Accidental Mistress

by Williams Cathy

  ‘Paul Waterman. Lisa works for me.’ He extended his hand and Angus looked down at it, ignored it and then raised cool eyes back to Paul’s now slightly confused face.

  ‘Really. And calling in here comes under the heading of good staff relations, does it?’

  Lisa went bright red and automatically linked her arm through Paul’s, an unconscious gesture of protectiveness which didn’t escape Angus’s attention. His eyes narrowed and he said tightly, ‘If you’re on your way out, then we won’t keep you.’

  ‘I’ll decide when my visitors leave, thank you,’ she interrupted in a high voice. Her face was flushed and angry.

  ‘I was on my way out, actually,’ Paul said stiffly, ‘and I’m afraid you still haven’t introduced yourself. You are...?’

  ‘Hamilton. Angus Hamilton.’ It was the barest of concessions to politeness because his eyes remained hard and glittering.

  Paul turned to her and said amiably, ‘Sorry about tomorrow, Lisa.’

  ‘Let me know how the children are,’ she said with affection, ‘and if there’s anything at all I can do...’

  He smiled, nodded and left, edging past Angus as though he found his presence as alarming as she did, and as soon as he was out of the house Angus turned to her and said icily, ‘What a cosy relationship. And what exactly would you do for him? How far do your services extend?’

  He brushed past her and she reluctantly shut the door and followed him through. Without the benefit of knowledge, anyone might have said that his reaction to Paul had been the reaction of a jealous man, but she knew the truth, and the truth solidified the little ball of misery sitting in the pit of her stomach.

  He didn’t care who Paul Waterman was. His caustic question wasn’t the fierce interrogation of a jealous lover, it was the caustic enquiry of a man who thought she would do anything for money.

  ‘Well?’ he snapped, facing her across the small living room. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Does that man make a habit of visiting you when you’re on your own?’

  ‘That man,’ Lisa replied, determined not to cower in the face of his formidable presence, ‘is my boss and we have a wonderful working relationship. He stopped by to tell me that his invitation for lunch tomorrow has been postponed because his children have come down with chickenpox. There was no need for you to be rude to him.’

  She expected him to respond with something cool and cutting but he flushed and turned away, moving to sit down on the sofa.

  ‘Can you blame me?’ he asked harshly, but with a look of angry discomfort on his face which she found a little confusing, simply because he was a man whose self-control never slipped. ‘You tell me that you didn’t fall pregnant on purpose, yet it’s an uncanny coincidence that we make love once and it happens. And you blind me with this innocent portrayal of yourself, all girlish blushing and stammering timidity, yet I come here unexpectedly and there’s a man in your house, a man whose company you clearly enjoy because you were smiling when you came to the door.’

  ‘Oh, what’s the use?’ she said with a sigh. ‘What’s the good of defending myself? You won’t believe me anyway. You’ve already made up your mind about what sort of person I am, so why don’t you just tell me why you’ve come here?’

  ‘I’ve come here,’ he said, as though challenging her to make something of it, ‘to apologise.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘I WENT to see Caroline,’ Angus said evenly, ‘and I got the truth out of her. She told me that events hadn’t occurred quite as she originally narrated them. Obviously I was way out of line when I accused you of manipulation.

  He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, his fingers loosely entwined.

  ‘I see,’ Lisa said coldly.

  ‘Is that the extent of your reaction?’ he asked tautly, and she averted her face.

  ‘How would you like me to react? Would you like me to shout with relief that you no longer see me as the avaricious gold-digger you accused me of being yesterday? Is that what you’d like?’ She turned to face him, her eyes flashing. ‘Well, I hate to say this but it hardly changes the insult implied when you levelled those accusations at me in the first place.’

  ‘I take your point,’ he replied tersely, ‘but you have to understand that I’m in the direct firing line for any woman who gets it in her head that her lifestyle needs improving. I’m very good at spotting the danger signs a mile off. Naturally when Caroline ran to me with her tale I wondered whether you had been the one to slip through the net.’

  ‘Fine.’ She shrugged and waited for him to continue. She didn’t see why she should make things any easier for him and it occurred to her that she would have to develop a bit more backbone as far as he was concerned, if she was to find the strength to fight him on her own ground.

  She couldn’t continue seeing him through the eyes of a lovestruck girl. This was no longer simply a question of her. There was the baby to consider now, too.

  ‘Would you care to offer me a cup of coffee?’ he asked eventually, and she glanced across at him suspiciously, as though suspecting there might be some further, carefully concealed attack lurking behind the perfectly ordinary request. She wasn’t about to fall into the trap of trusting him. She had seen the depths of his rage beneath the civilised veneer, and that, she thought, would be a constant reminder to her that the real man beneath the sophisticated, urbane glamour was as ruthless and dangerous as a jungle animal.

  ‘I would have,’ she said politely, standing up, ‘but I didn’t realise that you intended to stay long enough to drink it.’

