Читать книгу Rags To Riches Collection - Джанис Мейнард, Rebecca Winters - Страница 49

SARAH was at the kitchen sink, finishing the last of the washing up, when the doorbell went.

The house she rented was not in a particularly terrific part of East London, but it was affordable, public transport was reasonably convenient, and the neighbours were nice. You couldn’t have everything.

Before the doorbell could buzz again and risk waking Oliver, who had only just been settled after a marathon run of demands for more and more books to be read to him until finally he drifted off to sleep, Sarah wiped her hands on a dishcloth and half ran to the front door.

At not yet seven-thirty she was in some faded tracksuit bottoms and a baggy tee shirt. It was her usual garb on a weekend because she couldn’t afford to go out. Twice a month she would try and have some friends over, cook them something, but continually counting pennies took a lot of the fun out of entertaining.

She had spent the past two days caught up in trying to find herself some replacement shift work. The cleaning company that had hired her had been appalled to find that she had walked out on a job without a backward glance, and she had been sacked on the spot.

Her heart hadn’t been in the search, however. She’d been too busy thinking about Raoul and tirelessly replaying their unexpected encounter in her head. She’d spent hours trying to analyse what he had said and telling herself that it had all happened for the best. She’d looked at Oliver and all she’d seen was Raoul’s dark hair and bitter chocolate eyes, and the smooth, healthy olive skin that would go a shade darker as he got older. He was a clone of his father.

If Raoul saw him there would be no doubt, but she still hadn’t heard from him, and her disappointment had deepened with every passing hour.

On top of that, she couldn’t make her mind up what she should tell her parents. Should they know that Raoul was Oliver’s father and was back on the scene? Or would they worry? She had confessed that she had had her heart broken, and she wasn’t convinced that they had ever really believed it to have been fully pieced together again. How would they react if they knew that the guy who’d broken her heart was back in her life? She was an only child, and they were super-protective. She imagined them racing up to London wielding rolling pins and threatening retribution.

She pulled open the door, her mind wandering feverishly over old ground, and stepped back in confusion at the sight of Raoul standing in front of her.

‘May I come in, Sarah?’

‘I … I wasn’t expecting you. I thought you said that you were going to phone …’

She was without make-up, and no longer in a uniform designed to keep all hint of femininity at bay, and Raoul’s dark eyes narrowed as he took in the creamy satin smoothness of her skin, the brightness of her green eyes in her heart-shaped face and the curves of her familiar body underneath her tee shirt and track pants.

He recognised the tee shirt, although it was heavily faded now, its rock group logo almost obliterated. Just looking at it took him back in time to lying on the bed in the small room in Africa, with the mosquito net tethered as best they could manage under the mattress, watching and burning for her as she slowly stripped the tee shirt over her head to reveal her full, round breasts.

Raoul had planned on phoning. He had spent the past two days thinking, and had realised that the best way forward would be to view the situation in the same way he would view any problem that needed a solution—with a clear head. First establish firm proof that the child was his, because his gut instinct might well be wrong, and then have an adult conversation with her regarding the way forward.

Unfortunately he hadn’t been able to play the waiting game. He hadn’t been able to concentrate at work. He had tried to vent his frustration at the gym, but even two hours of gruelling exercise had done nothing to diminish his urgent need to do something.

Sarah read everything into his silence and ushered him into the house.

‘I didn’t know if I should be expecting a call from … somebody … about those tests you wanted …’

‘On hold for the moment.’

‘Really?’ Her eyes shone and she smiled. ‘So you do believe me.’

‘For the moment I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt.’

‘You won’t regret it, Raoul. Oliver’s the image of you. I’m sorry he’s asleep. I would wake him …’

Raoul had no experience of children. They weren’t part of his everyday existence, and in the absence of any family he had never been obliged to cut his teeth on nephews or nieces. He was utterly bewildered at the notion of being in the presence of a son he had never laid eyes on. What did a four-year-old boy do, exactly? Were they capable of making conversation at that age?

Suddenly nervous as hell, he cleared his throat and waved aside her offer. ‘Maybe it’s best if we talk about this first …’

‘Then would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee? I think I might have some wine in the fridge. I don’t keep a great deal of alcohol in the house. I can’t afford it, anyway.’

Raoul was looking around him, taking in the surroundings which were a stark reminder of how far he had travelled. Now he lived in a massive two-storeyed penthouse apartment in the best postcode in London, furnished to the very highest standard. Frankly, it was the best that money could buy—although he barely glanced at his surroundings and was seldom in to take advantage of the top-of-the-range designer kitchen and all the other jaw dropping features the high-tech apartment sported.

