by Penny Jordan
She turned her face away from him.
‘A legacy of the past, I suppose,’ he sighed, answering his own question. ‘Well, we both carry those burdens. I’d like you to be there. It’s going to take quite a while for Sophy and me to be completely at ease with one another. She’s very protective of you, you know, and even now that she knows the truth I suspect that, in her eyes, I’ll always be the man who uncaringly made a girl of sixteen pregnant.’
Kate bit her lip, hearing the weary resignation in his voice.
‘You didn’t know,’ she said painfully. ‘You thought that I was older and…’
‘Protected. Yes…I know, but with hindsight I ought to have guessed the truth; you were so innocent, so inexperienced—’ He broke off, shaking his head and reverting to his earlier question.
‘You will be there then, the weekend after next?’
‘If Lucy can stand in for me again. You’ll have to give me the address…I’ll probably drive down.’
‘No. I’ll come and collect you.’
‘There’s no need for that. I can quite easily find my own way.’
‘Yes, I expect you can. But I’ve had a lifetime of being in a position of not being able or allowed to do things for those close to me, Kate, so humour me a little, will you? Let me…cherish you a little now, for all the times I wasn’t there to do so.’
Cherish her? A ripple of emotion ran through her and she wondered if he had chosen the words deliberately or had just happened on it by accident. And why cherish her? It should be Sophy he was cherishing. Unless…unless he hoped to impress Sophy by his concern for her. But that seemed so out of character. She had been struck now, as she had been in the past, by his complete honesty and openness in everything he said and did. He watched her and then said softly, ‘Well, if you won’t sleep with me, and you won’t come to the gym with me, will you at least stay and have breakfast with me?’
Kate gave him an amused smile, her tension gone.
‘Only if you promise that I don’t have to eat it until after seven o’clock.’
‘I’ll tell you what, since we missed out on afternoon tea at the Ritz, how about having brunch at the Inn on the Park?’ he suggested.
She would be safer there among other people than here alone with him, and so she nodded, and then escaped to her bedroom before he could drag any more dangerous promises from her.
CHAPTER NINE
THE PHONE was ringing as Kate unlocked the front door. She put down her bag and ran to pick it up. A feather of disappointment tingled down her spine when she discovered it was Sophy.
Who had she expected it to be? Joss? Guiltily she remembered the warm kiss he had given her when he’d left her. He had insisted on escorting her to the station and then waiting until the train left.
It had left a warm, tremulous feeling inside her, that brief meeting of lips just before the train pulled out.
Careful, she warned herself. Careful, Kate. Both of you are caught up in an emotional backlash that will very quickly fizzle out. On Joss’s side, at least.
‘You’re back, then,’ Sophy announced. ‘I rang Joss’s flat and he said you’d left. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to call him “Dad”!’ she mused, and then added breathlessly, ‘Oh, Ma, it’s all happened so fast…I can hardly take it all in. And you must be feeling the same. Discovering, after all these years, that he did love you. He could hardly take his eyes off you on Saturday.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Kate objected firmly.
She could almost see Sophy’s thought processes ticking away and adding up, and she didn’t like the sums her daughter was making.
‘This is life, Sophy,’ she warned her. ‘Not a novel. Don’t start thinking that Joss and I mean anything more to one another than…’
‘Than any other two people who’ve had a child together?’ Sophy suggested softly. And then apologised. ‘I’m sorry, Ma. It’s just…well, he seems so lonely, despite his success and everything. And he did ask you to stay with him.’
‘Because he couldn’t get me into a hotel,’ Kate told her firmly.
‘And so you don’t feel anything for him…not even the slightest, teeniest twinge?’
Kate opened her mouth to fib and then changed her mind.
‘Of course I do,’ she admitted honestly. ‘But, Sophy, remember this is a very emotional time for all of us. It wouldn’t be sensible or fair for any of us to take things that are said or which happen now too seriously. Later, when we’re all able to distance ourselves a little…when we’re not acting out of character in the emotional heat of the moment…’
Although she was talking to Sophy, she was trying to rationalise to herself Joss’s desire for her.
