Buch lesen: «Her Secret Pregnancy»

CHAPTER ONE

THE lawyer was slick and smooth and handsome—with the most immaculately manicured hands that Donna had ever seen.

‘Okay, Donna, if you’d like to sign just there.’ He jabbed a near-perfect fingernail onto the contract. ‘See? Right there.’

Donna was tempted to giggle. ‘You mean where your secretary has helpfully drawn a little cross?’

‘Ah, yes. Sorry,’ he amended quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to patronise you.’

The tension of the last few weeks dissolved. ‘Don’t worry. You weren’t.’ She signed her name with a flourish. ‘I’m just glad it’s all over.’

Tony Paxman did not look as though he echoed her sentiments. ‘I shall miss seeing you!’ he sighed. ‘Still, the premises are yours and you’ve got your liquour licence. Now it’s over to you. Congratulations, Donna!’ He held his hand out. ‘And I wish you every success for the future!’

‘Thank you,’ said Donna, hoping she didn’t sound smug. Or triumphant. Because she knew she should be neither. She was just lucky—though some people said there was no such thing, that you made your own luck in life.

She picked up her cream silk jacket and gave Tony Paxman a grateful smile. He had guided her through all the paperwork concerning the purchase with the care of a soldier negotiating a treacherous minefield. Most importantly of all, he’d kept the whole deal quiet. She owed him. ‘Would you like to have lunch with me, to celebrate?’

Tony blinked with the kind of surprise which suggested that a lunch invitation from Donna King had been the very last thing in the world he had been expecting. ‘Lunch?’ he said weakly.

Donna raised her eyebrows at him. She wasn’t proposing an illicit weekend in Paris! ‘Or have I broken some kind of unwritten law by inviting you?’

He shook his head hastily. ‘Oh, no, no, no! I often have lunch with my clients—’

‘That’s what I thought.’ She glanced down at her watch. ‘Shall we say one o’clock? In The New Hampshire?’

‘The New Hampshire?’ Tony Paxman gave a regretful smile. ‘Marcus Foreman’s place? I’d absolutely love to—but we won’t get a table today. Not at such short notice, I’m afraid. Not a chance in hell.’

‘I know that.’ Donna smiled. ‘Which is why I took the precaution of making a reservation weeks ago.’

He frowned. ‘You were so sure we’d wrap up the deal?’

‘Pretty much. I knew that the court hearing to get my licence was today. And I didn’t foresee any problems.’

‘You know, you’re a very confident woman, Donna King,’ he told her softly. ‘As well as being an extremely beautiful one.’

Time to gently destroy his embryo fantasies. It was just a pity that some men saw a simple gesture of friendship as an invitation to form some deep and meaningful relationship.

‘Please don’t get the wrong idea, Tony,’ she told him softly. ‘This is purely a business lunch—a way of me thanking you for all your hard work. That’s all. Nothing more.’

‘Right.’ He began to move papers around on his desk with a sudden urgency. ‘Then I’ll see you in The New Hampshire at one o’clock, shall I?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Donna. She reached for her bag and rose to her feet, the high heels of her brown suede shoes making her look much taller than usual. ‘I shall look forward to it.’

‘Me, too,’ he said wistfully.

Outside the lawyer’s office, Donna sucked in the crisp April air, scarcely able to believe she was back in the city she loved. Her visits over the last few weeks had been secretive, but there was no need for secrecy any longer. She was here—and here to stay.

It was a perfect day. Blue sky. Golden sun. The white waxy petals of a magnolia shining out like stars. A grey stone church whose spire looked like the sharpened tip of a pencil. Perfect. And the cherry on top of the cake was that she had swung the deal.

People had said that she was crazy to open up a tea-room in a city like Winchester, which was already bursting to the seams with places to eat. And they’d had a point. But most of those places were indifferent, and most were owned by large, faceless chains. Only one stood out from the crowd. And it belonged to Marcus Foreman.

Donna swallowed down excitement and nerves and something else, too. Something she hadn’t felt in so long she had thought she’d never feel it again. A lost, forgotten feeling. But it was there, potent and tugging and insistent just at the thought that very soon she would see Marcus again. Excitement.

