The Beautiful Widow

by Helen Brooks

  When she walked back to the kitchen Maggie was busy dishing up a full English breakfast. In spite of having had two pieces of toast with Steel and the girls, Toni found she was suddenly ravenously hungry. The three of them ate at the kitchen table, the winter sunlight pouring in the window picking up blue lights in Steel’s jet-black hair. Out of nowhere, Toni found herself saying, ‘Your colouring is very unusual, the black hair and light eyes. Is Annie’s the same?’

  ‘See for yourself later. I thought we’d call in the hospital for a few minutes when we leave here. I’d like to take her some flowers and it will give you a chance to meet her and see the baby.’

  Toni saw Maggie’s eyes flash over their faces but the small woman made no comment, gathering up the dirty plates and stacking them in the dishwasher, before asking if they’d like more coffee. Steel took his with him into the bedroom where he continued getting ready and Toni sat with Maggie in the kitchen, listening to her chatter about the preparations for Christmas and a hundred and one other things besides. Maggie was one of those folk who could talk for England and rarely required a comment on what she was saying, and it was surprisingly restful in the circumstances.

  As they left the apartment building it was bitterly cold after the centrally heated warmth within and Toni shivered. Steel pulled her into him, wrapping his arm round her waist and kissing the top of her head as they walked to the car.

  Somehow, after all the passionate embraces they’d exchanged, it was more intimate than anything that had gone before. Intimate and poignant. This closeness was a transitory thing. One day it would be another woman on his arm and she must remember that. Must try to protect herself from giving too much emotionally.

  It was a ridiculous thought and she acknowledged its futility in the next breath. She loved him. There was no protection against love. The deeper you went, the more it took over.

  The private hospital where Steel was paying for Annie to have her baby was only a minute away by car from the apartment, but it was already past ten o’clock when a starched and somewhat imperious nurse escorted them to Annie’s room. Steel had phoned Fiona from the apartment to tell her not to expect the pair of them at the office until after lunch, and Toni wondered what the other woman had thought. She might assume they were on site at one of the various projects going on, but on the other hand … But she couldn’t worry about what people thought; there was no point. Gossip and speculation were par for the course for any woman associated with Steel.

  When they walked into the bright, cheerful little room that was so unlike National Health hospitals’ colour schemes of green or brown or grey, Toni saw a dark-haired girl sitting up in bed reading a magazine with an open box of chocolates on her knees.

  ‘Steel!’ Annie’s face lit up. ‘And don’t tell me, this must be Toni. I feel I know you already, Steel’s told me so much about you.’

  ‘Has he?’ Toni couldn’t hide her surprise.

  Annie didn’t appear to notice, smiling a smile that was a feminine version of Steel’s. ‘It’s so nice to meet you at last. Come and sit down.’

  Toni glanced at the see-through plastic crib holding a tiny shape that was squirming and making snuffling noises.

  ‘Do you want to hold her?’ Annie offered. ‘She’s due for a feed soon so she’s waking up. Now’s a good time.’

  ‘I’d love to.’ Toni bent over the crib, inhaling the sweet powdered scent emanating from the little bundle, and carefully picked the baby up. ‘She’s so tiny and so beautiful,’ she whispered, sitting down on the chair Steel pushed forwards and cradling Miranda Eve in her arms. ‘It seems another age since my girls were this size.’

  ‘They’re twins, aren’t they? What did they weigh when they were born?’ Annie asked, her eyes—a deeper blue than Steel’s—soft as they stroked over her child.

  ‘Amelia was exactly six pounds and Daisy was nearly five; I resembled an elephant in the month before the birth, but they were healthy and strong so nothing else mattered.’

  Steel was standing, leaning against the wall as he watched her with the baby, his eyes silver slits in the sunlight slanting into the room. He had placed the enormous basket of white and pink rosebuds they had picked up from the florist shop across the road to the hospital on the long broad shelf that ran the length of one wall, between two bouquets standing in vases of water. ‘I take it those are from Jeff,’ he said, indicating the huge arrangement of deep red roses, which had a somewhat garish plastic gold heart attached to the cellophane. ‘Who are the carnations and lilies from?’ The second bouquet was more extravagant than the first and a vision of colour.

