Phantom Marriage

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IF she didn’t hurry she was going to be late picking the twins up again, Tara acknowledged, glancing in resignation at the heavy-duty watch which looked so incongruous against the fragility of her wrist.

Today Chas has been more difficult than ever. Twice he had had the model in tears, and only her own deft soothing had enabled them to carry on.

It was not merely luck and knowing the right people that had taken Chas to the top as a fashion photographer, and even when she was appalled at the brutal, uncaring way he treated his models, Tara still found it possible to admire his skill, and the driving desire for perfection his unyeilding determination evidenced.

Today he had been particularly savage, and not just with the model, and Tara knew the reason why. Ever since she had started working for him as his personal assistant he had made his desire for her very evident. In a way she knew she ought to be flattered that he wanted her when so many beautiful girls were only too ready to share his bed, but then Chas was cynical and hardbitten enough to know that his models were only too happy to sleep with him if it meant it would further their career, whereas she… She stifled an impatient sigh as he gave terse instructions to her regarding the development of some of the shots he had taken. Photography had always been one of her interests, and when she had been left alone after the twins were born she had turned to it as a means of earning a living. Eventually she hoped to have a studio of her own, and this she had made plain to Chas when she first went to work with him. As far as work went she couldn’t fault him. He was marvellously patient in showing her all the tricks of the trade and helping her with her own photography; unstinting with both genuine praise and genuine criticism, and was now allowing her to take on some of their more routine work entirely unsupervised. An ad they had done for stockings several weeks ago had brought a positive paean of praise from the client, and Chas had given her full credit for her work. No, it was not where work was concerned that Chas was becoming impossible. In a way it was almost ludicrous that he should find her desirable; at twenty-four and the mother of six-year-old twins she had long ago ceased thinking of herself as the object of any man’s desire.

‘And don’t forget, we’ve got that weekend assignment coming up,’ were Chas’s final words as she hurried to where her car was parked.

It was an assignment Tara was privately dreading. They had received a commission to take some fashion shots at Leeds Castle which would take up an entire weekend. Tara had protested that she couldn’t possibly leave the twins, but Chas had overruled her, saying that his housekeeper would be delighted to look after them for her. The real reason she didn’t want to go was that she sensed that Chas would use the weekend to force her into an affair with him—an affair she didn’t want, but offending him might ultimately mean losing her job, which she enjoyed very much and which was extremely well paid.

Sighing, she eased herself into her ancient Mini, adjusting the driving mirror as she did so, pausing as she caught sight of her own reflection. Twenty-four; she grimaced wryly. She didn’t look it, which was ridiculous when she remembered that at eighteen she had looked older. Eighteen… She grimaced, tossing the thick length of her brown-blonde hair off her shoulders. Normally she wore it in one single plait for work but this morning they had overslept and there hadn’t been time. Her face free of make-up belied her years, freckles standing out plainly across the bridge of her nose. Her hair had a natural tendency to curl, tiny tendrils feathering across her forehead. Her eyes were an unusual mixture of hazel-green; hazel one moment, jade green the next, in accordance with her mood. As a child she had been volatile, given to impulsive gestures, but age and experience had cured her of that.

She switched on her engine, swearing mildly as she glanced again at her watch. Her skin was faintly tanned still from a trip she had made to Greece with Chas earlier in the year. Her mother had looked after the twins for her, but grudgingly. She had never really got over the fact that they had been born illegitimate. Tara grimaced as she pulled out into the main stream of traffic. It had not been purely for the twins’ sake that she had invented a ‘deceased husband’ for herself when she moved to London shortly after their birth. As she had quickly discovered in the months following their arrival, while some areas of ‘sophisticated’ society now quite happily condoned the birth of children outside marriage, in male eyes there was still an element of the ‘fallen woman’ attached to girls who admitted to fatherless children, and Tara had grown sick of the men who had offered friendship and affection merely because they assumed her unmarried mother status meant they would quickly gain access to her bed. They had soon learned their mistake, just as she had quickly learned from hers. She had left the small town where she had gone to stay with her aunt and uncle to await the birth of the twins, and started anew in the safe anonymity of London where no one cared enough to question her youthfully widowed status.

It had been a lucky move. She had managed to get the twins enrolled at an excellent nursery, while she herself had gone to college to complete the education so rudely shattered by the discovery of her pregnancy. It had been impossible for her to go to university, but she had gained a sound grounding in secretarial work, which had meant that at least she had been able to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads. An unexpected Premium Bond win had provided the money for the deposit on the small terraced house she had bought in what had been a very unfashionable part of London, but which was now fast moving up-market as more and more young couples made it their home, and there had been sufficient money left for her to afford the fees at the small private kindergarten the twins were attending. This last expense was a bone of contention between Tara and her mother. Her mother had moved to the same town as Tara’s aunt and uncle after the twins’ birth, complaining bitterly that she could no longer stand the shame of living in the same place that had witnessed her daughter’s disgrace. Tara’s father had been killed in a road accident when Tara herself was five and she could barely remember him, so her mother and her aunt and uncle had been the only family she had known. All three of them now felt uncomfortable with her, she acknowledged, and so her visits to them were infrequent. Her mother considered private education to be morally wrong, but Tara had pointed out to her as gently as she could that she wanted the best for the twins.

