His One-Night Mistress(16)

He wanted answers from her, and he was going to get them.

Were the kids he got so involved with through the foundation his  surrogate children? Had a woman ever shaken him up as Lia could?

With a low growl of frustration Seth folded the paper and left the  restaurant. He was going to bury himself in work today and forget about  Lia d'Angeli.

But as he sat down in front of his computer, through the open window  drifted, faintly, the notes of a violin. She was playing, he thought.  Three cottages away, the wind carrying the music toward him. Slowly he  got up, the melody tugging him like a magnet.

He threaded his way through the lush gardens behind the cottages, the  sun hot on his shoulders. When he got to Lia's cottage, he walked around  to the front and stood still for a few minutes on the steps, listening  intently, feeling all her unhappiness and uncertainty as his own. But as  each perfect note took possession of him, the last of Seth's doubts  vanished. Lia had written the letters: her music searched too profoundly  for truth for him to doubt her word.

His mind shied away from the mechanics of their disappearance. Later, he thought. Later.

That she'd written to him must mean she'd longed to reconnect with him.  No wonder she'd been so hurt and angry when they'd met again, here on  the island.

He had to tell her he believed her.

The front door was unlocked. Seth pushed it open and walked in. Her  laptop was on the table, open, the screensaver shifting brightly colored  musical notes from top to bottom and side to side. She must be in the  bedroom; she'd shifted from Tchaikovsky's lyricism to a modernistic  lament, full of dissonance and a wild, unappeasable grief. Struck to the  heart, his feet anchored to the floor, Seth forgot this wasn't his  cottage or his computer; with his mind on automatic pilot, his fingers  briefly hit the space bar.

An image flashed onto the screen, distracting him from the music. A  little girl wearing a white nightgown was smiling right at him. A very  pretty little girl with brown curly hair and green eyes.

Green like his.

Seth sank down into the nearest chair, his gaze riveted to the screen.  The little girl's chin was tilted, just as Lia sometimes tilted hers.  Lia's child, he thought numbly. She looked to be about seven.

His child?

He'd used no protection that night in the hotel in Paris. It could be  his child. Was that why Lia had written him two letters, two so that  he'd get the news even if one of them by chance went astray?

How often did he see eyes of a true, deep green? It had to be his child.

He, Seth, was the father of a daughter.

His heart was thudding in his chest as though he'd run from one end of  the island to the other. His hands were ice-cold. For over seven years  he'd been a father, and hadn't known it. Seven long years …

As he pushed back the chair, it scraped on the floor. The music stopped  with startling abruptness. From the bedroom Lia called, "Is someone  there?"

His voice was stuck somewhere in his throat. He heard her footsteps pad  across the polished wood floor and from a long way away watched her walk  into the living room. She was still holding her bow and violin. When  she saw him, she stopped dead in her tracks.                       
       
           



       

Seth, Lia thought. In her cottage. In front of her laptop with its photo  of Marise. He was white-faced, his eyes blank with shock. She took a  deep breath and said, trying hard to be calm and instead sounding  heartless, "She's your child, Seth."

He cleared his throat. "I'd already figured that out."

"That's why I wrote to you, two months after we met. To tell you I was pregnant. But you say you didn't get my letters."

"I didn't-although I do believe you wrote them. Whoever intercepted them  has a lot to answer for," he said, his voice as clipped as a robot's.  "What's her name?"

"Marise. She's seven."

"Does she know about me?"

"Not really … when she first asked about you, I told her I'd known you  only very briefly, and that you couldn't marry me. She's never asked  your name."

He said with painful truth, "You were left alone to bear my child. I've  never seen her, written to her, given you any money for her support-"

"I didn't write to you because I wanted money!"

"I never said you did." He asked another crucial question. "Why didn't you tell me about her yesterday?"

"How could I, when I still don't know what to believe about the letters?  For someone to have intercepted them-intervened in your life and mine  so callously-it's monstrous."

"Yes," Seth said quietly, "it was monstrous."

"Plus you were so intent on informing me you didn't want children. Never  had and, I presumed, never would. What was I supposed to do?"

"Were you planning to tell me at some time in the future?"

"I don't know." She put the violin and bow down on the table, running  her fingers through the silky darkness of her hair. "That's why I was  playing. To try to figure out what I was going to do."

Some of his anger escaped in spite of himself. "You should have told me the minute we met!"

"When I was introduced to you in the lobby? Oh hi, Seth, nice to see you  again-what's it been? Eight years? By the way, I left your daughter  home this trip. Give me a break."

"You've been acting ever since we met. Lying to me, in effect." Wasn't that what really hurt?

"It's not that simple," she fumed. "I won't risk hurting my daughter,  Seth. Not if you're going to pull another vanishing act because children  aren't in your life plan. A child wasn't in mine eight years ago,  believe me. But I had to make the best of it and-"

The words were torn from him. "Didn't you consider having an abortion?"

"No. Not even for a minute." She added in distress, for he looked like a man in torment, "Seth, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he rapped, struggling to subdue all the demons of the past.  "Abortion would have been a logical step. You were alone, your career  was taking off … "

"I did my best to combine the two-motherhood and career." She smiled  wryly. "Several critics wrote how my music deepened and grew richer in  my mid-twenties. Little did they know."

Seth said, through the tightness in his chest, "You're a good woman, Lia."

Unexpectedly tears swam in her eyes. "Thank you," she gulped.

"I have to meet Marise."

"You're going too fast for me."

"Seven years, Lia! That's what I've been cheated out of. And now you say I'm going too fast?"

"Cheated? But you don't want children."

"I've got one. Whether I want one or not."

She said with careful precision, "I love Marise more than anyone else in  the world. I won't let you, or anyone else, hurt her. Not if I can help  it."

"What kind of man do you think I am?"

"How can I answer that? I scarcely know you."

"That's not true," he retorted. "We spent most of one night together-you can find out a lot about someone when you share a bed."

"I've changed since then, and so, I'm sure, have you. I won't gamble Marise's happiness, Seth."

His eyes like gimlets, he said, "Who's with her now?"

"Nancy. My full-time nanny, tutor and good friend. Marise adores her.  Nancy insists that for a few days every year I go away somewhere to  relax. No child, no concerts, and she'd really prefer I leave my violin  at home, too. That's why I'm here. Not that I've had much in the way of  relaxation."                       
       
           



       

"So does Marise stay home when you're on tour?"

"Is this an inquisition to see if I'm a fit mother?"

He stepped closer, tracing the angry lift of her chin with one finger.  "No. I'm sorry, I'm not thinking straight. I can't imagine you being  anything but the best of mothers."

She rested her forehead on his shoulder, more touched than she wanted  him to know. "It's hard sometimes. The tours are exhausting. If I'm  going to be away for a while, she and Nancy travel with me for part of  the time. But otherwise, Marise stays home-I've tried my best to give  her as normal a life as I can. But I couldn't give up my music!"

"Of course you couldn't." He put his arm around her waist, drawing her  closer. "She looks like a very happy little girl," he said huskily.

Lia glanced up, mischief glinting in her dark eyes. "She inherited my temper."

He laughed. "Is she musical?"

"Can't play a note. But she loves books, and she's already written about ten stories of her own."

Seth said painfully, "My father's a great reader. He ran a publishing  house until he retired, and he's been working on a novel for years."