  Annie hesitated. ‘Barbara,’ she said reluctantly.

  Steel straightened, but his voice was expressionless when he said, ‘Barbara? How does Barbara know about the baby?’

  Annie shrugged. ‘She’s rung once or twice during the pregnancy asking how I am; don’t ask me why.’

  Toni kept her eyes on the baby in her arms. She knew why. The beautiful attorney wanted Steel back and if she could maintain some sort of contact with Annie, it might be a way in.

  ‘Apparently she woke Jeff up this morning at eight o’clock when he’d only got home from the hospital at six, asking if the baby had arrived. He wasn’t best pleased. And the flowers came just before you walked in.’

  Steel nodded as Toni glanced up at him. His firm mouth was set uncompromisingly and a muscle was working in his jaw. He was angry. Nevertheless his voice was even and without heat as he changed the subject and asked Annie about the food, even teasing her about the box of chocolates and warning her she wasn’t eating for two any more.

  They left a short time afterwards so Annie could feed the baby in peace, but before they did so Steel held his niece for a couple of minutes. Toni didn’t think anything had hurt her so much in her life. He was so natural with the tiny infant, so blatantly adoring that it was like a knife through Toni’s heart. One day he would meet someone who could cope with being with a man like Steel and wouldn’t mind the women who flocked round him, would even turn a blind eye to the odd affair as long as it was discreet and he came home to her in the end. Because he would have children. Looking at him holding Miranda, she could see the tiny baby had awakened something in him, something primal and strong.

  Once they were sitting in the car in the small hospital car park, Steel didn’t start the engine immediately. Turning to look at her, he said quietly, ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Wrong?’ She smiled a brittle smile. ‘Nothing. The baby’s beautiful and Annie’s so nice.’

  Steel being Steel, he cut through the prevarication. ‘Is it because Barbara sent Annie those flowers? I had no knowledge of her contact with my sister, I can promise you that, and I’ve had nothing to do with her for a long time.’

  Toni nodded. ‘I believe you,’ she said flatly, looking through the windscreen rather than at him.

  She was aware of his eyes searching her face. ‘Then what’s wrong, Toni? Because you’re a different woman from the one who walked in that place with me half an hour ago.’

  ‘I told you, nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘OK.’ He settled back in his seat. ‘I can sit here all day if necessary, all night too, but we’re not leaving until you tell me.’ He locked the doors as he spoke. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She stared at him in alarm. ‘Start the car.’

  He didn’t answer her, switching on the music and making himself comfortable as he shut his eyes.

  ‘Steel, you can’t hold me captive here.’

  ‘Funny, but I thought that was exactly what I’m doing.’

  Helplessly, she said, ‘I don’t suppose I liked your ex sending Annie the flowers, OK? That’s it. No big deal.’

  He sat up, switching off the music, and the silver eyes raked her face. ‘No, it’s more than that. You’re not peeved or irritated, this is something more serious than that, and I can’t understand if you won’t discuss it.’

  ‘The
re’s nothing to understand.’

  ‘Like I said, I can wait all day,’ he said lazily, his easy tone catching her on the raw.

  Flooded by emotions as chaotic as a winter’s storm, Toni met his eyes. ‘This is a mistake—us seeing each other, I mean. If it’s too difficult to go back to how we were, I’ll leave immediately, or I’ll finish the new project first, if that’s what you would prefer.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ He wasn’t shouting, but the lazy note had gone, to be replaced by a softness that was dangerous. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘Yes, Steel. I am.’ Her chin came up and her mouth thinned. ‘And you can’t tell me what I can or can’t do. No one can do that any more. That ended with Richard’s death.’

  ‘This is to do with him, isn’t it? The louse you married? You’re frightened of being with someone again, of feeling something for a man.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m no Richard, Toni.’

