His Child: The Mistress's Child / Nathan's Child / D'Alessandro's Child

CHAPTER TWO

LISI stared at Marian. ‘You can’t know that!’ she babbled, and now her knees really were threatening to give way. ‘Tim looks nothing like him!’

‘Sit down, dear, before you fall down.’ Marian gently pushed her back down onto her chair and went and poured a glass of water from the cooler, then handed it to her. ‘Now drink this—you’ve gone even paler than usual.’

Lisi sucked the chilled liquid into her parched mouth and then shakily manoeuvred it to a corner of her desk before raising her eyes beseechingly to her boss. ‘He doesn’t look anything like Philip,’ she repeated stubbornly.

‘Lisi,’ said Marian patiently. ‘Tim is your living image—but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t inherited any of his father’s characteristics. Sometimes a mother can blind herself to what she doesn’t want to see. Sometimes it’s easier for an outsider to see the true picture. I knew immediately that Philip was Tim’s father.’

‘But how?’ Lisi demanded brokenly.

Marian sighed. ‘Well, Tim is an unusually tall boy for his age—we’ve always said that. He has his father’s strength and stature—and there’s a certain look of him in the shape of his face, too.’

A chasm of frightening dimensions was beginning to open up in front of Lisi’s feet. ‘A-anything else?’ she demanded hoarsely.

Marian shrugged awkwardly. ‘Well, I’ve never seen you behave like that with a man before—’

‘Because he was hugging me in the office, you mean?’

‘Hugging you?’ Marian raised her eyes to heaven. ‘That’s a new way to describe it! He looked more like he wanted to eat you up for breakfast, lunch and tea—and vice versa. Like no one else existed in the universe other than him.’

And he had always had that effect on her—even though she could have been nominated for an Oscar, so hard had she always tried to hide it in the past. Philip could do and behave exactly as he pleased and Lisi would always be there with a smile for him. No questions, Lisi. Weak Lisi. Foolish Lisi.

Well, not any longer!

‘It must have been a very passionate relationship,’ observed Marian.

If only she knew!

‘The question is, what are you going to tell him?’

Lisi shook her head. ‘I’m not. I’m not going to tell him.’

Marian screwed her eyes up. ‘Oh, Lisi—do you honestly think that’s a good idea?’

Lisi shook her head. ‘I know it isn’t ideal, but it’s the only thing I can do.’

‘But why, dear? Why not tell him? Don’t you think he has the right to know that he has a beautiful son?’

‘The right?’ Lisi looked at her boss and knew that she could not tell her whole story—but part of the story would surely make her point for her. And illustrate as well as anything just how little she had meant to Philip.

‘Marian—he walked out on me. He made it clear that he thought our night together was a big mistake, and that he wanted nothing more to do with me.’

Marian frowned. ‘One night? That’s all it was? Just one night?’

Lisi nodded. ‘That’s right.’ She saw Marian’s rather shocked face. ‘Oh, it wasn’t the classic one-night stand—believe me.’ It hadn’t even been meant to happen. ‘I…I used to see him every couple of months or so,’ she continued painfully. ‘We had grown to like one another, though I realise now that I never really knew him, or anything about him. But the ‘‘affair’’ wasn’t really an affair, as such.’ In fact, it hadn’t lasted beyond midnight.

‘But isn’t it time he found out the truth—whatever has happened between you? I have children of my own, Lisi, and children need a father wherever possible. They need to know their roots and where they come from.’

Lisi sighed. How could she possibly explain this without sounding scheming and cold-hearted? ‘Maybe I’ll tell him if he shows any sign of wanting to be a father, but if I just announce it without careful consideration—can’t you just imagine the consequences? Philip demanding contact. Philip turning up to take Tim out…’ Philip taking Tim’s affection…while feeling nothing for her but lust at best, and contempt at worst. ‘Tim doesn’t even know about Philip!’

‘But surely other people round here must know he’s the father? Someone must know?’

Lisi shook her head. Her night with Philip had gone unnoticed and unremarked upon, and that was how she had kept it. No one knew the truth except for her mother, and that had been a death-bed secret. Even her best friend Rachel thought that her refusal to divulge the identity of Tim’s father was down to some fierce kind of pride at having been deserted, but it went much deeper than that.

Lisi had accepted that Philip could and had just walked out of her life—but she had vowed that he would never play emotional ping-pong with that of her son. A child was a commitment you made for life, not something to be picked up and put down at will—especially if the father of that child was married.

Except now that his wife was dead. So didn’t that change things?

Lisi shook her head. ‘Nobody knows. Not a living soul.’ She stared at Marian. ‘Except for you, of course.’

‘I won’t tell him, if that’s what you’re worried about, Lisi,’ said Marian awkwardly. ‘But what if he finds out anyway?’

‘He can’t! He won’t!’

‘He’s planning on buying a house here. It’s a small village. What if he starts putting two and two together and coming up with the right answer? Surely he’ll be able to work out for himself that he’s the father?’

