Читать книгу Bride On Demand - Kay Thorpe - Страница 7

HUGH proved more intrigued than angry about the mix-up.

‘I gather Bentley has something of a proprietary interest in you himself,’ he said on Monday morning when Regan apologised to him. ‘A pretty long-standing one in fact. Paula was spitting cobs when he walked out on her. Not that I can blame him. She didn’t exactly keep the discussion under wraps.’ He paused, eyeing her shrewdly. ‘He is the father, isn’t he?’

There was little point in attempting to deny it, Regan acknowledged. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And thanks for not telling him about Jamie.’

‘I was in a bit of a dilemma, considering you’d already apparently let the cat out of the bag, but I reckoned you’d sort it out for yourself. What I can’t understand,’ he added curiously, ‘is why you kept it from him to start with. You were entitled to maintenance at the very least.’

‘I didn’t want anything from him!’ she said with force. ‘I still don’t. Jamie’s mine!’

‘Does he feel the same way now he knows about him?’ Hugh raised his eyebrows when she failed to respond. ‘You still haven’t told him?’

‘No.’ Regan looked down pointedly at the notebook ready-opened on her knee, wishing, not for the first time, that he would use a dictating machine like most people did these days. ‘You were giving me a letter.’

The hint was ignored, curiosity still unsatisfied. ‘Assuming he followed you home, as he said he was going to do, how the devil did you manage to keep him from finding out?’

‘Jamie was in bed. I convinced him I’d simply been indulging in a little payback.’ She put pencil to paper. ‘All’s well that ends well.’

Payback for what, exactly? was the question obviously hovering on Hugh’s lips, but he refrained from voicing it, for which she was thankful. Suggesting he mind his own business was hardly on the cards when she’d involved him in the situation herself. Hopefully, he would let the subject drop.

He did. For the time being, at any rate. Whether he would be content to let it go completely was something else. The problem with becoming personal friends with one’s boss, Regan reflected a trifle wryly. He’d have already put Rosalyn in the picture for sure.

Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to put Liam out of mind herself over the weekend. Seeing him again, having him near her again, had eroded every bit of armour she had built up over the years. She’d wanted him the same way he’d wanted her Friday night—hadn’t been able to sleep for the hunger he had aroused in her. It had been so long since she’d felt that need; so long since her whole body had come alive that way.

And it had to stop right here! she told herself forcibly, concentrating on the VDU in front of her. Cliché or no cliché, the past was a closed book from now on.

Except that it wasn’t, because Liam wouldn’t allow it to be. He was waiting when she left the office at five, standing by a gunmetal-grey Jaguar parked on double yellow lines.

‘I’m due a ticket,’ he said, nodding in the direction of a purposefully approaching traffic warden. ‘If you get in without argument we can be away before she gets here. We need to talk.’

Regan vacillated momentarily before giving in to the undeniably stronger urge and sliding into the front passenger seat. Liam closed the door and went round to get behind the wheel, firing the ignition with a flick of a lean brown wrist and heading out into the traffic stream with scant regard for the outraged hoots of those forced to give way.

‘Needs must when the devil drives,’ he remarked, looking anything but penitent. ‘That’s a very disappointed lady we’ve left back there.’

‘It’s a very reluctant lady you have in here,’ Regan returned coolly, mustering her reserves. ‘If it hadn’t been for the warden—’

‘I know. You’d have given me my marching orders. Not that I’d have accepted them. You were coming with me whether you liked it or not.’

She gave him a swift glance, taking in the set of his jaw, the glint in his eyes—feeling her stomach muscles start to curl again. ‘Is that a fact?’ was all she could come up with.

‘Sure is.’ His lips stretched in a brief smile. ‘Like I said, we need to talk.’

‘We said all there was to say the other night,’ she retorted.

‘Not nearly! We’ve seven years to fill in for starters.’

