Читать книгу His Child: The Mistress's Child / Nathan's Child / D'Alessandro's Child - Catherine Spencer, Anne McAllister - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

PHILIP spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning, his thoughts full of Lisi and the effect of seeing her again.

He hadn’t thought beyond his trip to Langley. He had just found himself on the road here, driven on by a burning need to tie up the loose ends of a regrettable liaison—so that he could put it behind him, once and for all.

But he had not reckoned on how he would feel if he saw her again. Part of him had thought that she might have moved on. Or settled down. Married some upstanding local and be well on the way to producing a brood of children. To his astonishment, she was still single.

And just the sight of her had been like a touch-paper to his senses. He still wanted her—wanted her more than he felt comfortable with, and, to judge from her response to his kiss, she wasn’t exactly immune to him, either.

He owed her the truth, he realised. There would be no sense of closure for either of them until he had done that. She might have instigated what had happened, but he had gone into it more than willingly. She needed to know why he had feasted on her body and then just left her lying there without a second glance.

He glanced at his watch, but it was still early. He showered and dressed and drank some coffee before switching on his computer to check his e-mails. But he stared blankly at the untouched messages in his inbox and turned his head instead to study the forbidding grey of the winter sky.

Just as soon as the office opened he would go and see her. And tell her.

Marian Reece glanced up as the bell on the office door rang and in walked the tall, expensively dressed man who had been talking so intently with Lisi the day before.

She smiled. ‘Good morning! Mr Caprice, isn’t it?’

Philip nodded and forced an answering smile. ‘That’s right. Philip Caprice.’ He glanced around the office. ‘Is Lisi around?’

Marian shook her head. ‘Oh, no! She’s finished now. For the Christmas holidays. She—’ She seemed to change her mind about her next words. Instead, she said, ‘But I’m sure that I can help you.’

He looked at her blankly. ‘Help me?’

Marian studied him in bemusement. ‘Well, you did say that you were interested in buying a house in this area!’

He narrowed his eyes. Did he? Wasn’t the truth rather more complex than that? He had been doing business in the area, and something—the dreams, perhaps?—had prompted him to call in and see if Lisi Vaughan was still around. And she was—though wasn’t there a part of him which wished she weren’t? That had hoped she would have been long gone and then he could consign her to bittersweetmemory? But at least the suggestion of house-hunting would legitimise his being here. ‘That’s right,’ he said evenly. ‘If you could let me have a few details to glance through.’

‘Of course.’ She gave a coy smile. ‘I’ll need to know your price range, though.’

He mentioned a sum that made her pupils dilate and she immediately reached for a sheaf of papers which stood neatly stacked on a corner of her desk. ‘I thought you’d be looking at the top end of the market,’ she said triumphantly, and handed them to him.

Philip glanced down at them without interest.

‘The most attractive property we have on our books is The Old Rectory,’ said Marian, straightening up and looking at him expectantly, but his gaze remained noncommittal. ‘It’s a beautiful old house, with a wealth of architectural detail—although it does require considerable updating, of course—’

‘Why hasn’t it sold already?’ he cut in.

Marian blinked. ‘Sorry?’

‘If it’s so beautiful, then why hasn’t it been snatched up?’

Marian gave a little cough and lowered her voice. ‘Because it’s unrealistically priced,’ she admitted.

‘Then get the vendors to lower it.’

‘They’re reluctant.’ She sighed, and pulled a face. ‘It’s a divorce sale, you see, and they need every penny they can get. I’ve told them that they may not get a buyer unless they’re prepared to be realistic, but you know what people are.’

He nodded and gave an impatient smile, eager to be away. ‘Listen, I need to see Lisi. Can you tell me where she lives?’

Marian hesitated. ‘I’m…I’m not sure that I should. She might not want me to.’

Philip met her eyes with an unwavering stare. ‘Oh, I think she would,’ he said pleasantly. ‘But, of course, if you won’t tell me—then I’ll just have to find out for myself. Only it would save me a little time.’ He gave her a lazy smile. ‘Giving me more opportunity to look at houses.’

