A Passionate Proposition

by Susan Napier

  Provided, of course, she could keep up the payments, which were geared high in order to see off the mortgage more quickly. A teacher’s salary was nothing spectacular but it was a regular income from doing a job she loved. If her reputation was so damaged that she could no longer find work in her chosen profession she might find herself in much lower-paid work and struggling to make the mortgage payments.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen!

  Spinning around with her fists clenched in determination, Anya looked out through the French doors and saw that Mark hadn’t yet left. He was leaning out of the window of his car talking to two people who had walked up the drive as he backed out…Scott Tyler and his daughter, the distinctive silver Jag parked in the street behind them.

  She hurried outside, trying not to look self-conscious as both men turned their heads to watch her approach. Had Scott let the cat out of the bag about her visit?

  ‘I was just telling Mark that I thought it was a good idea for you and I to bury the hatchet,’ he said before she could open her mouth. ‘I wanted to apologise in person for getting you innocently embroiled in my nephew’s problems, and my daughter was fascinated to know you were the cousin of a world-renowned classical pianist. Petra takes piano lessons.’ He nudged his daughter forward with a large hand.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ said Mark, giving Anya a smug look, as if he had personally conjured up this fortuitous happenstance, along with a subtle jerk of his eyes towards Scott that she supposed was both a warning and encouragement to mend her fences.

  Anya was still off balance at the unexpected reference to Kate, and barely noticed Mark drive off.

  ‘What are you really doing here?’ she asked suspiciously, shading the sun from her eyes with her hand as she looked up at Scott, the neat circular coil of hair on the top of her head glowing like a halo in the bright light.

  He seemed to have no problem with the glare, his perceptive eyes studying her tense expression. ‘How are you? Have you found any more injuries?’

  ‘No. Is that why you came back—to check I hadn’t developed whiplash and decided to sue?’

  He sighed. ‘It seems to be in danger of developing into a boring habit of mine, producing relatives to deliver their apologies. Go ahead, Petra.’ He turned and walked back to his car, where he opened the boot and began to fish inside.

  Anya transferred her gaze to his daughter, who shrugged, and gave her a cocky grin. ‘Sorry. He found out. I guess I knew he would, but it was worth a try.’

  ‘You confessed or he found out?’ She could see Scott coming back up the drive towards them out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘A bit of both, really…’

  ‘I went back to look at the path in case there was a real safety hazard that needed to be tidied up, and noticed all the fallen leaves, and damage to the creeper all the way up to her window,’ supplied her father as he rejoined them. ‘Since you’re an unlikely candidate for a cat-burglar, it didn’t take a genius to work out that Petra had decided that a simple closed door was the modern equivalent of Colditz—’

  ‘What’s Colditz?’

  ‘A World War II POW prison for chronic escapees, you appallingly ignorant child,’ was the drawling reply. ‘Haven’t you ever studied the World Wars at school?’

  ‘Yeah, but I usually listen to my Discman in the boring classes…you know, run the earphone wire from my bag up under my sleeve and sit with my head propped on my hand—’ she flattened her hand over the side of her face and ear.

  Anya recognised the characteristic pose and hid a grin while Scott growled, ‘Have you made your apology yet?’

  ‘Actually she already did that, back at your house,’ Anya said. ‘Spontaneously. Before your other relative trotted out his rather more forced effort.’

  He glowered at her. ‘You told me you’d fallen.’

  ‘I did. I just didn’t happen to mention it was because Petra landed on top of me.’ She could see he was busting to take her to task, but she wasn’t going to provide him with any more ammunition. Her eyes fell to the object he was carrying. ‘What’s that?’

  As a distraction for both of them, it did nicely. ‘A new battery for your car.’ He hefted the weighty cube as if it was a feather. ‘I picked it up from the garage for you on the way over.’

  She noticed the tools in his other hand. ‘Thank you, but I’ve already arranged for the mechanic to come and put one in,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Not any more. I told Harry to cancel the call-out. Why pay for something that you can get done for free?’

