‘When all of what comes out? Don’t exaggerate,’ Peggy scolded. ‘You lived with him, it broke down, and now you’re married to him. You can’t get a lot of scandalous mileage out of that. Daniel’s his, end of story.’
‘It’s not that simple––’
‘Neither was the amount of information you contrived to leave out when you once briefly discussed Daniel’s father with me,’ Peggy interposed. ‘I’ve met him for about ten minutes now and I’m not sure I’m very much the wiser. Mind you, he has three virtues not to be sneezed at. One, he’s generous. I won’t add that he can afford to be. Two, he has to be the best-looking specimen I’ve ever seen live off a movie-screen. That’s a sexist observation, Catherine, but, shamefully, that was my first reaction. Three, anyone capable of charming Daniel out of a tantrum that fast is worthy of respect.’
‘Anything else?’
‘When he breezed off with Daniel and left you behind like faithful Penelope, I found myself hoping that Clover would be in a more than usually anti-social state of mind when he has to get close and enthuse. I bet he’s never been within twenty feet of a donkey before!’
That so matched Catherine’s thoughts that she burst out laughing, but her amusement was short-lived. She sighed. ‘If 1 hadn’t lost my memory, I’d have had to tell him about Daniel last week. That wouldn’t have been quite so bad.’
‘If you ask me, and you won’t, so I’ll give it to you for free,’ Peggy murmured, ‘where Daniel’s concerned, Luc got what he deserved. If he hadn’t made you so insecure you’d have trusted him enough to tell him. And it strikes me that he’s bright enough to work that one out for himself.‘If he wants to work it out, Catherine reflected unhappily. And nothing Luc had said earlier in the day had given her the impression that he intended to make that leap in tolerant understanding. She walked Peggy back to her car, both dreading and anticipating Luc’s return.
Clover arrived first, as irascible as ever, snapping at the gardener, who was detailed to take her to the paddock. Catherine was interrupted in the midst of her thanks to the lady who ran the animal sanctuary and had taken the trouble to deliver Clover back, and was informed with an embarrassed smile that Luc had made a most handsome donation to the sanctuary. Ironically, that irritated her. Why were things always so easy for Luc?
He strolled in after ten with Daniel fast asleep in his arms. On the brink of demanding to know where they had been all day, she caught herself up. The cool challenge in Luc’s gaze informed her that he was prepared for exactly that kind of response. Moving forward, she took Daniel from him instead. ‘I’ll put him to bed.’
She carted her exhausted son up to the bedroom where he had slept for the previous two nights. He stirred while she was undressing him, eyes flying open in sudden panic. ‘Where’s Daddy?’
‘Downstairs.’
‘I thought I dreamt him.’ Daniel gave her a sleepy, beguiling smile. ‘He doesn’t know anything about kids but he knows a lot about computers,’ he said forgivingly, submitting to a hug and winding his arms round her neck. ‘I’m sorry I was bad.’
Her eyes stung. ‘I’ll forgive you this once.’
‘Daddy s’plained everything. It’s all his fault we got split up,’ he whispered, drifting off again.
From the bottom of her heart, she thanked Luc for that at least. He had put Daniel’s needs before his own anger, healing the breach between Catherine and her son before it could get any wider. As it could have done.Catherine was well aware that, for the foreseeable future, Luc would occupy centre stage with Daniel. Luc had had the power to swerve him even further in that direction. But he hadn’t used it.
She went down to the drawing-room. For all its size, it had a cosy aspect of comfort, decorated as it was with the faded country-house look she had always admired. The interior lacked a lived-in quality, though. The housekeeper, Mrs Stokes, had gone to considerable trouble with flower arrangements in empty spaces, but it was so obvious that nobody had lived here in years. Mrs Stokes had told her quite casually that Luc had never even spent a night below this roof before.
And he had bought this house for her, had scarcely come near it after the first few months. Luc had had faith in her, she registered painfully. Luc had been convinced that she would return. What she had forced him to face today was that she had not had a corresponding faith in him. She had asked for nothing, expected nothing and, not surprisingly, nothing was what she had received.
