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Raoul stilled, because he had forgotten just how much she knew about him—including his miserable childhood and adolescence.
‘So you didn’t get in touch,’ he said, with a chill in his voice. ‘We could carry on discussing all the various ways you tried and failed to find me, or we could just move on. Why did you want to get in touch?’
‘You mean that I should have had more pride than to try?’
‘A lot of women would have,’ Raoul commented drily. She turned her head and the overhead light caught her hair, turning it into streaks of gold and pale toffee. ‘But I suppose you were very young. Just nineteen.’
‘And too stupid to do the sensible thing?’
‘Just … very young.’ He dragged his eyes away from the dancing highlights of her hair and frowned, sensing an edginess to her voice although her face was very calm and composed.
‘You can’t blame me if I couldn’t find you …’
Raoul was confused. What was she talking about?
‘It’s getting late, Sarah. I’ve worked through the night, hammering out this deal with lawyers. I haven’t got the time or the energy to try and decipher what you’re saying. Why would I blame you for not being able to find me?’
‘I’ll get to the point. I didn’t want to get in touch with you, Raoul. What kind of a complete loser do you imagine I am? Do you think that I would have come crawling to you for a second chance?’
‘You might have if you’d been through the mill with some other guy!’
‘There was no other guy! And why on earth would I come running to you when you had already told me that you wanted nothing more to do with me?’
‘Then why did you try and get in touch?’ He felt disproportionately pleased that there had been no other guy, but he immediately put that down to the fact that, whether they had parted on good terms or not, he wouldn’t have wanted her to be used and tossed aside by someone she had met on the rebound.
‘Because I found out that I was pregnant!’
The silence that greeted this pooled around her until Sarah began to feel dizzy.
Raoul was having trouble believing what he had just heard. In fact he was tempted to dismiss it as a trick of the imagination, or else some crazy joke—maybe an attention-seeking device to prolong their conversation.
But one look at her face told him that this was no joke.
‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, and you have to be nuts if you think I’m going to fall for it. When it comes to money, I’ve heard it all.’ Like a caged beast, he shot up and began prowling through the room, hands shoved into his pockets. ‘So we’ve met again by chance. You’re down on your luck, for whatever reason, and you see that I’ve made my fortune. Just come right out and ask for a helping hand! Do you think I’d turn you away? If you need cash, I can write a cheque for you right now.’
‘Stop it, Raoul. I’m not a gold-digger! Just listen to me! I tried to get in touch with you because I found out that I was having your baby. I knew you’d be shocked and, believe me, I did think it over for a while, but in the end I thought that it was only fair that you knew. How could you think that I’d make something like that up to try and get money out of you? Have you ever known me to be materialistic? How could you be so insulting?’
‘I couldn’t have got you pregnant. It’s not possible! I was always careful.’
‘Not always,’ Sarah muttered.
‘Okay, so maybe you got yourself pregnant by someone else …’
‘There was no one else! When I left the compound I had no idea that I was pregnant. I left because … because I just couldn’t stay there any longer. I got back to England and I still intended to start university. I wanted to put you behind me. I didn’t find out until I was nearly five months along. My periods were erratic, and then they disappeared, but I was so … I barely noticed …’
She had been so miserable that World War III could have broken out and she probably wouldn’t have noticed the mushroom cloud outside her bedroom window. Memories of him had filled every second of every minute of her every waking hour, until she had prayed for amnesia—anything that would help her forget. Her parents had been worried sick. At any rate, her mother had been the first to suspect something when she’d begun to look a little rounder, despite the fact that her eating habits had taken a nosedive.
‘I’m not hearing this.’
‘You don’t want to hear this! My mum and dad were very supportive. They never once lectured, and they were there for me from the very minute that Oliver was born.’
Somehow the mention of a name made Raoul blanch. It was much harder to dismiss what she had said as the rantings of an ex-lover who wanted money from him and was prepared to try anything to get it. The mention of a name seemed to turn the fiction she was spinning into something approaching reality, and yet still his mind refused to concede that the story being told had anything to do with him.
He’d never been one to shy away from the truth, however brutal, but the nuts and bolts of his sharp brain now seemed to be malfunctioning.
Sarah wished he would say something. Did he really believe that she was making up the whole thing? How suspicious of other people had he become over the years? The young man she had fallen in love with had been fiercely independent—but to this extent? How valuable was his wealth if he now found himself unable to trust anyone around him?
‘I … I lived in Devon with them after Oliver was born,’ she continued into the deafening silence. ‘It wasn’t ideal, but I really needed the support. Then about a year ago I decided to move to London. Oliver was older—nearly at school age. I thought I could put him into a nursery part-time. There were no real jobs to be had in our village in Devon, and I didn’t want to put Mum and Dad in a position of being permanent babysitters. Dad retired a couple of years ago, and they had always planned to travel. I thought that I would be able to get something here—maybe start thinking about getting back into education …’
‘Getting back into education? Of course. It’s never too late.’ He preferred to dwell on this practical aspect to their conversation, but there was a growing dread inside him. There had been more than one occasion when he had not taken precautions. Somehow it had been a different world out there—a world that hadn’t revolved around the usual rules and regulations.
‘But it was all harder than I thought it was going to be.’ Sarah miserably babbled on to cover her unease. He thought she had lied to try and get money out of him. There was not even a scrap of affection left for her if he could think that. ‘I found a house to rent. It’s just a block away from a friend I used to go to school with. Emily. She babysits Oliver when I do jobs like these …’
‘You mean you’ve done nothing but mop floors and clean toilets since you moved here?’