  She looked dubiously at him, knowing she should be annoyed at his high-handedness, but overcome by curiosity. ‘You know how to change a battery?’ He wore the same dark trousers, but had exchanged his shirt for a tight-fitting, v-necked, navy top which was casual yet obviously expensive. He didn’t look like someone who spent much time under the hood of a car.

  ‘All men are born knowing basic car maintenance. It’s in the genes.’ Her contemptuous snort produced a crooked smile. ‘In my case, literally. My father was a mechanic until my mother died and he took up boozing as a career; then he relied on me to keep the family crate running.’ He began heading for the open doors of her garage. ‘Why don’t you take Petra inside to entertain you with more of her grovelling while I do the swap…?’

  Petra was already heading up the path before he finished speaking and Anya hesitated before darting after him. ‘What do I owe you for the battery?’ she demanded to know.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing is for nothing,’ she pointed out

  He stopped and turned in the shadow of the garage. ‘My daughter’s life—is that nothing to you?’

  She took a step back at his fierceness. It occurred to her that he’d only known Petra for a week and, although he might have accepted in abstract that he had been a father for the last fourteen years, he had been utterly unprepared for the huge emotional impact she had on him. He was discovering within himself depths of emotion that he hadn’t realised existed, or which had been long suppressed in order for him to survive. Even though he had been cynically off-hand in his telling of the circumstances surrounding Petra’s birth, Anya had sensed a powerful retroactive resentment of the way he had been totally shut out of his daughter’s life. At the time he had been made to feel that he had nothing of value to offer his own child and somewhere deep inside him a little of that fear probably still lurked.

  ‘I only meant that I don’t want to be beholden to you—’ she said, uneasy with the unwelcome insight.

  ‘Do you think I like feeling indebted to you?’ he asked tightly, his eyes cut-glass brilliant as they scored her face.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, fighting a sudden lightheadedness. ‘I don’t think you do, either. Since Petra arrived I think you’re not quite sure what you’re feeling about anything any more.’

  ‘Stop trying to get inside my head,’ he growled. ‘I’m not one of your students—’

  ‘Thank God!’

  ‘I’m a full-grown man and right now I’m going get my hands filthy doing a man’s job, so why don’t you run along and flitter about the kitchen or whatever it is prissy ladies do while someone else does their dirty work for them?’

  Anya’s eyes flashed. ‘Why, you sexist pig! I didn’t ask you to dirty your hands for me.’

  ‘No, you’re certainly like your cousin in that respect. Kate never asked but she always managed to make it clear what she expected, and those expensive hands of hers never had to get soiled because someone else ended up paying for the privilege of meeting those haughty expectations. If she hadn’t had the papers to prove it, I never would have believed she’d grown up on a farm.’

  She flinched at the accuracy of his vivid word picture. ‘My life and expectations are totally different from Kate’s, so don’t you dare start comparing us!’ she said in a voice shaking with repressed anger. ‘I may not be able to change a battery, but I can change a tyre and check the oil and wate
r, which is as much as most car owners can do. And I am not prissy!’ she was unable to resist adding in a fierce hiss.

  She knew she had made a mistake when a slow, taunting smile curved his mouth and twin blue devils danced in his eyes as he leaned closer and murmured: ‘You always look prissy to me. Even in sexy green underwear with your pretty little breasts begging to be kissed you looked more naughty-but-nice-Miss-Adams than sultry and wicked Miss January. Not that prissy can’t be just as much of a turn-on to some men…’

  Anya’s face was still bright red as she slammed into the house and found Petra flicking through her CD collection in the living room.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Petra looked up at her, the small gold ring in her left nostril glinting as she turned her head.

  ‘Yes! That…that man!’ Anya’s hands clenched and unclenched by her sides.

  Petra looked around, alarmed. ‘What man?’

  ‘Your father!’ It was rendered as the grossest of insults.