And not the kind of excitement you got the night before you went on holiday, either. This was the kind that made the tips of your breasts prickle and your limbs grow weak.

‘Oh, damn!’ she said aloud. ‘Damn and damn and damn!’ And, turning her collar up against the sudden, sharp reminder that the breeze which blew in springtime had an icy bite to it, Donna set off down the street to window-shop until lunchtime.

She walked slowly around the shops, only half seeing the clothes in the expensive boutiques which studded the city like diamonds in an eternity band. Exquisite clothes in natural fibres of silk and cotton and cashmere. Clothes which would normally tempt her into looking, even if she couldn’t always afford to buy.

But today was not a normal day. And not just because it wasn’t every day that you ploughed your savings into buying a business which several people had predicted would fail from the start.

No, today was different, because as well as going forward—Donna would be going back. Back to the place where she’d met Marcus and learned about love and loss—and a whole lot more besides.

It was just past one when she sauntered her way into the reception area of The New Hampshire, hoping that she looked more confident than she felt. Behind the smooth, pale mask of her carefully made-up face, she could feel the unfamiliar thumping of nerves as she looked around her.

The place had changed out of all recognition. When Donna had worked there it had been during the chintz era, when everything had been tucked and swagged and covered with tiny sprigs of flowers.

But Marcus had clearly moved with the times. The carpet had disappeared and so had the chintz. Now there were bare, beautifully polished wood floorboards and simple curtains at the vast windows. The furniture had been kept to a minimum, and it looked simple and comfortable rather than in-your-face opulent. Definitely no overstuffed sofas!

Donna remembered how overwhelmed she’d felt the very first time she’d walked in through those doors. It had been like entering another world. But she’d been just eighteen then—nine years and a lifetime ago.

She walked up to the reception desk on which sat a giant glass bowl containing scented flowers. The fleshy white lips of the lilies were gaping open, surrounded by spiky green foliage which looked like swords. It was an exquisite and sexy arrangement, but then Marcus had always had exquisite taste.

The receptionist looked up. ‘Can I help you, madam?’

‘Yes, hello—I have a table booked for lunch,’ smiled Donna.

‘Your name, please?’

‘It’s King. Donna King.’ Her voice sounded unnaturally loud, and she half expected Marcus to jump out of the shadows to bar her way. ‘And I’m meeting a Mr Tony Paxman.’

The receptionist was running her eyes down a list, and ticked off Donna’s name before she looked up again.

‘Ah, yes. Mr Paxman has already arrived.’ She gave Donna a look of polite enquiry. ‘Have you ever eaten at The New Hampshire before?’

Donna shook her head. ‘No.’

She’d made beds and cleaned out baths and sinks in the rooms upstairs, and had worked her way through some of the more delicious leftovers which had found their way back to the kitchen. And just once she’d eaten with the rest of the staff in the private function room upstairs, when Marcus had been jubilantly celebrating a glowing newspaper review.

Donna swallowed down that particular memory. But she’d certainly never eaten a full meal in the fabulous restaurant.

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Then I’ll get someone to show you to your table.’

Donna followed one of the waiters, determined not to feel intimidated, telling herself that she’d worked and eaten in places just like this all over the world.

Yet her heart was still racing with anticipation that she might see him, and she wondered why.

Because she was over Marcus.

She had been for years.

The restaurant was already almost full and Tony Paxman rose to his feet as she approached. ‘I was beginning to think you’d stood me up!’

‘Oh, ye of little faith!’ she joked, smiling up at the waiter, who was hovering attentively. ‘Some house champagne, please. We’re celebrating!’

‘Certainly, madam.’

Tony Paxman waited until he was on his second glass before remarking obscurely, ‘Let’s hope you’ll still have something to celebrate six months down the line.’

The bubbles inside her mouth burst. ‘Meaning?’

He shrugged. ‘Just that Marcus Foreman won’t exactly be overjoyed when he finds out that you’re opening up a new restaurant in the same town.’

‘Oh?’ Donna slid a green olive into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. ‘Everyone knows he has an awesome reputation in the catering industry—surely he’s man enough to take a little honest competition?’

‘I should imagine he’s man enough for most things,’remarked Tony Paxman drily. ‘Just maybe not in the very same street.’

