The cottage was rented and furnished mostly from the contents of the vicarage attic. Despite her hard work and her appeals to Steven to be more professional, her income had never reached the level she had expected. Steven had needed a partner to stay solvent. He had happily handed over the reins of decision-making to her within the first months. Unfortunately the leopard had not changed his own spots. He still took what money he liked from the takings and lived rent-free in the flat above the shop. In short, Steven quietly went his own way much more comfortably than Kerry ever did.
Her mother was baking when she arrived. The spacious kitchen was full of the aromatic scent of fresh bread. Ellen Taylor had her daughter’s build, but her hair was pure white. As Kerry came through the back door, she turned to study her anxiously. “How are you?”
“I’ve a slight headache still…that’s all.” Aware that she sounded stilted, Kerry went on to say, “Where’s Nicky?”
“Out in the greenhouse with your father. Did Alex visit you last night?” Ellen prompted in a tone of eager expectancy.
Kerry nodded and turned away to remove her coat. Here, in this quiet house, her morning confrontation with Alex seemed unreal. She suppressed a shiver. She couldn’t tell them the truth. It might kill her father. His rigid moral principles would come into direct opposition with his love for his youngest child. But she had no hope that Alex would withdraw his threat.
Alex was fighting for a worthwhile prize. Possession of his son. And Alex was very bitter. Nicky was more important to him than his ex-father-in-law’s health. In any case, he blamed Kerry for the whole situation. The original sin had not been his but hers. As far as Alex was concerned, she had got herself into this.
“He came here straight from the hospital. I’ve never seen Alex so shaken,” her mother confided. “Of course, you could both have been killed and he realised that. He loves Nicky very much, Kerry.”
Her face set. “I accept that.”
Her mother cleared her throat awkwardly. “Nor would I say that he was indifferent to you. Vickie said we were being silly, but sometimes a crisis can bring people together again.”
A day earlier, Kerry would have laughed like a hyena at that suggestion. Alex could have come here and wept crocodile tears had she died. She had the sensation that Alex would not feel that she had paid her dues until she slipped this mortal coil. Her eyelids gritted with moisture. The man she had once loved would not have employed blackmail tactics. What was she holding off on the glad tidings for? The minute Alex had laid down his demands she had tasted defeat. Alex could yank her back. Alex could do just about anything he wanted to do, because he had her trapped.
“And,” Ellen hesitated, “he hasn’t remarried. He told your father that he didn’t believe in divorce…”
He believed in the institution fast enough when he had an adulterous wife, she reflected bitterly. But the grim and pointless retort remained unspoken.
“He wants me back.” An edged laugh that was no laugh at all punctuated her abrupt announcement. “He wants Nicky, and he can’t have one of us without the other,” she gibed helplessly.
A pulsating silence had fallen. She glanced up warily. Her mother had stopped listening after the first crucial statement. She looked peculiar, her mouth wide, both brows raised in amazement. “He wants you back?” she echoed, recovering fast, and she was off in an Olympic sprint to the back door to call, “John!” down the garden so that her father could share in this wonderful news.
Evidently Ellen could not even imagine Kerry turning any such offer down. In common with Alex, her parents believed that Nicky came first. They had implied more than once that Kerry had walked out on Alex in na;auive and selfish haste.
“You did say yes…” Ellen had her handkerchief out now and she was fiddling with it nervously, the unmentionable possibility of refusal belatedly occurring to her.
“Could you picture Alex allowing me to say no?” Kerry quipped tautly, weighted down by double duplicity.
A beatific smile spread her mother’s face and the tears came. “It’ll have to be a register office…” she was lamenting as her husband came through the door.
The die was cast from that moment. John Taylor was not a very worldly man. He gazed at his younger daughter much as if the prodigal had finally made it back to the fold, and then settled down in an armchair by the Aga with an air of dazed and quiet pleasure.
“You were too young at eighteen,” he sighed. “I warned Alex at the time, but he wouldn’t listen. It will be different this time.”
