The Forbidden Mistress

by Anne Mather

  But somehow the evening had turned sour. Although they’d previously shared a love of classical music, he’d found himself arguing with her over the merits of a performance of an opera they’d seen the week before. And despite their mutual interest in art and painting, he’d spent at least part of the evening finding excuses why he couldn’t attend a Turner seascapes exhibition that Miranda had been lucky enough to get tickets for.

  The account settled, they emerged into the cool, rain-spattered air to find a taxi waiting for them. Oliver had had the waiter call the local service while he was settling his bill, and Miranda hurried across the pavement eagerly to step inside the cab.

  Oliver accompanied her, helping her inside with a courteous hand. But although she evidently expected him to join her, he demurred.

  ‘I think I’ll walk home,’ he said, knowing as he voiced the words that he was, in essence, ending the evening there and then. Miranda would have been expecting him to accompany her home, and in other circumstances that was exactly what he would have done. And spent the night in her very comfortable apartment, he conceded. So why did that prospect suddenly seem so unattractive?

  ‘All right,’ she said in response, but he could tell by her tone that she was hurt. And curious, too, he guessed ruefully. She was probably wondering what was going on.

  ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ he said, leaning forward to kiss her lips briefly before closing the cab door. He lifted a hand as the car drove away. ‘Goodnight.’

  It was a good mile and a half to his quayside apartment, but he wasn’t worried. The walk would do him good, he thought. It might help to clear his head and maybe understand what it was that was bugging him. It wasn’t what he’d had to drink. Although he always bought wine for Miranda, he’d only swallowed half a glass. But something very definitely had him on edge.

  It was easy to blame Tom for his present state of uncertainty. Meeting his brother again, learning of his breakup with Sophie, should have put things in perspective, but it hadn’t. Oh, he now knew why Tom had come to see him. Why he’d made such a big thing of his and Sophie’s separation and the money she’d invested in the business. Yet, despite the suspicion that Tom might have done him a favour by exposing his ex-wife’s failings, Oliver still felt bitter. And it was what had happened at lunch three days ago that persisted in distracting his mind.

  And there he had it, he thought, striding aggressively along the lamp-lit street, his whole demeanour warning any would-be mugger from trying his luck. Not that there were many people about. The quickening rain had deterred all but the most hardy pedestrians. Thinking about where he might have been at that moment—where he should have been were it not for his bad mood—he wondered why he didn’t feel more guilty. But the truth was, he didn’t want Miranda’s company at this moment. Not when another woman’s image was filling his thoughts.

  Grace Lovell.

  He scowled. He must be out of his head, and he knew it. But the fact was, he’d had the devil’s own job thinking of anything else for the past two days. It hadn’t been quite as bad over the weekend. Andy Faulkner had roped him into a pro-am golf tournament on Saturday, and although Oliver was no enthusiast, he’d enjoyed the company; and on Sunday he’d gone into the office to catch up on his correspondence and had found other work to do.

  Miranda hadn’t objected. She’d told him she was putting the finishing touches to a brief that was coming to court in the next few days, and they’d agreed not to see one another until Monday night. But now he’d gone and spoiled their reunion, and it would serve him right if she ditched him and found someone else.

  The annoying thing was that that idea didn’t disturb him as it should have done. Dammit, a week ago, he’d actually considered asking her to move in with him, and now he was thinking of a possible severance of their relationship with no real regret. No, that wasn’t true, he argued irritably. He would miss Miranda if she decided their affair was over. During the past six months they’d become very close.

  But not close enough, a small voice chided mockingly. Or he wouldn’t be considering their breakup so objectively. Perhaps he was simply not the kind of man to get involved with. Sophie had certainly thought so, until she’d had this miraculous change of heart.

  But it wasn’t Sophie who was making him feel so unsettled, so frustrated. He wondered what the hell Grace had meant by asking him if he found her attractive. Wasn’t one man enough for her either? Dear God, she must know perfectly well that he found her attractive. Physically, anyway. He’d bet any number of men had speculated on what she’d be like in bed. As he had, he conceded, despising the admission. Only in his case, he had no intention of doing anything about it.