Donna placed the olive stone in a small dish in front of her. ‘Anyway, I’m hardly going to be a serious rival, am I? Think about it—his hotel only serves afternoon tea to its residents.’

‘True. But what if they start coming to you instead?’

Donna shrugged. ‘It’s a free country, and there is always room for excellence.’ She gave a huge smile as she lifted her glass in a toast. ‘So may the best man win!’

‘Or woman?’ Tony murmured.

Donna looked down the menu, spoilt for choice. ‘Let’s order, shall we? I’m starving!’

‘Sounds good. Then you can tell me your life story.’ He frowned. ‘You know, your hair is the most amazing golden-red colour. I bet you used to dress up as a princess when you were a little girl!’

‘No, I was the one with the long face, wearing rags!’ Donna joked, though it wasn’t really a joke at all.

She’d experienced just about every emotion it was possible to feel about her itinerant childhood with a loving but ultimately foolish mother. At her knee she had learnt the arts of exaggeration and evasion, and had then learnt that they were just different words for lying. And lies could grow bigger and bigger, until they swamped you like a wave and dragged you under with them.

She smiled at Tony Paxman. ‘Let’s talk about you instead. And then you can tell me all about Winchester.’

He began to talk, and Donna tried very hard to enjoy the meal and his company. To make witty small-talk as adults always did. Pleasant chatter that didn’t mean a thing.

But she was too distracted by her surroundings to be able to concentrate very much. Even on the food. Weird. She hadn’t banked on Marcus still being able to affect her desire to eat.

He’d always employed the most talented chefs—even in the early days, when he hadn’t been able to afford to pay them very much. And it seemed that his standards hadn’t slipped. Not by a fraction. Donna gazed at a perfect pyramid of chocolate mousse which sat in a puddle of banana sauce.

Maybe she was completely mad to set herself up in some sort of competition with a man who had always been regarded within the industry as having both flair and foresight.

‘Donna,’ said Tony suddenly.

She pushed the pudding plate away from her and looked up. ‘Mmm?’

‘Why did you ask me to have lunch with you today?’ He swallowed a mouthful of wine and refilled his glass, then began answering his own question without appearing to notice he was doing it. ‘Because it sure as hell wasn’t because you wanted to take our relationship any further.’

She stared at him in confusion. ‘But I told you that back in the office.’

‘I guess you did.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe I hoped I could change your mind.’

‘Sorry,’ she said softly, and sat back in her chair to look at him. ‘The lunch is to say thank you.’

‘For?’

‘For tying up the deal without complications and for keeping it secret.’

‘Ah, yes.’ He sipped his drink and watched her. ‘I meant to ask you about that. Why the big secret? Why wasn’t anyone allowed to know?’

‘It’s no secret any more.’ She smiled. ‘You can tell who you like.’

He leaned across the table. ‘You told me that you’d never eaten here before.’

‘Well, I haven’t.’

‘But this isn’t the first time you’ve been here, is it?’

Donna’s eyes narrowed with interest. She hadn’t been expecting perception. Not from him. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Your body language. I spend my life observing it—goes with the job. I’m an expert!’ he boasted.

Not such an expert, Donna thought, that he had been able to recognise that she was sending out don’t-come-close messages. Still, there was no point trying to exist with misunderstanding and deceit flying around the place. She knew that more than anyone. ‘I used to work here,’ she told him. ‘Years ago. When I was young.’

‘You’re hardly ancient now.’

‘I’m twenty-seven!’

‘Old enough to know better?’ he teased.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ came a silky drawl from behind Donna’s right shoulder. ‘Not if past experience is anything to go on. Don’t you agree, Donna?’

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. She would have recognised that voice if it had come distorted at her in the dark from a hundred miles away. A split-second of dazed recognition stretched out in front of her like a tightrope. She moved her head back by a fraction—and she could almost feel his presence, though she still couldn’t see him.

‘Hello, Marcus,’ she said carefully, wondering how her voice sounded to him. Older and wiser? Or still full of youthful awe?

He moved into eyeshot—though heaven only knew how long he’d been in earshot for. But he didn’t look at Donna straight away. He was staring down at Tony Paxman, so that Donna was able to observe him without him noticing.

