Part-Time Father (Harlequin Presents)

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘May I ask where you went?’

  ‘You may not.’

  ‘Did you—did you sleep with somebody else?’ she blurted out, then cringed at the total lack of pride inherent in her question.

  ‘Why,’ he drawled mockingly, ‘should that concern you? You don’t want me, do you, Kimberley? Or rather, you do—you’re just not honest enough to admit it. Perhaps you like playing games; maybe it turns you on to dangle your sexual favours. But I’m not into games, and I’m not your plaything. Fight the attraction all you like—but don’t for one moment imagine that you’re going to condemn me to a life of celibacy.’

  His brutal frankness took her breath away. She stared at that cold, handsome face, at the icy chips of his hard, cruel eyes, and at that moment she really and truly hated him, with a strength of feeling which left her speechless but which showed in the frosty glitter of her blue eyes.

  ‘You—brute,’ she accused him in a hollow whisper. ‘You absolute brute.’

  He actually laughed. ‘What’s that—cue for the brute to demonstrate his brutishness by pulling the fastidious Kimberley into his arms and taking her by force? That would solve your problem for you, wouldn’t it, my dear, and salve your conscience? You could have all the pleasure without having been weak enough yourself to actually admit that you wanted it. Well, sorry, sweetheart—but I’m not taking the bait.’ He pushed his chair back and rose from the table.

  ‘I’m going away for a week on business,’ he said harshly. ‘And while I’m away you might like to consider when you want to go back to work. I don’t imagine, given the current state of affairs between us, that you want to hang around the house any more than you have to.’

  She stared at him incredulously. ‘You mean you’re happy for us to live like this—constantly bickering and squabbling?’

  His hard, cynical mouth twisted. ‘Happy? Hardly the word I would use. No, Kimberley, I’m not happy. But you’re the one who has chosen to live like this. Remember that. And don’t try leaving while I’m away. At least, not with Georgia. I told you—I want my daughter, and I’ll do anything to keep her.’

  Kimberley swallowed. ‘Very well,’ she said steadily. ‘I’ll be here when you get back.’ And she couldn’t damp down the desire to try and hurt him as much as he had hurt her. ‘And, as you seem to have acquired yourself a bed-partner, I’ll have to start looking around myself.’

  His eyes darkened. ‘Not in this house, you won’t,’ he threatened.

  ‘No. I won’t do that. I’ll just stay out all night, as you did.’

  A muscle worked angrily in the side of his face. ‘And I suppose that dear James is to be the lucky recipient of your desires, is he?’ he ground out.

  And two could play at this game, Kimberley decided. ‘That really has nothing to do with you,’ she answered coolly.

  He stared at her for a long minute, passion and fire and fury making the grey eyes smoulder, and she thought that he was about to stride across the room and start making angry love to her. Then he abruptly made a curse and turned his back on her. But at the door he paused, and when he turned around again his face was perfectly composed.

  ‘Oh, I meant to tell you. The evening after I arrive back, I’ve decided to hold a party here. It’ll give some of my friends a chance to meet you, since you refused to allow any of them to come to the wedding. They’ve been asking me why I’m keeping you hidden away.’ His mouth twisted. ‘If they only knew.’

  She lifted her head proudly. ‘And presumably they don’t?’

  ‘No. And I’d like to keep it that way.’ He paused. ‘I want you to be my hostess.’

  He made it sound like a whore, but she bit back her angry reply. She was going to have to come up with some kind of solution to what was promising to be an intolerable living situation, and much more anger and recrimination between them was not going to solve anything.

  And all this bitterness seemed to stem from her refusal to dine with him last night.

  Why?

  It couldn’t just be the physical thing. It just couldn’t. A man like Harrison could have just about any woman he wanted. And he had done, she thought, with angry desperation. Last night. And he would go on doing so, just as long as she held him at arm’s length.

  If only she had the strength to leave here, to see if he really would fight her in the courts for Georgia’s custody. Surely as a mother she held most of the cards?

