They were on the sofa, undressing each other with frantic hands, reaching for the moment they were now both desperate to achieve. She gasped as they became one, but then, suddenly, it was all over. He was pulling away as though desperate to escape. She had a view of his face that she would remember all her days. It was a blank mask, except for the eyes that were full of dismay.
‘We must stop this,’ he gasped. ‘I didn’t mean to-you’re all right, aren’t you?’
She was far from all right. The joy had been snatched from her at the last moment and she wanted to weep, but she forced a smile.
‘Yes, fine,’ she lied. ‘It was just-’
‘I know. I didn’t mean to-I didn’t realise-your first time. But don’t worry, I didn’t-not exactly-’
Had he made love to her fully or not? In her innocence she couldn’t have said, but it was plain that he wanted the answer to be no.
He couldn’t get rid of her fast enough. He called a taxi and paid the fare in advance, but didn’t offer to see her home. His words and manner were perfectly courteous, but it was the perfection of a mask. She wept for the whole journey.
For the next few weeks she had the sensation of seeing life at a distance: the row about Jared’s departure, his last race for Brent, the Brazilian Grand Prix, which he won, making him the World Champion Driver on points.
His picture was everywhere-holding up the trophy, being embraced by Mirella, regarding her with an entranced expression. How different from his shocked eyes as he’d pulled away from herself.
She guessed that it was her inexperience that had dismayed him. It threatened involvement, emotion, scenes-things he avoided like the plague.
Even so she clung to the hope that he would contact her, even if just to say goodbye. But there was no word from him, and by the time she first suspected that she might be pregnant he’d already left without a backward glance.
A visit to his apartment was futile. Already somebody else was living there. E-mail produced only an ‘address invalid’ message. Clearly Cannonball had taken him over completely. In despair she made one last try, getting his mobile phone number from the firm’s records and texting.
I really need to see you. It’s important. Kaye
In five seconds precisely, she received a routine reply.
Thank you for contacting Jared Marriot. This number is now closed, but he thanks you for your good wishes.
On the same day his engagement to Mirella was announced, and she knew her last hope was gone. She had too much pride to force herself onto his attention. She would have his child alone. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she’d made up her mind.
Her grandparents were magnificent, insisting that she should live with them. College had to be abandoned, but she stayed on with Brent until she gave birth.
Ethel encouraged her to return to work, but Kaye was swept by the need to be with her baby. So she left Brent and worked at home as a freelance translator. She also enrolled in the Open University, and emerged triumphantly with a degree.
Jared never married Mirella, who simply faded from the scene, to be replaced by many others in quick succession. The papers detailed every one.
Gradually Kaye learned to cope with reminders of the man who’d rejected her. She even named her son Michael, which was Jared’s second name. But that was the only hint of sentimentality that she allowed herself.
At last Mike started school. When she was sure he was settled in happily she decided to return to work full-time. Only half hoping, she contacted Duncan at Brent, and he welcomed her back with open arms.
Jared was long gone from Brent, and was now only mentioned when he won yet another Grand Prix, and then another.
‘Not that things are looking so good for him this year,’ Duncan observed. ‘He was rushed to hospital after a crash just before the season started, and nobody knows why. They say he spun off for no apparent reason. The press have gone mad trying to find out, but there’s a big mystery there somewhere. Luckily it’s working to our advantage, because his reactions seem a bit slower. This season he hasn’t won races that he’d have won before. Now, that’s enough about him. Where did I put that-?’
She got to know the other drivers, especially Hal, a pleasant man, whose wife, Stella, dropped in one day. Through their children, Stella and Kaye immediately established a bond.
It was a contented, even sometimes a happy life. In the dead of night she would creep into Mike’s room to watch her darling son sleeping, and she would know that, whatever trophies came Jared’s way, it was she who was the real winner.
And yet…
The air was filled with shouting, cheers and laughter. The noise surrounded Jared, battering him. But at the same time it came from outer space, taunting, threatening his sanity.
The winner’s podium was his natural place. He turned this way and that, spurting champagne, stretching his mouth in a pretence of a smile, waving at the crowd, struggling to make it all feel natural, as it once had. But the echoing distance seemed to fill him with darkness.
This was his first win in four races, and should have been a triumph-the moment when he recovered everything that had been his before the nightmare. But that was impossible. He might recover much, but not everything.
He forced himself to give the performance of a hero celebrating his victory, secretly thinking, If only they knew!
They knew a little about the accident he’d had just before the start of the season, three months earlier. He’d been testing out Cannonball’s new car when he’d swerved suddenly, overturned, and come to a shuddering halt.
Onlookers had been baffled. There were no barriers on the track, no other driver had been near him and the car was perfect. Nobody knew that Jared had been feeling ill when he started, and had soon been swamped by sickness.
At the hospital he’d been shut away from visitors. The press had speculated on the ‘terrible injuries’ he must have suffered, and cheered him when he’d returned quickly to racing. Nobody suspected the truth.
And nobody must ever suspect, lest he die of shame.
