'No, poor little boy. He must miss his mother when she's away,' Pippa said, sighing. 'My childhood was pretty grim. I'd have given anything to have a family, even just one parent, anyone who cared about me. I'm sure Johnny loves you very much. He needs you.'
'I'm the only parent he has, most of the time. He's used to his mother vanishing for weeks on end.'
'But she does come back, surely?' Pippa took a deep breath, 'And it won't help if you start having affairs too.'
Randal Harding gave her a wry smile. 'You're older than you look, aren't you? Wiser, too. Of course you're right. I don't want to do anything that might hurt my boy.' He smoothed back a tousled strand of hair from her face, his fingers caressing. 'Or you, Pippa, I don't want to hurt you, either. But I think I'm falling in love with you.'
He knew she was in love with him, and felt a quiver of warning.
'You're so sweet and gentle,' he whispered. 'I can't help wanting you.' He leant his head to kiss her again, but she drew back sharply, shaking her head.
'No! You mustn't,' she hoarsely said, and he looked at her with a new possessiveness.
'You want me, too, don't you, Pippa?'
There was a passionate curve to his mouth that made her afraid-afraid she wouldn't be able to go on rejecting him for long. She wanted him too much. The beat of desire in her blood warned her that sooner or later, if he kept kissing her, she would give in to him. She couldn't bear the idea of becoming his secret mistress; it would make her so ashamed.
She gave her notice to Miss Dalton the following Friday. It was accepted with a triumphant smile. Miss Dalton thought she had won. Her hostile tactics had scored a victory. Pippa allowed her to think whatever she chose. She didn't care. All that mattered now was to get away from Randal before it was too late.
He had left the day before, to spend a week at a business conference in the States. By the time he returned Pippa had left the firm. She had left the area, too-given up her room, moved into central London, got a job in the insurance company for which she now worked, and had found another one-room flat in Islington, where she'd stayed until she had saved enough to buy her own home in Whitstall with the company's help. She hadn't kept in touch with anyone at Randal's firm; she didn't want him to know where she had gone, so she had had no news of him. Until now …
Four years had made few changes in him, although his face seemed harder, more sardonic. That brooding look she remembered seemed darker, more stormy. Was his wife still having affairs? Maybe Randal had had some too, now. He couldn't have been without a woman for four years.
She felt much older, much more in control of herself as she told him, 'You're married and I'm getting married next week!'
'I'm not married any more,' he said, and her stomach seemed to drop out of her in shock.
CHAPTER THREE
Eyes open wide, she stared at him in disbelief. 'You're not married any more? What do you mean?'
He smiled dryly. 'Renata left me two years ago, ran off with a golf champion she met in Scotland. She's always had an obsession with golf. Having landed a champion at the peak of his earning capacity, she wanted to hang on to him for good. She didn't just want to have an affair; she was determined to marry him. She asked me for a divorce, I gave her one, and she married him the minute it was final.'
She absorbed that, watching him intently. How had he really felt when his wife asked for a divorce? He hadn't wanted to divorce her, she remembered. That had never been in his mind. Had it been a shock to him when Renata asked him to let her go?
'I didn't hear about it,' she said. 'I suppose it was mentioned in the newspapers, but I rarely read gossip columns. What about your son?'
'She left him with me.'
That shocked Pippa. What sort of mother could abandon her child without a backward glance? Of course, Mrs Harding had spent very little time with her son, according to Randal-had she preferred to leave the boy behind, or had Randal made that a condition of agreeing to the divorce?
He added a little contemptuously, 'Renata told me her new husband didn't want a child around, cramping his style. They lead a very busy social life off the gold course; children aren't part of their scene. But then Renata was never a devoted mother, anyway.'
That, too, she remembered. 'So he lives with you now,' she thought aloud.
Randal grimaced. 'That would be difficult to manage unless I hired someone to take care of him. I have to go away so much. No, he's at boarding school in Buckinghamshire, and he likes it, thank heavens.'
'Poor little boy, he must have been upset.' The trauma of divorce always hurt the children most, didn't it?
Randal shook his head. 'I don't think he was that bothered, as far as his mother was concerned. It didn't mean he saw her less-how could he? She was rarely at home anyway. He had the stability of knowing I'd always be there for him. If he had preferred to be at home I'd have got him a full-time nanny, but he wanted to go to boarding school. One of his friends had been at his place for a year and Johnny thought it sounded great. He has lots of friends around day and night, all the things kids love-computers, sport, a swimming pool-and he's doing well in class. Oddly enough, his new stepfather has a sort of cachet, too. Sports heroes in the family are assets. The other boys envy him. Renata and her new husband visited the school and Johnny was thrilled. I'm going to visit him, myself, this weekend. I'm allowed to take him out of school at weekends; I try to do that at least once a month.'
'Well, give him my love.' She went pink. 'Not that he'll remember me, of course.' She had often thought about Johnny; strange to think that he had never even met her.
'No, you never saw him, did you? It's time you did. You must come with me at the weekend.'
She stiffened, eyes hurriedly moving away from him. 'Well, I would have loved to, he sounds a lovely little boy, but this Saturday is my wedding day, you know.'
'Ah, yes,' he drawled. 'Your wedding day. I'd forgotten that. And you're going to marry that insurance man? You can't be serious!'
She resented the ironic note in his voice, the mocking smile curling his lip. Flushed and angry, she bit back, 'Perfectly serious! You don't know Tom. Don't talk about him that way.'
'I met him, remember? I have a very shrewd idea what he's like.'
She didn't like the way he said that; he was coldly dismissive of Tom. 'He wasn't himself. The accident upset him.' She turned towards the door. 'Look, I really must be going.'
She started to walk away, but at that second somebody knocked at the outer door of the suite, calling, 'Room Service!'
'Come in,' Randal replied, and she heard a key turn then the door opened and a waiter pushed a loaded trolley into the sitting room, gave both of them a polite smile.
'Where shall I set the table up, sir?'
'Over by the window,' Randal told him, and the man wheeled the trolley over there, lifted the flaps which formed a table, began moving food around on the table surface, placed two chairs.
'Leave it. We'll help ourselves, thanks,' Randal said.
'Would you sign this for me, sir?' the waiter asked, presenting him with a pen and the bill.
Randal signed, tipped him, and the man departed. Pippa began drifting after him but didn't get very far. Randal's long fingers took her arm, held her firmly.
'No, you don't. You're staying. We have a lot to talk about yet.'
'We don't have anything to talk about!'
'I'm not married any more,' he reminded her, still holding her arm with all the potential force of those long, sinewy fingers, reminding her that if she tried to break free he was capable of resisting any effort she made.
'That has nothing to do with me!' she denied, trying not to sound too disturbed by that contact 'Please let go of me!'
Instead, he swung her round, closer to him, his long leg touching hers. 'You were enchanting when you were twenty,' he managed, his grey eyes sliding over her in slow, sensual appraisal. 'You're gorgeous now. I just can't imagine you with the insurance salesman-how does he handle all that fire? With tongs, at arm's length?'
She didn't like the intimacy of the questions, and especially she didn't want him analysing her relationship with Tom.
To silence him she pulled free and sat down at the table. 'This looks good, all of it What are you going to have? Some of this beef, or some cheese?'
He laughed softly. 'Trying to distract me, Pippa?' Bending, he brushed his lips along the curve of her throat, sending a shiver through her whole body. 'You're easy to read, you know.'
Was she? The remark was alarming. She must defend herself better, refuse to let him pick up her reactions. It was dangerous to let him know … She shut her eyes in dismay, refusing to continue with that line of thought, refusing to admit what it was she did not want him to know.