again, but the second I did I realised that what I felt for you hadn’t gone away as I had assumed it had. I still want you, and I’m not too proud to admit it.’

  ‘Wanting someone isn’t enough …’ But her words were distinctly lacking in conviction.

  ‘It’s a damn sight healthier than self-denial.’ Raoul let those words settle. ‘Martyrs might feel virtuous, but virtue is a questionable trade off when it goes hand in hand with unhappiness.’

  ‘You are just so egotistical!’ Sarah said hotly. ‘Are you really saying that I’m going to be unhappy if I pass up the fantastic opportunity to sleep with you?’

  ‘You’re going to be miserable if you pass up the opportunity to put this thing we have to bed. You keep trying to deny it. You blow hot and cold because you want to kid yourself that you can fight it.’

  Sarah would have liked to deny that, but how could she? He was right. She wavered between wanting him to touch her, enjoying it madly when he did, and being repelled by her own lack of will-power.

  ‘I don’t like thinking of you going to clubs and meeting guys,’ he admitted roughly.

  ‘Why? Would you be jealous?’

  ‘How can I be jealous of what, as yet, doesn’t even exist? Besides, jealousy isn’t my thing.’ He lowered his eyes and shifted. ‘You still have a hold over me,’ he conceded. ‘I still want you …’

  ‘There’s more to life than the physical stuff,’ Sarah muttered under her breath.

  ‘Let’s agree to differ on that score,’ Raoul contradicted without hesitation. ‘And it doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to end up in bed sooner rather than later. I’m proposing we make it sooner. We’re unfinished business, Sarah …’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Raoul took her fingers and played with them idly, keeping his eyes locked to hers. ‘Back then, I did what was right for both of us. But would what we had have ended had it not been for the fact that I was due to leave the country?’

  ‘Yes, it would have ended, Raoul. Because you’re not interested in long-term relationships. Oh, we might have drifted on for a few more months, but sooner or later you would have become tired of me.’

  ‘Sooner or later you would have discovered that you were pregnant,’ Raoul pointed out with infuriating calm.

  ‘And how would that have changed anything? Of course it wouldn’t! You would have stuck around for the baby because you have a sense of responsibility, but why don’t you admit that there’s no way we would have ended up together!’

  ‘How do I know what would have happened? Do I have a crystal ball?’

  ‘You don’t need a crystal ball, Raoul. You just need to be honest. If we had continued our … our whatever you want to call it … would it have led to marriage? Some kind of commitment? Or would we have just carried on sleeping together until the business between us was finally finished? In other words, until you were ready to move on? I know I’m sometimes weak when I’m around you. You’re an attractive guy, and you also happen to be the father of my child. But that doesn’t mean that it would be a good idea to just have lots of sex until you get me out of your system …’

  ‘What makes you think that it wouldn’t be the other way around?’

  ‘In fact,’ she continued, ignoring his interruption, ‘it would be selfish of us to become lovers because we’re incapable of a bit of self-denial! I don’t want Oliver to become so accustomed to you being around that it’s a problem when you decide to take off! I’m sorry I’ve given you mixed signals, but we’re better off just being … friends …’

  CHAPTER SIX

  SARAH wondered how she had managed to let her emotions derail her to such an extent that she had nearly ended up back in bed with Raoul. The words unfinished business rankled, conjuring up as they did visions of something disposable, to be picked up and then discarded once again the minute it suited him.

  Had he imagined that she would launch herself into his arms in a bid to take up where they had left off? Had he thought that she would greet his assertion about still wanting her as something wonderful and complimentary? He didn’t want her seeing anyone else—not because he wanted to work on having a proper relationship with her, but because he wanted her to fill his bed until such time as he managed to get her out of his system. Like a flu virus.

  He was an arrogant, selfish bastard, and she had been a crazy fool to get herself lulled into thinking otherwise!

  She had a couple of days’ respite, because he was out of the country, and although he telephoned on both days she was brief before passing him over to Oliver, which he must have found extra challenging, given Oliver’s long silences and excitable babbling.

  ‘I think we’ll tell him at the weekend,’ she informed Raoul crisply, and politely told him that there would be absolutely no need for him to rush over the second he got back, because at that time of night Oliver would be asleep anyway.

  On the other side of the Atlantic, Raoul scowled down the phone. He should never have let her think about what he had said. He should have kissed her doubts away and then just made love to her until she was silenced.

  Except, of course, she would still have jumped on her moral bandwagon. What had been so straightforward for him had been a hotbed of dilemma for her. He told himself that there were plenty of other fish in the sea, but when he opened his address book and started scanning down the names of beautiful women, all of whom would have shrieked with joy at the sound of his voice and the prospect of a hot date, he found his enthusiasm for that kind of replacement therapy waning fast.

