Rags To Riches: At Home With The Boss: The Secret Sinclair / The Nanny's Secret / A Home for the M.D.

Nor had she visited her parents in nearly a month. She was used to nipping down to Devon every couple of weekends, and she was guiltily aware that it had been easier to fudge and make excuses because her mother would have been able to eke the truth out of her, and she hadn’t wanted the inevitable sermon.

‘But that’s not your problem. You won’t have to meet them at all. I’ll explain the situation to them … tell them that we happened to bump into one another … They’ll be pleased because it’s always worried them that you were out there, not knowing that you had fathered a son. I’ll have to explain that I haven’t mentioned anything earlier because I wanted you to get to know Oliver, work through some of the initial difficulties. I think they’ll understand that …’

‘And I won’t meet them because …?’

‘Why should you? You’ll be involved in Oliver’s life, but you won’t be in mine. Which is really what I want to talk to you about. Visiting rights and such. I don’t think we have to go through lawyers to work something out, do we? I mean, the past few weeks have been fine. Of course I realise that it’s not really been a normal routine for you, but we can work round that. I’m happy to be flexible.’

Raoul found himself recoiling from the deal on the table, even though it was a deal that suited him perfectly. Yes, he had taken a lot of time off work recently. In fact working late into the night, pretty much a routine of his, had been put on temporary hold, and even time catching up in front of his computer had been limited. Her willingness to compromise should have come as a relief. Instead, he was outraged at her easy assumption that he would be fobbed off with a night a week and the occasional weekend as Oliver’s confidence levels in him rose.

‘Visiting rights …’ he repeated, rolling the words on his tongue and not liking how they tasted.

‘Yes! You know—maybe an evening a week, whenever suits you. It would be good if you could set aside a specific day, although I know that’s probably unrealistic given your lifestyle …’

Quite out of the blue she wondered when his lifestyle outside of work would recommence. His extra-curricular activities. Should she go over old ground? Repeat that she would prefer Oliver not to have to deal with any unfamiliar women? Or would Raoul be sensible enough to understand that without her having to spell it out in black and white?

It was all well and good, laying out these rules and regulations in a calm, sensible voice, but nothing could disguise the sickening thump of her heart when she thought about the longer term. The days when she would wave goodbye to Oliver and watch from the front door of her new house as Raoul sped him away to places and experiences of which she would be ignorant.

She had become accustomed to the threesome.

She had to swallow hard so that the smile on her face didn’t falter. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she prompted uncertainly.

‘Let me get this straight,’ Raoul intoned flatly. ‘We arrange suitable days for me to pick Oliver up and drop him off a couple of hours later, and beyond that our relationship is severed …’

‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t call it a relationship.’ She thought of the tingling way he made her feel, and tacking the word relationship onto that just seemed to make things worse.

‘What would you like me to call it?’

‘I’d like to think that we’re friends. I never thought that I’d see the day when I could refer to you in that way, but I’m pleased to say that I can. Now.’

‘Friends …’ Raoul murmured.

‘Yes. We’ve really worked well together on this … er … project …’ That didn’t sound quite right, and she lowered her eyes nervously, realising, with a start that she had managed to drink her glass of wine without even knowing it. She could feel his proximity like a dense, lethal force, and it was all she could do not to squirm away from him.

‘And that’s what you want, is it, Sarah?’

Dazed and confused, she raised her bright green eyes to his, and was instantly overwhelmed by a feeling of light-headedness.

The sofa was compact. Their knees were almost touching. The last rays of the sun had disappeared into grey twilight, and without benefit of the overhead light his wonderful face was thrown into half shadows.

‘Yes, of course,’ she heard herself mumble.

‘Friends exchanging a few polite words now and again …’

‘I think that’s how these things go …’

‘It’s not what I want and you know that.’

A series of disconcerting images flashed through Sarah’s mind at indecent speed. All the simple little things they had done together over the past few weeks … things that had shattered her confidence in her ability to keep a respectable distance from him. And now here he was, framing the very words she didn’t want to hear.

