Buch lesen: «Part-Time Father»

CHAPTER ONE

‘MOTHER! Mother!’ Out of breath from running at top speed up the path following her mother’s urgent summons, Kimberley dropped her suitcase on to the cold tiles of the flagged floor and listened.

Silence.

Fear gripped at her heart like a vice, and a note of uncertainty crept into her voice. ‘Mother?’

She heard the scrape of something in the small sitting-room, and, striding over in the shortest time possible, she threw open the door to see her mother just moving the small stool which stood in front of the sofa, on which she’d obviously been resting her feet.

Thank heavens! The unacknowledged fear, ever present when your elderly mother lived on her own, immediately subsided. ‘So there you are!’ said Kimberley in relief.

Her mother pushed her spectacles further back up on her nose and looked at her only child, a small smile lighting her still shapely mouth which was so like her daughter’s. ‘Where did you think I’d be?’ she enquired mildly. ‘Robbed and left trussed up in the attic? Kidnapped by modern-day pirates and heading for the coast?’

Kimberley giggled. ‘You are outrageous, Mother! Your imagination is much too vivid, and those crazy adventure stories you read don’t help.’

‘And you don’t read enough of them!’ commented Mrs Ryan sternly. ‘You’re far too serious about that job of yours.’

Kimberley decided to ignore that—for who wouldn’t be obsessively career-minded when their love-life was a total non-starter? And whose fault is that? mocked a tiny inner voice.

Ignoring that too, she went over to plant a kiss on her mother’s forehead, then perched on the other end of the sofa. ‘Why did you need to see me? I was coming down soon for Christmas anyway. You are OK, aren’t you? What are you doing lying down in the middle of the day?’ And then her attention was caught by the bandage which was tightly tied around her mother’s ankle. ‘Oh, heavens-whatever have you done?’ she exclaimed in horror.

‘Kimberley, please,’ said her mother calmly. ‘There’s absolutely no need to panic.’

‘But what have you done?’

‘I’ve sprained my ankle, that’s all.’

‘But what does the doctor——?’

‘He says it’s fine, I just need to take it easy, that’s all…’ Mrs Ryan’s voice tailed off. ‘The only problem is——’

‘What?’

‘That I can’t work.’ Mrs Ryan leaned back against the cushions piled on the sofa and surveyed the immaculately dressed form of her daughter, who was at that moment letting a frown mar her exceptionally pretty features.

Kimberley gave a little click of disapproval. ‘Then give the job up, Mum,’ she urged. ‘I’ve told you that I earn enough to send you what Mrs Nash——’ she said the name reluctantly ‘—pays you.’

‘And I have told you on countless occasions that I enjoy the independence which my little job gives me, and I have no intention of relinquishing it.’

‘But, Mum—must you do a cleaning job?’

‘You, Kimberley, I’m ashamed to say, are a snob,’ said Mrs Ryan reprovingly.

‘I am not a snob. I’d just rather you didn’t work at all, if you must know.’

‘You mean,’ said Mrs Ryan shrewdly, ‘that you’d rather I didn’t work in the big house which you almost became mistress of?’

Kimberley’s mouth tightened, but she felt tiny beads of sweat break out on her forehead. ‘That’s history,’ she croaked.

‘You’re right. It is. In fact, I’ve some news for you.’

‘What kind of news?’

‘He’s getting married. He’s engaged!’

The beads of sweat became droplets. Kimberley heard her heart pounding in her ears, felt the blood drain from her face. ‘He is?’ she croaked, drymouthed. ‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Isn’t it? Dear Duncan,’ said her mother fondly.

‘Duncan?’ asked Kimberley weakly.

Her mother gave her a strange look. ‘Yes, of course Duncan. Your ex-fiancé, the man you were going to marry—who else could I have meant?’

Surreptitiously Kimberley wiped the back of her hand over her sticky forehead, and then, terrified that her mother might notice and comment on her pale complexion, searched around for a distraction. ‘How about some tea? I’m absolutely parched. Shall I make some?’ she asked brightly.

‘Best offer I’ve had all day!’

Kimberley quickly left the room and filled the old-fashioned kettle with shaking hands, reacquainting herself with her mother’s tiny kitchen, pulling biscuits out of the tin with trembling hands as she tried to put her thoughts in order. She wondered what her mother would have said if she’d known that Duncan had been the last person in her thoughts; she had thought she’d been talking about Harrison.