It wasn’t a desire born of love, but a desire born of shock, pain, remorse and a hundred other emotions, none of which had anything to do with the fierce, searing recognition she had experienced the moment she had looked at him and had known that nothing had changed and that she still loved him.
His feelings weren’t like that. They couldn’t be. If he did fall in love again, it would be with someone younger, like Lucille; someone young and beautiful…not like her.
‘Well, you are going to be there the weekend after next, aren’t you?’ Sophy asked.
‘If you’re sure you want me to be.’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. It’s wonderful, of course, but it still seems a little strange. I’ve got to put aside the image I’ve always had of my father and try to put Joss in his place.’
They talked for a few more minutes and, having satisfied herself that her daughter was coping very well with the trauma of discovering that Joss was her father, Kate replaced the receiver.
She ought to ring Lucy and find out how she had coped over the weekend, but she felt exhausted. Another reminder that she was not sixteen any more.
She sank down into a chair, and groaned as she looked through the kitchen window and realised that the lawn needed mowing. How on earth had it managed to grow so much in such a short space of time? Sophy was always telling her that she should get someone in to do the gardens, but she enjoyed doing it herself…normally.
Yes, hard work was what she needed, she told herself briskly. It would stop her mooning around like a silly girl, daydreaming impossible daydreams, which all featured Joss.
* * *
As though she had made a wish, Kate had one of the busiest fortnights she had ever experienced.
For a start there was a mild epidemic of a stomach virus which claimed Lucy as one of its victims, necessitating Kate’s not only shouldering her partner’s share of the work, but also stepping in to take and collect Lucy’s children from school, leaving their father to attend to his clients.
A little to her amusement, Kate discovered that she quite enjoyed the return to being the ‘mother’ of young children. It came as a surprise to discover how many older mothers there were among the women waiting to collect their offspring, some of them very obviously her own age and older.
It must be the new fashion for women establishing their careers before taking time off to have their families, Kate reflected tiredly on Thursday evening as she finished unpacking the groceries she had bought earlier from the supermarket.
They had only had two bookings for the weekend, and, realising that Lucy wasn’t going to be well enough to cope with them, Kate had cancelled them. Luckily both parties had been very understanding, and neither booking had been for a major event.
Joss was due to come and collect her tomorrow afternoon. Sophy was ringing this evening to confirm all the arrangements.
At last! Kate sat back on her heels as the last of her shopping was disposed of. The phone rang as though on cue, and she went to answer it.
As she had hoped, it was Sophy, bubbling over with enthusiasm and happiness.
‘You’ll never guess what,’ Sophy announced once she had confirmed everything. ‘Do you remember the woman Joss brought to the wedding? His secretary? Well, he’s sacked her!�
�
‘Sacked her?’
‘Mm, John told me.’
Joss had sacked Lucille! That was no real reason for her heart to suddenly start thudding as though she had run a race, and yet later, when she was in bed, she found that she was as excited as a child at the thought of Christmas, unable to sleep because she knew that tomorrow she’d see him…be with him… The weekend stretched out ahead of her, dazzling her with its promise…dangerously alluring.
She was awake early, still filled with that dangerous anticipation.
By ten o’clock her small case was packed, and she was virtually ready. Joss hadn’t said what time he would arrive, just that it would be early in the afternoon.
She intended to travel in a plain cream pleated skirt with a matching cotton knit sweater…a new outfit she had bought on impulse. One of several new outfits she had bought on impulse, she was ashamed to admit.
She had washed her hair and put on her make-up; the house was clean and tidy; she had nothing to do but sit and wait for Joss.
Ridiculous, she told herself, and if she wanted something to do there was always the garden. The lawn badly needed mowing…again.
