Now or Never

by Penny Jordan

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Kit, I want you to leave,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want you living here any more.’

  ‘What?’ Kit could hardly believe his ears. ‘What are you saying? I’m your husband, Nicki…’

  ‘No, you aren’t,’ she denied. ‘You’re Laura’s father and that’s all that matters to you. She’s the only person who matters to you. Not me. Not Joey.’ She gave a small shudder. ‘I know that you never really wanted him…I suppose you wish that he’d died…like…’

  ‘Nicki!’ Appalled and shocked, Kit made to go to her, but immediately she backed away from him, her eyes filling with rage.

  ‘No. Don’t touch me…don’t come near me! I can’t bear it if you do. You’ve got to leave, Kit. I just don’t want you here any more.’

  Kit shook his head wearily. He simply couldn’t make any real sense of what she was saying. He hardly recognised her as the woman he loved any more. Nothing and no one other than Joey seemed to matter to her, and certainly not him. If, recently, Joey had become much more her child than his, then that was because she had made things that way. He had felt increasingly that he had become someone that she had initially tolerated and now resented.

  He knew how hard it must have been for her when his business had gone through such a bad time, and she had had to be the one to support them all, and he knew too how upset she had been about the baby she had lost. He had handled that badly, not realised at the time…been too caught up in his own feelings of fear, inadequacy and the panic of worrying that he simply couldn’t finance another child! He had sensed for a while that she had begun to despise him, to feel contempt for him because of the failure of his business, and he couldn’t blame her for that. But he still felt that she was overreacting, especially now that financially things were getting better for him.

  ‘Nicki,’ he pleaded gently. ‘Let’s sit down and talk about this…’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it, I just want you to leave,’ Nicki insisted.

  Helplessly, Kit looked at her.

  ‘This is my house,’ she told him. ‘I’m the one who pays the mortgage.’

  His face started to burn. Technically, what she had said was true. His mouth compressed. He hated the arguments that resulted from these dark moods she seemed to be suffering from so often recently. It was impossible to talk to her, to reason with her, and, he recognised bleakly, a part of him was tired of trying to do so.

  ‘Very well, then. If that’s how you feel,’ he agreed quietly. Perhaps she did need some breathing space. Perhaps they both did. Things hadn’t exactly been easy for them lately, he acknowledged, what with the financial pressure they had been under and then losing the baby, and, of course, Laura coming back home.

  Tensely, Nicki watched him. It was all there in the newspaper cuttings she was collecting. Fathers who murdered their children because they hated them. Joey would never be safe whilst Kit lived with them. At first she had thought it was only Laura she had to protect him from, but now she realised her mistake, thanks to what she had read. She had done her best to make sure that Joey was protected. The new security system would help, but not if his father was locked inside it with them. No.

  ‘I’ll have to find somewhere to live,’ Kit began. ‘So—’

  ‘You can stay in a hotel until you do,’ Nicki told him quickly. ‘You must leave now, Kit. You must.’

  White-faced, he looked at her. She was looking at him as if she hated him. He felt as though he simply didn’t understand her any more. As though she had become a complete stranger to him. Everything he tried to do to make things better between them only seemed to make things worse. And it all seemed to date back to when she had lost the baby. To when he had refused to acknowledge her feelings…to when he had let her down, he admitted guiltily.

  Even though her declaration had shocked him, shamingly, a part of him felt relief at the thought of not having to come home wondering about what kind of mood she would be in; worrying about doing or saying something that would send her either into a furious outburst of temper or a withdrawn unbreakable silence.

  Time out—wasn’t that the new buzzword for dealing with volatile personal situations?

  Zoë was scowling when Kit walked into the estate agents’. Andrew had refused to allow her to go for any lunch, staying in the office himself so that she could not sneak out behind his back, claiming that she had to make up her ‘lost time’.

  She wasn’t hungry, but her body was suffering the effects of being deprived of alcohol, and Zoë gave Kit a churlish look as he explained what he was looking for.