Outwardly he seemed to have it all: just approaching thirty, at the peak of looks ability, health. That was what people thought, and what they must go on thinking.
He headed for the airport as soon as possible. There, booked on the same flight back to England, he found Hal, the driver from the Brent Team that he’d beaten into second place.
‘Sorry,’ he said wryly.
‘Oh, sure-if you had it to do again you’d let me win?’ Hal grinned. ‘I don’t think so.’
He was in his thirties, with an innate good nature that stopped him being hostile to Jared, despite their rivalry. He even managed to say, ‘It’s good to see you back on top form after your recent troubles.’
‘Thanks. They’re in the past,’ Jared said airily. ‘I’m my old self again.’
The words if only echoed in his mind again before he could avoid them.
Stern resolution! Banish those thoughts! Work at it! Be strong!
‘But I’m still behind in the championship,’ he continued with a shrug. ‘The title will probably be yours.’
‘Well, it’ll be nice to go out on a high,’ Hal agreed.
‘You’re really retiring?’
‘This is my last season as a driver. I’ll stay with the team, working behind the scenes, but I can spend more time at home with the wife and kids.’
Jared quickly went blank inside, as he’d trained himself to do at the mention of children.
Damn the illness that had attacked him without warning. Damn every man who could become a father when he himself couldn’t!
Hal had pulled out a small leather folder, flipping it open to reveal a picture of his family.
‘I never go anywhere without this,’ he said proudly. ‘I’m not like you, chased by sexy dollybirds.’
Jared gave a fixed smile, diverting attention by taking the folder and flipping through it. Suddenly he grew still.
&
nbsp; ‘Who’s that?’ he asked quietly.
‘Who? Oh, her. That’s Kaye. She used to work for Brent, left when she had a baby, and came back a few weeks ago. Stella and I got to know her because her son is the same age as our youngest and they go to the same school.’
‘Her-son?’
‘Yes, little Mike. Look.’ He flipped over some pages. ‘I took these at his birthday party recently.’
There was Kaye, a little older, but still recognisable as the eager girl he’d known way back then. She was sitting with her arms around a little boy who seemed to be consumed with laughter. She too was laughing, as though all happiness was to be found in the child.
‘What about her husband?’ Jared asked.
‘She’s not married. I don’t think she ever was.’ He looked back at the picture, adding, ‘They had the party the day before his fifth birthday. I had to dash off for the Turkish Grand Prix next day. We were on the same plane, remember?’
‘I remember.’ Jared’s voice gave nothing away.
Suddenly he was back in the hospital, horrified at the illness that had attacked him.
‘Mumps?’ he’d said, aghast. ‘That’s a kids’ illness.’
‘Adults can catch it too.’ The doctor sighed. ‘And you’ve got it badly.’
The sight of his face, swollen out of recognition, had horrified him. But worse had been the discovery of the side effects.
‘In a grown man mumps can cause sterility,’ the doctor warned. ‘We’ll do tests to be sure.’
Until the last minute he’d refused to believe that the worst could happen. But the tests showed that it had.
‘Are you telling me,’ Jared asked, appalled, ‘that when I’m with a woman I won’t be able to-?’
‘Your sexual skill will be unimpaired,’ the doctor said clinically. ‘But that’s all. Your sperm count is down to about two or three percent, maybe less, and your chance of fathering a child is virtually nil.’
Hal was flipping through the pictures again. Jared took a quick glance at the one showing Kaye and her son. The day before the flight to Turkey, Hal had said, thus revealing the date of the child’s birthday.
He threw himself back in his seat, staring into space as dates came together in his head. It was surely impossible. Yet the facts danced, shrieking, before him.
The little boy had been born almost exactly nine months after his evening with Kaye.
CHAPTER TWO
HIS dreams were haunted by a face: swollen, stupid, disturbing. Strange sounds came from the mouth. Despair as everything was snatched away, fear at the helplessness, horror as the world crashed around him. The eyes were wide, the mouth crying out with despair.
Himself!
He awoke to find himself sitting up in the darkness, shuddering.
The face was his own. No! Had been his own, he corrected quickly. Not any more. That disgusting, off-putting fool, defenceless in the power of others, had been him for the few brief days while the illness was as its worst, but that was over. His face had returned to normal, but the memory haunted him.
Hurriedly he switched on the light and seized a mirror. Yes, that was Jared Marriot looking back at him, handsome, astute, victorious. Above all, in control. The other was a ghost that he would banish, however long it took.
Growling, he leapt out of bed and headed for the bathroom to get under the shower. He was in fine shape, lean and strong, with a body that women openly desired and other men envied.
But their envy would turn to derision if they knew that he couldn’t do the one thing nature most demanded of a true man: produce the next generation.
Until now his free, self-indulgent life had been enough, and he’d given no thought to becoming a father. But the discovery that he was incapable had changed everything.
Not to care about fathering a child was one thing. Not to be able to was a humiliation.
‘Will anyone be able to tell?’ he’d demanded of the doctor.
By ‘anyone’ he meant women.