  But she didn’t have the strength, and she wasn’t at all sure that the reason had anything to do with the costs or publicity incurred by a court case.

  He was regarding her quizzically. ‘So you’ll be at the party?’ he enquired softly.

  ‘Yes, Harrison,’ she echoed on a sigh. ‘I’ll be at the party.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT WAS a Friday afternoon, exactly seven days later, and Kimberley was sitting in the magnificent yellow drawing-room, which overlooked the beautiful gardens at the back of the house, when she heard the front door slam shut.

  ‘Hello?’ came the deep sound of Harrison’s voice.

  She took a huge, huge breath. She had had a lot of time on her hands for thinking during those seven days—she had decided what her strategy was going to be, and she was going to stick to it. The time for conciliation was long overdue.

  ‘I’m in here,’ she called.

  She heard his footsteps moving towards her, and then the door opened and he stood there looking down at her, where she was curled up on the tartan sofa, a magazine by her side, Georgia at her feet, asleep in her tiny chair.

  She stared back at him, trying not to feast her eyes on him. As always, just the sight of him did strange things to her heartrate; it was as though he electrified the whole atmosphere of a room just by being in it.

  He’d left in a suit, but now he wore jeans. The jeans were very old and faded, and fitted so snugly to his buttocks and thighs that they might have been sprayed on. A white T-shirt was tucked into the jeans, and it clung lovingly to the muscles which rippled in his upper chest and arms. His hair was ruffled and he needed a shave. He looked, she realised, much younger than his thirty-three years— and unbelievably sexy.

  The week he’d been gone had seemed like an eternity. She had missed him like hell, although she had wondered how it was possible to miss someone you fought with the whole time.

  She, too, was wearing jeans—black jeans with a black T-shirt—and her thick black hair cascaded freely down her back. She hadn’t been expecting him back this early, and had planned to change into something a little smarter, but now she was glad she hadn’t done. She would have felt a fool. She saw his eyes flicker to the swell of her breasts, felt them tingle into life.

  On the other hand, she thought, this T-shirt was awfully clingy, and maybe that hadn’t been such a good idea either. Kimberley crossed her arms over her chest protectively, and she saw the sardonic curve of his mouth.

  His eyes softened as he looked down at his daughter, fast asleep and sucking her thumb in her little baby-chair. ‘She’s grown,’ he observed, shaking his head a little. ‘Incredible. Only a week, and she’s changed.’

  Her heart turned over at the tenderness written on his face, and she nodded. ‘Yes. She’s put on weight,’ she said proudly, wondering whether this was the shape of things to come. Polite little platitudes about their daughter—just about their only neutral ground, really.

  He was frowning. ‘Something’s different.’

  She waited.

  ‘She doesn’t usually sleep down here.’

  ‘No, that’s right.’ Because Sarah had insisted that she always take her nap in her nursery.

  He looked around the room. The bright pink teddy he’d sent from France was sitting on the sofa next to an orange rabbit his brother and Caroline had bought for the baby. They clashed like crazy, but Kimberley was certain that Georgia loved them. People said that babies didn’t recognise things until they were six weeks old, but she didn’t believe them—not babies as intelligent as Georgia,
anyway!

  Harrison smiled when he saw the teddy. ‘And there are more of her toys down here than usual.’

  Another of Sarah’s edicts. Kimberley could just hear her prim little voice. ‘We don’t want the house looking like a kindergarten, do we? Not for Mr Nash coming home!’

  ‘Where’s Sarah?’ he asked, suddenly and perceptively.

  She could justify exactly what she’d done, but her heart beat faster all the same. ‘I’ve fired her,’ she said calmly.

  He looked at her as though he’d misheard. ‘You’ve done what?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’ve fired her.’

  ‘Would you mind telling me why?’

  ‘Sure. I didn’t agree with her way of bringing up babies.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘And you’re the expert, I suppose?’ he enquired sarcastically. ‘On babies?’

  ‘Yes, I am, actually, Harrison—with this particular baby, certainly. Besides, I’ve been reading books on the subject all week. Four of them, actually.’

