by Penny Jordan
‘Perhaps if I had known where to contact you I might have done exactly that,’ she told him shakily, reaction beginning to set in.
‘Robert knows my office number.’
She could feel herself flushing. She ought to have thought of that…ought to have. She gnawed distractedly on her bottom lip, wishing now, when it was too late, that she had not acted so impetuously and emotionally, reactions which this man could never, ever understand.
Her primary desire had been for Robert…for his well-being, but now all she could manage in her own self-defence was a weak and shaky, ‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’
How had it happened? she asked herself in angry despair. How had their positions been reversed so that she was the guilty party, and he her accusor? Wasn’t he, after all, the one at fault, while she…she had acted simply out of a desire to protect Robert?
All she could do in her own self-defence was to throw at him what she knew to be the dangerous challenge of announcing, ‘Even if I had known your number, Robert seems to be more…’
She stopped abruptly, unable to bring herself to accuse him of allowing his child to be afraid of him, even while she felt it was the truth.
Too sensitive…too painfully careful of the feelings of others, and, because of those faults, too vulnerable to make a good teacher; that was what her superiors had said, and now their criticisms were resounding in her ears, telling her that she had every justification for accusing Gray Philips of, at the very least, not seeing the effect his irascible hard-edged manner was having on his son. She acquitted him of deliberately fostering Robert’s fear, but in her eyes not to be aware of the little boy’s misery and unhappiness was almost as great a crime.
Now, as she faltered into an uncomfortable silence, it seemed that Gray Philips did not share her reluctance to use the words she had felt unable to utter, because he completed her sentence for her, saying grimly, ‘Robert seems to be what? More afraid of me than reassured by my presence—is that what you were about to say?’
His mouth curled contemptuously as he added, ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Miss Myers. Once you’ve started to level a criticism at someone, don’t back off halfway through it. By doing so you’re suggesting that you lack any real belief in what you’re saying.’
Immediately Sarah retaliated, too angry this time to care if she offended him.
‘That’s not true,’ she told him fiercely. ‘Robert is afraid of you. If he weren’t…’
She stopped again, and dulcetly he supplied for her, ‘If he weren’t he’d turn to me for comfort and reassurance and not you—is that what you were about to say? Hasn’t it occurred to you that, as a child who has only been used to female company, Robert might not be so much afraid of me but might instead be finding it difficult knowing how to react to me?’
Sarah knew that her flushed face gave her away, and once again she mentally cursed her own emotional reaction to the situation.
Feebly she countered, ‘But Robert’s mother was…had—’
‘A lover? Indeed. In fact, she had a succession of them.’ He saw her face and smiled cruelly at her. ‘You look shocked. It’s the truth, but then, of course, we aren’t supposed to speak the truth about the newly dead, are we? We’re supposed to focus on their good points.’ His face became bitter and closed up. ‘As far as I’m concerned, my ex-wife didn’t have any good points, and for your information Robert didn’t live with his mother but with his grandmother; my ex-wife, having hounded me through the courts to ensure that I was denied access to my son, to ensure that I could have no real place in his life, then casually handed him over to the care of his grandmother. You see, Angela didn’t love Robert; she wasn’t capable of loving anyone other than herself.’ He broke off and, in an oddly vulnerable and out of character gesture, ran his hand through his hair, an almost baffled expression darkening his eyes as though he himself was as startled by what he had said as she was.
He looked, Sarah realised in that odd moment when she saw him not as an antagonist…not as the father of a vulnerable, frightened child, but as a man, very tired. It couldn’t be easy for him, to become solely responsible for a child who, despite the fact that he had fathered him, was a complete stranger to him…a child, moreover, who was coming through the trauma of the death of all those people closest to him.
But, even so, to have left Robert in the charge of a woman like Mrs Jacobs…By all accounts, Gray Philips was a wealthy man…wealthy enough to provide his son with a properly trained nanny.
