‘It came up in conversation, Phoebe, and I would not lie to the boy. But I did say we had to ask your permission first.’
She met his not so innocent gaze, her blue eyes sparking with anger. ‘Big of you. Now, would you mind leaving while I dress?’
‘But I want to know where my dad is now.’
Ben was adamant, and though it wasn’t the way she would have chosen to tell him there was no way was she letting Jed do it for her.
Pride and anger stiffened her spine, and, lifting Ben onto her lap, she stroked a few wayward curls from his brow.
‘You know I said you didn’t have a father because we had parted long before you were born? Well, Jed knows where your father is because he is your father, Ben, and he found us.’
Ben looked solemnly up at Jed. ‘Are you really my
daddy?’
‘Yes, Ben. Your mum and I lost touch, and I had no idea you existed until Friday, when we met again and to my joy I discovered you were my son. I promise we will never lose each other again.’
‘Can I call you Daddy?’ Ben asked tentatively, and Phoebe’s heart ached for him and for herself.
‘Yes, certainly, Ben. There is nothing I would like better in the world than to have you call me Daddy,’ Jed replied, and gave him a hug.
Chapter Nine
PHOEBE showered and dressed while Ben went with Jed for a swim in the indoor pool. She had only agreed to it after Jed had said they would walk down to the leisure centre and with a sardonic look had left her the keys to his car. He knew she did not trust him.
Emptying the cupboards, alone with her thoughts, Phoebe found her mind in turmoil. She feared for the future, Jed could give Ben anything money could buy, the rarefied lifestyle of the fabulously wealthy, and all she had to give her son was a working mother and lots of love…The odds seemed stacked against her. With a weary sigh she finished clearing the caravan. She could not help wondering if Ben would ever look on the simple pleasures they had shared here with the same enthusiasm after he was exposed to the more exotic people and places his father knew.
She tried not to let her misgivings show when the two returned, and if she was quiet then neither Ben nor Jed appeared to notice.
They spent the rest of the day driving from Weymouth to the start of Chesil Beach and the world heritage area of the Jurassic Coast—or, as Ben called it, the dinosaur coast. The beach ended at the town of Lyme Regis—a place that was renowned for the fossils to be found there. After a shy start and a few questions that Jed had answered simply Ben had with the innocence of youth accepted the man as his father, showing an ease and enthusiasm that made Phoebe feel guilty for keeping them apart for years and shamefully jealous. Ben was her son, and it was hard to accept she was no longer going to be the centre of his universe but would have to share that position with Jed.
Jed had enthralled Ben with his talk of family, and he was equally fascinated with Ben, searching for fossils on the beach. He actually found one—cracking open a rock with Ben’s small hammer to find the outline of what looked like a dinosaur tooth, according to Ben.
Phoebe agreed. Jed had the luck of the devil and it made perfect sense to her.
When they returned to Peartree Cottage Sid met them at the door and after handing the keys to Phoebe left. Ben was over the moon at his newly decorated bedroom, and within half an hour he was bathed and fast asleep in bed.
‘He looks angelic when he is asleep,’ Jed murmured.
‘Yes.’
Watching him staring down at Ben, seeing the gentle expression on his handsome face, softened Phoebe’s heart. But it had hurt when Ben, his eyes gleaming with happiness, had kissed Jed and said, ‘Goodnight, Daddy.’
‘But he can be a devil sometimes—like his father,’ she responded bitterly and, turning, she left the room and ran down the stairs.
She needed a coffee, and walked into the kitchen. She didn’t know this creature she was turning into because of Jed—sharp-tongued and jealous at seeing her son kiss him and call him Daddy, confused and afraid of the future. Putting a spoonful of instant coffee in her ‘Best Mum in the World’ mug and pouring in boiling water, she smiled ruefully. When had she become so insecure she needed the comfort of an inanimate mug?
‘I’ll have a coffee, please, Phoebe.’ Jed’s rich dark voice cut into her thoughts and she had her answer.