  Feeling something? He couldn’t have said anything more guaranteed to make her mad. She loved him, she had been struggling with her feelings for months and driving herself half mad in the process, and he talked about her being frightened of feeling something? Her fingers tightened, whitening her knuckles. ‘This is absolutely nothing to do with Richard and all to do with you,’ she said with such transparent honesty he couldn’t fail to believe her. ‘I don’t want to be absorbed into your lifestyle, Steel. To have to try and become the sort of woman you need.’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, dammit,’ he bit out through clenched teeth. He had to stop for a long calming breath. ‘You don’t have to try and be anything, just yourself. Is this about Barbara, Toni? The woman means nothing to me—surely you know that?’

  It was an unfortunate choice of words but he couldn’t have known that. Toni stared at him. Her voice was quiet now and infinitely sad. ‘You were with this woman, you shared each other’s lives, you slept with her, and not so very long ago either. Just a matter of months. And now you say she means nothing to you? That’s exactly what I mean, Steel. One day it will be me you’re saying that about.’

  His head jerked at the accusation. His eyes blazing silver sparks, he ground out, ‘Never.’

  ‘And there are so many Barbaras out there, Steel. Beautiful women, available women, women who will throw themselves at you and not take no for an answer. You’re … irresistible.’

  ‘And you’re saying I have as little emotional maturity as a stud stallion, is that it? All these women who will supposedly throw themselves into my arms I’ll service without thinking twice about it? I’m a man, Toni. Not an animal. I don’t take a lady because she indicates she’s available. Before I met you I had my share of women, but I’ve never denied that or made a secret of it. But it wasn’t a conveyor belt, dammit. And neither was it all about sex. Surprising as it obviously is to you, I do require mental as well as physical stimulation when I’m with a woman.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. It’s just that there are so many women who will want you who are more beautiful and more intelligent than me. I wasn’t enough for—for Richard, and he was an ordinary man. You’re not an ordinary man, Steel.’

  He searched her face, seeking an explanation that wasn’t there, a way to get through to her. ‘You cut me and I bleed,’ he said softly. ‘The same as the next man. And your ex was an addict always in search of his next fix. The addiction had nothing to do with you as a person, a woman. Aphrodite herself wouldn’t have been able to change the way he thought and acted. It was a sickness, Toni. A sickness that controlled and manipulated him until he danced to its tune. That’s the way all addiction works.’

  She sat, straight-backed and deathly pale. ‘Like I said before, this is nothing to do with Richard.’

  ‘The hell it isn’t.’ A vein in his neck throbbed beneath the surface of his skin. ‘He’s made you afraid, afraid to trust your instincts, your emotions, what you feel. He’s crippled you, but in a worse way than if he’d knocked you about.’

  ‘Don’t talk about me as though I’m a victim.’

  ‘Then don’t act like one!’

  His explosive exclamation caused her stomach muscles to contract but no sign of it showed on her face. She remained perfectly still, a flesh and blood statue.

  ‘When we first met you told me you didn’t want a man around because of the twins. You didn’t want them “let down” again, remember? But that was an excuse, whether you admit it or not. Deep down it was yourself you were protecting, not them.’

  ‘How dare you!’ She reared up like an enraged tigress, all pretence of calm gone. ‘You know nothing about it.’

  ‘Oh, I dare, Toni. This is our future, yours and mine, I’m fighting for. The gloves are off. You’ve just called me a womaniser and a no-hoper, the sort of guy who will take everything on offer and enjoy the ride.’

  ‘I did not,’ she protested furiously. ‘I never said any such thing.’

  ‘Virtually.’ His eyes had turned an icy mother-of-pearl.

  ‘No. I said women will always throw themselves at you and there’s not a man alive who won’t respond to that eventually.’

  ‘Wrong. You’re looking at him.’

  She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I don’t want that sort of pressure when I’m with someone, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe ninety-nine per cent of women could cope with it, but I’m me and—and I don’t want to.’

  ‘One bouquet and I’m hung, drawn and quartered?’

