An Imperfect Affair

by Natalie Fox

  ‘A man who what?’ he pressed urgently, his eyes searching hers and not understanding.

  Somehow she found the strength to tear herself away from him. She couldn’t face him and tell him the truth, that she hated him for denying his own daughter and the mother who had borne her.

  He caught her at the bedroom door and swung her round so viciously that she feared for her life and that of the baby within her. That fear manifested itself with an angry explosion.

  ‘I hate you, Rupert Scott. You are a cruel, wicked man. You have a daughter...’

  She thought he was going to kill her. His eyes hardened to shards of cold metal and his grip was so fierce that her blood stopped coursing.

  ‘A daughter!’ he growled, and then his whole body slackened. His face was suddenly grey and then he did something so totally unexpected that it threw her completely.

  He gathered her into his arms and held her head against his shoulder. His breathing was heavy and his heart beat loud, and a deep tremor seemed to reverberate through his whole body.

  ‘Dear God, am I going to pay for this for the rest of my life?’ he whispered against her.

  A great sickness rose inside Verity, so fiercely that she felt dizzy and weak with it. Even now he couldn’t face his responsibility; even now he felt he was the wronged one.

  She was crushed against him and unable to move, and when he spoke again the dizziness sped upwards and outwards.

  ‘She told you, didn’t she?’ he whispered. ‘But I bet she didn’t tell you the child isn’t mine—’

  Verity came round. Slowly and swimmingly. She was flat out on her bed and someone was sitting on the edge of the bed, bathing her hot brow. The sickness was fading and life was seeping back into her bones.

  ‘Rupert,’ she whispered, and blinked open her exhausted eyes. She wished she felt stronger.

  ‘I’m here, darling. I think you fainted, but I’ve never seen anyone faint before.’

  ‘I fainted,’ she murmured. Hadn’t the doctor warned her to ease up? She licked her dry lips. ‘Tell me it’s true, Rupert.’

  He smiled down at her. ‘It’s true, darling; you just went white and slid down and I caught you.’

  She tried to laugh but it gurgled in her throat. She felt as if she’d swallowed a hammer.

  ‘I didn’t mean that. You said...just before I went silly and feminine... you said the... the child wasn’t...’ Perhaps she hadn’t heard it at all; perhaps wishful thinking had spurred those words to her ears.

  Rupert took both her hands and clasped them in his. ‘The child isn’t mine, darling. Did she tell you it was?’

  Verity nodded. ‘I couldn’t bear it, Rupert, the thought that you didn’t want to know your own daughter.’ She bit her lip because she had shown no trust in him. ‘I...hated you for it. I believed her, you see, and now I hate myself.’ The tears welled again and she gulped. ‘Oh, Rupert, I believed her, a woman I’d never met before, a woman so screwed up with revenge...’

  ‘Stop it, darling,’ he ordered softly. ‘Don’t torture yourself.’

  ‘But Rupert, why didn’t you tell me?’ She searched his handsome, drawn face for an answer but didn’t find it. He spoke it instead.

  ‘I couldn’t talk about it, Verity; maybe in time I would have told you, but the trauma was so deep-seated and she was still putting on such pressure. I’ve had two years of hell with her and at times I thought it would never be over.’

  ‘You thought it was over when you asked me to come and live with you, though.’

  He nodded his dark head. ‘After El Molino I knew I wanted you in my life forever, but I wanted the past debris of my life cleared out of the way to be able to offer you all that I wanted to. Even when I knew I was in love with you there, I wasn’t emotionally free to offer you anything. When Sarah left—’

  ‘She said you threw her out.’

  He gave her a thin smile. ‘How could she say anything else? A woman scorned and all that. When she left I supported her, and when the child was born I supported her too, but I wasn’t prepared to do that indefinitely. She claimed the child was mine but I knew it wasn’t. The relationship had soured long before and I was away at the time she must have conceived.’ He shrugged. ‘In spite of everything, I felt sorry for her, and for a long time I blamed myself. If I’d given her more of my time and love she wouldn’t have sought solace elsewhere, but the feeling wasn’t there, you see.’

  ‘I understand,’ Verity murmured. ‘You felt responsible.’

  ‘And paid for my weakness.’

  ‘It wasn’t weakness, Rupert. You must have cared for her at one time and you just couldn’t cut off that caring because she had done wrong. And there was a child to be considered, even if it wasn’t yours, you wouldn’t have seen it suffer.’

  ‘No, it was an innocent being in all this.’

  ‘But when you asked me to live with you you said you were freer.’

