by Sara Wood
She wouldn’t accept what he wanted, he thought with a slicing fear. Laura would want commitment. A husband, children—he’d always known that. She ought to be married to a loving man, not tied to someone who couldn’t bear the finality of marriage. His spine chilled. Almost certainly he’d lose her.
And yet honesty and decency made him plough on, even though he knew he was heading towards a separation he’d find hard to bear.
‘Jai is impulsive and passionate. He thinks you’re wonderful. I’ll be nagged to put our relationship on a firmer footing. I can’t do that. I’m just suggesting that we can cool things and make this more of a friendly relationship, if we detach ourselves a little.’
‘How do you suggest we do that?’ she asked, widening her big blue eyes. She looked at him with a suspiciously provocative tilt of her head. ‘I do find it hard not to touch you, Cassian. And we look at each other ten times a minute. The boys aren’t stupid.’
He frowned. This wasn’t going the way he’d planned. ‘We’d be less…obsessed with one another if we didn’t live together. I never wanted that,’ he said with unintentional sharpness. And although he wasn’t looking at her—but examining his shoes with intense interest—he knew she had stiffened. ‘I said to Jai that we’d be here for two years but I think you all assumed that you and Adam would be part of that set up. Nothing was farther from my mind. You and Adam must live somewhere else. In the village, maybe—there are a couple of houses for sale, or Grassington—I’d buy a house for you both—’
‘So I’d be your secret mistress,’ she said, suddenly cold.
Alarmed that she was withdrawing from him mentally, he took a step forward. And she took one back. He felt panic welling up inside him.
‘We’d have a relationship,’ he corrected huskily. ‘We’d spend a good deal of time together, going out with the kids, reading them bedtime stories, that kind of thing—’
‘And I’d pop over for sex. Or we’d use the back of your car. Or a convenient field.’
His breath rasped in. ‘It’s not like that—’
‘Yes, it is.’ She folded her arms and her eyes were as dark as a threatening storm. ‘Just you get this straight. I won’t be used as a substitute mother for your son and to satisfy your sexual demands!’
‘Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying! We both agree we’re going too fast and need to find a way to put the brakes on. This would achieve that. Please don’t think I’m using you. I want more than that—’ he found himself saying desperately.
‘What?’ she shouted. ‘To fall asleep beside me? To wake up and find me in your arms?’ she cried, tormenting him with the passionate words he’d spoken earlier. ‘So what do I do? Commute? Leap up at dawn and hurry home? Do I find a baby-sitter to stay in the house so Adam is safe? No, Cassian! I don’t want to be at your convenience, at your beck and call. I deserve better. Either I live here with you, or we part. I mean really part. You choose. Now.’
He gazed at her in horror, his hand scraping distractedly through his hair. That wasn’t what he’d wanted. Just something slower, less threatening to his freedom. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like without her…
‘I’ve not made myself clear,’ he said, choked.
‘Oh, yes, you have!’ she raged. ‘It’s your late wife, isn’t it? You think you can’t love another woman because she was so perfect. Well I’m not filling her shoes. I have shoes of my own. I am not her. I am me. And if you don’t want me as I am, warts and all, then have the grace to say so. But don’t use me to assuage your guilt because Jai needs a motherly touch, and don’t use me as a sex object for your voracious appetite! It’s not fair on me! I want sex too. But I want a hell of a lot more than that from the man I give my body to! So decide whether you want me, flesh and blood and living and breathing—or your late, perfect, beautiful wife who’s dead, Cassian, dead!’
‘You’ve got it wrong!’ he said harshly, grabbing her arms. She put her hands to his chest and pushed, but he resisted, ignoring the flour and dough that now marked his shirt and rushing straight into his explanation. ‘My wife wasn’t perfect! Not anywhere near!’ he hissed, his face ferocious as he remembered, felt the wounds, the misery, again.
‘You married her!’ she shot.
‘And don’t I regret it! I fell for her because I was only eighteen and ruled by my hormones and thought sexual pleasure was love. She was four years older with a hell of a lot of lovers in her past and a whore’s skill in arousing men. But she didn’t have an ounce of tenderness in her entire body! She lured me into a hasty marriage because she was already four months pregnant by another man—yes! Pregnant!’ he snarled, when Laura jerked in horror.
