Charlotte Lamb

by Charlotte Lamb

  'I had to get away, I was in such a muddle. You aren't the only one who has been scared, Sean. I was terrified. I'd been trying to live without you since we split up and not doing very well, but at least life was more peaceful, and then you arrived at the hotel and from then on I felt like someone on a roller-coaster ride, never knowing what would happen next, my life utterly out of control. When we made love it got worse, I got more scared—I had to get away and think.'

  'And now?' he whispered. 'How do you feel now, Nadine?'

  She looked at him helplessly, still torn between her aching need for him and her own common sense, and his eyes flared.

  'Darling,' he said in a low, hoarse murmur, and then his mouth came down, searching for hers, and she swayed towards him like a sapling in a gale, unable to fight or resist. She should have run for the nearest exit the minute she saw him again, at the TV studios, or, if not then, when he turned up in her bed at the hotel on the island. She should have fled at the first symptom, not left it until it was too late. It was too late to escape: she admitted that as his mouth trapped hers and hungrily demanded a response, as his arms went round her and drew her so close that she could scarcely breathe. She didn't even try to escape. She moaned and ran her own arms round his neck and kissed him back with a passion as deep and hot as his.

  The whole world seemed to stop spinning, they were poised together in a bewitched silence, their eyes shut, their bodies clinging, their mouths moving passionately.

  Then the phone rang. They were so hyper-tense that the noise was like a gun-shot. They leapt apart, eyes flying open, dazed. Then Sean swore under his breath, turned and bellowed towards the door leading into Larry's secretary's office. 'Answer that phone, can't you, Miss Simmonds?'

  There was a brief silence, then a tapping at the door.

  'Well?' Sean roared. The tapping came again, and he snapped, 'Oh, come in!'

  The door opened. Nadine hurriedly moved away and stood by the window looking out, breathless and very flushed, nervously straightening her dishevelled hair with one hand.

  'Sorry, Mr Carmichael, but it was me ringing you,' Larry's secretary mumbled. 'Only there's an urgent call for you and Mr Dean had told me not to disturb you, but you had said if Mr Salvatore rang to put him through at once, so I didn't know what to do, so I rang you to ask...'

  'Why didn't you tell me at once?' Sean bit out. 'Axe you too stupid to follow instructions? Put the call through here now.'

  'Yes, Mr Carmichael, of course, sorry...' The secretary sounded as if she was going to cry. She rushed out and Nadine turned to give Sean a wry glance.

  'Poor girl, why do you bully her like that? She does her best.'

  'Her best is not good enough,' he retorted. 'That call was urgent. I told her a dozen times to make sure it was put through at once but she still dithered.'

  'She explained—Larry told her not to disturb us. It's not surprising if she was in a quandary.'

  The telephone on the desk began to ring. Sean looked at it, but didn't pick it up. Instead he said to her, 'This won't take long, darling, then we'll go out for lunch.'

  She nodded and sat down. Sean picked up the phone.

  'Good morning to you, Sal, how are you?' He sounded energetic, very positive. 'Yes, I'm fine. How did your wife enjoy the opera last night? Oh? Well, Wagner can be very noisy if you have a headache. Jet-lag too? Yes, it is never wise to drink too much wine on a long flight. It always makes jet-lag worse. Personally, I try not to drink anything but water or fruit juice on a long flight. Tell your wife to go for a walk around the shops, eat a light lunch and then go to bed for the afternoon. That may help.' He paused, listened, laughing. 'Yes, with or without company.' Another pause, then his face lit up and he smiled broadly. 'I am very happy to hear that. Yes, I do agree. I think we will make good partners, Sal.'

  Nadine stiffened. Partners? What did that mean? Was this the man who wanted to get control of Sean's company? Was he offering different terms after all?

  Sean said calmly, 'I'll get my people on to drawing up the agreement immediately. Well, if you prefer a joint discussion before the agreement is drawn up... yes, certainly, we can accommodate you there. Yes, I'll be here. I'm not in my office at the moment, so I can't give you an answer on that, but I don't think I have an engagement tomorrow night. May I ring you back?'

  He laughed and Nadine picked up a different note in his voice; a hint of relief, of satisfaction, even of triumph.

  'Good. I'm very pleased about this, Sal. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow afternoon and later today I'll be in touch with a definite answer about dinner tomorrow. Oh, by the way, will your wife be there? I'd like to bring my wife if I may.' He listened, then said, 'Thank you, I'll tell her. And I'll get back to you soon.'

  He put the phone down and did a sort of triumphal leap, punching the air as he did so.

  'It worked! It worked!'

  'What was all that about?' Nadine asked, watching him with a little smile. He looked like a little boy who had won a sports trophy.

  He came over to her and kissed her, giving her a fierce hug. 'Our money problems are over. You remember I told you I'd had an offer for the company? Well, while I was on the island I talked to an old friend in the film business who is something of a fixer, and he casually talked to Enrico Salvatore—the TV producer, you must have heard of him, he's backed some of the biggest, glossiest productions to come out of New York in the last five years. When Sal heard I was thinking of selling out, but wasn't too happy with the terms of the deal, and wanted a partnership rather than an outright buy-out, he asked how I'd feel about a partnership with him—which was precisely what I did want, of course. He's in London at the moment, so he rang me yesterday and we talked, kicked the idea around, then got down to discussing terms, and then Sal said he had to consult his board, and would get back to me. Just now he told me the partnership had been approved, and as soon as I sign the agreement the money will be forthcoming. So our troubles are over.'

