“Your engagement of course.”
“It’s a bit late for that,” Pierce threw back his head and laughed. “For once in your life you’ve been out-gunned Richard. Let me introduce you to my wife Kerry, and to her father, Charles Farrow of Farrow Holdings.”
The journalist was momentarily speechless, capable only of gazing at Kerry in open mouthed disbelief. Marissa flushed as red as her vivid dress and gave a tight little gasp of fury as her gaze slid past Pierce to where Kerry was sitting, still holding tightly onto his hand. When she had first arrived at the table she had been so intent on the photographer she had dismissed her as someone of no consequence, not even checking to see who she was. Now, however, she recognized her and her claws came out.
“Why Kerry, how lovely to see you,” her smile was totally insincere. “I didn’t know it was you because it’s been so long, and you look very different without that yard of hair hanging down your back.”
Kerry smiled. She knew what she had to do. “The children made it impractical,” she explained, joining in with Pierce’s game. “You know what they’re like when they’re tiny…all that grabbing onto everything and pulling hard.”
Marissa’s blank expression said that not only did she not know what small children were like but she didn’t have the faintest clue what Kerry was talking about either. It was left to Richard Jennings to clear everything up.
“Are you telling me you’re married and you have a child?” He directed his question at Pierce although his eyes rested on Kerry with considerable admiration, taking in the detail of her clinging pink dress and the sheen of her urchin curls.
“Children,” corrected Pierce. “We have twins, Ben and Lauren. They’re two years old.” The pride in his voice was genuine despite the game he was having at everyone’s expense.
With an exclamation of disgust the journalist threw his notebook down amongst the debris of the meal. “I must be in the wrong job. Pierce Simon married with two children and I haven’t reported it. For god’s sake I’m a gossip columnist. News like this is meant to reach me as it happens.”
“Your problem not mine. I didn’t ask other people to hit the ball for me when I played tennis,” Pierce chuckled as he slipped his arm around Kerry’s shoulders and pulled her closer.
He forestalled any more questions by waving over the waiter and asking for extra glasses and a fresh bottle of wine. Then he carried on with the conversation. “Publicity is as bad for a marriage and children as a life on the tennis circuit, so Kerry and I choose to keep a low profile. I guess we’ve done well to keep it quiet for this long.”
If Richard Jennings recognized he’d been maneuvered away from asking about dates and details, he didn’t comment. Instead he turned to Charles Farrow.
“And what about you Sir? What do you think about your grandchildren and the elaborate security screen that has kept them out of the public eye for two years? As owner of Farrow Holdings surely you would have liked to acknowledge them in public occasionally, tell the world your daughter and son-in-law are building a Farrow dynasty.”
Charles Farrow gave the reporter a long, cold look. “I honored their request for privacy,” he said. Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did he give away his real feelings.
Richard Jennings probed a little deeper, too old a hand to be put off by a glacial stare. “Then there’s no truth in the story that’s been circulating for years now, that you and your daughter are estranged?”
“Surely the fact that we’re sitting at the same table answers your question.”
Because there was no reply to this, the journalist turned, somewhat desperately, to Marissa. “And what about you Miss Reynolds? You must have been party to this clever ploy to keep reporters at bay. After all you’re pretty high profile yourself, so did you do a deal? Those occasional pictures of you and Pierce together, were they a part of it? Were they all about boosting your career while Pierce kept us all looking in totally the wrong direction?”
Marissa managed something fairly close to a smile as she grabbed what little credit she could. “Pierce and I have been friends for years.”
Richard Jennings nodded, satisfied he’d put the right two and two together and completely unaware he’d made five. Then a though struck him. He turned again to Pierce.
“Why now? If you’ve managed to keep the paparazzi fooled all this time, why broadcast now?”
“Who’s broadcasting?” Pierce shook his head. “I’m just here for a quiet meal.”
“You didn’t telephone the paper then?”
“And hand you my privacy on a plate. I’m not mad you know!”
“I’m beginning to think I might be,” the journalist gave up on Pierce with a disgruntled frown and turned to David. “You’re not planning to retire or anything are you because this seems to be a night for big news?”
David chuckled. “I intend to be sports fodder for a few years yet.”
“No wedding bells sounding in your direction then?” He looked at Mel as he spoke but David shook his head.
“None! And before you resort to fantasy let me introduce you to Mel Parker. She manages the Spa Bistro at Greenleas and she is also Mrs Simon’s business partner.”
Chapter Eleven
Kerry was very quiet on the journey back to Greenleas. She sat well away from Pierce in a tight little world of her own. He didn’t speak to her as they covered the few miles between the restaurant and the sports club but she was aware of an enormous tension building between them, a tension that could only be resolved in one way.
He pulled into the car park and killed the engine so they were alone in a pool of darkness. “Are you sure you didn’t want to go on to the nightclub with David and Mel?”
“Quite sure,” her voice was little more than a whisper as she aimed for humor. “It’s all right for them, they don’t get woken up at six o’clock every morning.”