Harrison Nash—her ex-fiancé’s brother. The man with the cold grey eyes and the hard, handsome features and the lean, sexy body. Harrison Nash— who had changed the whole course of Kimberley’s life without even realising that he was doing so…

It had been one bright and beautiful summer’s evening, with the setting sun pouring like golden honey into the red drawing-room at Brockbank House where Kimberley had been waiting to conduct what was obviously going to be a difficult and painful interview with Duncan, her fiancé. Because, after much thought and many sleepless nights, Kimberley had decided to break off the engagement which had followed their whirlwind romance.

Duncan and his mother had recently moved into Woolton village’s most imposing building—the historic Brockbank House, left to the Nash family by a distant relative who had died without leaving an heir. Kimberley had met Duncan when she’d been visiting her mother in the village, on one of her brief but regular forays from London, where she lived.

From the first meeting he had pursued her avidly, and, flattered by his charm and his persistence, Kimberley had allowed herself to believe that she had fallen in love at long last. Already in a strong and powerful position at work, where her male colleagues tended to fear and revere her, Kimberley had been charmed by Duncan’s healthy irreverence and his ready agreement to let her set the pace physically.

He didn’t leap on her and he respected her somewhat old-fashioned view that she wanted to wait until they were married before consummating their relationship. At twenty-four she thought that she’d found the perfect gentleman—and she had.

Kimberley sighed.

It just wasn’t enough. Quite apart from the fact that she was three years older than Duncan, and that he was still at university while she had already established a successful career for herself in London, there was one even more important reason why she could not marry him.

She simply didn’t love him—or rather, she did, as the dear, sweet person he was, but not in the way that he said he loved her, and to marry him under those conditions would simply not be fair to him.

She had decided to tell him as gently as possible, but Duncan was young, good-looking and the best fun in the world. He would get over it, of that she was certain.

Kimberley sighed as she perched nervously on the edge of one of the large chairs in the red drawing-room, brushing one hand through the thick abundance of raven-black hair and pushing it off her high-browed face so that it spilled in shiny sootdark waves down her back.

She wondered how one went about breaking off an engagement. She would have to tell her mother and Duncan’s mother—both widows. She herself had no other relatives, and Duncan very few. She wondered briefly whether the older brother in America had been informed—the rich, successful one, who Duncan and his mother both seemed slightly in awe of.

Probably not. They’d only become engaged last weekend—hardly time to make it properly official.

As Kimberley stared out of the window at the magnificent grounds of Brockbank House she heard a soft noise behind her. Not a footstep exactly, it was much too subtle for that, but she suddenly experienced the unease of being watched. She turned round slowly, to discover who her silent scrutineer was, feeling her skin ice with some unknown fear as she stared at the dark, silent man who stood before her.

She had seen photos of him before, of coursevarious portraits of him scattered around the house and, latterly, newspaper clippings from gossip columns—but Kimberley would have known without being told that this was Harrison. Harrison the rich, the powerful, the blessed older son. Not that he looked in the least bit like Duncan, although the familial similarities were there.

But this man was Duncan’s very antithesis. Where Duncan’s eyes were soft, smiling, this man’s were hard and crystalline and bright. Where Duncan’s mouth was full and kissable, this man’s lips were a thin, hard line. Cruel lips, thought Kimberley wildly, and tried but failed to imagine them kissing her, her cheeks flaring red as she saw those same lips twist into a contemptuous curve.

For one frozen moment Kimberley sat staring up at him, unable to move, to think, to speak, unable to do anything other than acknowledge the dark and potent and sensual rush of desire which flooded over her with the heavy pull of a tidal wave. She stared into eyes which no longer looked grey but black as the night, she saw the heated flare of colour which scorched along his high, perfectly chiselled cheekbones—and she felt dizzy with a shameful longing.

Unnerved by that still intense scrutiny, and by his silence, Kimberley scrambled to her feet.

‘You must be Harrison,’ she blurted out, in nothing even resembling her usual calm, confident manner.

‘And you must be the fortune-hunter,’ he observed caustically, withering contempt written all over his face.

For a moment Kimberley thought that she must have misheard him; it was just not the sort of thing which one expected to hear, certainly not in civilised company, but there again, with that raw, scornful censure blazing from those amazing eyes, this man didn’t look in the least bit civilised. He looked…

Kimberley shuddered.

Almost barbaric.

