His One-Night Mistress(15)

Her brow wrinkled. "Not just handouts, you mean."

"Right."

Lia gazed at him thoughtfully. There was a lot he wasn't saying, but she  was quite capable of filling in the gaps. He was involved. He cared.  And in the process, he put his life on the line. "Yesterday, when you  kissed me in my cottage, I noticed there was a bandage around your  ribs."

He winced. "Bullets were flying. I didn't duck fast enough."

Lia picked a leaf from the nearest shrub, absently rubbing it between  her fingers. He was a man of integrity, that's what she'd learned in the  last few minutes. How could she square that with the man who hadn't  answered her letters? It's the kids that get to me, that's what he'd  just said. So would he have disregarded any responsibility toward his  own child?

As if this would give her the answers she sought, she stepped forward,  looped her arms around his waist and reached up to kiss him, her breasts  pressed to the hardness of his chest.

Seth went utterly still. Then he pulled his head back. "Don't, Lia," he said.

She quivered as though he'd struck her. "Why not?"

"I figured something out in the night-I was going to tell you at breakfast."

"You'd better tell me now."

She'd moved back from him, her dark eyes wary. Get it over with, Seth,  he thought. The quicker the better. "For reasons of my own, I'm not into  marriage and I don't want children. You're not the kind of woman I can  have a casual affair with-on one day, off the next. That didn't work  eight years ago, and I see no reason why it would work now." He gave her  a faint smile. "I should have listened to you yesterday when you told  me to leave you alone-because you were right."

I don't want children …  Clenching her fists, she pushed the words away and said sharply, "You're not in love with me?"

"Of course not. Nor was I eight years ago. But whatever happened between us meant something to me."

"Why are you so opposed to marriage and having a family? They're normal enough needs."

His face closed against her. "It's a long story, and not one I'm about to tell."

Her brain made another lightning-swift leap. "I sent one of my letters  to your parents' house-if I can believe you when you say you didn't get  them, then it's possible they're the ones who intercepted the letters.  Do they hate you? Is that what the problem is?"

"Lay off," he said in an ugly voice.

"Don't tell me what to do! Was it your parents who scared you off commitment? How, Seth?"                       
       
           



       

He said with vicious emphasis, "Thick-skinned doesn't begin to describe you-you've got a hide like a rhinoceros."

"It'd take a rhinoceros to make any impression on you." Or a rebel  bullet, she thought sickly. "I hate this conversation," she muttered.  "Surely we don't have to stand here trading insults like a couple of  kids."

He said brusquely, "I'll leave here a day early, and in the meantime I'll make sure our paths don't cross."

"So you can be hostage to your parents for the rest of your life?" she  cried, and wondered if, deep down, she wasn't fighting for Marise as  much as for herself.

"You have no right to ask questions like that."

She had every right. Because Marise, particularly since she'd started  school and met other children, all of whom had fathers, had on occasion  expressed the wish that her own father appear on the scene. A wish that  Lia had been quite unable to fulfill.

Marise's father was standing right in front of her. Adamant, hostile and  immovable. She said, not bothering to mask the bitterness in her voice,  "Very well. I'll eat in the Tradewind Room and I'll do my best to stay  out of your way. Goodbye, Seth. Have a comfortable life."

He made no move to stop her as she turned on her heel and left the  clearing behind his cottage. His face had been like a mask, she thought.  Hard and empty, blank-eyed.

She'd totally lost her appetite. Lia hurried back to her cottage and  went inside. It looked exactly as it had when she'd left. It was herself  who'd changed.

The only man she'd slept with in eight years wouldn't so much as kiss  her. Wouldn't marry her, or have an affair with her. Certainly would  never act as a father to their child.

And how that hurt.

When Marise had first asked about her father, Lia had said carefully,  "We only met once, Marise. He wasn't able to marry me, and we've never  been in touch."

"Was he nice?" four-year-old Marise had asked, big-eyed.

"Very nice."

"Can we go for ice cream now?"

So the two of them had walked down the lane from the old farmhouse to  the little village, where they'd eaten banana splits in the shadows of  the tall elms …

So long ago, Lia thought with a sigh. She'd have to keep this meeting  with Seth a secret. How could she possibly tell Marise that the man  who'd fathered her didn't want to have children?

Tension was knotting her shoulders again, just as if she hadn't spent a  wad of money yesterday at the spa. She could do with a massage right  now, Lia thought, opening her laptop to check her e-mails. There was one  from Nancy, with a digital photo of Marise grinning at the camera in  her long white nightgown, her brown hair tumbling down her back. In a  surge of love and protectiveness Lia gazed at the image, into eyes the  green of summer meadows. The farm that was their home was called,  appropriately, Meadowland.

Should she tell Seth he was a father? When she'd mailed the two letters,  that had been her decision: he had the right to know. Maybe, just  maybe, he hadn't gotten those letters. But did that change anything?  Marise wasn't an unborn baby anymore; she was seven years old, trusting  and vulnerable.

In all this mess, one thing was clear. Marise mustn't get hurt.

Added to that, Seth didn't want any further involvement with Lia  herself: he'd made that clear a few minutes ago. Not that he'd ever  really been involved with her. So why did she feel like bawling her head  off? Just like Marise when she fell down, or when one of her friends  was mean to her.

Damned if she was going to cry her eyes out over a man who was all over  her one day and then the next wouldn't even kiss her. Lia peeled and ate  a mango, scarcely tasting the juicy yellow flesh, then changed into her  swimsuit. However, a very vigorous swim in the sea didn't help at all.  She was tired, she was hungry, and her brain was in a state of total  confusion. Moral dilemmas were just that: dilemmas. Difficult to solve,  and without any assurance that the choice made was the right one. Should  she or shouldn't she tell Seth about Marise?

Sooner or later, he'd read something about her daughter. Although Lia  did her best to keep Marise safe from any publicity, the media had a  long reach and an even longer memory. Wouldn't it be better to tell him  herself rather than have him find out by accident?

She didn't know. She simply didn't know. Maybe telling him was no big  deal: if he didn't want children, he'd pay no more attention to Marise  now than he had since her conception.

Lia gritted her teeth. She'd despise Seth if he neglected her daughter that way.                       
       
           



       

After showering the salt from her hair and skin, Lia dressed in shorts  and a brief top, and took her precious Stradivarius violin from its  case. The truths of music had always sustained her in times of trouble;  perhaps they'd help her now. She tuned the violin and began to play,  standing by the window of her bedroom with its view of jade-green sea  and gently swaying palm trees.

She should practice the Brahms she'd be playing in Vienna next week.  Instead she let her mind wander, drifting from melody to melody, pouring  into the music all her confusion and pain.

How could one man have so much power over her?





CHAPTER EIGHT





SETH had gone to the Reef Room for breakfast, burying his nose in the  newspaper and eating the food as if it was so much sawdust. He'd done  the right thing by ousting Lia from his life. So why did he feel like a  number-one louse?

He rattled the papers irritably, trying to concentrate on the latest  uprising in the Philippines. But Lia's face kept intruding itself  between him and the newsprint. She'd fought, but she hadn't begged.  She'd been hurt, but she hadn't cried.

He wanted her as he'd wanted no other woman in his life.

Was she right? Was he still in thrall to his parents? One thing he knew:  when he got home, he was driving straight to the huge stone mansion  where he'd grown up and confronting his mother about the letters. His  father would never have tampered with Seth's mail; but Eleonore could  have, Seth thought, sickened. She'd have seen Lia as a penniless  musician after the Talbot money; but did that mean she'd behaved so  underhandedly? So maliciously?