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

And then one glorious spring afternoon Philip walked into the office without his customary, flinty expression. He had loosened his tie and he seemed lighter in his mood, Lisi thought, though she wouldn’t have dreamed of asking him why. That was not the way their relationship worked. They talked houses. Interest rates. Business trends.

‘Hello, Philip.’ She smiled.

He looked into her aquamarine eyes and smiled back. Carla had moved her fingers last night. The doctors were cautious, but quietly optimistic, and for the first time since the accident Philip had slept the night without waking. This morning he had awoken without the habitual tight knot of tension in his stomach. ‘Hello, Lisi.’ He smiled back. ‘So what have you got for me?’

‘I think you’ll like it,’ she said demurely.

The house she had rung him about was about as perfect as it was possible for a house to be. She had never heard Philip sound quite so enthusiastic, and the offer he made was accepted immediately. A rather more generous offer than usual, she noted, and briefly wondered what had made his mood quite so expansive.

It was getting on for six o’clock by the time he drove her back into Langley, and all the way along the lanes the hedges and trees were laced with the tender green buds of spring. He sighed. Spring. The time of new beginnings. He prayed that the signs were not misleading, and that there would be a new beginning for Carla.

Lisi heard the sigh, saw where he was looking. ‘It’s beautiful around this time of year, isn’t it?’

He glanced across at her as she put her notebook back into her bag and snapped it shut.

He liked her. She worked hard and she didn’t ask any questions. With Lisi he could relax, and he tried to think back to the last time he had done that. Really relaxed. ‘I feel like celebrating,’ he said.

‘Well, then—why don’t we? A quick drink won’t hurt.’ Her heart missed a beat while she waited to hear what he would say.

‘Okay.’ He changed down a gear. ‘Where shall we go?’

‘There’s the pub or the hotel—either are good.’

‘Yeah,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’m driving on to Somerset tomorrow, so I’m staying at the hotel.’ Maybe they’d better go to the pub.

‘I’ll just have to ring my mother and tell her I’m going to be a little late.’

He raised his eyebrows, surprised. ‘You live with your mother?’

Lisi smiled at his expression. How little of her he knew! ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Unusual, at your age.’

‘I suppose so—but we get on very well.’ No need to tell him that on her salary there was no way she could afford a place of her own, even if she had wanted to.

They went to the pub and settled down with their wine, but away from the usual professional boundaries which defined their relationship, Lisi found herself gulping hers down more quickly than usual.

He saw her empty glass and one elegant eyebrow was elevated. ‘Another?’

‘Please.’ She nodded automatically, her eyes drinking in his tall, lean frame as he went up to buy her another drink.

She told him little anecdotes about village life, and when he smiled that slow, sexy smile she felt as though she had won first prize in a competition.

‘You must let me buy you a drink now!’ she offered, wishing that the evening could just go on and on.

He shook his dark, ruffled head. ‘I’m fine. Really.’

‘No, honestly—I insist! Just the one.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Equal rights for women, and all that!’

He laughed, thinking, Why not? ‘Okay, Lisi,’ he said gently. ‘Just the one.’

In the cosy warmth of the bar, Lisi chatted away, and Philip was thinking that maybe it was getting just a little too cosy. He glanced at his watch. ‘I guess it’s about time we made a move,’ he said, when he noticed that her cheeks had gone very pink and that she kept blinking her beautiful aquamarine eyes. ‘Are you okay?’ he frowned.

She nodded, even though the room was beginning to blur a little. ‘I’m fine,’ she gulped. But with a quick a glance at her watch she realised she’d drunk in record quick time. ‘I’m just a bit whoozy. I guess I’m not used to drinking.’

‘Have you eaten?’ he demanded.

‘No.’

His mouth tightened. A great influence he was turning out to be. And now she had acquired a deathly kind of pallor. He couldn’t possibly send her home to her mother if she was half-cut, could he?

‘Come on,’ he said decisively, standing up and holding out his hand to her. ‘You need something to soak up that alcohol.’

She clutched onto his hand gratefully and allowed him to lead her out of the pub. Outside the fresh air hit her like a sledgehammer, and she swayed against him and giggled.

