‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ Sarah said uncomfortably.
‘No? Well, I hadn’t intended on having this conversation, but seeing that you’re up for a bit of honesty … I go to bed with a hot-blooded, giving, generous lover, and wake up every morning with a stranger. You’ll have to excuse me for my assumption that you wouldn’t be unduly bothered one way or another what your parents’ reaction to me is.’
Hot-blooded, giving, generous … If only he knew that those words applied to her in bed and out of it, by night and by day.
‘I hardly think that you can call me a stranger,’ Sarah protested on a high, shaky laugh. ‘Strangers don’t … don’t …’
‘Make love for hours? Touch each other everywhere? Experiment in ways that would make most people blush? No need to worry, Sarah. We’re not exactly shouting, and Oliver’s fast asleep. I can see him in my rearview mirror.’
Sarah could feel her cheeks burning from his deliberately evocative language.
What do you want? she wanted to yell at him. Did he want her to be the adoring, subservient wife-in-waiting, so that he could lap up her adulation safe in the knowledge that she had been well and truly trapped? When he certainly didn’t adore her?
‘Well, aren’t you pleased that you were right?’ she said gruffly. ‘I can’t deny that I find you very attractive. I always have.’
‘Call me crazy, but I can smell a but advancing on the horizon …’
‘There is no but,’ Sarah told him, thinking on her feet. ‘And I really don’t know what you mean when you accuse me of being a stranger. Don’t we share all our dinners together now that we’re living under the same roof?’
‘Yes, and your increasing confidence in the kitchen continues to astound me. What I’m less enthusiastic about is the Stepford Wife-to-be routine. You say the right things, you smile when you’re supposed to, and you dutifully ask me interested questions about my working day … What’s happened to the outspoken, dramatic woman who existed two weeks ago?’
‘Look, as you said yourself, what we’re doing is the right thing and the sensible thing. I’ve agreed to marry you and I don’t see the point in my carrying on arguing with you …’
‘I’m a firm believer that sometimes it’s healthy to argue.’
‘I’m tired of arguing, and it doesn’t get anyone anywhere. Besides, there’s nothing to argue about. You haven’t let us down once. I’m surprised no one’s sent men in white coats to take you away because they think you’ve lost the plot—leaving work so early every evening and getting in so late every morning.’
‘I’d call it adjusting my body clock to match the rest of the working population.’
‘And how long is that going to last?’ She heard herself snipe with dismay, but there was no reaction from him.
After a while, he said quietly, ‘If I had a crystal ball, I would be able to tell you that.’
Sarah bit down on the tears she could feel welling up. There was a lot to be said for honesty, but since when was honesty always the best policy?
‘Maybe I’m leaving work earlier than I ever have because I have something to leave for …’
Oliver. Paternal responsibility had finally succeeded in doing what no woman ever had or ever would. Sarah diplomatically shied away from dragging that thorny issue out into the open, because she knew that it would lead to one of those arguments which she was so intent on avoiding. Instead she remained tactfully silent for a couple of minutes.
‘That’s true,’ she said noncommittally. ‘I should tell you, though, before we meet my mum and dad, that they’ll probably guess the reasons behind our sudden decision to get married …’
‘What have you told them?’ Raoul asked sharply.
‘Nothing … really.’
‘And what does nothing … really mean, Sarah?’
‘I may have mentioned that you and I are dealing with the situation like adults, and that we’ve both reached the conclusion that for Oliver’s sake the best thing we can do is get married. I explained how important it was for you to have full rights to your son, and that you didn’t care for the thought of someone else coming along and putting your nose out of joint …’
‘That should fill them with undiluted joy,’ Raoul said with biting sarcasm. ‘Their one and only daughter, walking down the aisle to satisfy my selfish desire to have complete access to my son. If your mother hadn’t lost that heirloom bracelet she’d been hoping to pass on to you she probably would have gone out into the garden, dug a hole and buried it just to save herself the hypocrisy of a gesture for a meaningless marriage.’
‘It’s not a meaningless marriage.’
Sarah knew she had overstepped the self-assertive line. It was one thing being friendly but distant. It was another to admit to him that she was spreading the word that their marriage was a sham. Not that she had. She hadn’t had the heart to mention a word of it to her parents. As far as she knew they thought that her one true love had returned and the ring soon to be on her finger was proof enough of happy endings. They had conveniently forgotten the whole dumping saga.
Raoul didn’t trust himself to speak.
An awkward silence thickened between them until Sarah blurted out nervously, ‘In fact, as marriages go, it makes more sense than most.’
More uncomfortable silence.
She subsided limply. ‘I’m just saying that there’s no need to pretend anything when we get to my parents.’
‘I’m not following you.’ Raoul’s voice was curt, and for a brief moment Sarah was bitterly regretful that she had upset the apple cart—even if the apple cart had been a little wobbly to start with.
She was spared the need for an answer by the sound of little noises from the back seat as Oliver began to stir. He needed the toilet. Could they hurry? Their uncomfortable conversation was replaced by a hang-on-for-dear-life panic drive to find the nearest pub, so that they could avail themselves of the toilets and buy some refreshments by way of compensation.