‘Jai?!’ she whispered, appalled.
‘Exactly,’ he muttered bitterly.
‘But…he’s so like you!’ she gasped.
He nodded, sick with misery. ‘His mother was dark-haired. Spanish. Hence the similarity. She was beautiful, yes, but only on the outside.’ He raised a harrowed face as memories came thick and fast. ‘I knew her to be cruel and vicious to animals and her behaviour towards them made me want to retch,’ he muttered. ‘She had no compassion for the elderly, or those who were less than beautiful, and she made fun of them, ridiculed them unmercifully. Maria was an absolute bitch. I loathed her for trapping me into marriage!’
‘But she’s dead, Cassian—!’ Laura said, infinitely caring.
‘No. She isn’t.’
‘What?’ she gasped.
He felt drained, as if the lie had taken away something precious to him. His integrity. His belief in honesty at all times.
‘She didn’t die. I lied to Jai,’ he confessed hoarsely. ‘I never wanted him to come into contact with her, to learn the kind of woman she was. She’d tried to abort him. Her own baby, Laura!’ He thought of the world without his beloved Jai and his eyes pricked with hot tears. ‘She didn’t care about him. He was a burden, something vile to her, because he’d ruined her figure. When Maria gave birth she dumped the baby on me, then vanished. I never saw or heard of her again and it took years for me to get a divorce and to free myself from her. Jai is not my son but—’
Laura froze. There had been a sound behind her. Ice chilled her entire body. Cassian was staring in horrified disbelief at something…someone…over her shoulder. And she knew before she turned who it must be.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS Jai. Dirty and dishevelled from his adventures outside. Looking suddenly small and pathetic, his mouth open in an O of despair, his eyes, his deceptively Cassian-like eyes dark and glistening with utter horror.
And then Jai gave a terrible shuddering cry like that of a wounded animal and he’d turned, lurching away in a sobbing frenzy before either she or Cassian could move their paralysed limbs.
‘Jai!’ he jerked out, in a horrific, broken rasping sound.
Automatically she whirled around, her hands lifting to stop Cassian from following. He cannoned into her, carrying her along a pace or two before he’d grabbed her to prevent them both falling over.
‘No,’ she said urgently. ‘Not you.’
Pain etched deep in his face, his pain hurting her, knifing her through and through as if she was being stabbed over and over again.
‘He’s my son!’
His eyes squeezed tight as if he recognised the irony of that cry. And she felt the tears welling up in her own eyes and fought them. For his sake, for Jai, she must stay strong.
‘He ran from you, not to you,’ she said, as gently as she could. ‘Let me go. Give us a while together.’
Without waiting for his reply, she flew into the hall where a bewildered Adam stood, his face as grubby as Jai’s.
‘Where did he go?’ she demanded fiercely.
‘Sitting room,’ Adam cried. ‘But what…?’
She hurtled in there. Nothing.
She bit her lip, wondering if he’d clambered out of the open window. But when she ran to it, she could see no sign of him. Panic made her shake.
The child would be so hurt. His world had come crashing down, all the fantasies he’d woven about his mother, the images he’d had of her; lovely, loveable, kind…
And then she heard a stifled, muffled sob. She blanched. It had come from the cupboard.
‘Where’s he gone?’ rasped Cassian from the doorway.
She couldn’t answer. But he read her appalled gaze and flinched. Her hand stayed him. Quietly she stepped close to the door and laid her hand on it as if consoling the child within Cassian’s long-ago prison.
‘Jai,’ she said tenderly. ‘It’s me. Laura.’ Her fingers closed on the latch and gently eased it up. But the door was locked. Jai had locked himself in from the inside with the key Cassian had so carefully fitted in the lock. Her eyes closed at the pity of it all. ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart,’ she crooned, love and compassion in every breath she uttered.
The dam burst; from behind the heavy panelled door, she heard a storm of weeping. Anxiously she glanced around. Adam was holding Cassian’s hand, his young eyes aghast at the bleakness of Cassian’s face.