This tiny terraced house couldn’t have been more different. The carpet, the indeterminate colour of sludge, had obviously never been replaced, and the walls, although painted in a cheerful green colour, showed signs of cracks. Standing in the hall with her, he was aware there was practically no room to move, and as he followed her into the kitchen there was no change. A pine table was shoved against the wall to accommodate random pieces of freestanding furniture—a half-sized dresser, a chest of drawers, some shelves on which bottles with various cooking ingredients stood.

He had managed to climb up and away from these sorts of surroundings, but it still sent a chill through his body that but for a combination of brains, luck and sheer hard work beyond the call of duty he might very well have still been living in a place very much like this.

This was precisely why, he told himself, he had refused to be tied down. Only by being one hundred percent free to focus on his career had he been able to fulfil his ambitions. Women were certainly an enjoyable distraction, but he had never been tempted to jettison any of his plans for one of them.

The more wealth he accumulated, the more jaded he became. He could have the most beautiful women in the world, and in fact he had had a number of head-turning girlfriends on his arm over the years, but they had always been secondary to his career.

Dim memories of living in a dingy room with his mother while she drank herself into a stupor had been his driving force. This house was only a few steps up from dingy. He imagined the landlord to be someone of dubious integrity, happy to take money from desperate tenants, but less happy to make any improvements to the property.

The notion of his son had somehow managed to take root in his head, and Raoul was incensed at the deplorable living conditions.

‘I know,’ Sarah apologised, following the critical path of his eyes. ‘It’s not fantastic, but everything works. And it’s so much better than some of the other places I looked at. I don’t even know where you live …’

Raoul, who had been staring at a dramatic rip in the wallpaper above the dresser, met her eyes and held them.

He couldn’t understand whether it was her familiarity that was making him feel so aware of her—inconveniently, frustratingly, sexually aware of her—or whether he had just managed to make himself forget the attraction she had always had for him.

‘Chelsea,’ he said grimly, sitting on one of the chairs at the table, which felt fragile enough to break under his weight.

‘And … and what’s it like?’ She could feel hot colour in her cheeks, because he just dominated the small space of the kitchen. His presence seemed to wrap itself around her, making her pulses race and her skin feel tight and uncomfortable.

Coffee made, she handed him a mug and sat on the other chair.

‘It’s an apartment.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t spend a great deal of time in it. It works for me. It’s low maintenance.’

‘What does that mean? Low maintenance?’

‘Nothing surplus to requirements. I don’t like clutter.’

‘And … and is there a woman in that apartment?’ She went bright red as she asked the question, but it was one that had only occurred to her after she had left him. Was there a woman in his life? He didn’t give the impression of being a married man, but then would he ever?

‘What’s the relevance of that question?’ He sipped some of the instant coffee and looked at her steadily over the rim of the mug.

‘It’s relevant to this situation,’ she persisted stubbornly. ‘Oliver’s your son, and he’s going to have to get used to the idea of having a father around. I’m the only parent figure he’s ever known.’

‘Which isn’t exactly my fault.’

‘I know it’s not! I’m just making a point.’ She glared at him. ‘It’s going to take time for him to get to know you, and I don’t want him to have to deal with a woman on the scene as well. At least I’d rather not. I suppose if you’re married …’

Having never had to answer to anyone but himself, Raoul refused to be railroaded into an explanation of his private life—although he could see the validity of her question.

‘No. There’s no little lady keeping the home fires burning. As for women … I’ll naturally strive to ensure that a difficult situation isn’t made even more difficult.’

‘So there is someone.’ She tried desperately to take it in her stride, because it really wasn’t very surprising. He was sinfully gorgeous, and now wealthy beyond belief. He would be a magnet for any footloose and single woman—and probably for a good few who weren’t footloose and single.

‘I don’t think we should get wrapped up in matters that don’t really have much to do with this … situation. We just need to discuss what the next step should be.’

‘Come upstairs and see him. I can’t have this conversation with you when you don’t even know the child you’re talking about. This isn’t a business deal that needs to be sorted out.’ She stood up abruptly and Raoul, put on the spot, followed suit.

‘He’s sleeping. I wouldn’t want you to wake him.’ Raoul was more nervous than he could ever remember being—more nervous than when he had chased, and closed, his first major deal. More nervous than when he had been a kid and he had stared up at the forbidding grey walls of the foster home that would eventually become his residence.

