by Penny Jordan
A strong mothering instinct. For some reason the words brought a huge lump to her throat.
‘But I’m not sure if I can make that kind of commitment,’ she protested. ‘And it wouldn’t be fair to Robert to allow him to become dependent on me when—’
‘I’m not asking you to make a permanent commitment to him,’ Gray Philips interrupted her. ‘That would be impossible and inadvisable, both for him and for you, but I can’t deny that at the moment he’s a very vulnerable little boy. For some reason he seems to have developed a bond with you. He is my son, Sarah, and quite naturally I want him to be happy…to hopefully forget in time that—’
‘That’s he’s lost his mother and his grandmother?’ Sarah asked him tautly. ‘That would be impossible and unfair. He needs to be able to remember them, to talk about them. And how can he feel he can talk to you about them when you’ve made it so clear how you view his mother?’ She broke off, aware that she had said far too much.
‘I’m beginning to see why you’re not suitable teacher material,’ Gray Philips told her unkindly.
She had to turn her head away so that he wouldn’t see the quick rush of tears to her eyes.
More out of hurt pride than anything else, she heard herself telling him almost violently, ‘I’m not suitable as a substitute mother either, and if that’s what you want for Robert then I suggest you find him one in a rather more conventional manner.’
‘Remarry, you mean.’ His eyes were as sharp and dangerous as splintered glass, his expression hard and bitter. ‘Shall we abandon this emotional quagmire and get back to reality?’ he demanded tersely. ‘I’m not suggesting for one moment that you should provide Robert with substitute mothering. I’m merely trying to ascertain whether you would be interested in working for me as Robert’s nanny. And if you are interested in doing so I must warn you that I shall want a written commitment from you to remain in my employ for a minimum of twelve months.’
Sarah wanted to refuse, to tell him that it was impossible for her to even contemplate working for him when it was plain that they could never get on. And it wasn’t just that…there was also her dangerous awareness of him as a man.
‘If you did take on the job I would be prepared to allow you a very free hand in your dealing with Robert.’
‘Leaving you free to ignore him,’ she accused bitingly.
The look he gave her only reinforced her doubts. Much as she liked Robert, much as she ached to be able to help the little boy, she could not work for his father.
‘Don’t give me your answer right now,’ Gray Philips was telling her, ignoring her attempts to tell him that she had already made up her mind. ‘I’ll call round tomorrow and you can give me your decision then. No doubt you’ll want to discuss my offer with your cousin and her husband.’
For some reason his tone irritated her. ‘Why should I?’ she demanded belligerently. ‘I am an adult and perfectly capable of making my own decisions about my life.’
‘I’m sure you are, but most of us like to get the views of those closest to us when we make major changes in our lives.’
While she digested this silken comment Sarah reflected that she doubted that he had ever listened to anyone else’s views in his entire life. But he had listened to Robert’s, an inner voice reminded her.
He was already walking past her and heading towards the door. In another minute it would be too late for her to tell him that she had already made up her mind and that she did not wish to accept his offer of a job, and yet she was letting him open the door, letting him walk away from her, letting him assume that she was actually going to consider his proposition when she knew, and surely he must know too, that it simply could not work.
She was standing watching him drive away when Sally came into the sitting-room and asked her eagerly, ‘Well?’
‘Mm?’ She turned round, unwilling to take her eyes off the disappearing shape of his car. ‘Oh…it was nothing really. He wants me to look after Robert for him, but he’s stipulated that I would have to commit myself to doing so for a period of twelve months.’
‘What? He’s offered you a job?’ Sally beamed at her. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. I was dreading your leaving. It’s been terrific having you here, especially with Ross having to work away so often. Oh, Sarah, I’m so pleased.’
‘I haven’t accepted,’Sarah interrupted her. ‘He’s coming back tomorrow for my reply, but—’
‘But what? You’ll take it, of course. I mean, what’s twelve months? It will be a wonderful breathing-space for you…giving you time to think about what you really want to do.’
‘I’m still employed as a teacher,’ Sarah reminded her quickly. She was beginning to feel as though she was being sucked down into a quagmire…as though only she could see the impossibility of working for Gray Philips and the dangers it involved, but then, of course, Sally knew nothing about those disruptive, unwanted feelings he aroused within her, and she was certainly not going to tell her.
‘Come on, love,’ Sally coaxed her, ‘you know as well as I do that you’ve been dreading the start of the new term. I know how good you are with children emotionally. How good you are at—’
‘Mothering,’Sarah supplied sardonically for her.
Sally gave her a frowning look. ‘You’re too hard on yourself. Everyone knows how important a child’s early years are, and everyone knows that in the majority of cases it’s a child’s mother who shares those years. You’ve said yourself how concerned you are for Robert, and here’s your chance to help him.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I’m not so sure it would be a good thing,’ she resisted stubbornly.
Sally gave her a shrewd look, and told her, ‘Well, you’ve got twenty-four hours to think about it and, of course, the final decision must be yours.’