She had to make things right. She loved Cassian so much that she’d do anything to stop him from hurting so badly. Her hand waved Adam and Cassian back, indicating they should retreat from the room.
‘No one’s here but me,’ she said to Jai. She imagined him, sitting on the cold stone floor, sobbing his heart out. It was hard for her to keep her voice steady because she was so distressed. ‘Don’t stay in there alone, Jai,’ she coaxed. ‘Come and cuddle up with me on the sofa. Let me hold you. Just that. Nothing more. And we can talk if you want, or just sit together. Trust me. I know what it’s like for you. I heard terrible things about my mother that broke my heart. Come to me. I understand. I’ve been there too.’
There had been a lessening of the wild crying whilst she spoke and she knew he’d been listening. She held her breath in the long silence that followed her plea. A stray sob lurched out from Jai and then there came the sound of scrabbling, as if he was standing up. Quietly she stepped back. The key rasped and the door opened a fraction.
‘Cassian isn’t here,’ she said softly. ‘Just me.’
Around the edge of the door, a wrecked face appeared, the small features screwed up in misery, the dark hair shooting in all directions as if he’d thrust violent fingers through it.
Heartbroken, she opened her arms and with a moan Jai stumbled into them.
‘There,’ she murmured, guiding him to the sofa. ‘Come on. Snuggle up. I’ll hold you tight. Cry if you want. I’m waterproof.’
She stroked the weeping child’s turbulent curls, her arms securely around him. He clung to her like a limpet and she occasionally kissed his hot forehead, waiting patiently until his tears had subsided. It was a long wait.
‘My m-mother was a cow!’ Jai wailed. ‘She…she didn’t want me—’
‘But Cassian did,’ Laura gently reminded him.
‘No! He was lumbered with me!’ Jai sniffed.
‘You know that’s not true.’ Laura kissed his wet temple and brushed soggy clumps of hair from the furrowed forehead. His tears seemed to have got everywhere, carried on frantic hands. Poor sweetheart. ‘Cassian is crazy about you. He really believes you are his son in every way except by blood. He’s prouder of you than perhaps he ought to be. The sun definitely originates from your person,’ she said with a gentle smile.
‘I have a vicious tramp for a mother and an unknown father!’ Jai’s appalled eyes gazed moistly into her own, seeking comfort.
‘That is awful for you,’ she acknowledged gravely. ‘I thought I was in exactly the same situation as you, once, so I do know how painful it is when your parents turn out to be less than perfect. I was lucky. I discovered that my mother had been maligned and she wasn’t horrible at all. My father too. I can’t pretend that your mother was really a saint. But maybe she was scared because she was pregnant and unloved. People do terrible things when they’re frightened, Jai. They seek self-preservation—think of themselves. That’s how the human race is programmed when there’s danger about.’
She shifted him more comfortably on her lap, gently wiping his tear-channelled face now that he’d stopped crying.
‘Perhaps your father didn’t know your mother was pregnant. Perhaps your mother has regretted leaving you, and you are never far from her mind. We can’t ever be sure. But there is one thing we do know.’
‘What’s that?’ Jai mumbled, sweetly grumpy.
Her lips touched his soft cheek. ‘Cassian loves you,’ she said, her voice shaking with passion. ‘You are the most important thing in his life. Few people have such love. That makes you very special, very fortunate.’
‘He lied to me!’ Jai railed, screwing up his fists in anger.
‘I know,’ she agreed, soothing him with her gently stroking hands. ‘And that only shows how much he cares. Cassian doesn’t lie as a rule. It’s a matter of principle to him. He’s always honest—sometimes uncomfortably so,’ she said, sadly rueful. ‘But for you he made an exception. He couldn’t tell you the facts about your mother. Perhaps he might have done, when you were older, but you wanted her to be wonderful, didn’t you? So he invented a mother you’d adore. And we don’t know how much it hurt him to keep up that pretence, how hard it must have been to say that his ex-wife was a paragon of virtue when she had hurt him and deceived him so badly. Do you understand why he felt compelled to lie to you, Jai?’ she asked anxiously.
Cassian, listening in silent anguish from behind the door, his hand crushed by Adam’s bony grip of sympathy, held his breath. He was nothing without his son. Without Laura.
