The Forbidden Mistress

by Anne Mather

  ‘Of course not.’ Grace gave a weary shake of her head. ‘But he is intent on giving people the impression that I’m his girlfriend. And I’m not. That’s why I’ve decided to get a place of my own.’

  ‘You’re leaving the garden centre?’

  ‘Not the job, no. Not unless he fires me, that is.’ She grimaced, considering the thought. ‘I suppose he might. If he thought he could get away with it.’

  ‘Oh, dear me!’ Her mother shook her head. ‘I had no idea Tom was like that.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ Grace’s tone was dry. ‘You haven’t forgotten Sophie was married to Oliver when Tom started seeing her, have you?’

  ‘Well, no.’ The older woman chewed on her lower lip. ‘But he’s always maintained that she and Oliver were having problems before he got involved.’

  Grace shrugged, wishing she could believe that. ‘Perhaps they were,’ she said, sipping her tea. ‘Anyway, it’s no concern of ours, is it?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Mrs Lovell took a deep breath. ‘So—what are you going to do? Find somewhere else to stay before you return to work?’

  Grace wished she could, but that didn’t seem likely. ‘I—probably not,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll think about it.’ She paused. ‘But for now, can I stay here? For a couple of days, I mean?’

  ‘As if you need to ask,’ declared her mother reprovingly. ‘You’re always welcome here. You know that. Your father will be delighted to have his little girl back again.’

  ‘Not so little,’ murmured Grace drily, finishing her tea. ‘Thanks, Mum. I knew I could count on you.’

  Oliver discovered Grace had gone that evening. He hadn’t seen her about but he’d assumed she was keeping out of his way. It wasn’t until he’d driven Sophie to the airport late in the afternoon that he’d called at the villa next door and discovered the place was locked and empty.

  Frustration ate at him as he realised that Grace had gone without even telling him what she planned to do. She’d returned to England—and Tom—leaving him feeling like a fool.

  All the same, he made an immediate decision to follow her example. Even though he’d given Sophie a message to deliver to his brother in the hope of buying the time to prolong his holiday, that was no longer an option. With Grace gone, he was unsettled and angry, and one way or another he determined to settle this once and for all.

  His parents were sorry he wasn’t staying on. ‘There’s no reason for you to get back,’ George Ferreira protested. ‘So long as Sophie gets her money, she’ll be happy, and Tom ought to consider himself very lucky that he’s got a brother who’s prepared to forgive and forget and save his miserable neck! I know I am. Staying on here means everything to me, son. I won’t forget this.’

  Oliver shook his head. ‘I’ve done little enough for you in the past, Dad,’ he said firmly. ‘And you’ve done a lot for me. I’m only happy to have a chance to repay you.’

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘Look, I think I’d better get back,’ said Oliver gently. ‘I’ve been away long enough. Andy’s going to think I’ve taken early retirement.’

  ‘And there’s Miranda to think of,’ put in his mother slyly. ‘I expect she’s missed you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Oliver managed a faint self-deprecatory smile, but in all honesty Miranda’s needs were not high on his list of priorities. He would have to see her. He owed it to her to explain in person why their affair was over. Whatever happened with Grace—and he wasn’t entirely convinced that he was doing the right thing in pursuing a woman who might still be his brother’s mistress—his association with Miranda couldn’t go on.

  He blew out a rueful breath. He had the suspicion he was kidding himself by implying that he had any choice where Grace was concerned. When he was with her, there was no denying the hold she had on his emotions. No matter what happened, she’d proved to him that what he’d had with both Sophie and Miranda was just a pale shadow of how things could be. But whether that was enough, for either of them, he had yet to find out.

  One thing was sure, he had no intention of sharing her with his brother. If she was still involved with Tom, then that would be his cue to back off. It would be painful. There was no doubt about that. But he’d survive it, he assured himself. He’d survived other disasters in his life and he was older and wiser now than he’d been four years ago.

  Another alternative occurred to him during the flight back to England. He could sever any connection with Grace and save himself any more soul-searching. Which sounded all very well in theory, but would be harder to achieve in practice. He’d have to think about that.

