by Penny Jordan
‘She’s my daughter,’ Lewis reminded her huskily.
‘She’s been your daughter for the last nineteen years.’
It was unfair of her and she knew it as she watched him wince and the colour burn up under his face, but she couldn’t afford to let her emotions sway her now.
‘You told me you thought she ought to consider being sterilised,’ she reminded him.
He looked at her, his eyes shocked and growing hard. ‘And you think that that’s why—’
‘You’re encouraging her…allowing her to believe you genuinely want to develop a relationship with her. I think it’s part of it, yes.’
There was a long pause when the expression in his eyes both hurt and confused her. He was looking at her almost as though she was the one who was guilty of trying to hurt Jessica, when in fact…
‘And if I was to give you my word that all I want is to have a chance to get to know her, to allow her to get to know me? She’s not a child, Lacey, as you so rightly said. She’s a young woman. Do you honestly believe that she’d allow anything I had to say on so important a subject to sway her judgement, especially when she only has to look at you, her mother, to see what joy and happiness having a child can bring? Have you really so little faith in the way you’ve brought her up?’
He was being unfair now and he knew it. She shook her head despairingly. ‘Normally, no. She is very strong-minded, very independent…but…’ She bit her lip and then dropped her guard completely, abandoning her pride, as she stepped towards him and begged pleadingly, ‘Don’t you see, Lewis? At the moment you’re so new to her…so special. It’s like…it’s like a teenage infatuation…a first real love-affair; your views…your feelings will be so important to her. Please…please don’t try to persuade her to do something she’ll have to live with for the rest of her life.
‘You’ve made your decision. Please allow Jessica the right to make her own…for herself.’
‘As you’re doing?’
Lacey bit her lip a little bit harder and bowed her head. ‘If she should actually decide that she wanted never to have any children because of the risks involved, I wouldn’t try to persuade her to change her mind. Not if I was convinced that that was genuinely what she wanted. At the moment I think she’s too young—for all her maturity—to make that decision.’
There was another long pause, and then Lewis said slowly, ‘And I agree with you.’
When he turned to look at her there was a haunted, bitter look in his eyes, and she wondered painfully what had put it there. Having seen Jessica, did he perhaps wish he had had other children…other daughters…children by a woman he had genuinely loved?
She could feel tears gathering at the back of her eyes and fought to blink them away.
Lewis looked tired, drained; he looked the way she felt, she recognised. He looked as though he wanted to sit down somewhere and close his eyes and let whatever it was that was weighing so heavily on him slip from him, freeing him from its burden.
Just for a moment she hesitated, torn between wanting to reach out to him, to nurture him in the same way as she instinctively nurtured everyone around her, and then she remembered the past, her pain, and all the reasons why she must keep him at a distance.
She glanced down at her stained clothes, and then looked pointedly at him and said quickly, ‘Well, you’ve made your point now, Lewis, and I really must get on. I’m rather busy, as you can see.’
‘Got the boyfriend coming round later, have you?’ he asked her harshly.
She turned to stare at him, her eyes rounding as she demanded sharply, ‘What boyfriend?’
‘Jessica seemed to think that Ian Hanson has a bit of a thing for you.’ He said it carelessly, derisively almost, causing her face to burn with angry colour and her small fists to clench.
‘Ian happens to be a very good and a very dear friend. I am a mature woman who considers herself well beyond the age of having “boyfriends”, but even if I did have I hardly think it would be any business of yours.
‘I still don’t really know why you came round here today, Lewis, but I would prefer you to leave now before you really make me angry.’
She was quite proud of her small speech, but Lewis didn’t react to it at all.
‘What I came round for was to ask you not to be too angry with Jessica for getting in touch with me. I know how you must feel about it, how little you must want any kind of contact between us. But I also know how much you love her and how little you will want to alienate her—’
Lacey couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘Do you really think me so stupid,’ she demanded when she could interrupt him, ‘or so selfish? No, if you want the truth, I don’t want you in Jessica’s life, but that’s a personal feeling: my feeling. Do you really think I can’t put myself in Jessica’s shoes, that I can’t understand how she feels? Do you really think I’m so selfish…so…so possessive that I would…?’ She broke off and swallowed. ‘And as for my being angry with her…’ Her body knotted with tension. ‘I’m not angry with Jessica, Lewis.’
‘Meaning that I’m the one you’ve directed that emotion against.’
‘Look, I just want you to leave,’ she told him huskily. ‘I don’t see any point in our continuing with this discussion. You know where the front door is,’ she told him pointedly, heading for the stairs. ‘I won’t see you out if you don’t mind.’
As she walked away from him she could feel tears starting to sting her eyes.
‘Lacey, please, I…’
She tensed as he came after her, catching hold of her arm, all the tension and emotion his presence was causing her boiling up inside, breaking down the barriers of her self-control so that she tried to pull away from him, crying out frantically, ‘Let go of me…don’t touch me!’
