by Penny Jordan
Would she know you had to look inside his wardrobe to check for aliens before he could go to sleep? Would she know he came out in a rash if he ate cheese, or that he threw up if he got too excited? The resentful pain inside was almost impossible to contain.
‘It always makes him a little bit cranky if his routine is disrupted.’
‘Are you calling me a disruption?’ Rafe drawled.
Now that he mentioned it. Actually, Tess didn’t mind the interruption, without which she might still be burbling on this time next week!
‘She’s called me worse,’ he confided to his attentive audience.
‘We wondered who belonged to the car outside.’
If Chloe’s sharp blue gaze had missed a single detail of the tall, spectacular man’s appearance the first time she’d subjected him to a slow head-to-toe scrutiny, she would have surely discovered it on the repeat performance.
Tess found herself feeling uncomfortable on Ian’s behalf. A quick glance in his direction revealed he wasn’t looking at Chloe, but at herself. She smiled tentatively back, relieved he was taking his fiancée’s admiration of a much younger man so well.
‘You look marvellous.’
Tess considered this observation a little unnecessary after all that drooling.
‘Whatever brings you here of all places?’ Chloe persisted, placing her hands on his shoulders and kissing the air artistically either side of his face.
Perhaps, Tess brooded, the stubble put her off. It wouldn’t me…Rafe’s eyes met hers over Chloe’s head and she blushed, as any girl would caught looking at a man as if he were a piece of cream cake she couldn’t wait to jam into her mouth.
‘I always was eccentric.’ Chloe didn’t pick up on the irony in his voice—he hadn’t expected her to—but rather to his surprise there was no answering gleam of humour in Tess’s eyes either when he sought her gaze. ‘It is my home, Chloe.’
‘Oh, I expect you’ve come to see your grandfather.’ Chloe looked happier now she’d come up with a reasonable explanation for finding him in her aunt’s company. ‘He’s not dead, is he?’ she enquired, with a worried afterthought.
‘Silly me, of course he isn’t. I mean, he’s famous, isn’t he? It would have been on the news.’
Rafe struggled to keep his face straight.
‘I did come to see Grandfather,’ he agreed. ‘I arrived last night, actually, only I haven’t made it out there yet.’ He solicitously pounded Tess on the back as she began to choke.
Tess, her eyes still watering, watched the smile fade from Chloe’s lips. She shot Tess a poisonous look before linking her arm through her partner’s and pulling him forward. ‘This is Ian!’ she announced with a verbal flourish.
Shall I curtsy or just applaud? Tess wondered. It was obvious to her now why Ian hadn’t been troubled by Chloe’s interest in Rafe; the girl quite obviously worshipped him! Being worshipped must give a person a nice feeling of security, she mused wistfully.
‘No need for introductions, Chloe, I know who Ian is. I never miss an episode.’
It was impossible to tell from the older man’s polite expression if he believed Rafe’s outright and not very convincing lie, and from the slight wince Tess detected as they exchanged a manly handshake she suspected it might have been firmer than was strictly required on Rafe’s side. The urge to kick him intensified. What made him think she needed him to fight her battles for her?
Ian, who had up to this point reserved his attention for Tess, turned to the young woman who proudly wore his ring upon her finger. ‘You didn’t tell me you knew Rafe Farrar, darling. I’m surprised we’ve never met before, Rafe.’
‘Yes, it’s amazing,’ Tess agreed, casting a malicious glance towards Rafe. ‘Considering how Rafe hovers diligently around on the lovey fringes hoping someone will mistake him for someone really famous and take his photo.’
Tess was immediately mortified that she’d allowed Rafe to provoke her into this display of shrewish bad manners.
Ian’s understanding expression reminded Tess that everything she knew about this man had been gleaned second-hand from Chloe. Given this fact, something might well have got lost in the translation! Tess had taken it for granted Chloe’s love interest had an outsized ego and she’d hoped he had a mouse-sized intellect to match! Now it looked as if she was wrong on both counts.
‘I hope Ben isn’t too tired after his early start to come out with us for the day. We’ve got a picnic…’
‘I ordered it from Fortnum’s,’ Chloe explained. Did she expect an eighteen-month-old to be impressed? Tess wondered.