  It was late afternoon when he arrived back at his apartment. He’d phoned Mrs Jackson before he left San Luis to warn her of his return and she’d kindly stocked the fridge for him. He was able to make himself a sandwich before phoning Andy, and then after assuring his partner that he’d be back in the office the next morning, he went to unpack.

  The phone rang as he was considering what to do about dinner. There was steak in the fridge, but he wasn’t in the mood for cooking it himself. Conversely, he had little enthusiasm about going out for a meal. He could always phone for a take-away, of course, but he couldn’t decide what he wanted to eat.

  He answered the phone with some reluctance. He doubted Grace would be phoning him—he hadn’t given her his number—and there was no one else he wanted to speak to tonight. But on the off chance that it might be his mother, phoning to assure herself that he was home safely, he picked up the handset.

  ‘Ferreira.’

  ‘So you’re back!’

  It was Tom and Oliver’s stomach hollowed. What now? But, ‘Yeah,’ he answered civilly. ‘Have you been trying to reach me?’

  ‘Only for the last week.’ Tom was aggressive. ‘I gather you’ve been on holiday.’

  ‘Is that a crime?’ Oliver refused to let him rile him. ‘I’ve been staying with Mum and Dad, actually. But, of course, you’ll know that.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ But Tom didn’t sound any the less aggrieved. ‘Sophie gave me your message.’

  ‘Good.’ Oliver nodded to himself before adding evenly, ‘I’ll have George sort out all the details, but basically all I’m doing is securing your loan. You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ There was still that militant note in his brother’s voice. ‘Do you think because you’ve got me out of some deep crap that I don’t have any feelings?’

  Oliver blew out a breath. ‘Look, Tom, I don’t expect any gratitude. But, yeah, I did think you might be pleased.’

  ‘What about?’ Tom snorted. ‘The fact that you’ve been seeing Grace behind my back?’

  ‘Ah.’ Oliver was beginning to understand his brother’s attitude now and he didn’t like it one little bit. ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Tom paused as if considering the alternative. ‘Isn’t it true?’

  But Oliver had no intention of discussing anything Grace had said with him. The very fact that she’d told Tom about them seeing one another proved that she was still very much involved with the other man, and right now what he really wanted to do was ram the phone down his brother’s throat.

  ‘Why don’t you ask her?’ he demanded harshly, and before Tom could say anything else he slammed the handset back onto its cradle.

  The phone rang again almost immediately, but Oliver didn’t answer it. The day had started out badly and had just got worse—much worse—and, abandoning any thought of food, he collected a bottle of single malt from the cabinet and retired to his bedroom.

  But the idea of drinking himself into a stupor had no appeal. It wasn’t going to solve anything, he realised bitterly as the phone rang yet again. However reluctant he was to see Grace again, he was going to have to bite the bullet and do it. Until then, he’d have no peace, and that was a fact.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  O LIVER didn’t get the chance to visit the garden centre for the next couple of days. His first day back was taken
up with catching up on the work that had accumulated in his absence, and although he left for home at six-thirty, it was after midnight before he turned out his light.

  Then, the next day Andy sprang a charity awards presentation dinner on him. ‘One of us has to go,’ he said, dropping the invitation on his partner’s desk, ‘and Jill and I had to attend the Mastersons’ cocktail party last week while you were enjoying yourself in the sun.’

  ‘But it’s tonight,’ Oliver objected, staring down at the embossed card. ‘And I don’t have a partner.’

  ‘Then I’d find one pretty damn quick,’ retorted Andy unsympathetically. ‘What about your tame lawyer? Isn’t she available?’

  Consequently, and with much reluctance, Oliver phoned Miranda, and later that evening he found himself escorting her into the Gosforth Manor Hotel, where the charity dinner was being held.

  ‘This is nice,’ she said, hanging onto his arm as they walked into the convention hall, which had been furnished for the occasion. Dozens of white damask-covered tables shone with silver cutlery and cut glass, the centrepiece on each one a blush-pink-shaded lamp strung with matching roses. ‘When do you think we’ll be eating? I didn’t have time for lunch.’

