by Penny Jordan
‘I’m sorry,’ he had said. ‘I didn’t think…’
He had been standing close enough to her to catch hold of her hand, holding it between both of his own in a gesture of comfort and remorse.
For a moment she had been terrified that she might make a complete fool of herself and actually cry.
There had been no physical displays of affection for her from her father when she was growing up, and not really from her mother either, and, while she had made sure that both her sons knew what it was to give and receive spontaneous physical affection, Andrew had been cast in much the same mould as her father.
To be touched like this by a man in a gesture of physical apology and reassurance was so rare that she couldn’t even remember the last time it had happened.
And, not for the first time since she had come to live with Blake, she had been starkly aware of the bleakness and paucity of her emotional life.
Watching him with Anya, and with Rory and Daniel, seeing the way all three of them responded to him and he to them, the natural gestures of affection and comradeship they exchanged, made her achingly aware of the difference between her and Andrew’s relationship and the relationship a man like Blake would have with a woman with whom he was intimately involved.
‘When’s Blake coming home?’ Rory asked her now, walking into the kitchen. ‘He said we could play that new computer game he got us tonight.’
‘I don’t know,’ Philippa responded, adding firmly, ‘And when he does, you mustn’t pester him…’
‘Oh, he won’t mind,’ Rory assured her. ‘He’s not like Dad,’ he added innocently. ‘He likes being with us. What’s for tea, Mum? I’m starving…’
Philippa closed her eyes on the wave of emotion.
Yes, it was all working out far better than she had imagined. Even her decision not to see Joel again had now become something she genuinely believed had been the right decision for both of them, her brief relationship with him something she could view with tender pleasure and not pain, instead of a forced acceptance of what she knew morally she ought to feel while privately wishing that things could have been different.
Blake had been generous in his praise for the way she was dealing with Anya, and Susie had commented only the previous day that she seriously ought to consider training for some sort of work with children.
Even her parents and Robert had not raised as many objections about her working for Blake as she had expected—probably far too relieved to be freed from any responsibility towards her, Philippa recognised drily.
So, given that everything was so perfectly wonderful and marvellous, why was it that she woke up in the morning with a feeling like a lead weight in her heart?
Why? What was it she had said to herself about only a fool falling in love with Blake a second time when she’d taken the job? she asked herself grimly.
But the emotions she felt now had nothing to do with those fevered teenage yearnings; now it was his tenderness, his warmth, his sense of humour that made her ache helplessly with longing; now it was the reality of him that she loved, not the fantasy she had conjured up for herself.
She didn’t just love him, she admitted as she checked the oven, she liked him as well—liked the way he treated her as an equal, seeking her opinions and her views, discussing things with her, sharing… Showing her sons by his example that being a man was not about taking charge and being in control, that it did not involve the denial of one’s emotions, the distancing of oneself from others, that it allowed for mistakes, errors and vulnerabilities in others as well as in himself; like the way he was setting down for Anya the pattern of the kind of man she would one day look for, a man who would value her and respect her, a man who would love her.
It was hard concealing her emotional responsiveness to him, and even harder sometimes concealing her physical desire.
All right, so she was no longer the teenager who had lain in her bed night after night imagining what he would be like as a lover, but that didn’t stop her from having to fight against that betraying feminine ache deep within her body far, far too often.
No, it wasn’t easy concealing her love for him. Not easy but essential.
It wasn’t just the financial security of working for him she didn’t want to lose. There was Anya to consider, and her needs had to come before her own.
So far, she congratulated herself wryly, she was rather proud of the very neat job of containment she had done on her emotions. Not even Susie suspected how she really felt.
‘Mmm… he’s definitely worth leaving home for,’ had been her approving comment the first time she had met Blake. ‘He’s so sexy you could almost bottle it and sell it. God knows how he’s managed to stay single… why is it that with some men you can just look at them and know that in bed and out of it they just can’t help but turn you on?
‘I mean, he isn’t just sexy, he’s old-fashioned nice as well. I’m glad I’m not in your shoes—I don’t know how I’d be able to keep my hands off him…’ she had added frankly, and then apologised quickly, ‘Oh, hell, Pip, I’d forgotten for a moment what you told me…’
‘It’s all right,’ Pippa had assured her. ‘That was years ago, a teenage crush, that’s all.’
Then, she had believed it.
She smiled valiantly to herself. Well, at least now she was sensible enough not to waste her time indulging in impossible daydreams, to cherish every smile Blake gave her, to place far too much significance on the conversations they shared, the compliments he gave her; these were, she reminded herself, no more than any appreciative employer would give to an employee he or she wished to keep; and Blake did wish to keep her, he had made that very plain, though not for any personal reasons.
It was Anya’s welfare that was at the forefront of his mind when he told her approvingly how much more of a real home she had made the house; Anya’s happiness he was considering when he told her there was no need to shush the children when they were outside playing while he was working in his study, and that he enjoyed hearing the sound of their laughter; Anya’s emotional welfare that brought that warm, almost tender look to his eyes when he commented on the bond of physical affection developing between Anya and herself.