‘Raoul …’ she breathed shakily.

Raoul homed in on the hesitancy in her voice with an unassailable feeling of triumph. It had shocked him to realise how much he still wanted her—until he had worked out the whole theory of unfinished business. With that explanation in his head, he could now easily see why he had been finding it difficult to concentrate at work—why images of her kept floating in his mind, like bits of shrapnel in his system, ruining his concentration and his ability to focus.

‘I like it when you say my name.’ Right now the lack of focus thing seemed to be happening big-time. His voice lacked its usual self assured resonance. He extended his arm along the back of the sofa and then allowed his hand to drop to the back of her neck, where he slowly caressed the soft, smooth skin.

Sarah struggled to remember the very important fact that Raoul Sinclair was a man who was programmed to get exactly what he wanted—except she didn’t know why on earth he would want her. But she felt her body sag as she battled to bring some cool reasoning to the situation.

Her moss green eyes were welded to his, and the connection was as strong as a bond of steel.

‘I really want to kiss you right now.’ He sounded as unsteady as she looked.

‘No. You don’t. You can’t. You mustn’t …’

‘You’re not convincing me …’

She knew that he was going to kiss her, just as she knew that she should push him away. But she couldn’t move. Her slender body was as still as a statue, although deep inside was a torrential surge of sensation that was already threatening to break through its fragile barriers.

The touch of his mouth against hers was intoxicating, and she fell back, weakened with fierce arousal. With an unerring sensual instinct that was uniquely his Raoul closed the small distance between them. Or maybe her treacherous body had done that of its own sweet accord. Sarah didn’t know. She was ablaze with a hungry craving that had been building for weeks. She moaned softly, and then louder as he trailed an exploring hand underneath her top, sending electric shocks through her whole body.

The hand that had flattened against his chest, aiming to push him away, first curled into a useless fist and then splayed open to clutch the neck of his shirt, so that she could pull him towards her.

She was burning up, and her breasts felt tender, her nipples tightening in anticipation. She strove to stifle a shameless groan of pleasure as his hand climbed higher, caressing her ribcage, moving round to unhook her bra.

As sofas went, this sofa was hardly the most luxurious in the world, but Raoul didn’t think he could make it up the stairs to her bedroom. He tugged the cotton top over her head, taking her bra with it in the process, and gazed at her, half undressed, her eyes slumbrous, her perfect mouth half parted on a smile while her breasts rose and fell in quick rhythm with her breathing.

He couldn’t believe how much he wanted her. Pure, driven sensation wiped out all coherent thought. If the house had suddenly been struck by an earthquake, he wasn’t sure he would have noticed.

The effect she had on him was instantaneous, and as he fluidly removed his clothes he marvelled at his incredible sense of recall. It was as if his memories of her had never been buried, as he had imagined, but instead had remained intact, very close to the surface. It proved conclusively that she was the one woman in his life he had never forgotten because what they’d shared had been prematurely concluded. He had never had time to get tired of her.

Sarah watched as his clothes hit the ground. For a businessman he still had the hard, highly toned, muscular body of an athlete. Broad shoulders narrowed to a six pack and …

Her eyes were riveted by the evidence of his impressive arousal.

‘You still like looking at me,’ Raoul said with a slow smile. ‘And I still like you looking at me.’

The touch of her slight hand on his erection drew a shudder from him, and he curled his fingers in her hair as he felt the delicacy of her mouth and tongue take over from where her hand had been.

Sarah, in some dim part of her mind, knew that she should pull back, should tell him that this was now and not then. But she had always been achingly weak around him and nothing had changed.

The taste of him simply transported her. She found that she couldn’t think. Everything had narrowed down to this one moment in time. Her body, which had spent the past five years in cold storage, roared into life and there was nothing she could do about it.

She wriggled out of the rest of her clothes.