When she had first discovered that she was pregnant her mother had wanted her to have her child adopted, but Tara had remained adamant that she wouldn’t. There had been no possibility of marriage to their father, of course. Her eyes darkened, the fingers gripping the steering wheel suddenly white. Oh God, how that still hurt after all these years when surely she ought to have put it long behind her, but James’s total rejection of her still had the power to wound. It wasn’t even as though he had the excuse of being a young innocent as she had been herself. An unwillingness to face up to his responsibilities was something she could have understood and accepted in a boy of eighteen, but in a man of twenty-seven… As always when she thought of James bitterness welled up inside her. The first time they met she hadn’t realised what was to come. He had simply been the father of a younger school friend.

Memories suddenly threatened to come crowding back, and with the skill of long experience, she dammed them up, concentrating on her driving and the evening ahead.

It wasn’t far from the studio to the kindergarten, which was one of the reasons she had chosen it.

To her relief there were still other cars parked outside when she arrived; mothers waiting to collect their offspring, and she smiled in wry amusement, acknowledging the incongruity of her shabby Mini amongst so many luxuriously expensive boxes on wheels.

An elegant blonde woman smiled at her as she eased herself from the Mini. Tara smiled back vaguely, eyes searching the playground for the twins’ familiar dark heads, and a small pent-up sigh escaped the full warmth of her lips when she spotted them playing on the slide.

Outwardly neither twin bore the slightest resemblance to her; both had inherited their father’s darkly attractive looks, softened by baby chubbiness, and an undeniably coquettish femininity in the case of Mandy.

Tara grimaced a little as she thought of her pretty, wilful little daughter. Already the little girl seemed to exhibit a perverse delight in thwarting her mother, and Tara recognised unwillingly in the little girl’s behaviour a need for the firm and loving hand of a father. Mandy was all female and had been from the moment of her birth, just as Simon was a sturdy miniature replica of his father. Like Mandy he too suffered the lack of a father, although in Simon it showed more in the pensive seriousness of his eyes and his tendency to cling a little too much to the protection afforded by Tara.

Simon as always saw her first and came running over to her, flinging his arms round her jean-clad knees, while Mandy followed in his wake, dark curls flying.

‘You’re late,’ Simon accused when she had kissed them both.

Tara sighed. ‘I know, darling.’

‘Is Uncle Chas coming round tonight?’ Mandy demanded. Chas occasionally popped round in the evening to discuss work, and Mandy tended to disapprove of his visits.

As Tara was explaining to them that it was unlikely, the blonde woman who had smiled so tentatively at her before suddenly approached with a toddler, her smile deepening to recognition as she came closer.

‘Tara!’ she exclaimed in pleased accents. ‘I thought it was you.’

She mustn’t have looked at her properly the first time, Tara decided, suddenly feeling ill, otherwise she would have recognised her instantly, despite the sophistication that seven years and the apparent addition of a wealthy husband had given.

‘Susan.’

Did her voice sound as weak as she felt?

‘What a fantastic coincidence,’ the other girl chattered on blithely, obviously unaware that Tara wasn’t sharing her pleasure. ‘It must be at least seven years since I last saw you. You never even told me that you were leaving Hillingdon,’ she added reproachfully. ‘Are these your children?’

‘Yes.’

Tara was desperate to escape, but it was impossible while Susan admired the twins, and picked up her own toddler, who, she informed Tara, was just three and was called Piers.

‘After his grandfather,’ she added, pulling a slight face. ‘Do you know, I just can’t get over meeting you like this. Of course the chauffeur normally collects Piers from school. What are you doing with yourself…’ Her eyes slid to the betrayingly ancient state of Tara’s Mini in comparison to her own elegant BMW. ‘You married, of course… Your husband…’

‘John died before the twins were born,’ Tara lied huskily, bending down to check the fastening on Simon’s shoes, glad of the excuse to hide her expression from the girl who had once been one of her closest friends. Dear God, why did this have to happen? Why did she have to run into Susan of all people like this?

Susan was instantly sympathetic.

