Part-Time Father (Harlequin Presents)

by Sharon Kendrick

  Had been?

  Her world blurred out of focus as she realised that the past tense might be inappropriate.

  That night he’d stayed out—had he stayed with Tania? This week he’d been away—had his ‘business’ been spurious? Kimberley closed her eyes and almost swayed, terribly afraid that she might do something really stupid, like faint.

  And then, delicate as some beautiful wraith, Tania suddenly appeared by her side, looking down at the full glass of champagne which Kimberley was clutching like a lifeline.

  The violet eyes glittered like costly amethysts. ‘Hey, you’ve been nursing that glass all evening! Not in the party mood?’

  Kimberley shook her head. ‘I’m a little tired,’ she answered, trying not to sound as though her world was threatening to crumble around her.

  As if of one accord, they both looked to where Harrison stood, saying something to a group of people, effortlessly dominating not just the group who were listening to him with rapt attention but the entire party. He stood out among every other man there—and what woman wouldn’t want him? thought Kimberley with a sinking heart.

  ‘He’s mine, you know,’ came the softly spoken threat beside her, and Kimberley stared at Tania in amazement, certain that she had misheard what the model had said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘No, you heard right,’ said Tania nonchalantly. ‘I was just warning you off.’

  ‘But I’m married to him,’ said Kimberley quietly. ‘Remember?’

  ‘Are you?’ the girl challenged, her bottom lip pouting in a way that should have looked truculent but instead managed to look very, very provocative. ‘You don’t act like you’re married. Harrison’s so uptight, he looks as though he might snap—and you’ve hardly talked to him all night.’

  ‘I’m married to him,’ said Kimberley again, her voice dignified. But her hands were shaking.

  The beautiful violet eyes were suddenly made ugly by the expression in them. ‘Yeah, you’re married to him. Know why? Because of the baby. And because possession is nine-tenths of the law, and a father who has never even lived with his daughter doesn’t have much say. Harrison figures that pretty soon your life will be so miserable you’ll be glad to walk away—and this way he’ll have clout in court, when it comes to custody.’ She smiled. ‘Then he’ll come running to me,’ she finished on a soft threat.

  Kimberley managed somehow not to flinch, then, very deliberately, she turned her back on the model and walked to the end of the garden, a smile fixed to her face, afraid to stop moving in case she broke down and made the most appalling scene.

  She found herself the seclusion of the rose-bower, hiding in its sweetly scented shade, letting her cheek rub against the velvety petals of a late pink bloom while she willed her thundering heart to slow down and the dizzy, sick feeling at the pit of her stomach to go away, so that she could put her troubled thoughts into some kind of order.

  From here she could watch, unobserved, as Tania picked her way across the lawn and joined Harrison’s group, immediately convulsing into a fit of giggles at something he was saying. And Kimberley knew that she could no longer carry on ignoring the situation she was in.

  Things between them were fast becoming unbearable. Harrison had laid the rules down at the very beginning. A marriage without its physical side meant that he would look elsewhere. And could she bear that?

  Never.

  She loved him; indeed, she had always loved him. There had never been anyone else, and she knew herself well enough to know that there never would be.

  He, on the other hand, seemed to despise her when he wasn’t lusting after her body.

  But…

  Again her mind flew back to the day of the wedding—his gentleness towards her in the church, the conversation in the car, which had cleared the air, paved the way for a tentative truce. And perhaps, if it hadn’t been for her highly emotional state and the sight of Sarah standing waiting for them, she might have done the most sensible thing and had supper with him and gone to bed with him—and they could have started off the marriage so differently.

  It was not what she wanted; the question was whether it would be enough.

  She stared through the gathering darkness at the tall and lithe form of him, head and shoulders above all the other men—and in more ways than just stature. She remembered the way he’d stayed with her during labour, his compassion in refusing to let her face that on her own. And he had done that knowing that she had kept his child a secret from him.

  The question was—did she have the courage to show him that she wanted him, that she was prepared to change?

  And then she saw Tania affectedly sweeping her hair back off her brow—her tiny black velvet minidress barely skimming her pert little bottom—and Kimberley’s heart hardened.

  Harrison was her man, and she knew how much he wanted her. She knew that in his arms she had a strange kind of power over him—as much as he had over her.

  And tonight she had the perfect opportunity to show him, to show his friends—to show scheming little wannabes like Tania—that Harrison was spoken for.

  She drank the glass of champagne quickly, and as the rush of the dry cold bubbles went fizzing throughout her bloodstream she strolled back through the garden.

  She knew that people watched her—it was perfectly normal that they should watch the hostess, the woman who had married their friend—and she knew the precise moment when Harrison’s grey eyes joined theirs, knew by the prickle of the tiny hairs at the back of her long neck and the shiver of anticipation which crept up her spine. Very deliberately she stared back at him, then raised her empty glass in toast.

  Unselfconsciously, heady with the excitement of what she was planning to do, she stood alone, proud and beautiful as a statue, allowing her glass to be filled with mineral water and sipping it. And her eyes never left Harrison’s handsome and mobile face.