  He was staring at her in bemusement. ‘Four books and she knows more than a girl who spent two years training?’

  ‘Yes!’ she snapped, conciliation forgotten for the moment. ‘I want to demand-feed, and I do want to pick her up when she cries. And what I don’t want is to hide away all signs that she exists. She happens to live here, too—and I don’t believe that babies shouldn’t be seen and shouldn’t be heard! But, more than that—and I’m sorry if this offends you Harrison—I didn’t happen to like Sarah. I thought she was prim and smug and narrow-minded, and not particularly intelligent. And if you think that I’m going to let someone like that bring my daughter up, well—I’m not, basically.’ She paused for breath, wondering how he’d take it.

  ‘Wow,’ he said softly. ‘That’s some speech!’

  ‘And I mean every word of it.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  He shrugged the broad shoulders. ‘It isn’t me it will affect, is it? It’s you. So, tell me, are you planning to replace Sarah with someone who isn’t prim and smug and narrow-minded? Or had you intended to take her into the office with you?’

  And now it was time for her next bombshell. ‘I’m not going back to the office.’

  ‘What?’ he asked in disbelief.

  ‘I’m taking some time off—to bring Georgia up.’

  ‘But your career is very important to you,’ he pointed out.

  ‘So is she,’ she said quietly.

  ‘And what are you going to do all day? Bake bread?’

  She found herself giggling, still high with the excitement and amazement of it all—of discovering that this was what she really wanted to do. ‘I might,’ she said. ‘As well as making play-dough. There will also be long walks and finger-painting——’

  He held his hand up, but there was a glint of amusement lighting his eyes. ‘Enough! I get the idea. And if it’s what you want——’

  ‘It is.’ She saw him frown. ‘If it bothers you that I won’t be earning——’

  The beautiful grey eyes narrowed, and the amused glint became a distant memory. ‘I don’t give a damn about that,’ he said roughly.

  And then, perhaps because they had exhausted the subject of Georgia, he moved away, his shoulders tense. ‘You haven’t forgotten the party, have you?’

  In truth, she’d scarcely given it a thought. ‘No, of course not,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘I’ve organised for our guests to arrive at seventhirty for eight tomorrow evening. The caterers will be here most of the afternoon. Does that suit you?’

  Kimberley swallowed. She hated that formal tone he could adopt, as though she were someone he’d just met at a cocktail party and not the mother of his child. ‘Perfectly,’ she answered coolly. ‘Can you give me a rough idea of numbers?’

  ‘There will be about fifty,’ he said curtly. ‘But you won’t need to do anything. I’ve had my secretary send out invitations—she’s arranged everything through the office.’

  ‘How nice,’ said Kimberley nastily. ‘I’m surprised that you didn’t ask her to be your hostess for you.’

  ‘I damn well wish that I had done!’ he ground out, then, with an effort, he seemed to gain some ascendancy over his temper, so that when he spoke again it was very slowly—as though he were explaining something to a simpleton. ‘I thought that you’d be too tired, and too tied up with the baby to want to go to the trouble of organising a party.’

  It was as though he’d retreated from her, thought Kimberley. She might have been some servant or some underling from the way in which he addressed her.

  ‘And is it to be formal?’ she asked.

  ‘Black tie,’ he told her. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and change.’

  ‘Will you——?’ She forced herself to ask it. ‘Will you be in for dinner tonight?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m eating out. I thought that you’d probably prefer it.’ And he left the room without another word.

  Kimberley watched him leave, her neck and back held stiff and proud, determined that he shouldn’t find out that she had asked Mrs Caithness to leave them something easy for supper—something which she could heat up herself. She had planned, or rather hoped, for a companionable meal together. But it seemed that she was being given no chance to achieve that.

  The following evening she was as nervous as a schoolgirl going to her first ever party as she got ready. Would his friends, naturally curious to meet her, see that he was unhappy? And would they understandably blame her for that unhappiness?

  After she’d fed Georgia, bathed and changed her and settled her down in her cot for the night, Kimberley turned her attention to her appearance.