Sighing faintly, she went upstairs and changed into a pair of faded shorts and a brief top. It was hot outside, and mowing the lawn would make her even hotter, as she knew from experience.
It did…less than half-way through she had to stop and go inside to get a cool drink and to tie her hair back off her face, with a piece of ribbon she managed to find in the kitchen drawer.
Thank goodness there was no one to see her, she reflected, grimacing at her slim, bare legs, her feet in grubby trainers, her shorts a faded, worn pair she had had for years, and her top a once-pristine white strappy affair, which now had the odd grass stain.
The mower was an old one, petrol-driven and inclined to be temperamental. It had belonged to her father, and Kate kept it because basically she was too lazy to replace it.
She had virtually finished, and was just going down the final strip, her back to the house, when Joss appeared.
She hadn’t heard him arrive, and he stood and waited for her to turn round, watching her, a faint smile of amusement curling his mouth as he took in her untidy ponytail and bare legs.
Kate turned round, and then stopped dead.
Oh, no…it couldn’t be. It wasn’t even twelve yet. She wanted to run and hide, and yet she couldn’t move, her feet almost glued to the spot where she stood as Joss strolled casually over the lawn towards her.
He was wearing an immaculately crisp white cotton shirt and a pair of well-fitting, and clean, denims.
She felt horribly grubby and hot, uncomfortably conscious of her appalling appearance…of the sweat trickling down the back of her neck…of the way her thin cotton top was clinging to her body…of the bareness of her legs and the inelegance of her untidy hair.
‘You look hot,’ Joss commented as he reached her, his smile doing nothing to calm her agitation.
‘I am,’ she said shortly, and then added accusingly, ‘You’re early.’
‘Yes. It’s such a lovely day, I thought we might stop on the way back and have lunch somewhere.’
‘There’s no need. Anyway, I would have thought you’d have wanted to get back as quickly as possible so that you can spend as much time as you can with Sophy.’
Her accusatory tone made him frown.
‘An excellent idea,’ he agreed urbanely, ‘but Sophy and John aren’t arriving until later on tonight, after they’ve both finished work.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that in that case he had had no need to pick her up so early, but she realised in time that she was behaving churlishly and perhaps betrayingly, and so she gave him a forced smile and said ruefully, ‘Well, as you can see, I wasn’t expecting you. I’d better go in and get changed.’
Her face felt hot from the sun and the exertion, and she hated the contrast she must make to Joss’s cool and physically compelling presence. It was one thing to accept that he couldn’t feel about her the way she did about him; it was quite another to have to confront him looking the way she did right now…far from at her best.
He leaned forward, reaching out to touch her, and immediately she flinched, moving back.
‘What’s wrong?’ He was frowning at her, his earlier smile gone.
What was wrong? How like a man. Surely he could see what was wrong? Here she was with her hair tied up in that idiotic ponytail, with wisps of it clinging to her hot, sticky face…wearing grubby clothes…clothes, moreover, that no sensible woman of her age would ever wear in front of a man she wanted to admire her. At sixteen she just…just might have been able to get away with such an outfit, but more than twenty years on…
‘I don’t want you to touch me,’ she said defensively, and then, as his frown deepened, she felt forced to add, ‘I’m filthy—hot and…’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘sweaty’, even if it was the only one that was appropriate.
‘What’s wrong, Kate?’ he asked her quietly. ‘The Kate I remember wouldn’t have minded being seen looking the way you look right now.’
It was the gentleness in his voice that she couldn’t stand. It made her feel far too vulnerable. She reacted to it immediately and angrily.
‘That was over twenty years ago.’
‘And that’s supposed to make a difference? Not to me,’ he told her, shaking his head.
She didn’t want to listen to this. She couldn’t afford to listen. She turned away from him abruptly, too abruptly, walking straight into the mower, and jarring her hipbone so painfully that she stumbled.
