Silence.
‘I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.’ The plea was wrenched out of her and she laughed to conceal the fear that was beginning to consume her. Fear of what, though?
‘Guess who I saw today.’
‘I don’t know. Tell me.’
‘Lucy Campbell. You remember her, don’t you? It would appear that the two of you have met. Small, attractive blonde given to gossip.’ He sipped some coffee and watched her face as she digested this piece of information.
‘Small, attractive blonde.’ So this was where it was leading. His unexpected appearance at her house, his brooding expression, the way he was making very sure not to come too close to her. He was ending their affair, if that was what it was. The fact that she had intended to be the one doing the ending never occurred to her. She had lost sight of her original plan to use him the way he had used her. All she could think of now was the prospect of never seeing him again. No more shared laughter, no more of his dry teasing, no more of that wonderful feeling of waiting for him to knock on her door, no more losing herself in their lovemaking, thinking everything was all right in the world.
He had found someone else just as Phillip had found someone else, though strangely losing Phillip had been nothing compared to what she felt now, even though he had fathered their son in the course of their brief, doomed relationship.
‘Yes, I believe I do remember her, now that you mention it.’ The clever girl had spilled the beans about his plans to buy the Rectory from under her feet, and look at that, she had got her man in the end.
‘I thought you might.’
‘Well,’ Sara stood up and carried her cup to the sink then she remained there, with her back pressed against the counter and her hands splayed out on either side of her, ‘you really needn’t have rushed over here to tell me, James. Couldn’t it have waited until morning? These things happen, after all, don’t they?’ She shrugged and lowered her eyes for a second.
‘What things?’
‘I suppose you two were destined for a life together from an early age. Isn’t that how it works in this part of the world?’
‘Arranged marriages?’ His lip curled in cold distaste.
‘Well, maybe not arranged but expected.’ No room for serious interlopers to come along, although she had never been a serious interloper, had she? They had never talked about commitment or a future together, and he had certainly never mentioned the love word.
‘Two mothers making plans for their little toddlers crawling around on the ground together? The perfect match of children with similar backgrounds, used to similar lifestyles…’ She felt tears of self-pity pricking the backs of her eyelids. Different place, same old story. The daughter of a market trader should never dare hope for the impossible with a man like James Dalgleish. Ditched by two men for basically the same reason. Must be some sort of record.
‘You insult my mother,’ he said coldly. ‘You also seem to forget that she came here as an outsider so the thought of marrying me off at the age of four to a suitable local girl would never have occurred to her. Nor am I the sort of man,’ he laughed shortly, ‘to meekly marry a woman because she fulfils the right criteria, even though there’s a lot to be said for an arrangement of that nature.’
His words should have filled her with relief but they didn’t because his expression hadn’t softened.
‘Besides,’ he added silkily, ‘Lucy has found herself a man and from all accounts she’s madly in love.’
‘Oh. That’s nice…’ Now she was confused.
‘Isn’t it?’ He pushed his chair back so that he could stretch out his legs in front of him and afford himself a wonderful view of the apprehensive woman still glued to the kitchen sink counter. ‘Although, of course, she was carrying a torch for me when you last spoke to her…now, what was it you talked about?’
‘I…I don’t remember.’
‘That I find hard to believe.’ He raised his eyebrows in a mimicry of incredulous disbelief and Sara suddenly felt like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. An oncoming car that was fully aware of its existence but determined not to stop. ‘You must have a memory like a knife. Part and parcel of the training you would have gone through for that job of yours.’
‘I wish you’d stop playing games. Just tell me what’s going on. Why did you come here so late? To tell me that a woman I met once has got a boyfriend? I can’t think that sharing that piece of information really necessitated a drive here at ten-thirty in the evening!’
Her cheeks were flushed and he could see the confusion in her eyes.
Maybe, he caught himself thinking, he had been wrong about her. Maybe he had added two and two together and arrived at five.
‘She told you that I had wanted the Rectory for years.’ He saw the confusion in her glorious eyes cloud over with sudden guilt and the response was damning. ‘Didn’t she?’ He smiled coldly when she didn’t answer so he continued with his inexorable monologue. ‘And naturally you assumed that the reason I had shown interest in you was that I wanted something from you. Please, feel free to contradict me at any point.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning that you were interested in buying my house?’ Her heart was hammering. Let him shower her with accusations. She wasn’t going to sit down and play the easy victim.
He flushed darkly, grudgingly admiring her ability to toss his argument right back in his face. Which didn’t excuse her behaviour, he reminded himself. She’d used him and what really filled him with self-disgust was the fact that he allowed himself to be used because he couldn’t keep his hands off her, because he enjoyed her company, because he became addicted to it until all that rubbish about marital bliss and happy-ever-after stories ended up scrambling his very sharp brain.
‘Maybe I met you and decided that the owner was more important than the bricks and mortar.’
Sara laughed a little hysterically.
How had all this gone so disastrously wrong? Three hours ago she was dishing out fish fingers for her son and happily contemplating seeing the man who was now shooting her down in flames.