Which didn’t stop her unsubtly pointing out all the advantages of accepting Gray Philips’s offer throughout dinner and long after they had finished eating, and of course Ross fully supported her, adding his own approval and persuasion.
If it weren’t for Gray Philips himself she would have been only too happy to accept the job, Sarah acknowledged as she lay in bed waiting for sleep to claim her. She liked Robert…felt drawn to him, and she knew she could help him. Was it really fair of her to put her own needs, her own vulnerabilities, before a child’s? Surely she was capable of either dismissing or ignoring her awareness of his father? After all, she was pretty sure that Gray Philips would ensure that they had the minimum of contact with one another, and her role as Robert’s nanny would mean that he was not likely to spend much time in the house while she was there to take charge of Robert. If she did take the job it would have to be on the condition that she did not live in, but commuted daily. Which meant that she would need a small car. Well, she had sufficient savings to allow her to buy one…but why was she thinking along such lines when she had already made up her mind that she simply was not going to take the job?
* * *
‘THERE’S A LETTER here for you,’ Sally announced over breakfast as she went through the post. ‘Mm…looks very official,’ she commented as she handed it over.
A tiny thrill of nervous apprehension went through Sarah as she opened it, her breakfast ignored as she read it once and then a second time.
‘Sarah, what is it? What’s wrong?’
It took Sally’s anxious question to lift Sarah’s head from the letter, her eyes vague and dark with shock as she said unsteadily, ‘They’re sacking me. After all they said about giving me time to adjust…about it just being an informal interview…’
‘Sacking you? But surely they can’t do that?’ Ross interrupted grimly.
Sarah shrugged. ‘Well, it says in here that they’re having to make cut-backs and, since I was the last teacher to be taken on, it follows that I’m the one they must ask to leave.’
‘That’s not being sacked,’ Sally objected, but Sarah shook her head and asked her bitterly,
‘Oh, no? What is it, then?’
‘Well, at least that settles one thing, though,’ Sally commented to her later when Ross had left for work. ‘You’ll have to accept Gray Philips’s offer now.’
Have to? The words sent an icy chill racing down Sarah’s spine. She wanted to protest, but the words just would not come. She felt too battered, too defeated to say anything. Self-pitying tears filled her eyes. She was a failure…who would employ her as a teacher now? How would it look on her CV to have to write that she had been sacked…or as good as?
Dark, despairing thoughts went round and round in her head. The last thing she wanted to do was to work for Gray Philips, and yet Sarah was right: what alternative did she have now? She could hardly expect to live on either her parents’ or her cousins’ charity while she spent potentially months and months looking for another job. Not when she had already been offered work.
No, Sally was right. No matter how much she might long for things to be different, she now had no alternative but to accept Gray Philips’s offer.
CHAPTER FIVE
SARAH told Gray Philips as much later in the afternoon, conveying the news to him in a stilted, bitter little voice which did little to mask her true feelings.
Oddly, though, he did not seem inclined to question her lack of enthusiasm, saying only, ‘Good, I’m glad that’s settled, although we still have to discuss salary and time off. There’s an empty room next to Robert’s which has its own bathroom.’
Instantly Sarah stopped him.
‘I can’t live in,’ she told him quickly. ‘That’s out of the question.’
He was frowning now.
‘I’ll undertake to stay with Robert if you have to work late,’ she added before he could make any comment. ‘But I cannot live in.’
He was watching her, she knew it, even though she could not bring herself to look directly at him. Was he going to ask her why not? She held her breath, praying that he wouldn’t, not knowing what reason she could possibly give him that would make any sense; she only knew that she could not, for her own self-preservation, sleep under the same roof as this man.
She laughed bitterly at herself. Heavens, she sounded like someone out of a bad Victorian novel. What harm was sleeping under Gray Philips’s roof going to do her? The harm that any kind of intimacy with him would bring her, she told herself miserably. The danger lay not in him, but in her awareness of him, and because of that…because of that it was absolutely essential that she did not allow herself to fall into the trap of daydreaming that sleeping under his roof meant that…
Meant that what? That it was only a short step from there to sleeping in his bed…in his arms. Pathetic. She was being completely pathetic.
‘But if you do that you’ll need a car,’ he pointed out.
Sarah still didn’t look at him. ‘Yes, that’s right. I was planning to buy one anyway,’ she fibbed.
There was a long pause during which she prayed that he would say he had changed his mind and the job was no longer on offer, but to her shock he said instead, ‘Well, I should have preferred you to live in for obvious reasons, but if you’re insistent on not doing so I suppose I shall just have to accept it.’
She could hardly believe it. She turned her head, unwittingly allowing him to look straight into her eyes.
The grimly aware expression in his suggested that he was perfectly well aware of her reluctance to take the job, and she prayed that he was not also astute enough to work out why she was so reluctant to do so. But then, he couldn’t be, could he? He couldn’t have made it plainer that he was not looking for any kind of emotional involvement or commitment from any member of her sex, and surely, if he had suspected how vulnerable she was to him, he would have been the first to keep a very healthy distance between them. No, she was safe enough there. But if she ever had reason to fear that he had guessed how she felt…Well, then, she would have to leave, twelve months’ contract or not.