  ‘A flat?’ she demanded suspiciously. What did Kit want a flat for? To buy for Laura? Was Laura thinking of leaving her?

  The thought of being cooped up at home with her children panicked Zoë. She needed Laura. She needed her to be her friend, to support her, side with her and like her. And the thought that Laura might not need to be any of those things to her both frightened her and made her feel resentful. People were always taking advantage of her, and using her. She had thought that in Laura she had found someone different, someone who understood, someone who would be on her side. The paranoid, illogical thoughts of the alcoholic jumbled together inside her throbbing head.

  Conscious of Andrew watching her from his own desk, she provided Kit with the details he was asking for.

  Nicki knew that she had at least two hours before she needed to pick Joey up from school, but, nevertheless, she glanced anxiously and nervously at her watch before getting out of her car and walking to the front door of the house that Dan was renting.

  He had given her his card the last time they had met and she had kept it in her purse ever since.

  ‘Nicki.’ Dan gave her a bemused look as he opened the door to her.

  ‘I was just driving past and I thought I’d call and say hello,’ Nicki fibbed.

  ‘How nice. Come on in,’ Dan invited her warmly, holding the door open for her. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t very comfortable, I rented it ready furnished. It was either that or live in a hotel. Can I offer you a drink? Tea, coffee?’

  ‘Tea, please.’

  She had made a special effort for this visit. Washing her hair and putting on her once-familiar uniform of immaculate business suit and a crisp white shirt. Putting on the clothes had felt oddly alien, as though she were stepping into another woman’s persona.

  ‘Have you found anywhere permanent to live yet?’ Nicki asked Dan conversationally as he handed her the cup of tea.

  ‘Only sort of.’ He gave her a wry look. ‘I’ve decided to buy Draycotte Manor, although it will be a long time before it is properly habitable.’

  Nicki almost dropped her cup.

  ‘The old house that you and Maggie used to be so besotted with?’ she demanded angrily. ‘But it’s virtually falling down. I could never understand what you saw in it, but I suppose it was Maggie who persuaded you to want it. She was always like that. Wanting anything and everything she couldn’t have. In fact she still is,’ she told him bitterly.

  Dan was frowning now, but Nicki was unaware of either his silence or his cool watchfulness.

  ‘Take this baby she’s insisted on having. She has no right to be having it. No right at all. And I told her so! After all, if she’d really wanted to have children, she could have had yours when she was married to you instead of—’

  ‘No, Nicki, she could not have had mine,’ Dan interrupted her quietly.

  Nicki stared at him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked him. ‘Of course she could have had your children! She was your wife! You married her! You loved her!’

  Dan winced a little as he heard the long dammed-up bitterness infecting her voice. He had always known that Nicki had hoped for more from their youthful relationship than mere friendship and that he had been guilty of deceiving Maggie when he had insisted that Nicki would not mind them dating. But he had seen for himself how much she now loved Kit, and he had always suspected that part o
f the reason Nicki had decided she loved him in the first place was because he had loved Maggie. Close friends they might have been, but Nicki had always had a competitive edge to her, a determination. Unlike Maggie, who had never or could never, ever resent the happiness of another person.

  ‘Yes. I did,’ he agreed calmly. ‘And in fact, if I’m honest, Nicki, I still do.’

  ‘No!’ Nicki denied fiercely. ‘You don’t love her. You can’t! You left her because you wanted children and she refused to have them. She was too selfish. Her career was too important to her.’

  Dan’s frown deepened as he listened to her.

  ‘No, Nicki. That isn’t true. The reason that Maggie and I didn’t have children was because I could not give her them. I am infertile. To put it in the vernacular, my equipment only fires blanks!’ he elucidated bluntly.

  ‘No! I don’t believe you!’ Nicki protested. ‘You’re only saying that to protect Maggie.’

  To her chagrin, Dan threw back his head and laughed cynically.