Philip shot her a swift, assessing look. She needed food and then he needed out. What he did not need was some beautiful young woman brushing the delectable curves of her body so close to his.

But by the time they reached his hotel, Lisi had gone very pale indeed and Philip realised that he was trapped. He couldn’t send her home like this, but neither could he see her managing to sit through a meal in a stuffy restaurant.

‘You need to lie down,’ he said grimly.

It sounded like heaven. ‘Oh, yes, please,’ she murmured indistinctly.

‘Wait here while I get my keys,’ he told her shortly, relieved to see that the foyer was completely empty, apart from the receptionist. And receptionists were trained to turn a blind eye, weren’t they?

Lisi followed him up the stairs and walked with exaggerated care. She wasn’t drunk, she told herself. Just feeling no pain!

Grimly, he pushed open the door, wondering just how he had managed to get himself into a situation which could look to the outside world as though he were intent on seduction. While nothing could be further than the truth. But he averted his eyes as she flopped down onto the bed like a puppet which had just had its strings cut.

‘Kick your shoes off,’ he growled.

The alcohol had loosened her inhibitions, and she giggled again as she obeyed his terse command, sneaking a look at him from between her slitted eyes and thinking how utterly gorgeous he looked. She wriggled and stretched her arms above her head with a blissful sigh.

The sight of her lying with such abandon on the scarlet silk coverlet was too much to bear. ‘Go to sleep now,’ he told her tightly. ‘I’ll wake you in a couple of hours and give you some food, then send you home.’

He made her sound like an abandoned puppy! thought Lisi. But her indignation faded into the distance as delicious sleep claimed her.

Philip sat moodily at the bar, sipping at a coffee and wondering whether he should ring the hospital. Maybe later. After Lisi had gone. And he wanted her gone!

But his body was telling him other things. Tormenting him with tantalising reminders of making love to a woman. He shifted uncomfortably on the bar stool, and would have taken the longest and coldest shower in the world had it not been for the fact that his room was occupied by the cause of his torment.

He waited a couple of hours and then ordered a plate of steak and chips to take upstairs to her. ‘And a pot of strong coffee,’ he added grimly. But it was with a heavy heart and an aching body as he slowly carried them into his room, and his breath froze in the back of his throat.

Because she was naked.

Naked in his bed.

Her arms were flung above her head, and part of the scarlet silk coverlet had slipped down to reveal one pert and perfect breast—pale and luscious and centred by a tiny thrusting peak of rose. Her long legs were accentuated by the coverlet which moulded itself against them and her clothes were in an untidy heap on the floor beside the bed, with a wispy thong lying uppermost.

Sweet heaven! Philip very nearly dropped the tray.

His heart was pounding fit to deafen him and he could feel the immediate jerk of a powerful erection as he shakily put the tray down on a small table.

He strode over to the bed, trying to use his anger to dampen down the overpowering need to join with her in the most fundamental way possible.

He reached his hand down to shake her by the shoulder but something happened along the way. His fingersirresistibly reached for her breast and he was appalled to find them stroking little circles, but unable to stop himself from finding the bud of her nipple and feeling it harden beneath his touch.

‘Oh!’ she breathed.

Eyes closed, still in the mists of sleep, Lisi writhed with pleasure beneath the bedclothes and the unconsciously sexy action nearly made him lose his mind. The blood roared in his head, his composure utterly shattered by the sight of a naked woman, warm and responsive and waiting in his bed.

With an unbearable effort, he tore his hand away from her nipple and moved it up to the soft silk of her shoulder, intending to shake her. But instead of shaking her, again he found his fingers kneading rhythmically against her cool flesh, urged on by the clamouring demands of his body.

‘Wake up,’ he ordered, in a low, furious voice. ‘Wake up, Lisi!’

Lisi’s eyes snapped open and she stared with disbelief into the dark, angry eyes of Philip. It took a second or two to get her bearings.

A strange bed.

A hotel room.

One drink too many.

‘Oh, hell!’ She sat bolt upright in bed and heard him utter something agonised beneath his breath, and she realised that she was wearing nothing at all and that Philip was staring at her bare breasts with a wild kind of furious hunger in his eyes.

‘Put something on!’ he snapped.

She was still befuddled by sleep. ‘Where are my clothes?’