He was talking about money now, and the salary he was prepared to pay her was more than generous.
As Sally told her later when he had gone, she would have been a fool to have turned him down.
She only wished she could be equally convinced.
* * *
GRAY WANTED HER to start work for him immediately, but, as she explained to her cousin, she could not really do so until she had equipped herself with a car.
Immediately Sally offered generously, ‘Why not use mine in the interim?’
But Sarah shook her head. ‘No, I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to you.’
If she had hoped to delay things by the need to acquire a suitable car she soon discovered that she had been living under a misapprehension, because that evening, just after they had finished dinner, the phone rang.
Ross went to answer it and came back ten minutes later to say, ‘That was Gray Philips. It seems that he might have found you a suitable car. It certainly sounded quite a bargain. It’s a private sale, only one owner, an older woman who rarely used it, so the mileage is very low.’
Sarah opened her mouth to object and point out to her cousin by marriage that Gray Philips had no right to take matters into his hands so arbitrarily and that she was perfectly capable of finding her own car, but before she could do so Ross continued extolling the virtues of the second-hand model Gray had found for her, and both he and Sally were so enthusiastic and full of praise for what Gray Philips had done that Sarah felt unable to express her true feelings.
She was still smouldering with pent-up resentment when the three of them set out for the nearby village, where the owner of the car apparently lived, half an hour later.
She told herself, as she sat seething in silence in the back seat of the car, that nothing and no one was going to manoeuvre her into buying a car she had not chosen for herself, that she objected to being treated like a child incapable of making her own decisions, incapable of running her own life.
It was an attitude she maintained right up until the moment she saw the car, clinging on to it even in the face of Sally and Ross’s enthusiasm and even after having been introduced to its existing owner, a charmingly vague widow in her late fifties, who innocently answered one of the questions which had been tugging at Sarah’s mind by explaining that she worked for Gray Philips as a member of his office staff, and that it was when she had happened to mention that she was thinking of changing her car that he had announced that he knew of someone who might be interested in buying it.
Yes, Laura Greig was undoubtedly genuine, and at any other time Sarah would have been touched by the way she referred to her car, almost as though it possessed feelings and emotions rather than as an inanimate object. However, because of the way she felt that Gray Philips was trying to manipulate her, to usurp her right to decide her own life, she stubbornly clung on to her determination to reject the car.
That was, until she saw it.
She had no idea what she had actually expected—certainly, after meeting Laura Greig, she had had some vague notion that her car would turn out to be small and sturdy, and, while no doubt it would be immaculately maintained and carefully serviced, it would also be rather dull…beige or grey in colour most likely, and, even though she had never had any desire to own a vehicle that was either flashy in colour or fast, for some reason the fact that Gray Philips should decide that a car chosen by a very pleasant, but nevertheless rather staid widow in her late fifties would be suitable for her stirred up inside her the kind of rebellious feeling she could not remember feeling in years; certainly not since she had left her early teens behind.
To be confronted, therefore, by a shiny bright red convertible with cream leather seats, its hood folded back in the warmth of the late-evening sun, was such a shock that Sarah had to blink several times before she could actually really believe what she was seeing.
As she glanced from Laura Greig to t
he car and then back again she saw a faint flush colour the older woman’s skin.
‘My grandson helped me choose it,’ she explained a little breathlessly. ‘I wasn’t so sure at first, but you know…’ She touched the car’s bodywork lovingly as she spoke, and then she added regretfully, ‘My daughter’s expected third baby turned out to be twins, and of course there’s just no way I can get all four children into Henrietta’s back seat, so I’m afraid…’ She gave a faint sigh.
Henrietta said nothing, merely standing foursquare on the drive, her paintwork gleaming, but Sarah could have sworn that she wasn’t regretting the loss of the four grandchildren as potential passengers.
‘She is beautiful,’ Sarah heard herself saying, and knew the instant she had spoken the words that she was lost.
Half an hour later, with the formalities complete, Sarah listened light-headedly as Laura Greig admitted, ‘I know it’s silly, but I’m so glad that Henrietta is going to a good home.’ She flushed again. ‘My son-in-law thinks I’m crazy…but she’s the first car that’s ever been just mine. While my husband was alive…’ She gave a tiny sigh. ‘When Gray described you to me as the ideal person to buy Henrietta from me, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, right up until the moment I met you I was quite sure I was going to have to tell you that I’d changed my mind.’
Sarah listened to her, trying not to allow herself to wonder if Gray Philips, beneath his outwardly insensitive manner, was not perhaps a far better student of human nature than she had actually realised.
Later, when they were driving home, Sally commented, ‘Gray Philips must think an awful lot of you, Sarah. I mean, to go to all that trouble for you…’
‘I don’t think it’s that he has a particularly high opinion of me…more that he’s at his wits’ end to know what to do with his son,’ Sarah corrected her wryly.
‘Mm.’