  ‘Soon, I hope,’ said Oliver fervently, using the excuse of having to thread their way between the tables to extricate himself from her clinging fingers. He paused every now and then as various friends and acquaintances attracted his attention, but for once he didn’t try to introduce his companion. Then, after finding their table, he seated Miranda beside the wife of a local Conservative councillor before excusing himself and striding back towards the exit.

  But even in the foyer of the hotel, he couldn’t escape being accosted by people he knew. It was the price of working in a highly publicised industry, and he knew he owed it to Andy to be polite. Nevertheless, all this meeting and greeting didn’t go down well in his present mood. He was thinking of abandoning any attempt to grab a few minutes on his own and return to the hall when he saw his brother approaching him with a purposeful expression on his face.

  Oliver stifled an oath, but his face must have betrayed how he was feeling because Tom’s features briefly assumed a smug look of satisfaction.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, halting beside Oliver and regarding him critically. ‘If it isn’t my benefactor in person. I assume you expected to meet me here. That’s why you haven’t returned my calls.’

  Oliver felt a momentary twinge of guilt for the calls his answering machine had racked up which he’d ignored. But the fact was, he didn’t want to have another row with Tom. They’d only just begun speaking again, for God’s sake.

  ‘Look,’ he said now, ‘this isn’t the time or the place to get into this. I’m planning on coming out to Tayford in the next day or two. We can talk then.’

  Tom looked as if he was about to argue, but then seemed to think better of it. ‘So,’ he said, glancing round, ‘where’s Gracie?’

  ‘Graci—Grace?’ Oliver stared at him. ‘Why would I know where Grace is?’

  ‘Well, she’s with you, isn’t she? This is a black-tie affair. We’re all expected to bring a partner.’

  Oliver bit back the obvious question and said instead, ‘No. I haven’t seen her.’

  Tom scowled. ‘What are you telling me, bro? That you and she have broken up already?’

  ‘No. I—’ Oliver was at a loss of how to answer him without revealing his feelings, and pride wouldn’t let him humble himself before his brother ‘—I—er—I ought to be getting back.’

  ‘But—’

  However, before Tom could dig any deeper, a girl came to take possession of his arm. ‘So there you are,’ she exclaimed, half reprovingly, pressing her ample breasts against his sleeve. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  Now it was Tom’s turn to look embarrassed and Oliver, waiting for an introduction, realised he knew the girl. It was Gina Robb, the office junior from the garden centre. He fell back a step. Gina! She had to be sixteen at the most. What the hell was Tom thinking about? Was this some ploy to make Grace jealous? Or was he really incapable of being faithful to only one woman, as Sophie had said?

  Tom seemed to realise what Oliver was thinking and his fair features filled with hot colour. ‘Um—you know Gina, don’t you, Oliver?’ he muttered as the girl fluttered her mascaraed eyelids at him. Then, to the young woman, ‘You remember my brother?’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ Gina turned her baby-blue eyes on Oliver now. ‘Hello again, Mr Ferreira. We didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘No.’

  Oliver allowed the rueful denial, but Tom was recovering his composure, and he said coolly, ‘You didn’t tell me who you were with, Oliver? Is it someone I know?’

  ‘It’s just a friend,’ said Oliver, wishing he’d never had the bright idea of leaving the hall. ‘And I’d better be getting back to her.’

  ‘We’ll come with you and you can introduce us,’ said Tom at once, sensing his brother’s reluctance and responding to it. ‘You never know, we might be sitting at the same table.’

  Grace walked into the office at eight o’clock in the morning, her usual time for starting at the garden centre. She’d spent four days in London with her parents, but now she’d convinced herself that she was ready to get back to work.

  It wasn’t going to be easy, despite what Tom had said. But the idea of submitting her notice had never really been an option. She wasn’t a quitter, and if Tom wanted her to stay on, she was prepared to do so. But, she’d explained, it had to be on her terms, not his.