  Nevertheless, finding her and Tom together at the house had really thrown him. How often did they make time for a quickie in the middle of the morning? Or at any other time of day, for that matter? It seemed Sophie hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said they were an item. He’d had no reason not to believe her, of course, but until Friday morning he had hoped she was wrong.

  Remembering his reaction when Grace had opened the door, he felt a surge of anger at his own disillusionment. He didn’t need a crystal ball to know what they’d been doing. That was why she’d appeared so flushed when she’d opened the door. She’d even had the grace—he excused himself the pun—to look slightly shamefaced when his brother appeared behind her. And Tom had looked so bloody smug, Oliver had wanted to bury his fist in the other man’s face.

  Of course, he hadn’t. They’d all been excessively civilised about it, Tom disappearing again to get dressed, and Grace offering him a cup of coffee while he waited, which he’d declined. In all honesty, he’d wanted nothing so much as to get out of there, out of that house. It was the house where Tom had taken his ex-wife, for heaven’s sake. He should never have gone there. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  He paused above Vicker’s Wharf, looking down on the proposed new development. At night, the quayside was a blaze of lights, the luxury apartments fronting the river looking cosmopolitan and slightly out of place. Where warehouses had once stood, there was now a huge entertainment arena, and plans for its further expansion were already in the pipeline.

  His own apartment on Myer’s Wharf had not yet been overtaken by the city planners. Although the warehouse below was empty, there were still businesses struggling to survive farther along the quay. He let himself in on the ground floor and stepped into the commercial lift that served the building. His was the only apartment here, but he usually appreciated the privacy and isolation it gave him.

  Tonight, however, he was restless. Stepping out of the lift into the huge space that served as both a living room and kitchen, he didn’t feel the usual pleasure in his surroundings. Locking the double doors that successfully secured the lift in place, he crossed the darkened room to the long floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside the river was a wide black ribbon, dark and driven. Like himself, he thought contemptuously. Hadn’t he learned anything in his thirty-four years of life?

  He’d suspected something was wrong, of course, when Tom came to see him. But his brother had convinced him that the garden centre was thriving, and it was. However, although he’d known Sophie had invested in it, he’d never dreamt Tom had allowed her to sink all her capital in the business. The fact that they’d separated wouldn’t have made a difference in normal circumstances. But it was natural Sophie would need some funds to get an apartment of her own.

  It seemed, however, that Sophie wasn’t prepared to compromise. She wanted out, immediately, and Oliver guessed there was a little revenge in her demands. And why not? She must be feeling aggrieved that Tom had found someone else to take her place. It was natural that she’d be jealous. He didn’t buy all that crap about her wishing she’d never left him. Sophie had always done what she wanted, and it must bug her to no end that this time she’d been duped.

  He gritted his teeth. It bugged him, too. And Tom bringing Grace Lovell to lunch with them had seemed lik
e a deliberate attempt to prove that he had no secrets from her. What really sickened Oliver was the way Tom had left her to attempt to sweeten his demands. Had he expected her to try and seduce him? How far was he prepared to go to get the investment he needed?

  How far was she?

  Oliver quashed that thought, turning from the windows in disgust, but it refused to go away. What was he thinking? he wondered. Was he considering giving Tom the cash he needed on the basis of favours granted?

  No!

  He strode into the kitchen and swung open one of the doors on the double-size fridge-freezer and yanked out a bottle of diet soda. The illumination from inside the cabinet lit his face briefly, and he glimpsed his reflection in the stainless steel door of the oven. He looked driven, he thought, not liking the analogy. Driven, and frustrated, and how pathetic was that?

  He awoke at six, his body bathed in sweat, the covers twisted shroud-like about his naked body. He’d been dreaming, and he didn’t need to think hard to know what he’d been dreaming about.

  Grace!