‘Oh, you poor thing!’ she exclaimed, glancing significantly at the twins as she added, ‘No problems there, I hope? I can still remember what the lack of a father did to me, although it wasn’t the same thing. Mother divorced my real father when I was four. I don’t suppose I ever mentioned that to you before—I hated people knowing. She’s remarried again, you know,’ she added conversationally, patently unaware of the sudden tensing of Tara’s body. ‘The older she gets the younger her husbands get. She’s living in the States now. I think of all the fathers she provided me with James was my favourite. In the old days I never used to admit he wasn’t my father. He was wonderful fun, do you remember…?’

Did she? Tara forced a smile from a face that felt as though it would crack apart and expose her anguish to the world and managed to croak, ‘Yes…’

‘Look, we must get together,’ Susan announced enthusiastically. ‘We’ve so much to catch up on. We’ve just bought a house in the country—for Piers mainly. At the moment we can only use it at weekends, although his father is hoping to transfer his business down there eventually. We’re going down this weekend, why not come with us? The twins would love it, I’m sure.’

‘I…’

‘Don’t refuse,’ Susan begged. ‘Think about it. Here’s my phone number.’ She scribbled it down on a piece of paper and handed it to Tara. ‘I couldn’t believe it when you left Hillingdon like that, although I suppose at fourteen I was really too young for you to take me into your confidence. But you’d been so marvellous to me at school; like the sister I’d never had. Do you remember? You seemed to know instinctively how I felt about the problems I was having with Mother. I suppose that was something we shared, although for different reasons. Do you, like me, want to give your two all the love and affection we never had?’ She broke off as she realised that her car was blocking an exit, hurrying Piers towards it, calling over her shoulder to Tara, ‘Now don’t forget—you’re spending next weekend with us!’

All the way back to the house Tara felt completely numb. Susan of all people! She had spoken the truth when she said that they had had much in common. Susan had been one of the juniors at school when Tara was a prefect. She was always in trouble; stubborn, rebellious, undisciplined, but beneath her outward brashness, her seeming precocity, Tara had recognised the same inner despair and vulnerability she felt herself. It hadn’t been an easy task breaking down the barriers of years to discover the real Susan. The supposed sexual exploits which had so shocked one of her form teachers had, as Tara had suspected, been no more than fabrication; but there had been a great danger that Susan would fall into the trap of promiscuity in the intensity of her search for someone to give her the love and security she craved. To nullify the effect of a mother who was too distant and wrapped up in her own needs and desires to see what was happening to her child.

They had grown very close; as close as sisters, as Susan had claimed. When she had discovered that Susan was often left completely alone in the huge barn of a house which was only one of Mrs Harvey’s homes, Tara had taken to spending the occasional weekend with her. She herself had been studying for A-levels then, and following her example Susan had started to take a much keener interest in her own work. ‘A miniature do-gooder,’ had been one of the less cruel tags Susan’s mother had applied to her, because despite her lack of interest in her child, Mrs Harvey had been bitterly resentful of Susan’s friendship with her.

In those days she had known very little about Susan’s background. Her mother and father were seldom at home; in fact the first time she had met Susan’s father she hadn’t realised who he was. It had been during one of the weekends she had spent at Susan’s home. She had woken in the night and wanted a drink. Downstairs in the kitchen she had been on the point of opening the fridge when she realised she wasn’t alone. Fear had been quickly followed by curiosity when she had realised that the tired, gaunt- looking man slumped over the kitchen table was the fabled father Susan adored, and an oddly maternal wave had swamped her when he raised his head and looked at her with exhausted eyes.

She had cooked him a meal; she recalled it vividly. He had eaten without appetite, and it was only years later, suffering from jet lag herself, that she had realised just how unwelcome her ministrations and cooking had probably been, but he had been too kind to let her see it. James had a weakness for children and lame dogs, but the trouble had been that she hadn’t been a child, although neither of them had realised it until too late.

‘Mummy, I’m hungry!’

Mandy’s imperative cry broke through her thoughts. Tiredly she switched off the car and helped them out. The casserole she had prepared that morning before leaving for work smelled appetising as they walked into the kitchen. Sending both twins upstairs to change their clothes and wash, Tara set about preparing their meal. Although five o’clock was rather early for her to eat, she preferred to share her meals with the twins rather than eat alone; vivid memories of lonely meals eaten in solitude at the kitchen table while her mother looked on a strong deterrent against subjecting her own children to the same thing.

Mealtimes were normally the highlight of her day. Over their food the twins normally regaled her with the happenings of their day, and she made a point of listening seriously. Simon normally spoke with wide-eyed solemnity but Mandy, almost too quick for her own good, could easily spot when an adult was simply indulging her.

They came downstairs together dressed in identical dungarees.

‘Simon couldn’t fasten his sneakers,’ Mandy told her, ‘so I had to do it for him.’