Almost as though he had read her mind, he told her less acerbically, ‘I have spent most of today interviewing prospective nannies for Robert, so far without success.’ His mouth hardened fractionally and Sarah remembered what Ross had said about the problems Gray was reputedly having in finding someone suitable to take charge of his son. ‘I shall be spending most of tomorrow doing exactly the same thing, hopefully with better results.’
Even though she knew it was none of her business, Sarah could not prevent herself from asking, ‘Since whoever you employ is going to be looking after Robert, wouldn’t it be wise to allow him to have some say in your eventual choice?’
‘And have him pick some blonde bimbo look-alike of his mother?’ he demanded in disgust.
A small shock of sensation ran through her as Sarah listened to him. Later, trying to analyse it, she was uncomfortably aware of an emotion that if not actually jealousy was a pretty close relation to it, although why she should be jealous of Robert’s dead mother she had no idea whatsoever, unless it was because, from his bitterly derisive words, Gray Philips had drawn for her a picture of a woman so very, very different from everything that she was herself. Although his words had been outwardly derogatory and unflattering, woman-like, she had immediately stripped away that outer wrapping of criticism, and had guessed from Gray Philips’s description that his ex-wife had more than likely been extremely pretty…extremely feminine, and probably very spoilt and wilful in the way that such women were, expecting and receiving male indulgence as their rightful due.
It did not matter that she could reassure herself that no man would ever condescend to her in that kind of way, that her looks would never encourage any man to treat her as a pretty, brainless doll and that she was grateful for it; some small, hitherto unknown part of her had instantly and shockingly lamented the difference between herself and the woman Gray Philips had so harshly described.
So far all the indications had been that his ex-wife was someone he had disliked and despised, and very strongly so, but then wouldn’t a man of his intelligence, who had experienced what he had experienced in his marriage and subsequent divorce, almost force himself to feel the kind of emotions that he felt the world would expect him to feel towards his ex-wife when perhaps secretly in the depths of his heart he…?
He what? Still loved her? What if he did? Sarah asked herself stoutly. His feelings for his ex-wife had nothing to do with her, even though they might explain his attitude towards his son.
Warily she digested her thoughts, acknowledging that it disturbed her that she should have such strong feelings about a man who was virtually a complete stranger to her…just as he, Gray himself, disturbed her.
Unwillingly she forced herself to confront the truth she had been dodging since her first meeting with him. He was different from all the other men she knew; more…more dangerously male; somehow, more…more sensual. Even more uncomfortably she was forced to acknowledge how very aware she was of him as a man, a totally new experience for her. She had come across more handsome men, had had her fair share of teenage crushes on unattainable pop stars and the like, but this was the first time she had experienced such an intense rush of physical awareness of a member of the male sex, and it disturbed and distressed her, all the more so because his attitude both towards her and towards Robert surely proclaimed the fact that he was the very opposite of all that she had always believed would appeal to her in a man. There was no softness about him, no gentle, carin
g tenderness…no hint that he had absorbed all the lessons that his sex were supposed to have absorbed over the last decade and emerged from that learning process as a caring, thoughtful human being, brought to the humble realisation of how much his sex had sinned against hers over the generations and eager to make amends for those sins.
And yet…and yet…she could not in all honesty accuse him of being aggressively, sensually male…of using his powerful sensuality…or even of being overly aware of it. Irritation, impatience, anger…these were the emotions he had shown her, and now, as she stood there in front of him, she was uncomfortably aware of being an intruder in his home, of acknowledging how little she would have relished returning home at the end of a tiring day to find that a stranger appeared to have invaded that home in her absence.
These feelings made her say quickly, ‘I’d…I’d better go. Now that you’re back…’
She was making for the door as she spoke, suddenly very, very anxious to be free of his disturbing presence, even while she acknowledged that he was not the one responsible for the effect he was having on her and that the fault was hers, if she was so feeble-minded and vulnerable as to allow herself to become sexually responsive to a man who was so plainly oblivious to her as a woman.