  Flinging himself onto his back, he raked savage hands through his damp, tumbled hair, feeling the familiar pangs of frustration knifing through his loins. He didn’t need to see the tented sheet to know he was hard and aroused by the emotions his unconscious mind had generated, his head still filled with images of her slim body spread-eagled beneath him, her hands cool and delicious against his hot flesh.

  God!

  With a groan of disgust, Oliver tore the covers aside and pushed himself up from the bed. Then, after dropping the quilt on the floor, he methodically stripped the huge bed of its sheets and dumped them in the laundry basket in his bathroom. His housekeeper, Mrs Jackson, would make her own assessment of his reasons for doing so, hopefully not the real ones.

  The underfloor heating hadn’t yet kicked in and, although to begin with he had appreciated the chill of the apartment, now he felt cold. Grabbing the towelling robe from the back of the bathroom door, he slid his arms into the sleeves, tightening the sash about his waist as he went into the kitchen.

  After setting a pot of coffee to filter, he leaned back against a granite-topped unit and tipped back his head against the oak-panelled door above. His shoulders ached, probably from fighting the sheets half the night, and his eyes felt prickly from lack of sleep. Well, restful sleep, anyway, he amended drily, trying to find some humour in the situation and failing abysmally. There was nothing remotely humorous about his present situation and he knew it.

  This was all Tom’s fault, he thought grimly, needing a scapegoat and finding it in his brother. If Tom hadn’t turned up at the office, if he hadn’t insisted on making a scene so that Oliver had been obliged to arrange an alternative venue, he’d never have gone to the garden centre.

  And if he hadn’t gone to the garden centre, he might never have laid eyes on Grace Lovell, never found himself lusting after a woman who made Sophie’s transgressions seem almost forgivable by comparison. Sophie had been weak and selfish; Grace was both strong and determined. She was prepared to do just about anything to get what she wanted.

  He scowled. He knew that was a hopeless simplification of the situation. His attraction to Grace had been urgent and instantaneous and owed nothing to anyone else’s faults but his own. Okay, without Tom’s intervention he might never have met her, but it wasn’t his brother’s fault that he found himself entertaining such erotic dreams about her. Indeed, if Tom had any inkling of the things he was thinking about Grace, he would probably blow his top.

  Or would he? Oliver realised he had no real idea what Tom thought about his mistress. Yes, he had enjoyed rubbing Oliver’s nose in the fact that they were sleeping together, but beyond that he was totally in the dark. Did Tom think he was in love with her? Oliver’s lips twisted. All his life, his brother had been very good at convincing himself he was in love with a long stream of women, the last of which just happened to be Oliver’s wife.

  Personally, Oliver thought that being ‘in love’ was a self-deluding fantasy. He’d thought he was in love with Sophie, but time, and the acknowledgement of his own failings, had convinced him that sex had played the biggest part in his fascination with her. The fact that she’d refused to go to bed with him until after they were married had been a powerful incentive and he’d been fool enough to believe that once his ring was on her finger, all their problems would be over.

  Of course, it hadn’t been like that. Oh, she’d still been a virgin. She hadn’t been lying about that. But he’d soon discovered that it hadn’t been hard for her to deny herself that indulgence.

  Nevertheless, he’d still convinced himself that so long as they loved one another, that was the most important thing. He’d been twenty-four, for God’s sake! What had he really known about life? These days, he was firmly convinced that he’d been as much a virgin in his way as she’d been in hers. But for different reasons.

  Six years on, he’d had a rude awakening. Sophie’s affair with Tom had briefly robbed him of any confidence he’d had in himself and for a while he’d wallowed in self-pity. He recognised it as that now and, thankfully, it hadn’t lasted. By the time he’d emerged from the Abbey, he’d been a wiser, and more cynical, man.

  Yet, even so, it had taken four years for him to realise that what he’d felt for Sophie had been as much self-delusion as reality. Even his affair with Miranda hadn’t totally banished Sophie’s image. It wasn’t until he’d seen Grace, until he’d met her and talked to her, that he’d realised his infatuation with the illusion he’d had of his marriage was well and truly over.

