A Secret Until Now

by Kim Lawrence

  A spasm of irritation crossed his patrician features. ‘You are not pretty.’

  Angel was not particularly mad about her looks. Given the choice she would have chosen blonde and petite, but she had no body-image issues and she was well aware that she was considered by most people to be more than averagely attractive, so it made it all the more crazy that the comment hurt. ‘So I’m ugly!’ She could not believe this childish response was coming from her own mouth.

  ‘No, you are beautiful,’ he countered. Midglare his eyes broke contact with Angel’s and slid to the photo. ‘So is she. She looks so like you....’

  The husky observation successfully refocused Angel’s attention. ‘She has a much sweeter temperament.’

  ‘Maybe she takes after her father...?’

  Alex Arlov, sweet? Any other time the two words in the same sentence would have had her in hysterics but Angel didn’t crack a smile.

  She made an effort to channel calm. ‘I can’t have an affair with you, Alex.’

  Even if she could have stomached the idea of sex without an emotional commitment it wouldn’t have worked. She simply lost all sense of perspective when it came to Alex. She could never maintain any sort of simple sexual relationship with the way he made her feel.

  She had never understood women who would risk everything for a man. She didn’t want to understand, but what she did know was that if such a man existed Alex Arlov was the living, breathing embodiment of it.

  ‘Who’s saying I want an affair?’

  She flinched at the growled rebuttal and, lifting her chin, defiantly murmured, ‘My mistake.’ Presumably an affair was too formal a footing for what he had in mind. ‘As a matter of interest, what did you have in mind?’ She arched a delicate brow and suggested in a sardonic drawl, ‘Friends with benefits?’

  ‘We are not friends.’

  ‘Thank you for reminding me.’

  A look of regret slid across his lean face. ‘I didn’t mean it that way.... I just...’ He dragged a hand through his dark, tousled hair. ‘I just... You’re driving me crazy.’

  There’s a lot of it around, Angel thought grimly. ‘Don’t worry, I appreciate bluntness,’ she said instead. Hopefully he could take it as well as dish it out. ‘I can’t have sex with you at all. We need to keep our relationship uncomplicated for Jasmine.’

  He struggled to follow her logic and realised there was none. ‘How is us sleeping together bad for Jasmine?’

  ‘I want my daughter to learn about relationships based on mutual respect and—’

  ‘Our daughter.’

  The correction made her grate her teeth. ‘For five years she’s been my daughter, Alex.’

  ‘And you resent the fact it has to change,’ he flung.

  The suggestion that this was a fait accompli annoyed her. He was failing to recognise that she was the one making an effort.

  ‘I’m an example to my daughter. I don’t want her to think casual sex is all she can have. I watched my mother sleep her way around the fashionable spots of Europe. I had her boyfriends drift in and out of my life and I don’t want that sort of instability for Jasmine.’

  ‘So you are holding out for marriage.’ He seized on this evidence triumphantly.

  ‘I’m holding out for a relationship based on more than lust,’ she countered. ‘One that is...safe.’

  His heavy-lidded gaze slid over her sleek, sensuous curves and the fist of desire in his belly tightened. ‘Safe!’ he spat in disgust. ‘And what is so terrible about lust? Lust is not a bad place to start....’ he commented in a deep throaty drawl that made the surface of her skin tingle.

  The deep, drowning blue of his eyes made her dizzy and it was an effort to break the contact. ‘Only if both participants want the same thing.’

  ‘I thought I gave you what you wanted.’

  His inability to see what she was saying drew a frustrated grunt from Angel.

  ‘My mother changed her lovers the way some women change their shoes. I know what it feels like to grow fond of someone and have them vanish or to hear arguments when you’re trying to go to sleep, to have a sleazy boyfriend of your mother’s make a pass at you.’ She saw the outrage flare in his eyes and added quickly, ‘Only once and my brother walked in.’

  ‘So how is the fact your mother was a lousy parent relevant?’

  ‘I know what bad parenting is.’

  ‘And good parenting involves being some sort of born-again virgin? I’m curious—are you planning on not having any sex or is it just sex with me that will emotionally scar our daughter?’

  ‘You’re deliberately twisting things.’

  ‘So untwist things and tell me you’re not saying I can either be part of my daughter’s life or sleep with you?’

  ‘It is not an either-or situation, Alex.’