‘He loves the animals. Don’t you, Ben…?’ If the high-class hamper didn’t include crisps and his favourite tuna-paste sandwiches Tess could foresee some toddler-sized tantrums on the horizon. If I was a nice person I’d warn them, she thought guiltily. Admit it, Tess, you’re hoping exposure to a couple of Ben’s best tantrums will make Chloe think twice about the joys of motherhood.
‘He likes snakes best,’ she elaborated. ‘Hsss!’ She demonstrated her best snake noise and Chloe looked at her as if she’d gone mad.
‘Hssss, hssss,’ Ben responded, displaying an immediate grasp of the situation.
‘Then we’ll definitely find some snakes for him.’ Ian laughed.
Chloe looked almost comically horrified by her fiancé’s easygoing response. Tess was glad about this for Ben’s sake, of course she was, but at the same time she couldn’t help thinking that the fact that he seemed a nice guy who didn’t think kids came from another planet was not going to help her own case.
With Ian to support Chloe, the scene in which a tearfully grateful Chloe said, ‘Ben belongs with you, Tess,’ was growing fuzzier by the second.
‘Don’t you like nice furry things like…like…?’ Chloe persisted hopefully.
‘Rabbits?’ Rafe put in helpfully. This was better than TV. If he hadn’t been aware of how much Tess was suffering he’d have settled back to enjoy the entertainment.
Chloe smiled gratefully at him. ‘Yes, bunnies. Do you like sweet little bunnies, Benjy?’
‘Hsss.’ Ben chortled happily.
‘Would everyone like coffee?’ Tess leapt in to fill the silence that followed and took the opportunity to remove herself as far from Rafe as possible.
‘Very kind, but we ought to be off. We’ll have him back in time for tea.’
‘Ess,’ Ben appealed, holding out his arms to Tess.
Tess ached to pick him up. ‘Not today, Ben.’
‘Some other time, perhaps,’ Ian agreed. ‘It’s been nice to meet you, Tess. I hope you won’t mind if I don’t call you aunt.’
‘Almost anything else would be preferable,’ Tess admitted bluntly.
‘You’re not at all what I was expecting…’ A faint twitch of Ian’s photogenic lips accompanied this last wry comment.
Despite the bleakness that had settled around her heart, Tess responded with wry humour. ‘Let me guess—a shawl, slippers and rheumatism?’
‘Well, not Titian hair and great bones, at any rate.’ He studied her face with the objective eye of a connoisseur.
The objectivity didn’t fool Rafe for one second!
‘The camera would just love that face, it’s so expressive.’
Rafe rolled his eyes.
Tess, who was trying hard not to be expressive, looked uncomfortable.
‘Have you ever done any acting or—?’
Tess, aware that her niece was looking ready to pull out the said Titian hair follicle by follicle, cut him off hastily.
‘I don’t have my Equity card, and isn’t there a bit more to being an actor than a pretty face?’
‘Tess, you really haven’t watched my programme, have you?’ he chided her with attractive self-derision. ‘Still, at least nobody has ever accused me of being highbrow and élitist.’
Tess found it hard not to laugh as she listened to this sly jibe. Ian might not be accusing Rafe directly, but he didn’t really have to—a high-profil
e victim of Rafe’s lethal interviewing techniques had recently made both accusations loudly on national television.
‘Well, shouldn’t you do something with his face and hands before we take him?’ Chloe, toe tapping impatiently, looked pointedly at Ben’s grubby hands.
‘You’re right, Chloe.’ Tess subdued her natural instincts to respond to the child’s need and held her ground. If Chloe wanted to be a mum, fine, she could be a mum and all that entailed. The sooner she learnt there was more to the job than supplying presents and picnic hampers, the better. ‘You know where the bathroom is, there’s a pile of fresh nappies in the wicker basket, and I left a change of clothes out in his bedroom.’
‘Nappies?’ Chloe echoed, looking pale.
If Ian was worrying about sticky baby fingers on his upholstery, he didn’t show it. Tess wished she could figure out what the expression on his face meant as he watched Chloe, wearing her plucky but ill-used heroine face, leave the room with her son.