‘Is he asleep?’ Luc paused on the threshold, leashed vitality vibrating from his poised stance. His veiled dark gaze was completely unreadable.
She cleared her dry throat. ‘He went out like a light. You must have tired him out. That doesn’t often happen.’
Luc moved a fluid shoulder. ‘He doesn’t have enough stimulation. He was on his very best behaviour with me, but I suspect displays of temper such as I witnessed earlier are not infrequent.’
‘He was upset,’ she said defensively.
‘He’s an extremely bright child. He should start school as soon as possible.’
She paled in dismay. ‘I don’t want him sent away.’
Luc raised a brow. ‘Did I suggest that? He does not have to board. Rome has an excellent school for gifted children. The opportunity to compete with equals would benefit Daniel.’ He took a deep breath, cast an almostwary look at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. Tight-mouthed, she was staring at the floor. ‘He’s a little old to be throwing tantrums. That surplus energy could be better employed.’
‘You’re very critical!’ she snapped.
‘That wasn’t my intention. He’s an infinitely more well-balanced child than I was at the same age, but he needs more to occupy him. Unless you plan to continue letting him educate himself from the television set.’
Catherine reddened fiercely but she didn’t argue, uneasily conscious that he had some grounds for that comment. ‘I did my best.’
‘He’s basically a very happy, very confident child. I think you did a marvellous job, considering that you were on your own and, as Daniel assured me repeatedly, very short of money.’
The compliment only increased her tension. Luc was so distant, so controlled..She didn’t recognise him like this. He was unnerving her. She stole a covert under-the-lashes glance at the vibrancy of his dark golden features, desperate to know how he felt now that he had had time to cool down.
‘Was what you said to me this morning true? Or a fabrication of the moment?’ he prompted very quietly. ‘Did you really believe that I would have demanded that you have an abortion?’
The colour drained from her complexion. ‘Put like that, it sounds so––’
‘Cruel? Inhuman? Selfish?’ he suggested, his beautiful eyes running like flames of dancing gold over her distressed face. ‘Presumably that is how you saw me then.’
In bewilderment she shook her head at this incorrect assertion. ‘I didn’t… when something gets in your way, you get rid of it,’ she stumbled, conscious that she was not expressing herself very well. ‘I just felt that if that was what you wanted, I mightn’t have been able to standup to you. That was what I was most afraid of. I might have let you persuade me…’
Every angle of his strong bone-structure was whip-taut. ‘Per amor di Dio, what did I do to give you such an image of me?’
The scene wasn’t working in the way she had hoped it would. Luc was dwelling with dangerously precise intensity on the jumbled mess of imprecise emotions and fears which had guided her almost five years ago. ‘It wasn’t like that. Can’t you understand that the longer I kept quiet about it, the harder it was for me to tell you?’
‘What I understand is that you were very much afraid of me and that you were convinced that I would kill my unborn child for convenience. Yet even when I didn’t know that I loved you, I cared for you,’ he murmured with flat emphasis. ‘And even if I hadn’t loved you, I still couldn’t have chosen such a course of action.’
Tears lashed the back of her eyes. She b
linked rapidly. ‘I’m sorry.’ It was a cry from the heart.
A grim curve hardened his mouth. ‘I think it is I who should be sorry. I appear to have reaped what I sowed. And you had no more faith in me yesterday when you married me. You still couldn’t summon up the courage to tell me about Daniel.’
‘I’m a frightful coward… you ought to know that by now.’ It was an uneasy joke that was truth. ‘And anyway, I didn’t want to spoil the wedding,’ she muttered, not looking at him, too aware that it was a pathetic excuse.
The silence stretched, dragging her nerves unbearably tight.
‘How much of a chance is there that this last week will threaten to extend the family circle?’ he asked tautly.