There was a long pause while she considered the subtext behind his words, and then she nodded. ‘She lives at Cherry Tree Cottage—it’s on Millbank Lane. A bright blue front door—it’s easy enough to find.’

He folded up the house details and slid them into the pocket of his overcoat. ‘Thanks very much.’

Marian looked at him anxiously. ‘I don’t know whether I should have told you.’

He gave a tight smile. ‘I would have found her anyway.’

* * *

Lisi had just finished pinning the flouncy paper frill onto the birthday cake when there was a knock at the door, and she sighed. What she didn’t need at the moment was an interruption! There were a million and one things to do before Tim’s party—when the house would be invaded by five of his friends and she would have her work cut out to prevent six small boys from wrecking her little home!

She brushed some stray icing sugar from her hands and went to the front door, and there, standing on the step, was Philip, and her heart lurched with a combination of apprehension and lust.

He looked pretty close to irresistible, dressed casually in jeans which emphasised the long, muscular thrust of his thighs and a soft grey sweater which made the green eyes look even more dazzling than usual. He wore an old-fashioned flying jacket, and the sheepskin and worn leather only added to his rugged appeal.

She thought of Tim in the sitting room, watching a video, and the lurch of her heart turned into a patter of alarm.

‘Hello, Philip,’ she said calmly. ‘This is a surprise.’

He gazed at her steadily. ‘Is it? Surely you didn’t think that I was going to go away without speaking to you again, Lisi?’

‘I have nothing to say to you.’

‘But I do,’ he said implacably.

He can’t make you do anything, she told herself. ‘I’m afraid that it isn’t convenient right now.’

He let his eyes rove slowly over her, and the answering flood of heat made him wish that he hadn’t.

Her dark hair was scraped back from her face into a pony-tail and she wore cheap clothes—nothing special—a pair of baggy cotton trousers and an old sweater which clung to the soft swell of her breasts. There was a fine line of flour running down her cheek which made him think of warpaint.

And she looked like dynamite.

‘Been cooking, have you?’

‘Am cooking,’ she corrected tartly. ‘Busy cooking.’

‘Mum-mee!’

Lisi froze as green eyes lanced through her in a disbelieving question.

‘Mum-mee!’ A child who was Lisi’s very image appeared, and Tim came running out from the sitting room and up to the door, turning large, interested blue eyes up at the stranger on the doorstep. ‘Hello!’

Lisi had always been proud of her son’s bright and outgoing nature—she had brought him up to be confident—but at that moment she despaired of it. Why couldn’t he have been shy and retiring, like most other boys his age? ‘I really must go, Philip, you can see I’m really—’

He ignored her completely. ‘Hello,’ Philip said softly as he looked down at the shiny black head. ‘And what’s your name?’

The boy smiled. ‘I’m Tim, and it’s my birthday!’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Philip. A friend of Mummy’s.’

Tim screwed his eyes up. ‘Mummy’s boyfriend?’

Lisi saw the cold look of distaste which flickered across his face, and flinched.

‘Does Mummy have lots of boyfriends, then?’ Philip asked casually.

‘Tim,’ said Lisi, a note of desperation making her voice sound as though it was about to crack, ‘why don’t you go and colour in that picture that Mummy drew for you earlier?’

‘But, Mum-mee—’

‘Please, darling,’ she said firmly. ‘And you can have a biscuit out of the tin—only one, mind—and Mummy will come and help you in a minute, and we can organise all the games for your party. Won’t that be fun? Run along now, darling.’

Thank heavens the suggestion of an unsolicited biscuit had captured his imagination! He gave Philip one last, curious look and then scampered back towards the sitting room.

Lisi tried to meet the condemnatory green stare without flinching. ‘It’s his birthday,’ she explained. ‘And I’m busy organising—’

‘So that was why you had to ring your mother,’ he observed softly.

