A Vow of Obligation

by Lynne Graham

  That unexpected admission made it easier for Tawny to unbend in her turn. ‘I made things worse. I shouldn’t have pretended that I was planning to sell a story about you.’

  ‘I made an incorrect assumption … time has proven me wrong, for no story appeared in the papers.’

  ‘That note was smuggled in to me before we flew up to Scotland. Julie would’ve been behind it. She even phoned my gran to try and find out where you and I had gone. I put the note in my pocket and forgot about it. I never intended to use that phone number.’

  ‘Let the matter rest there. We have more important concerns at the moment.’

  ‘How on earth did you find out where I was working?’

  ‘You can thank your sister Bee for that information.’

  Her exclamation of surprise was met by his description of the phone call he had received at the airport. Tawny winced and squirmed, loving Bee but deeply embarrassed by her interference. ‘Bee hates people being at odds with each other. She’s a tremendous peace maker but I do wish she had trusted me to handle this on my own.’

  ‘She meant well. You’re lucky to have a sister who cares so much about your welfare.’

  ‘Zara is less pushy but equally opinionated.’ At that point Tawny recalled Navarre telling her that he had no family he acknowledged and that memory filled her heart with regret and sympathy on his behalf. She might sometimes disagree with her relatives’ opinions but she was still glad to have them in her life. People willing to tell her the truth and look out for her no matter what were a precious gift.

  ‘Where are we heading?’

  ‘Your sister and brother-in-law have kindly offered us the use of their home here in London for our meeting. We need somewhere to talk in private and I am tired of hotels,’ he admitted curtly. ‘It’s time that I bought a property in this city.’

  Tawny was pleased that Bee had offered the use of her luxury home in Chelsea and relieved not to have to take him back to her dreary bedsit to chat. Navarre, with his classy custom-made suits and shoes would never relax against such a grungy backdrop and she did want him to relax. If they were going to share a child it was vitally important that they establish a more harmonious relationship, she reasoned ruefully.

  Ushered into the elegant drawing room of Bee and Sergios’s mansion home by their welcoming housekeeper, Tawny was grateful to just kick off her shoes and curl up on a well-upholstered sofa in comfort. All of a sudden she didn’t care any more that she was looking less than her best in a work tunic with a touch of mascara being her only concession to cosmetic enhancement. After all, what did such things matter now? He was no longer interested in her in that way. Three months had passed since he had walked away from her without a backwards glance—she didn’t count that single brief phone call made out of duty to ask if she was pregnant—and for such diametrically opposed personalities as they it had probably been a wise move.

  Navarre marvelled at the manner in which she instantly shed all formality and made herself comfortable. She made no attempt to pose or impress him, had not even dashed a lipstick across her lush full mouth. He was used to women who employed a great deal more artifice and her casual approach intrigued him. In any case the lipstick would only have come off, he thought hungrily, appreciation snaking through him as he noted the purity of her fine-boned profile, the natural elegance of her slender body in relaxation. And that hint of a bump that had changed her shape was his child. It struck Navarre as quite bizarre at that moment that that thought should turn him on hard and fast.

  Tawny was now thinking hard about their predicament, trying to be fair to both of them. Their baby was a complication of an affair that was already over and done with, she conceded unhappily, and the more honest she was with him now, the more likely they were to reach an agreement that suited both of them.

  ‘I want to have this baby,’ she told Navarre straight off, keen to avoid any exchange with him in regard to the choices she might choose to make for their child. ‘My mother thinks I’m being an idiot because she believes that giving birth to me and becoming a single parent ruined her life. I’ve heard all the arguments on that score since I was old enough to understand what she was talking about but I don’t feel the same way. This baby may not be planned but I love it already and we’ll manage.’

  ‘I like your positive attitude.’

  ‘Do you?’ She was warmed by the comment and a tremulous smile softened the stressful line of her pink mouth.