  He followed her into the kitchen and said to her averted back, ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she answered reluctantly. She poured the hot water into the mugs and her hand was trembling. So much, she thought, for that passing bravado. She wasn’t looking at him, but she could feel his presence in the kitchen and it made her nervous and jumpy. She had to force herself to control her face so that when she turned round to proffer the mug to him her expression was blank and composed.

  She followed him back into the living room, took the chair facing his and eyed him silently over the rim of her mug.

  ‘Would you ever have told me?’ He crossed his legs, ankle resting on knee, and regarded her.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe one day.’ She frowned. ‘No, probably not,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t see that there would ever have been the need to.’

  He very slowly rested the mug on the table in front of him and then said coldly, ‘No need? No need to inform a child of the identity of its father?’

  ‘No,’ she said, nervously aware that she wasn’t saying the right things. ‘Look, I have no intention of upsetting your life.’ She paused and tried to think how to proceed from here without treading on any mines.

  ‘Let’s move on from there, shall we?’ he countered in a hard voice. ‘Let’s begin with the assumption that my life is already, as you put it, upset.’

  ‘In that case, there’s no need for it to be upset further. I just want you to know that I’m not going to try and force you into taking any responsibility for this. It was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking straight; I never imagined I would get pregnant.’

  ‘So, ideally, I should just walk right out of that door and not look back, is that it?’

  ‘Yes. That would be for the best, I think.’

  ‘Oh, it would, would it?’ There was cold cynicism in his voice, making her hot and nervous.

  ‘I think so, don’t you? I mean, this is my responsibility. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.’

  ‘Your responsibility!’ he bellowed furiously. ‘Nothing to do with me!’

  ‘Of course,’ Lisa said hurriedly, ‘I know that you’re responsible. Technically, that is. But what I’m trying to tell you is that I have no intention of making any demands on you or having this interfere with your life.’

  ‘How thoughtful of you.’ His mouth curled derisively.

  ‘Yes, I think so!’ she s
napped with hostility. ‘I can’t win, can I? First I’m accused of getting pregnant so that I can blackmail you, then I’m accused of doing just the opposite!’

  ‘You’re being deliberately obtuse.’

  ‘I am not!’

  ‘You’re avoiding the truth of the situation because it suits you to do so and you expect me to fall into line.’

  ‘And what is the truth of the situation?’ She was perched on the edge of the chair, and now she sat back and tried to get a grip on her emotions. This sort of arguing couldn’t be good for the baby. She placed her hand on her stomach and felt it kicking. Was it her imagination or was it kicking more than usual? Was it picking up vibes, or responding to all the high voices and the surge of feeling running through her blood?

  She wished that she had never laid eyes on him again. In fact, she wished that he had never entered her uncluttered, uncomplicated life. Why couldn’t he accept that she was doing him a favour by not disrupting his life with an unwanted baby? He lived his life at breakneck speed. There was no room in that sort of life for any relationship other than the most transient and babies were not transient creatures. They were demanding, voracious human beings who didn’t need occasional, disruptive appearances from a man who was technically a father but in reality more of a stranger.

  ‘The truth is that you bitterly regret what happened between us and you expect me to vanish conveniently off the face of the earth so that you can put the whole unfortunate episode behind you. Sadly for you, I’m not about to oblige. This isn’t about you. I happen to have some stakes here too. Just a few. About fifty per cent.’

  ‘I’m going to be bringing up this baby,’ she said stiffly. ‘I know that you mean well...’

  ‘But...?’ he asked cynically. ‘You can manage quite happily on your own?’

  Lisa didn’t say anything. She looked down stubbornly at her fingers, her mouth set. There didn’t seem to be much point in arguing with him. Whichever way she turned, he found a door and slammed it in her face.

  ‘Well?’ he persisted, and she shrugged and muttered,

  “That’s right.’

  ‘How much money do you earn?’

  ‘Money has nothing to do with it!’ she told him hotly. ‘What difference does it make how much money I earn? Does it follow that if I lived in a big house with a big garden and took expensive holidays every year I would somehow make a better mother? Do you think that money buys everything? If you do, then I feel sorry for you!’

  ‘How much?’ The hard blue eyes looked at her steadily and she grudgingly told him what he wanted to know. It didn’t matter anyway. She was in the right on this.

  ‘And you honestly don’t believe that it would make the slightest difference if I accepted responsibility and allowed this baby to benefit from my wealth?’

  ‘I don’t want any of your money.’

  ‘We’re not talking about you.’

  ‘All right, then. In answer to your question, no! Swanning in here once a year laden with expensive presents wouldn’t do anything to improve this child’s quality of life. You might think that that’s the answer, but it isn’t. In the end, it just disorients a child. I spent my childhood moving from pillar to post and it was upsetting. I know we’re not talking about me, but my experiences are enough to tell me that what you’re offering will be the same sort of thing. I won’t have any child of mine subjected to that.’

  ‘But why can’t we stay in one place?’ she could remember asking her mother. Over and over, until she realised that it was a futile question. She wasn’t going to put up with her own child asking, ‘Why can’t Daddy be here with us like everyone else’s?’