As his meaning sank in, she licked her dry lips nervously, conscious that she would very soon have confirmation one way or another. ‘Very little chance,’ she proffered honestly, strangely, ridiculously embarrassed all of a sudden by the subject. Luc’s attitude was a farcry from his attitude that day at the pool, and that day seemed so long ago now.
If he wasn’t quite tactless enough to heave a loud sigh of relief at the news, he wasn’t capable of concealing that she had alleviated a fairly sizeable apprehension. The most obvious aspects of his strong tension dissolved. ‘I want you to know that I didn’t think of repercussions either those first few days that we were together. I am not that unscrupulous,’ he asserted, even managing a faint smile. ‘I didn’t plan to make you pregnant.’
‘That’s OK.’ Catherine gave a jerky shrug, couldn’t have got another word out, she was so desperately hurt by his reaction. The idea of another child had taken surprising root, she discovered belatedly. She saw Luc’s withdrawal of enthusiasm as the ultimate rejection. It was only a tiny step further to the belief that he no longer saw their marriage as a permanent fixture. A second child would only have complicated matters.
‘I was very careless,’ he remarked.
Catherine wasn’t listening to him. She was on the edge of bursting into floods of tears and bitter recriminations. A strategic retreat was called for. She cut a wide passage round him. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’
‘I won’t disturb you.’
It was no consolation at all to discover that Luc’s possessions had been removed from the main bedroom at some stage of the evening. He hadn’t even given her the chance to throw him out! Grabbing a pillow, she punched it and then thrust her face in it to muffle her sobs.
CHAPTER TEN
‘Can I get you anything else, Mrs Santini?’
Catherine surveyed her plate guiltily. One croissant, shredded into about fifteen pieces, not a tooth mark on one of them. ‘No, thanks.’ She forced a smile. ‘I’m not very hungry.’
Her appetite was no more resilient than her heart. Luc had taken Daniel to Paris with him very early this morning. They would be back by evening. In Daniel’s hearing, Luc had smoothly suggested that she might like to accompany them. Her refusal had been equally smoothly accepted. The invitation had clearly been for Daniel’s benefit alone.
The past four days, she conceded numbly, had been hell upon earth. She had learnt the trick of shortening them. She went to bed early and slept late. Yet she could not fault Luc’s behaviour. He was being scrupulously polite and considerate. Indeed, he was making a very special effort. It didn’t come naturally to him. She could feel the raw tension behind the cool front. She could taste it in the air. He couldn’t hide it from her.
He didn’t love her. How could she ever have been foolish enough to believe that he might? Then again, she had a talent for dreaming, for believing what she wanted to believe, she conceded with bitter self-contempt. Luc had chased an illusion for almost five years and he had suddenly woken up to the truth. Daniel had been the catalyst, but even if Daniel hadn’t existed Luc would inevitably have realised that he had made a mistake.
In her absence, Luc must have built her up to be something more exciting than she was. When he’d found her again, her reluctance and the challenge of apparently taking her away from another man had provoked that dark, savage temperament of his. All that mattered to him was winning. Having won, he’d found that the battle had not proved to be worth the prize.
He was in a quandary now. It would look exceedingly strange if their marriage broke up too soon. There was also Daniel to be considered. At least, however, there would be no other child. She sat rigidly in the dining chair, a tempest of emotion storming through her slight body.
She was not carrying his child. The proof had come that very night when she had abandoned herself to grief. There would be no other baby, no further tie by which she might hold him. Her sane mind told her that was fortunate, but more basic promptings rebelled against that cooler judgement.
She could not picture life without Luc again. That terrified her. The more distant he was, the more desperate she felt. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t do anything. What was there now? she asked herself. What had he left her? Daniel adored him. Daniel could hardly bear Luc out of his sight.
Her future stretched emptily before her. Daniel would start school in Rome. Initially she would be there as well but, little by little, the marriage that had never quite got off the ground would shift into a separation. Luc would make lengthy business trips and she would no doubt do what was expected of her and make regular visits back to England. Certainly it would be impossible for her to withstand continual exposure to Luc as he was now.