As she tried to jerk herself free of him he let her go. She stumbled awkwardly, blindly putting out her hand to save herself. Her hipbone collided painfully with the chest against the wall, but before she could fall any further she was suddenly snatched up off her feet, Lewis’s voice harsh and angry against her ear as he gritted, ‘You little fool! What’s wrong with you? I wasn’t going to hurt you. I only wanted…’
She was shivering, trembling violently as the heat coming off his body surrounded her. She could smell his familiar scent, see the dark shadow along his jaw where his beard grew. Her heart was thudding in frantic panic, her body aching…yearning. She tried to blank out what she was feeling, to focus on something other than his face, to blot out the effect he was having on her senses, on her emotions.
He might be holding on to her in anger and impatience rather than in desire; her brain might be perfectly well aware of that, but the trouble was that her body seemed to have difficulty in recognising this fact.
Her body. Her eyes burned with the strain of suppressing the tears; her throat felt raw and over-tight. Every breath she took was reinforcing her emotional and physical awareness of him. She could actually feel her own yearning need for him deep within her body. Her breasts suddenly felt heavy and tender. She wanted to lean against him; to wrap herself around him; to…
Frantic with panic, with the need to protect herself and conceal from him what she was feeling, she twisted in his grasp, trying to pull away from him, trying to escape the enervating masculine heat of his body.
‘Lacey, for God’s sake, what is it? You can’t really think that I’d hurt you.’
Her head jerked round, a reminder on her lips of how easily and carelessly he had once done exactly that, emotionally if not physically, and then confusingly she heard the pain in his voice. Unwittingly she focused on him.
She knew immediately that he had seen what was in her eyes because she saw the recognition of it flash through his own. She tried to pull away, to turn her head, an inarticulate sound of denial and panic strangled in her throat as he said her name, his hand leaving her arm to cup the side of her face, stroking gently against her skin, so gently that it was almost as thou
gh he couldn’t believe he was actually touching her.
As she flinched and trembled he slid his fingers into her hair, his thumb brushing the flushed heat of her cheek, touching the corner of her mouth.
‘No. Lewis. No, please, I don’t want this,’ she protested huskily, but they both knew it was a lie and that there was nothing she wanted more than the intimacy of his mouth against her own, his arms around her, his body…She wasn’t even trying to free herself any more, simply standing instead within the shelter of his arms, still trembling, while his eyes gravely searched her face.
She was still helplessly trying to protest that she didn’t want him when he started to kiss her, slowly at first, both his hands now cupping her face, his mouth lifting from hers so that he could look into her eyes, huge and shadowed with all that she was feeling.
She lifted her hands to his chest to push him away. Beneath his shirt his skin felt as though it were on fire. She could feel the rapid thumping of his heart, and her own body trembled in response. He was kissing her again, tasting the texture of her lips, his tongue caressing their soft outline.
Tears clogged the back of her throat as she fought to deny her own emotions.
How many, many times down the years had she dreamed of him kissing her like this, only to wake and find herself alone? As she struggled against what was happening to her, she tried to remind herself of all the reasons why she should stop him, why she should deny herself the intimacy her body craved. But even as she argued with herself her lips were clinging softly to his, and then parting, her tongue unable to resist the temptation of exploring his mouth as he had done hers. Its familiar texture and taste swamped her senses, the soft little moan of pleasure she gave drowning out the cautionary voices clamouring inside her. The hands she had put out to push him away had somehow or other slid over his shoulders, her fingertips trembling as she touched the familiar hard bones. The gap between them had been completely closed now. Beneath her T-shirt and shorts she could feel the heat burning her body.
‘Lewis.’
She was unaware of whispering his name, only of the fact that his mouth was covering her own, that he was kissing her now with a fierce intensity that matched and fed her own need. She clung to him, opening her mouth to the invasion of his tongue, welcoming its possessive thrust with soft eagerness.
His hands moulded her body, urging her even closer to him. The heat and scent coming off his skin made her ache for even closer contact with him, to be able to touch him without the barrier of his clothes between them.
As a lover he had always been caring and considerate as well as passionate, and her body responded to him now as eagerly as it always had done, heedless of the warning cried out by her brain.
She wasn’t sure which of them unfastened the buttons on his shirt, her only awareness that of the infinite pleasure it gave her to slide her hands over his damp skin, to kiss the hard damp column of his throat and feel the tremor that burned through him at her touch.
His hands were on her hips, holding her against him. She felt the tension in his fingers as he gripped her, and then he was caressing her, tracing the narrow indentation of her waist, cupping her breasts. She could feel her nipples pressing eagerly against his palms, seeking his touch.
‘Lewis.’
She whispered his name achingly against his skin, need overcoming reason as her defences came crashing down, her body pliant and eager against his, her mouth trembling as she caressed his skin.
He tensed abruptly, and let go of her.
‘Lacey, I can’t.’
Immediately she was shocked back to reality, her own arms falling to her sides, her face ashen with shock and humiliation. What on earth was she doing?
She felt sick with self-disgust, immediately stepping back from him, seeking the protective shadows of the hallway in which to conceal the physical effect he was still having on her.