She forced herself to remain calm, because some instinct told her that if she responded on his level she would live to regret it. She raised her eyebrows fractionally. ‘What did you just say?’ she queried, quite calmly.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said mockingly, and sighed. ‘I should have guessed that it was too good to be true—you couldn’t possibly have brains as well as beauty. I called you a fortune-hunter, my dear. It’s an old-fashioned term, whose meaning is quite simple——’

‘I’m well aware of what it means.’ Kimberley cut in, but her voice was shaking with rage, and deep within her a seed of hostility blossomed into rampant life. ‘How dare you?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Quite easily. You see, you might find this peculiar, but I happen to be rather protective of my kid brother. And what else am I supposed to think when I hear that he’s about to marry someone he hardly knows, who happens to be years older——?’

‘Only three,’ she interrupted furiously. ‘And what difference does that make? Lots of men marry women older than them.’

‘Do they?’ His look was cool, assessing. ‘And do lots of older women marry inexperienced collegeboys, who stand to gain huge inheritances? Is that what turns them on—Kimberley?’

She shivered with some dark nebulous recognition as he said her name, the way his tongue curved round it making the very act of speaking into the most sensual act she had ever encountered.

‘I don’t have to stay here and listen to this,’ she said shakily, but her feet were rooted to the priceless Persian carpet and she was incapable of movement as she gazed into mesmeric grey eyes.

‘But stay you will,’ he ordered silkily. ‘And listen.’

She watched, horrified, as his eyes dropped to her body and lingered insolently on the lushness of her breasts beneath the thin cotton T-shirt she wore, and Kimberley was powerless to stop what that appraising stare was doing to her.

She felt a dart of something which was a combination of pain and acute pleasure, felt her breasts grow heavy, hard, swollen. She saw his mouth twist with derision as he observed the blatant tightening of her nipples, and at that moment she felt utterly cheap.

He nodded his head, as though satisfied by something. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘As I imagined. A hot little body and a face like a madonna—quite exquisite, but unfortunately they are such ephemeral assets. And, wisely, you’ve decided to capitalise on them. But I’d prefer you to do that with someone other than my brother. Understand?’

Kimberley bit back her rage, her normally sharp mind in dazed turmoil because he was still staring at her breasts, and her nipples were torturing her with their exquisite need to have him take each one into his mouth, to suckle slowly and lick and…

Horrified, she stared back at him, her body’s appalling reaction to his scrutiny stinging her into defending herself. ‘I don’t have to capitalise on any assets I might have, actually,’ she retorted. ‘Because I happen to have a very successful career in a merchant bank.’

‘And how did you get it?’ he queried insultingly. ‘On your back?’

His hostility rode every other thought out of her mind. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she whispered incredulously.

He shrugged. ‘I told you. I’m looking out for my brother—and he needs shielding from women like you.’

‘Women like you’.

Her face flaming, Kimberley lifted her hand and slapped him hard—very hard—around the face. She should have been shocked at her violent reaction but she wasn’t; it was the most satisfying thing she had ever done in her life. But he didn’t flinch. Only the angry spark which glittered ominously from the grey eyes betrayed his emotions.

‘In a minute,’ he said calmly, ‘I shall respond to that. But first I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m going to tell you.’

‘I don’t have to listen to anything you tell me. You insulting——’

‘Spare me your misplaced anger and shut up, Kimberley,’ he said in a voice soft with menace, and Kimberley felt a shiver ice its way down the entire length of her spine. ‘My brother is on the threshold of his life. Emotionally he is immature. If he marries now it will be a huge mistake. He is not ready for marriage.’

And neither was she, though Harrison Nash did not know that. She saw the grim determination on his face, the arrogance and the dominance. A man used to getting his way at all costs. How far, she wondered, would he go to prevent her from marrying Duncan?

And Kimberley suddenly knew an overwhelming and very basic urge to get her own back for his insults, for that sexual scrutiny which had had her responding in a way which sickened her.

All at once she was filled with the most tremendous exhilaration, exultant with the sense of her own power to anger this man. ‘You can’t stop us marrying!’ she told him coolly.

The grey eyes narrowed calculatingly as he registered her change of mood. ‘No, you’re quite right. I can’t.’ And here he paused, so that there was a brooding, forbidding silence before he resumed speaking. ‘But what I can do is to withhold any of the financial hand-outs from my company to which Duncan has quickly become accustomed. This house is legally mine, although I have always intended to transfer the deeds to my mother and Duncan, since I have enough homes of my own. However, I could change my mind…’ He gave her a questioning look. ‘I imagine that Duncan’s attraction might wane if he didn’t come with all the trappings you’d expected?’

Kimberley had met many cynical, ruthless men during her years in the City, but this one, this dark and cruel stranger, made the others look like amateurs.

She lifted her head proudly. ‘If I wanted to marry Duncan, then nothing you could say or do would stop me,’ she said truthfully. ‘So you’ve lost, haven’t you?’