  ‘But it does seem that we are both approaching this situation with a lot of baggage from our own childhoods.’ Navarre compressed his hard sensual mouth as he voiced that comment. ‘Neither of us had a father and we suffered from that lack. It is hard for a child to have only one parent.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed ruefully.

  ‘And it also puts a huge burden on the single parent’s shoulders. Your mother struggled to cope and became bitter while my mother could not cope with parenting me at all. Our experiences have taught us how hard it is to raise a child alone and I don’t want to stand back and watch you and our child go through that same process.’

  The extent of his understanding of the problems she might have took Tawny aback at the same time as his thoughtfulness and willingness to take responsibility impressed her. ‘I’m not belittling my mother’s efforts as a parent because she did the very best she could, but she was very bitter and I do think I’m more practical in my expectations than she was.’

  ‘I don’t think you should have to lower your expectations at your age simply because you will have a child’s needs to consider.’

  Tawny pulled a wry face. ‘But we have to be realistic.’

  ‘It is exactly because I am realistic about what life would be like for you that I’ve come here to ask you to marry me. Only marriage would allow me to take my full share of the responsibility,’ Navarre told her levelly, his strong jawline squaring with resolve. ‘Together we will be able to offer our child much more than we could offer as parents living apart.’

  Tawny was totally stunned for she had not seen that option hovering on her horizon at all. She stared back at Navarre, noting how grave his face was, grasping by his composed demeanour that he had given the matter a great deal of thought. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’

  ‘I want to be there for you from the moment this child is born,’ Navarre admitted with tough conviction. ‘I don’t want another man to take my place in my child’s life either. The best way forwards for both of us is marriage.’

  ‘But we know so little about each other—’

  ‘Is that important? Is it likely to make our relationship more successful? I think not,’ he declared with assurance. ‘I believe it is infinitely more important that we are strongly attracted to each other and both willing to make a firm commitment to raise our child together.’

  Tawny was mesmerised by his rock solid conviction. She felt slightly guilty that she had not appreciated that he might feel as responsible for her well-being and for that of their child as he evidently did. Too late did she grasp that she had expected him to treat her exactly as her absent father had treated her mother—with disdain and resentment. He was not running away from the burden of childcare, he was moving closer to accept it. Tears of relief stung her eyes and she blinked rapidly, turning her face away in the hope he had not noticed.

  But Navarre was too observant to be fooled. ‘What’s wrong, chérie? What did I say?’

  Tawny smiled through the tears. ‘It’s all right, it’s not you. It’s just I cry over the silliest things at the minute—I think it’s the hormones doing it. My father was absolutely horrible to my mum when she told him she was pregnant and I think I sort of subconsciously assumed you would be the same. So, you see, we’re both guilty of making wrong assumptions.’

  Navarre had tried to move on from his cynical suspicions about her, she reasoned with a feeling of warmth inside her that felt remarkably like hope. She had not cashed the bank draft, she had not talked to the press about
him and as a result he was willing to reward her with his trust. He treated her now with respect. He was no longer questioning the manner of their baby’s conception or even mentioning a cynical need for DNA testing to check paternity. In short he had cut through all the rubbish that had once littered their relationship and offered her a wedding ring as a pledge of commitment to a new future. And she knew immediately that she would say yes to his proposal, indeed that it would feel like a sin not to at least try to see if they could make a marriage work for the sake of their child.

  This was the guy whom against all the odds she had fallen madly in love with. He was the guy who ordered her magnificent breakfasts and admired her appetite and constantly checked that she wasn’t hungry, the guy who had batted not a single magnificent eyelash over those embarrassing newspaper revelations about her background in spite of the presence of a bunch of snobbish socialite guests, who had undoubtedly looked down on his bargain basement taste in fiancées. He was also the guy who was endearingly, ridiculously jealous and possessive if another man so much as looked at her, an attitude which had made her feel irresistible for the first time in her life.

  ‘Do you like children?’ she asked him abruptly.