On the brink of hysteria, Kerry stood there, undeni[chably the spectre at a long-awaited feast, and alone in the trap of fevered and negative emotions. All she could feel was a mixture of fear and fury and disbelief. If somebody had told her yesterday that she would be marrying Alex again, she would have had them committed to protective care. But it really was happening, and all because of a stupid accident. If he hadn’t seen her, if he hadn’t spoken to her parents, if he hadn’t endured the shocked realisation that Nicky might have died yesterday…none of this would be happening.
As soon as she could, she escaped. It was very difficult. They wanted her to stay. They wanted details. They seemed to be labouring under the impression that Alex had been so shattered by the sight of her in a hospital bed that he had flung his famed cool to the four winds and demanded that she marry him again because he could not live without her.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Ellen declared as she saw her back out to Steven’s car. “Nicky needs the two of you. Everything else will come all right. You’ll see.”
She drove off with a sickly smile. The tangled web of deceit seemed only to be getting thicker. She had explained about the party and, as Alex had forecast, they were more than happy to oblige. She hadn’t got to take Nicky home at all.
“For goodness’ sake, you’ll have so much to do,” her mother had protested. “Packing, sorting out business matters with Steven, getting ready for the party…you really ought to go to the hairdresser…”
Packing. The word had struck horror into her bones. What was she supposed to do about Steven? He couldn’t afford to buy her out. Furthermore, who could tell what might lie ahead? But her logic advised her that, if she left Alex in the future, he would ensure that she did not take Nicky. In other words, marrying Alex a second time would be a one-way ticket, unless he changed his mind.
Steven laughed like a drain when she told him, and then said, “Fess up, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
She sighed, “No, I’m not.”
“Come on, Kerry. Look at yourself. You don’t look like an ex about to happily remarry her ex-husband. You loathe him!” he argued in exasperation. “What the heck is going on?”
She could not answer his question. What would be the point in dredging it all up? It wouldn’t change anything. She assured him that she would remain a silent partner.
He shook his blond head. “You can’t leave me in the lurch. I can’t manage without you. Who’s going to run the showroom?”
“You’ll have to bring someone in. On the other hand,” she suggested gently, “Barbara once intimated an interest in the business if she could find a niche…”
“A niche?” he echoed in dismay, flushing, so that she knew that Barbara had dropped the same hints to him.
“Why not here, when I’m gone? She’s a great organiser. I’m sure she could learn the ropes in no time. I did,” Kerry pointed out, ignoring his total absence of enthusiasm.
“We get on better as we are,” he muttered, looking hunted. “It’s more stimulating this way.”
When she finally reached home, she was exhausted. Steven had moaned and groaned until he had outrun her patience. He would have to learn to depend on himself again. Indeed, Kerry’s removal from the scene might work to the long-suffering Barbara’s advantage. Steven was likely to be very lonely.
She made a sandwich which she nibbled at without great appetite. She tried to phone her sister, but Vickie was out. She kept on trying to picture herself walking cold into Veranchetti Industries tomorrow. Her skin came up goose-flesh at the prospect, and her pride revolted at the humiliation underwritten in surrender.
CHAPTER FOUR
KERRY wished the receptionist would stop staring avidly at her. From the instant she had entered the building she had been aware of the ripple of curious eyes following in her wake. She wondered how many recognised her as Alex’s ex-wife. The presence of a security man by her side had raised comment, by granting her a highly misleading air of importance.
“Mrs Veranchetti?” the top-floor receptionist had carolled in surprise. She had looked Kerry up and down, pricing her winter coat and boots, her attention lingering on the luxuriant fall of her hair. She could undoubtedly have accurately enumerated Kerry’s freckles by the time Alex got round to seeing her.
His secretary came to show her the way. Alex’s office was as she remembered. It was all sunlight and modernity, at glaring odds with the untamed darkness of its inhabitant. He rose from behind his desk, flashing her a brilliant smile. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting,” he murmured, presumably for his departing secretary’s benefit.