‘I never lose, Kimberley,’ he contradicted her softly. ‘Never.’

She fixed him with a look of mock-polite disbelief, fascinated in spite of herself to know just how far he would go to achieve what he wanted. ‘Oh, really?’

‘I have a proposition to put to you.’

‘Go on,’ she said, very quietly.

He spoke with a certain reluctance. ‘I’m prepared,’ he said heavily, ‘to offer you a financial incentive of your own if you agree to call the wedding off. If, on the other hand, you refuse and the wedding goes ahead, then I’m warning you that you will receive nothing from Duncan’s inheritance unless I am satisfied that the marriage is a good one, and one with solid foundations. Do you understand?’

The grey eyes were so hard and so cold, making a mockery of the rugged perfection of his features, and another shiver of apprehension sent icy claws scrabbling all over Kimberley’s skin. ‘It isn’t just because I’m older, is it?’ she whispered, shaken by his venom, her desire for revenge for his insults momentarily forgotten. ‘Or even because you think that I’m marrying Duncan for his money? You really don’t like me, do you?’

He went perfectly still, so still that he might have been carved from some unforgiving stone. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t think I do like you, if liking can be gauged after such a short acquaintanceship, but you are correct in your assumption in one way— your age and your greed are not the real reasons why I want you to call the wedding off.’

‘Why, then?’

‘It’s simple. Because you are not the right woman for him.’

Stunned by the sheer unremitting force with which he spoke, Kimberley stared into his hard, cruel face. ‘What on earth gives you the right to say that?’ she whispered.

‘This does,’ he said, in a voice which was brutal with some unnamed emotion, and he caught her by the waist and bent his dark, savage face to kiss her.

Something happened to her—something irrevocable and mind-blowing. Something which was to change her life forever. What the hell had he done to her with just one kiss? she wondered desperately. Because sexual desire, fiery and hot and potent as life itself, began blazing its way through her veins as his mouth found hers.

Oh, God, but it was heaven.

Heaven.

She opened her mouth to him as though she had waited all her life for that sweet, punishing kiss. She found herself trembling, almost swaying, now wanting more, much more than his kiss. She wanted him to touch her where no man had ever touched her; she wanted those long fingers to remove her T-shirt, to kick away her jeans. She wanted him to lay her down on the floor and make love to her right there…

But then reality crashed in with a sickening sensation as, distantly, somewhere in the house, she heard the sound of someone shouting. She felt his hands drop from her waist, felt, too, his tongue withdraw from her mouth, where it had been inciting her with provocative little movements which had mimicked what no man had ever done to her.

She gave a kind of automatic protest as he lifted his head up and stared down at her dazed face, and she read the contemptuous look in his eyes.

‘I rest my case,’ he said insultingly.

Kimberley straightened her spine and stared back at him, hiding her shame behind the frosty glitter in her blue eyes.

In her eyes sparked the hatred she felt for him. To illustrate his point he had treated her no better than a whore, and in a way she had responded no better than a whore. The way she had felt in his arms had frightened her with its intensity, so that all her carefully fought for self-control had vanished like the wind. She was the vanquished, he the victor. He had all the power, and she had none. And she never wanted to see him again, not as long as she lived.

Never.

But then Kimberley discovered something else. She could see that behind the contempt which distorted the angular features there remained a hunger—a savage, sexual hunger which made his eyes glitter blackly and beat a frantic pulse at the base of his neck. He wants me, she thought, yet he despises me. And he’s a man who gets exactly what he wants.

Oh, my God, thought Kimberley weakly. He’ll come and find me. And what if I can’t—what if I just can’t resist him? What will a man who despises me offer other than instant heartbreak?

Unless she somehow contrived to make him despise her so much that he’d leave her alone forever.

She gave a small, smug half-smile, and allowed the kind of cold, calculating look which she knew he would be expecting to come into her eyes.

‘This—er—financial incentive you’re offering,’ she purred. ‘How much are we actually talking about?’

Some light in his eyes died. If she had thought she’d read scorn and derision there before, it was nothing to the look which now replaced it. He looked at her as though her very presence contaminated the air surrounding him.

He mentioned a sum, and she allowed a rapacious little smile to curve her lips upwards as she nodded. ‘I’ll do it,’ she told him. ‘On one condition.’

He shook his head, the contempt hardening his mouth into an unforgiving line. ‘No conditions, sweetheart,’ he drawled coldly. ‘Unless I make them.’

She shook her head. ‘I won’t do it unless you agree not to tell Duncan anything about what’s happened here this afternoon. I want to tell him— to break things off—in my own way.’

