His One-Night Mistress

by Sandra Field

  “Just like in a book,” Marise said. “She was the villain.”

  “I guess so.”

  “The kids at school tease me ’cause I don’t have a father.”

  Seth grimaced. “I’m sorry about that, too. Very sorry.”

  Marise glanced up at her mother. “Can I have a tuna melt sandwich and a chocolate milkshake?”

  “Sure,” Lia said. “But we’d better give Seth the chance to read the menu.”

  He’d practically memorized it while he was waiting for them. “I’m going to have a chicken burger with fries and coffee.”

  “Fries are bad for you,” Marise said primly.

  “Marise…” Lia said.

  “They are. Miss Brenton said so in health class.”

  “Miss Brenton is right,” Seth said. “But sometimes I break the rules. Do you ever break the rules, Marise?”

  She wriggled in her seat and said with killing politeness, “That’s a secret between me and my friend Suzy. Do you have a best friend?”

  “A good friend of mine lives in Berlin. He introduced me to classical music a couple of years ago.”

  “So you don’t see him very often,” Marise said crushingly.

  “Not as often as I’d like.”

  “Suzy lives next door.”

  That seemed to be the end of that particular conversation. To his huge relief Seth saw the waitress approach. They all gave their orders, then into the silence Lia said, “Seth loves to swim, Marise.”

  “I can do the backstroke,” Marise said.

  “Where do you swim?” Seth asked.

  “We have a pool at home.”

  Lia smiled. “I won the Finlandia competition last year. Sibelius paid for our pool.”

  “When you do the backstroke,” Seth said, “it’s hard to see where you’re going.”

  “Not if you look over your shoulder.”

  Lia said easily, “Here comes your milkshake, Marise. You’re getting pretty good at diving, too.”

  “I don’t have to hold my nose anymore.”

  The conversation labored on, relieved by the arrival of the food. It was horribly clear to Seth that Marise wasn’t giving him an inch…and why should she? For years his absence had caused her grief. Intertwined with grief, he’d be willing to bet, was anger. He was turning into a child psychologist, he thought mockingly, as he tucked into his fries.

  Marise was eyeing them. He said mildly, “Help yourself if you want a couple, Marise. Lia, did you tell me you’re doing some recording soon?”

  “The week after next. Until then, I have eight whole days off…pure luxury.”

  “You work too hard,” he said roughly.

  “You never do,” she said, raising her brows.

  She was casually dressed in jeans and a ribbed sweater that clung to her breasts; he did his best to keep his eyes on her face. “I’ve been known to. Do you have to work hard at school, Marise?”

  As a kid, hadn’t he always hated grown-ups who asked dumb questions about school?

  “Sometimes.”

  Lia began describing some of her daughter’s English compositions, doing her best to oil the wheels. Seth, she could see, was trying as hard as he could to reach Marise in some way; it wasn’t his fault he wasn’t succeeding.

  She was finally beginning to understand how deeply the lack of a father had marked Marise. What a mess this all is, she thought wretchedly, and started describing the competition Marise had won for a poem she’d written about raccoons. Marise said nothing.

  Dessert was ordered, arrived and was eaten. Lia said brightly, “Well, I guess we should get going. Suzy’s coming for a sleepover tonight.”

  Seth had hoped lunch might end with him and his daughter taking a little walk down the pretty main street of Stoneybrook; but now he knew better than to suggest it. He said, “Perhaps next time you could come to Manhattan with your mum, Marise? Have you ever gone to the Children’s Museum?”

  Marise nodded, staring down at her plate. “It’s a neat place,” she said in a small voice.

  “Let’s work on that, then,” Seth said. He leaned forward, gently lifting her chin. “I know this is difficult for you—it’s difficult for all of us, but especially for you. I’ll do the very best I can to be a good father to you. But it’ll take time for us to get used to each other. To trust each other.”

  “Will you come to school sometime? So the kids can see you’re real?”

  He fought back the sting of tears. “Of course. Anytime you want and as often as you want.”

