A No Risk Affair

by Carole Mortimer

  Only the hardening of glittering blue eyes betrayed just how angry he was, otherwise he remained relaxed. ‘Caroline is a very friendly girl,’ he drawled.

  ‘So I’ve heard.’ Robyn moved completely away from him, sitting stiffly on the edge of the sofa to rebutton her shirt, flinching as long fingers gently caressed the hair away from her throbbing temple.

  ‘I really am too old for her, Robyn,’ Sin told her throatily. ‘Am I too old for you too?’

  She frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Thirteen years,’ he shrugged. ‘Almost a whole generation’s difference.’

  ‘Your age has nothing to do with—with—Your age isn’t important,’ she amended irritably.

  ‘But the fact that I’m rushing you is.’ He stood up in fluid movements. ‘I didn’t mean to come here tonight and upset you again.’ He pulled on his jacket, pushing the bow-tie into his pocket. ‘Put it down to the fact that I can’t seem to keep my hands off you!’

  Her cheeks flushed fiery red at the admission. ‘Do you try very hard?’ she feebly tried to lighten the conversation as it became too serious for her to handle with any degree of decorum.

  He drew in a ragged breath, his gaze steady on hers. ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted honestly.

  ‘You still love him, is that it?’

  ‘Brad?’

  ‘Well so far he’s the only “him” you’ve admitted to having in your life!’

  She gave a deep sigh. ‘He is, and has been, the only “him” in my life.’ Until now, she added silently.

  ‘Then you do still love him,’ the statement was made flatly, Sin’s expression just as unrevealing.

  She had never felt that she needed to explain her marriage to anyone, wasn’t sure she wanted to now, but it seemed to be important to this man to know. And somehow that made it important to her too. ‘When I first married Brad I had stars in my eyes, was in love with the idea of love,’ she began softly. ‘And when the marriage began to fall apart after only a few months I blamed him, his job, the fact that it took him away from me all the time, into a world I couldn’t and didn’t want to be part of. I accused him of not needing me, of needing his job more—until I realised I had it all wrong, that it was I who didn’t need him.’ There was raw pain in her eyes as she admitted to Sin something she had been afraid to admit to herself the first few months after she and Brad parted. ‘I told you about my parents, the fact that I wasn’t really necessary to their marriage? Well all my life I was searching for someone who needed and loved me, and I thought that with Brad I had found that someone.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe if I hadn’t become pregnant with the twins our marriage would have continued indefinitely, me still in love with love, Brad having a woman available whenever he chose to come home. But the twins’ birth was something Brad had never wanted, in fact he—’ she repressed a shudder as she remembered Brad’s suggestion that she destroy the child growing inside her. ‘Well, he was a man who had no interest in having children,’ she amended, although she could see by the narrowing of dark blue eyes that Sin had guessed at her unfinished sentence. ‘I couldn’t blame him for that,’ she shrugged. ‘Not when I realised it was exactly what I had wanted, that now I had them to love and care for my life was complete.’

  ‘And you no longer needed Brad?’ Sin prompted.

  ‘He was no longer in our lives to be needed,’ she revealed painfully. ‘At least, officially he was, unofficially I didn’t see him for months at a time. We all lived here while he stayed in the apartment in London. Twice when I—when I telephoned him there a different woman answered, and when I told her I was Mrs Warner she assumed I was Brad’s mother! Obviously he had omitted to mention that he was a married man, and I didn’t enlighten them. Brad and I were two people who married for all the wrong reasons—thank God we had the sense not to stay together for them too!’

  ‘So you aren’t in love with him?’

  ‘No,’ she confirmed.

  ‘But there’s never been another man in your life since him?’

  She flushed. ‘No.’

  ’Because you still don’t need a man in your life, is that it?’ his eyes were narrowed once again.