He stared at her incredulously. ‘Do you really think I’d hurt my brother like that? And, much though I’m tempted to tell him about his lucky escape, I’m really not cruel enough to disillusion him with the knowledge that he fell in love with a cheap little tramp. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly.’ She held out a slim white hand, which was miraculously free from tremor. ‘And now, if we can conclude our business.’

She saw his barely concealed shudder of distaste as he took a cheque-book out from the inside pocket of his suit and began to write.

What she hadn’t expected was that it should hurt quite so much…

Kimberley raked her hand roughly through her hair, as if the frantic movement could somehow magically dispel the image of Harrison which burned on her mind’s eye as if it had been branded there. After more than two years, she thought despairingly, it shouldn’t be quite so vivid. She wasn’t naïve enough to have expected to forget a man like Harrison Nash, but surely by now just the merest thought of him shouldn’t be enough to make the heat rise up in her blood with its slow, insistent throb?

She picked the tea-tray up to carry it back through into the sitting-room where her mother was waiting.

Why remember all that now?

Because she remembered it every time she came home; it was one of the reasons why her visits were more infrequent than either she or her mother liked. This place was tainted with memories of Harrison Nash and that one fateful kiss.

The day after he had kissed her she had done several things. Firstly, and most importantly, she had gone to Duncan and gently given him back his ring. He had not railed or argued with her; he had quietly accepted her stumbling explanation, saying that deep in his heart he had not been completely surprised.

The following day Kimberley had fled to stay with an aunt in Scotland, where she had remained for a fortnight, quietly licking her wounds. She had also cashed the cheque which Harrison had given her and given the money to charity. More importantly, as she’d handed the huge wad of money over to the bemused representative of Save the Children, she had made a solemn vow. That she would put Harrison Nash out of her mind forever.

And so far, at least, it hadn’t worked.

‘Kimberley!’ came her mother’s voice. ‘Where’s this cup of tea you promised me?’

‘Just coming!’ Fixing a smile on to her face, Kimberley took the tray and biscuits in, and poured out two cups.

The Earl Grey tea was deliciously refreshing, but Kimberley, though hungry, took only one bite out of a biscuit then left it—still ruffled about remembering that extraordinary day.

Forcing her mind back on to safer subjects, she offered the plate of biscuits to her mother. ‘How are you going to manage with your foot bandaged?’

‘Oh, I expect I’ll be all right,’ her mother replied unconvincingly.

Kimberley hid a smile. Her mother, love her, was like an open book! ‘Would you like me to come and stay with you until you’re up on your feet properly again?’ she asked.

Mrs Ryan’s smile could have lit up Oxford Street. ‘Oh, would you, dear? I’d be so grateful!’

Kimberley’s mind skipped along. She could telephone her bank later. She was a conscientious highflyer in the merchant bank where she’d worked for the past five years—she doubted whether they’d mind her taking a break at such short notice. ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘But I’ll have to drive back up to town to get some clothes.’

‘That’s fine, dear,’ said her mother contentedly as she eyed the teapot. ‘Is there another cup in the pot?’

Kimberley poured her mother another cup. ‘So, who’s Duncan marrying?’ she asked, glad that the boy she’d been so fond of had found someone else to love.

‘Some girl he met in America—an heiress, apparently.’

‘That will please Harrison,’ commented Kimberley acidly.

Her mother gave her a shrewd look. ‘I don’t know why you won’t hear a good word said about that man. He’s actually very charming.’

‘Charming?’ About as charming as a snake-pit! Kimberley gave a forced little laugh. ‘That’s the last adjective I’d use about him!’

‘But why do you dislike him so much?’

‘How can I dislike him—I’ve barely met the man?’ said Kimberley dismissively, then relented. ‘If you must know he stands for everything I hate— all that arrogance! He thinks he’s God’s gift to women——’

‘A lot of women tend to agree with him,’ cut in Mrs Ryan in amusement. ‘Or so I’m told.’

Kimberley resisted the temptation to scream. ‘I’d better leave now,’ she said hurriedly, in order to stop her mother from regaling her with any anecdotes about Harrison’s life. ‘If I set off now, I can be in London and back before dark.’

Her mother frowned. ‘Well, do drive carefully, won’t you, dear?’

‘Don’t I always?’

‘Do you? You’re a little too fond of the accelerator, in my opinion!’

But Kimberley was a good, careful driver—though she was slightly on the fast side. She made good time to London, and just over an hour later her scarlet sports car drew up outside her delightful honeysuckle-covered cottage in Hampstead.