  “Okay.”

  The child looked as though she, too, was on the verge of tears. Seth pushed back his chair, paid for lunch and led the way out of the café. On the sidewalk he said calmly, “Lia, I’ll talk to you soon. Bye for now, Marise.”

  Then he watched as Lia drove away. Marise didn’t wave.

  He was exhausted, he realized, getting behind the wheel of his beloved red Porsche. It was easier to merge two corporations than to make contact with a seven-year-old who didn’t want to make contact.

  Would he ever reach her?

  Lia, he was almost sure, hadn’t been pleased when he’d suggested she bring Marise to Manhattan; certainly he’d given her no chance to argue.

  Too bad, he thought heartlessly. If he wanted to make contact with Marise, didn’t he also want more from Lia?

  If only he knew what.

  He was going back to his brownstone and spending the evening listening to Lia’s CDs. If that was a maudlin and generally useless thing to do, so what?

  The dazzling pyrotechnics of a Paganini violin concerto were rollicking through his living room when the phone rang. He picked it up. “Seth Talbot.”

  “Good taste in music,” Lia said.

  “The best.” Discovering he was grinning like a mad fool, he added, “What’s up?”

  There was a short silence. “I didn’t want you blaming yourself for what happened today,” she said stiffly.

  “What didn’t happen, you mean. I’ll admit to feeling godawful as I drove home. It’ll take time, Lia. That’s all.”

  The silence was longer this time. Then Lia said in a rush, “Would you like to spend next weekend at Meadowland?”

  Once again, she’d taken him completely by surprise. Wishing he could see her face, he croaked, “You mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “I can’t keep you and Marise apart—it would be wrong of me to even try. I never realized how desperate she was for a father figure…I feel so guilty, Seth.”

  “I’m the one who should feel guilty.”

  “No, you’re not. Your mother should.”

  “Good luck,” he said.

  In a low voice Lia went on, “I watched you today with Marise. You were trying so hard to reach her, yet you never overstepped her boundaries. You’ll make a very good father.”

  For the second time in one day, Seth felt the prick of tears. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. “I wish Marise agreed with you.”

  “Maybe if you come here, it’ll help.”

  “Marise and a big wad of guilt—are they the only reasons you’re inviting me?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Come clean, Lia.”

  Sounding thoroughly exasperated, she said, “Every time I see you, I see more layers. More depths. When I was partway plastered, I said you confused me. You still do. But you also intrigue me—I want to know what makes you tick. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, my tongue has a nasty habit of running away with me…but I really like you, Seth.”

  Something moved in his chest, physically, as though a weight had been lifted. “I like you, too,” he said huskily.

  “Since we’re Marise’s parents, it’s just as well, don’t you think?” she said, a new lightness in her tone.

  “So are we going to stop fighting?”

  “Providing you always do what I tell you.”

  “What are the odds on that?”
>
  “Extremely low,” she said cheerfully.

  “I wish you were here right now,” he said. “I’d take you to bed. Show you how much I like you.”

  Her heart was triphammering in her breast. “Obscene phone calls are illegal.”

  “Chicken.”

  “Yep. But Seth, at Meadowland we won’t—”

  “Then I’ll have to inveigle you to my brownstone. My bedroom has skylights and French doors onto a roof garden.”

  “Does it have a bed?”

  “You do go for the essentials. When should I arrive on the weekend?”

  “I won’t be able to spend much time with you,” she said hurriedly, “I have to practice for the recording sessions.”

  “That’s fine,” he said equably. “What time?”

  “How about Saturday morning? As early as you like.”

  He was supposed to be in Texas on Saturday morning. “Nine-thirty,” he said promptly.

  “The coffee’ll be on.” Her voice suddenly faltered. “I hope…I mean, I wish…darn it, I don’t know what I mean.”

  He felt precisely the same way. Although he, unlike her, wasn’t about to admit it. “I’ll see you Saturday,” he said and put down the receiver.

