by Penny Jordan
Her book failed to hold her attention and gradually her eyes closed and her body relaxed into the rug, the warmth of the sun beating into her.
She woke up with a start, conscious that she was no longer alone, her mind still fuzzy with sleep.
‘Gina?’
‘I hope not,’ a cool, male voice drawled laconically, its owner coming to stand over her, his eyes appraising her curves beneath their flimsy covering.
‘Kieron!’ His name was a shocked whisper, her eyes clouding over as she tried to comprehend what he was doing in her garden. He was dressed casually in cream jeans and a thin cotton shirt open to the waist, a pair of tinted sunglasses in one hand.
‘You left this in my car,’ he announced, producing a thin lipstick case. ‘It must have rolled out of your handbag.’
His eyes were still on her body and she forced herself not to move. Since Nicky’s birth her breasts had become slightly fuller, but her waist and hips were still as slender as ever, her skin smooth and firm.
‘You could have kept it until Monday,’ she said in a shaken voice. ‘Or are you just checking up on me? Making sure my migraine wasn’t just an excuse not to come to work?’
As she spoke her eyes went instinctively to Nicky’s bedroom window which overlooked the garden, and her voice automatically lowered. She daren’t think about what might happen if the little boy woke up and saw them.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Kieron said in clipped accents. His gaze had shifted to her lips, still sore and swollen, and as Briony moved uncomfortably under his look she realised that he had suddenly gone pale, his eyes fixed on the creamy swell of her breast. Her bikini top was brief and revealing, the marks of his fingers plainly discernible against her pale flesh.
‘Did I do that?’ he demanded tersely.
Anger blazed briefly.
‘Are you in any doubt? Do you think I enjoy being mauled about like that? Encourage it even?’
‘Well, if you do, you can’t get much satisfaction out of Matt,’ he said cruelly. ‘Adoring reverence is more his style.’
‘Perhaps I find that a pleasant change.’
He reached for her before she could stop him, grasping her wrists and pulling her to her feet.
‘Well now, let’s just put that to the test, shall we?’ he began pleasantly.
Her heart thundered against her flesh, the tip of her tongue moistening the lips nervously, a sensation close to terror shivering across her skin.
His hands left her wrists and slid gently round her waist, his eyes holding her captive like a fly in amber. The creaking of the gate freed her. Gina and Paolo were standing there staring in astonishment, and Briony’s heart sank. One look at Gina’s face was enough to tell her that her friend had guessed the truth.
She introduced them to Kieron curtly, her eyes darkening with pain when he bent to pick up Caterina, who was gazing at him in wonder.
She gurgled something approving, her tiny hands fastening on to his shirt, and Briony was unaware of the anguish in her eyes, until Gina touched her lightly on the arm, jolting her into awareness.
‘I just dropped by to return Briony’s lipstick’ Kieron explained. ‘She dropped it in my car the other night. I was hoping to be offered a cold drink,’ he added tauntingly, ‘but somehow we never got round to it.’
He was making his meaning plain, but there was no way she could invite him into her flat, Briony thought on a wave of fresh anxiety.
Gina came to her rescue.
‘I made some fresh lemonade before we went out. Why don’t we all go upstairs and have some?’
‘I’ll put a wrap on first,’ Briony muttered, anxious to escape and check up on Nicky.
Fortunately he was still asleep. She dropped a light kiss on his nose as she changed into a cotton dress, wondering feverishly how quickly she could get rid of Kieron.
He and Paolo were talking about cars when she went upstairs. She was thirsty herself and Gina’s lemonade was coolly refreshing. Gina started to tell her about their afternoon, when Caterina who had been playing contentedly on the floor with her toys suddenly electrified Briony by looking up at Kieron and saying quite clearly, ‘Nicky’. It was her first proper word and she sat back looking very pleased with herself at having silenced so many grown-ups. Paolo was the first to recover, swinging her up into his arms and tickling her until the flat rang with her giggles.