  Whereas before he had been comfortable turning up at Sarah’s without much notice, he had now found himself given a very definite time slot, and so he arrived at her house bang on five-thirty to find Oliver dressed in jeans and a jumper while she was in her oldest clothes, her hair wet from the shower and pinned up into a ponytail.

  ‘I thought we could sit him down and explain the situation to him,’ were her opening words, ‘and then you could take him out for something to eat. Nothing fancy, but it’ll be nice for him to have you to himself without me around. I’ve also explained the whole situation to Mum and Dad. They’re very pleased that you’re on the scene.’

  Within minutes Ra
oul had got the measure of what was going on. She was making it perfectly clear that they would now be communicating on a need-to-know basis only. Her bright green eyes were guarded and detached, only warming when they had Oliver between them so that they could explain the situation.

  Finally fatherhood was fully conferred onto him. He was no longer the outsider, easing himself in. He was a dad, and as she had predicted it was a smooth transfer. Oliver had had time to adjust to him. He accepted the news with solemnity, and then it was as though nothing had changed. Raoul had brought him back a very fancy but admirably small box of bricks and an enormous paintbox, both of which were greeted with enthusiasm.

  ‘Take a few pictures when he starts painting in your living room,’ Sarah said sarcastically. ‘I’d love to see how your leather furniture reacts to the watercolours.’

  ‘Is this how it’s now going to be?’ Raoul enquired coldly, as Oliver stuffed his backpack with lots of unnecessary items in preparation for their meal out.

  Defiant pink colour suffused Sarah’s cheeks. She didn’t want to be argumentative. He was going to be on the scene, in one way or another, for time immemorial, and she knew that they had to develop a civil, courteous relationship if they weren’t to descend into a parody of two warring parents. But she was truly scared of reaching the point they previously had, which had been one of such easy friendship that all the feelings she had imagined left behind had found fertile ground and blossomed out of control. She had let him crawl under her skin until the only person she could think about had been him, so that when he’d finally touched her she had gone up in flames.

  ‘No. It’s not. I apologise for that remark,’ she responded stiffly, stooping down to adjust Oliver’s backpack, whilst taking the opportunity to secretly remove some of the unnecessary stuff he had slipped in. ‘Now, you’re going to be a good boy, Oliver, aren’t you? With your dad?’ Oliver nodded and Sarah straightened back up to address Raoul. ‘What time can I expect you back? Because I’m going out. I’ll only be a couple of hours.’

  ‘You’re going out? Where?’

  Raoul gave her the once-over. Sloppy clothes. Damp hair. She was waiting for them to leave before she got dressed.

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, actually.’

  ‘And what if you’re not back when I return?’

  ‘You have my mobile number, Raoul. You could always give me a call.’

  ‘Who are you going to be with?’

  Raoul knew that it was an outrageous question. He thought back to his brief—very brief—notion that he might get in touch with another woman, go on a date. The idea had lasted less than ten seconds. So … who was she going out with? On the first evening he had Oliver? With a man? What man? She had claimed that there was no one at all in her life, that she had been just too busy with the business of trying to earn some money and be a single parent. She might not have had the time to cultivate any kind of personal life, but that didn’t mean that there hadn’t been men hovering on the periphery, ready to move in just as soon as she found the time.

  The more Raoul thought about it, the more convinced he became that she was meeting a man. One of those sensitive, fun-loving types she professed to like. Had she made sure to appear in old clothes so that he wouldn’t be able to gauge where she was going by what she was wearing?

  He was the least fanciful man in the world, and yet he couldn’t stop the swirl of wildly imaginative conclusions to which he was jumping. He was tempted to stand his ground until he got answers that satisfied him.

  Sarah laughed incredulously at his question. ‘I can’t believe you just asked that, Raoul.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s none of your business. Now, Oliver’s beginning to get restless.’ She glanced down to where he was beginning to fidget, delivering soft taps to the skirting board with his shoe and tugging Raoul’s hand impatiently. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of hours, and you know how to get hold of me if you need to.’

  Sarah thought that it was a damning indication of just how quickly their relationship had slipped back into dangerous waters—the fact that he saw it as his right to know what she was getting up to. They might not have become lovers, the way they once had been, but it had been a close call. Had she sent out signals? Without even being aware of doing so?

  She was going out with a girlfriend for a pizza. Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged the admission out of her. She would be gone an hour and a half, tops, and whilst she knew that she shouldn’t care one way or another if he knew that her evening out was a harmless bit of catching up with a pal, she did.