Sensing his smile, she could picture his rueful expression. Their lives had become so interwoven in the past few weeks that she now knew what to expect from him on most occasions. They were no longer two people linked by an unplanned fusion of genes. Instead they were two people with mutual aims who might learn to be friends. She put out a hand and touched his arm. He was no more than a dark shadow sitting beside her.
“I want to thank you…for tonight,” her words were halting as she searched for a way to explain how she felt. She needed him to know that by making her face her father he had exorcised a demon. It no longer mattered that Charles Farrow had let her down at the most crucial moment of her life. After tonight she would be able to view everything more objectively, maybe even see her father’s side of the story. Perhaps they could even talk about it at sometime in the future although they hadn’t made any plans to meet. She tried to explain all this to Pierce, to talk to him for the first time about the trauma of her early pregnancy.
He listened in silence while she told him how her father had tried to make her have an abortion and how he’d thrown her out of the house when she refused. “And the way he talked about it made everything that had happened between you and me seem dirty somehow…I…I can’t really explain…but it was…”
With an exclamation of disgust Pierce pulled her into his arms. “Stop it!” That’s nonsense and you know it.” His mouth was very close to hers.
She could sense the anger surging through him and for a moment she wasn’t sure whether it was directed at her because of what she had just told him about her feelings or whether it was directed at her father. His next action left her in no doubt and when they finally drew apart they were both trembling with the intensity of their need for one another. With a muttered curse Pierce threw open the driver’s door. The interior light clicked on, illuminating Kerry’s flushed cheeks and the moist redness of her lips.
“We’ve still got to get rid of George and Mary,” he groaned, his eyes blue pools of turbulence that spoke a language of their own as they caressed every inch of her face.
She put
out a finger and touched his mouth, tracing the familiar lines of his lips until he gave an anguished moan. “For god’s sake Kerry, I can’t take much more of this. Three years is a long time to be celibate.”
She drew back from him then, a tiny frown of unease on her face. Surely he wasn’t going to start lying now, not when everything was beginning to make sense.
“What about Marissa?”
“What about Marissa?” He caught her fingers and kissed each one before turning her hand over and pressing his lips against her palm.
Angrily she curled it into a fist. “Stop playing with me Pierce. You know exactly what I mean and if we’re to make anything of our marriage we must at least be truthful with one another.”
“You mean there is some chance of success after all?” He was teasing her now, totally confident until he saw the expression in her eyes. He stopped laughing then and shook his head.
“Ah…forgive me sweetheart, and believe me too. You’ve no reason to be jealous of Marissa.”
“Despite the fact I saw you kissing her?”
“Despite the fact you saw her kissing me, as I told you at the time.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There is most decidedly a difference,” he gave a soft chuckle as he lowered his head to the scooped neck of her pink dress. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“Not yet,” the breathlessness returned to her voice as his lips brushed her throat. “Not until you’ve explained about Marissa.”
He gave a sigh of frustration. “All right, you win. Marissa has been seeing your father on and off for years, ever since she first met him in fact. I think he’s her security blanket in case she doesn’t land someone closer to her own age.”
“Like Pierce Simon?”
“You said it,” he gave a twisted grin. “I’ve had to work hard at keeping her at arm’s length these past few years without frightening her off altogether.”
When he saw her puzzlement his expression softened. “Strange as it might sound, she was the only contact I had with you. Because of her relationship with your father I kept hoping that if I strung her along she would eventually let something drop, pass on the information I was sure your father was keeping from me. Don’t forget I only found out the real truth a few weeks ago. Until then I thought your father was acting on your instructions. I had absolutely no idea he’d thrown you out, still less that you were pregnant. To be fair I don’t think Marissa knew either. I’d hazard a guess you weren’t one of their regular topics of conversation!”
He paused and dropped a gentle kiss on her upturned face. “Don’t look like that Kerry. It’s all over now. When you saw me with Marissa I had just told her I was too busy to keep on meeting up with her and she was trying to salvage a little pride by attempting to turn me on.”
“Did she succeed?” The corners of Kerry’s mouth started to curl upwards.
“What do you think?”
“I’d like you to tell me.”
“Well considering I’d just spent a very frustrating night holding you in my arms, I think I was very controlled, especially when Marissa made it clear she was available.”
“I was available too,” Kerry lowered her head and spoke into his shoulder. “That first night when you carried me into your bed showed me exactly how I felt about you. I was ready to agree to anything until I saw you with Marissa.”
He put his hand under her chin and tilted her face upwards again until he could look into her eyes. “What a terrible mess we’ve made of things Kerry! I don’t think either of us have done anything right. I need to know exactly why you ran away from me too. And remember it’s your turn to tell the truth now.”
She told him, reminding him of the conversation at the bar the day she discovered she was pregnant, and explaining how his insistence that marriage and babies had no place on the tennis circuit stopped her from telling him anything at all. “I didn’t want to be responsible for wrecking your career,” she explained. “I was the one who was careless, so I thought I had to be responsible, not you.”