Oliver, now fully revived after his nap, was ready to take up where he had left off—with the addition of one of the nursery rhyme tapes. He proceeded to kick his feet to the music in the back, protesting vehemently every time a move was made to replace it with something more soothing.
He was the perfect safeguard against any further foolhardy conversations, but as the fast car covered the distance, only getting trapped in traffic once along the way, Sarah replayed their conversation in her head over and over again.
She wondered whether she really should have warned her parents about the reality of the situation. She questioned why she had felt so invigorated when they had been arguing. She raged hopelessly against the horrible truth—which was that maintaining a friendly front was like drinking poison on a daily basis. She asked herself whether she had done the right thing in accepting his marriage proposal, and then berated herself for acknowledging that she had because she couldn’t trust herself ever to be able to deal with the sight of him with another woman.
But what if he did stray from the straight and narrow? What if he found marriage too restrictive, even with Oliver there to keep his eyes firmly on the end purpose? She had attempted to give that very real possibility house room in her head, but however many times she tried to pretend to herself that she was civilised enough to handle it, she just couldn’t bring herself to square up to the thought. Should she add a few more ground rules to something that was getting more and more unwieldy and complex by the second?
She nearly groaned aloud in frustration.
‘I think I’m getting a headache,’ she said tightly, running her fingers over her eyes.
Raoul flicked a glance in her direction. ‘I sympathise. I’m finding that “The Wheels on the Bus” can have that effect when played at full volume repeatedly.’
Sarah relaxed enough to flash him a soft sideways smile. She was relieved that the atmosphere between them was normal once again. It was funny, but although her aim was to keep him at a distance the second she felt
him really stepping away from her she panicked.
‘We’ll be there before the headache gets round to developing.’
Sure enough, twenty minutes later she began to recognise some of the towns they passed through. Oliver began a running commentary on various places of interest to him, including a sweet shop of the old-fashioned variety which they drove slowly past, and Sarah found herself pointing out her own landmarks—places she remembered from when she was a teenager.
Raoul listened and made appropriate noises. He was only mildly interested in the passing scenery. Small villages in far-off rural places did very little for him. If anything they were an unwelcome reminder of how insular people could be in the country—growing up as one of the children from the foster home in a town not dissimilar to several they had already driven through had been a surefire case of being sentenced without benefit of a jury.
Mostly, though, Raoul was trying to remain sanguine after her revelation that she had already prejudiced her parents against him.
His temper was distinctly frayed at the seams by the time he pulled up in front of a pleasant detached house on the outskirts of a picturesque town—the sort of town that he imagined Sarah would have found as dull as dishwater the older she became.
‘Don’t expect anything fancy,’ she warned him, as the car slowed to a halt on the gravelled drive.
‘After the build-up you’ve given your parents, believe me—I’m not expecting anything at all.’
Sarah flinched at the icy coldness in his voice.
‘I did you a favour,’ she whispered defensively, because she could think of no way of extricating herself from her lie. ‘It saves you having to pretend.’
‘There are times,’ Raoul said, before launching himself out of the car, ‘when I really wonder what the hell makes you tick, Sarah.’
He moved round to the boot, extracting their various cases, and slammed it shut—hard—just as Oliver, released from the restrictions of his car seat, flew up the drive towards the middle-aged couple now standing on their doorstep to throw himself at them. Sarah was following Oliver, arms wide open to receive their hugs.
Raoul took it all in through narrowed eyes as he began walking towards the house. Her father was stocky, his hair thinning, and her mother was an older version of Sarah, with the same flyaway hair caught in a loose bun, tendrils escaping all over the place just as her daughter’s did, and wearing a long flowered skirt and a short-sleeved top with a thin pink cardigan. She was as slender as her husband was rotund, and she had Sarah’s smile. Ready, warm, appealing.
So, he thought grimly, these were the people she had decided to disabuse. Two loving parents who had probably spent their entire lives waiting for the day their much loved only daughter would get married, settle down … only to hear that the getting married and settling down wasn’t quite the kind they had had in mind.
Making his mind up, he walked towards them. The smile on his face betrayed nothing of what was going through his head.
‘So nice to meet you …’ He slung his arm over Sarah’s shoulder and pulled her against him, feeling the tension in her body like a tangible electric current. Very deliberately, he moved his hand to caress the back of her neck under the tumble of fair hair. ‘Sarah’s told me so much about you both …’ He looked down at her and pressed his thumb against the side of her neck, obliging her to look up at him. Her big green eyes were wary. ‘Haven’t you, sweetheart …?’
What was he playing at? Whatever it was, he was managing to blow a hole in her composure.
The gestures of affection hadn’t stopped at the front door.
Yes, there had been moments of reprieve during the course of the afternoon, when Oliver had demanded attention and when she’d gone into the kitchen to help prepare the dinner with her mother, but the rest of the time …
On the sofa he was there next to her, his arm along the back, his fingers idly brushing her neck, while he played the perfect son-in-law-to-be by engaging her parents in all aspects of conversation which he knew would interest them.