  How could one woman and one small girl make him feel so ludicrously unsettled?

  Dammit, he was still in control of his life.

  Scowling, he cut Paganini off in the middle of the adagio and substituted Louis Armstrong. First thing Monday morning he’d get on the phone to Texas.

  By two o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Seth was beginning to wonder why he’d come. Meadowland was beautiful, a beguiling combination of unkempt woodland and wild gardens, the house itself welcoming, comfortable and pleasantly cluttered. It was the nanny’s weekend off; Lia had greeted him at the door, holding a mug of coffee in front of her like a bulwark. She looked strained and tired, he thought, and forbore to say so.

  Marise was polite and as far away as the rain forests of Borneo. As difficult to reach, too, Seth thought, striving to hit the delicate balance between showing her he cared, without pushing her too hard. Then, as he was sitting out on the patio in the afternoon sun, he overheard his daughter’s raised voice from an open window overhead. “But I want to go for a swim, Mum.”

  “I can’t stop yet, Marise—I’ve got the rest of the sonata to go through.”

  Sulkily Marise said, “You’ll be forever.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll be another hour.”

  “An hour’s forever.”

  “Why don’t you ask your father if he’ll go for a swim with you?”

  “I bet he doesn’t have a swimsuit.”

  “Ask him.”

  “I don’t want to!”

  Lia sighed. “Then you’ll have to wait for me.”

  Five minutes later, one of the French doors opened behind Seth. Marise trailed across the slate patio stones toward him. He looked up and smiled at her. “Hi, there. What’s up?”

  She was industriously chewing on her bottom lip. “Do you want to go for a swim?” she mumbled.

  “Love to. Give me a couple of minutes to change—why don’t I meet you out here?”

  Her face had lightened perceptibly. “Neat.”

  He ran upstairs, wondering if he was a fool to regard Marise’s request as a small victory. Throwing on a T-shirt and his blue trunks, he went back to the patio. She was already there, wearing a bright pink swimsuit and laden with an assortment of inflated toys. “Let’s go,” he said.

  He unlocked the gate to the pool, threw his towel over the chair and peeled off his shirt. “Last one in’s a rotten egg,” he said. “Or don’t kids say that anymore?”

  But Marise was gazing in fascination at his chest. “Who did that to you?”

  The scar over his ribs was still an angry red furrow. “I—it was an accident.”

  “Sometimes Suzy and I watch cowboy movies. Did a bad guy shoot you?”

  “Yeah…he did.”

  “Was there a stagecoach?”

  Seth sat down on the edge of the pool and patted the cement beside him. “It was in Africa.”

  “Wow,” she said, “were there lions?”

  Striving to censor the truth yet hold her interest, Seth began to talk. She kept interrupting him with questions, her little feet splashing in the pool, and gradually Seth shifted into telling her about some of the children he’d met on his third world trips. She edged a little closer to him, laughing at some of his jokes, big-eyed when he did describe a near-encounter with a lion, and how he’d once followed a small herd of elephants. She said with a contented sigh, “You tell good stories.”

  Feeling as though he’d been awarded the Nobel Prize, Seth said, “Lots more where those came from. Should we go for a swim now?”

  “I can show you my backstroke,” she said with a shy smile.

  “I’d like that,” he said with huge understatement, and slid into the water.

  From the upstairs window, where she’d been trying to concentrate on a Beethoven sonata, Lia watched father and daughter cavorting in the water. She’d also watched them sitting side by side talking to each other, Seth’s blond head bending to Marise’s brown curls, Marise’s face lifted confidingly to Seth’s.

  Change, Lia thought. So much change.

  Seth and Marise were beginning to forge a relationship. She was happy about that, of course she was. But she wasn’t blind to the consequences. Her daughter would, from now on, be shared between herself and Seth.

  Don’t be an idiot, Lia scolded herself. You already share Marise with Nancy; and love isn’t something to be measured out in small doses.

  If only Seth weren’t so barricaded, so guarded. Sometimes it seemed to her that only in bed was he truly himself.