‘Okay. I won’t. But you still have to see him, or else he’s just going to be a problem that needs solving in your head.’

‘Since when did you get so bossy?’ Raoul muttered under his breath, and Sarah spun around to find him looming behind her.

Standing on the first stair, she could almost look him in the eye. ‘Since I ended up being responsible for another human being,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not your fault that you weren’t aware of the situation …’ Although it was, because if he had only just given her a contact number she would have been able to get in touch with him. ‘But it was terrifying for me when I discovered that I was pregnant. I kept thinking how nice it would be if you had been around to support me, and then I remembered how you had dumped me because you had plans and they didn’t include me, and that if you had been around my pregnancy would have been your worst nightmare.’

‘My plans didn’t include anyone, Sarah. I did you a favour.’

‘Oh, don’t be so arrogant! If you’d cared enough about me you would have kept in touch.’ She was breathing heavily as all the remembered pain and bitterness and anger surged through her, but staring into the depths of his fabulous dark eyes was doing something else to her—making her whole body tingle as though someone had taken a powerful electrical charge to it.

Raoul clocked her reaction without even consciously registering it. He just knew that the atmosphere had become taut with an undercurrent that had nothing to do with what they had been talking about. It was a type of non-verbal communication that sent his body into crazy overdrive.

‘I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you any of this.’ She jerked her hand in clumsy dismissal, but he caught her wrist. The heat of physical contact made her draw in her breath sharply, although he wasn’t hurting her—not at all. He was barely circling her wrist with his long fingers. Still … she was appalled to find that she wanted to sink against him.

That acknowledgment of weakness galvanised her into struggling to free herself and he released her abruptly, although when she could have turned around and stalked up the stairs she continued to stare at him wordlessly.

‘I know it must have been a bad time for you …’

‘Well, that’s the understatement of the decade if ever there was one! I felt completely lost and alone.’

‘You had your parents to help you.’

‘That’s not the same! Plus I’d left for my gap year thinking that I was at the start of living my own life. Do you know what it felt like to go back home? Yes, they helped me, and I couldn’t have managed at all without them, but it still felt like a retrograde step. I never, ever considered having an abortion, and I was thrilled to bits when Oliver was born, but I was having to cope with seeing all my dreams fly through the window. No university, no degree, no teaching qualification. You must have been laughing your head off when you saw me cleaning floors in that bank.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘No? Then what was going through your head when you looked down at me? With a damp cloth in one hand and a cleaning bottle in the other, dressed in my overalls?’

‘Okay. I was stunned. But then I started remembering how damned sexy you were, and thinking how damned sexy you still were—never mind the headscarf and the overalls …’

His words hovered in the air between them, a spark of conflagration just waiting to find tinder. To her horror, Sarah realised that she wanted him to repeat what he had just said so she could savour his words and roll them round and round in her head.

How could she have forgotten the way he had treated her? He might justify walking out on her as doing her a favour, but that was just another way of saying that he hadn’t cared for her the way she had cared for him, and he hadn’t been about to let a meaningless holiday romance spoil his big plans.

‘I’ve come to realise that sex is very overrated,’ Sarah said scornfully, and then flushed as a slow smile curved his beautiful mouth.

‘Really?’

‘I don’t want to talk about this.’ But she heard the telltale tremor in her voice and wanted to scream in frustration. ‘It certainly has nothing to do with what’s … what’s happening now. If you follow me, I’ll show you to Oliver’s room.’

Raoul let the conversation drop. He was as astounded as she had been by his own genuine admission to her, and he was busily trying to work out how a woman he hadn’t seen in years—a woman who, in the great scheme of things, had not really been in his life for very long—could still exercise such a powerful physical hold over him. It was as though the years between them had collapsed and disappeared.

But of course they hadn’t, he reminded himself forcefully. Proof of that was currently asleep in a bedroom, just metres away from where they had been standing.

Upstairs, if anything, seemed more cramped than downstairs, with two small bedrooms huddled around a tiny bathroom which he glimpsed on his way to the box room on the landing.

She pushed open the door to the only room he had seen so far that bore the hallmark of recent decoration. A night-light revealed wallpaper with some sort of kiddy theme and basic furniture. A small bed, thin patterned curtains, a circular rug tucked half under the bed, a white chest of drawers, snap-together furniture, cheap but functional.