She was barely aware of him moving to shut the sitting room door, then tossing one of the throws from a chair onto the ground. She was aware of him muttering something about the sofa not being a suitable spot for lovemaking for anyone who wasn’t vertically challenged.

The fleecy throw was wonderfully soft and thick.

‘This is much better,’ Raoul growled, straddling her and then leaning down so that he could kiss her. At the same time he slid his hands under her back, so that she was arched up to him, her breasts scraping provocatively against his chest. ‘There’s no way that a five-foot sofa can accommodate my six foot two inches.’

‘I don’t recall you being that fussy five years ago,’ Sarah said breathlessly. There was so much of him that she wanted to touch, so much that she had missed.

‘You’ll have to tell me if I’ve lost my sense of adventure,’ he murmured. He felt her twist restlessly under him. It was a cause of deep satisfaction that he knew exactly what she wanted.

He reared back and began to caress her breasts, looking down at her flushed face as he massaged them, rolling his thumbs over the pouting tips of her nipples while she, likewise, attended to his throbbing erection.

This was a foreplay of mutual satisfaction between two people comfortable with each other’s wants. It was like resuming the steps to a well-rehearsed dance.

He bent so that he could feather her neck with kisses—soft, tender nibbles that produced little gasps and moans—and then, taking advantage of the breasts offered up to his exploring mouth, he began to suckle the pink crests, drawing one distended nipple into his mouth, driving her crazy, and making her impatient for him to do the same to the other breast.

It was incredible to think that the body he was now touching had carried his child, and a wave of bitter regret washed over him. So the circumstances would have been all wrong, and he had never factored a child into his life plan, but he would have risen to the challenge. He would have been there right from the very start. He wouldn’t have missed out on the first four years of his son’s life. He wouldn’t have been obliged to spend weeks playing catch up in the father stakes.

But regret was not an emotion with which Raoul was accustomed to dealing, and there was no value in looking at things with the benefit of hindsight.

He blocked out the fanciful notion of a different path and instead trailed his mouth over the flat planes of her stomach, maybe not quite so firm as it had once been, but remarkably free of stretch marks.

The taste of her, as he dipped his tongue to tease her most sensitive spot, was the most erotic thing he had ever experienced.

He smoothed his hands over the satin smoothness of her inner thighs and she groaned as he gave his full attention to the task.

Several times he took her so close to the edge that she had to use every ounce of will-power to rein herself back. She wanted him inside her. She found that she was desperate to feel that wonderful moment when he took one deep, final thrust and lost all his control as he came.

‘Are you protected?’

Those three words penetrated her bubble, and it took a few seconds for them to register.

‘Huh?’

‘I haven’t got any protection with me.’ Raoul’s voice was thick with frustration. ‘And you’re not on the pill. I can tell from the expression on your face.’

‘No. I’m not.’ It was slowly sinking in that, however wrapped up he was in the throes of passion, there was no way he would permit another mistake to occur. Look at what his last slip-up had cost him!

‘Still, there are other ways of pleasing each other …’

‘No, I can’t … I’m sorry … I don’t know what happened …’

She rolled onto her side, feeling exposed, and then sat up and looked around to where their clothes lay in random piles on the ground. Reaching out, she picked up her top and hastily shoved it on. This was followed by her underwear, while Raoul watched in silence, before heaving himself up on one elbow to stare at her with brooding force.

‘Don’t tell me that you’ve suddenly decided to have an attack of scruples now!’

‘This was a mistake!’ She backed away from him to take refuge on the sofa, drawing her knees up and hugging herself to stave off a bad bout of the shakes.

She dragged her eyes away from the powerful image of his nudity. She wished that she could honestly tell herself that she had just given in to a temporary urge that had been too strong. But the questions raining down on her were of an altogether more uncomfortable nature.

How far had she really come these past few years? Had she forgotten just how easily he had found it to dump her? To write her off as surplus to requirements when it came to the big plan of how he wanted to live his life?

A few weeks ago Raoul Sinclair had been the biggest mistake she had ever made. Seeing him again had been a shock, but she had risen above that and tried hard to view his reappearance in her life as something good for the sake of Oliver.