‘Or maybe you just decided that it would be easier to get what you wanted if you strung me along!’
‘Is that when you decided that two could play at that game? So after your high-principled exit from our relationship you telephoned me out of the blue so that you could restart things between us but on your agenda?’ His guilt that she might have had a point in being furious with him if she had truly believed that he had sought her company for no other reason than to soft-soap her into getting what he wanted was immediately banished by her failure to deny his accusation.
He thought of the ring resting in his jacket pocket and any inclination to see her point of view was stillborn.
She had used him and he wasn’t a man to be used. Not under any circumstances.
‘I suppose that was my initial reason for calling you,’ Sara confessed in a low voice, ‘and I’m not proud of myself.’ She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from revenge but you have to understand—’
‘Oh, I do, do I?’ James interrupted harshly. ‘I think you’re confusing me with someone else.’
‘Could you just listen to me? For a minute?’ The pleading was back in her voice but she just couldn’t help it and she was desperate to clear the air, to get across her point of view.
‘I need a drink and something a little stronger than a cup of bloody coffee.’ He pushed himself off the chair, knowing full well that he really should cease this pointless debate because it wasn’t going to lead anywhere. But not yet, he told himself. He just couldn’t let go of it yet. It was a form of weakness and, dammit, he knew that, could have kicked himself for it, but he couldn’t help himself. One stiff drink and he would clear off, shake this woman off him for good and get back to normality.
‘There’s some whisky in th—’
‘I know where the whisky is
. You forget what a good job you did of making me feel right at home in your house.’
He vanished towards the small utility, where she was temporarily storing her meagre supply of alcohol, and when he returned he was carrying a stubby glass containing a generous supply of the brown liquid.
He resumed his position on the chair. Inquisitor with his suspect trapped in front of him. Or at least that was how it felt to Sara.
‘I know you’re angry. Furious even. And I don’t blame you, but I was pretty angry myself when I found out that you had plans for my house. I imagined that the only minor obstacle was taking care of me and, instead of being up-front and honest, you decided to take care of me in your own way.’ They both had a point of view so why was it that she felt like the one who was floundering? ‘I’d been through Phillip—’
‘Oh, stop hiding behind your ex, using one bad relationship as an excuse to justify your behaviour.’ He pelted a mouthful of drink down his throat and shot her a steely, grim look.
‘I’m not hiding behind anyone! I’m just trying to explain how I felt when I decided to…to…’
‘Reverse the tables? Take care of me in your own way?’
‘I was angry and hurt.’ She looked away and bit her lip to control the flood of emotion inside her.
‘And put those two together and what else do you get but a little dollop of cold-blooded revenge?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Sara muttered. She took a couple of shaky steps forward to try and close the yawning chasm between them, but the expression of icy dislike stamped on his face was enough to make her swerve away until she too was back in her original position, elbows resting on the kitchen table, body urgently leaning forward.
‘And what was it like?’ The remainder of his drink went down his throat and he had to say that it hadn’t done the trick. He didn’t feel any calmer. He just felt like another one. Which he wasn’t going to have because once she’d finished her pretty little speech he was out of there.
‘It was…it should have been…well…I wanted to be cool and calculating and in control of the situation but…’
Against every ounce of better judgement, he found that he was waiting for her reply.
‘I guess I just wasn’t the kind of person who could…deal with what I had started. I…it was fun between us. I…enjoyed your company…’
‘And yet you still made sure that I was kept away from Simon. Never mind all the fun and enjoyment you were having with me.’
‘Stop twisting everything I say!’
‘But how can I not? In the space of a couple of hours, as I sat in a wine bar in Kensington, you changed into someone else.’ He gave her a look of killing contempt. ‘A truly remarkable metamorphosis. However, you will excuse me if I fail to stand back in admiration.’
‘I can’t stop you from believing the worst of me, but you were no angel,’ Sara muttered defensively under her breath. But he had said that the bricks and mortar had mattered less than the woman who lived within them. Had he meant that or had it just been his own way of making sure that he didn’t put himself on a par with her? She was racked by doubt and sickened by the motives that had propelled her into the situation she now found herself in, even though those motives had been lost very early down the line.
James ignored her barely audible protest.
‘And tell me, how far did the pretence go, Sara? What were you thinking when we made love? That it was all part and parcel of your plan to reel me in and then…what…confront me with my evil, wicked plan?’
‘Oh, what’s the use in talking about any of this?’ she said wearily.
‘You still haven’t answered my question.’
‘I don’t have to answer any of your questions.’
‘But you are going to.’
‘Am I? Why? Because I love hearing the way you sneer at everything I have to say?’
‘Because you are a woman and women have a peculiar tendency not to want anyone to leave them with a low opinion.’
‘And you should know, being the master connoisseur of them.’
But not of the one that mattered. The thought left him temporarily winded, but then the formidable self-control took over once again, and he was back with the reins firmly grasped in his hands.
