by Kim Lawrence
‘So you qualified…?’
‘Amazing, isn’t it? I’m actually not the brainless bimbo you and your family thought me, Angolos.’
His dark lashes swept downwards, touching the curve of his high, chiselled cheekbones as he studied his feet. There was a lengthy pause before he lifted his head and replied.
‘I never thought you were brainless.’
Georgie did not make the mistake of taking this comment as a compliment. She recognised that she was within seconds of losing control totally. Her assertions, the ones that she repeated like a mantra to herself every night, that she was totally over him, would be out the window if she started to batter her fists against his chest.
Their eyes locked and neither combatant heard the first tentative tap on the open door. The second, slighter louder one got their attention.
‘I’ll be right there, Ruth,’ Georgie promised, pulling the door open.
‘No hurry,’ the older woman soothed. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but Nicky is asking for his cosy. I wasn’t sure what he meant.’
‘It’s his blanket, yellow…sort of. It’s in his bedroom on the chest by the window.’
‘He needs a security blanket?’
The faintest hint of criticism and her hackles were up. ‘Actually it’s a sheet.’ So now he was the child expert.
‘He has problems…?’ A child who had been rejected by his father—why was he surprised? Angolos, a firm believer that a stable family was the only place to bring up a child, knew that if his son had problems the blame lay at his own door. He didn’t know how this had happened, but he was a father and he needed to put right the harm he had already done.
‘No, he doesn’t have problems. He’s a normal little boy who…’ She stopped and frowned. ‘Good grief, I don’t know why I’m explaining anything to you of all people.’
‘Because I am his father.’
‘Biologically maybe…’
She had never expected her dig to evoke any real reaction, certainly not the expression of haunted regret that she saw on his face.
‘Look, Angolos, if you’ve come over with a case of delayed paternal feelings, I suggest you go take an aspirin or buy a shiny new car. I’m sure it will pass.’
‘You think I am that shallow?’ he enquired in a savage growl.
‘Think? I know you’re that shallow,’ she retorted. ‘Shallow and cruel and vindictive…’ Something she might remind herself the next time she found herself in danger of feeling sorry for him. The fact was, if she ever started thinking of Angolos as the victim it was time for the men in white coats. ‘This is a pointless conversation.’
‘It’s one we’re going to have.’
Fine! If he wanted a war of attrition, she thought, he could have a war of attrition. But he was going to discover that during the time they’d been apart she had developed a backbone, not to mention a mind of her own!
‘Why, Angolos? Because you say so? I know it used to work that way, but not any more.’ She gave a hiss of frustration as her trained maternal ear caught the sound of her son’s cry. A few seconds later Angolos heard it too and turned his head in the direction of the angry sound.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Being a mother doesn’t make me psychic.’ It had, however, given her the ability to distinguish between her son’s cries. The one she had heard suggested tiredness, not pain or distress. ‘I’ve got to go to him.’ She started for the door, but he moved and effectively blocked her path with his body. Her nostrils flared as she caught the faint scent of the fragrance he used. Low in her belly her muscles tightened.
‘Fine!’ she snapped, throwing up her hands in angry capitulation. ‘If you want me to listen to you I will, but not now or here.’
‘When and where, then?’
She said the first thing that came into her head. ‘The beach.’
‘Where we used to meet. Where you offered me your innocence…’
His tone, softly sensual, stole the strength from her legs at the first syllable. Falling flat on her face would not be a good move, Georgie decided, reaching casually for the back of a conveniently placed chair. ‘The way I recall it, you were pretty eager to take it.’ Unfair, but she didn’t feel inclined to fairness at that moment. ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow night at eight…’
Her family would be back then and Nicky would be safely tucked up in bed.
‘And this time I won’t be offering you anything.’
‘Tonight.’
‘I can’t,’ she began, and then saw his expression. ‘All right, tonight,’ she agreed with a sigh.
For a moment his narrowed eyes held hers, then he inclined his head. ‘It would seem we have a date.’
‘Hell,’ she loudly announced to his back, ‘will freeze over first.’ She closed the front door and leaned against it with a sigh; she was shaking. With her luck, she thought, Angolos would construe her childish retort as a challenge—that would be just like him.
And what on earth was Angolos up to? she wondered as she sank weakly to the floor. She sat there, her back wedged against the door, her knees tucked under her chin, waiting for her knees to stop shaking. For once Nicky’s need for attention came secondary; secondary to the necessity for her to be able to walk without falling over.
When she got to her feet she felt strangely numb, as though her stressed body had produced some natural anaesthetic. She didn’t want to think about how she would feel when it wore off.
Georgie went through the rest of the day on autopilot. She tried hard to conceal the anxiety that lodged like a weight behind her breastbone but as the day progressed it got increasingly difficult.
Ruth, bless her, agreed to come over later and sit with Nicky. She didn’t ask any questions and, beyond a searching look and a brief, ‘Are you all right?’ she had not asked anything about Angolos.
Georgie was grateful for her reticence. She knew if Gran had been there she would not have escaped so lightly. Her grandmother had barely managed to be civil to Angolos before they had split up. Who knew how she’d have reacted if she’d been here when he’d turned up?