‘How should I know where your bloody clothes are?’ he roared. ‘It wasn’t me who took them off!’

Lisi blushed as vague memories came back to her. Feeling too hot and tossing her clothes to the ground with abandon. She had! Acutely aware of her nakedness and of the sound of Philip’s quickened breath, she leaned over the side of the bed to hunt for them, and the movement made her breasts jiggle unfettered.

Suddenly Philip lost it completely. He moved towards her, tumbling onto the bed next to her and pulling her roughly into his arms to kiss her before he had the time or the inclination to think about the wisdom of his actions.

And once he had kissed her that was the beginning of the end—his starved senses and hungry body made sure of that.

The thong fell uselessly from her hand and there was a split second of doubt in Lisi’s mind but that doubt fled the moment that he kissed her.

His mouth plundered hers as if it were the richest treasure he had ever encountered and her lips parted for him immediately,moist and sweet and tasting faintly of wine.

Lisi’s heart was beating so hard she thought that it might burst. This was every wish she’d ever had, every sweet dream come true. Philip. Here. In her arms. Her hands went up to his shoulders and felt the silk of his shirt beneath her fingertips. She was wearing nothing and he was covered up with all these clothes—it wasn’t fair!

He lifted his head from hers and she could see that his eyes looked almost ebony in the lamplit room. ‘Do you want to undress me, Lisi?’ he asked unsteadily, because he couldn’t trust himself to do it with any degree of finesse. Not when her breasts were peaking towards him like that and he longed to take one into his mouth and suckle her.

‘Yes,’ she murmured throatily, made bold by that look of raw need on his gorgeous face. Deftly, she began to unbutton his shirt, springing open the tiny buttons to reveal a golden-skinned torso sprinkled with a smattering of dark hair. She indolently ran the flat of her hand over the soft whorls, feeling him shudder beneath her as she did so, loving the power of having this big, handsome man respond so passionately to her.

He kissed her again. And again. Until she was mindless with longing—willingly pinned to the bed by his muscular frame and praying for him to make love to her properly.

Logic and reason had vanished from his mind—obliterated by the wet lick of her tongue as it flicked against his. If he didn’t have her soon, he would explode. ‘Undress me,’ he commanded huskily. ‘Undress me now, Lisi!’

She slid the shirt over his shoulders, anointing the flesh which she laid bare with soft little kisses which made him moan with pleasure beneath her mouth.

His belt came off easily, but her fingers faltered slightly when she was unzipping his trousers as she felt the formidable hardness of him brush against her palm.

‘Don’t touch me,’ he pleaded. ‘Not there. Not yet.’

He couldn’t wait to be free of his clothes and yet he could hardly bear to watch the erotic vision she made as she pushed the covers off and sank down on her knees astride him, easing the trousers down slowly over the long, powerful shaft of his thighs. She eased them over his knees and further still, her hands brushing against the soft swell of his ankles and lingering there.

‘Hurry up,’ he pleaded.

Lisi skimmed one of his socks off—immensely flattered by his eagerness and yet slightly taken aback by it. Instinctively, she had known that he would be a passionate man, but she had expected him to exercise restraint as well. And steely control. Those were the qualities which seemed to fit more with the Philip Caprice she knew.

But it seemed that she had been completely wrong. She freed his foot from the second sock.

And then at last he was naked, too.

And aroused.

Very, very aroused.

Lisi swallowed. Surely he couldn’t possibly… Surely she couldn’t possibly… But then she bucked beneath his fingers as he slithered his middle finger along where she was so hot and slick and hungry. ‘Oh!’ she moaned in ecstasy.

He smiled, but it was a smile laced with a daunting kind of promise and Lisi felt the briefest shiver of apprehension as she saw the new and urgent tension which had entered his body.

‘I want you,’ he whispered.

‘And I want you, too.’

‘Now?’ he teased. ‘Or shall I play with you a little first?’

His provocative words made her melt even more. She had never been turned on so quickly, nor so thoroughly. There was no need for prolonged foreplay; she was ready. And very, very willing. She put her arms around his neck and looked up at him with open invitation in her eyes.

‘Let’s play together,’ she whispered back.