  So instead of her jeans she wore a mini-skirt, and instead of her trainers she wore heels. She wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to prove, and she certainly felt conspicuous in the pizza parlour, where the dress code was more dressing down than dressing up, but she was perversely pleased that she had gone to the trouble when she opened the door to Raoul two and a half hours later.

  Oliver was considerably less pristine than he had been when he had left. In fact, Sarah thought that she could pretty much guess at what they had eaten for dinner from the various smears on his clothes.

  ‘How did it go?’

  Raoul had to force himself to focus on what she was asking, because the sight of her tight short skirt and high black heels were threatening to ambush his thinking processes.

  ‘Very well …’ He heard himself going through the motions of polite chit-chat, bending down to ruffle Oliver’s hair and draw him into the conversation. Crayons and paper had been produced at the restaurant, and he had drawn some pictures. Happy family stuff. There would be a psychologist somewhere who would be able to say something about the stick figure drawings of two parents and a child in the middle.

  ‘Right … Well …’

  Raoul frowned as she began shutting the door on him. He inserted himself into the small hallway.

  ‘We need to discuss the details of this arrangement,’ he told her smoothly. ‘As well as the details of the house move. Everything’s signed. I’ll need to know what needs to be removed from this place.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Time moves on at a pace, doesn’t it?’

  Sarah fell back and watched him stride towards the sitting room. ‘I’ll get Oliver to bed and be back down in a sec,’ she mumbled helplessly to his departing back.

  Tempted to get out of her ridiculous gear, she decided against it. Whatever technicalities had to be discussed wouldn’t take long, although she was surprised at how fast the house had become available. The last time she had seen it, it had been something of a derelict shell. At the time, she had confided in Raoul what she would like in terms of furniture, but that was the last she had heard on the subject, which had been a couple of weeks ago. She had assumed that the whole process would take months, and had deferred thinking about the move until it was more imminent.

  ‘I can’t believe the house is ready. Are you sure?’ This as soon as she was back in the sitting room, where he was relaxed in one of the chairs, with his back to the bay window. ‘I thought these things took months …’

  ‘Amazing what money can do when it comes to speeding things up.’

  ‘But I haven’t really thought about what to fill it with. I mean, none of this stuff is mine …’

  ‘Which is a blessing, judging from the quality of the furnishings.’ Raoul watched as she nervously took the chair facing his on the opposite side of the tiny sitting room. She had to wriggle the short skirt down so that it didn’t indecently expose her thighs and his lips thinned disapprovingly. The top was hardly better. A vest affair that contoured her generous breasts in a way that couldn’t fail to arouse interest.

  Sarah couldn’t be bothered to react because she didn’t disagree.

  ‘It’s going to be weird leaving here,’ she thought out loud.

  ‘Oliver’s excited.’ Who had the short skirt and the tight top and the high heels been for? ‘He’s looking forward to having a bigger g
arden. Complete with the swing set I promised him. Did you enjoy your evening?’

  Sarah, who had still been contemplating the prospect of being uprooted sooner than she had expected, looked at Raoul in sudden confusion.

  ‘You’re dressed like a tart,’ he expanded coolly, ‘and I don’t like it.’

  Sarah gripped the arms of the chair while a slow burning anger rose inside her like red spreading mist.

  ‘How dare you think that you can tell me how I can dress?’

  ‘You never wore clothes like that when I was around. Yet the very first time you have a bit of free time without Oliver you’re dressed to the nines. I’m guessing that you’ve used your time profitably by checking what’s out there for a single girl.’

  ‘I don’t have to … to … dignify that with a response!’

  No, she didn’t, and her stubborn, glaring eyes were telling him that he was going to get nowhere when it came to dragging an explanation of her whereabouts out of her.

  Hot on the heels of her rejection, her self-righteous proclamation that their sleeping together wasn’t going to be on the cards, her strident reminders to him that she wanted commitment, Raoul finally acknowledged what had been staring him in the face.

  When it came to Sarah he was possessive, and he wanted exclusivity. He didn’t want her dipping her toe into the world of dating and other men. Seeing her in that revealing get-up, he realised that he didn’t even want her dressing in a way that could conceivably attract them. If she had to wear next to nothing, then he wanted it to be for his benefit and his benefit only.

  He had never been possessive in his life before. Was it because she was more than just a woman to him? Because she was the mother of his child? Did he have some peculiar dinosaur streak of which he had hitherto been unaware? He just knew that the thought of her trawling the clubs made his blood run cold.

  So he had never been moved by the notion of settling down with anyone? Well, life wasn’t a static business. Rules and guidelines made yesterday became null and void when situations changed. Wasn’t flexibility a sign of a creative mind?