Lisi shook her head. Why should he? It was a long time ago. Months blurred into years and women blurred into other women, until each was indistinguishable from the last. ‘Maybe he won’t find a house to suit him?’ she suggestedoptimistically, but Marian shook her head with a steely determination which Lisi recognised as the nine-carat businesswoman inside her.

‘Oh, no, Lisi—don’t even think of going down that road. This is strictly business. And if a client—any client—wants to buy a house from this agency, then we find one for him to buy. Beginning and end of story. I simply can’t allow you to prejudice any sale because of some past quarrel with your child’s father—which in my opinion, needs some kind of resolution before Tim gets much older.’

‘An outsider doesn’t know how it feels,’ said Lisi miserably.

‘Maybe that’s best. An outsider can tell you what she thinks you need rather than what you think you want.’ Marian’s face softened again. ‘Listen, dear,’ she said gently, ‘why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off? You look much too shaken to do any more work. Peter will be back from his viewing shortly—and it’s always quiet at this time of the year. Think about what I’ve said. Sleep on it. It may be better in the long run if you just come clean and tell Philip the truth about Tim.’

Better for whom? wondered Lisi as she took off her work shoes and changed into the wellington boots she always wore to work when the weather was as inclement as it was today. It certainly wouldn’t be better for her.

She felt disorientated and at a loss, and not just because of Philip’s unexpected reappearance. Tim didn’t finish nursery until four, which meant that she had nearly two hours going spare and now she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. How ironic. All the times when she had longed for a little space on her own, when the merry-go-round of work and single motherhood had threatened to drag her down—and here she was with time on her hands and wishing that she had something to fill it.

She didn’t want to go home, because if she did then she would feel guilty for not putting any washing into the machine, or preparing supper for Tim, or any of the other eight million tasks which always needed to be done. And mundane tasks would free up her mind, forcing her to confront the disturbing thoughts which were buzzing around inside her head.

Instead, she turned up her coat collar against the chill breeze, and headed up the main village street, past the duck pond.

The light was already beginning to die from the sky and the contrasting brightness of the fairy lights and glittering Christmas trees which decorated every shop window made the place look like an old-fashioned picture postcard. How their gaiety mocked her.

The breeze stung her cheeks, and now and again, tiny little flakes of snow fluttered down from the sky to melt on her face like icy tears.

The weathermen had been promising a white Christmas, and, up until today, it had been one of Lisi’s main preoccupations—whether her son would see his first snow at the most special time of year for a child.

But thoughts of a white Christmas had been eclipsed by thoughts of Philip, and now they were threatening to engulf her, making her realise just why she had put him in a slot in her memory-bank marked ‘Closed’. She had done that for reasons of practicality and preservation—but seeing him today had made it easy to remember just why no one had ever come close to replacing him in her affections.

And now he might be here to stay.

She climbed over a stile and slid down onto wet grass, glad for the protection of her heavy boots as she set out over the field, but she had not walked more than a few metres before she realised that she was being followed.

Lisi knew the village like the back of her hand. She had lived there all her life and had never felt a moment’s fear or apprehension.

But she did now.

Yet it was not the heartstopping and random fear that a stranger had materialised out of nowhere and might be about to pounce on her, because some sixth sense warned her to the fact that the person following her was no stranger. She could almost sense the presence of the man who was behind her.

She stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned around to find Philip standing there, his unsmiling face shadowed in the fast-fading light of dusk. Out here in the open countryside he seemed even more formidable, his powerful frame silhouetted so darkly against the pale apricot of the sky, and Lisi felt the sudden warm rush of desire.

And she didn’t want to! Not with him. Not with this beautiful, secretive and ultimately deceitful man who had given her a child and yet would never be a father to that child.

She had overplayed the bland, polite card in the office today and he had not taken heed of her wish to be rid of him. The time for politeness was now past.

‘Do you always go creeping up on people in the twilight, Philip?’ she accused.

He gave a faint smile. ‘Sometimes. My last employment meant that I had to employ qualities of stealth, even cunning.’

She resisted the urge to suggest that the latter quality would come easily to him, intrigued to learn of what he had been doing for the past four years. ‘And what kind of employment was that?’

He didn’t answer immediately. He wasn’t sure how much of his past he wanted to share with her. What if anything he wanted to share with her, other than the very obvious. And his years as emissary to a Middle Eastern prince could not be explained in a couple of sentences in the middle of a field on a blisteringly cold winter’s afternoon. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you about it some time,’ he said softly.

So he wasn’t going to fill in any gaps. He would remain as unknowable as he ever had been. She looked at him in exasperation. ‘Why are you really here, Philip? What brought you back to Langley after so long?’

An unanswerable question. How could he possibly define what his intentions had been, when nothing was ever as easy as you thought it was going to be? Something had compelled him to return and lay a increasingly troublesome ghost to rest, and yet the reality was proving far more complex than that.

He had been dreaming of her lately. Images which had come out of nowhere to invade his troubled nights. Not pin-point, sharply accurate and erotic dreams of a body which had captivated him and kept him prisoner all this time. No, the dreams had been more about the elusive memory of some far-distant sweetness he had experienced in her arms.