‘Yes,’ he heard his son whisper.
Heard Laura murmur something, knew she was hugging Jai, rocking him. He threw back his head and closed his eyes, swamped by relief and gratitude. And admiration. By her tact and loving heart, she had given him the gift of his son. And for that, he could never thank her enough.
She was… He searched for a word to describe her but found nothing that expressed his feelings. More than wonderful. More than compassionate and caring. Selfless, tender, utterly sweet and loveable…
‘You OK?’ whispered Adam, stretching up on tiptoe to get close to Cassian’s ear.
Dimly he saw the blond child’s anxious face, saw the same concern and love that Laura displayed so openly. Unable to speak, he nodded, swallowing, and received a friendly squeeze of his mangled hand in response.
‘Shall we see if we can call your father in?’ he heard Laura say.
‘Mmm,’ snuffled Jai.
Adam beamed up at him. Laura’s smile.
God, he loved her!
‘Cassian!’ she shouted. ‘Are you around?’
He couldn’t move. He was rooted to the ground in shock. He loved her so much that his lungs had lost their power and his heart seemed to have stopped beating.
Because he had messed up. He’d been so blind—had feared for his freedom so much—that he’d offered to keep her like some mistress, like a caged bird—to appear at his bidding, to make his life complete on his terms.
‘Cassian!’ she yelled, and Adam tugged at his hand urgently.
Laura wasn’t like Maria. She would never trap him. She’d respect his need for space. And suddenly he didn’t want that space so badly—he wanted her, to be with her, to be here in the manor and bathing in the warmth of her. Cooking breakfast, doing homework with the boys, exploring the moors, developing the garden…but all with Laura. With her in his heart. With her loving him.
Distraught, he obeyed Adam’s desperate tugs and Laura’s calls. Like an automaton he walked stiffly to the door, everything a blur because of the tears of despair in his eyes.
‘Oh, Dad!’ Jai wailed.
A body hurled itself at him. His son in all but blood, every inch, every bone as familiar to him as his own. Now Adam, too, was hugging him. And someone…the smell of Laura came to him. Laura. She was drawing them all forwards.
He felt the back of the sofa against his calves and fou
nd himself being pushed down. The misery was so intense that he couldn’t respond to his son’s desperate apologies but eventually he realised how upset Jai was and he managed to put on a show of normality.
‘No, I’m fine. Just got a bit emotional,’ he said huskily. ‘I love you, Jai, Never want to hurt you. I’m sorry—’
‘No sweat, Dad. I understand. Laura explained. I’m OK about it. Honest. I’ve got you, that’s the important thing. And now we’ve got Laura. She’s what I dreamed of when I imagined my Mum.’
His son’s face swam before his eyes. He couldn’t say that Laura was about to leave their lives. It wasn’t the time. But his heart felt as heavy as lead despite his cranked-up smile. And he knew he had to be alone to grieve for his lost love.
‘Yeah. Great. Now how about you two getting off me so I can breathe and flinging your grotty selves into a bath?’ he growled. ‘You’re a disgusting colour, both of you. Have you been mud-wrestling or something?’
The boys giggled and leapt up. Jai hesitated, then bent down to kiss him.
‘Love you, Dad,’ he said shakily.
‘Love you, Jai,’ he croaked.
And then there was the sound of elephants stampeding up the stairs, the sound of yells, water running…
‘Cassian.’
Laura’s voice, soft and gentle. Her hand stealing into his. What a fool he’d been. Freedom wasn’t in being alone, doing your own thing. It depended on many factors.
It was like flying. He could only stay aloft if the wind was right, if the thermals were there, if he manoeuvred his wing properly—and if the wing was undamaged.
To be free he needed a base from which to fly. Somewhere secure and familiar. And he needed to be nurtured by the right person if he was to truly soar up into the heights of joy.
He drew in an agonised breath. He needed to be loved.
‘I’m sorry, Laura,’ he rasped.
‘For what?’ she murmured.
‘Coming here.’
He couldn’t look at her. Not that he’d see her if he did. The tears which he’d not shed through all the bullying, all the terror and desperation, were betraying him now and falling freely down his face. What would she think of him?