No, the woman she had become would never make the same mistakes as the girl she had once been, never attempt to deceive herself about Blake’s feelings for her, never take the risk of inviting his rejection a second time.
She frowned as she glanced up at the kitchen clock and then opened the back door to call the children in, reminding them that they had the supermarket shopping to do.
‘All right, everyone, upstairs, hands and faces washed and hair combed,’ she announced firmly, ignoring Daniel’s, ‘Must we…?’
Twenty minutes later, just as she was about to lock the back door, Blake’s Volvo came sweeping up the drive.
‘Ah, good, I’ve caught you,’ Blake announced as he climbed out of the car and came over to her. ‘I hoped I might.’
‘Why, is something wrong?’ Philippa asked him uncertainly.
‘No… nothing. But I managed to finish early and so I decided to come home and give you a hand with the supermarket shopping. You mentioned this morning that you intended to do it today and I thought it might be easier if we went in the Volvo.’
‘Yes… yes, it would,’ Philippa agreed.
He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to reveal his forearms. His skin was tanned, the muscles beneath strong and firm, a legacy no doubt from the summer he had spent crewing for a fellow colleague at Johns Hopkins who was a keen yachtsman. Blake had told her how much he had enjoyed the sport one evening when they had been chatting. He had offered to teach the boys if she thought they might be interested, and she hadn’t been able to help contrasting his attitude towards them with Andrew’s.
That had also been the evening he had first mentioned his American girl-friend and the relationship they had shared.
She had kept to hers
elf the fact that, no matter how much the girl might have stressed that their affair was founded on mutual sexual interest and had no deep emotional basis, she found it very hard to accept that any woman could have that kind of long term relationship with a man, especially a man like Blake, without loving him.
She had also kept to herself her belief that the American had perhaps kept her feelings private because she had sensed that Blake did not return her love.
Now, as she saw the way the sunlight glinted on the hair on his arms, turning it from brown to gold, highlighting the underlying muscles in a way that made her stomach lurch disconcertingly and a frisson of sharply dangerous sexual awareness and longing shoot through her, she wasn’t sure if she envied the girl or pitied her.
One thing she did know, and that was that for her a merely sexual relationship with Blake would never be enough, no matter how physically fulfilled her body might feel. Her heart and her mind would still ache and yearn for more.
That was what loving someone did to you. The simple purity of luxuriating in the satisfaction of plain physical need that she had experienced with Joel would never be enough to satisfy her with Blake; she would always long for more, so much, much more… for his love.
‘Philippa…’
Suddenly realising how long she must have been staring at him, she blushed as furiously as an embarrassed schoolgirl when Blake said her name, dipping her head so that her hair swung forward to conceal her flushed face.
* * *
‘You really didn’t need to do this, you know,’ she told Blake over an hour later as she negotiated the heavy trolley out of the supermarket’s automatic doors while Blake took charge of the children.
The supermarket’s car park was busy; it was the school holiday season after all, and Philippa was wryly aware of the envious looks they were attracting from other mothers struggling on their own with both trolley and offspring.
No doubt in their eyes she and Blake represented the perfect family picture. If only they knew the truth.
‘I wanted to do it,’ she heard Blake telling her quietly as they waited to cross the road.
Her heart had started to thump far too fast. Will you stop it? she ordered the recalcitrant organ with silent firmness, warning it that it was getting far too excited over nothing, and that if it didn’t stop she was going to have to take very severe action.
Determined not to betray to Blake what she was feeling and prejudice the friendly relationship they had built up, she forced herself to smile and challenge him teasingly, ‘Why? Don’t you think I can be trusted with a shopping trolley?’
‘On the contrary,’ he told her softly, ‘I think…’
He broke off to step aside, to make way for another shopper to pass them, while Philippa headed determinedly towards the car, feeling thoroughly flustered.
What was the matter with her? Anyone would think that a man had never paid her a compliment before… never tried to flirt with her.
Blake… flirting with her… impossible… Now she was letting her imagination get out of control.
She had almost reached the Volvo when Blake caught up with her, unlocking the doors for her and then opening the boot.
‘Here, let me do that,’ he insisted as she leaned forward to lift the first of the paper cartons out of the trolley. As they both leaned forward at the same time their bodies collided briefly.
‘Whoops…’ As Blake apologised, Philippa laughed. She was facing the sun, its warmth pleasant against her skin, the air current across the car park, which on a cold day could feel as icily bitter as though it had come from Siberia, today a lulling, fresh caress, tousling her hair so that she automatically lifted her hand to push the soft curls off her face.