  He exhaled a frustrated hiss through his teeth. ‘What is it, then?’ Without waiting for her to respond, he shook his head and, drawing a sharp line in the air with his hand, said, ‘You know, I really don’t want to hear, because none of it is true. You know what I think? I think this isn’t about Jasmine, it’s about you. You’re using her as an excuse because underneath that facade you’re scared. What of? Becoming your mother?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she answered too quickly.

  ‘From what you’ve told me you are the exact opposite of your mother.’

  ‘This isn’t about my mother. It’s about us.... You.’

  ‘You’re scared of me?’ A look of shock chased across his lean face. ‘It never occurred to me you were... Why would you be?’ His eyes narrowed as her eyes slid from his, shifting to a point over his shoulder. It was a telling gesture.

  ‘Of course not.’ It was true, she wasn’t afraid of Alex, but she was afraid of the way he made her feel. The emotional impact of meeting him again had felt like having a tourniquet removed from a deadened limb and the abrupt resumption of circulation and feeling had been agonising. But as hard as she’d tried she couldn’t reapply the tourniquet to her emotions.

  She loved him and he was going to break her heart. It was as inevitable as night following day. But it wasn’t the broken heart precisely that she was avoiding—it was Jasmine witnessing it breaking, seeing the slow disintegration of the relationship and thinking, as Angel had, that that was all there was to look forward to in life.

  ‘We all have issues in our childhood....’

  The insensitive attempt at amateur psychology brought her resentful gaze back to his face. A second was all it took for him to capture and hold her.

  ‘What made you so scared of enjoying a normal healthy sex life?’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ she replied, hiding her discomfiture behind a cool mask.

  ‘Did your father cheat on your mother?’ he speculated.

  ‘My dad adored my mother even after she walked out on their marriage and took us with her, then did her level best to forget we existed.’ In a small corner of her head a voice was saying, ‘Too much information, Angel!’ but she couldn’t stem the flow of revelations. ‘And in answer to your question, I’m not scared, I’m determined—determined that my daughter will always be my first priority.’

  She gave a weary sigh. ‘It’s simply the way I want it to be. Don’t you see?’ she appealed to him. ‘This,’ she said, moving her hand in an illustrative sweep from her chest to him and back again, ‘is exactly the situation I want to avoid.’

  ‘This is a situation that you have engineered,’ he countered grimly. ‘You’ve created a self-fulfilling prophesy. Do you even know how unrealistic you’re being? Do you really think you’re going to find some guy you’ll never fight with? You’d be bored within a week,’ he predicted.

  ‘I’m not looking for a guy. This is just the way it’s going to be, take it or leave it.’

  It
was the torment in her green eyes that made him hold his tongue—that and the realisation that she genuinely believed all the rubbish she was spouting. Her logic was totally crazy but he recognised this might not be the time to point it out. This was the time for a tactical retreat...but he would be back.

  * * *

  Alex closed the door behind him as he left, which should have made her happy. It was what she wanted, but as she picked up the phone to arrange Jasmine’s trip over to meet her father happiness was not the emotion that was uppermost in her mind. She might never have sex again, and that was reason enough to feel depressed.

  She had had the most gorgeous man in the universe ask her to be with him, and she had sent him away! More significantly, he had gone without even putting up much of a fight.... Probably, she thought gloomily, he’d been secretly relieved.

  But she’d done the right thing, almost definitely she’d done the right thing. They’d made a great child, but living together... No, she had made the right decision...totally!

  Wasn’t the right thing meant to make you feel good?

  She didn’t feel good; she felt like someone who had just slammed the doors of paradise shut and stayed on the wrong side, which was mad because paradise was a cool, calm place of serenity. Serene and Alex... No, she had made the right decision, hadn’t she...?

  She lifted her chin and took a deep breath. For God’s sake, Angel, you’ve made your bed and now you have to lie in it...alone.

  * * *

  Things happened faster than Angel had anticipated. The young woman who was standing in for her nanny was available to accompany Jasmine on the next flight, and she seemed eager to. So it was less than twenty-four hours later that she was thanking her for accompanying Jasmine on the journey and saying goodbye, leaving her to wait for her return flight.

  Jasmine, strapped into the seat beside her, was so excited she chatted constantly all the way from the airport, unable to keep still in the seat. When they reached the bungalow she was visibly flagging.

  ‘You like your bedroom?’ Angel asked as the little girl did her umpteenth circuit of the room.