  ‘Me, protect her? My God, you don’t know how much I wish that I could claim that I had. No, Nicki. She was the one who sheltered and protected me, the one who hid my weakness from the world. She was the one who sacrificed herself to save my pride. And how did I repay her? I destroyed our love by indulging in a stupid, meaningless, sordid sexual affair because I wouldn’t, couldn’t…Because I simply wasn’t man enough to accept that the doctors were right and that the reason we could not have children was because of me.

  ‘You see, even with the evidence written down on my medical report, I still refused to believe it. I still insisted that I was not the one at fault. It was Maggie who could not conceive, I told myself. I could have a child…with the right woman…

  ‘But there was only one right woman for me, and I—’ He stopped abruptly.

  ‘Maggie gave up her chance to be a mother because of her loyalty to me,’ he told Nicki sternly. ‘And she protected me from anyone else knowing the truth by pretending that she didn’t really want children—and, weak, selfish fool that I was, I let her. I didn’t care about her pain. Only my own. God, when I think…If she has chosen to become pregnant now, then she had every right to do so, and I for one—’

  ‘It isn’t really her baby,’ Nicki reminded him sharply. ‘It’s Oliver’s baby by another woman. All Maggie is doing—’

  ‘All?’ Dan stopped her incredulously. ‘My God, Nicki, I thought you were supposed to be her best friend and yet here you are…Nicki?’ he demanded as she suddenly banged down her cup and headed for the door, but it was too late. Dan cursed as he watched her get into her car.

  Just having to think about Maggie being pregnant with her new partner’s baby made him ache with remorse and longing. He closed his eyes. Now was hefinally going to acknowledge just why he had come back?

  Only today he had finally committed himself to buying. It was too late for him to change his mind. Contracts had been exchanged and he had paid over a substantial amount of money.

  Wearily Kit looked round the apartment he had just agreed to rent. It was in a small purpose-built block and had a relatively low rental because the owner only wanted to let it out for a few months. Another advantage was that it was fully furnished and he could move into it virtually straight away once the legal formalities had been sorted out.

  He had booked himself into the local country-club-cum-hotel for tonight—a part of him was still half expecting Nicki to ring and say that she had changed her mind.

  How could this have happened to them? Their love had seemed so strong, so right. Nicki had been a tower of strength to him both during Jennifer’s illness and after her death. The problems they had experienced had—or so he had thought—only brought them closer. Joey’s conception, whilst unplanned, had given him a chance to see fatherhood from a very different angle. With Laura he had had to be both mother and father, as well as the husband of an extremely sick wife; with Joey, his role had simply been that of being his father, and he had relished that.

  Because of Jennifer’s illness their sex life had been virtually non-existent after Laura’s birth, whereas with Nicki…

  Outwardly prim and even perhaps a little straitlaced, in the privacy they shared as a couple she had always been amazingly responsive and sensual. It was completely true to say that he had only discovered the extent and depth of his own sensuality through his relationship with Nicki.

  Andrew glanced surreptitiously at his watch as he waited for Kit to finish looking round the apartment. He had had to leave Zoë in the office on her own, but he had warned her that she was not to leave it unattended. If she ignored his instructions then…His mouth compressed. Hannah, his girlfriend, had told him that he was a fool for not sacking her, and her father had agreed.

  The wine bar was busy and Zoë had had to sit on a stool at the bar.

  ‘I’ll have another vodka,’ she told the barman. ‘A double.’

  Andrew wasn’t going to tell her what to do, she told herself defiantly. He had had no right to stop her having her lunch hour.

  She picked up her drink, and then frowned as she realised that Andrew’s girlfriend, Hannah, and her property developer father were seated at one of the tables having something to eat.

  Deliberately she stared at them until Hannah turned her head and saw her. An uncomfortable flush stained the other woman’s face and she leaned across the table and said something to her father, who turned round to look disapprovingly at Zoë.