  ‘You know I responded to you—’

  ‘That isn’t what I’m saying, Robyn, and you know it.’ He sat down beside her once again, smoothing back her tousled hair. ‘Physically I’m sure I could make you accept me—’

  ‘You—’

  ‘Please, Robyn, let me finish,’ he interrupted her outrage. ‘I’m not a boy, I know I could make you want me. But I want more than that—’

  ‘After only two days?’ she scoffed any deeper feelings than desire.

  ‘After two minutes,’ he corrected softly.

  She swallowed hard at the quiet determination in his voice. ‘You were right the first time, Sin, I don’t need a man in my life,’ she said hardly.

  ‘How about if one forces his way in?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think he—you, could do that.’

  ‘All right, lovely lady,’ he smoothed the frown from her brow, smiling gently. ‘I won’t push you any more for now, I think I’ve given you enough to think about for one night,’ he added with a satisfied grin.

  He knew damned well that he had! For the second night in succession she found it difficult to sleep, to put one maddeningly irritating man out of her mind. She still didn’t know quite what Sin wanted from her, certainly a physical relationship, although he seemed to demand more than that, wanted her emotions to be involved as well as her body. And after years of suppressing both she couldn’t give him either!

  * * *

  ’This is not the way to the local pool,’ she turned to Sin with a puzzled frown as he directed the car away from the town instead of towards it.

  ‘No,’ he confirmed he was well aware of the fact, relaxed and confident behind the wheel of the Porsche.

  He had knocked on the adjoining cottage wall fifteen minutes ago, arriving on the doorstep a couple of minutes later, the sun glinting on the gold of his overlong hair, his fitted shirt that colour that was neither blue nor green, giving his eyes the same glow, the low-fitting denims faded and worn. Robyn hadn’t needed to be told he had come to take them swimming, and with the twins hopping and jumping about in the background it had been impossible not to go along with the plan.

  Although she hadn’t wanted to. After last night she felt more justified in keeping her distance from Sin Thornton. He wanted a relationship with her she wasn’t prepared to give, made demands on her emotions that would just leave her hurting once he had left Colton and forgotten that she and the twins existed.

  But Kim and Andy’s excitement when they realised the proposed swimming trip was definitely on had been too much for her to deny them this treat, and even now their pleasure couldn’t be suppressed as they sat in the back of the car, the picnic basket Robyn had packed in preparation for their original plan to drive down to the river on the seat beside them, Sin assuring them they would find somewhere to sit and eat the food.

  Robyn frowned even more as Sin manoeuvred the car into the constant stream of traffic on the motorway. ‘I thought we were going swimming?’

  ’We are,’ he nodded.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the coast.’

  Her gasp of surprise was drowned out as Kim and Andy whooped their delight. The nearest thing resembling a coastal resort was fifty miles away, and it was last summer since Robyn had been able to take them there. The length of the journey there and back meant this was turning into a complete day-trip, and if she had known that she would have vetoed this idea before the twins knew about it. The knowing look on Sin’s face seemed to say he had known exactly how she felt.

  ‘This is coercion, Mr Thornton,’ she muttered, glaring her anger at him.

  ‘True,’ he agreed unrepentantly.

  It was difficult to tell him exactly what she thought of him with the twins so close, but from
the way he grinned at her she knew her expression said it all.

  Nevertheless, she had still held on to some of her anger by the time they had reached the coastal resort, parked the car, bought buckets and spades for the children, changed into their swimsuits—Andy insisting on going off with Sin to the men’s changing room for the latter—before going down on to the beach, Kim and Andy even now down at the water’s edge digging for seashells.

  ‘They’re loving it,’ Sin leant back on his elbows as he watched the children, his bared torso deeply tanned, his navy blue swim trunks only just decent as they revealed the manly shape of him. Robyn had coloured shyly when he first emerged with Andy at his side, and even now she had difficulty looking at his blatant masculinity.