Part of him had wondered if seeing her again would make the hunger left by the dream disappear without trace—like the pricking of a bubble with a pin—but it had not happened like that.

The other suspicion he had nurtured—that her beauty and charm would be as freshly intact as before—had sprung into blinding and glorious Technicolor instead. His desire for her burned just as strongly as before—maybe even more so—because nobody since Lisi had managed to tempt him away from his guilt and into their bed.

Not that there hadn’t been offers, of course, or invitations—some subtle, some not. There had been many—particularly when he had been working for the prince—and some of those only a fool would have turned down. Was that what he was, then—a fool?

Or was it that one night with her had simply not been enough? Like a starving man only being offered a morsel when the table was tempting him with a banquet?

He looked into her eyes—their bright, clear aquamarine shaded a deeper blue by the half-light of approaching dusk. Her face was still pale—pale as the first faint crescent of the moon which was beginning its nightly rise into the heavens. Her lips looked darker, too. Mulberry-coloured—berry-sweet and succulent and juicy—what wouldn’t he give to possess those lips again?

‘Maybe I wanted to see you again,’ he murmured.

It sounded too much like the kind of declaration which a woman dreamed a man would make to her, but there was no corresponding gentling of his tone when he said it. The deep-timbred voice gave as little away as the green, shuttered eyes did.

‘Why?’ She forced herself to say it. ‘To sleep with me again?’

Philip’s mouth hardened. He wasn’t going to lie. ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

She let out a cold, painful breath as the last of her hopes crumbled. It was as she had suspected. The warm, giving Philip whose bed she had shared—that man did not exist. It had all been an act. He was merely a seductive but illusionaryfigure who had let his defences down enough to have sex with her, and then had retreated to his real world—a world which had excluded her because he’d had a wife.

Not just cruel, but arrogant, too!

‘And you think…’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Do you really think that I’ve been sitting around, just waiting for you to come back and make such a—’ she almost choked on the word ‘—charming declaration as that one?’

‘But I’m not telling you any lies, am I, Lisi?’

She shook her head violently, and some of the thick, dark hair escaped from the velvet ribbon which had held it captive. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Lies aren’t your thing, are they? You lie by omission rather than fact! Like you omitted to tell me that you were married when you seduced me!’

‘Seduced you?’ He gave a short laugh and his breath clouded the air like smoke. ‘You make it sound as though we were both starring in some kind of Victorian melodrama! There was no wicked master seducing some sweet little innocent who knew no better, was there, Lisi? Quite the contrary, in fact. You were the one who stripped naked in my bed. You knew exactly what you wanted and what you were doing. So please don’t play the innocent. That night you kept me delightfully and memorably entertained—something which is simply not compatible with someone who isn’t…’ he narrowed his eyes into hard, condemnatory slits ‘…experienced.’

Lisi swallowed. He was insulting her, she knew that—and yet it was like no insult she had ever heard. The disparaging tone which had deepened his voice did not have her itching to slap the palm of her hand against that smooth, golden cheek the way it should have done.

Instead, it seemed to have set off a chain reaction which began with the quickened pace of her heart and ended with the honey-slick throb of a longing so pure and so overwhelming that she could have sunk down into the thick, wet clods of earth and held her arms open to him.

But she had played the fool with Philip Caprice once before, and once was too often.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘You know, you really ought to make your mind up how you feel about me. On the one hand you seem to despise me for my so-called experience—while on the other you seem unable to forget what happened.’

‘Can you?’ he demanded as he felt the heavy pull of need deep in his groin. ‘Can you forget it, Lisi?’

Of course she couldn’t! But then, unlike Philip, she had a very tangible memory of that night.

Tim.

She thought of Marian’s words—wise, kindly experienced Marian who had urged her to tell him, who had emphasised how much a child needed a father. But what if this particular man had no desire to be a father? What if she told him and ruined both her and Tim’s lives unnecessarily? What if Philip had children of his own?

Was now the time to ask him? In a field on a cold December night where stars were now beginning to appear as faint blurry dots in the skies?

She steeled herself. ‘What happened to your wife, Philip?’

She took him off guard with her question, though perhaps that was because these days he had schooled himself not to remember Carla more than was absolutely necessary. The living had to let go—he knew that—just as he knew how hard it could be.

He used the same words as the press had done at the time. ‘She was involved in a pile-up on the motorway.’

She nodded, painfully aware of how much the bereaved resented other people’s silence on the subject. She remembered when her mother had died, and people had seemed to cross the road to avoid her. ‘Was it…was it instant?’

‘No.’ The word came out more harshly than he had intended, but he did not want to discuss Carla, not now. God forgive him, but he wanted to lose the pain of death in the sweet, soft folds of living flesh. ‘Can’t we go somewhere warmer, if we’re going to talk?’

She shook her head. Tim would be out of nursery soon enough and she had no desire to take Philip home and have him see her little house with all its childish paraphernalia, which might just alert his suspicions.

And where else to go to talk in Langley on one of the shortest days of the year—the pub would have shut by now. There was always the hotel, of course, she reminded herself, and a shiver of memory ran down her spine.