‘Who’s Nicky?’ Kieron asked in amusement. ‘He seems to have had a profound effect on your daughter.’
‘Oh, he’s just a little boy she plays with,’ Gina said hurriedly. ‘She isn’t talking properly yet. All men are “Nicky” to her at the moment,’ she improvised wildly.
Briony couldn’t have said a word to save her life. After that first awful moment when her eyes had flown automatically to Kieron’s face she had been incapable of saying anything. If Nicky himself had suddenly appeared in the room and claimed Kieron as his father she couldn’t have been more shocked.
Kieron left shortly afterwards, Paolo going with him to inspect his car. When they had gone Briony remained standing by the window staring into the garden.
‘He is Nicky’s father, isn’t he?’ Gina said softly.
It was pointless lying.
‘Does he know?’ Gina answered her own question. ‘Of course not. But you introduced him to us as your boss?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Briony said dryly. These people were her closest friends, and yet even to them she felt she could not confide the whole truth. Once one’s ability to trust had been destroyed, nothing could restore it, she reflected unhappily, making her escape by reminding Gina that Nicky would be waking up.
‘Thank goodness he didn’t wake up earlier,’ she added on a shudder.
‘Perhaps it would have been better if he had done,’ Gina said softly. ‘He needs his father, Briony.’
It was no longer ‘a’ father, but ‘his’ father, Briony noted bitterly as she left.
* * *
That was the third letter she had had to re-type this morning, Briony thought tiredly as she pulled it out of her machine.
Kieron was in a savagely critical mood, which seemed to intensify with every passing day. He kept her working late almost every night and if was often way past Nicky’s bedtime when she got home. She had been scouring the papers for another job, but there had been nothing. Hardly a day went by without Kieron making some caustic comment about her relationship with Matt. He had found Matt in her office one lunchtime, bursting in on them in a furious temper and demanding that Matt left her alone to get on with her work. It had been on the tip of her tongue to remind him that it was her lunch hour, but the atmosphere between them was so tensely inflammable that she had thought better of it. Time enough to tell him what she thought of him, if and when she got another job.
At the moment he was absent from the office. There had been a question of libel over an article they had printed—the nightmare of every editor, and he was down with the sub-editor of Features talking about it. The heat which seemed to hang over the city in a pall, combined with the long hours she was working, was leaving Briony feeling limp and drained. Gina complained that she did not eat properly, and Briony knew that her accusations were well founded. Since Kieron had arrived her appetite had diminished, and besides, with all the work she had to do, there simply wasn’t time to eat. It had occurred to her that he was deliberately driving her hard, hoping that she would break, and this knowledge only strengthened her resolve not to give in.
The phone rang and she reached for it listlessly, her face paling as she heard Paolo’s anxious voice. At first she didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her, and then when she did, she dropped the receiver with a low moan, covering her face with trembling hands, trying to comprehend what had happened. The outer office door suddenly swung open and Kieron strode in, his eyes fastening on her shocked face and the dangling receiver.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he bit out, reaching for the phone.
B
riony snatched feverishly for her handbag, getting unsteadily to her feet.
‘I’ve got to go out.…’ She was trembling with pain and fright, her eyes cloudy and vague, unaware of who was with her or even where she was.
‘Sit down,’ Kieron commanded curtly, pushing her back into her chair, but she struggled to sit up, her face white and drawn.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Nicky needs me,’ and to her horror tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. The receiver was emitting anxious noises and Kieron spoke into it, frowning heavily.
‘Blake here,’ he said tersely. ‘What.…Paolo?’ He stared at Briony, obviously listening intently. ‘Okay, leave everything to me,’ he said coolly. ‘Which hospital?’
‘So Nicky’s your son?’ he said grimly when he had replaced the receiver. ‘God, no wonder you didn’t want Matt to go back to his wife! Why the hell doesn’t he stop shilly-shallying and make up his mind which one of you he wants?’