‘Okay,’ she said, and prepared another mug with the instant brew, before turning around with a mug in each hand. He was standing much too close, watching her, and it had a disastrous effect on her nerves.
‘Steady, Phoebe.’ He took one mug from her not so steady hand and smiled—a breathtaking grin that deepened the laughter lines around his sparkling eyes and took years off his age. ‘A very successful day—don’t spoil it by covering me in hot coffee,’ he joked, and, pulling out a chair, sat down at the kitchen table.
‘Sit and enjoy your coffee,’ he ordered. ‘We have a lot to talk over.’
Successful for him, but not for her. She wanted to ignore him and his talk…Jed was much too dangerous to her life, to her emotional wellbeing, but she didn’t really have a choice. Hear him out and see him out, she decided, and, stiff-backed, she pulled out a chair and sat opposite him at the kitchen table.
‘So discuss—but make it fast. It has been a long day,’ she said with heartfelt emphasis, ‘and I am tired.’
‘You look it,’ he said, his dark eyes resting on her slender form perched at the end of the seat. He stretched out a hand and flipped the end of her long hair over her shoulder, brushing her neck as he did so.
She knew she looked a sight, but a day that had started with the emotional trauma of revealing Jed as Ben’s father and continued with cleaning, packing and the rest of the time on a windswept beach would do that to any woman. Now the touch of his hand had made the hair on the back of her neck prickle and her body tingle—a state she had been in pretty much all weekend, much to her own self-disgust.
‘Excuse me for not reaching your high standard of elegant designer-clad painted ladies, but then I never aspired to,’ she said sarcastically.
Damn it to hell! Jed’s mouth tightened. A tender gesture and a concerned comment on his part and she was bristling with outrage again. Patience and playing it cool was getting him nowhere. It was time she accepted the reality of the situation.
‘Not for much longer,’ he said bluntly. ‘You soon will be the kind of elegantly clad lady you so abhor. Not for me—I could not give a damn what you wear, in fact naked works for me—But Ben deserves a mother who will blend easily into the society he will inevitably belong to, whether you like it or not. Tomorrow I have to be in London, but I will be back on Tuesday morning to pick you and Ben up. That gives you a day to pack. We should be at my home in Greece by the evening.’
Phoebe rose to her feet. She had listened in mounting resentment to his plan, and now she was furious at the stuck-up, arrogant devil trying to tell her what to do.
‘No.’ She gave him a filthy look. ‘I am not going to Greece, and neither is Ben, until I decide the time is right. You have got your own way so far. Ben knows you are his father and you will have to be content with that. Now, you’ve finished your coffee and it is time you left.’ Crossing the kitchen, she walked into the hall, shaking inside with anger.
Jed leapt to his feet and followed her. Grasping her elbow, he spun her around to face him. ‘No is not an answer I will accept. And your habit of running away is finished right now…understand?’
‘I am not running away, and Ben and I are not going anywhere with you on Tuesday or any time soon. You may order your minions around in your business life, but I will not let you do that with Ben and I. The answer is no…get over it.’
‘You are being totally unreasonable. You have a week’s holiday—there is nothing to stop you and Ben coming to Greece. You know he loves the seaside—I saw that this weekend—and even you have to admit spending every single holiday he has in a tiny caravan in Weymouth hardly compare
s to a holiday in Greece, with a much warmer climate, in a house overlooking the sea with every possible luxury,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘Ben would love it in Greece, and it is just your stubborn, pig-headed pride and distrust stopping him. Damn it, Phoebe, I can remember a time when you would have jumped at the chance. You had plans to travel and see the world. What the hell happened to you?’
For a long moment Phoebe stared at Jed, towering over her, conscious of his long fingers biting into her arm and the warmth of his great body. She could hear him breathing, he was that close, and she wished he would just go away and never come back. But fatalistically she knew it was not going to happen.