  ‘Oh.’ Petra’s blue eyes brightened with curiosity. ‘What’s the matter? I thought he was doing you a favour.’

  Anya breathed carefully through her nose. ‘He is. He just doesn’t have to be so—’ she searched for some relatively innocuous phrase to express her seething annoyance ‘—so odiously superior about it!’

  ‘Well, I guess it’s hard for him not to be…him being such a superior kind of guy and all…’

  Anya stared at her for a blank moment before she realised she was having her leg gently pulled. ‘You know, when you use that sarcastic drawl you sound just like him. You want to be careful; it’s not good for someone your age to be too cynical.’

  ‘You really think I sound like him?’ Petra asked with a touch too much nonchalance.

  ‘Sometimes. You have his eyes, too. What’s your natural hair colour?’

  Petra pulled a face. ‘Brown. Too ordinary. Mum went spare when I did this—’ she tugged at her locks ‘—but I want to be different.’

  ‘I think we can safely agree you’ve achieved your goal,’ Anya told her with a small smile of understanding. ‘On the outside, at least.’

  ‘Oh, I feel different on the inside, too.’ It was said with a quiet determination that was at odds with her impulsive brashness.

  ‘Different enough to make you want to run away from home?’

  She shrugged. ‘Mum would never talk to me about Dad. Even my birth certificate didn’t have his name on it. I wanted to see him but I knew she wouldn’t help, so I looked through her old stuff and found a letter from before I was born. It asked for photos of me as I grew up but she never did send him any—I asked him. When Mum makes up her mind about something that’s it—you can’t get her to change it. Once I had his name it was easy to track him down on the Net and find out that he wasn’t some sleazebag of a loser that I was worried he might be—did you know that his law practice even has its own website? I didn’t let him know I was coming because he might have got Mum to stop me. I figured once I was here he’d have to see me, even if just to get rid of me, but it turned out that he’d wanted to meet me, too…’

  ‘You still took some pretty horrifying chances. Lawyers can be sleazebags too, you know. You could have just written him a letter—’

  ‘And risk it being binned or waiting ages for a reply, or Mum finding out? I had to see him now.’ Petra modified her urgent tone with a quick grin, ‘Before I started having a serious identity crisis that could screw up my entire adulthood. I’m glad he didn’t freak out on me or anything—he’s a bit heavy-handed with the new Dad thing but otherwise he’s real cool, don’t you think?—and pretty hunky for an old guy.’

  ‘He’s not old,’ responded Anya automatically.

  Petra gave her a knowing look. ‘So you think he’s young and hunky?’

  Anya wasn’t falling into that sly trap. ‘I try not to think about him at all,’ she said. ‘Do you want to put one of those on?’ She pointed to the CDs.

  Petra accepted the change of subject with a shrug. ‘I was wondering whether I could borrow these four of Kate Carlyle’s. Dad said she’s your cousin—does that mean you get freebies?’

  Anya laughed. ‘I did when Kate first started recording but now she’s become so blasé she doesn’t usually bother to send them to me any more.’

  ‘Bummer. So most of these—’ she ran her fingers over the rack ‘—you had to go out and buy them full-price like everyone else?’

  ‘Well, yes. But I do get lots of free opera recordings from my parents—see.’ She showed her the tapes and CDs. Actually it was Alistair Grant who despatched them to her, usually without an enclosure. ‘My mother is a guest soprano at leading opera houses all over the States and my father travels too, as a conductor.’

  ‘Wow, so music was real important in your family. I bet you got all the music lessons you wanted from the time you were little.’

  ‘The trouble was I didn’t want them,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘I showed no musical aptitude whatsoever, thereby convincing my parents they had a changeling in the nest. I would have sacrificed all my lessons for a bit more of their personal attention. Fortunately for their hopes of a musical dynasty, Kate came to live with us and showed herself to be such a piano prodigy it took all the heat off me.’ Petra was looking at her as if she couldn’t believe her pierced ears. ‘I take it you’re enjoying your piano lessons?’