  So perhaps Tom did deserve some credit for that. After all, he had taken Sophie off his hands, and if he was now discovering she wasn’t the financial pushover he’d imagined, that wasn’t Oliver’s problem.

  Even so, he wouldn’t like to see his father’s business fall into bankruptcy, Oliver reflected, pouring himself a mug of the aromatic brew he had made. Taking a sip of the strong black coffee, he inhaled its fragrance and felt the reassuring kick of caffeine invade his system.

  Then, carrying the mug through to his living room, he acknowledged that if he could do anything to ease his father’s burden—including preventing him from having to sell the villa in Spain, which had been his life’s aspiration, to move into a condo—he should do it. He knew the old man was just quixotic enough to bankrupt himself to bail out his younger son, and Oliver couldn’t let him do that. Not if he could supply an alternative.

  And he could, he conceded, walking across to the windows, pushing his free hand into the pocket of his robe. Remembering the last statement his accountant had sent him, he knew he could, without too much difficulty, free up the funds to secure both the garden centre and his father’s villa—if the old man would let him.

  Perhaps he ought to take a trip out to Spain and speak to his father himself, he considered thoughtfully. He’d only ever visited the villa once, always making excuses about being too busy or having too many professional commitments to make the trip. In truth, he’d been avoiding his mother’s sympathy. Mrs Ferreira had never forgiven Sophie for betraying him with his brother, without realising that Oliver would have preferred to consign that affair to the past.

  He supposed it had been hard for his mother not to take sides, and his own behaviour had hardly reassured her. He’d allowed the whole business to assume much too large a place in his life. It was time he told her how he felt now, and moved on.

  But how did he feel? Positive thinking was all very well, but where did he go from here? He might want to help his father, but he was loath to make things too easy for his brother. Tom deserved to sweat a bit. God knew, he’d done enough sweating in his time.

  And as for Grace?

  The realisation that he would have to ring Miranda today and apologise for cutting their evening short gave him a momentary diversion. For the first time since their relationship started, he didn’t want to ring her. Maybe he could delay it, just for a day or two, he thought, despising his cowar
dice. Until he’d decided exactly what he was going to do.

  CHAPTER SIX

  G RACE thanked the woman who had shown her round the tiny one-bedroom apartment and said she would let her know. But before she’d climbed the basement steps up to the street again, Grace was already crossing another possible address off her list. Besides which, it was in one of the poorer parts of the city and, with pubs just a stone’s throw away on each corner, it was unlikely to be the quiet sanctuary she craved.

  But she had to get out of Tom’s house. Even if it meant moving into Newcastle itself. She had a car—albeit an old one—so she was mobile. And there was nowhere suitable in Tayford that wouldn’t entail an argument with her present landlord.

  All the same, she was becoming a little downhearted. On the rent she could afford, her choices were few and far between. If only Tom’s mother and father were at home, she might have been able to move in with them. Mrs Ferreira, certainly, would understand her situation now that Sophie had gone back to her mother.

  Climbing back into her Mini, she started the engine and drove away from Byker Avenue. There was only one other address left on her list, but she didn’t have the heart to visit it today. Besides, it was already after eight and Tom would be wondering where she was. Her frequent excuses, about visiting the gym, were beginning to wear rather thin.

  To her relief, Tom wasn’t in when she got back. A note stuck to the fridge door informed her that he was having dinner with his bank manager and might be late. Grace was relieved—and impressed—although she suspected Tom had initiated the hospitality. He always said you had to speculate to accumulate, but Grace didn’t know how true that was.

  The phone rang as she was studying the contents of the fridge, trying to decide whether she’d prefer a baked potato topped with cheese, or a simple omelette. She didn’t do much cooking these days, something else she hoped to change when she had her own place. Fast food was all very well, but it couldn’t compete with real home cooking.