‘Without saying goodbye to Robert?’
The dry words made her stop and flush as she heard the cynicism behind them, and what made it worse was that it was true, that just for a moment she had been so wrapped up in her own emotions and fears that she had almost forgotten about his little boy.
Now she said defensively, ‘No…of course not. I was just going to ask you if you minded if I went upstairs and said goodbye to him.’
The look he gave her, accompanied by raised eyebrows and a cynical twist of his mouth, deepened her embarrassment and guilt.
‘Be my guest,’ he told her sardonically, adding, ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to show you the way.’
She wanted to protest…to explain to him that she had not been taking advantage of his absence and Robert’s innocence to violate the privacy of his home, but she knew that her protests would only be met by a sardonic wall of cynicism, and, besides, why should she explain or apologise? She knew the truth, even if she also knew that he would refuse to accept it.
Shakily she headed for the door, stopping uncertainly, waiting for him to step to one side so that she could go through. When he did so she discovered as she walked past him that she was holding her breath, as though she was desperately afraid of somehow inadvertently coming into physical contact with him, as though by holding her breath she could somehow make herself smaller, but as she approached him he stepped even further back from her, allowing her plenty of space in which to move past him, and neither did he make any attempt to accompany her as she went upstairs.
Robert was still in the bathroom. He looked up anxiously when she walked in, his expression turning to relief when he saw her. She explained to him that she was about to leave, steeling her heart against the look he gave her when he pleaded with her to stay.
As a compromise she waited until he had finished washing, and then helped him to get dried and dressed in the clean pyjamas she found in a drawer. She noticed as she took them out that they were brand-new, with the labels still inside them. As she removed them Robert told her innocently, ‘Mum was going to buy me some new ones but she couldn’t afford it.’
Sarah frowned as she helped him into them. She had gained the impression that Robert’s mother and grandmother were comfortably off financially. Had she been wrong, or had Robert’s mother simply been the sort of woman who was too selfish, too self-absorbed to realise that her growing son needed new clothes, who had perhaps offloaded whatever guilt this neglect had caused her by claiming that it was a lack of money and not a lack of concern that had been responsible for such neglect?
Only once she had tucked him up in bed, and ensured that he was comfortable, did Sarah feel able to leave.
As she went downstairs she glanced at her watch, realising guiltily just how long she had been with Robert.
In the hall all the doors were closed. A sign that Gray Philips expected her to leave without imposing her unwanted presence on him a second time? Very probably. After all, he had made it quite clear how he viewed her presence in his home.
She was just about to open the front door, when she heard him saying from behind her, ‘Not bothering to say goodbye, Sarah?’
There was so much sarcasm in his voice, so much unexpected criticism and condemnation of her manner of leaving, almost as though she was in some way deliberately trying to sneak out without having the good manners to observe the normal civilities, that she immediately felt as guilty as she had done when he had walked in and found her apparently rifling through his desk drawer.
As she had done then, she flushed to the roots of her hair, even while she cursed the vulnerability of her tell-tale fair skin.
‘I…I didn’t want to disturb you,’ she told him nervously.
‘No, I’m sure you didn’t.’ He was looking at her, studying her, and for some reason her embarrassment changed to a suffocating, acute awareness of him, just as though something had touched a deeply rooted sensual chord within her, so that her whole body seemed to vibrate in response to that awareness of him.
Still looking at her, he said silkily, ‘What a pity you didn’t think about that before, isn’t it?’
And then he walked up to her, forcing her to step back from him in order to keep some distance between them.
For one crazy, stupefyingly out-of-character moment she actually thought he was going to touch her, to take hold of her…to…She swallowed with difficulty, her attention unwittingly focusing on his mouth, her pulses racing as she wondered what it would feel like against hers…what it would feel like if he did take hold of her…if he did bend his head…if he did…One thing was for sure: he would be no tentative, uncertain lover…and he would not be inexperienced either. He would…
She closed her eyes, trying to dismiss her wild thoughts, and while they were closed she heard the sharp snick of the front door catch being unlocked.