‘Go. Just go,’ she demanded brokenly, adding, when he simply stood where he was without moving, ‘Go, Lewis. Can’t you see that I just can’t take any more?’
Her pride was in rags. She didn’t care what she betrayed to him any longer. It was too late for that now anyway. He must know from the way she had responded to him how much she still wanted him. Tears blurred her eyes. She heard him moving behind her and turned round.
He was walking towards the door. He paused before opening it and then turned to give her one last look. She averted her head, unable to meet it. He had gone. She was safe. Safe. She laughed bitterly. Dear God, she would never be safe again.
She felt raw inside, still aching for him at the same time as she hated and loathed herself for doing so.
She went upstairs and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She was shaking so much she had to stand there for almost five minutes before she could move.
She looked at herself in the mirror and flinched at the image it threw back at her. She looked, she decided in disgust, exactly what she was—a woman who had been sexually aroused to the point where that arousal was plain for everyone to see.
There were, she discovered, tears pouring down her face, and she felt alternately hot and cold, her body convulsed with frantic shudders of reaction.
She turned on the shower and pulled off her clothes, dropping them on the floor with a gesture of disgust. It astounded her that she, who was normally so fastidious, should have wanted any man so much, never mind one who had hurt her as Lewis had done, that she had been oblivious to the paint-stains on her skin, the sweat that was now drying between her breasts, the general dustiness and scruffiness of her appearance.
She stepped into the shower, welcoming its powerful sting on her bare skin as though somehow, by punishing her flesh and subduing its physical ache, she could also subdue its yearning for Lewis. She scrubbed angrily at her skin to remove the green stain, ignoring the painful sensation it gave.
She washed her hair as well, ignoring the sting of the shampoo in her eyes, welcoming the excuse it gave her to let them fill with tears.
By the time she had finished, her skin was pink and glowing with the friction, and her hair so squeaky clean it sounded like a demented mouse.
She felt sick inside, her nervous system so knotted and cramped that she felt she would never be able to relax again. She was filled with shock and self-disgust, unable to comprehend properly what had happened…knowing that if Lewis hadn’t stopped when he did…Jerkily she reached out for a towel to wrap around herself, missing it, and having to bend down and pick it up off the floor before she could tie it around her body.
She towel-dried her hair and then ran a comb through it, wincing as she tugged on it too hard.
She felt too exhausted, too battered emotionally to even think about doing any more work, all she wanted to do was to hide herself away from the world, to hide herself away from herself, she admitted with a small shudder, as she walked into her bedroom. Dear God, how could she ever face Lewis again?
She discarded the towel and crawled into bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
Her dreams were sharp-edged and uncomfortable, making her move restlessly and cry out against them.
When she eventually woke up the room was in shadow, and she was, she realised muzzily, not alone in it.
She turned her head to stare at the figure standing by the window.
‘Lewis!’
She couldn’t believe it.
‘How…? What…?
He came towards her. ‘I had to come back. You’d left the door unlocked. I came up here and found you asleep. There’s something we have to discuss…something I have to say, especially since it seems as though in future there may be some contact between us…as Jessica’s parents. This won’t be easy for either of us, but it may help clear the air.’
Lacey shook her head. Was she dreaming? Was this real? A sharp thrill of misery coiled through her. It was real all right, and it didn’t take much intelligence to guess what had brought Lewis back…what it was he wanted to say to he
r so urgently. Oh, God, what a fool she had made of herself. Of course he had to have seen, to have known, to have realised how she still felt about him. Of course he wanted to make it plain to her that he was not remotely interested in her. Oh, God, why hadn’t she been more careful…more cautious? Why had she had to put herself through this?
She could see him standing beside her bed, watching her…no doubt dreading her reaction to what he was going to have to say to her.
Well at least she could make it a little easier for him, and ultimately for herself.
Without turning her head, she said drearily, ‘It’s all right, Lewis. I know what you’re going to say. You didn’t want me twenty years ago and you most certainly don’t want me now. I apologise if I embarrassed you earlier on.’ She gave a bitter little laugh, and then lied, ‘You’ll have to put it down to the contrariness of my female hormones, I’m afraid. I suspect that my body, after twenty years of celibacy, must have decided to go into revolt, but please don’t take it personally, and I can assure you—’
‘What do you mean, twenty years of celibacy?’
She tensed abruptly, furious with herself for her unwitting self-betrayal.
‘Has there really not been anyone since me?’
She bit down hard on her bottom lip. For some reason something in his voice made her want to cry. ‘Did you imagine there would be? That I would allow anyone else the chance to hurt me the way you did?’ she challenged him acidly. The silence unnerved her, panicking her into adding quickly and defensively, ‘Surely you don’t imagine my…my body would have reacted to you the way it did, if I had…if there had been…if…?’
‘If I hadn’t been its only lover?’
The quiet words silenced her. She could hear him moving, and prayed that he would go, but she could tell that he was walking round the bed towards her, and she could hardly throw back the covers and walk away from him.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she told him huskily. ‘I—’