  And anyway, long-distance relationships like that never lasted. They couldn’t. After the initial burst of good intentions, things would begin to wane. The visits would become fewer and further between. They would be replaced by presents sent through the post at appropriate times, and then even those would inevitably dry up. It just wouldn’t work out and it would be better if the whole thing did not begin.

  And then, she thought, ashamed, there’s the question of me, isn’t there?

  Angus Hamilton might find it easy enough to breeze into her life now and again because he was indifferent to her, but how was she going to feel? How would she ever be able to loosen the stranglehold that her love for him had on her, if she couldn’t rely on his absence giving her the strength she needed?

  She couldn’t conceive how unsettling it would be, living in between his visits, desperately trying to break free but with the knowledge that he might appear, at any given moment, and send her hurtling back to square one. How would she ever begin to get her life back into order? It would be beyond her. Like Sisyphus pushing his rock up that hill only to find it slipping away from him before he could reach the top. Over and over again. A never-ending task of recurring pain.

  ‘I have no intention of “swanning in here”, as you call it, once a year, with presents to compensate for my not being around for the other three hundred and sixty-four days. I don’t see that as accepting responsibility for my child any more than you do.’ He stood up and went across to the window, which, prosaically, overlooked a small neat car park, and beyond that a tiny park hemmed in by row upon row of small, neat, doll’s-house-type houses, all very tidy and characterless. ‘No, that’s not what I had in mind at all.’

  ‘And what exactly did you have in mind?’

  He didn’t answer immediately. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his trousers and continued to stare outside, seemingly riveted by the lack of inspiring scenery.

  His silence, for some odd reason, began to make her feel more nervous. She didn’t like it. It was more ominous than his biting sarcasm and anger. What was he thinking? Had she thrown him? Had she put him in a spot with her flat refusal to accept money so that now he was forced to think on his feet and come up with an alternative? Was that it?

  ‘I propose that we get married.’ He slowly turned around so that he was facing her, and she stared at him in shock. After the first wild surge of colour, her face had gone white. ‘You seem surprised,’ he said laconically, moving away from the window to sit back down on the sofa.

  ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘It’s not that surprising a proposition, is it?’

  ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘We get married and our child can grow up in a normal family environment. There won’t be any part-time parenting, no lavish gifts to make up for unavoidable absences when I can’t make a certain Saturday or a certain Wednesday afternoon. And it will have all the material advantages which I am in more than a good position to offer. You’re right when you say that money doesn’t make a good parent—or a happy child for that matter—but if the opportunity is there, then how can you sensibly deprive our child of it?’

  ‘You’re not listening to me!’

  ‘You’re alone in the world, Lisa. No family network that you can fall back on. Do you really feel comfortable with the thought of bringing up a baby with no support at all?’

  ‘Of course it’s frightening,’ she answered unsteadily. ‘I know it isn’t going to be a bed of roses. I know there will be times when I wish there was someone there to take over, to help out, but...’

  ‘But...?’

  ‘But that’s no reason to marry you. Can’t you see that? There would be no love involved...’ She dropped her eyes and stared down at her lap. ‘Your lifestyle isn’t suited to a family. It would be a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Stop being naïve,’ he said curtly, and she bristled at the note of command in his voice.

  ‘I am not being naïve. I don’t want to marry you.’

  ‘I thought that marriage was high on your list of priorities,’ he told her coolly, and she flushed. ‘I thought that relationships with men were not to be contemplated unless a wedding ring was waiting just around the corner.’

  ‘I never said that...’

  ‘Of course you did. You just choose to forget.’ He moved to wher
e she was sitting and loomed over her, bending down so that the impact of his words wouldn’t be lost across the distance of the room, so that she could feel his breath on her face. It brought back confusing memories of his body against hers, his fingers exploring her, his hands caressing her. She flinched at the unwanted images, averting her head, and his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Do you regret what happened between us so much?’ he asked, and although his voice wasn’t raised there was no gentleness there. ‘Do you now loathe me so much that you can’t stand the thought of being in the same house as me?’

  ‘It would be a mistake,’ she repeated wearily, turning to look at him. ‘It would be wrong. You say that marrying you would provide a normal life for our child, but it wouldn’t, would it? What’s normal about a marriage between two reluctant people, forced to live together for the sake of a child? What kind of environment would that be? A happy one?

  ‘At least...’ her voice had dropped to a whisper ‘...my parents loved each other. I might have hated all the travel, all the upheavals, but when I was inside the house with them, wherever that might have been, there was warmth and love there. What do you imagine it would be like without that?’

  ‘I see,’ he said, straightening up. He had removed his jacket earlier on. Now he slipped it back on and looked at her. ‘I never imagined that I would find myself proposing marriage to a woman who would rather cope with a difficult situation in complete isolation than get tied up with me. What does that say about me, I wonder?’ He laughed humourlessly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lisa said.

  ‘Don’t apologise. Why should you?’

  ‘It’s just that I wouldn’t want you to think that I don’t consider your offer very generous...’

  ‘But all in all the job just doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Which still leaves us with the problem of arranging some sort of visiting rights. And can we do that in an informal manner or would that not suit either?’