Regan kept her tone level with an effort. ‘I’ve no intention of rehashing the past. I’d be grateful if you’d drop me off along here. I’ve a train to catch.’

‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked. ‘You’ve no one waiting for you to get home.’

Her heart jerked. ‘That’s hardly the point.’

‘I think it is. I don’t have anyone waiting for me either, so why don’t we go and find somewhere quiet and peaceful where we can relax over a drink? Soft only, in my case,’ he added as she made to speak. ‘I never touch alcohol when I’m driving.’

‘Very responsible of you,’ she commented with a caustic edge she couldn’t quite eradicate. ‘A model citizen at last!’

It was Liam’s turn to slant a glance, eyes narrowed a little. ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that, but we all learn as we go along. You’ve changed a great deal yourself. In some ways, at any rate.’

‘I’ve changed, period,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ll be thirty in a couple of months. That makes me a mature woman.’

‘Age has damn all to do with it!’ he scoffed. ‘It’s in the mind not the body. If you consider yourself mature, you’ll stop playing the reluctant maiden and join me in that drink.’

Short of leaping from the car, did she have a choice? Regan asked herself. Sarah was used to her being late home after battling through the rush hour, and would have given Jamie his tea as usual. Providing she got there in time to have half an hour or so with him before he went to bed, he would be fine.

Only this had to be it so far as Liam was concerned. One drink, then goodbye.

He took her to a backstreet inn she wouldn’t have known existed, driving into the rear yard with the authority of entitlement.

‘My watering hole for many a long year,’ he said in reply to her unspoken question. ‘The landlord granted me parking rights on the strength of it. They serve pretty good bar meals if you’re feeling hungry.’

‘Just a drink,’ Regan reiterated, already beginning to regret having agreed to even that much. He would have accepted the refusal if she’d made it firm enough: he would have had to accept it.

Broad shoulders lifted in tolerant acknowledgment. ‘Whatever you say.’

There were only three other people in the small, un-spoiled Victorian-period bar at present. Liam seated her in one of the cushioned, high-backed alcoves before going to rap on the polished mahogany counter in order to attract attention from whoever was supposed to be serving.

The big bluff man who appeared offered a casual greeting. Regan could hear the sound of voices, underlaid by music, coming from some unseen source.

‘The taproom’s through the other side,’ Liam explained when he brought their drinks over. ‘It gets pretty busy in there. Hardly hear yourselves think, much less talk.’

He seated himself opposite, still too close for comfort with only the wrought-iron table between them, his foot touching one of hers. Regan controlled the impulse to draw sharply away, settling for a slower movement instead. Even so, she could tell from the glimmer of amusement in the grey eyes that he was only too well aware of her response to the contact.

‘Nice place,’ she said in an effort to sound natural. ‘There can’t be all that many left unmodernised.’

‘One of the blights of today’s cultural trends,’ Liam agreed. ‘Which dispenses with the small talk. We have more vital subjects to discuss.’

Green eyes held grey for several, heart-thudding moments. ‘Such as what?’ Regan managed with creditable calm.

‘Such as where we go from here, having found one another again.’

The thudding increased to a sudden crescendo, diminishing again as she reviewed the situation. ‘You mean now?’ she asked with deliberation. ‘A quick visit to your flat, perhaps, for old times’ sake?’

‘Stop playing the cynic,’ he retorted. ‘That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it. Not,’ he tagged on with a glint, ‘that it would have been such a quick visit.’

Regan could imagine. His lovemaking had never been a hurried affair. Her inner thighs went into sudden spasm at the very thought. It was all she could do to conceal the emotions coursing through her.

‘Self-confidence you never lacked,’ she said acidly. ‘There was a time when it might have impressed me, but not any more.’

‘You prefer wimps these days?’ he queried. ‘Men you can manipulate?’

‘There’s such a thing as moderation,’ she flashed. ‘Not that you’re likely to understand what I’m talking about. It was always your needs that came first with you!’ She flushed as one dark brow rose in ironical comment. ‘Out of bed, at any rate.’