  Her own costume wasn’t much better, she knew, a one-piece suit from her early married life, not exactly fitted to her fuller breasts. And her blushes had increased as Sin took full inventory of her slender curves, his body reacting in a totally male way, much to her dismay. The twins had been innocently unaware of the sharp sexual tension that suddenly spiced the air between Sin and their mother, chatting happily as they ran on ahead. But Robyn couldn’t help but be aware of it, and her skin had tingled as Sin slowly ran his hand down her arm to capture her fingers with his, his grip tight as she would have pulled away. Once again the children saw nothing unusual in their mother holding hands with the tall golden man they were fast coming to adore, and so she had given up any effort of trying to escape, knowing it was futile anyway.

  ‘Weren’t they supposed to?’ she snapped, at last able to retaliate as she wanted to now that Kim and Andy were out of ear-shot.

  He turned to look at her with steady blue eyes. ‘I thought we all were.’

  Robyn sighed her impatience. ‘You aren’t playing fair, and you know it.’

  ‘Sorry?’ he prompted softly.

  ‘Using the twins to trick me into this day together—’

  ‘Is that what you think I did?’ he rasped, his face suddenly hard.

  She flushed at his unusual display of anger. ‘Well of course it is. You knew Kim and Andy would think you a friend for life for taking them out like this, and after last night you must also know I wouldn’t want to come.’

  ‘Last night?’ he repeated slowly. ‘What happened last night?’

  She searched his face in disbelief, meeting only bland enquiry. ‘I told you I didn’t want you in my life—’

  He shook his head. ‘You told me you didn’t think that you did. And I’ve never been known to give up when there’s an element of doubt.’

  ‘There isn’t!’

  ‘I happen to think otherwise.’

  ‘I don’t care what you think, I don’t want—’

  ‘Were you always this much of a coward?’ he cut in conversationally.

  ‘Coward!’ she spluttered her indignation.

  Sin nodded. ‘With your emotions. Oh I’ll admit that you have to be a pretty gutsy lady to have brought up Kim and Andy on your own, but by your own admission they’re the only people you feel able to care about.’

  ‘I wish I’d never told you that,’ she glared at him fiercely for reminding her of it.

  ‘Maybe you do, but it’s too late to retract it now. Can’t you see,’ he turned on his side, pinning her to the spot on the blanket at his side, the spot they had chosen lay sheltered from the sea-breeze and far enough away from their nearest fellow sun-worshippers to give some degree of privacy, ‘that there’s no risk involved in loving children, that you can give to them unreservedly and not fear rejection. Loving an adult takes more courage.’

  ‘Love!’ she repeated scornfully. ‘We aren’t talking about love, we’re just talking about sex.’

  ‘It’s all in the same package between a man and a woman.’

  ’Rubbish!’

  ‘Maybe to your suppressed little mind it isn’t, but—’

  ‘I am not suppressed!’ Maybe it was because he had used the same description she herself had used the previous evening that she felt so furiously angry. Whatever the reason she was angrier than she could ever remember being before. ‘You’re the one who has problems,’ she scoffed.

  ‘Me?’ his brows rose.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded agitatedly. ‘Why else would you need to antagonise a reaction from a woman?’

  He looked at her coldly for several long minutes before rising agilely to his feet. ‘I think the children could do with a little company,’ he said before striding off without so much as a backward glance.

  Robyn’s gaze followed him frustratedly, knowing that things were in no way resolved between them. And she wanted them resolved, didn’t like the hunted feeling he gave her. Hadn’t she made her position clear last night? Obviously not. How dare he call her a coward! Was it cowardly not to want an affair with a man who would ultimately walk out on her? But he said he didn’t just want an affair with her. What else could he want, he wouldn’t be here long enough for them to form any deeper relationship.

  And why was she sitting here doing all this soul-searching? She had nothing to reproach herself about, no reason to feel guilty just because she had rejected the man’s advances. Sin Thornton had no right to come along and turn her life upside-down in this way!

  Once she joined them all at the sea-edge she made an effort to put her earlier conversation with Sin out of her mind, was determined to enjoy herself for the children’s sake. Sin was a little stiff with her to start with, but his easygoing nature precluded him bearing a grudge for any length of time, and by the time they drove home in the early evening, the twins already asleep in the back of the car, the earlier scene on the beach might not have occurred.