Why, after years of conspicuous silence, was Angolos here? The question gnawed at her all day. It was when Nicky’s lower lip trembled after she had snapped at him over something trivial that she decided enough was enough.
By letting Angolos get to her this way she was allowing him to win. After all, it didn’t matter what he had to say, or why he was here, he wasn’t part of her life any more. Ironically it was when she stopped looking for answers that she accidentally found one.
She discovered the innocent-looking envelope when she was performing the daily ritual of picking up Nicky’s toys from the living room after he had gone to bed. She glanced incuriously at her name, and, assuming it was junk mail, aimed it at the waste-paper basket. It was only when it missed and she went to retrieve it from where it fell that she realised the paper was good quality.
She turned the envelope over. There was no stamp or postmark and it wasn’t sealed. She opened it and slid out the contents. She immediately recognised the letterhead of the law firm that Angolos used. Crazy, really, that she should feel shocked—even crazier that she had to blink back the tears. This was something she had been expecting for the past three years. It was the logical step and one that her family had frequently urged her to take.
Angolos wanted a divorce.
‘You look very nice, dear,’ Ruth commented as she walked with Georgie to the front door.
‘I’m wearing make-up,’ Georgie admitted, lifting a self-conscious hand to her lightly glossed lips.
‘Charming, but I was thinking of the dress.’
Georgie flushed, and looked down at the pale peach-coloured halter-necked dress she had finally selected. Even with her limited wardrobe it had taken her half an hour.
‘It’s too much, isn’t it?’ she fretted, smoothing the light fabric over her slender hips. ‘I knew it was. I’ll go and change.’
&nbs
p; Ruth laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, you look lovely. Whether it’s too much rather depends on what reaction you want to get?’
‘I was aiming towards a sharp intake of breath,’ Georgie admitted.
‘Oh, I think you’ll get that. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is there a reconciliation on the cards?’
‘I don’t mind you asking and, no, there isn’t.’
If anyone had asked her yesterday if she nursed any hope of them ever getting back together, Georgie would have been able to give a very definite no way in reply, and mean it.
Yesterday she hadn’t opened that envelope.
Reading the contents of a letter that explained with surgical precision that your husband wanted a divorce was a bad time to realise that in some secret corner of your heart you had clung onto hope. Foolish, irrational hope that one day… She took a deep breath. She knew that she was better off without that sort of hope.
‘Actually, Angolos wants a divorce.’ She had the horrid suspicion that her extremely casual attitude wasn’t fooling Ruth for a minute. ‘That’s why he’s come in person. I suspect there’s someone else.’ Maybe Sonia…? It would certainly please his family if he got back with his first wife.
If not Sonia, there would be someone. A highly sexed and incredibly good-looking man like Angolos was never going to be celibate. She had come to terms with this.
Sure you have.
‘I think it might be serious,’ she heard herself say.
Ruth’s brow furrowed. ‘Now that does surprise me.’
‘Not me; I’ve been expecting it.’ Georgie gave her best carefree smile and wished she’d not revealed her suspicions to the older woman. ‘The only thing that surprises me is it’s taken him this long. Actually I think it’ll be a good thing…making it official will give us proper closure.’
The other woman nodded and murmured agreement, but Georgie could see that she didn’t believe a word. Embarrassed, she turned away. ‘I won’t be long,’ she promised huskily.
About as long as it took to say goodbye.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANGOLOS watched Georgie walk towards him along the beach with the graceful, long-legged stride he remembered so well. She carried her sandals in one hand slung over her shoulder in exactly the same way she always had. He was not a man inclined to nostalgia, but it was hard not to make a depressing comparison to the past.
Then, when she had caught sight of him her face would light up like a kid on Christmas morning and she would break into a run as though every second apart from him was one too many. Now when she saw him, and he recognised the precise moment, the only place she looked like running was in the opposite direction! You could almost hear her inner struggle as she covered the remaining distance.
Some irrational part of him wanted to make her smile at him that way again. Was it the same irrational part of him that had been tempted, albeit briefly, not to question her pregnancy? Then sense had prevailed and his pride had reasserted itself.
That he had contemplated, even for a moment, living a lie and bringing up another man’s child, accepting his wife’s infidelity, filled him with a profound self-disgust. Ironically of course it hadn’t been another man’s child she carried, but at the time he hadn’t known that.
‘Am I late?’ Composed and utterly controlled, she sketched a smile. Her wary eyes, their incredible colour intensified by the soft shading on her eyelids, met his.
‘No. I am early.’
Angolos didn’t have a clue why her manner annoyed him so much. It wasn’t as if he had expected her to throw her arms around his neck and press her slim young body to his.
His eyes drifted towards the slim young body in question and he grew still. The summer dress exposed the soft, creamy contours of her satin-smooth shoulders and slim arms. The locket dangling from a slim gold chain suspended around her neck drew the attention to the firm swell of her breasts. As his glance moved lower the breeze caught the light fabric, drawing it close over her slim thighs.
