by Penny Jordan
‘For one thing you are not even in your late thirties, and for another, women in their early forties are giving birth to their first child nowadays. Neither can you start telling me that you can’t spare the time and that the business is too demanding—you don’t have the business any more.’
‘I don’t have a partner either,’ Verity had felt bound to point out.
‘That could easily be remedied,’ Charlotte had told her firmly, ‘and you know it!’
‘Perhaps I’m simply not the maternal type.’ Verity had shrugged, anxious to change the subject.
‘Come off it,’ Charlotte had scoffed. ‘You know my two adore you.’
And she loved them, Verity acknowledged now as she tiptoed towards the bedroom door, but something about Honor had touched her heart and her emotions had really shaken her.
Because she was Silas’ child?
If anything, surely that should make her resent and dislike her and not…? It was certainly plain that Myra did not feel in the least bit maternal towards her intended future stepdaughter. Was it Honor herself she didn’t like, or did she perhaps simply resent the fact that she was the physical evidence that Silas had loved another woman? Myra certainly hadn’t struck her as the emotionally insecure type.
As Verity opened the bedroom door, Honor moved in her sleep and muttered something. Holding her breath, Verity waited until she was sure she had settled down again and, leaving the bedroom door open and the landing light on, she went quickly downstairs.
It was gone twelve. How much longer would Silas be?
Her discarded suit jacket was lying on the chair where she had left it. Automatically she picked it up and folded it neatly, smoothing the soft fabric. Her uncle would have thoroughly disapproved of her buying something so impractical in white and in a delicately luxurious fabric. Clothes to him had simply been a necessary practicality. Verity could still remember how surprised and thrilled she had been when she and Silas had been walking through town one day and he had stopped her outside a boutique window and, indicating the dress inside, told her tenderly, ‘That would suit you…’
The dress in question had been a silky halter-necked affair, backless, the fabric scattered with pretty feminine flowers, and it had also been a world away from the type of clothes she had normally worn: sturdy jeans, neatly pleated skirts, dully sensible clothes bought under the stern eye of her uncle’s sixty-year-old Scottish housekeeper.
‘Oh, Silas, it’s lovely,’ she had breathed, ‘but it’s far too…too pretty for me…’
‘Nothing could ever be too pretty for you,’ Silas had returned softly, adding huskily, ‘Not pretty enough, maybe…’
‘Oh, Silas…’ she had whispered, blushing.
‘Oh, Verity,’ he had teased her back but, later in the week, when he had arrived with a present for her that had turned out to be the dress, the look in his eyes when he had persuaded her to model it for him had made her blush for a very, very different reason.
She had protested, of course, that he shouldn’t have bought her something so personal nor so expensive.
‘Why not?’ he had countered. ‘You’re the woman I love, the woman I’m going to marry.’
She had been so young and naive then, assuming that he’d accepted that even as Silas’ wife she’d owe it to her uncle to do as he wished and take her place in his business. She had known too, of course, that Silas hadn’t been happy about the silent but ostrich-like way she had convinced herself that it would all work out and had pushed it to the back of her mind. Silas would surely come to respect her point of view. They were young and in love—how could anything so mundane as duty come between them? She had been too dazed with love and happiness to guess that Silas might still see her role as his future wife in a far different light from that in which she did herself.
Through the sitting-room window Verity saw the headlights of a car coming up the drive. Silas! It had to be.
She opened the front door to him, putting her finger to her lips as she warned him, ‘Honor’s asleep.’
He looked tired, she recognised, deep lines etched either side of his mouth and tension very evident in the way he moved as he followed her into the house. For some inexplicable reason these indications of the fact that he was no longer a carefree young man in his twenties increased rather than detracted from his masculinity, Verity realised, her heartbeat quickening as the adrenalin kicked into her system and sent a surge of dangerous emotion racing through her veins.
‘Was everything all right at the garden centre?’ she asked him shakily as he followed her into the kitchen.