It was not the aggressive question she had been expecting and dreading. She stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘What?’

‘The night you slept with me,’ he said slowly. ‘I wondered why you should bother to do that, when we were only supposedly going for a quick drink,’ he added witheringly. ‘I guess you had to arrange for your mother to babysit. Poor little soul,’ he finished. ‘When Mummy jumps into bed with a man whenever the opportunity presents itself.’

For a moment, Lisi couldn’t work out what he was talking about, and then his words began to make sense. Tim was a tall boy, as Marian had said. He looked older than his years. And Philip didn’t even suspect that the child might be his. God forgive me, she thought. But this is something I have to do. For all our sakes. He hates me. He thinks the worst of me—he’s made that heartbreakingly clear. What good would it do any of us if he found out the truth?

‘I have never neglected my son, Philip,’ she said truthfully.

Did this make them quits? All the time he hadn’t told her about Carla, lying desperately sick in her hospital bed—Lisi had carried an awesome secret, too. A baby at home. And who else? he wondered. ‘So where’s the father?’ he demanded. ‘Was he still on the scene when you stripped off and climbed into my bed?’

‘How dare you say something like that?’

‘It was a simple question.’

She jerked her head in the direction of the sitting room door. ‘Just keep your voice down!’ she hissed, and then met the fury in his eyes. ‘Oh, what’s the point of all this? You’ve made your feelings about me patently clear, Philip. There is nothing between us. There never was—other than a night of mad impetuosity. We both know that. End of story. And now, if you don’t mind—I really do have a party to organise.’

He made to turn away. Hadn’t a part of him nurtured a tiny, unrealistic hope that her behaviour that night had been a one-off—that it had been something about him which had made her so wild and so free in his bed? And all the time she’d had a child by another man! It was a fact of modern life and he didn’t know why he should feel so bitterly disappointed. But he did.

‘Goodbye, Philip.’ Her overwhelming feeling was one of relief, but there was regret as well. She couldn’t have him—she would never have him—not when his fundamental lack of respect for her ran so deep. But that didn’t stop a tiny, foolish part of her from aching for what could never be.

He looked deep into her eyes and some sixth sense told him that all was not how it seemed. Something was not right. She was tense. Nervous. More nervous than she had any right to be, and he wondered why.

She started to close the door when he said, ‘Wait!’

There was something so imperious in his command, something so darkly imperative in the glacial green gaze that Lisi stopped in her tracks. ‘What?’

‘You didn’t say how old Tim was.’

She felt the blood freeze in her veins, but she kept her face calm. ‘That’s because you didn’t ask.’

‘I’m asking now.’

A thousand thoughts began to make a scrabbled journey through her mind. Could she carry it off? Would he see through the lie if she told him that Tim was four? It was credible—everybody said that he could easily pass for a four-year-old.

Her hesitation told him everything, as did the blanching of colour from her already pale face. He felt the slow, steady burn of disbelief. And anger. ‘He’s mine, isn’t he?’

If she had thought that seeing him again was both nightmareand dream, then this was the nightmare sprung into worst possible life. She stared at him. ‘Philip—’

‘Isn’t he?’ he demanded, in a low, harsh voice which cut through her like a knife.

She leant on the door for support, and nodded mutely.

‘Say it, Lisi! Go on, say it!’

‘Tim is your son,’ she admitted tonelessly, and then almost recoiled from the look of naked fury in his eyes.

‘You bitch,’ he said softly. ‘You utter little bitch.’

She had played this unlikely scenario in her mind many times. Philip would magically appear and she would tell him about Tim, but she had never imagined a reaction like this—with him staring at her with a contempt so intense that she could have closed her eyes and wept.

‘Go away,’ she whispered. ‘Please, just go away.’

‘I’m not going anywhere. I want to know everything.’

‘Philip.’ She sucked in a ragged breath. Should she appeal to his better nature? Surely he must have one? ‘I will talk to you, of course I will—’

‘Well, thanks for nothing!’ he scorned.