  'And you won't need my money,' Nadine said wryly.

  He stroked her chestnut hair with a tender hand. 'If you want to invest it in our company we'll be very happy to have it, on the same conditions.'

  She looked at him in bewilderment. 'The same as Enrico Salvatore?'

  'No, the same as they were before Sal rang,' he said with a mocking little smile. 'I'll take your money only if you come with it, and if you would rather keep the money invested in something less risky that's fine by me, so long as I still get you.'

  She wryly shook her head. 'You made that money in the first place. I'd always have been happy to hang on to my shares; it was you who insisted on buying me out of the company.'

  'Well, after the divorce I thought you were going to marry Colbert, and I didn't want him within a mile of my company. What I would have liked to do was kill the pair of you, but as I couldn't do that I settled for a stupid dramatic gesture, and insisted that you sell me back those shares. I told myself I didn't want anything more to do with you, I wanted you out of my life but the truth was I was hurting too much to know what I was doing.'

  She gave him a sideways look, her lip caught between her teeth in an uncertain gesture. 'Sean...'

  'Yes, darling?' he said, winnowing her chestnut hair with his long brown fingers.

  'Before we make any decisions we ought to talk...'

  'You aren't going to dictate terms to me, like Enrico Salvatore, are you?' he asked, his mouth twisting.

  'I said we should talk! I don't want to dictate to you, any more than I want you to dictate to me! I think that was one thing that was wrong with our marriage—you still had some old-fashioned idea about being boss, and laying down the law in your own home and so on. I hate to tell you this, Sean, but Queen Victoria is dead, and we live in very different times. If our marriage is going to work it has to be on a strictly fifty-fifty basis. We discuss everything. We try to come to a mutually acceptable compromise.'

  He nodded gravely. 'OK. Well, when we draw up our agenda
for discussions, I'd like the first item to be a baby, Nadine. I know you are about to start off on an exciting new career, but I'm listening to the tick of time, and I want children, our children, yours and mine. From the minute my mother left me and my father, I never really had a family. Our lives fell apart after that, and I always promised myself that one day I'd belong to a family again, marry, have children. I was too busy to think of settling down for years, then I met you and we got married, but you wouldn't have a baby so I still haven't got my family!'

  She looked at him with direct, darkened eyes. 'Is the baby a condition, Sean? If I won't have one yet, does that mean we don't get together again?'

  He turned pale, his mouth tight, his gaze sombre. After a pause he sighed and shook his head. 'No, of course not. I want you, Nadine. Not your money. Not a baby. Just you. If you really don't want to have children I suppose I can learn to live with that, however hard it may be for me.' His mouth twisted. 'Maybe we should buy a dog? Would that give the house a family feel to it?'

  She smiled tremulously. 'I love dogs. A cat would be just as nice; maybe both of them?' She put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart under her ear. Sean held her, a hand on her hair, the other clenching on her waist possessively. 'But I do want babies,' she said. 'I always did mean to have them, sooner or later, it was just that I had other priorities at first, and I still do. But things will change now. I won't model any more, I'll concentrate on this chat show—so far I only have a contract for six shows, and if they don't pick my contract up again I'll be out of a job!'

  'They'll pick it up,' Sean said drily. 'Greg tells me he's ready to bet on it that you'll be a success.'

  'Did he?' Her eyes glowed. 'That's wonderful. I only hope he's right. But even if they do want another series of shows, there will be long gaps between each series. In the future I'll have far more free time. Give me a year, Sean, just one more year to see if I succeed in TV, then we'll try for a baby.'

  He tightened his hold on her, laughing deep in his chest. 'That will be fun.'

  She giggled. 'Well, we aren't starting just yet, so stop getting excited! And once the baby comes we'll work something out, get a part-time nanny, so that I can go on with my career and still be with the baby as often as possible.' She lifted her head, and looked up into his face, her eyes passionate. 'You must start trusting me, Sean. Give me space to make decisions of my own, and be prepared to talk over anything that's bothering you, instead of losing your temper and trying to browbeat me.'

  He sighed heavily. 'The trouble is, when I'm worried or upset, it's hard to be calm and rational about it. My emotions run away with me, and I lose control.'

  She looked at him with rueful tenderness. 'Yes,' she said, thinking that there was a lot of the little boy in him still, and maybe that was something else that could be laid at his mother's door. She had walked out at such a vital point in his adolescence, setting up a dangerous pattern in his emotional responses. Sean hadn't made the usual gradual transition from childhood to manhood; he had suddenly been left alone in a world he saw as treacherous. Oh, it explained so much! His creative impulses, his desire to bring order out of chaos, to arrange and interpret life on film—and his personality, his passion and insecurity, his explosive inner rage, his charm, his jealousy.

  Nadine kissed him gently on the mouth and felt the immediate flare of passion between them, sensed his need surging upwards, his body quivering in hungry response.

  'If we can only learn to trust each other, our marriage will work this time, darling,' she whispered, and Sean murmured back.

  'Yes, darling.' But his mind was on other things; he was touching her with hands that were unsteady and breathing thickly. 'Nadine, let's get out of here,' he said hoarsely. 'Let's go home, I need to make love to you.'

  'I need it, too,' she said, and hand in hand they walked out of the office and into their future.

  Table of Contents

  Start