Kiss and Tell

by Sharon Kendrick

  Had it reminded him of other, happier times? Triss wondered. Or the exact opposite? ‘I don’t think that now is either the time or the place to discuss my reasons—’

  ‘For denying me my child?’ he flared, his face about as dark as the leather which clung to him.

  Triss swallowed down her fear and doubt. Cormack was wounded, yes, as she had intended to wound him, but why did her victory suddenly seem so hollow and empty? She had expected his anger—but she had anticipated nothing on this scale. Nor the genuine hurt and bewilderment which she suspected lay behind his angry words.

  She tried to harden her heart against him, but with very little success. ‘None of this is getting us anywhere,’ she said, in an odd, trembling sort of voice.

  ‘Too damn right it isn’t!’ he snapped dismissively, and as he looked at her the grim expression on his face filled Triss with a sinking feeling of dread.

  For there was nothing but an icy coldness there—a look as unlike Cormack as she had ever seen. It was, she realised, the death of all his feeling for her—other than scorn and dislike.

  And Triss knew that she had paid the highest price possible for exacting her revenge on Cormack. Because if ever she had harboured any secret hopes of getting him back she could see from his face that any such hopes were futile...

  The first part of the journey back to St Fiacre’s was conducted in a terse, bitter silence. They took Triss’s car but Cormack drove—her hands were shaking too much for her even to be able to consider driving.

  ‘But what about your motorbike?’ she had asked him back at the cottage. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’

  His mouth had curved into a disdainful smile. ‘I have no intention of just leaving it here. I’ll arrange to have it collected and delivered to your’ house.’

  ’M-my house?’ she stammered. ‘But why my house?’

  He threw her a disbelieving look. ‘Because that’s where I’m going to be staying for the foreseeable future,’ he ground out, and Triss stared at him with real alarm.

  Because reaction to their earlier passion was now beginning to set in. And Triss knew that the aching she felt deep inside her was much more than just a physical readjustment to making love after such a long time and having had a baby in the interim.

  For, no matter how loveless the union which had taken place on the bed before, Cormack was still the father of her child—still the man she had loved more than she could ever have imagined loving anyone. And she was not immune to him—indeed, she suspected that she never would be immune to him.

  So how the hell could he suggest staying in her house? And how on earth could she contemplate letting him do so?

  ‘You can’t do that!’ she protested.

  ‘No?’ He raised a dark, arrogant eyebrow. ‘Just watch me, Triss.’

  ‘It’s my house—’

  ‘Listen, sweetheart,’ he cut in brutally. ‘You can stand there and spout a list of objections as long as your arm, but believe me when I tell you that they will not make an iota of difference to my plans—’

  ‘What plans?’ she asked immediately, wondering why all this seemed to be going so horribly wrong.

  He shook his dark head. ‘I don’t intend to waste any more time in discussion now. Just lock up, then get in the car and we’ll talk there.’ He took her small overnight bag from her and began to trudge up the hard, wet sand towards where Triss had parked her navy BMW.

  Triss felt too emotionally overwhelmed to do anything other than automatically carry out his instructions, so she locked up the cottage and made her way towards the car, where Cormack was already settled in the driving seat, his dark profile stony and unforgiving.

  She waited until he had negotiated the car up the steep, narrow lanes and was at last heading out on the motorway towards London before she brought the subject up once more.

  ‘What plans,’ she asked, ‘were you referring to earlier?’

  There was a pause. ‘Plans to get to know my son, of course.’

  ‘Cormack, I really think—’

  ‘And the only way to do that is to live with him,’ he continued remorselessly.

  His words were like lethal little darts being fired into her skin—there was such unconcealed venom behind them. ‘Live with him?’ she questioned faintly, not quite believing what she’d heard, but the implacable expression in his blue eyes left her in no doubt.

  ‘Yes, live with him!’ he echoed passionately. ‘Because you’ve denied me five months of his life, damn you, Triss Alexander, and I don’t intend to let you deny me any more!’