‘Thanks for the qualification,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to be labelled a selfish lover.’

‘Oh, I doubt if you ever give less than full satisfaction in that department!’ This time she was unable to keep the bitterness entirely at bay. She took a swallow of the gin and tonic he had ordered for her, coughing as the spirit caught the back of her throat, her eyes watering.

‘Try taking it a little more slowly,’ advised Liam with dry inflection. ‘Or not at all, if you’re only using it as a prop. I didn’t bring you here to trade insults,’ he went on when she made no answer. ‘I’ve a genuine interest.’ He studied her across the table, taking in the fine boning of her face, the heavily fringed green eyes and full, mobile mouth, his expression causing her heart to start hammering again. ‘Who wouldn’t have?’ he added softly.

Get out now! urged a small voice in her inner ear, but her limbs refused to obey instructions to move. She gazed back at him wordlessly, devouring the lean masculine features, the thick dark hair her fingers itched, as of old, to tangle with. He was, and always had been, a man most women would find enthralling by very virtue of the fact that he was so utterly male in a world where the demarcation lines were no longer as manifest as once they’d been. Such a thing as moderation, she had said a moment or two ago, but it didn’t mean a great deal at this precise moment.

‘Are you still in the same flat?’ she heard herself asking.

He shook his head. ‘I’ve moved on a piece since then.’

‘But you’re still with Chantry’s?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well up the tree by now, I imagine.’

‘Some way to go yet.’ His lips slanted. ‘We’re back to the small talk.’

‘No, we’re not,’ she countered. ‘As you said, we’ve seven years to fill in.’

‘Not all from my side, though. Apart from you working for Longmans, and living in conditions that could be bettered, I know nothing about your life.’

He wasn’t going to know either, she thought, stirring herself to action with an ostentatious glance at her watch. ‘There’s nothing really worth telling. In any case, it’s time I got on my way.’

‘You’ll be right in the thick of it if you leave now,’ Liam pointed out. ‘Let things quieten down a bit, then I’ll drive you home.’

‘No!’ The refusal came out too tersely, drawing a sudden line between the dark brows; Regan made haste to amend the impression. ‘It’s too far out of your way.’

‘How would you know that when you don’t know where I live these days?’ he asked reasonably. ‘Anyway, I don’t have anything else on the agenda.’

‘Not for want of opportunity, I’m sure.’

The sarcasm drew a shrug. ‘Depends on the kind of opportunity we’re talking about. I take life rather more gently these days. Which brings us back to where we left off,’ he added before she could make any further comment. ‘You don’t mean to tell me nothing of any note at all occurred in seven years!’

Regan kept her tone carefully bland. ‘I’ve had my moments.’

‘And that’s as far as you’re prepared to go.’ The dark head inclined. ‘Far be it from me to pressure you. Why don’t we eat while we’re waiting? Save bothering later on.’

The temptation to extend the occasion was there, she had to admit. She rallied her forces to resist it. ‘I already told you I’m not hungry, but don’t let me stop you. I can still take the train.’

‘And I already told you I’d drive you home.’ Liam sounded just a mite intolerant. ‘Relax, will you? There’s no ulterior motive.’

‘It didn’t occur to me that there was,’ she denied.

‘Yes, it did. You think I might try something on. Well, rest easy on that score. I haven’t reached the desperation stage as yet.’ He searched her face again, eyes penetrating her defences. ‘About you, I’m not so sure. You look decidedly unfulfilled.’

‘As a psychologist, you make a good milkman,’ she responded cuttingly. ‘I don’t need a man to fulfil me!’

‘So you admit there isn’t one in your life at present?’

‘I admit nothing.’ Regan was fast becoming unravelled. ‘You can probe till you’re blue in the face for all the good it will do you! My private life is…private!’