Briony barely heard him. Since Paolo had told her that Nicky was in hospital there hadn’t been room for anything but her son in her mind. She had always known something like this would happen, she thought in anguish, unable to bear the thought of Nicky, ill and in pain and crying for her.
‘I must go,’ she muttered, pushing past Kieron.
‘Just like that?’
She stared at him, his features slowly coming into focus. Like someone in a dream she said slowly, ‘I’ve done your letters.’
‘To hell with the letters!’ Kieron swore viciously. ‘Have you rung for a taxi?’
She shook her head and he swore again, picking up the phone and dialling a number forcefully. He said something into the receiver and then hung up, grasping Briony’s arm.
‘My car’s outside. Come on.’
‘I don’t want you.’
She spoke the words from a mind cloudy with pain, pulling back as he ushered her through the door.
‘Don’t be so damned stupid,’ Kieron said curtly. ‘Your child’s in hospital. All that matters is that you get to him as quickly as possible—or would you prefer me to send for Matt?’
When she said nothing he bundled her out of the room impatiently, stopping at the reception desk to say that he was going out.
In the shock of hearing that Nicky had had an accident, Briony hadn’t even asked Paolo which hospital he was in, and in some distant way she felt grateful for the speed with which Kieron negotiated the traffic, without bothering her with questions.
It was only when they pulled up outside the hospital that he spoke, his voice terse and clipped.
‘I take it no one at the paper knows about this child? God, you must think a hell of a lot about Matt to keep something like this secret! You can’t believe he really cares about you? He’s given you a child and still he doesn’t divorce his wife. What are you hoping for?’
Tears welled and trickled down her cheeks. Like a child she allowed Kieron to help her out of the car, her eyes wide and blank as she followed him into Casualty.
Gina was waiting for her, her face pale and shocked.
‘It was the apple tree,’ she explained in anguish. ‘I only left him for a moment to pay the milkman and when I got back he was lying on the ground. He’s broken his arm, they think.’
It was Kieron who reassured her that the accident could have happened to the most conscientious parent.
‘You can’t watch them every moment of the time.’
Gina had left Caterina with a neighbour, and glanced uncertainly at Briony as though uncertain who needed her most. Kieron set her mind at rest.
‘I’ll stay with Briony,’ he told her. ‘You get back to your baby.’
The waiting room was empty and Briony stared at the painted walls, trying to subdue her rising hysteria. Somewhere out there was Nicky. She looked wildly at the door, half rising to go to it when it opened and a round-faced nurse appeared.
‘Mrs Winters?’ she said with a smile. ‘Your little boy’s fine. It’s a simple, clean break and the doctor has set it for him. We’re giving him a tetanus injection, just to be on the safe side. If you and your husband would like to follow me.’
Her words jolted Briony out of her nightmare. She opened her mouth to correct the girl, but she was already hurrying away. She paused once, waiting for them to catch up with her, her eyes appreciative as she looked at Kieron.
‘My, your son is like you, isn’t he?’ she commented. ‘And such a brave little scrap. He never cried once.’
Briony stopped dead, the breath leaving her lungs on a wave of panic, but a grim hand in the small of her back forced her forwards, her face pale beneath the corridor lights.
Nicky was in the children’s ward, sitting on a small bed, and his face lit up the moment he saw Briony.
‘I felled off the tree,’ he told her importantly, ‘and now my arm is being mended.’
It was obvious that he at least was none the worse for his ordeal, but Briony badly needed the reassurance of feeling his small body in her arms. He wriggled impatiently when she hugged him, his eyes sliding past her to Kieron.
‘Who’s that man?’ he demanded warily.
Kieron was staring at Nicky in total disbelief and shocked comprehension. There would be no more comments about Matt fathering her child, Briony knew.
She ignored Nicky’s question. ‘Can I take him home?’ she asked the nurse.
‘Of course. The doctor will want to have a word with you about the plaster and so on. He’s got a rather unusual blood group, did you know?’
Briony had known, and suspected that it had come down to him from his father, a suspicion which Kieron’s expression confirmed.