She realised how much she had confided in him about her background, because now every scrap of received information had come home to roost. He quizzed them about her childhood. He produced anecdotes about things he remembered having been told like a magician pulling rabbits from a hat. He recalled something she had said in passing about her father always wanting to do something with bees, and much of their time, as they sat at the dinner table, was taken up with a discussion on the pros and cons of bee-keeping, about which he seemed to be indecently well informed.
Even if she had told her parents the truth about their relationship they would have been hard pressed to believe her based on Raoul’s performance.
He engaged them on every level, and when she showed signs of taking a back seat he made sure to drag her right back into the conversation—usually by beginning his remark pointedly with the words, ‘Do you remember, darling …?’
Every reminder brought back a fuzzy familiarity that further undermined her composure. He talked at length about the compound in Africa, and revealed what she had known from that random communication she had glimpsed ages ago—that he contributed a great deal to the compound. He listed all the improvements that had been made over time, and confided that he had actually employed someone to oversee the funding.
‘Those were some of the most carefree months in my entire life,’ he admitted, and she knew that he was telling the absolute truth.
The complex, three-dimensional, utterly wonderful man she had fallen deeply in love with was well and truly out of the box in which she had tried, vainly, to shove him. Holding back the effect he had on her was like trying to shore up a dam with a toothpick.
The bedroom in which they had been put—her old bedroom newly revamped, but with all the mementoes of childhood still in evidence—did nothing to repair her frayed nerves.
She was as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof when, at a little after ten, they were shuffled off upstairs—because surely they must be exhausted after that long drive from London?
‘And don’t even think about getting up for Oliver,’ her mother carolled as Sarah was leaving the kitchen. ‘Your dad and I want to spend some time with him, so you just have yourselves a well-deserved lie-in! Lots planned for the weekend!’
Sarah crept upstairs to find Raoul already showered and waiting for her on the bed, where he was sprawled, hands folded under his head, wearing nothing but for a pair of dark boxer shorts. Instantly all thought left her head. Her body reacted the way it always did: liquefying and melting, and already anticipating the feel of his fingers on it.
But her emotions were all over the place, and she informed him that she was going to take a shower.
‘I’ll be waiting for you when you return,’ Raoul told her, following her with his eyes as she disappeared into the adjoining shower room, which was small but perfectly adequate.
She reappeared twenty minutes later. He watched her walk towards him, wearing nothing, and swiftly whipped the duvet over him—because a man could lose his mind at the sight of that glorious body, with its full, pouting breasts and smooth lines, and his mind was precisely what he needed at this very moment.
Sarah slid under the covers and turned towards him, covering his thigh with hers and splaying her fingers across his broad chest.
The shower had helped cool her down, but there was still a desperation in her as she slid further on top of him and felt the rock-hardness of his erection press against her. With a soft moan she parted her legs and moved sinuously against the shaft, her body aching and opening up for him. As the sensitised, swollen bud of her clitoris rasped against him she had to stop herself from groaning out loud.
Raoul shuddered, fighting the irresistible impulse to spin her onto her back and sate his frustration by driving into her.
‘No,’ he said unevenly.
Sarah wriggled on top of him. ‘You don’t mean that,’ she breathed, panicked by that single word.
She dipped her head, covered his mouth with hers, felt him groan as he kissed her back. Hard. He flipped her onto her back and straddled her so that he could carry on kissing her.
Sarah arched away. Her breasts ached and tingled. She wanted the wetness of his mouth on her nipples, suckling them, driving her crazy. She desperately needed to feel his mouth licking and exploring between her legs, sending her to greater and greater heights until she needed him to thrust into her. She wanted the fragile balance she had forced onto their relationship restored, because without it she was all at sea, lost and struggling to find a foothold in stormy waters.
‘No, Sarah! God!’ Raoul sprang back from her, literally leapt off the bed and walked tensely towards the window, to stare outside until his body began to damn well do as it was told. ‘Cover yourself up,’ he told her harshly, because the distraction of her nudity was doing his head in.
Sarah squirmed until she was sitting up and drew her knees up, pulling the covers right the way to her chin while he continued to loom over her in the semi-darkness like a vengeful god.
She felt cheap and dirty, and the ramifications of how she had tackled her own wayward emotions slammed into her with the savagery of a clenched fist.
How could she ever have thought that she could separate herself? Peel away her emotions and leave intact the deep craving of her body to be satisfied under cover of darkness? She wasn’t built like that. She was engulfed with a sudden sense of shame.
‘This isn’t working,’ he told her with harsh condemnation.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You know damn well what I’m talking about, Sarah!’ He raked his fingers through his hair. He wanted to punch something.
‘No, I don’t! I thought today went really well! I mean, they like you …’
‘Against all odds?’ His mouth curled cynically.
‘I didn’t exactly say all those things I told you,’ Sarah confessed in a small voice. ‘I didn’t really tell them about the state of our relationship. Of course they know how it ended between us five years ago, but I didn’t tell them that we were only together now because of Oliver. I just couldn’t face telling them the truth—at least not just yet …’
The Secret Sinclair Page 15