Suppressing a sigh, Tara inspected their newly washed hands. It was quite normal for Mandy to be more advanced than her brother at this stage, she knew, but she was concerned that Mandy’s possessively maternal attitude to her brother, although delightful, might prevent Simon from learning to stand on his own two feet.

Both children ate hungrily. Tara was an excellent cook and mainly through firm insistence in their early years, neither twin was faddy about food. Her budget might not stretch to luxury items, Tara reflected, but at least the twins had a well balanced and healthy diet; and as far as she was concerned they were far better off without too many sweets and chocolates.

Mandy promised to have her own slender build, but already Simon was heavier, and she suspected he would grow up to resemble his father.

After dinner she always set aside an hour to play with the twins and read to them. Mandy with quicksilver impatience grew bored with reading, but Simon was always anxious for more. Almost identical in looks, by nature they were vastly different, Tara reflected.

Her mother had started a campaign obviously intended to steer her towards marriage; its benefits to the twins always stressed whenever she went home, but so far Tara had resisted. For, one thing, marriage would mean telling someone about the twins’ paternity, which she had no desire to do; for another it meant exposing herself once more to their rejection.

Other girls, she knew, suffered the same experience she had done without the same results, but then she had always been acutely sensitive; too sensitive, she acknowledged, recognising that some of her fear for Simon sprang from the fact that she feared he had inherited this vulnerability from her.

It seemed almost incredible now that her body had ever experienced the aching pleasure which was now only a dim memory, but which had once driven her to forget all her principles and scruples to the extent that nothing mattered save for James’s possession of her, even though she had known quite well that at the time his actions were blurred and his mind dazed by a lethal combination of exhaustion and jet lag.

Not a pretty memory, and one which had served to help her keep a cool control over her emotions ever since. He loved her, James had said, but his later actions had not borne out those words. What he had felt for her had simply been a momentary desire, and she, fathoms deep in love with him, had encouraged and incited him into making love to her. The twins were the result of that careless lovemaking, and on them Tara had poured out all the love she had been forced to bottle up inside her.

Casual affairs were just not her thing, and while there had been plenty of men who had made it plain that they desired her, Tara had always held them at a distance. So far Chas had been the most determined, but Tara had held her ground, and it gave her no pleasure to know that Chas’s sudden spurts of temper against the models were fuelled by sexual frustration caused by her refusal to sleep with him.

So far she had managed to walk the dangerously fine line of keeping their personal relationship completely separate from work. As a photographer Chas was a professional down to his fingertips, but Tara worried that one day he would break what was obviously a self-imposed rule, and remind her that he had it in his power to make her unemployed. So far he had not used that weapon, and she honoured him for it. However, there was this weekend job coming up involving taking some fashion shots at Leeds Castle. She had racked her brains for a legitimate excuse for not going, but so far none had been forthcoming. The twins could go with them, Chas had said easily when she commented that she could not simply abandon them for an entire weekend.

It came to her that Susan’s invitation would provide a cast-iron excuse for refusing to go; it would also prevent Chas from guessing her fear that if she simply refused the assignment he would press his suit even harder, forcing the confrontation she had so far managed to avoid.

CHAPTER TWO

THE morning didn’t get off to a good start. For one thing, Tara’s alarm failed to go off on time, and she was eventually woken up by Mandy tugging impatiently at the bedclothes.

Tara normally got up an hour before the twins, using the time to wash her hair and do her make-up. Although far from vain she considered presenting the right image an important part of her job, although sometimes it was hard to strike the narrow dividing line between appearing too glamorous or too staid. Normally she settled for simply keeping her hair clean and glossy, using the minimum amount of make-up and dressing in clothes that didn’t impede her work and yet still looked smart.

This morning there was no time to wash her hair, and she plaited it quickly while she supervised the twins’ breakfasts.

Simon for some reason had decided that he loathed boiled egg and was morosely engaged in pushing his sulkily round his plate.

‘Simon, eat up!’ Exasperation sharpened her voice and she sighed when the little boy’s face crumpled.

‘I’m sorry, darling.’ A swift hug and a kiss banished the threatening tears, although Simon was obviously not going to let her off easily.

‘My tummy hurts,’ he complained. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to go to school. Why can’t I stay at home with you?’

‘Because I have to go out to work,’ Tara told him firmly, surreptitiously checking his pulse and temperature. Both seemed normal. Simon’s pain was more imaginary than real, she suspected, and sympathised with him, remembering how often she had suffered similar afflictions.

‘Are we going to stay with that lady for the weekend?’ Mandy demanded as Tara bustled them outside to the Mini. ‘Where does she live?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tara was forced to admit. ‘In the country somewhere.’

‘The country?’ Simon perked up immediately. ‘On a farm?’ he breathed hopefully.