  She knew that he carried on speaking but that his thoughts were elsewhere—on her. She must only have stood there on her own for seconds, and yet time and time again she was aware of his eyes raking over her, questioning, probing.

  In a couple of minutes two men and their wives joined her, complimenting her on the party, and she was chatting easily to them when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harrison move away from his group and come over to join them.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she murmured.

  It was a term of affection she had never used before, exactly the kind of thing which a newly married woman might say to her husband, and yet, not surprisingly, he frowned, and she saw the light of challenge fire in the back of the magnificent grey eyes.

  She met the challenge full-on, her blue eyes widening with an unmistakable message, and she heard the soft inrush of his breath, felt the immediate flowering of her body as she saw his eyes darken with the same message he must have read in hers.

  She wanted to leave the group and she wanted to take her jacket off, since tiny beads of sweat had formed on her forehead, but she didn’t dare. She knew that her nipples were as erect and as excited as if he were actually caressing them, but she remembered, too, his earlier words, about her outfit enticing others. She didn’t want him to think that. This was for him—all for him. No one else.

  She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. Every fibre of her being spoke the message for her. She didn’t know for how long they stood there, just that the need to have him touch her had grown so overpowering that she knew she would have to do something soon, or die.

  She saw the tense lines of his face, the corded bunching of the muscles at his neck, and knew that he felt it too. She put her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. ‘Can I talk to you for a moment?’ she murmured, so that only he could hear, but the sultry tone of invitation was evident.

  He tensed. Seemed to hesitate. But only for a moment. ‘Please excuse us,’ he said smoothly to the two couples, who were tactfully carrying on their conversation, seemingly unaware of the sexual curre
nts which were fizzing and sizzling between the two of them.

  As soon as they were out of earshot he dipped his head to speak softly into her ear. ‘Shall we go for a walk around the garden?’

  ‘No,’ she said, in a low voice.

  ‘But you wanted to talk?’

  ‘Not here,’ she said urgently, desire threatening to overwhelm her while her courage threatened to flee. ‘Inside!’

  He heard the note of raw hunger which deepened her voice to a husky whisper, took one look at her tense, white face, her eyes looking huge and dark in contrast, and unlinked her arm, placed her hand very firmly in his, and took her towards the house.

  She was unable to speak, but Harrison paused now and then to exchange a word with their guests. To an outside observer they might just have been doing the kind of thing which party-givers always had to do, no matter how much help they had— checking that everything was running smoothly— but Kimberley thought she saw Tania start when she observed the feral glitter in Harrison’s eyes as he led her inside the house after what had been the longest walk of her entire life.

  He led her straight into his study, then let her go and turned to face her, his face as non-commital as a judge’s.

  ‘Well, Kimberley?’

  He wasn’t, she realised, going to give her any help at all. She swallowed convulsively.

  ‘You said that you wanted to speak to me,’ he observed coolly.

  He gave the impression of having little time, or patience, and Kimberley made up her mind. There was no way she could back out of this now.

  Casually she strolled over to the door, locked it, and put the key on his desk.

  He raised his eyebrows but still said nothing.

  She thought of what some women might do in this situation—a slow and seductive striptease, which would send him out of his mind—but she scotched that idea immediately. Her heart was thundering so loudly in her chest and her hands trembling so much that she knew there was only one thing in the world she could do, and she went over to him, raised herself up on tiptoe, put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  There was an infinitesimal second when rejection seemed a very real possibility, when the hard, sculpted lines of his mouth remained passive beneath the soft caress of her lips. But it was no more than the briefest fragment of time, and he reached his arms out to encircle her slender waist, deepening the kiss so sweetly and so provocatively that Kimberley melted under the onslaught.

  They explored each other’s mouths as though it was the first time they had ever kissed—and in a way perhaps it was, thought Kimberley, through the hot mists of passion and desire. For in that kiss was a new understanding—born of mutual need, mutual honesty and, for Kimberley at least, commitment. And not just a commitment that she would end up in his bed that night, but much more than that— a commitment that she would give the marriage a real go. And who knew what would happen if they both did that?

  His mouth never leaving hers, he slipped his hand beneath the turquoise silk of her chemise to find her unfettered breast, cupping it in his hand and smiling against her mouth as he felt her helpless sigh. Her heartrate accelerated as she felt desire pool, then escalate out of control, so that she was pulled helplessly along, caught up in its powerful current.

  So it was like being doused with ice-water when he suddenly raised his head and stared down at her shocked, mutinous face, a regretful look in the grey eyes. ‘Kimberley,’ he said, mock-seriously, ‘you are very, very beautiful, and I want you very, very much, but I’m afraid that we’d better postpone this until later, or I’m not going to be in a fit state to go back to our guests.’

  For answer, she raised her mouth greedily to his, running her hands deliberately down the white silk of his dress shirt, feeling him move with impatient frustration as she brushed further down, over the flat hardness of his stomach, and even further, where he was harder still…

  He tore his mouth away, his words clipped and indistinct, barely recognisable. ‘Kimberley, you realise what’s going to happen in a minute if you don’t——?’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured.