Best not to look at him. Not yet. Not until she had herself fully and properly under control. Not that that shuddery, all-too-familiar sensation within her body meant anything, of course, it was just…just…Well, she certainly didn’t want him looking at her face and recognising anything that might possibly be familiar to him.
‘Well, there were no signs of anyone having broken in,’ Silas told her tiredly. ‘I checked and then double-checked the place and the alarm and everything seemed okay, but the police say that they had a definite tip-off that the place was being broken into and it always leaves you worrying. You know the sort of thing—create a false alarm and then when all the fuss has died down…We’ve got a hell of a lot of valuable young plants there at the moment, plus a delivery of antique garden statues which I’ve acquired for one of my clients. It’s insured but…’ He changed the subject. ‘Thanks for looking after Honor for me.’ He stopped and grimaced as his obviously empty stomach gave a protesting growl.
‘You’re hungry.’ Verity looked at him. ‘Would you like something to eat…?’
He started to shake his head and then stopped as his stomach gave another, louder, protest.
‘It isn’t anything much,’ Verity warned him without waiting for him to make any refusal. ‘Just some pâté and French bread…’
Behind her as she busied herself at the fridge, Verity could hear him groan.
‘That sounds marvellous,’ he told her, admitting, ‘I’m famished and I missed out on lunch altogether today.’
‘But you had dinner,’ Verity began as she removed the pâté and some salad, ‘and you always used to enjoy Italian.’
‘So did you…Remember when I flew out to New York to see you and you took me all around the Italian restaurants you’d discovered…?’
Verity looked at him.
‘Yes,’ she agreed huskily. ‘Yes, I do.’
It had been a brief, a far too brief, visit—a cheap flight he had managed to get, involving only a two-night stay, his visit a surprise to her on her birthday.
She had cried with joy when he’d arrived and she had cried again—wept with misery when he had left, but those tears had been nothing to the ones she had cried the day she had read of his marriage to someone else.
‘Unfortunately Myra isn’t as keen on Italian food as I am and after…Well, we left the restaurant shortly after you—the call came through from the police on my mobile before we could order.’
‘It isn’t much,’ Verity told him again as she put the plate of pâté and salad she had just prepared onto the table in front of him and then went to cut the bread.
‘Not much! It’s wonderful, manna from heaven,’ Silas told her fervently.
‘Cappuccino?’ Verity asked him quizzically as she handed him the bread basket.
It had always been a bit of a joke between them that he had loved the rich chocolate-sprinkled coffee so much. She didn’t need to guess where Honor had got her sweet tooth from.
‘Mmm…this pâté’s good. Did you buy it locally?’ Silas asked her.
Shaking her head, Verity turned away from him. Despite what Honor had assumed, she was, in fact, a very good self-taught cook.
‘Actually, I made it myself,’ she told him truthfully, and she could see what he was thinking from the way he looked from his plate to her expensive and impractical white trousers.
‘Not wearing this,’
she told him slightly tartly.
He had almost finished eating and had started to frown again. ‘I’d better go up and get Honor,’ he told her. ‘I’m sorry you got landed with her this evening…It’s one of the trials of being a single parent that…’
‘Yes. It must have been hard for you, losing your wife,’ Verity forced herself to acknowledge.
‘Nowhere near as hard as it was for her to lose her life, nor Honor to lose her mother,’ he countered harshly, before adding equally grimly, as he glanced at her unbanded wedding finger. ‘Obviously, you’ve never married.’
‘No,’ Verity agreed coolly. ‘The business—’ she began, but Silas wouldn’t allow her to finish.
He interrupted her with a harsh, ‘Don’t tell me. I know…remember?’
He started to get up as Verity reached to remove his plate, her hair accidentally falling forward and brushing his face as they both moved at the same time.
Immediately Verity tensed, lifting her hand to push her hair off her face, but Silas, on his feet by this time, got there first. The sensation of his fingers in her hair was so familiar, so intimate, that she instinctively closed her eyes.