And then she saw her shadow on the tarmac, saw the way the breeze had flattened her top against her body, the way her lifted arm was throwing the curve of her breast into prominence, the way her whole body seemed to be leaning yearningly towards Blake… Blake, who was standing there, his body completely immobile, his expression hidden from her by the shadow cast by the sun. He moved, leaning towards her, his hand lifted as though to touch her, and shame poured through her as she saw herself as he must be seeing her, practically inviting his touch… his kiss, showing him that she was after all still the same old Philippa… still stupid enough to want…
Quickly she pulled back from him, her body trembling as she turned away and quickly reached into the trolley, her movements jerky and unco-ordinated.
Bleakly Blake watched her, silently cursing himself for his crassness. The way she had pulled away from him just now had been quite unmistakable… told him everything he wanted to know, or rather everything he didn’t want to know! He had seen the look of shock, of horror almost in her eyes when she’d thought he was going to touch her. He had been a fool to think he could resurrect what she had once felt for him; to imagine the woman she had become would even want to be reminded of it, never mind…
Well, he wouldn’t add to her obvious embarrassment and disgust by repeating his mistake. In future he would make sure that he kept his distance from her, physically and emotionally. That was quite obviously what she wanted to do.
His interpretation of the conversations they had shared, of the laughter… of the way she had seemed to listen with such interest when he had told her about his life, her head held slightly to one side, her eyes sometimes alight with laughter, other times soft with emotion, but always, like her, alive and warm, quick to respond to the need in others, had quite obviously been the wrong one. He had quite obviously mistaken mere politeness for something far more personal, and that was his fault and not hers. He turned away from her, his eyes narrowing as he looked into the sun.
He had come back to draw a line under the past, fully expecting that the reality of the woman she had become would finally banish the image of the girl she had been from his heart and his memories.
But instead. He closed his eyes. Watching her just now, seeing the laughter in her eyes, the curve of her mouth, her body, knowing how he felt about her, he had ached so much with love and need… had wanted so much to reach out and just touch her, if only to reassure himself that she was real. Behind the darkness of his closed eyelids he waited for the familiar pain to roll over him in its dull, relentless, unmerciful dragging surge.
He would have to do something, he knew that. Otherwise…
‘You get in the car with the children,’ he told Philippa harshly.’I’ll see to this…’
Philippa didn’t bother to argue… It was obvious that he wanted to distance himself from her, and of course she knew exactly why.
* * *
Blake was late. He was normally home by this time. Philippa tensed as the phone rang. She went to answer it, her heart flipping over unsteadily when she heard Blake’s voice.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to be held up at work,’ he told her. ‘Don’t wait supper for me. I’m not sure what time I’ll be back.’
‘But that’s the second time this week he’s been late,’ Rory protested later over supper, adding with a scowl as he kicked the leg of his chair, ‘It isn’t the same having supper without him.’
No, it wasn’t, Philippa agreed silently. Was Blake genuinely very busy at work, or was he simply avoiding spending time with them… with her?
Since that incident in the car park, an uncomfortable and tense atmosphere had built up between them. Philippa tried her best to behave as naturally as she could, for the children’s and especially Anya’s sake, but it was difficult when every time she looked at Blake she remembered the way she had leaned towards him, looking at him… inviting him…
* * *
‘Philippa, may I have a word, please?’
Philippa tensed as she caught the formal note in Blake’s voice and saw the way he was frowning.
‘Of course,’ she agreed, trying to keep her voice as steady as she could.
Anya and the boys were in bed and Philippa had been just about to go upstairs herself when the
door of the small room that Blake used as his study had opened and Blake himself had come out.
Now, as she followed him back inside, Philippa felt rather like a schoolgirl called in to see her head teacher.
They hadn’t seen much of Blake this last week, he had worked late most evenings and left early in the morning. While the children complained vociferously about his absence she remained silent, even though she missed him every bit as much as they did.
Blake was standing with his back to her, facing the window.
He removed his jacket and his shirt was stretched tightly across his back and shoulders, revealing the tension in his muscles.
‘There isn’t any easy way to say this,’ he told her brusquely. ‘Things aren’t working out the way I’d hoped…’
Philippa stared at him, her heart thudding painfully, shock churning her stomach. What did he mean, things weren’t working out? She could feel the panic starting to flare inside her.
‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with the way you’re dealing with Anya; no one could have done a better job.’
A better job? Helplessly Philippa fought down her feelings. Caring for Anya wasn’t just a job to her. Hadn’t Blake himself been the one to tell her that?
Suddenly he was the cold, impervious man she remembered from all those years ago from her visit to his flat, hard and unyielding in the face of her emotional need. Well, this time she was not going to humiliate herself, to…
‘No, it isn’t Anya,’ she heard him saying roughly. ‘It’s… Ifs… there are other issues… I don’t want to be specific—some things are better left unsaid—but I suspect you already know what I mean.’
Philippa’s mouth had gone dry. She had to clear her throat twice before she could manage a thin, whispered, ‘Yes.’
And she thought she had been so clever… so contained… so good at hiding what she felt. How long had he known? Was that why he had been ‘working late’ so often recently—to avoid her…? Oh, God. She closed her eyes as the twin pains of despair and loss savaged her.