  She spent ages deciding what to wear, eventually choosing the most dramatic outfit in her wardrobe. To hell with it! She’d had it made up on a business trip to Hong Kong, and had never seen anything like it in England. The tiny chemise top and long, flowing skirt were in vibrant turquoise silk—material as soft as a sigh, which fluttered against her breasts and long legs. The matching matador jacket and wide cummerbund were in a patterned silk brocade in the same turquoise teamed with jadegreen and swirls of kingfisher-blue.

  Her hair was fixed into a dramatic topknot, kept in place with two silver combs studded with tiny turquoise chips. She did her make-up dramatically too—with kohl pencil outlining her almond-shaped ice-blue eyes and a bold sweep of a deeper blue eyeshadow emphasising their unusual pale colour. Even her lips looked fuller than usual after she’d carefully painted them with coral gloss.

  She stepped back from the mirror, satisfied with her appearance, but slightly in awe of the sophisticated image which stared back at her. But at least from the look of her no one would have any idea that inside she was as nervous as hell about meeting Harrison’s friends.

  She had had nothing to do with the preparations; Harrison and his secretary had seen to all that. And how! There were people to serve the drinks and people to take the guests’ coats. The food would be cooked and served by professional caterers. They had even arranged for a florist to arrange blooms in every one of the five reception rooms.

  ‘And what do you want me to do?’ Kimberley had asked him over lunch.

  ‘Just be there,’ he’d said briefly, but his face had been so cold that she’d wondered if he wanted her there at all.

  But when she came down the staircase, to find him waiting for her in the entrance hall, his eyes narrowed as he took in her appearance, and something in the humourless upward tilt of his mouth made her wonder if she was completely overdressed.

  ‘Is this OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Perfectly OK,’ he answered, his voice becoming less of a whisper, more of a threat. ‘That is if you don’t mind every man in the room wondering whether the body underneath all that silk could possibly be as exquisite as it promises. But perhaps that was your intention—to have every hot-blooded male under the age of ninety lusting after you.’

 
; ‘You’re hateful,’ she mumbled, and was half inclined to run back upstairs and seek refuge in her little black dress when there was a loud peal on the doorbell.

  ‘Smile, Kimberley,’ he ordered softly. ‘And let’s play newly-weds.’

  Soon all the staff hired for the evening were hard at work, and within half an hour all the guests had arrived and were being served with champagne and canapés in the drawing-room.

  Although it was early September, the weather had been so glorious that the newspapers were calling it another Indian summer, and the large French windows at the back of the house had been opened on to the garden.

  Harrison introduced her to a stream of people, including his secretary, Anne Lyons—and Kimberley despised herself for the relief which flooded over her when she discovered that not only was Anne a Mrs but a grandmother too! There were men Harrison had been to boarding-school with, and others he’d known at various stages of his climb up the corporate ladder. There were people from the States, and from Europe, too. Most of them with partners.

  And there were women on their own, as well. Women who smilingly took Kimberley’s hand and congratulated her—some more genuinely than others. Including a strikingly statuesque young model in her early twenties called Tania who Kimberley recognised immediately—she’d broken all records for the number of magazine covers her face had graced that year. Close up, the girl was even more stunning than she appeared in photographs, with waist-length hair the colour of a glossy brown conker and the most amazing long-lashed violet eyes.

  Kimberley could sense the model’s antagonism towards her immediately, although it was reasonably well-hidden by the huge flashing smile with its perfect teeth. But as the evening wore on Kimberley could see something in the way the younger woman monopolised Harrison—or maybe it was him monopolising her.

  And suddenly she knew.

  The glass of champagne she had raised to her lips remained untasted as realisation, stark and brutal, made itself clear to her. She knew by the way Tania darted him her saucy smile, and by the way he jokingly pretended to pull her hair, bending his head to listen to something she said. Something in their body language spoke volumes, and she knew with a blinding instinct which ripped at her heart like a newly sharpened sword that there had been intimacy between them.