Raoul unfroze himself from where he was standing like a sentinel by the doorway and took a couple of steps towards the bed.

Oliver had kicked off the duvet and was curled around a stuffed toy.

Raoul could make out black curly hair, soft chubby arms. Even in the dim light he could see that his colouring was a shade darker than his mother’s—a pale olive tone that was all his.

In the grip of a powerful curiosity, he took a step closer to the bed and peered at the small sleeping figure. When it shifted, Raoul instantly took a step back.

‘We should go—just in case we wake him,’ Sarah whispered, tiptoeing out of the bedroom.

Raoul followed her. The palms of his hands felt clammy.

She had been right. He had a son. There had been no mistaking those small, familiar signs of a likeness that was purely inherited. He wondered how he could ever have sat in his office and concluded that he would deal with the problem with the cold detachment of a mathematician completing a tricky equation. He had a child. A living, breathing son.

The cramped condition of the house in which he was living now seemed grossly offensive. He would have to do something about that. He would have to do something about pretty much everything. Life as he knew it was about to change. One minute he had been riding the crest of a wave, stupidly imagining that he had the world in the palm of his hand, and the next minute the wave had crashed and the world he had thought netted was spinning out of control.

It was a ground-breaking notion for someone whose only driving goal throughout his life had been to remedy the lack of control he had had as a child by conquering the world. A tiny human being, barely three feet tall, had put paid to that.

‘You’re very quiet,’ Sarah said nervously, as soon as they were out of earshot.

‘I need a drink—and something stronger than a cup of coffee.’

The remnants of a bottle of wine were produced and poured into a glass. Sarah looked at him, trying to gauge his mood and trying to forget that moment of mad longing that had torn through her only a short while before on the staircase.

‘You were right,’ he said heavily, having drunk most of the glass in one go. ‘I see the resemblance.’

‘I knew you would. It’ll be even more noticeable when you see him in the light. He’s got your dark eyes as well. In fact, there’s not much of me at all in him! That was the first thing Mum said when he was born … Would you like to see some of the drawings he’s made? He goes to a playgroup two mornings a week … I get help with that …’

‘Help? What kind of help?’ Raoul dragged his attention away from the swirling wine in his glass and looked at her.

‘From the government, of course,’ Sarah said, surprised. How on earth could she afford childcare otherwise, when she worked as a cleaner? On the mornings when Oliver was at nursery, she helped out at the school at which she was due to start work, but that was unpaid.

Raoul controlled his temper with difficulty. ‘From the government?’ he repeated with deadly cool, and Sarah nodded uneasily. ‘Do you know what my aim in life was? My only aim in life? To escape the clutches of government aid and own my future. Now you sit here and tell me that you’re reliant on government aid to get you through life.’

‘You make it sound like a crime, Raoul.’

‘For me, it’s obscene!’

The force of his personality hit her like a freight train travelling at full speed, but she squared her shoulders and glared at him defiantly. If she allowed him to take control just this once then she would be dancing to his tune as and when he wanted her to. Hadn’t she done enough of that years ago? And look where it had got her!

‘And I can understand that,’ Sarah told him evenly. ‘I really can. But your past has nothing to do with my present circumstances. I couldn’t afford to put Oliver into a private nursery,’ she informed him bluntly. ‘You’d be shocked at how little I earn. Mum and Dad supplement me, but every day’s a struggle. It’s all very well for you to sit there and preach to me about pride and ambition, but pride and ambition aren’t very high up in the pecking order when you barely have enough money to put food on the table. So if I can get help with the nursery, then I’ll take it.’ She wished that she had had some wine as well, because she was in dire need of fortification. ‘You were never such a crashing snob before, Raoul,’ she continued bitterly. ‘I can see that you’ve changed in more ways than one.’

‘Snob? I think you’ll find that that’s the last thing I am!’ He was outraged that she could hurl that accusation at him in view of his past.

‘You’ve moved away from your struggling days of when we first met! I’ll bet you can’t even remember what it was like, darning those shorts of yours when they got ripped because you couldn’t afford to chuck them out!’

‘You darned them.’ He looked at her darkly. He could remember her doing it as if it had been yesterday, swatting mosquitoes and moths away while outside a dull rumble of thunder had heralded heavy rain. She had looked like a girl in a painting, with her hair tumbling around her face as she frowned in concentration.

Sarah bit back the temptation to tell him what an idiot she had been, doing stuff like that, worshipping the ground he walked on, eager to do whatever he wanted.