  Triss closed her eyes and saw a vivid image of what living with a Cormack who despised her might be like, and she felt physically sick at the thought of it. ‘You can’t just barge into someone’s house uninvited—’

  ‘But you did invite me, didn’t you?’ he told her in that silky Irish way of his as he smoothly overtook a car which was hogging the middle lane. ‘If not to your house, then certainly back into your life. And there must have been a reason behind that invitation, mustn’t there, sweetheart?’

  His eyes glittered with undisguised hostility. ‘So what was it? Getting tired of the burden of motherhood? Wanting to spread your wings? Some man on the horizon who can’t tolerate the sound of a crying baby when he’s trying to make love to you?’

  ‘If you weren’t driving I would hit you for saying something as disgusting as that!’ she fired back at him, her heart thudding painfully in her chest.

  He shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by her threat. ‘Disgusting, Triss?’ he mocked. ‘Or realistic?’

  ‘Do you really think,’ she flared, so angry that she could barely catch her breath, ‘that I would have gone to bed with you this afternoon if I had some other man hovering in the background?’

  He edged smoothly into. top gear and the powerful car seemed to swallow up the road in front of them. ‘How would I know what you would do any more?’ he challenged fiercely. ‘You’re like a stranger to me now, Triss.’

  ‘A stranger?’ she whispered, slowly becoming aware that her actions seemed to have opened up a real can of worms. She had seen no further than her desire to hurt Cormack as he had hurt her; she had given no thought to how she still felt about the father of her baby. And no thought, either, to how vulnerable his blistering criticism would make her feel. ‘Cormack—I shared your life and your house for almost a year...’

  His mouth hardened forbiddingly at the corners. ‘If you think that I am about to be swayed by your sentimental reminiscences, then think again, sweetheart!’ he snapped, speaking with a bitter kind of cynicism which Triss had never heard him use before.

  ‘So how can you say that I’m like a stranger to you?’ she asked him in genuine confusion.

  ‘Because the woman I-thought I was in love with would never have behaved in such a despicable way!’ he stormed. ‘You suddenly confront me with the news that I am a father—’

  ‘And have you never stopped to ask yourself just why I might have behaved in such a “despicable” way?’ Triss snapped back as she remembered how she had felt when she’d discovered that he had betrayed her.

  He shook his dark head impatiently. ‘I’m afraid that your motivations concern me less than practical considerations at the moment, Triss. Like whereabouts in Surrey are we going?’

  She wondered whether he would have heard of it. ‘To St Fiacre’s Hill estate,’ she told him slowly.

  He had. He exhaled a long, low breath. ‘Not “The Beverly Hills of England”?’ he quoted, in a mocking sing-song voice.

  ‘That’s what the tabloids say,’ answered Triss, with a defensive little shrug.

  ‘And the reason why, presumably, you wanted to live there?’

  The numbing effect of the intimacies they had shared was wearing off, and now came the return of Triss’s sense of purpose. ‘Don’t make any presumptions on my behalf, thank you very much!’ she told him frostily. ‘I happened to buy the house because it is set in almost nine hundred acres of
beautiful green land.’

  ‘Rather than because it happens to be populated by rich men with an eye for a beautiful woman on her own?’ he mocked.

  ‘That doesn’t even deserve the courtesy of a response!’ Triss glared at him. ‘St Fiacre’s is secure and well tended and very, very private. And the gates keep unwelcome visitors out—’

  ‘Like me?’ he queried sardonically.

  Triss went quiet.

  ‘That must have influenced your choice of where to live?’ he suggested softly. ‘I imagine that if your instantly recognisable face—’

  ‘But I’m not instantly recognisable any more!’ she protested. ‘I’ve had my hair cut off—remember?’

  ‘Maybe not instantly,’ he conceded. ‘But certainly recognisable. Not many women have eyes and bone-structure and height and posture like yours, Triss. If you had chosen to live anywhere else I shouldn’t think it would have been too long before someone was tempted by the lure of money from one of the newspapers to tell the story of the super-model turned single mother.’ His blue eyes glittered. ‘With a lot of speculation as to who the absentee father might be.’