‘Temper,’ he chided, the glint in his eyes not wholly of amusement. ‘You’re losing your grip.’

She quelled the retort rising to her lips, aware of other eyes on the pair of them. ‘A momentary lapse. The traffic isn’t going to ease up for another couple of hours so I’ll pass on the lift. There are times when it’s quicker by train.’

‘Except that there’s no terminal within easy walking distance of this place.’ Liam wasn’t giving an inch. ‘If you really must leave now, I’ll take you regardless of the traffic. At least you’ll be sitting down in comfort, not strap-hanging.’

She had to grant him that much. Getting a seat on a train at this time of day was a rare thing indeed. Only last week she’d found herself crushed next to a man who had taken advantage of their closeness to start running a hand along her leg—until she had changed his mind with a well-aimed heel in the unprotected top of his foot. He’d limped off the train at the next station with, hopefully, a lesson learned. But he hadn’t been the first, and no doubt wouldn’t be the last to indulge his base impulses.

‘Regan?’ Liam was eying her quizzically.

‘All right,’ she said, resigning herself to the inevitable. ‘Just don’t expect to be invited in on the strength of it.’

‘No strings attached,’ he assured her. ‘Don’t bother finishing the drink. You didn’t really want it in the first place.’

Regan didn’t attempt to deny it. She was here because there was a part of her that still found it impossible to regard him with the contempt he merited for past maltreatment—a part of her that yearned to give way to the emotions he still aroused in her. If it hadn’t been for Jamie, she might even have been tempted to go along with what he was suggesting and renew the affair.

Laying herself open to further hurt when he’d exhausted what new potential he fancied she might offer, came the cynical thought. It was academic anyway.

Liam revealed a remarkable knowledge of the inner-city road system and managed to avoid the worst of the congestion. All the same, it was almost a quarter to seven by the time they reached their destination.

‘So this is it?’ he said when Regan made to get out of the car with a murmured word of thanks. ‘I don’t get to see you again?’

‘There isn’t any point,’ she responded levelly.

His shrug was more sensed than seen. ‘A matter of opinion, but have it your own way.’

He drew away the moment she was out of the car, leaving her standing on the pavement feeling dull and depressed at the thought of never seeing him again. Yet what alternative was there? If she’d told him about Jamie he’d ten to one have felt bound to make some kind of financial reparation, but that would have been as far as it went. She was better off putting the whole affair to the back of her mind again.

Which was easier said than done. Jamie himself was drawn to comment on her absentmindedness when he was in the bath and she handed him the back-brush instead of the toy submarine he had requested.

‘You’re thinking about something else, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘Work,’ Regan improvised. ‘It’s been a busy day.’

‘Is that why you were late coming home?’

It wasn’t in her nature to lie, but this was one time when it was expedient. ‘Yes. Am I going to drive the battleship tonight?’

‘Ships are sailed,’ he corrected in the tolerant tone adopted by most males towards unmechanically-minded females.

‘Sail, then.’ Regan kept a straight face, resisting the urge to hug the small, sturdy body. With his mop of reddish hair and green eyes, he resembled her rather than his father, but there was a certain something emerging in his facial bone structure, even now, that struck a bell—especially after having seen the man in question so recently. Not that there was any doubt as to his parentage, anyway. Liam had been her first, and only, lover.

She did a few odd tasks after he was in bed, watched television for an hour or so, then attempted to pass some time reading, though her mind wasn’t on the written word. When the telephone rang at half past ten she was on the verge of retiring for the night. Liam’s voice sounded so close, so intimate.

‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ he said softly. ‘I want you here with me right now, your hair spread across the pillow, your mouth yearning for my kisses, your body vibrating with desire for my touch! You were always so giving—so utterly without artifice!’

‘The word you’re looking for is artless,’ she said in an attempt to stem the swift-rising heat.