‘And I haven’t forgotten my past,’ he said grimly. ‘It’s always there at the back of my mind, like a stuck record.’

Her heart softened, but she held her ground with grim determination.

‘I may not have planned for this, but I want you to know that things are going to change now. This place is barely fit for habitation!’ He caught the warning look in her eyes and offered her a crooked smile. ‘Okay. Bit of an exaggeration. But you get where I’m going. Whether you think I’ve become a monstrous snob or not, I can afford to take you away from here—and that’s got to be my number one priority.’

‘Your number one priority is getting to know Oliver.’

‘I would prefer to get to know him in surroundings that won’t challenge me every time I walk through the front door.’

Sarah sighed. It would certainly make life easier not having to worry so much about money. ‘Okay. I take back some of the things I said. You haven’t completely changed. You still think that you can get your own way all the time.’

‘I know. It more than compensates for your indecision. Now, you could put up a brief struggle to hold on to your independence, maybe give me a little lecture on things being just perfect here, with your quaint, outdated kitchen furniture and the walls in need of plasterwork, but we both know that you can see my point of view. I can afford to take you out of this, and I consider it my duty to do so.’

The word duty lodged in her head like a burr, and she looked down at her anxiously clasped fingers. There was nothing like honesty to really hurt.

‘What do you suggest?’ she asked. ‘Do I have any input here? Or are you going to just walk all over me because you have lots of money and I have none?’

‘I’m going to walk all over you because I have lots of money and you have none.’

‘Not funny,’ Sarah muttered, remembering his talent for defusing a situation with his sense of humour. Given the conditions years ago, when they had been cooped up on the compound, tempers had occasionally run high and this talent of his had been invaluable. Was he using it now just to get his own way? And did that matter anyway? The prospect of no longer having a daily struggle on her hands was like being offered manna from heaven.

‘I intend to take my responsibilities very seriously, Sarah. I think you should know that. It would be very time-consuming to travel out here every time I wanted to see Oliver. Somewhere closer to where I live would be a solution.’

Now that they were discussing things in a more businesslike manner Sarah could actually focus on what was being said—as opposed to fighting to maintain her equilibrium, which showed threatening signs of wanting to fall apart.

‘I feel as though I’m suddenly on a rollercoaster ride,’ she confessed.

‘Spare a thought for me. Whatever rollercoaster ride you’re on, mine is bigger, faster, and I’m a hell of a lot less prepared for it than you are.’

And yet he was rising to the occasion. It didn’t matter that the only reason they were now even having this conversation was because she had become a responsibility he couldn’t shirk. He had taken it all in his stride in his usual authoritative way. That there was no emotion involved was something she would have to deal with. It wasn’t his problem, and she wasn’t going to let that get in the way of the relationship he had to build with his son.

‘So we move to another place … There are still all sorts of other things that need sorting out. I’ll have to try and explain to Oliver that he has a … a father. He’s only young, though. I should warn you that it might not be that easy.’

‘He’s four,’ Raoul pointed out with impeccable logic. ‘He hasn’t had time to build up any kind of picture for or against me.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Let’s not anticipate problems, Sarah.’

Now that he had surmounted the sudden bout of intense nervousness that had gripped him in the bedroom, Raoul was confident he would be able to get Oliver onside. Having had a life of grinding poverty, replete with secondhand clothes and secondhand books and secondhand toys, and frankly secondhand affection, he was beginning to look forward to giving his son everything that he himself had lacked in his childhood.

‘We take things one at a time. First the house. Secondly, I suggest you try and explain my role to Oliver. Has he … has he ever asked about his father?’

‘In passing,’ Sarah admitted. ‘When he’s been to a birthday party and seen the other kids with their dads. Once when I was reading him a story.’

Raoul’s lips thinned but he didn’t say anything. ‘You will obviously have to tell your parents that you are moving, and why. Will you tell them I’m on the scene? What my position is?’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t go there just yet,’ Sarah said vaguely.

‘I won’t hide in the shadows.’

‘I’m not sure they’re going to be overjoyed that you’re on the scene, actually.’ She flushed guiltily as she remembered their distress when she had told them how she had fallen hard for a guy who had then chucked her. The hormones rushing through her body had made her all the more vulnerable and emotional, and she had spared nothing in her mournful, self-pitying account.