‘Verity…’ she heard Silas groan, and then the next minute she was in his arms and he was kissing her with a fierce, hungry, angry, passion that brought her defences crashing down so that immediately and helplessly she was responding to him, the years rolling back so that she was a girl again, so that they were a couple, a pair again, so that there was nowhere that it was more natural for her to be than here in his arms, nothing that was more natural for her to feel than what she was feeling right now, nothing it was more natural for her to want than what she was wanting right now.
Beneath his mouth and hands her body threw off the shackles she had so sternly imposed on it—he was hers again and she was his. Hers to reach out and touch, as she was doing right now, slipping her fingertips into the gap she had miraculously found between the buttons on his shirt, feeling the solid, familiar heat of his skin. Without realising what she was doing, she unfastened one of the shirt buttons that was preventing her from touching him as she wanted to do.
Beneath his mouth she made a small, contented sound of triumph and pleasure at being able to spread her hands fully over his chest with nothing in the way to bar her sensual exploration of his naked skin.
He felt so good, so Silas, so wonderfully familiar. He even tasted just as she had remembered. Automatically Verity pressed closer to him, shuddering deliciously as she felt his hands slide down her back to cup her bottom, lifting her even deeper into his body.
She could feel the urgency, the hunger, the need, in the way he touched her, running his hands over all her body as he continued to kiss her with increasing passion.
The kitchen was full of the sound of their heightened breathing, the electric crackle of hands against cloth, the silky whisper of skin against skin.
‘It’s been so long,’ Verity whispered emotionally between their kisses. ‘I’ve wanted…’
I’ve wanted you so much, she was just about to say, but suddenly she stiffened. From upstairs Verity heard the bathroom door open. Silas must have heard it too because he immediately released her, saying tautly, ‘This shouldn’t be happening. Blame it on the frustration of the evening…’
The frustration? Verity’s hands were shaking so much she had to hold them out of sight behind her back as she came back down to earth with a sickening jolt.
What was Silas saying to her? That it was his sexual frustration at having to leave Myra which had caused him to kiss her?
For a moment she thought she was actually going to be sick. A pain, like red-hot twisting knives, was shredding her emotions. Silas hadn’t been thinking about her at all. All that passion, all that need, all that wanting she had felt in him, had not been for her at all and she, like a complete idiot, had virtually been on the point of telling him, revealing to him…
Turning away from him so that he couldn’t see her face, she told him quietly, ‘Honor’s obviously awake.’
‘I’ll go up and get her,’ Silas announced curtly. ‘Thanks for looking after her for me.’
‘I didn’t do it for you,’ Verity told him fiercely. ‘I did it for her.’
She still couldn’t risk turning round. She daredn’t, just in case…Just in case what? Just in case Silas guessed what she had been thinking…feeling…wanting…? His pity was something she couldn’t bear. His scorn and his rejection would be hard enough to stomach—almost as hard as the knowledge that for the second time he was rejecting her in favour of another woman, letting her know that he simply didn’t want her—but if she should look at him now and see pity in his eyes…
Quickly she headed for the kitchen door.
‘I’ll show you which room Honor’s in,’ she told him without looking at him.
Honor was back in bed when Verity pushed open the bedroom door. When she saw her father she smiled winningly at him.
‘Can I stay here with Verity tonight?’ she asked.
‘No, you can’t,’ Silas denied sharply, softening his denial by explaining, ‘I’m sure Verity’s far too busy…’
‘You’re not, are you, Verity?’ Honor appealed. Verity hesitated. What could she say?
‘Perhaps another time,’ she offered as Silas gathered up Honor’s clothes and stood waiting determinedly with them.
The house felt empty once they had gone.