  ‘I thought I was. I told Sarah I wasn’t prepared to keep her forever and the father should take some responsibility. She then told me who who it was— my advertising director. I sacked him—’

  ‘Oh.’ It hurt her to think he’d done that.

  Rupert smiled. ‘Don’t take that the wrong way, but the bastard was encouraging her to squeeze more money out of me.’

  ‘They were conspiring together?’

  He nodded. ‘Not a very pleasant discovery,’ he husked, and she suddenly realised all that he must have been through. No wonder he had seemed distanced from her at times. And she had actually felt sorry for poor Sarah.

  She smiled suddenly at a new realisation.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Rupert asked, smoothing her hands, which were still clasped in his.

  ‘Well, you’ve put in a new advertising director and he’s having talks with my cousin, Stuart.’

  Rupert threw his head back and laughed out loud. ‘It’s an ill wind...’

  She grinned and pinched the back of his hand. ‘When I heard, I thought you’d done it for me.’

  ‘And I would have done in time, darling,’ he told her, still laughing. ‘But the other way is best—let Stuart earn the favours, not try to buy them with his beautiful cousin.’ He bent down and kissed her lips then, and Verity responded by throwing her arms around his neck. They broke off at last and Rupert spoke huskily. ‘It’s all over now, my dearest love. We are free, and you do love me, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never told you, have I?’

  ‘Not in words.’

  ‘Oh, I love you, Rupert. So very, very much. I always have.’

  ‘Have you?’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, not at the dinner party or the restaurant. I thought you were pretty grim and moody.’

  ‘You were attracted to me, though,’ he persisted hopefully.

  She had been, although she had buried it, not wanting to get involved so soon after her other disastrous relationship, but this wasn’t the time to thrash that out in her mind—there were other more pressing needs.

  She struggled up from the pillows and struggled with the words to tell him. They wouldn’t come and her tongue felt swollen and unable to form them. Would he be angry or pleased? He loved her and wanted to marry her, but...

  ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’

  She shook her head and wouldn’t look at him. He lifted her chin and her eyes swam as she focused on his face.

  ‘You...you said we were free,’ she started nervously.

  ‘We are, darling. Once we’re married Sarah won’t give me any more trouble.’

  ‘It’s not that, but...but something more. I shouldn’t have left you when she told me all those things. I should have trusted you.’

  ‘I understand, treasure. I really do. You were confused and upset and...’

  She shook her head. ‘It was more, Rupert—’

  ‘There’s nothing more.’

  She had to be honest with him but she was so afraid. ‘Rupert, please, please listen to me, and I’ll un
derstand if you don’t want me.’

  ‘ Not want you! I’ll always want you.’ She bit her lip and swallowed. ‘I ran from El Molino because I loved you so very much and I thought you didn’t love me. I was hurting so badly that that was why I was offhand, and I was even cross when you sent the roses without a message—’

  ‘Red roses speak for themselves, Verity,’ he told her earnestly. ‘So does the moon.’

  She nodded vigorously. ‘I should have known, but I was so afraid.’

  ‘And you’re afraid now, aren’t you?’

  ‘ Yes,’ she whispered and tried to smile, but it wouldn’t come. ‘And...and I was even more afraid when you asked me to come and live with you because ... because something had happened.’

  His brow creased and she was even more afraid then, but she hid it because it was no good. She had to tell him, even at the risk of losing him.

  ‘Rupert, when Sarah came to your house—’

  ‘Our house,’ he interjected as if to reassure her. She couldn’t repeat ‘our house’ because it wasn’t yet. ‘When she told me her child was yours and how you didn’t want to know and how you only lived for your work I thought... I thought it would be the same for me, that... that you would reject me too.’

  ‘I decided to work from home for that very reason, Verity. I never wanted the whole commitment with Sarah; if I had I wouldn’t have left her alone so much. My love for you is whole and complete, and I want to be with you every minute of the day. It’s why I’ve given you such a hard time over your job. I can’t tell you what it meant to me when I called from New York and you said you were giving it up. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Just the two of us.’

  Painfully she widened her violet eyes at him. ‘That’s just it, Rupert,’ she said quietly. ‘There isn’t going to be just the two of us.’

  He smiled. ‘The serfs? You’ll have to live with—’

  ‘No, Rupert. I didn’t mean...’ She couldn’t finish. She lowered her head and stared at her fingers, entwined in her lap.

  There was silence in her tiny bedroom, a deathly silence and then a sound that filled it, every corner of it. Laughter, deep, deep, amazed laughter.

  Her head jerked up as Rupert got to his feet and lifted her to him. The room spun and she realised it wasn’t the room but her, round and round, clasped in his arms.