‘I’ve earned a living!’ Sarah flared back angrily. ‘Office jobs are in demand, and it’s tough when you haven’t got qualifications or any sort of work experience. I’ve also done some waitressing and bar work, and in a month’s time I’m due to start work as a teaching assistant at the local school. Aren’t you going to ask me any questions about your son? I have a picture … In my bag downstairs …’
Raoul was slowly beginning to think the unimaginable, but he was determined to demonstrate that he was no pushover—even for her. Even for a woman who still had the ability to creep into his head when he was least expecting it.
‘I grant that you may well have had a child,’ he said heavily. ‘It’s been five years. Anything could have happened during that time. But if you insist on sticking to this story, then I have to tell you that I will want definite proof that the child is mine.’
Every time the word child crossed his lips, the fact of it being his seemed to take on a more definite shape. After his uncertain and unhappy past, he had always been grimly assured of one thing: no children. He had seen first-hand the lives that could be wrecked by careless parenting. He had been the victim of a woman who had had a child only to discover that it was a hindrance she could have well done without. Fatherhood was never going to be for him. Now, the possibility of it being dropped on him from a very great height was like being hit by a freight train at full speed.
‘I think you’ll agree that that’s fair enough, given the circumstances,’ he continued as he looked at her closed, shocked face.
‘You just need to take one look at him … I can tell you his birth date … and you can do the maths …’
‘Nothing less than a full DNA test will do.’
Sarah swallowed hard. She tried to see things from his point of view. An accidental meeting with a woman he’d thought left behind for good, and, hey presto, he discovered that he was a father! He would be reeling from shock. Of course he would want to ensure that the child was his before he committed himself to anything! He was now the leading man in his very own worst nightmare scenario. He would want proof!
But the hurt, pain and anger raged through her even as she endeavoured to be reasonable.
He might not want her around. In fact he might, right now, be sincerely hoping that he would wake up and discover that their encounter had been a bad dream. But didn’t he know her at all? Didn’t he know that she was not the type of girl who would ever lie to try and wrangle money out of him?
Unhappily, she was forced to concede that time had changed them both.
Whilst she had been left with her dreams in tatters around her, a single mother scraping to make ends meet and trying to work out how she could progress her career in the years to come, he had forgotten her and moved on. He had realised his burning ambitions and was now in a place from which he could look down at her like a Greek god, contemplating a mere mortal.
She shuddered to think what would have happened had she managed to locate him all those years ago.
‘Of course,’ she agreed, standing up.
She could feel a headache coming on. In the morning, Oliver would be at playgroup. She would try and catch up on some sleep while the house was empty. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Raoul still hadn’t shown any appetite for finding out what his son was like.
‘I should go.’
In the corner of her eye, the cleaning trolley was a forlorn reminder of how her life had abruptly changed in the space of a few hours and suddenly become much more complicated. She doggedly reminded herself that whatever the situation between them it was good that he knew about Oliver. She sneaked a glance at him from under her lashes and found him staring down at her with an unreadable expression.
‘I’m very sorry about this, Raoul.’ She dithered, awkward and self-conscious in her uniform. ‘I know the last thing you probably want is to have bumped into me and been told that you’ve fathered a child. Believe me, I don’t expect you to do anything. You can walk away from the situation. It’s only going to clutter up your life.’
Raoul gave a bark of derisive laughter.
‘What planet are you living on, Sarah? If … if I am indeed a father, then do you really think I’m going to walk out on my responsibility? I will support you in every way that I can. What possible choice would I have?’
Tacked on at the end, that flat assertion said it all. He would rise to the occasion and do his duty. Having wanted nothing in life but to be free, he would now find himself chained to a situation from which he would never allow himself to retreat. She wondered if he had any idea how that made her feel, and felt painful tears push their way up her throat.
She found a clean white handkerchief pressed into her hand, and she stared down at the floor, blinking rapidly in an attempt to control her emotions. ‘You never owned a hankie when I knew you,’ she said in a wobbly voice, reaching for anything that might be a distraction from what she was feeling.
Raoul gave her a reluctant smile. ‘I have no idea why I own one now. I never use it.’
‘What about when you have a cold and need to blow your nose?’
‘I don’t get colds. I’m as healthy as a horse.’
It was only a few meaningless exchanged words, but Sarah felt a lot better as she stuck the handkerchief in the pocket of her overall, promising to return it when it had been washed.
‘I’ll need to be able to contact you,’ he told her. ‘What’s your mobile number? I’ll write mine down for you, and you can contact me at any time.’
As they exchanged numbers, she couldn’t help but think back to when he had walked out on her with no forwarding address and no number at which he could be contacted. He had wanted to be rid of her completely—a clean cut, with no loose threads that could cause him any headaches later down the road.
‘I’ll be in touch within the week,’ he told her, pocketing his mobile, and then he watched as she nodded silently and walked out of the room. He saw her yank off the overall and dump it in the trolley, along with the headscarf. She left it all just where it was in a small act of rebellion that brought a smile to his lips.
Alone in the office, and alone with his thoughts, Raoul contemplated the bomb that had detonated in his life.
He had a son.
Despite what he had said about wanting evidence, he knew in his gut that the child was his. Sarah had never cared about money, and she had always been the least manipulative woman he had ever known. He believed her when she said that she had tried to contact him, and he was shaken by the thought of her doing her utmost to bring up a child on her own when she had been just a child herself.
The fact was that he had messed up and he would have to pay the price. And it was going to be a very steep price.
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