  Petra’s face closed up. ‘Yeah, but Dad only pays for one hour a week so I babysit to earn the money to pay for an extra lesson.’

  ‘Your father pays?’ Anya was taken aback. ‘But—I thought that there wasn’t any contact between Scott and your mother?’

  ‘Not Scott. My other Dad—Ken—who’s married to Mum.’

  ‘I didn’t realise your mother was married,’ she murmured, wondering uneasily if that had been the case at the time of her affair with Scott.

  ‘Yeah, they just had their tenth anniversary last week,’ said Petra, banishing the disturbing spectre of adultery. ‘I’ve got two little brothers.’

  Anya thought she saw the light. ‘Is that a problem for you? Ken being their real father but not yours?’

  ‘Nah…Lots of my friends have more than one set of parents. The boys are pests, but they’re OK. And Ken’s an OK guy—he owns a sports store.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m the problem, not them.’

  Anya was about to ask what she meant when a prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck made her turn around. Scott was standing inside the door with a stillness that suggested he had been there for some time, listening to their conversation.

  ‘You were quick,’ she said, thankful that his eyes were resting on his daughter as she remembered the words he had used to chase her inside.

  ‘I told you I knew what I was doing. Can you show me somewhere I can wash up?’ He spread out his oily and grease-grimed hands. He’d pushed his sleeves up past his elbows and she could see a few nicks on his wrists. It hadn’t been such a straightforward job after all.

  ‘Of course.’ She could have told him where the bathroom was but she was so flustered she led him along the hall and into the green and white bathroom. She indicated the pedestal basin but he was looking around at the deep, claw-footed bath—big enough for two—the extensive collection of ornamental glass containers of bath salts and oils decorating the window sill and the fat, scented wax candles dotted on saucers around the room.

  His speculative eyes moved to her warm face, intense masculine curiosity forming in the depths.

  ‘Don’t you dare say a word,’ she warned him.

  ‘Not even to ask you if you have any chemical cleansing cream?’ he asked, with an injured innocence that didn’t fool her for a moment. He nodded at the sea-shell of miniature soaps on the pedestal. ‘I don’t want to besmirch your pretty little soaps, sitting on their dish,’ he purred.

  ...your pretty little breasts, begging to be kissed…

  He was deliberately trying to embarrass her all over again.

  ‘I think there’s som
e in here.’ Anya reached past him to open the mirrored bathroom cabinet mounted above the basin. He didn’t move out of her way, allowing her arm to brush across his chest, nosing with interest into the contents of her cabinet as she looked for the elusive tube of cream.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she said, as he tilted his head to read the prescription off a box of pills.

  ‘You can tell a lot about people from their bathrooms,’ he mused. ‘For instance, you’re obviously healthy, except for a little hay fever now and then. You don’t like taking pills any longer than is strictly necessary, you prefer the silky-smoothness of a wet shave to the mechanical kind, you’re currently celibate, very protective of your delicate skin, and—’ this with a provocative glance towards the bath ‘—you like to keep yourself very, very clean.’

  Currently celibate? That slyly buried piece of effrontery was obviously based on the absence of any form of contraception in her bathroom cabinet, but it could only be a wild guess because lots of women kept their contraceptives in a bedside drawer, thought Anya. She had, during the holiday in New York after her graduation when she had naively believed that Alistair was going to be the love of her life, before Kate had blazed across his firmament and Anya’s flattering attentions had suddenly become an embarrassment.

  Anya grabbed the cream and slammed the door shut, almost clipping Scott’s nose.

  ‘Be careful, I’ve had that broken once already,’ he said, throwing up a protective hand.

  ‘Disgruntled client?’ she enquired tartly, unscrewing the lid and handing him the tube.

  ‘Angry father.’

  She had been about to leave, but he must have known that she wouldn’t be able to resist the tantalising lure of that brief statement.