  ‘They’re lovely children,’ Sin told her softly.

  She eyed him warily, this the first time they had spoken privately since that last tense conversation. ‘Yes,’ she agreed guardedly.

  ‘You must be proud of them.’

  ‘I am,’ she nodded, wondering where all this was leading to.

  ‘And Brad,’ he added hardly, ‘is he proud of them too?’

  She stiffened at this personal question. ‘Of course. Why do you ask?’ she questioned tautly.

  Sin shrugged. ‘Andy happened to mention that he had never been on a beach with his father—’

  ‘Happened to mention?’ she scoffed angrily. ‘It isn’t the sort of thing he would “happen” to mention!’

  ‘Meaning I must have prompted him into it?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘You’re right,’ Sin sighed. ‘I did.’

  ‘Why?’ she frowned.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he admitted huskily.

  To Robyn’s relief she saw they were almost home. When she had first met Sin yesterday morning she had thought him outrageously flirtatious in a teasing way, and yet each time they talked things became so serious. With Kim and Andy he was a different man entirely, and she wished in a way that she could be included in that light-hearted banter.

  ‘I’ll help you carry them inside,’ he told her softly after parking in her driveway, the twins not even stirring as he carried first one and then the other into the house and up the stairs to their room.

  Robyn eyed him warily across the lounge once she had returned down the stairs, having somehow known he wouldn’t take the opportunity to leave while she put the children to bed. ‘Thank you for a lovely day,’ she said dismissively.

  ‘Kim and Andy enjoyed it,’ he finished dryly.

  ‘I did too,’ she defended.

  Sin shook his head. ‘It wasn’t the success it should have been.’

  Her gaze was unflinching. ‘That depends how “successful” you wanted it to be.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘What a suspicious little mind you do have, Grandma!’

  ‘Years of practice,’ she drawled. ‘I must have met a dozen men who thought they would be doing me a favour by easing my frustration the last four years.’

  ‘Not me,’ he shook his head.

  Her brows rose. ‘No?’


  ‘I’d be doing me one!’ he admitted ruefully, the levity back in his voice. ‘I haven’t wanted a woman this badly—and known it was so hopeless—since I had a crush on my mother’s best friend when I was seventeen.’

  Robyn couldn’t help smiling at this frank admission. ‘Did she know?’

  ‘My mother or her best friend?’

  ‘Either!’

  ‘Mother did,’ he nodded. ‘Joan didn’t notice a thing. I don’t think she could have seen The Graduate! I did everything I could think of to make her think of me as a sexually aware young man—all she saw was the young man, with emphasis on the young. It was a terrible blow to my ego,’ he grimaced. ‘I didn’t date for at least a month!’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘You may laugh, but in those days I thought I was a social outcast if I didn’t have a constant stream of girlfriends.’

  ‘Bedfriends?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now,’ he moved slowly across the room with the grace of a feline, his tread soft and firm, his body fluid. ‘Now I know that it’s quality rather than quantity.’ He took her gently into his arms, moulding the lower half of her body to his as his hands linked at the base of her spine. ‘And you, young lady, are quality.’

  ‘Sin—’

  His fingertips were gentle on her lips as he silenced her. ‘You don’t have anything to fear from me, Robyn. I want you, I’ve admitted I do, but from now on I intend being the “nice man who lives next door”.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she scorned with obvious relief, wishing he would release her.

  ‘Think I can’t do it?’ golden brows rose in challenge.

  ‘It isn’t really important—’

  ‘It is to me. I’ve frightened you today, and I’m usually known as a very nice fellow,’ he told her immodestly.

  ‘I’m sure you’re very popular,’ she mocked to cover the leaping of her pulse, the weakness in her legs from being this close to him.

  ‘Oh but I am,’ Sin nodded in all seriousness, although it was belied by the glitter of humour in his eyes. ‘But with you I come on the big heavy, prying into things that don’t concern me, antagonising reactions from you,’ he added tongue-in-cheek. ‘I’m not usually this obvious.’