  Triss gave a silent groan as she remembered blurting out Cormack’s identity to Lola. But she trusted Lola.

  ‘But I presume,’ he continued remorselessly, ‘that everyone who lives on St Fiacre’s is so financially secure and so paranoid about their own safety that they’ve barely given you a second look. And even if they did they certainly wouldn’t need to flog your story for cash.’

  Triss wondered whether this whole idea of telling Cormack about his son had been nothing more than a hare-brained scheme. But it was too late to back out now. ‘You need to take the furthest exit on this roundabout,’ she told him in an odd, brittle kind of voice that did not sound like her voice at all. ‘We’re almost there.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AS CORMACK drove through the wrought-iron gates of St Fiacre’s, with their distinctive navy- and gold-painted crest, Triss thought that she had never seen the estate look more beautiful or more welcoming.

  It was a brilliantly sunny early March afternoon, and clumps of daffodils swayed in bright yellow patches beneath the hundreds of trees which lined the roads.

  Few of the houses were visible—protected by lush shrubbery and drives which seemed to go on for ever—but occasionally they caught sight of a drift of smoke from a chimney, or heard the muffled barking of a dog.

  The happiness which settled upon her whenever she entered the serene green beauty of St Fiacre’s stole over her, and Triss found herself brightening in spite of everything that had happened. She thought of Simon and hugged her shawl round her shoulders excitedly, her eyes shining brightly at the prospect of seeing her baby again.

  Cormack shot her a swift glance. ‘You’ve missed him.’

  It was less a question than an astute statement, and Triss nodded. ‘Yes,’ she answered quietly. ‘I’ve missed him like crazy, if you must know.’

  He opened his mouth to say something else, then halted as they heard the sound of an approaching engine, which even Triss—who was not remotely interested in cars—could tell powered one hell of a machine.

  She almost smiled when she saw Cormack’s eyes narrow with male competitiveness. A long, low Aston Martin in dark and gleaming green slowed down as it passed them, before roaring off towards the main gates.

  ‘That’s just like your car!’ Triss pointed out in surprise.

  Cormack’s expression tightened. ‘Now what the hell is he doing here?’

  Triss craned her neck to make out who was driving and saw a handsome but disturbingly cruel face, set into grim and determined lines. And for some reason a shiver began to whisper cool fingers all the way down her spine. ‘Who?’

  ‘Dashwood,’ answered Cormack succinctly, a frown pleating his forehead above the dark sweep of his brows.

  ‘Not Dominic Dashwood?’ queried Triss, turning back to get a better look at him over her shoulder.

  ‘So you do know him?’

  ‘I know of him,’ Triss corrected him icily, not liking that judgmental look on Cormack’s face one little bit. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Surely not another member of the Dashwood fan club?’ came the sardonic jibe.

  Triss fixed him with a long-suffering look. ‘When a man is that rich and that good-looking, most people get to hear of him.’

  ‘But Dashwood’s proximity naturally had nothing to do with your buying a house here?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Triss exploded. ‘Why should it?’

  ‘Husband-hunting, perhaps?’ Cormack suggested insultingly.

  Taking a deep breath, Triss resolved to keep her cool. ‘I’m not in the market for a husband,’ she told him with icy emphasis.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t know that I believe you, Triss,’ he accused softly.

  She forced her voice to sound very faintly bored. ‘I’m afraid that your beliefs are your problem, Cormack. Nothing to do with me. You have to turn left here, by the way.’

  He complied without a word, although Triss heard him draw in an appreciative breath when he caught his first glimpse of her thirties-style house, with its stained-glass windows and its oak door, and its red-brick walls covered with newly budding wisteria.

  ‘Is Simon here?’ he demanded as the car drew to a halt by the front door.

  ‘He’s next door at Lola’s. I’ll let you in, shall I, and then go and fetch him?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Cormack grimly. ‘I’m fascinated to meet this “friend” of yours, whom you see fit to entrust with the care of our son. You must think very highly of her, if you grant her a privilege you’ve denied me.’