He groaned as he moved over her. It was like a dream—the most erotic dream he had ever encountered. He moved on top of her and could feel her shudder as he pressed right up against her burning heat. He delayed it for as long as he could—probably about a second—before powerfully thrusting into her and a deep, helpless cry was torn from his throat.

Lisi gasped aloud as she felt him fill her, but she wanted him deeper still, as deep as it was possible to go. She moved without thinking, lifting her legs right up so that her ankles were locked tightly around his neck, and he raised his head in a kind of dazed wonderment as he looked down at her.

‘God, Lisi,’ he groaned, and then thrust into her so deeply that she gasped again.

Through the stealthy lure of approaching orgasm, Philip heard warning bells ringing in his head, and he realised what he had never before failed to remember.

‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘Protection! Lisi, I never thought—’ With a monumental effort he began to pull out, but Lisi only clenched her muscles, and gripped him even tighter and he shuddered. ‘D-don’t,’ he commanded unsteadily.

‘It’s o-okay,’ she gasped, because she had thought that she would die if he stopped what he was doing. ‘It’s safe.’

‘You sure?’

She nodded. Of course she was sure. ‘Make me come,’ she begged, astonished by her lack of inhibition, but then something about Philip was making her feel this free. Freer than she had ever been in a man’s arms.

‘With pleasure,’ he ground out, and moved inside her. He held back his own needs while he thrust into her over and over again, his mouth suckling at her breast, while his finger flicked tantalisingly over the tight, hot little core of her. And he whispered things to her, words so erotic, they were almost shocking.

Lisi was nearly crying with the pleasure—almost overloaded with it—and then the crying became a shudder and she was calling out his name and telling him that he was the most perfect lover in the world as waves upon waves took her soaring.

He let himself go, sweat sheening his chest as it slicked against her breasts, and when it happened it was stronger and more intense than any other orgasm he had ever experienced, so that even in the midst of pleasure, he felt the first shimmerings of guilt.

She felt him shuddering inside her for so long that she thought he would never stop. She wished that he wouldn’t. Just go on filling her with his seed all night long. And only when he was completely spent did she let her legs drift down to lie on either side of him. With a satiated little smile, she lifted her head to kiss him but he turned away, as if her mouth contained poison, then rolled away from her completely, so that he was right on the other side of the bed.

Lisi’s heart pounded.

Perhaps he was just tired. He always seemed to look tired. She would let him sleep and then he would reach for her again in the night, and…

She heard the sound of movement and saw that he was getting off the bed and reaching for his clothes.

Her heart pounded again. He couldn’t be leaving! He couldn’t! She swallowed down what was surely an irrational fear. He was obviously going to the bathroom—but he didn’t need to put his clothes on to do that, surely? ‘Philip?’

He finished buttoning up his shirt before he turned around and when he did his face was as cold and as expressionless as flint. He raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’

‘You’re not going?’

He was sickened with disgust at his lack of control, and his mouth tightened. ‘Yes.’

She stared at him without understanding. ‘But why?’ she asked, in a mystified voice. ‘Why are you leaving now?’

It hurt to say it, probably more than it hurt her to hear it. ‘Because I’m married,’ he said, in a hard, cold voice.

He grabbed his jacket and his unopened overnight bag and walked out without a backward glance.

And Lisi didn’t see him again.

CHAPTER FOUR

PHILIP spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning, his thoughts full of Lisi and the effect of seeing her again.

He hadn’t thought beyond his trip to Langley. He had just found himself on the road here, driven on by a burning need to tie up the loose ends of a regrettable liaison—so that he could put it behind him, once and for all.

But he had not reckoned on how he would feel if he saw her again. Part of him had thought that she might have moved on. Or settled down. Married some upstanding local and be well on the way to producing a brood of children. To his astonishment, she was still single.

And just the sight of her had been like a touch-paper to his senses. He still wanted her—wanted her more than he felt comfortable with, and, to judge from her response to his kiss, she wasn’t exactly immune to him, either.

He owed her the truth, he realised. There would be no sense of closure for either of them until he had done that. She might have instigated what had happened, but he had gone into it more than willingly. She needed to know why he had feasted on her body and then just left her lying there without a second glance.