The realisation that he had not intended to touch her at all, but had simply been opening the door for her, performing the small simple courtesy of any householder in seeing a guest, wanted or otherwise, off his premises, sent a sharply painful wave of mortification grating against her too-tender nerve-endings.
As he started to open the door she tried to rush through it, desperately anxious to get away, not so much from him, but from her own idiotic response to him, but unfortunately in her rush to escape she misjudged the width of the opening and jarred herself painfully against the door-jamb, causing her to cry out with the shock of the impact.
Now he did touch her, not as a would-be lover, but as an impatient, grim adult confronted with the idiocy of an unknowing child, holding her firmly within his grip as he opened the door a little wider, while saying, ‘I have heard that some women are inclined to mentally distort their body shape, but even a child of six couldn’t have got through that space.’
His criticism stung. Impetuously she lied, ‘My cousin will be wondering what on earth has happened to me. I must get back.’
‘Indeed, and those few vital seconds you could have saved in squeezing through a barely open door would have made all the difference. Strange, isn’t it, how you only became aware of the sudden rush of time once you’d left Robert?’
There was nothing she could say, and now mercifully the door was open enough for her to walk through it. All she had to do was to pull free of his grip, which had mercifully relaxed, and try to pretend to herself that her inelegant and hasty retreat was not making her look even more of an idiot. As she fled towards her car she refused to give in to the temptation of turning round to see if Gray Philips was actually watching her as intently as she felt him to be.
Of course, she would have to crash the gears of her cousin’s car, and send the gravel spinning as she reversed the vehicle, and of
course Gray Philips would have to be watching her with an unreadable expression on his shuttered face as she weakly gave in to the temptation to look in the direction of the front door before finally driving off.
* * *
NATURALLY, when she got back Sally wanted to hear what had happened.
‘You poor thing, you must have been embarrassed to death,’ was her sympathetic comment when Sarah explained how Gray Philips had walked in and found her apparently going through his desk. ‘Still, he must have been grateful to you for stepping in like that and taking charge of his little boy.’
‘Not so as you’d notice,’ Sarah told her wryly.
‘Poor chap. I don’t envy him,’ Ross remarked later over a cup of coffee. ‘It can’t be easy for him, having to take charge of the boy and to find someone responsible to take care of him.’
Sally threw a cushion at him.
‘Men—you’re all the same, sticking up for one another,’ she accused him. ‘What kind of father would leave a six-year-old in the charge of someone like Mrs Jacobs?’
‘The kind who doesn’t have any alternative,’ Ross told her drily.
‘Umm…well, if you ever did that to our children—’ Sally began, but he interrupted her, getting up to carry the cushion back to her, telling her provocatively, grinning at her,
‘Well, I shan’t have to, shall I…not with you to look after them?’
Sarah tried not to feel envious of the rapport and closeness between her cousin and her husband. Ross might pretend on occasions to be the typical macho male, but there was no doubt that their marriage was very much one of equal partnership, and Sarah had no doubt that when their children eventually came along both of them would take equal responsibility for them.
‘Don’t be too hard on Gray,’ Ross said quietly to her now. ‘It hasn’t been easy for him. I happened to mention at work today that you’d got involved with his son, and one of the other men who was around when Gray was first married said that his wife was a first-class bitch. Rumour has it that she tricked Gray into marriage by allowing herself to get pregnant, and then, once she realised that, despite his money, he wasn’t the type to go in for the kind of hectic social fast-lane life she wanted, she upped and left him, refusing to allow him any kind of access to the child. Apparently she even told him that if he tried to push for legal access she would tell the court that the baby wasn’t his…but she was quite happy to take the money he paid her…and all this from a man who openly admitted that when Gray first married her and brought her here he was bowled over by her looks. Looks which apparently were not matched by an equally attractive personality.’