  He hadn’t been best pleased when she’d begun by telling him she planned on staying at the bed and breakfast she’d found in Ponteland until she could get a place of her own. He’d objected, of course, but however persuasive he’d been in assuring her that she had nothing to fear from him, she wanted there to be no doubt in anybody’s mind— for anybody, read Oliver —that there was anything going on between her and his brother. Oliver might be able to share his sexual needs—she refused to call them affections—between two women, but she wasn’t like that. Besides, she’d never been attracted to Tom, had never given him or anyone else any reason to believe that she was, and she wanted no more ambivalence about it.

  Not that she believed Oliver would care, one way or the other. She had it on good authority that he and Miranda were still seeing one another, and although it tore her up to think of him with another woman, she had to get over it.

  That was what she’d told her mother when Mrs Lovell had finally got the truth of what had really happened in Spain out of her. Grace hadn’t wanted to tell her parents. She hadn’t wanted to do anything to sour relations between the Lovells and the Ferreiras, but it had been such a relief to confide in someone.

  Her mother had been appalled at Oliver’s behaviour, until Grace had confessed that she had been as much to blame as he was. She’d actually admitted that she had feelings for Oliver, though she’d also insisted she had no intention of acting on them. He had a girlfriend in England, she’d said, trying to make it sound as if she’d known that all along, and Mrs Lovell had eventually accepted that it had just been an unfortunate lapse of judgment on both their parts.

  At least, she’d said she had, Grace had later acknowledged. Her mother knew her too well to be deceived by her daughter’s assertion that she’d accepted the situation when she was still so obviously upset. Consequently, she had insisted that Grace phone Tom and explain what she planned to do before travelling back to Northumberland. And even after his reassurances, she’d made Grace promise that should she feel at all uncomfortable with him or Oliver, she would give in her notice.

  Grace had chosen not to explain that the chances of her seeing Oliver again were slim, thank goodness. After all, she’d worked at the garden centre for many months without laying eyes on him, and his indifference towards his brother’s problems must have renewed the strain on their relationship.

  At least she hoped that was so. Dealing with Oliver on a day-to-day
basis was not something she wanted to think about. Which was something else she’d kept from her parents.

  This morning, however, it was quite a relief to see that the centre was still functioning as efficiently as ever. She hadn’t mentioned Tom’s financial difficulties to him, deciding that if he wanted to tell her anything he would. But, despite his apparent optimism, she had been half afraid that the company’s problems might have leaked into the workplace. She’d dreaded coming back to long faces and the possibility of imminent redundancies.

  But apparently that was not to be. When she entered the office, Gina was at her desk, as usual, and Bill Fletcher was helping himself to coffee from the jug that had been simmering on its hotplate.

  ‘Hi.’ It was Gina who greeted her, and Grace was surprised. The office junior was usually fairly sullen in the mornings. She could only assume she’d had a good time the night before. ‘Tom said you were coming back today.’

  Tom? Grace was surprised at the girl’s familiarity, but it was up to Tom himself to discipline her if he thought it was necessary.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, including the older man in the salutation. Then, because the coffee at the bed and breakfast had been pretty ghastly that morning, ‘Pour me a cup, too, will you, Bill?’

  ‘No problem.’ Bill filled another cup and handed it to her. ‘Have a good holiday?’

  Grace managed a faint smile. ‘Not bad,’ she said, cradling the cup between her hands. ‘Hmm, this is good.’

  ‘You don’t look very brown,’ remarked Gina critically. ‘Wasn’t the weather hot?’

  ‘It was very hot, actually,’ said Grace firmly. ‘Too hot for sunbathing sometimes.’

  ‘Oh, it could never be too hot for me,’ exclaimed Gina fervently. ‘I love the heat. I can’t wait for my holidays.’

  Grace moved to her desk, deciding she had more important things to think about than a holiday she desperately didn’t want to talk about. She wanted to ask if Tom was in yet. The door to his office wasn’t closed, but that could mean anything, and until she’d gauged his attitude and decided whether she was comfortable with it she couldn’t be absolutely sure she was staying.