And, oh. Oh, oh, oh! Her heart thumped out of control before she could stop it.

She had known that she would see him again, and she had practised in her head for just this moment. Some devil deep in her heart had wondered if his hair might be thinning. If he had allowed his wealth and success to go to his stomach and piled on weight. Or if he might have developed some kind of stoop. Or started wearing hideous clothes which didn’t suit him.

But he hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t.

Marcus Foreman was still the kind of man who most women would leave home for.

‘Tony,’ said Marcus easily.

The lawyer inclined his head. ‘Marcus.’

‘Do you two know each other?’ Donna asked Tony in surprise.

‘Oh, everybody knows Marcus,’ he responded, with a shrug which didn’t quite come off.

But Donna had detected a subtle change in her lunch companion. Suddenly Tony Paxman did not look or sound like the smooth, slick lawyer of earlier. He sounded like a very ordinary man. A man, moreover, who had just recognised the leader of the pack.

Marcus turned to her at last, and Donna realised that she now had the opportunity to react to him as she had always vowed she would react if she ever saw him again. Coolly and calmly and indifferently.

Her polite smile didn’t slip, but she wondered if there was any way of telling from the outside that her heart-rate had just doubled. And that the palms of her hands were moist and sticky with sweat.

‘So. Donna,’ Marcus said slowly, and she met his dark-lashed eyes with reluctant fascination, their ice-blue light washing over her as pure and as clear as an early-morning swimming pool.

‘So. Marcus,’ she echoed faintly, eyes flickering over him. Okay, so he hadn’t become bald or fat or ugly, but he’d certainly changed. Changed a lot. But hadn’t they all?

‘Do you want to say it, or shall I?’ His voice was heavy with mockery, and something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it told her to beware.

‘Say what?’

‘Long time no see,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Isn’t that the kind of cliché that people usually come out with after this long?’

‘I guess they do,’ she said slowly, thinking that nine whole years had passed since she had seen him. How could that be? ‘You could have said, “Hi, Donna—great to see you!” But that would have been a whacking great lie, wouldn’t it, Marcus?’

‘You said it.’ He smiled. ‘And you’re the world’s expert where lying is concerned, aren’t you, Donna?’

Their gazes clashed and she found herself observing every tiny detail of his face; a face she’d once loved—but now she told herself that it was just a face.

She’d known him at the beginning of his rapid rise, before success had become as familiar to him as breathing. Before he’d had a chance to fashion himself in his own image, rather than one which had been passed down to him.

Gone was the buttoned down, clean-cut and preppie look which had been his heritage. The polished brogues and the perfectly knotted tie. The soft Italian leather shoes and the shirts made in Jermyn Street. The suit had gone, too. Now he wore pale trousers and a shirt. But a silk shirt, naturally. With—wonder of wonders—the two top buttons casually left undone. He looked sexy and sensational.

He had let his hair grow, too. A neatly clipped style had once defined the proud tilt of his head. Now strands of it licked at his eyebrows and kissed the high-boned structure of his cheeks. Stroked the back of his neck with loving, dark tendrils. He looked as rugged and as ruffled as if he’d just tumbled out of some beautiful girl’s bed after an afternoon of wild sex.

Maybe he had.

Her smile froze as she found she could picture the scene all too clearly. Marcus with one of those long-legged thoroughbred type of girls wrapped around him. The kind who’d used to hang around waiting for him like groupies.

She searched in desperation for something cool and neutral to say, her gaze fixing with a pathetic kind of relief on his shoes. ‘You’re obviously not working.’

Only his eyes hadn’t changed, and now they chased away faint surprise. As if her reaction had not been what he had expected. He glanced down at the navy deck shoes which covered his bare feet. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ he demanded.

‘Well, nothing really, I suppose. Just not the most conventional of footwear, is it?’ she observed wryly. ‘You look like you’re about to go sailing, rather than running a business.’

‘But I don’t run a conventional business,’ he growled impatiently. ‘And I don’t feel the need to hide behind a suit and tie any more.’

‘My! What a little rebel you’ve become, Marcus!’ commented Donna mildly, noticing the watchful spark which darkened his eyes from aquamarine to sapphire.