His laugh came low. ‘I know what I’m looking for. The girl I knew seven years ago is still there somewhere, lurking under that veneer. I aim to find her again.’

‘You’d have a long search.’ Regan was amazed at her surface composure, considering the furore going on inside her. ‘It’s no veneer, Liam. I’m a different person.’

The one you made me, she might have added.

‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘Goodnight, green eyes.’

He’d called her that in the past as a term of endearment. Replacing the receiver, Regan did her best to calm her inner tumult. It meant nothing. All he was in need of right now was a warm, responsive female body to share his bed; hers just happened to be the first name to spring to mind.

She tremored as memory ran riot, forming tangible images in her mind’s eye: that lean hard body stripped of all clothing and fully aroused, the ripple of muscle beneath her fingers, the electric prickle of his chest hair against her nipples. In Liam’s arms she had known no reticence, no inhibition. He had taught her so much about her own bodily needs.

There had been times during these past years when she had yearned to know that fulfilment again, but she’d still to meet someone who could make her feel even a fraction of what she’d felt for Liam.

What she still felt for Liam, if she were honest about it, which was all the more reason to keep him at arm’s length. She had made the mistake seven years ago of allowing her emotions to overrule caution. She’d persuaded herself that his ruthless, ambitious, womanising reputation was mostly the product of jealous minds, and look where that had left her. He might have mellowed a little on the surface, but people didn’t change fundamentally. The way he had treated Paula Lambert was proof enough of that.

In any case, there was Jamie to consider. Better no father at all than a reluctant one—who might deny responsibility to start with.

More than half anticipating some further approach, she told herself it was all for the best when she heard nothing more from him over the following few days. Life went on much as it had before, with work taking up the greater part of it. After one further, tentative enquiry, Hugh took the hint and let the subject drop. Her business was her business.

The weekend came round again, this time with no Friday soirée to dress for. Regan took Jamie to the local park to play on the swings and roundabouts for half an hour or so, returning home to a couple of games of Scrabble before tucking him into bed around eight-thirty.

Sarah came up with a bottle of wine. Don had gone out for a drink with a pal, she said, so why not follow suit? They drank a couple of glasses apiece, and enjoyed an undemanding hour talking about whatever came to mind. By the time they parted, Regan was feeling more than a little elevated.

It wasn’t yet ten o’clock, she saw in some surprise. The night was still young! So what? asked the voice of reason, bringing her sharply down again from the heights. So what indeed?

Early as it was, she might as well go to bed, she decided. At least there was the weekend to look forward to, although she’d have to cudgel her brains to find something different to do on Sunday. They’d just about exhausted the affordable pastimes.

She was about to pull out the sofa bed when the doorbell rang. Sarah must have forgotten something, she thought, going to open the door. A joke about the effects of too much wine ready on her lips, she froze in suspended animation for a moment on seeing who the caller was, catching up with a painful jolt as her heart regained its rhythm.

‘How did you get in?’ she demanded.

‘The usual way,’ Liam answered. ‘The outside door wasn’t completely closed.’

Don! she thought. He’d been careless before. Not that it mattered at this particular moment who had left the door open.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, knowing it a pretty stupid question.

His brief smile suggested a similar assessment. ‘I tried staying away. It didn’t work. I had to see you again.’

‘So, you’ve seen me,’ she retorted, hardening herself against the sudden temptation to let matters take their own course. ‘You know the way out.’

He stuck a foot in the door to keep it from closing. ‘Stop playing the hard case. It isn’t the way you feel.’

‘You’d know, of course!’ She was fighting to stay in control—reminding herself of the child asleep in the next room. ‘Always so sure!’

‘Sure I’m not going to give up on you without a hell of a lot more effort,’ he said. ‘Are you going to let me in, or do I have to apply pressure?’

‘It’s late.’ She was beginning to lose her grip on the situation. ‘I—’

‘It’s only a little after ten. Having got this far, I don’t intend leaving without having my say, so you may as well reconcile yourself.’