Yes, he had still been able to get to her, but her defences had been up and she had been prepared to fight to protect herself.

But he had attacked her in a way she had never planned for. He had won her over with the ease with which he had accepted what must have been a devastating blow to all his long-term plans. He had controlled his ego and his pride to listen to what she had to say, and he had thrown himself into the business of getting to know his son with enthusiasm and heart wrenching humility. Against her will, and against all logic and reason and good judgement, she had succumbed over the weeks to his sense of humour, his patience with Oliver, his determination to go the extra mile.

How many men who had never contemplated having a family, indeed had steadfastly maintained their determination never to go down that road, would have reacted to similar news with the grace that he had?

Sarah suspected that a lot would either have walked away or else would have contributed financially but done the absolute minimum beyond that.

He had reminded her of all the reasons she had fallen in love with him in the first place and more.

Was it any wonder that she had been a sitting target when he had reached out and touched her?

Sarah could have wept, because she knew that fundamentally Raoul hadn’t changed. He might want her body, but he didn’t want her dreams, her hopes or her romantic notions—which, it now seemed, had never abandoned her after all, because they were part and parcel of who she was.

‘Of course this wasn’t a mistake!’ He raked impatient fingers through his hair and looked at her as he got dressed. Huddled on the sofa in front of him she looked very young—but then, of course, she was very young. Had he presumed too much? No. Of course he hadn’t. Her signals had been loud and clear. She had given him the green light, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why she was backing away from him now. The past few weeks had been inexorably leading to this place. At least that was how he saw it.

It wasn’t just that she still had the same dramatic effect on his libido that she’d always had. It wasn’t just that she could look at him from under those feathery lashes and make him break out in a sweat. No, they had connected in a much more fundamental area, and he knew that she felt the same way. Hell, he was nothing if not brilliant when it came to reading the signs.

And just then? Before she had decided to start backtracking? She had been as turned on as him!

‘In fact,’ he said huskily, ‘it was the most natural thing in the world.’

‘How do you figure that?’

‘You’re the mother of my child. I happen to think that it’s pretty damned good that we’re still seriously attracted to one another.’ He sat on the sofa, elbows on thighs, and looked sideways at her.

‘Well, I don’t think it’s good. I think it just … complicates everything.’

‘How does it complicate everything?’

‘I don’t want to get into a relationship with you. Oh, God—I forgot you don’t like the word relationship. I forgot you find it too threatening.’

Raoul could feel her trying to impose a barrier between them and he didn’t like it. It annoyed him that she was prepared to waste time dwelling on something as insignificant as a simple word.

‘I want you to admit what’s obvious,’ he told her, turning so that he was facing her directly, not giving her the slightest opportunity to deflect her eyes from his. ‘You can’t deny the sexual chemistry between us. If anything, it’s stronger than it was when we were together five years ago.’

It terrified Sarah that he felt that too—that it hadn’t been just a trick of her imagination that she was drawn to him on all sorts of unwelcome and unexpected levels. In Africa they had come together as two young people about to take their first steps into the big, bad world. They had lived in a bubble, far removed from day-to-day life. There was no bubble here, and that made the savage attraction she felt for him all the more terrifying.

‘No …’ she protested weakly.

‘Are you telling me that if I hadn’t interrupted our lovemaking you would have suddenly decided to push me away?’

Sarah went bright red and didn’t say anything.

‘I thought so,’ Raoul confirmed softly. ‘You want to push me away but you can’t.’

‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.’

‘Okay. Well, let me tell you this. The past few weeks have been … a revelation. Who would have thought that I could enjoy spending so much time in a kitchen? Especially a kitchen with no mod-cons? Or sitting in front of a television watching a children’s programme? I never expected to see you again, but the second I did I realised that what I felt for you hadn’t gone away as I had assumed it had. I still want you, and I’m not too proud to admit it.’

‘Wanting someone isn’t enough …’ But her words were distinctly lacking in conviction.