‘I told you…when we made love…it was…’ The words were coming out piecemeal and it was galling to realise that he was absolutely right about the nature of the opposite sex. Either that or he knew her well enough to predict her thoughts and impulses.
‘I didn’t lie in bed with you thinking nasty, vengeful thoughts.’ She tilted her chin up defiantly. ‘And I know you won’t believe this, but my intentions in getting in touch with you might not have been…noble…but they fizzled away.’
He shrugged as though her explanation was something he could leave or take and that stung. He wasn’t even going to try and understand. He had come to confront her and then he would leave without a backward glance.
What had she been for him except a bit of fun? It was all well and good for him to adopt his high-handed attitude, but he didn’t love her and never had. His pride might be temporarily dented, but he would recover within hours, while she…
James stood up and thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. Instantly he felt the bag with the little box containing the ring inside.
Sara scrambled to her feet. It was all over and it seemed as if it had only just begun and she didn’t want him to leave. But she wasn’t going to wring her hands and beg and not in a million years was she going to tell him that revenge had mattered not one jot because she had fallen in love with him.
‘And how far, just out of curiosity, was this little plot supposed to go?’ He spoke with casual indifference and mild interest.
‘I told you, it wasn’t a plot. I didn’t spend all that time scheming. I made a mistake, I acted the way I did because I was angry and hurt, I thought you had used me, but…’
She might well not have spoken. His long fingers curled around the small square object in his pocket and his face hardened into a cynical sneer.
‘Did you perhaps envisage that I would fall in love with you?’ He managed to make that sound as implausible as a day return trip to the moon and Sara visibly winced. He gave a bark of dangerous, unpleasant laughter. ‘Was that the aim of the game, Sara? Did you think that you had what it took to weave a magic spell over me with a little sexual expertise and some fluttering eyelashes?’ He watched the painful blush colour her cheeks and felt like a swine, but the box was still sitting hot in his hand and all the anger was still there, waiting to be fanned.
‘No, of course not. It…it was nothing like that…’ Sara stammered but she could feel a guilty flush sting her cheeks. Guilty because her dreams had been the impossible. Yes, she had wanted him to propose. Now that he had voiced it, she could see with dismay right into the depths of herself and she knew that she had wanted that slice of perfection, marriage to the man she had foolishly fallen in love with. Not so she could throw it back in his face with triumph, but because she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
‘Your face is giving you away. Shame. After your sterling performance over the past few weeks.’ He began strolling towards the door and she followed him in silence.
When he reached the kitchen door, he paused to look round at her. She was white-faced. Good, he thought, but there was no thrill of victory. In fact, he felt bloody lousy considering he had vented all his anger and, he told himself, had a lucky escape.
‘Unfortunately, we are certain to run into one another occasionally,’ he drawled, ‘unless, of course, you decide to move back to London, which is probably where you belong anyway.’
‘I won’t be returning to London.’ Her voice was hollow with the effort of not crying. ‘Simon is settled here. He’s looking forward to going to school in September. And I don’t belong in London any more.’ Which left her with the unanswerable question of where exactly did she belong? She had let herself forget the mistakes of
the past and at some dangerous inner level had conceived the notion that she belonged wherever James belonged.
James shrugged, one of those elegant gestures that seemed uniquely his. ‘Your choice. But I’m warning you that when we do run into one another, I really would rather not have any scenes. We’re just two adults who had a bit of fun and called it a day when the fun began to get a little thin on the ground.’
‘And, of course, no one will think twice, will they,’ Sara said quietly, ‘because the fun always gets a little thin on the ground when it comes to you?’
‘That’s right.’ He pulled open the kitchen door and noted that she had stopped a few feet away from him. She looked thoroughly battered and he hardened his jaw against the weakness of compassion. She had already given him all the answers he needed and now was the time to get out. The next time he came up to see his mother, he would make damn sure that there was a beautiful woman on his arm. Let her be under no illusion that what they had was special. That would be his little private torment and he would soon put that to bed.
‘Oh,’ he said casually, ‘and I would rather you ceased having anything to do with my mother.’
‘You can’t dictate who I see and who I don’t.’
‘Oh, but I can and I do.’ His smile was cold enough to cut through steel. ‘I do not see the point of any cosy relationships between my mother and either you or your son. And I suggest you pay very close heed to my warning because if I ever come up to the Highlands and walk into my house to find you there…’ he left a telling pause ‘…let’s just say you would not like my reaction…’
Well, things couldn’t get much worse, could they? He had paid his surprise visit and done what she assumed he had come to do. Namely, reduce her. He had twisted her stammered attempts at explanation, walked over her need to talk, sneered at her heartfelt apologies. Now he was telling her to keep away from his mother, with whom she had developed a warm relationship and whose fondness for Simon had been instrumental in getting him to make friends.
Without making a point or exerting any pressure, she had arranged a couple of little tea parties for some of the grandmothers of children of similar age. She was a charming, delightful woman and Sara would miss her, because she knew that she would do as James had asked.
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