‘I think I’d better give her a hand,’ he said, excusing himself after a moment with an attractive smile.
He might not be as tall or as young as he appeared on the screen, but he was a million times warmer and more human.
‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’ As stepfather material went, they probably didn’t get much better, Tess admitted gloomily to herself. The male influence was something she had never been able to supply in Ben’s life and, things being the way they were, probably never would.
‘Nice!’ Rafe’s tongue curled around the word with scathing distaste.
His vicious tone startled Tess, who twirled around to face him.
‘Do you mean you actually swallowed all that Titian hair, great bones, I’ll get you a screen test guff?’ His laughter was nothing short of insulting. ‘Besides,’ he added in a disgruntled tone, ‘you don’t have Titian hair.’ His brooding glance strayed and paused on the top of her shining head. ‘It’s chestnut.’
‘Just like your dumpy old pony eating her head off in your grandfather’s stables,’ she suggested with a spurt of childish petulance. Titian might not be strictly accurate, but it had a much more glamorous sound to it than chestnut
‘Much glossier, actually.’ Rafe had the strongest urge to let the glossy strands run through his fingers. He actually started to reach out before it occurred to him that this might not be the moment for spontaneous tactile gestures. ‘Talk about laying it on with a trowel! I didn’t think you were that simple, Tess! The man’s a complete con artist.’
‘Meaning he’s automatically insincere if he thinks I’m good to look at.’ A dangerous note crept into her voice as she lifted her arms from her sides and subjected her jeans-clad figure to a tight-lipped critical scrutiny. ‘You’re just mad because he got your measure at first glance.’
‘I mean,’ Rafe corrected impatiently, ‘that the man knows you could make things difficult for them. He’s trying to keep you sweet. No, cancel that, he’s succeeding in keeping you sweet, though if he carries on being so full-on playing up to you,’ he predicted with grim satisfaction, ‘he’s going to have trouble on his hands with Chloe. She looked fairly green, and I can’t say I blame her!’
‘You don’t blame her!’ Tess echoed incredulously. ‘I don’t believe you, I really don’t. Ian is right, you have become an intellectual snob,’ she breathed wrathfully, shaking her head slowly from side to side. ‘Unusual it may be, but I’m not so desperate yet that I turn into some sort of compliant puppet when a man says something flattering to me. I was simply making an objective observation.’
‘Objective, sure!’
‘Well, a damned sight more objective than you’re being. What are you frowning like that for?’ she snapped.
‘I was trying to figure out how come you called Chloe Mummy in front of Ben?’
‘Because she is!’ Tess wondered if he was being dense just to annoy her. ‘That’s no secret.’
‘Pardon me, but I thought it was?’ Rafe began with a frown. ‘You mean he…Ben…knows?’ he puzzled.
‘Of course he knows. Well,’ she modified, ‘he knows, but he only understands as much as any one-year-old can under the circumstances. I may wish I was Ben’s mother but I know I’m not,’ she told him fiercely. ‘And I’m neither stupid or selfish enough to lie to him. People assume I’m Ben’s mum and I don’t go out of my way to explain the relationship, but if they ask me…’
‘You mean if I’d asked…?’
‘I’d have told you, sure I would. Only you didn’t ask. In fact, you didn’t say much at all, the way I recall it.’ It was the one time she could recall when Rafe had genuinely been at a loss for words.
‘Well, what did you expect?’ he exploded.
Tess pressed an urgent finger to her lips and glanced furtively up the stairs. ‘Will you keep your voice down?’ she hissed nervously.
‘If you want to whisper in your own house that’s up to you, but I’m damned if I will!’
‘That would only make any sort of sense if this was your house and, even though you treat it as if it is, it isn’t! Which makes that an extremely silly thing to say.’
‘Your house, my house!’ He clicked his fingers dismissively. ‘The point is you hadn’t even told me you were pregnant! That tends to make a bloke who was supposedly your best friend feel excluded.’
Tess’s lips twitched. ‘I probably didn’t tell you because I wasn’t pregnant,’ she reminded him. ‘It’s not my fault that you turned out to be judgemental and narrow-minded,’ she announced with sweet malice.