  Navarre laughed. ‘I’ve never really thought about it, but, yes, I believe that I do.’

  When he smiled like that the power of his charisma rocketed, throwing him into the totally gorgeous bracket, and he made her heart hammer and her breath catch in her throat. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you,’ she told him in French.

  ‘You’re an artist. I believe you will like living in Paris.’

  He made it all seem so simple. That first visit he insisted on meeting her mother and her partner over dinner the following night at a very smart hotel. At first mother and daughter were a little stiff with each other, but at the end of the evening Susan Baxter took Tawny to one side to speak to her in private and said, ‘I’m so happy it’s all working out for you that I don’t really know what to say,’ she confided, tears shining in her anxious gaze. ‘I know you were annoyed with the solution I suggested but I just didn’t want your life to go wrong while you were still so young. I was afraid that you were repeating my mistakes and it felt like that had to be my fault—’

  ‘Navarre’s not like my father,’ Tawny cut in with perceptible pride.

  ‘No, he seems to be very mature and responsible.’

  The word ‘responsible’ stung, although Tawny knew that no insult had been intended. She was too sensitive, she acknowledged ruefully. Navarre would not walk away from his child because he had grown up without the support of either a father or a mother and only he knew what that handicap had cost him. For that reason he would not abandon the mother of his child to struggle with parenthood alone. Acknowledging that undeniable fact made Tawny feel just a little like a charity case or an exercise in which Navarre would prove to his own satisfaction that he had the commitment gene, which his own parents had sadly lacked. It was an impression that could have been dissolved overnight had Navarre made the smallest attempt to become intimate with his intended bride again … but he did not. The pink diamond was placed on her engagement finger again, for real this time around, but his detached attitude, his concentration on the practical rather than the personal, left Tawny feeling deeply insecure and vulnerable.

  Bee and Sergios offered to stage Navarre and Tawny’s wedding at their London home and under pressure from Tawny, after initially refusing that offer Navarre agreed to it. He then rented a serviced apartment for Tawny’s use and at his request she immediately gave up her job as a waitress and moved into the apartment while he returned to Paris. From there he hired a property firm to find them an ideal home in London and she spent her time doing viewings of the kind of luxury property she had never dreamt she might one day call home.

  Only days after Tawny told her other half-sister, Zara, that she was getting married, Zara arrived in London for an unexpected visit, having left her children, Donata and her infant son, Piero, at home with her husband outside Florence.

  ‘Does this visit now mean you aren’t able to come to the wedding next week?’ Tawny asked, surprised by the timing of her sister’s trip to London. ‘I know it was short notice but—’

  ‘No, I just wanted the chance to talk to you alone before the wedding,’ Zara completed with rather tense emphasis.

  Drawing back from her half-sibling’s hug, Tawny frowned. ‘What’s up? Oh, my goodness, you and Vitale aren’t having trouble, are you?’ she prompted in dismay, for the other couple had always seemed blissfully happy together.

  Her dainty blonde sister went pink with discomfiture. ‘Oh, no … no, nothing like that!’ she exclaimed, although her eyes remained evasive.

  The two young women settled in the comfortable lounge with coffee and biscuits. Tawny looked at Zara expectantly. ‘So, tell me …’

  Zara grimaced. ‘I truly didn’t know whether to come and talk to you or not. Bee said I should mind my own business and keep my mouth shut, so I discussed it with Vitale, but he thought I should be more honest with you.’

  Tawny was frowning. ‘R-right … I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s something about Navarre, just rumours, but they’ve been around a long time and I don’t know whether you know about them or even should know about them.’ Her tongue tying her into increasingly tight knots, Zara was openly uncomfortable. ‘I wouldn’t usually repeat gossip—’

  Tawny’s spine went rigid with tension. Zara was a gentle kind person, never bitchy or mean. If Zara felt there were rumours about Navarre that Tawny ought to hear, she reckoned that they would very probably be a genuine source of concern for her. ‘I’d like to say that I don’t listen to gossip, but I’m not sure I could live without knowing now that you’ve told me there’s something you think I should know about my future husband.’