She had always known he was heartless, but his scathing comment about the caravan and his arrogance and total lack of sensitivity still had the power to shock and hurt her.
She had vowed never to let him hurt her again, and the simmering anger and resentment she had felt for years erupted. This was her life and she didn’t have to justify her actions to any man—certainly not to Jed Sabbides, the egotistical male chauvinist before her.
She tilted back her head, her blue eyes blazing. ‘You happened to me. You wrecked my life once and I will not allow you to do the same again.’
A chilling smile formed on his lips. ‘What about Ben? Are you prepared to wreck his life because you are too much of a coward to face up to facts? You’re a loving mother, I grant you, but he needs a man in his life because you are too soft with him.’
She flinched as though she had been struck, because his words touched a nerve—her Aunt Jemma had said much the same.
‘Answer me this. Why did you allow me to take Ben out in the car on Friday night? Why did you allow me to spend not just the day but the whole weekend with you both?’
‘Because you were like a flaming juggernaut, flattening every objection I made,’ she flung at him, hating to think he might be right.
‘Flattered though I am to think I have that much influence over you, the truth is it is Ben who has that much influence over you. I have watched and listened, and you are so reluctant to upset the boy you allow him to get his own way—and he knows it, Phoebe. Trust me, I am his father—and I was the same with my mother until my father taught me different.’ He gave her a dry smile. ‘While it is not a problem now, it will be in the future without a strong male influence to guide him. You let him pressure you into telling him I was his father before you could get out of bed this morning, and yesterday you let him have two different wall coverings—which I could tell you didn’t want—rather than telling him to make a decision. Something he will have to learn to do if he is to succeed in life.’
Phoebe was badly shaken by his assessment of her parenting skills, because deep down she had a horrible feeling there was some truth in what he said. But she wasn’t about to let him see how she felt.
‘Who made you a child psychologist?’ she jeered. ‘For a man who never had a child on his agenda, and has known he was a father for all of three days, you have some nerve commenting on my parenting skills. If you think by manipulating Ben he will persuade me to go to Greece forget it…That is the worst type of parenting, but typical of a ruthless swine like you,’ she flashed back.
His smile vanished. He looked at her with a rage that made every nerve in her body jump. ‘You little—’ He began, and then broke off, his arm encircling her waist to pull her roughly against him.
There was a long fraught silence, and Phoebe was not quite sure what was going to happen next. She knew only that they were locked together, and she was helplessly aware of the hard planes and angles of his body against her much softer frame. When his other hand stroked over her shoulder to curve around the nape of her neck her whole body trembled.
Jed felt the tension in her, felt her tremble, and some of his rage faded. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. Persuading you to come to Greece is not my main objective, but the boy is,’ he told her bluntly. ‘We both know you fell into my arms the other night all ready and willing, and you would do the same again right now.’
Her eyes were enormous, the pupils darkening as he watched, and deliberately he tightened his hold, easing a leg between her thighs and stroking a hand down over the soft wool of her sweater, settling on the proud swell of her breast.
‘You can fling out that old accusation of me not wanting a child, Phoebe,’ he murmured against her ear, lightly biting on the small lobe, and he heard the audible intake of her breath as he added, ‘And of wanting you to have a termination. You can keep telling yourself you still believe such a crazy idea, but the only person you are fooling is yourself.’
‘Says you,’ she murmured—but it was a weak defence, and Jed saw the flush of arousal in her cheeks. God! She was so beautiful, so sensual, and so damn stubborn. And he was as hard as a rock and almost groaned.
It irritated the hell out of him that from the moment he saw her he wanted her, with a consuming hunger that defied all logic, and an absence of years had made no difference. It annoyed him too that he who had always prided himself on his ability to control every aspect of his life struggled to control his passion with Phoebe.
Reigning in his raging libido, he eased her slightly away from him before he lost it completely and took her where they stood.