It was Joss who caught her, one arm supporting her back, his hand splayed across the bare flesh between her top and her shorts, the other resting on her throbbing hip, massaging the bruised flesh.
Heat sprang from her pores as though her body was in flames. She wrenched back from him, but he wouldn’t let her go.
‘Joss, let me go,’ she protested. ‘I’m dirty and…and…stick…’
‘Sweaty,’ he said calmly for her, reaching up, and catching a bead of sweat that rolled down her neck.
Her face flamed in an agony of embarrassment, and then, at the way he was looking at her, the garden swayed dizzily around her, so dizzily that she had to clutch his forearms for support.
He couldn’t really mean what she could see in his eyes… He couldn’t really desire her, not like this.
She must have said the words out loud without knowing it, because he replied thickly, ‘Just like this. You’re a woman, not a mechanical doll, Kate, and the scent and heat of you is driving me out of my mind. Feel,’ he demanded rawly, taking her hand and placing it against his body before she could stop him.
The whole universe stood still. Kate couldn’t have moved, no matter who or what commanded it. Every nerve-ending in her body was concentrated on the fierce, aroused pulse of him.
She made a soft, inarticulate sound in her throat, a tiny mewling cry of panic blended with pleasure. She felt his mouth moving against her throat, tasting its moist saltiness. She shivered, and the light pressure of his mouth became the harder, more demanding bite of his teeth.
Her top had tiny buttons down the front which she never unfastened, but they were unfastened now and Joss’s hand was pushing away the fabric, not just so that he could touch her, but so that he could look at her as well, she realised.
It was too late now to wish she had worn a bra…to wish that they were not standing in the cruel sunlight of the garden where it was plain for him to see that her breasts, which at not quite sixteen had been as round and hard as apples, were now fuller, softer; too womanly really for her to go without the support of a bra, but her top was brief and she had been alone in the garden…or so she had thought.
She tensed and tried to pull away, to hide herself, but he wouldn’t let her, turning her so that her hip pushed against him and one arm imprisoned her, one hand holding her arm at her side while his other hand pushed away t
he open sides of her top.
The tension was unbearable. She knew he was looking at her, and knowing what he was seeing made her clench her hands and cry out, ‘Please don’t…don’t look at me.’
‘Why not? You’re beautiful.’
‘No!’ she cried rawly, her voice tormented.
‘Yes,’ Joss told her fiercely. ‘More so now than you were before!’ And then he asked her raggedly, as though unable to stop himself, ‘Sophy…when she was a baby, did you feed her yourself?’
Colour invaded his cheekbones as she looked at him. Why had he asked that?
‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘I wanted to do my best for her, and they said at the hospital…’
The ground was shaking, she discovered suddenly, and then she realised it wasn’t, that it was Joss shuddering.
She forgot her nudity, her embarrassment and anxiety as she clutched the front of his shirt and begged worriedly, ‘Joss, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong? Everything…everything’s wrong. All the things you and I never shared which we should have shared… Would you have another child?’ he asked her suddenly.
Another child. Strangely, the thought wasn’t as alien or shocking as it should have been.
‘If I were married,’ she said slowly. ‘If I were in a committed, stable relationship with someone who loved me…then yes, I think I would. But since that’s not likely to happen…’
Her face flamed as she realised that she was standing in the half-circle of his arm with her breasts completely exposed and that she wasn’t making the slightest attempt to conceal them, but as she moved Joss moved too, and he was faster than her, his hand sliding slowly over her tender skin, his palm scraping the delicate nipple, which immediately hardened and pulsed.
‘I must go and have a shower…get changed…’
‘Not yet,’ he whispered in a thick, strained voice. ‘Not yet, Kate. Let me hold you just for a moment.’
She wanted to protest. She knew she ought to protest, but for some reason she didn’t…couldn’t. All she could do was simply cling to him while his hands stroked over and over her sensitive skin, arousing her to the point where she was trembling with the force of the sensations building up inside her.