  ‘Now remember that I’m married to an Italian,’ Zara reminded her uneasily. ‘And for many years in Italy there have been strong rumours to the effect that Navarre Cazier is engaged in a long-running secret affair with Tia Castelli … you know the Italian movie star …?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  TAWNY who had literally stopped breathing while Zara spoke, relocated her lungs at the sound of that name and started to breathe again.

  ‘My goodness, is there anyone on this planet who hasn’t heard of Tia Castelli?’ Tawny asked with her easy laugh. ‘Are there rumours about Navarre and Tia having an affair? Truthfully? When I saw them together—’

  Zara leant forwards in astonishment. ‘You’ve already met Tia Castelli? You’ve actually seen her with Navarre? The word is that they’re in constant contact.’

  Tawny told her sister about her appearance by Navarre’s side at the Golden Awards and her encounter with Tia and her husband, Luke.

  ‘Surprising,’ Zara remarked thoughtfully. ‘I should think if that there had been anything sneaky going on Navarre would have avoided their company like the plague.’

  ‘Navarre has known Tia for years and years. He worked for the banker that handled Tia’s investments—that’s how they first met,’ Tawny explained frankly. ‘Tia is very flirtatious. She expects to be the centre of attention but she’s perfectly pleasant otherwise. I think you’d best describe her as being very much a man’s woman.’

  ‘So, you didn’t notice anything strange between her and Navarre? Anything that made you uncomfortable?’ Zara checked.

  All Tawny felt uncomfortable about at that moment was that she did not feel she could tell Zara the truth of how she had met Navarre and become his fiancée, because she and Navarre had already agreed that now their relationship had become official nobody else had any need to know about their previous arrangement. But it did occur to her just then that the night she had met Tia Castelli, she had been no more than a hired companion on Navarre’s terms and he had had less reason to hide anything from her. He had been very attentive towards Tia, almost protective, she recalled, struggling to think back and recapture what she had s
een. And Tia was an extraordinarily beautiful and appealing woman. Tawny wondered if she was being ridiculously naive about their relationship and could not help recalling Luke Convery’s annoyance at his wife’s friendship with Navarre. No smoke without fire, she reasoned ruefully. It was perfectly possible that Navarre and Tia had been lovers at some point in the past.

  ‘Now I’ve got you all worked up and worried! I should’ve kept quiet! Why is Bee always right?’ Zara exclaimed guiltily as she tracked the fast changing expressions on the younger woman’s face. ‘She would never ever have mentioned those stupid rumours to you.’

  Ironically, what Tawny was thinking about then was the number of times she had heard Navarre talking on the phone in Italian, a language that he seemed to speak with the fluency of a native. Could he have been speaking to Tia? Surely not every time she had heard him using Italian, though, she told herself irritably, for that would have meant that he talked to the gorgeous blonde almost every day.

  At the end of the afternoon, when Zara departed assuring Tawny that she and her husband would attend her wedding, Tawny was conscious that there was now a tiny little seed of doubt planted inside her that was more than ready to sprout into a sturdy sapling of suspicion.

  Prior to her pregnancy, Navarre had seemed so hungry for Tawny, but not so hungry that he had made any attempt to get her back into bed in advance of the wedding. Who had been satisfying that hot libido of his during the three months of their separation? And why was she thinking that him having wanted her automatically meant he could not have also wanted Tia Castelli? Was she really that unsophisticated? After all, Tia was married and the sort of catch many men would kill to possess even briefly. Even if Tia and Navarre were having an affair Tia must surely accept that there would also be other women in Navarre’s life. Her peace of mind shattered by that depressing conclusion, Tawny went to bed to toss and turn, troubled by her thoughts but determined not to share what she still deemed might be ridiculous suspicions with Navarre. Revealing such concerns when she had no proof would make her look foolish and put her at a disadvantage.