Georgie had been so gut-churningly nervous that until his dark eyes swept over her she had forgotten that she had dressed to kill, or at least immobilise with lust—until his heavy-lidded, penetrating eyes lifted and met hers.
She had got the reaction she wanted, only this wasn’t theoretical lust. A classic case, she remonstrated herself, of not considering the consequences. The smoky heat and raw hunger in his eyes—for a man who could be infuriatingly enigmatic, Angolos had eyes that could be quite devastatingly expressive on occasion—sent a current of sizzling heat through her body.
Experience had taught her how to fan the flames of his desire. She tried not to access the memories that reminded her of how pleasurable the results of her provocation could be. She raised a fluttering hand to her throat and tried to get her breathing under control.
‘Can we get on? I’m on my way somewhere.’ She was quite pleased with her clever subterfuge; now he wasn’t going to think she had got dressed up for him.
She saw his jaw clench. ‘I’m so glad you could fit me into your busy schedule.’
‘Well, you didn’t actually give me any choice, did you?’ she reminded him.
‘I don’t suppose I did.’ One dark brow arched. ‘Aren’t you a little cold dressed like that? Would you like my jacket?’
Her eyes widened in alarm. The thought of having the garment still carrying the warmth of his body, retaining the unique scent of him, next to her skin sent an illicit thrill through her body.
‘No, I’m fine,’ she promised hastily.
‘As you wish. Would you like to go somewhere…for a coffee…a drink? Is that odd little teashop still open?’
The question brought back a flood of memories.
Odd, he had said. Well, as venues for conducting a passionate affair went, the quaint, touristy tearooms run by two elderly sisters had to be one of the most unlikely. They had frequently had the place to themselves. Most people had been outside enjoying the sun that summer, which had been just as well because inconspicuous they had not been—or at least he hadn’t!
Not that Georgie had much cared about discretion; as far as she’d been concerned the entire town could talk. She had been too besotted to care about such things, and actually much to her frustration they hadn’t actually had much to be discreet about!
After that first occasion when they had come as near as damn it to making love in the wet sand—and I didn’t even know his name—Angolos had kept her at arm’s length. Even though she hadn’t been experienced she had sensed he’d been keeping himself under tight control. Georgie, who had fantasised about recreating the wild, primitive night-time encounter—minus the frustration—had bitterly regretted telling him that he was her first lover.
Instead of the passionate love-making Georgie had craved, for two weeks they had drunk tea and talked, or at least that was the way it had felt to her. They had taken long drives and talked. They had taken long walks and talked. It had been sheer agony, but she’d been prepared to endure any torture devised by man to be in his company.
The weekend two weeks later, when he’d disappeared without a word, she had thought that was it, and she had been totally devastated. The idea of never seeing him again had made the future stretch ahead of her bleak and barren.
She had drifted around like a ghost, grey-faced and drawn, but instead of recognising a broken heart her family had been irritated by her lethargy.
Then her grandmother had diagnosed anorexia—She has all the classic symptoms… The article she had read had apparently said that sufferers always lied, so Georgie’s denials had been ignored.
Consequently, when Angolos had turned up out of the blue at the house two weeks later, instead of looking interestingly pale she had gained seven pounds!
He had formally requested her father’s permission to marry her. Superficially it might have seemed a delightfully old-fashioned courtesy, but only very superficially.
Oh, he had been polite enough, but he had left no doubt th
at he had been going to marry her with or without her father’s permission. With would simply be less problematic.
She was bowled over by his masterful behaviour; it hadn’t even crossed Georgie’s mind to question the fact he hadn’t even asked her. My compliance he took for granted and why wouldn’t he…?
She pushed aside the cringe-worthy recollection of her uncritical adoration; she had held nothing back. She hadn’t just worn her heart on her sleeve, she had stripped her soul bare!
‘No, I don’t want tea, I just want this over with as quickly as possible.’ She kept her voice cool and unemotional and was rewarded by the surprise flicker in the back of his deep-set eyes.
‘You can’t spare a few minutes to discuss our son’s future…?’
‘I would spare a lot more than a few minutes to discuss Nicky’s future, but not with you,’ she retorted, bristling with antagonism. ‘Nicky is nothing to do with you, and don’t pretend you’re really interested in him,’ she sneered.
His expression tautened. ‘Be reasonable.’
‘Reasonable!’ she yelled back, no longer able to contain the anger and resentment that she’d been storing up for these long years. ‘Reasonable the way you were when you said you didn’t want to know about the baby?’ she demanded in a low, impassioned voice. ‘Are you on medication, Angolos?’
‘Do not raise your voice to me.’ His own voice was low and angry.
‘If the worst I do is raise my voice you’ll leave here a fortunate man.’
He absorbed her angry words in thoughtful silence. ‘You have developed quite a temper,’ he observed, his glance drifting from her flushed, furious face to her fists clenched tightly at her sides.
‘I always had a temper.’ It was odd, she mused, that a man who knew her more intimately than any other man, a man who was the father of her child, should actually not know her very well at all.
His harsh scowl melted to something far more dangerous as their eyes meshed. ‘Maybe you should have revealed this aspect of your character when we were together. It suits you.’