'Hmm...'
Cassie didn't like the way Roger was looking at her. He was far too curious. And perceptive.
She produced a disarming smile. 'I'll just go and see what he wants. You stay here and finish your drink with Mum.'
Cassie hurried from the room before any more awkward questions could be asked.
But she didn't hurry to meet Dan. Once out of Roger's sight her legs ground to a halt, her whole being shaking with a thousand jangling nerves. She leant against the wall of the hallway and took several deep breaths. It was little use. She was still a mess. Yet she had known that Dan would come...eventually.
With a jolt she realised that she had sent her son out to be alone with his father. Dan could be saying anything to him!
It propelled her into action, and she raced along the hall, out on to the back porch, down the steps and literally into Dan's arms.
'My, my,' he drawled, reaching out to steady her. 'What a pleasant change to find you so anxious to see me.'
For a heart-stopping second, Cassie went totally blank. She stared down at the hands that were grasping her upper arms, then up into Dan's handsome, smiling face. With an inevitability that she found appalling, her body began to respond to his nearness, his touch. Heat suffused the surface of her skin as that insidious seed of suppressed longing burst into life once more.
How easy it would be to give in to it. So easy... All she had to do was sink against the hard broadness of his chest ?.id lift her mouth to his.
Instead she wrenched out of his hold, angry more at herself than at Dan. But her tongue didn't seem to know the difference. 'Don't kid yourself!' she snapped. 'You're the last man on earth I want to see.'
'You mean this isn't for me?' he mocked, indicating her clothing.
Cassie looked down at the cream knitted suit which she had worn to church and kept on afterwards. It was the one time during her week that she discarded her jeans.
'You know very well that I wasn't expecting you today,' she flared, her fingers shaking as they nervously arranged the loose top over the matching skirt. Unfortunately, the smoothing down of the ribbed garment only emphasised the thrust of her full breasts, which at that moment felt embarrassingly swollen.
Dan's gaze followed her self-conscious actions. 'Weren't you?'
'Of course not!' Her cheeks flamed. 'We happen to have a visitor.'
His black eyes narrowed. 'Who?'
'My boss,' she informed, without thinking to add that he was shortly to be her stepfather as well. 'He came for Sunday lunch.'
'You must have a close working relationship to have your boss over during the weekend.'
Cassie thought she heard a nasty innuendo in the words. She gave a defiant toss of her head. 'Roger comes to lunch every Sunday! Not that that is any of your business, Dan McKay. What are you doing here, anyway? You weren't invited.'
His laugh was dry. 'Something told me not to wait for an invitation.'
She glared at him. 'I thought I told you to keep away from me.'
Anger, hot and strong, swept his features. 'Don't be such a little fool, Cassie!' he slammed back. 'You knew I wouldn't stay away. That's my son out there!' He indicated Jason with a sharp jerk of his head.
'For God's sake, Dan, be quiet...' Cassie darted a stricken look over his shoulder, relieved to see that Jason was fully occupied inspecting Dan's car. And what boy wouldn't be enthralled? Even Cassie could recognise a Mercedes sports coup£ when she saw one.
Her eyes sliced back to Dan in agonised appeal. 'Please, Dan...'
He lifted a dark eyebrow. 'Please, is it now? I thought from your attitude yesterday and just now that it was to be war between us!'
She groaned.
His face showed a guarded surprise. 'Not war?' he asked softly, almost seductively. His right hand lifted to lie gently against her cheek.
Instinctively she stiffened, her head jerking back, her nostrils flaring like those of a frightened horse.
His hand dropped, his mouth curling into a caustic grimace. 'I thought as much. I came here willing to be reasonable, willing to negotiate. But I'd be wasting my breath, wouldn't I, Cassie? You've got no intention of really sharing Jason with me. Your mind is firmly made up. I'm not to be trusted. I'm a bastard, through and through. And that's that!'
Dan's bitter resentment fuelled a similar emotion in Cassie. 'What the hell did you expect?' she muttered at him in a low, hoarse whisper. "That you could come back after all these years and be welcomed with open arms? That you could wipe the slate clean with a few convenient half-truths?'
'I'll tell you what I expect,' he retorted. 'I expect you to at least have the decency to listen to me. I expect to be allowed a reasonable share of Jason's life, to have the opportunity to love him as a father has a right to love his son!'
Cassie could only stare at Dan in wide-eyed horror. The man was either mad or so consumed with his own importance that he couldn't recognise or appreciate the feelings of others. Didn't he have any concept of what he had done, seducing her with promises of love and marriage, then leaving her to find out after he had gone that he was a married man? Did he honestly think that she was going to expose her son to his brand of loving? What would happen when he tired of the experience, when he decided that being a father was hard work, when he took off back to the bright lights of Sydney?