  It had been a long time since he’d held her in his arms.

  Seth had hauled himself out of the pool, swiping his soaked hair out of his eyes. As the sun gleamed along the long line of his spine, Lia felt desire uncurl in her belly and lazily stretch its limbs. Then he reached down and lifted Marise out of the water, carefully putting her down beside him. She was laughing at something he’d said.

  Father and daughter, side by side. Grabbing a tissue, Lia wiped her eyes and turned away from the window. The score was a blur of black notes. How was she supposed to work when her world kept shifting beneath her feet?

  She did work for another couple of hours, partly to give Seth and Marise more time together. After hanging up her violin, Lia went downstairs and the three of them had dinner together, then watched The Lion King on video. When it was over, Lia said, “Bedtime, honeybunch.”

  Marise said craftily, “You could both read me a story.”

  “I’ll read one chapter and your father another,” Lia said firmly.

  Which is what they did, in Marise’s pretty yellow bedroom. Seth read his way steadily through his part of the story, keeping his eyes on the page; he was finding his participation in an obviously much-loved ritual almost unbearably moving. When it was time to say good night, he contented himself with patting Marise on the shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  “We could go and see Suzy,” Marise said, giving a little bounce on the bed. “She thinks it’s awesome that you’re here.”

  “I’d like that. Night, Marise…I had a great time with you today.”

  Leaving Lia to kiss Marise good night, he ran downstairs, grabbed a jacket and hurried outdoors. The stars looked very close. New leaves were rustling gently in the breeze. His mother hadn’t believed in coddling her only son, and he couldn’t imagine her sitting on his bed and reading about the adventures of a mouse called Stuart Little. His throat felt clogged; his shoulder muscles were tightly bunched.

  As a boy, he’d been surrounded by money and the things money could buy. But Marise was by far the richer.

  Seth set off down the driveway, walking fast. Too much had happened today; not the least of which had been spending several hours at Lia’s beloved Meadowland. All
day, with one part of his brain, he’d been achingly aware of her nearness.

  It was going to half-kill him to sleep alone in the guest bedroom under the eaves.

  Half an hour later, he headed back to the house. Its lights shone gold through the lacy network of branches. It would suit him just fine if Lia had already gone to bed; he’d had enough emotion for one day. He didn’t need to add sexual frustration to the list.

  As he went in the front door, Lia called to him from the kitchen. Reluctantly he crossed the hall. She was standing by the stove, in faded jeans and a baggy blue sweater, her hair tied back with a ribbon. “I made hot chocolate—want some?” she offered.

  “Think I’ll pass, and head upstairs—it’s been a long day.”

  She put down her mug and in a low voice said, “Will you come to bed with me?”

  As had so often happened, she’d rocked him to the roots. “That’s not in the cards—not with Marise here.”

  “She’s sound asleep and I’ll lock my bedroom door.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair. “What’s up, Lia?”

  “Please, Seth…come to bed. We can talk there.”

  She still looked tired, her mouth a vulnerable curve, her eyes full of uncertainty. Any opposition he might have felt melted away. “I locked the front door,” he said matter-of-factly.

  She switched out the kitchen light; from upstairs, the hall light beckoned. She headed for the stairs, aware in every nerve of Seth padding behind her. She’d lit two candles in her bedroom; as she closed the door behind him, shadows flickered over his face. She had no idea what she was going to do next.

  Seth put his arms around her, drew her close and pressed her face to his chest. She leaned against him. His body heat seeped through his cotton shirt; the heavy stroke of his heart felt immensely comforting, and slowly all the accumulated tensions of the day slid away. “Where’s your nightgown?” he asked.

  “Under the pillow.”

  He edged her over to the bed. His face intent, he slowly undressed her, his fingers lingering on the slope of her shoulders and the lift of her breasts, smoothing the long curve of hip and thigh as he drew her jeans down her legs; and all without saying a word. Finally he slipped her white silk gown over her head.