  He ground the words out with an effort. ‘I’m going to have to take you right now——’

  Her breathing was laboured. ‘But you’re not taking, Harrison,’ she managed softly. ‘I’m giving.’

  He gave a small groan as he cupped her buttocks and gathered her roughly against him, his hands pulling the dress up her long legs impatiently, until it was gathered in rucks over her hips, so that only the tiniest scrap of her satin and lace panties covered her.

  Very deliberately he pushed her back against the wall, his fingers moving to find her flowering moistness, and she gave a startled little moan of pleasure.

  He caught her mouth again, murmuring something that sounded sweet and indistinct, and she felt him unzipping himself. She whispered her pleasure into his mouth, with soft little cries. His urgency was evident, since he didn’t even bother to remove her bikini pants, just impatiently moved the fabric aside and thrust into her with such power that she was sure that consciousness slipped away from her for a second.

  She noticed that he had stilled, and she looked up at him, gazing with wonderment into his dazed grey eyes.

  ‘Oh, God, Kimberley,’ he said, in a voice which verged on desperation. ‘You feel so good.’

  ‘Do I?’ Her eyes closed, to hide her longing for softer words than these.

  ‘Mmm.’ He moved inside her slowly and she felt colour scorch over her cheeks. ‘So tight.’

  ‘Do I really?’

  ‘Mmm. You know you do.’

  ‘I thought Oh!’ She clung frantically to his shoulders as he thrust against her.

  ‘What?’ he murmured provocatively.

  ‘That it would be different—after the baby.’

  ‘It is,’ he said softly, still with those great slow sweeps which filled her completely. ‘It’s even better. But then perhaps it’s because it’s been so long…’

  And suddenly she wanted to shatter his control. She didn’t want him to move with that perfect provocation, which showed his consummate skill as a lover. She moved her hips urgently against his, changing the speed.

  His eyes flew open. ‘Don’t——’ he warned.

  ‘Don’t, what?’

  ‘Don’t do——’ But he never finished the sentence, for he caught her rhythm and transmuted it into something which defied all description, so that if he was no longer in control then neither was she. She felt the heat building and building, until it became exquisitely unbearable, and the universe shattered and Kimberley found herself sobbing as he lost himself in the same dark whirlpool of fulfilment, her name torn from his lips in a shout which didn’t sound at all like Harrison’s voice.

  They stayed like that, locked in that intimate embrace for a minute or two, and she felt his shoulders shaking. She realised that he was laughing.

  ‘What,’ she demanded, ‘is so funny?’

  He lifted her chin up and stared down into her eyes, his mouth quirking with sensual humour. ‘I’ve never been seduced by a woman before.’

  ‘And did you like it?’ she whispered, reaching up to kiss his neck to hide her face, afraid that the love-light shining from her eyes might blind him.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Want to do it some more?’ she murmured.

  He gingerly pulled away from her. ‘Later, you beautiful and tempting minx.’ He looked her up and down as he adjusted his clothing and helped to smooth her skirt down into place.

  ‘You look quite normal, considering…’ he mused. ‘Your cheeks are a little flushed, of course, and your eyes are very bright. You are, you know, Kimberley, a rather amazing woman.’ And he lifted one of her hands to his lips and gently kissed it, and Kimberley felt overwhelmed with love.

  ‘Oh, Harrison,’ she said foolishly, breathlessly, her heart still thundering in her ears.

  ‘We’d better get back to the party,’ he said softly. ‘We can talk later
.’

  ‘I really ought to go upstairs and shower,’ she said wryly.

  ‘No, don’t.’ He bent his head to plant a kiss on her mouth. ‘Stay exactly as you are, so that every time I look at you I can remember what we’ve just been doing, and imagine what I’m going to do to you once everyone has gone.’

  And he unlocked the door, took her by the hand and led her back to the party.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘SO WHAT brought all that on?’ Harrison asked as Kimberley came down the stairs. The silk of her long skirt was still vaguely crumpled, and she wondered whether anyone had noticed.

  All the guests had gone, all the party debris was cleared away, and the staff had departed too. Kimberley had gone up to check on Georgia, and was about to join Harrison downstairs for a nightcap. If the truth were known, she didn’t really want a nightcap—or rather, she didn’t want to sit down analysing her wild behaviour of earlier that evening, when she’d taken him into his study and seduced with the single-mindedness of a concubine.

  She sat down opposite him and met his steady grey stare reluctantly.

  ‘And don’t say “All what?”, when you know perfectly well that I’m referring to that extraordinary little scene of a couple of hours ago, which is threatening to put my blood pressure up into dangerous heights just by thinking about it.’

  ‘Harrison, please,’ she beseeched, but there was no mercy in his speculative smile.

  ‘Don’t go all coy on me, Kimberley,’ he murmured. ‘I think I rather prefer you taking the initiative.’ He got up and poured out two small glasses of calvados and handed her one. ‘I repeat—what brought it on?’

  A new honesty, she had decided—or rather, as much honesty as their relationship could stand. She knew that the knowledge of her unrequited love would bring about the destruction of their already tenuous relationship in its wake, but there was no reason for him not to know about Tania.