‘Not at all,’ the doctor said, understanding him. ‘Everything will be normal, except that you’re sterile.’
He’d put that to the test as soon as his strength returned. There was no shortage of willing ladies, and to his relief his performance was as excellent as it had always been. Nobody knew. Except himself.
The discovery of Mike had been like a light shining in the darkness. If that was his son, as seemed likely, he had a defence against the world’s derision. And he would secure that defence come what may.
Now his mind was working as it did on the racetrack: cool, calm, efficient. Calculate everything to the tiniest degree, allow no distractions, think only of victory. Nothing else.
So the first thing he must do-That was it! Take the first step and the rest would be straightforward.
He stared into the bathroom mirror and Jared Marriot stared back: cool, decided, uncompromising. Unfeeling.
Except for fear.
It was the last day of Mike’s school term, and he was taking part in the pageant. Kaye left work early, determined not to miss a moment. In the car park she paused and smiled up at the sun.
Then she dropped the key, astounded by what she’d glimpsed.
Stooping for it, she told herself to be sensible. Of course Jared wasn’t there. She’d imagined it. And when she rose and looked round there was no sign of him.
I’m going crazy, she told herself. Seeing things.
The pageant took the form of a procession through the grounds of the nursery school. Little Mike, dressed as a cowboy, bowed and waved to the crowd of cheering parents, accepting the spotlight as his by right. Kaye reckoned that Jared’s son simply couldn’t help it.
That was why she’d thought of Jared today, she told herself firmly. There was no need to get hysterical.
But when she collected Mike afterwards he beamed and cried, ‘Mummy, he’s here.’
‘Who’s here, darling?’
‘Jared Marriot.’
Her heart seemed to miss a beat. Were they both floating in fantasy land?
‘There he is,’ Mike said urgently.
She followed his pointing finger, frantically trying to decide how to deal with this. Then she grew still.
Jared was standing only a few feet away, watching her.
He was really here.
No, he couldn’t be.
But he was. How was this happening?
‘Ah, there you are.’
It was Stella, Hal’s wife and her friend, whose son Joey attended this same school.
‘I looked for you before but we were a bit late arriving,’ Stella said. ‘Hal brought a friend-one of the other drivers. Jared, come and meet Kaye.’
As he approached it seemed to her that he moved slowly, coming from a great distance, a ghost who haunted her and then arrived without warning. She waited for the recognition in his face, perhaps even dismay, but there was nothing. As he uttered a courteous greeting there was only unrevealing charm.
She managed to seem equally unaware, shaking his hand, trying not to be too conscious that she was touching him again after so long.
Mike tugged at Jared’s sleeve. ‘I’m Mike,’ he said.
Jared’s smile was friendly. ‘I’m Jared.’
They shook hands, Jared showing as much courtesy as he would have done to an adult. Mike was in seventh heaven.
‘Mike is my son,’ Kaye said.
No reaction. Just a conventional smile and a nod. Clearly the discovery of her child rang no bells in his memory.
‘Ah, there you are,’ came Hal’s voice as he bustled towards them with Joey in tow. ‘They’ve set up a little buffet over there. Let’s go.’
Mike and Joey moved with their eyes fixed upwards on Jared, stumbling a little, so that he reached out and grasped their shoulders good-naturedly.
‘It’s safer this way,’ he said.
He guided them to a bench and sat chatting while the others went to secure soft drinks. Kaye’s mind was in a whirl.
Why had he suddenly turned up now? Had she really seen him before or was that just an incredible coincidence?
‘Jared and Hal get on well, even though they’re on different teams,’ Stella explained. ‘I think he’s lonely because he’s got no family of his own.’
But he has, Kaye thought sadly. He has a son that he doesn’t know about because he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even remember me, and perhaps that is because he doesn’t want to.
But a surprise was waiting for her. As they returned to the bench she handed Jared a glass of sparkling water, which he raised to her in salute.
‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’ he said.
Yes, she thought furiously. We’ve met before, and you went all out to charm me, then left me stranded with a child as you danced away to the next woman. Oh, yes, we’ve met before.
But she only said coolly. ‘I didn’t think you’d recognised me.’
‘You worked for Brent,’ he said, making room for her to sit beside him. ‘I gather you’ve rejoined them?’
‘Yes, I left when I had Mike, but I went back recently.’
‘Still translating everything?’
‘Sort of. I run errands for Warrior. He’s part of the management now.’
‘How do you stand him?’
‘Not very easily. He goes on a bit about his “great days” and we all keep a straight face and pretend we don’t know you took the title from him.’
Jared gave a crack of laughter, and for a moment she was back in that other time when he’d seemed to laugh as he breathed, as though the joy of life infused everything.
He was the same man, she thought. The years had merely increased his pleasures and triumphs, making him more himself, more enviable, more confident that he was king of the world. And she knew a flash of resentment so sharp that it took her breath away. How dared he be so unchanged after what he’d done to her?
Her resentment increased when she saw that he was already forgetting her. Mike had demanded his attention, wanting to hear Jared talk about his last race, and then his next.
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