“You mean you took away any choice on my part even though I was at least fifty per cent to blame, more really because you were barely more than a child yourself, because you thought you had to. I can’t believe you were afraid I would behave like your father. I’m sorry Kerry. Sorry you had so little faith in me. Sorry I dragged you round the circuit without at least some promises for the future. Sorry your father was your only role model. Did you really think I would abandon you if I knew you were pregnant?”
“Not abandon me, no. But I thought you might hate me for what I’d done to you and that you’d resent the baby I was expecting the way my father always resented me, and I couldn’t face it.”
He held her tightly then. “Thank god I found you before you had time to infect Ben and Lauren with all those hang ups. I love you Kerry and I always have. My mistake was not to tell you sooner. I thought making love to you was enough…that there would be plenty of time to talk about getting married later. I was so wrapped up in my career that I didn’t think about anything but the next match. It was only when you left me that I realized how much I needed you in my life. Anyway your parent’s problems are not ours. The twins belong to both of us whereas you only belonged to your mother.”
She stirred in his arms, the vitriol of her father’s reaction when she’d first told him she was pregnant returning to her in a rush of puzzled emotion. Pierce looked down at her with a frown. “I’m sorry I’m the one who has to tell you this because it isn’t a pretty story. It’s the one thing I learned from Marissa though. She let it all out one night when we went for a drink. Apparently your father is infertile but he didn’t tell your mother this when he married her. When she found out she understandably became very angry and upset. I imagine it was her anger that drove her into the arms of one of his business partners, a married man many years older than her, and someone who should have known better. Anyway, you were the result, but for some reason your father decided to accept you as his own child. It was probably because Farrow Holdings was the most important thing in his life. If he’d fallen out with his business partner it would have damaged the company and if he’d divorced your mother it would have cost him a lot of money.”
“When you were born he even celebrated your arrival by telling journalists you were the new heir to the company. Of course that was his public face. In the privacy of his home he never forgave your mother for what she’d done, or forgave you for being born. You were a constant reminder of her infidelity, his own lack of fertility and the perfidy of his business partner.”
Kerry’s eyes were twin pools of agony for her parent’s dilemma as she stared up at him. “That’s why she always taught me I had to accept the consequences of my own mistakes, and it must be why she agreed to send me away to boarding school as well. I know she didn’t want to but she probably decided it was better than keeping me at home with a father who resented every breath I took. Her life must have been hell.”
“His too I guess,” Pierce said. “Because although he agreed to accept you as his own child, he never got over it. Instead he made sure you and your mother suffered as a consequence. According to Marissa he still takes pride in the fact he never let her forget what she’d done, right up to the day she died.”
“What a terrible way to live. You’re right, it must have been hell for both of them.”
“Not as hellish as my life has been for the last three years though.” He lifted his arms from her shoulders and cupped her face in his hands. “Do you know exactly what I’ve been through, searching for you, not knowing what I’d done to make you leave me? And finding you only made it worse. First you tried to put me off with that ridiculous story about being bored with tennis. Deep down I knew it was a lie but until I saw the twins I didn’t understand what you were trying to do. Once I realized it was because you were trying to protect yourself and them, it all began to make sense. Then I saw how little faith you had in me and how you
were convinced I would always put my own needs first and it made me realize how much I’d failed you.”
“Failed me?” Kerry shook her head in disbelief. “How can you say such a thing when I’ve stolen two years of Ben and Lauren’s babyhood from you? I don’t know how you can ever forgive me.”
“I forgave you the first moment I saw you with them,” he kissed her gently. “When I saw how pale and tired you were, how thin you’d become, all I wanted was to take you in my arms and keep you there forever. And when I realized what a terrible struggle you’d had bringing them up all alone, I thought I’d go mad. I was telling the truth when I said I forced you to marry me quickly because I wanted to protect you and the children from any media probing, but I had an ulterior motive too. I didn’t trust you not to run away again and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you for a second time, so I just hoped, given time, that you would stop hating me for being such a bully and learn to love me again.”
“You mean it wasn’t all about Ben and Lauren at all? Are you saying you wouldn’t have fought me in court?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t have hurt you that much? No, I’d have supported all three of you and hoped for a second chance if you’d decided to call my bluff. Fortunately for me you didn’t.”
She smiled then, all the love she’d hidden for so long showing in her eyes. He had always wanted her. It had never just been about the twins.
“But what about this evening?” Her voice was husky with emotion as she turned to him again. “Why play everything out in public? It could all have gone very wrong.”
“That’s what David said,” he frowned as he remembered how his friend had argued with him at the restaurant as soon as he realized what was happening. “He was angry with me for setting everything up but it was a risk I had to take. I knew we couldn’t keep our marriage out of the public eye for much longer. A chance remark at Greenleas, someone from the old days recognizing you, and it would be all over the media in a matter of hours. Once I found out where Marissa and your father were eating this evening it was easy. A short anonymous phone call to Richard Jennings, and a quiet word with the waiters, and everything was in place. My plan was to make everyone think we’d been married for a long time. That it also forced your father into a public acknowledgement of our marriage and the twins was a bonus.”
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