‘I am not arguing with you any more, Phoebe, and nor am I taking you to bed to ease the ache you quite clearly have.’ Dropping his hand from her waist, he moved back and surveyed her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. ‘I have wasted enough time in the past few weeks tracking you down. I can’t force you to come with me, but I will be back on Tuesday, about noon, to pick you both up, and you will spend at least the rest of the week in Greece.’
‘You expect me to agree just like that?’ Phoebe demanded. He had only to take her in his arms and every sensible thought flew out of her brain, but now, no longer overwhelmed by the warmth of his body, his soft caresses, his comment about wasting time tracking her down had cooled her ardor and she finally found her voice. ‘Well, dream on—because I won’t.’
A slow smile formed on his lips. ‘Stubbornness is an unbecoming trait in a beautiful woman.’ His dark eyes, glittering with blatant sensuality, captured hers. ‘Think it over, hmm?’
‘I don’t need to think,’ she spat, her anger rising to eclipse any vestige of sensual awareness. ‘I don’t want to.’ She saw the narrowing of his eyes and added, ‘Well, not yet.’ Her common sense was telling her she could not afford to antagonise Jed completely. ‘Custody arrangements take time to be arranged legally to suit all parties. You can’t just order people around.’
‘As you please,’ Jed drawled, low and lethal. ‘Then I will see you in court.’
The colour drained from her face. ‘Court? You want to go to court?’
‘As you seem incapable of coming to a private agreement, I don’t see any other solution.’ Her blue eyes widened fearfully as with one finger Jed pushed up her chin, and she stared up at his hard face. ‘The decision is yours. You have a day to decide.’
His dark head dipped, and before she registered what he intended his mouth had covered hers in a hard, possessive kiss that in a second had her lips parting helplessly beneath his. With a will of their own her slender arms slid up around his broad shoulders, her fingers digging into the wool of his sweater, and she swayed into the heat of his great body, the heavy thudding of her heart deafening her to everything but the exquisite taste and touch of Jed.
Suddenly he broke the kiss and, straightening up, took her hands from his shoulders and pushed her gently away from him.
‘I’d better leave now.’
In an oddly tender gesture he lifted a finger and tucked a few stray tendrils of hair behind her ear. For a moment she was completely disorientated, still under the magical spell of his kiss—until her eyes focused on his face and saw the mocking amusement in his smile.
‘Otherwise I might be tempted to stay again.’ His finger fell from her face. ‘You want me—you can’t help yourself, Phoebe—but the next time I ma
ke love to you will be after Ben’s future is successfully decided, not before.’ He turned to go and then glanced back. ‘By the way, I forgot to use protection the other night—so I trust you are better at taking the contraceptive pill than you were in the past.’ His dark eyes met hers ‘It won’t be a problem, I hope?’
‘Of course not,’ she responded, and he simply nodded his head and left.
But his exit line had been a killer…
How long Phoebe stood looking vacantly into space, her heart pounding in her chest, she had no idea. Finally she staggered into the living room and flopped down on the sofa, her mind spinning.
She had not taken the contraceptive pill since she and Jed had split up—but no way was she admitting the fact. Frantically she did the calculations and sighed. It was a week before her period—not too bad.
Plus, last time they had been in Paris and they’d had sex dozens of times. Once on the sofa didn’t pack the same punch. She hit the sofa, as though the furniture was at fault.
If it was anyone’s fault it was Jed’s. He never forgot protection. At the beginning of their affair he had been meticulous in his use of condoms until he was certain the birth control pill had had time to take full effect. In fact she would not put it past the man to have deliberately ‘forgotten’ to use protection the other night.
She was being unrealistic, she knew. If she was pregnant—and it was a huge if—she had no one to blame but herself. As well as history she actually taught the sex education classes at school…how ironic was that?
To be fair to Jed, it was natural for him to expect her to be on the pill, given her age and past experience…Especially as she had told him she saw sex as a pleasure between consenting rather than committed adults now, and had let him believe she was more than a friend to Julian…
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