The breath hissed out from between his clamped teeth. ‘I like that!’ He didn’t sound or look as if he liked anything she was saying. ‘I tried to be supportive, it was you who gave me the cold shoulder. You used that patronising little smile to make me feel male and useless, then for good measure retreated behind that bottle of formula!’ he accused.
‘You are male and useless.’
‘You’ve not got that bottle of formula to hide behind.’
Tess’s chin went up. ‘Is that a threat?’ She was horrified to hear that give-away catch in her husky voice. It was the sort of catch that turned a question into an invitation. There was no escaping the fact that breathless was entirely the wrong message to be sending!
‘It’s a simple observation.’
Tess didn’t find anything simple about the dangerous gleam in his dark eyes. ‘Well, you can keep your observations to yourself,’ she blustered. ‘And that goes for your hands too,’ she added for good measure. ‘I don’t know what you were playing at…’
‘You know, I always wondered why you didn’t breastfeed.’ His eyes rested thoughtfully on the area involved. It took all of her will-power not to cover herself with her hands. She didn’t dare look down; it was bad enough just feeling what effect his scrutiny was having.
She forced herself to breathe. ‘Well, now you know.’
‘Now I know.’
Tess silently prayed his knowledge didn’t extend to the state of her rioting hormones.
‘Chloe’s wondering whether we’re sleeping together.’
His expression suggested this was a good thing and she should congratulate him…She should probably strangle him. A fleeting glance at the strong brown column of his neck made her wonder what it would feel like to run her fingers…Her homicidal urges were replaced by other far more disturbing urges.
‘I wonder why?’ Tess drawled hoarsely.
‘I think it’s probably better for you to worry about what I’m going to do or say than worry about losing Ben. When you saw their car pull up you looked frantic.’
The provocation of his cool words made Tess abandon her discreet whisper. ‘Your groping might have been purely altruistic, but it felt like groping to me!’ she yelled.
‘I didn’t say that. The distraction part was good but I groped you…I prefer fondled,’ he mused. ‘It has a much nicer sound to it. I fondled you because I can’t do what I actually want to.’ The mocking smile faded totally from his face.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what that is?’
‘No…no!’ she denied, shaking her head vigorously from side to side. ‘Now will you just shut up?’ she snapped, hearing the clatter of feet on the staircase. ‘They’re coming.’
This time he would be coming home, she thought as she watched Ben being strapped into the car; the next time she could be waving farewell for good. Contemplating this event was so painful that Tess made her excuses and dashed back into the house before the car had drawn away. She’d only just reached the kitchen when Chloe’s breathless return to the kitchen ruined her bitter introspection.
‘I forgot my bag…see,’ Chloe explained, producing a decorative sugar-pink number that wasn’t big enough to hold a comb.
Her next words were so calculated to injure—and injure they did—that Tess no longer had any doubts that the bag had been deliberately left behind.
‘I’m not heartless. I know how you must feel losing Benjy. But I’m his mother.’ She sighed. ‘One day when you have a child of your own…’ Her hand went to her mouth.
‘Sorry, Tess, I forgot—you can’t, can you?’
‘No, I can’t.’
Something that might have been remorse flickered in Chloe’s blue eyes before she remembered how Tess had shamelessly monopolised the male attention.
‘Does Rafe know?’
‘Know what?’
‘That you can’t have a baby of your own.’
‘There’s no reason he should know,’ Tess replied, wondering when Chloe would decide she’d sunk her knife in deep enough.
‘Then you’re not sleeping with him…?’
Tess didn’t feel inclined to make Chloe feel any happier so she avoided giving a direct answer. ‘I don’t give my medical history to all my lovers,’ she replied, fighting hard to retain her fragile composure.
‘A word to the wise, Tess. I thought Rafe looked a bit embarrassed when you were throwing yourself at him earlier. I’m only telling you this—’
‘I know,’ Tess interrupted drily. ‘Out of the goodness of your heart. Your concern is noted, but actually, Chloe, I’m not sure the situation has been invented which could embarrass Rafe.’ Irritate, annoy and aggravate, yes; embarrass, no!