He glanced at his watch, but it was still early. He showered and dressed and drank some coffee before switching on his computer to check his e-mails. But he stared blankly at the untouched messages in his inbox and turned his head instead to study the forbidding grey of the winter sky.

Just as soon as the office opened he would go and see her. And tell her.

Marian Reece glanced up as the bell on the office door rang and in walked the tall, expensively dressed man who had been talking so intently with Lisi the day before.

She smiled. ‘Good morning! Mr Caprice, isn’t it?’

Philip nodded and forced an answering smile. ‘That’s right. Philip Caprice.’ He glanced around the office. ‘Is Lisi around?’

Marian shook her head. ‘Oh, no! She’s finished now. For the Christmas holidays. She—’ She seemed to change her mind about her next words. Instead, she said, ‘But I’m sure that I can help you.’

He looked at her blankly. ‘Help me?’

Marian studied him in bemusement. ‘Well, you did say that you were interested in buying a house in this area!’

He narrowed his eyes. Did he? Wasn’t the truth rather more complex than that? He had been doing business in the area, and something—the dreams, perhaps?—had prompted him to call in and see if Lisi Vaughan was still around. And she was—though wasn’t there a part of him which wished she weren’t? That had hoped she would have been long gone and then he could consign her to bittersweetmemory? But at least the suggestion of house-hunting would legitimise his being here. ‘That’s right,’ he said evenly. ‘If you could let me have a few details to glance through.’

‘Of course.’ She gave a coy smile. ‘I’ll need to know your price range, though.’

He mentioned a sum that made her pupils dilate and she immediately reached for a sheaf of papers which stood neatly stacked on a corner of her desk. ‘I thought you’d be looking at the top end of the market,’ she said triumphantly, and handed them to him.

Philip glanced down at them without interest.

‘The most attractive property we have on our books is The Old Rectory,’ said Marian, straightening up and looking at him expectantly, but his gaze remained noncommittal. ‘It’s a beautiful old house, with a wealth of architectural detail—although it does require considerable updating, of course—’

‘Why hasn’t it sold already?’ he cut in.

Marian blinked. ‘Sorry?’

‘If it’s so beautiful, then why hasn’t it been snatched up?’

Marian gave a little cough and lowered her voice. ‘Because it’s unrealistically priced,’ she admitted.

‘Then get the vendors to lower it.’

‘They’re reluctant.’ She sighed, and pulled a face. ‘It’s a divorce sale, you see, and they need every penny they can get. I’ve told them that they may not get a buyer unless they’re prepared to be realistic, but you know what people are.’

He nodded and gave an impatient smile, eager to be away. ‘Listen, I need to see Lisi. Can you tell me where she lives?’

Marian hesitated. ‘I’m…I’m not sure that I should. She might not want me to.’

Philip met her eyes with an unwavering stare. ‘Oh, I think she would,’ he said pleasantly. ‘But, of course, if you won’t tell me—then I’ll just have to find out for myself. Only it would save me a little time.’ He gave her a lazy smile. ‘Giving me more opportunity to look at houses.’

There was a long pause while she considered the subtext behind his words, and then she nodded. ‘She lives at Cherry Tree Cottage—it’s on Millbank Lane. A bright blue front door—it’s easy enough to find.’

He folded up the house details and slid them into the pocket of his overcoat. ‘Thanks very much.’

Marian looked at him anxiously. ‘I don’t know whether I should have told you.’

He gave a tight smile. ‘I would have found her anyway.’

* * *

Lisi had just finished pinning the flouncy paper frill onto the birthday cake when there was a knock at the door, and she sighed. What she didn’t need at the moment was an interruption! There were a million and one things to do before Tim’s party—when the house would be invaded by five of his friends and she would have her work cut out to prevent six small boys from wrecking her little home!

She brushed some stray icing sugar from her hands and went to the front door, and there, standing on the step, was Philip, and her heart lurched with a combination of apprehension and lust.

He looked pretty close to irresistible, dressed casually in jeans which emphasised the long, muscular thrust of his thighs and a soft grey sweater which made the green eyes look even more dazzling than usual. He wore an old-fashioned flying jacket, and the sheepskin and worn leather only added to his rugged appeal.