  ‘A baby, dear God, a baby!’

  The laughter was infectious and when her head stopped spinning she joined him.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ she cried breathlessly.

  ‘Mind? I’m crazy about the idea.’ He held her away from him so that he could drink in her happiness. ‘Oh, Verity Brooks Scott, what a clever girl you are. I love you so very much.’ His mouth closed over hers and she knew it was going to be all right, and why had she ever doubted it?

  She laughed one more time as he lowered her to the bed. ‘I thought you didn’t like making love in a single bed,’ she giggled as she shifted over to make room for him.

  ‘There’s always the back seat of my car.’

  She linked her arms around his warm neck and pulled him down to her. ‘We’ll save that for when the baby keeps us awake at night.’

  ‘No baby is going to keep me from what I love doing most in the world,’ he rasped as he shifted her robe out of the way, ‘making love to my wife.’

  ‘I suppose that means another addition to the staff, namely a nanny,’ she teased, and he nipped her ear.

  ‘We’ll argue about that at another time,’ he told her as his mouth closed over hers, blotting out the very argument that was already forming on her lips.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Verity teased as they stepped out into brilliant sunshine in Harley Street.

  Rupert slumped back against the railings, holding his arm and looking as if he was going to faint.

  ‘It was only a fingernailful,’ she laughed.

  He pulled her against him as he supported himself against the railings. ‘An armful,’ he protested. ‘How do you expect me to live and love without my full quota of blood?’

  Verity laughed and kissed him on the mouth. ‘That arm is already making a full recovery. It’s acting as if it doesn’t know this is broad daylight and there are hundreds of people milling up and down.’

  Rupert glanced up and down the almost deserted street and then slid the arm in question under her coat to slide over her very slightly swollen stomach.

  ‘Happy?’ he grinned.

  ‘Ecstatic,’ she smiled. ‘So we are compatible after all. Your blood is in tune with mine and we’re going to have a beautiful healthy baby with violet—’

  ‘Grey eyes,’ he finished for her. ‘The dominant streak always prevails.’

  Those violet eyes twinkled. ‘We’ll see,’ she murmured as she pulled out of his arms and stepped into the back of the car.

  ‘Knightsbridge, Eric,’ Verity instructed the chauffeur as Rupert slid in beside her. ‘I want a wedding dress that fits before I get too fat,’ she whispered in Rupert’s ear.

  ‘Then you’ll need this to stop the sales assistant’s tongue from wagging.’ He plunged his hand into his pocket and took out a small, very interesting leather-bound box. He flicked it open, never taking his eyes from Verity’s wide violet eyes in case he missed her ecstatic reaction.

  ‘Rupert!’ she exclaimed in a rush of excitement. ‘Oh, it’s... it’s totally beautiful.’

  ‘Like you,’ he murmured as he took the solitaire diamond ring and slipped it on to the third finger of her left hand. ‘It’s the perfect twin to the pendant, to seal the promise forever.’

  Verity’s eyes filled with tears of joy and sparkled brighter than the diamond on her finger. ‘So... so this is it. Babies, wedding dresses, engagement rings—’

  ‘Just a minute,’ laughed Rupert. ‘Where have all these plurals come from? One wedding dress, one engagement ring—’

  ‘One baby?’ she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck and nearly squeezing the life from him in her happiness.

  He turned his head and his mouth claimed hers in a deep, deep kiss that promised nothing of the sort. When he finally drew away from her he told her throatily, ‘And one official honeymoon.’

  ‘Oh,’ Verity uttered, feigning disappointment. ‘There was I, thinking life with you would be one long honeymoon.’

  ‘Oh, it will be, and that’s another promise, but I did say an official honeymoon—you know, the one that generally follows the ceremony, after the champagne and rice throwing—’

  ‘And the cutting up of your tie and auctioning it for our dowry,’ she reminded him with a giggle.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he laughed, remembering. ‘So that’s where you want to go for your honeymoon, is it? El Molino?’

  She gazed deep into his eyes, almost afraid that it wouldn’t be his choice, but she knew as soon as she saw his grey eyes mist with memories that he wouldn’t disagree. They had fought there, and fallen desperately in love there, and their child had been conceived there. It was the only place in the world for a honeymoon.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered dreamily, raising her hand to caress his chin lovingly. ‘A honeymoon in Andalucía would be the perfect end to an imperfect affair.’

  ‘And a perfect start to the rest of our lives,’ he told her, holding her firmly against him and pressing his warm loving mouth to hers to seal yet another promise.