‘It’s a damn sight healthier than self-denial.’ Raoul let those words settle. ‘Martyrs might feel virtuous, but virtue is a questionable trade off when it goes hand in hand with unhappiness.’

‘You are just so egotistical!’ Sarah said hotly. ‘Are you really saying that I’m going to be unhappy if I pass up the fantastic opportunity to sleep with you?’

‘You’re going to be miserable if you pass up the opportunity to put this thing we have to bed. You keep trying to deny it. You blow hot and cold because you want to kid yourself that you can fight it.’

Sarah would have liked to deny that, but how could she? He was right. She wavered between wanting him to touch her, enjoying it madly when he did, and being repelled by her own lack of will-power.

‘I don’t like thinking of you going to clubs and meeting guys,’ he admitted roughly.

‘Why? Would you be jealous?’

‘How can I be jealous of what, as yet, doesn’t even exist? Besides, jealousy isn’t my thing.’ He lowered his eyes and shifted. ‘You still have a hold over me,’ he conceded. ‘I still want you …’

‘There’s more to life than the physical stuff,’ Sarah muttered under her breath.

‘Let’s agree to differ on that score,’ Raoul contradicted without hesitation. ‘And it doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to end up in bed sooner rather than later. I’m proposing we make it sooner. We’re unfinished business, Sarah …’

‘What do you mean?’

Raoul took her fingers and played with them idly, keeping his eyes locked to hers. ‘Back then, I did what was right for both of us. But would what we had have ended had it not been for the fact that I was due to leave the country?’

‘Yes, it would have ended, Raoul. Because you’re not interested in long-term relationships. Oh, we might have drifted on for a few more months, but sooner or later you would have become tired of me.’

‘Sooner or later you would have discovered that you were pregnant,’ Raoul pointed out with infuriating calm.

‘And how would that have changed anything? Of course it wouldn’t! You would have stuck around for the baby because you have a sense of responsibility, but why don’t you admit that there’s no way we would have ended up together!’

‘How do I know what would have happened? Do I have a crystal ball?’

‘You don’t need a crystal ball, Raoul. You just need to be honest. If we had continued our … our whatever you want to call it … would it have led to marriage? Some kind of commitment? Or would we have just carried on sleeping together until the business between us was finally finished? In other words, until you were ready to move on? I know I’m sometimes weak when I’m around you. You’re an attractive guy, and you also happen to be the father of my child. But that doesn’t mean that it would be a good idea to just have lots of sex until you get me out of your system …’

‘What makes you think that it wouldn’t be the other way around?’

‘In fact,’ she continued, ignoring his interruption, ‘it would be selfish of us to become lovers because we’re incapable of a bit of self-denial! I don’t want Oliver to become so accustomed to you being around that it’s a problem when you decide to take off! I’m sorry I’ve given you mixed signals, but we’re better off just being … friends …’

CHAPTER SIX

SARAH wondered how she had managed to let her emotions derail her to such an extent that she had nearly ended up back in bed with Raoul. The words unfinished business rankled, conjuring up as they did visions of something disposable, to be picked up and then discarded once again the minute it suited him.

Had he imagined that she would launch herself into his arms in a bid to take up where they had left off? Had he thought that she would greet his assertion about still wanting her as something wonderful and complimentary? He didn’t want her seeing anyone else—not because he wanted to work on having a proper relationship with her, but because he wanted her to fill his bed until such time as he managed to get her out of his system. Like a flu virus.

He was an arrogant, selfish bastard, and she had been a crazy fool to get herself lulled into thinking otherwise!

She had a couple of days’ respite, because he was out of the country, and although he telephoned on both days she was brief before passing him over to Oliver, which he must have found extra challenging, given Oliver’s long silences and excitable babbling.

‘I think we’ll tell him at the weekend,’ she informed Raoul crisply, and politely told him that there would be absolutely no need for him to rush over the second he got back, because at that time of night Oliver would be asleep anyway.