It was torture to be so close and yet so far, to shake with wanting him in the loneliness of her bed at night, to exhaust herself by day keeping up a pretence that she was quite happy with things as they were. Damp-eyed, she lifted her head high. She would not let Luc see how much he was hurting her. Pride demanded that she equal his detachment and make no attempt to break it.
Not that she thought she was managing to be totally convincing. In between all the pleases and thank-yous she had never heard so many of before, she occasionally encountered searching stares. His tension spoke for itself. Luc wanted her to let go with finesse. He was willing her not to force some melodramatic scene. Rage and despair constrained her in an iron yoke of silence, creating an inner conflict that threatened to tear her apart. Why couldn’t he have left her alone? Why had he had to thrust his way back into her life? Why had he laid a white rose on her pillow? Why had he had to force her to admit that, far from hating him, she loved him? Why? Why? Why?
Angered by her own desperation, she stood up, determined not to spend another day wandering about like a lost soul. For starters, it was time she saw Drew, time she stopped avoiding that issue. After all, she had already contacted his godmother. Mrs Anstey had ranted down the phone at her, refusing her apologies and telling her with satisfaction that she had given the flat to a great-niece, who would be far more suitable. Catherine had taken the verbal trouncing in silence. It had lightened her conscience.
She didn’t expect her meeting with Drew to be quite so straightforward. Did she tell him that she was responsible for the nerve-racking experiences he must have endured in Germany? Or did he already know? Would he even want to see her now?
It was early afternoon when she entered the compact offices that housed Huntingdon Components. Drew’s secretary phoned through an announcement of her arrival. Drew emerged from his office, his pleasant features stiff and almost expressionless. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘I felt I had to see you.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know quite how to greet Mrs Luc Santini.’
She tilted her chin. ‘I’m still Catherine,’ she murmured steadily.
He stood at the window, his back half turned to her. ‘I tried to call you from Germany. My housekeeper told me that you’d cleared out without even staying the night. She said the bedroom was so tidy that she wasn’t too sure you’d been in it at all.’
Catherine bent her head. Luc’s security staff were thorough.
‘Then I saw that photo of you at the airport with Sant
ini. It was in every newspaper,’ he sighed. ‘Daniel is the image of him. Harriet lied about your background. I put that together for myself.’
‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you the truth.’
‘It was none of my business when I first knew you. But I preferred competing with a ghost,’ he admitted wryly, and hesitated. ‘To take off with him like that, you have to be crazy about him…’
Her vague idea of explaining what had really happened died there. Somehow she felt it would be disloyal to Luc. Drew had no need of that information. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, half under her breath, and then, looking up, asked, ‘Did you get your contract?’
Unexpectedly, he smiled widely. ‘Not the one I went out for. Quite coincidentally, an even more promising prospect came up. It’s secured the firm’s future for a long time to come. What’s that saying? Lucky at cards, unlucky in love?’
Her eyes clouded over, but she was shaken to realise that Drew was quite unaware that his firm had been under threat and had ultimately profited from the change in contracts. He had undergone no anxiety, and the news that he had achieved that second contract through Luc’s influence would not be welcome. He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I’ve agreed to go to counselling with Annette, but I don’t know if it will change anything.’
A smile chased the tension from her soft mouth. ‘I’m glad,’ she said sincerely.
‘I still think you’re pure gold, Catherine.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I just hope that he appreciates how lucky he is.’
Not so’s you’d notice, she repined helplessly as she climbed back into the limousine. A male, punch-drunk on his good fortune, did not willingly vacate the marital bed and avoid all physical contact. Quite obviously, Luc couldn’t bring himself to touch her. The white-hot heat of his hunger had died along with the illusion. But it hadn’t died for her. Her love had never been an illusion. She had never been blind to Luc’s flaws or her own. She still ached with wanting him. And soon she would despise herself again for that weakness.
Lynne Graham-Tempestuous Reunion Page 16