Her eyes held his for several heart-racing seconds before finally giving way. Jamie had been really tired, Regan reassured herself. He wouldn’t waken up.

‘You won’t be here long,’ she said flatly, opening the door wider.

He made no answer to that. Closing the door as he advanced into the room, she turned to face him, striking the same semi-defensive attitude as on that previous night. ‘So?’

There was no verbal answer to that either. He simply moved the couple of steps that brought him back to where she stood and pulled her into his arms.

The kiss blew her away in its emotive power, stripping her mind of everything but the desire for it never to end. She clung to him, lips moving beneath his, body seeking the heat and hardness it remembered so well and had craved for so long. The buttons of her blouse gave easily to the supple fingers; she drew in a shuddering breath at the feel of those same fingers on her bare skin, her nipples springing to vibrant life.

‘Lovelier than ever,’ he murmured. ‘So smooth and firm!’ He lowered his head to put his lips where his fingers had been, sending wave after wave of tremoring sensation through her.

Sanity returned like a stone dropped from a height as he sought the fastening of her skirt. This was all he wanted from her. All he had ever wanted from her! The swift raging anger was as much against herself for her weakness as him for his assumption.

‘Get away from me!’ she spat. ‘Just get away!’

Considering his obvious arousal, it was to his credit that he released her immediately. Face tense, eyes fired by warring emotions, he stood back.

‘My apologies. I let myself be carried away a little.’

Fingers trembling, Regan adjusted her bra and rebuttoned her blouse. A little! That had to be the understatement of the year! If she hadn’t pulled him up he would have taken her right there and then.

‘I have to take my share of the blame,’ she said, unable to bring herself to look at him directly. ‘I was carried away for a moment too.’

It had been a great deal more than a momentary lapse, he could have pointed out with truth, but he didn’t. ‘So what now?’ he said instead. ‘Do I walk out of that door and deny us both the chance to get it together again, or do we start over from scratch?’

With what aim? she wanted to ask, except that she already knew the answer. Long- or short-term, an affair was all he would have in mind.

‘I think you’d better just go,’ she said huskily. ‘You should never have come.’

‘Why?’ The grey eyes pierced her through. ‘What are you afraid of?’

‘I’m not afraid, just not prepared to let you into my life again.’ Regan fumbled for the door handle at her back. ‘I’m sure you’re not short of other…entertainment.’

Liam made no move. Standing there, tall, lean and devastating in the dark blue suit, he made her long. Her jaw ached with the effort of keeping her chin up.

‘You think sex is all I’m interested in where you’re concerned?’ he said.

‘Was it ever anything else?’ she challenged. ‘You certainly never had any intention of marrying me. What you saw was a virgin ripe for the plucking!’

Liam made an abrupt gesture. ‘I didn’t know you were a virgin before I—’

‘You knew. Right from the moment you first kissed me you knew!’ Despite all she could do to control it, her voice had acquired a tremor. ‘I saw it in your eyes—that yen all men have to be the first.’

‘It didn’t stop you from carrying on,’ he returned hardily.

‘I didn’t want to stop. For the very first time since—’ She broke off, catching her lip between her teeth. ‘It hardly matters now.’

Liam regarded her in silence for a long moment, eyes thoughtfully narrowed. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ he said at length.

‘There’s a whole lot of things I’m not telling you,’ she responded. ‘I want you out of here, Liam. Now!’

He shook his head. ‘Not until you can convince me you really mean it.’

With her back against the door, she had nowhere to go to avoid him. This time she kept her lips closed when he kissed her, but there was no closing out the desire still roaming loose from the first time. It gathered like a storm, sending signals to every part of her body, building by the second to insupportable strengths.

It took the sound of a door opening to bring her crashing back to reality, but nowhere near fast enough to avert disaster.

‘What,’ demanded a fierce little voice, ‘are you doing with my mummy?’