Honestly, she didn’t think that Raoul was going to be flavour of the month if she produced him out of nowhere. But she knew that she would have to sooner or later. Her mum always phoned at least three times a week, and always had a chat with Oliver. Sarah wouldn’t want her to find out via her grandchild that the heartbreaker and callous reprobate was now around.

‘I’m getting the picture,’ Raoul said slowly.

Sarah thought it better to move on quickly from that topic of conversation. ‘I’m sure they’ll be very happy.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘They’re very conventional. They’ll be delighted that Oliver will now have a father figure in his life.’

He stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow. No—scrap that. I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon so that I can be introduced to my son.’

The formality of that statement brought a rush of colour to Sarah’s face, because it underlined his lack of enthusiasm for the place in which he now found himself.

‘Should I buy him something special to wear?’ she said tartly. ‘I wouldn’t want his appearance to offend you.’

‘That’s not helpful.’

‘Nor is your approach to Oliver!’ Tears stung the back of her eyes. ‘How can you be so … so … unemotional? This wasn’t how I ever thought my life would turn out. I always thought that I would fall in love and get married, and when a baby came along it would be a cause for celebration and joy. I never imagined that I would have a child with a man who wasn’t even pleased to be a father!’

Raoul flushed darkly. What did she expect of him? He was here, wasn’t he? Prepared to take on a task which had been sprung on him. Not only that, but she would be the recipient of a new house to replace her dismal rented accommodation, and also in the enviable position of never having to worry about money in her life again. Were hysterical accusations in order? Absolutely not!

He was very tempted to give her a checklist of all the things she should be thankful for. He settled for saying, in a cool voice, ‘I’ve found that life has a funny way of not playing fair in the great scheme of things.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’ Sarah cried in frustration. ‘Honestly, Raoul, sometimes I could … hit you!’

Her eyes were blazing and her hair was a tumbling riot of gold—and he felt a charge race through his system like an uncontrolled dose of adrenaline.

‘I’m flattered that I still get you so worked up,’ he murmured with husky amusement.

He couldn’t help himself as he reached out and tangled his fingers in that hair. The contact was electric. He felt her response slam into him like a physical force and he revelled in the dark sexual hunger snaking through his body. That was something no amount of hard-headed logic or cool, calm reason could control.

Her lips had parted and her eyes were unfocused and half closed. Kissing her would halt all those crazy accusations in mid-flow. And he was hungry for her—hungry to remind himself of what her lips felt like.

‘Don’t you dare, Raoul …’

He pulled her towards him and noted, with a blaze of satisfaction, the unspoken invitation in her darkened eyes.

That first heady taste of him was intoxicating. Sarah moaned and pressed her hands against his chest. He had always been able to make her forget everything with a single touch, and her mind duly went blank. She forgot everything as her body curved sensuously against his, every bit of her melting at the feel of his swollen masculinity pushing against her, straining against the zipper of his trousers. Her breasts ached and she moved them against him, almost fainting at the pleasurable sensation of the abrasive motion on her sensitised nipples.

Raoul was the first to pull away.

‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

It took a few seconds for the daze in Sarah’s head to clear, and then she snapped back to the horrified realisation that after everything she had been through, and hot on the heels of her really, really wanting to hit him, she had just caved in—like an addict who couldn’t control herself. He had kissed her and all the hurt, anger and disappointment had disappeared. She had become a mindless puppet and five years had vanished in the blink of an eye.

‘Neither of us should have …’

‘Maybe it was inevitable.’

‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’

‘You know what I’m talking about. This thing between us …’

‘There’s nothing between us!’ Sarah cried, stepping back and hugging herself in an automatic gesture of self-defence.

‘Are you trying to convince me or yourself?’

‘Okay, maybe we just … just gave in to something for the sake of old times.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And now we’ve got that out of the way we can move on and … and …’

‘Pretend it never happened?’

‘Exactly! Pretend it never happened!’ She took a few more steps back, but she thought that even if she took a million steps back and fled the country the after-effects of that devastating kiss would still be with her. ‘This isn’t about us. This is about Oliver and your part in his life, so … so …’

Raoul looked at her with a brooding intensity that made her tremble. She didn’t have a clue what was going on in his head. He had always been very good at shielding his thoughts when it suited him. She worked herself up into a self-righteous anger, remembering how terrific he had been at keeping stuff from her—like their lack of future—until she had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. Never again would she let him have that level of control!

‘So just come here tomorrow. You can meet Oliver, and we can work out some kind of schedule, and … then we can both just get on with our own lives …’