There was a small, apologetic cough from the table, and Donna and Marcus both started as Tony Paxman looked up at them. Donna bit her lip in vexation.

She’d forgotten all about her lunch partner! How rude of her! And how unimaginative, too. Just because Marcus Foreman had walked in, that didn’t mean that the rest of the world had stopped turning.

It just seemed that way….

‘Er, shall we order coffee, Tony?’ she asked him quickly.

But Tony Paxman looked as if he’d taken about as much rejection as he could handle in one day. He shook his head as he rose to his feet—master of his own destiny once more as he made a big pantomime out of gazing at his watch.

‘Heck! Is that the time? Time I wasn’t here! Client meeting at three.’ He held his hand out towards Donna and she took it guiltily. ‘Thanks very much for lunch, Donna. I enjoyed it.’

Suddenly Donna felt bad. She hadn’t meant for this to happen—for Marcus to disrupt her whole lunch, her whole day. Which left her wondering just what she had expected. She’d known that there was a strong possibility she would see him today. Had she naively supposed that he would pass by her table without a flicker of recognition? Or that they would exchange, at most, a hurried nod?

‘Thanks for everything you’ve done, Tony! Maybe we’ll do this another time.’

‘Er, yes. Quite. Goodbye, Marcus.’ Tony gave a grimace as Marcus clasped his fingers in what was obviously an enthusiastic handshake. ‘Fantastic lunch! Wonderful food! As always.’

‘Thanks very much,’ murmured Marcus.

The two of them watched in silence while Tony Paxman threaded his way between the tables, and suddenly Donna felt almost light-headed as Marcus turned his head to study her. As though she’d just plunged into the swimming-pool-blue of his eyes without having a clue how to swim.

‘Congratulations, Donna,’ he offered drily. ‘You’ve latched onto one of the town’s wealthiest and brightest young lawyers.’

‘His bank balance and his pretty face don’t interest me—I chose him because he was the best.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘At what?’

‘Not what you’re obviously thinking! He was recommended to me,’ she answered, with a sigh. But even as she said it she realised that she didn’t have to justify herself to Marcus. Not any more. He wasn’t her boss. He wasn’t anything except the man who’d given her such a disastrous introduction into the world of lovemaking.

And then dumped her.

‘And did the person who recommended him also tell you that he has just come through a mud-slinging divorce which was very nasty? That he’s ready and available—but only if you don’t mind half his salary going out on his ex-wife and two children? I know that financial embarrassment tends to put some women off.’

And then he gave a brief, unexpected smile which half blinded her. ‘Heavens,’ he murmured. ‘I sounded almost jealous for a moment back there.’

‘Yes, you did,’ she agreed sweetly. ‘But there’s really no need to be, Marcus—my relationship with Tony Paxman is strictly business.’

‘I couldn’t care less about your relationship with anyone!’ He stared insolently at her fingers, which were bare of rings. ‘But I presume that you are still in the marriage market?’

Donna stared at him. ‘I’m still single, if that’s what you mean by your charming question. How about you?’

‘Yeah,’ he said softly. ‘Still single.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘So what are you doing back here, Donna? Are you planning on staying around?’

Was she willing to be interrogated by him? To lay herself open to his opinion and probably his criticism. ‘I’d love to tell you about it, Marcus.’ She smiled as she realised that there were a million and one things she could be legitimately occupying herself with. ‘Pity I don’t have the time right now.’

Something in her manner told him it wasn’t true. But no surprises there. Hadn’t she lied to him before? Only then he’d been too young and too blind with lust to see it. ‘I bet it’s nothing urgent,’ he commented silkily. ‘Nothing that can’t wait.’

‘But I might be rushing off to an urgent appointment,’ she objected.

‘Might be. But you’re not,’ he breathed, his voice thickening as he recalled the wasted opportunity of the one night he’d spent with her. ‘You’ve got the pampered air of a woman who has taken the day off work.’

He pulled out the chair opposite her with a question in his eyes. ‘So, why don’t I join you for coffee now that your silver-tongued lawyer has flown?’ he suggested softly. ‘And then you can tell me exactly what you’re doing here.’