  Under the anger there was a bewilderment that wrenched at her heart but she couldn’t weaken now. This relationship had already gone too far. He had permeated her life like the steady drip-drip of water in a cavern, innocuous in itself but with the power to form mighty stalactites and stalagmites. The more she had got to know him, the more she had liked what she’d discovered, which made him a very dangerous man, and if she slept with him, if she opened up her body as well as her heart, she would be lost. She would never be able to walk away from him. And say what he might, she was thinking of the twins too. They’d had one male role model in their young lives who, if he had lived, could have given them a distorted view of family life and love that might have affected them for ever. Fate had saved them from that and she had a duty not to put them in harm’s way again.

  ‘You’re wrong about me,’ Steel said quietly after a full minute had ticked by in screaming silence. ‘I’m like the guy in one of the Sunday school stories we were told as kids, the one who sold everything he had to buy the pearl of great price.’

  Toni couldn’t argue any more. He’d never understand and they had no meeting point. She lowered her head, hating the fact her hands were trembling and hoping Steel hadn’t noticed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, all anger and indignation gone. ‘I’m not as strong as I thought I was. You’re right, it only took one bouquet. But there would be other bouquets, other women through the months and years looking for a way to get your attention. I don’t have a thick skin, Steel, and I wouldn’t be able to laugh such incidents off, regardless of how you might react. I—I’m not made that way.’

  She expected him to say more, to fight his corner. Instead, after a long tense moment he started the engine, saying quietly, ‘I would like you to complete the new project before you leave. Is that acceptable?’

  She forced her numb lips to move. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  It was over.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘I’M SORRY, TONI, BUT I think you’re stark staring mad.’ Poppy stared at her with something approaching horror. ‘He’s the most gorgeous man on the planet and absolutely loaded, and by your own admission he was great with the twins and they adored him, and you give him the old heave-ho. And not because you’ve caught him cheating or anything, but simply because other women find him attractive. Don’t you think that’s a teensy bit unreasonable?’

  Toni shook her head. She’d been hoping Poppy would be sympathetic, but she might have known she�
��d get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from her friend. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

  ‘Excuse me, but I think it is.’ Poppy was standing hands on hips. ‘And you like him, don’t you? I mean, really like him?’

  Toni nodded. Understatement of the year.

  ‘Oh, Toni. What have you done?’ Poppy said sadly.

  ‘Don’t.’ Toni’s voice wobbled. ‘I’ve cried enough already and I don’t want the twins to see me upset.’

  ‘They’re fine, hark at them.’ Amelia and Daisy and Poppy’s two boys were playing in the boys’ bedroom and, if the shrieks and laughter were anything to go by, were having the time of their lives. Rose was playing at their feet and the baby was asleep.

  It was Saturday morning, and the last three days had been the worst of her life. Since their talk in the car park Steel had retreated somewhere very distant. He was still present physically, still polite and courteous when he spoke to her, but it was clear to her she’d achieved her aim and whatever had been between them was dead as far as he was concerned. And following on from this thought, Toni said now in her defence, ‘He never spoke of love, you know. Commitment. For ever. It was a sexual thing on his side. Something that would be short-lived and semi-permanent.’

  ‘Even if that was true, and I don’t think it was but I’ll come on to that in a minute, I’d still say you were the luckiest woman alive. Again by your own admission he was sweet and thoughtful and not at all the big I am, like some men would be in his position, and you’d have had a fabulous time together. He’d have wined and dined you and the bedding part would have been out of this world.’

  ‘Poppy—’ She didn’t think she could take any more of this.

  ‘But I think it was more than that with him. See it from his side for a moment, Toni. Right from the word go you made it clear you were off limits because of what had happened with Richard and you being a single mother and everything, and so why would the poor guy say anything about for ever with you liable to run screaming if he did? He did the softly-softly routine for your sake. He didn’t give into his macho desires and take you on the office desk or in his chair or anywhere else he’d no doubt fantasised about, he let you get to know him, really know him. Now we all know men mostly think with a part of their anatomy a lot lower than their heads, so if he did all that for you I’d say it was more than good old lust driving him. And let’s face it, he could have any woman he wanted just by crooking his little finger if it was only sex motivating him.’