  ‘I don’t want you coming in there with me if you’re intending to make trouble,’ Triss warned.

  ‘I just want to see him, Triss.’ His searingly blue eyes blazed a question at her. ‘Surely even you can understand that?’

  His appeal came straight from the heart, and Triss felt utterly wretched at that moment. She nodded dumbly.

  ‘Then let’s go,’ he ordered quietly.

  They walked silently, side by side, but that was their only concession to togetherness. The tension and the animosity sizzled between them like sparks crackling from a bonfire. They passed through Triss’s informal gardens and into the rather more elaborate plantings of Lola Hennessy’s house next door.

  Cormack raised his eyebrows as he took in the imposing white building which made Triss’s house seem almost tiny in comparison. ‘This is some place,’ he commented drily. ‘Your friend Lola is clearly a successful woman. What does she do?’

  Lola was an air hostess who had inherited the house from a wealthy man almost forty years her senior. But if Triss told Cormack that he would start leaping to all sorts of unsavoury conclusions! And, quite honestly, Triss was finding the situation difficult and fraught enough; without fanning the flames of his contempt even further.

  Anyway, Lola was successful though not in the way that Cormack meant. She had a job she adored, a busy social life and the fulfilment of working with one of the country’s most popular charities. She also had an outrageously attractive Welshman named Geraint Howell-Williams hovering in the background, though Triss was aware that he had been giving Lola considerable problems.

  They reached the front door, which was flung open before either of them had a chance to knock. In the hall stood a young woman in her twenties wearing leggings and a loose denim shirt. Her gloriously curly dark brown hair was tied up with a red chiffon scarf, although wayward curls were escaping everywhere, and her bright blue eyes sparkled like gems in the sunshine.

  ‘Triss, hi!’ she exclaimed, with a huge smile. ‘I saw you coming down the path! We just weren’t expecting you back so soon!’ She looked from one to the other, the smile dying as she must have registered the decidedly frosty atmosphere between the two of them.

  ‘We—we wanted to get back,’ stuttered Triss awkwardly. ‘Is
everything OK?’

  ‘Everything is fine—’

  ‘How’s Simon?’ asked Triss quickly.

  ‘Simon’s just wonderful,’ Lola reassured her firmly. ‘I can hardly bear to give him back to you. Come and see.’

  Triss forced herself to try and act normally, though she found herself stupidly wondering whether it was obvious that she and Cormack had spent the afternoon in bed together. She could feel the unusually high colour in her cheeks which would not seem to fade. “This is Cormack Casey,’ she said, rather hesitantly.

  Lola held her hand out immediately. ‘Hello, Cormack.’ She dimpled, as if it were every day that she met friends’ estranged lovers who happened to be world-famous scriptwriters! ‘I saw your last film three times! I loved it—especially the bit where she discovered that the letter had never been sent.’

  Triss watched the stiff set of Cormack’s shoulders relax. She knew that he had been suspicious, and prepared to dislike Lola—and perhaps that was understandable in the circumstances—but no one could help but warm to someone who was so friendly and unaffected. And who was clearly a fan!

  ‘Did you, now?’ he queried, though his smile looked forced. ‘I’m Simon’s father,’ he told her bluntly.

  Triss looked anxiously at Lola, who was already aware of this fact, but to her credit she merely nodded, as if people confided their paternity every day of the week, and said, ‘I see.’

  ‘How is he?’ asked Triss again. ‘How has he been?’

  ‘Wonderful! A textbook baby! But don’t just take my word for it—come and see for yourself! He’s been out for a walk,’ Lola informed them as they followed her across the magnificent entrance hall towards a set of carved-oak double doors. ‘Then he had a bottle. And my mother watched over him while he had his snooze.’ At Triss’s raised eyebrows she said quickly, ‘She’s upstairs at the moment, resting—I’ll tell you about it later. We were just thinking of giving Simon some tea. He’s in here...’

  She pushed the door open and Triss felt all Cormack’s tension return as he saw his baby being cradled in the arms of a tall man who was a total stranger to him.