The nurse went to attend to a crying child, and they were alone by Nicky’s bed.
‘God, why didn’t you tell me?’ Kieron swore bitterly. ‘My child, and you keep it from me!’
‘He’s not.…’ Briony began, but the look on Kieron’s face quelled her.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ he demanded harshly. ‘That’s my child and you damned well know it. We’ve got things to talk about, you and I. You’re not simply going to walk away from this, Briony.’
The doctor’s arrival halted their conversation. It galled Briony that he should so constantly address his remarks to Kieron instead of herself. In view of the likeness between father and son it would have been pointless to deny their relationship, she realised, but she could not help reflecting bitterly on the unkind twist of fate that had brought Kieron into her office just when she was at her most vulnerable. The moment Paolo had told her that Nicky had had an accident she had simply ceased to register anything else, even the fact that she had dropped the receiver in the middle of his explanation. It was ironic to think that if it had not been for that simple mistake Kieron would never have known about his child.
The doctor had finished and Briony bent to pick up Nicky.
‘I’ll carry him,’ Kieron announced firmly. ‘He’s too heavy for you.’
‘No!’
‘For God’s sake,’ Kieron swore angrily, ‘I’m not going to tear him out of your arms and make off with him! What sort of man do you think I am?’
Her eyes gave him the answer. Just because Nicky was so precious to her it didn’t necessarily mean that Kieron would feel the same way, and yet there had been something in his eyes when he looked at Nicky which made her heart pound with fear.
The moment Nicky saw the car he was wide-eyed with awe. Kieron insisted on holding him while Briony got in the back, handing him to her when she was sitting down.
‘Okay, son?’ he asked as he closed the door. The words were commonplace enough, but the look in his eyes made Briony go ice-cold with dread.
She was too concerned with Nicky’s comfort to pay much attention to their surroundings, but when the car came to a stop outside an imposing block of apartments in the heart of Knightsbridge she glanced angrily at the back of Kieron’s head. In the driving mirror his eyes met hers.
‘We’ve got
things to talk about,’ he said softly.
Briony shivered. For a moment he had looked angry enough to kill her. ‘I want to go home.’
He leaned behind her and opened the door. ‘Out!’
They were in the lift before he spoke to her again, his eyes meeting hers over Nicky’s curly head. The little boy had asked curiously where they were going, but had seemed quite satisfied with her answer that they were going to see Mr Blake’s flat.
‘I’ll say one thing for you,’ Kieron said curtly. ‘At least you care about the child.’
‘More than you could possibly know,’ Briony breathed, not caring what she was betraying and missing entirely the thoughtful look in his eyes as he punched the buttons and the lift soared upwards.
His apartment was large and surprisingly comfortable. Kieron told her to make herself at home in the huge living room and disappeared into what she guessed to be the kitchen, emerging several minutes later with a glass of orange juice and a tray of coffee.
Nicky accepted the drink shyly. He had been unusually quiet in the car and Briony had put it down to his accident. Now, though, as she watched him staring solemnly at Kieron, it struck her that he must be shy. He was sitting on her lap and Kieron squatted down beside them, his eyes on a level with his son’s.
‘Are you a daddy?’ Nicky asked him gravely.
Briony’s muscles stiffened defensively, and she could not bring herself to look at Kieron.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly.
Nicky’s shoulders hunched.
‘I haven’t got a daddy,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘But I want one, don’t I, Mummy?’
Briony felt as though she wanted to die, or to have the ground open up and swallow her—preferably the former. A muscle twitched in Kieron’s jaw and she couldn’t tell whether he was angry or amused.
‘Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about that, son,’ he said in a deep voice. ‘Why don’t you have a little sleep while your mummy and I talk about it?’
‘Why did you have to say that to him?’ Briony breathed angrily, when Nicky had been tucked up in Kieron’s huge king-sized bed. To her surprise the little boy had evinced no concern at sleeping in the strange room, accepting Kieron’s assurance that they would be within call.
