‘You can stay here if you wish, or if you prefer, and you’re still being obstinate about taking the car, I’ll get Simon to drive you home.’
She nodded, because if she argued she was afraid he’d try and talk her out of what she knew she had to do.
‘If that’s the case, then I’ll see you in the office on Monday morning.’
She didn’t answer this time, and when he tilted her chin to kiss her gently on the mouth she had to clench her hands at her sides to stop herself from throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him down to her.
Goodbye, Andreas.
Five minutes later she saw the Mercedes haring out of the drive as if the hounds of hell were after it. An hour later she was riding home in a cab, out of his life.
CHAPTER TEN
THE LITTLE BAY pony was being put through its paces, and from the wooden fence enclosing the beginners’ arena Magenta waved to the little figure in riding hat and jodhpurs sitting astride the animal’s back.
She had thought Theo might want her to accompany him, as this was his first time on a horse, but he had been happy to leave her standing on the sidelines and had gone off with only the riding instructor instead.
Independent. Like Andreas, she thought, praying the day would be a long time coming when his son wouldn’t need her as she watched the boy and the pony walking away from her now, guided by the young woman out into the wider field.
She hadn’t heard from Andreas since she had left his house two weeks ago, leaving her formal typed notice on his desk, terminating a contract she hadn’t even signed.
He hadn’t bothered to contact her. But then what reason would he have? she asked herself torturously. He had had his revenge when she had fallen into bed with him, just as he had predicted she would. The only contact she had had from him or his firm since had been in the form of a cheque that he had had paid into her bank account, representing what she could only calculate had to be three months’ salary.
Not wanting to take anything from him other than that which was her due, she had almost sent back the unearned income—until a trip to sign on at the local Job Centre had again brought her to her senses. If he hadn’t prevented her from taking the job she had actually applied for she wouldn’t now be desperately trying to find another. And if compensating her for that was his way of easing his conscience, then it was a small price to pay on his part for having his revenge—and at her expense!
She waved to Theo again through a blur of tears as he completed his first few metres of a rising trot. He was preoccupied, though, and didn’t look her way. Already leaving her, she thought with an absurd ache in her chest.
Her brain only half registered a car drawing to a halt in the stableyard just behind her. From one of the open stalls, another horse whinnied softly. Another child being brought to its lesson, she thought absently. The stables were probably very popular on Saturday mornings.
She was just wondering with crushing anguish how she was going to explain to Theo that this first of the riding lessons he had longed for was, for a while at least, going to have to be his last, when she felt a prickling sensation travel down her spine.
‘Hello, Magenta.’
For a few beats her heart seemed to stand still, and then she was swinging round, her loose hair falling over the powder-blue T-shirt she wore with jeans and pumps like dark rippling silk.
‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ She knew her stammering had nothing to do with any problem with her speech and everything to do with the shock of seeing Andreas there.
‘Looking for you.’
As usual he was dressed for business, and as usual he looked cool and calm and collected. Probably going to some important meeting—or just back from one, she decided with a stray glance at the Mercedes. The dark executive image of the man looming above her was doing chaotic things to her already strained and now tingling nerves.
‘How did you find me?’
His mouth compressed, and against the backdrop of the rustic stableyard he cut an incongruous yet striking figure with his elegant designer clothes and his dark hair ruffled slightly by the cooling wind.
‘Purely by chance. I called at your home first, and your neighbour from the flat above was just coming out. She said you’d told her you were bringing Theo for his first riding lesson today and suggested I try here first.’
Her fifty-something neighbour probably would have relished doing that, Magenta thought, deciding that it probably wasn’t ‘purely by chance’ that the woman had come down just as Andreas was knocking at her door. Even here the luxurious car and its affluent owner were attracting the attention of two stable girls as they passed, one carrying a saddle, the other a bucket, before disappearing into one of the open stalls.