Oh, but how could she have been so stupid as to overreact like that just because…? No wonder Silas had felt it necessary to make it clear to her that there had been nothing personal in that kiss he had given her. She could feel her face starting to burn with humiliation and pain. As she began to tidy up the kitchen, a small item on the floor caught her eye. Frowning, she bent to pick it up. It was a button—a man’s shirt button. Her face burned even more hotly. She must have ripped it off when she had…Quickly she swallowed. She had never been driven by her sexuality and even when she and Silas had been lovers she had always been the more passive partner. She could certainly never remember having virtually ripped the shirt off his back before. Angrily she put her hands to her hot face. The last thing she needed was for Silas to start thinking that she was holding some kind of torch for him…that she still wanted him, that she was stupid enough to still be hurting over the way he had treated her.
From now on, when they met—if they met—she was going to have to make it very clear to him that tonight’s kiss was something as little wanted or relished by her as it had been by him!
CHAPTER SIX
‘DAD.’
‘Mmm…’ Silas glanced down at his daughter’s head as she sat next to him in the car.
‘When Verity lived here before, were you friends?’
‘What makes you ask that?’ Silas questioned her sharply.
‘Nothing.’ Honor smiled, looking up at him. ‘Well, were you?’
‘No.’ Silas told her curtly.
‘Yes. That’s what she said.’
Silas frowned.
‘She’s very pretty, though, isn’t she?’ Honor continued sunnily. ‘Riccardo certainly thought so.’
‘Very,’ Silas agreed through gritted teeth. As a young girl Verity has possessed a natural, wholesome, sweet prettiness, but as a woman she had matured into someone whose subtle sensuality…
His favourite plants were always those that took a little bit of knowing; whose attractions were not necessarily flashingly visible at first glance. He had never liked anything overblown nor obvious and Verity…Just now, kissing her, he had been overwhelmed by the urge, by the memory of a certain night they had spent together in the heat of her small New York flat when, during their lovemaking, she had wrapped her legs around him and…
Tonight, watching the way she had moved in that silky white suit she had been wearing, remembering just how lovely and equally silky and feminine her legs were…
‘I really like her and she’s going to be my friend,’ Honor informed him. ‘Can I i
nvite her round for tea tomorrow?’
‘What? No, you can’t. You’ve got school in the morning and homework.’
‘No, I haven’t. We’re having a leave day—I told you last week.’
‘What?’ Silas looked at her and groaned.
‘Honor, why on earth didn’t you remind me of that earlier?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve got a site meeting in the morning that I can’t put off.’
‘You should have left me at Verity’s,’ Honor told him practically. ‘You’ll have to ring her and ask her if she can look after me tomorrow.’
‘What? No way. What about Catherine?’
‘No.’ Honor shook her head firmly. ‘She’s got her aunt and uncle staying, remember?’
Silas groaned again.
When Honor had been a baby he had employed a succession of full-time live-in nannies to take care of her when he wasn’t there, also taking her into work with him when he could, but the situation was more complicated now that Honor was growing up. For one thing she was extremely independent and diabolically good at getting her own way so that finding the right kind of person—someone firm enough for her to respect and yet young enough not to be too restrictive with her—was proving increasingly difficult. Anna helped out when he could spare her from the garden centre, but they were too busy just now for her to be away from the centre all day.
His last housekeeper had left after Silas had made it plain that she was employed to take care of Honor’s needs and not his own, and since then he had been relying increasingly on a patchwork of haphazard arrangements, getting by on a wing and a prayer and the good offices of kind friends.
If he hadn’t hit such a busy patch with the business, he would have had time to advertise and sort something more permanent out, but as it was…
‘I expect Myra was really cross when you had to leave to go to the garden centre,’ Honor commented.
Silas gave her a wry look.
‘Just a little,’ he agreed.
The truth was that Myra had been furious. She was not a particularly maternal woman. In fact, her own two sons from her marriage lived with their father and his new partner. Silas knew perfectly well that becoming his wife was Myra’s goal but being Honor’s doting stepmother was the last thing the woman wanted.