‘But not now. I can’t. Tim will come out again in a minute if I’m not back and it isn’t fair—’

‘Fair?’ he echoed sardonically. ‘You think that what you have done is fair? To deny me all knowledge of my own flesh and blood? And then to lie about it?’

‘I did not lie!’ she protested.

‘Oh, yes, you did,’ he contradicted roughly. ‘It was—to use your own words, my dear Lisi—a lie by omission, wasn’t it? Just now, when I asked you his age, you thought about concealing it from me.’ His mouth hardened into a cruel, contemptuous line. ‘But I’m afraid your hesitation gave you away.’

‘Just go,’ she begged. ‘Don’t let Tim hear this. Please.’

He hardened his heart against the appeal in her eyes. He had lived with death and loss and all the time she had brought new life into the world and had jealously kept that life to herself. As if they had stumbled across unexpected treasure together, and she had decided to claim it all for herself.

‘What time does his party finish?’

She could scarcely think. ‘At around s-six.’

‘And what time does he go to bed?’

‘He’ll be tired tonight. I should be able to settle him down by seven.’

‘I’ll come at seven.’

She shook her head. ‘Can’t we leave it until tomorrow?’ she pleaded.

He gave her a look of pure scorn. ‘It has already been left three years too long!’

‘Then one more night won’t make any difference. Sleep on it, Philip—you won’t feel so…so…angry about it in the morning.’

But he couldn’t ever imagine being rid of the rage which was smouldering away at the pit of his stomach. ‘How very naive you are, Lisi—if you think that I’ll agree to that. Either I come round tonight once Tim has gone to sleep, or I march straight in there now and tell him exactly what his relationship to me is.’

‘You wouldn’t do that.’

‘Just try me,’ he said, in a voice of soft menace.

Lisi swallowed. ‘Okay. I’ll see you here. Tonight. Unless…’ she renewed the appeal in her eyes ‘—unless you’d rather meet on…neutral territory? I could probably get a babysitter.’

But he shook his head resolutely. ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ he said coldly. ‘Maybe I might like to look in on my sleeping son, Lisi. Surely you wouldn’t deny me that?’

My sleeping son. The possessive way that he said it made Lisi realise that Philip Caprice was not intending to be an absentee father. Already! How the hell was she going to cope with all the implications of that?

But what about Tim? prompted the voice of her conscience. What about him?

‘No, I won’t deny you that,’ she told him quietly. ‘I’ll see you here tonight, around seven.’

He gave a brief, mock-courteous nod and then turned on his heel, walking away from her without a second glance, the way he had done the night his son had been conceived.

She shut the door before he was halfway down the path, and looked down to see that her hands were shaking.

She waited until her breath had stopped coming in short, anxious little breaths, but as she caught a glance at her reflection in the mirror she saw that her face was completely white, her eyes dark and frightened, like a trapped animal.

I must pull myself together, she thought. She had a son and a responsibility to him. Today was his party—his big day. She had already messed up in more ways than one. She mustn’t let the complex world of adult relationships ruin it for him.

She forced a smile onto her lips and hoped that it didn’t look too much like a grimace, and then she opened the door to the sitting room, where her beloved son sat with his dark head bent over his colouring, his little tongue protruding from between his teeth, just the way hers did. He’s my son, too, she told herself fiercely. Not just Philip’s.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said softly. ‘Shall Mummy come and help for a bit?’

Tim looked up, his eyes narrowed in that clever way of his, and Lisi stared at him with a sudden, dawning recognition. His eyes might be blue like hers, but that expression was pure Philip. Why had she never seen it before? Because she had deliberately blinded herself to it as too painful?

‘Mum-mee,’ said Tim, and put his crayon down firmly on top of the paper. ‘Who was that man?’

Not now, she told herself. How he must be told was going to take some working out.

‘Oh, he’s just a friend, darling,’ she said, injecting her voice with a determined cheerfulness. ‘A friend of Mummy’s.’

But the words rang hollow in her ears.