  Picking up her drink, she got down off her stool and made her way towards their table.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Andrew’s girlfriend and her daddy.’ She smiled. ‘Has he fucked you yet?’ she asked Hannah conversationally, enjoying the gasp of shocked outrage the other woman gave as bright red colour ran up under her skin, and her father made an angry sound and started to stand up.

  ‘Now look here,’ he began, but Zoë was enjoying herself too much to listen, driven on by her own alcohol-fuelled, dangerous exhilaration.

  ‘If he hasn’t, I wouldn’t bother if I were you,’ she continued with a kind smile. ‘I mean! He’ll probably tell you that it’s this big…’ She made an insultingly small measurement with her thumb and forefinger, much to the sniggering delight of the youthful male occupants of the next table. ‘It isn’t. It’s this big!’ she told her triumphantly, halving the distance. ‘You won’t feel a thing…’

  Andrew frowned as he looked round the empty office. Closing the door, he made for the wine bar, and then came to an abrupt halt as he opened the door and saw Zoë standing beside the table where Hannah and her father were seated.

  ‘You’re drunk!’ he heard Hannah gasping as he reached them.

  ‘Oh, really?’ Zoë laughed. ‘So I am. But at least tomorrow I’ll be sober, whereas you will still be an ugly lard-arse.’

  ‘Zoë!’

  As the sound of Andrew’s furiously angry voice penetrated her dizzy euphoria Zoë turned round, swaying slightly on her feet.

  ‘Andrew. I was just telling Hannah about your little problem…’

  ‘Hannah, Mr Webster. I’m really sorry about this,’ Andrew apologised, red-faced with fury and embarrassment. ‘And as for you! You’re sacked!’ he told Zoë.

  ‘What? You can’t do that!’ Zoë protested, suddenly sobering up.

  ‘I told you not to leave the office. You’ve already been warned about your behaviour, Zoë.’

  ‘I was just having my lunch hour,’ Zoë protested. ‘You can’t sack me for that.’

  ‘You’re sacked,’ Andrew reiterated savagely. ‘And, what’s more, you’re banned from ever, ever setting foot in the office again.’

  ‘What, just for saying that you’re a little prick?’ Zoë demanded, but he was ignoring her, turning instead to comfort Hannah.

  ‘Mmm. That was a wonderful meal,’ Laura enthused blissfully.

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’ Ryan smiled back at her, reaching across the table to take hold of her hand in his own before she could sto
p him as he told her softly, ‘There’s no end to the number of wonderful things you and I could do together, Laura.’

  Laura was not naïve. She had known when she had accepted his invitation to have lunch with him what he’d intended it would lead to, and she had been prepared to be propositioned by him. But what she was not prepared for was her own dangerous, reckless longing to agree.

  Something, and she didn’t wholly understand herself just what, had made her realise these last few weeks just how much her body was missing the physical pleasure of having really good sex. She did not consider herself to be a particularly highly sexed woman—far from it. There had been men, relationships, but rather fewer than those of her peers.

  And, although she could never find him personally attractive, the sheer animal sexuality of Ian had made her achingly aware of the emptiness of her own bed.

  She had even caught herself fantasising about the children’s admittedly extremely fanciable doctor, she acknowledged ruefully, despite having turned down an invitation from him for dinner!

  And now here was Ryan offering her the perfect opportunity to indulge her body in a bout of totally emotion-free physical sex.

  But Ryan was married!

  Maybe so, but she wasn’t planning to break up his marriage, was she? Or to take him away from his family. All she wanted from him was sex, and somehow, her inhibitions loosened by the consumption of an excellent wine, in direct ratio to the heightening of her physical hunger, her loathing for Nicki’s behaviour with her father no longer seemed to have the power to deter her in the way that it had. What harm in reality would it do to go along with what he was suggesting and indulge herself? They would, after all, only be sharing a physical relationship, which would not affect his marriage any more than any of his other flings had done. Why should she set herself up as a guardian of his fidelity to his wife? Why should she deny herself something she needed and wanted because of her own feelings about her stepmother?