Alex phoned mid-morning, and at the sound of his deep, familiar voice Jenna sat at the bottom of the stairs and tried to disguise the fact that she was crying.
‘I thought we could go out for lunch—somewhere they cater for children, obviously. I’ll be over in an hour.’
‘No!’ Jenna stopped him with a frantic cry.
She needed to spend some time alone, to get a grip on herself after Lee’s visit and hide the evidence that he had hurt her in another so-called accident. He had done it to scare her, of course, to show her that she was still under his control. Part of her wanted to fight him, report him to the police for assault and see him prosecuted. But what if no one believed her story? What if Lee managed to convince the courts that she was paranoid and an unsuitable mother?
She was so tempted to confide in Alex. She trusted him implicitly, and knew she could depend on him—but that was the trouble. She didn’t want to go into another relationship where she was the needy one. Her relationship with Alex was already unbalanced; he was a wealthy, successful and highly eligible bachelor and she was a financially challenged single mother. Pride dictated that she sort out her problems with Lee by herself.
‘Maisie’s unwell today,’ she lied. ‘I want her to have a quiet day at home. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘She seemed fine yesterday,’ Alex pointed out, although in fairness he had to admit that his knowledge of a small child’s health was limited.
‘Well, she’s not today.’ Jenna cut the call before it became an argument and paced the house, her nerves so on edge that eventually she bundled Maisie into her coat and took her for a walk.
Alex was leaning against the bonnet of his car when they returned from the park, and despite everything Jenna felt the familiar butterflies in the pit of her stomach. Why did he have to be so gorgeous? she thought despairingly as he watched her approach, the expression in his eyes unfathomable. His jeans, sweater and leather jacket were black, the uniform colour emphasising his height and the width of his shoulders. She couldn’t drag her eyes from his face, and as her gaze hovered on his mouth she recalled with stark clarity the way it had felt on her body, when his tongue had brought her to the edge of ecstasy and pushed her over.
‘Are you feeling better, poppet?’ Alex asked Maisie gently, hunkering down in front of her so that his face was on a level with hers.
Maisie scrambled off her bike, her face beaming. ‘Alex, have you come to play with me?’
‘Absolutely—if that’s okay with Mummy?’ His eyes travelled over Jenna, noting her pallor and the flare of panic she hadn’t been able to disguise when she had first seen him.
Silently she opened the front door and stepped aside to usher him in, but as she slipped out of her jacket he caught sight of the blister on her hand.
‘It’s nothing,’ she assured him, hastily tugging her sleeve down to try and hide the angry red mark, but Alex ignored her and took her hand in both of his to inspect it. ‘I spilt some boiling water while I was making the tea this morning,’ she explained huskily, her gaze skittering away under the steady watchfulness of his.
‘Lee was here, wasn’t he?’
‘How do you know that?’
‘You’ve just told me,’ he said gently. ‘Why did you let him in?’
The silence lasted for several minutes before Jenna finally admitted, ‘He broke in early this morning. I think he was checking up on me. He seemed to think someone—you—had stayed the night.’
‘I wish to blazes I had,’ Alex bit out, trying to rein in his anger. Jenna had suffered enough, he thought grimly, glancing again at her blistered hand. He would find an outlet for his fury later—preferably with his fist and her damn ex-husband’s face. ‘Where’s your brother?’
‘Chris stayed at a friend’s last night. He phoned just after you left. I had no reason to think Lee would come here,’ Jenna whispered. ‘He wanted to persuade me to allow Maisie to spend Christmas Day with him and his girlfriend.’
‘And his form of persuasion was to hurt you?’ Alex ground out.
‘He said it was an accident,’ Jenna replied quietly, ‘but I don’t think it was. I’ve agreed, reluctantly, to let Maisie go to him for Christmas, but in the New Year I’ll have to let the courts decide on her future.’ The thought brought fresh tears to her eyes, and as Alex groaned and put his arms around her she lay weakly against his chest, absorbing his strength.
‘Darling, it’ll be okay. I promise you.’ His mouth moved across her hair, kissed away her tears, and settled on her lips in a sweetly evocative caress that offered comfort rather than passion.