  ‘Love it loads,’ she said, taking a seat on the bed, watching while Angel unpacked her small suitcase. Jasmine began to swing her legs metronome style, her heels hitting the wooden frame with a regular dull thud.

  ‘These shorts are too tight,’ she remarked as Angel took out a blue denim pair with cute ducks on the patch pockets. ‘But we didn’t have any time to buy some more.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll buy you some new ones. There you go—all done,’ Angel said as she put the last T-shirt in the drawer and closed it. ‘How about a nap?’

  The little girl looked offended. ‘I’m not a baby, and I want to go in the water. You promised.’

  Angel sighed. Like an elephant, her daughter never forgot. ‘Everyone has naps in the afternoon in warm countries.’

  ‘Even grown-ups?’

  Angel nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘So you’re going to take a nap too...with me?’

  The logic was inescapable, and Angel, knowing a rash promise once made was hard to escape, dodged the issue.

  ‘Why don’t you change into your swimsuit and we’ll have a swim first?’ She floated the idea, knowing what the response would be. Watching her daughter leap up and down like a crazy thing on the bed made her realise how quiet her life was without Jas in it, how much emptier.

  This was her. This was what she wanted, but did Alex, with his billionaire jet-setting lifestyle, have a clue what he was asking for?

  Having left Jas to change into her swimsuit, Angel changed into her own one-piece—a black halter that she double tied at the neck. The last time she had been wearing it in a public pool, Jas had thought it funny to unfasten the bow and Angel had found herself in a very embarrassing topless situation.

  * * *

  He was nervous.

  Alex gave a self-derisive smile. He was nervous of meeting a five-year-old child! Maybe nervous was not the best word to describe the combination of excitement, anticipation and trepidation in his gut. Carrying the gift—it had been a novel, actually a unique, experience for Alex to pick out a gift personally and not delegate the task to his excellent PA—he walked along the beach towards Angel’s bungalow. He was a few hundred yards away when he heard the sound of laughter.

  He did not consciously follow the sound but he ended up on the shore, oblivious to the waves lapping over his leather shoes, watching the two playing a game that involved much splashing and lots of noise. The first glimpse of his daughter was as Angel lifted her high out of the water, a wriggling laughing figure whose high-pitched chuckle he could hear above Angel’s husky contralto tone.

  There were few perfect moments in life, the really golden ones that stayed with you until the end. Alex had read somewhere that witnessing the birth of your child was considered by many to be one of them. He had not been there for the birth of his child so in some ways this was it: perfect. She was perfect.

  ‘Who is that man, Mummy?’

  Angel, who had just surfaced from the water and was kneeling, turned her head and saw him. Her stomach flipped. She had never associated the word lonely with Alex Arlov but standing there he looked... She swallowed the boulder lodged in her aching throat and slowly got to her feet.

  ‘That’s my friend.’ She extended her hand to Jasmine. ‘Shall we go say hello?’

  Alex remembered a friend who had described how unreal it had felt to take his newborn home from hospital for the first time. He had spoken of the shock of overnight becoming, not a couple, but a family.

  Times that by a million, Alex thought, and you might get somewhere near the complex swirl of emotions he was feeling.

  He wasn’t seeing a new baby. His daughter was not a blank slate; she was a fully formed little person with a store of experiences that he knew nothing about, a personality. Was she scared of the dark? He resented that he didn’t know, but he was going to find out, and the only way to do that was to be a family.

  Alex believed that only fools rushed headlong into important decisions, and allowing emotions to become involved was just so obviously a massive mistake that it did not even warrant debate. It turned out there were exceptions to this rule and standing on the beach he discovered one. He made the most important decision in his life without a second’s debate or hesitation.

  He was going to marry Angel and they were going to be a family. It would happen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  JASMINE ACCEPTED THE explanation without question. ‘Does he want to play with us?’

  Angel shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, sweetheart, and I think maybe we’ve had enough now too.’ She took her daughter’s hand and they waded out of the shallows and onto the beach where Alex, his dark hair fluttering slightly in the breeze, was standing looking gorgeous. This was obviously a given, but he was also incongruous in this setting in a tailored pale grey suit. The top button of his white silk shirt open and his tie hanging loose around his neck were the only minor concessions to the sun beating down.

  His appearance was not lost on Jasmine.

  ‘Your shoes are wet. It’s really stupid to wear shoes on the beach.’ She wriggled her own bare toes in the wet sand and directed her critical gaze to the rest of him. She didn’t seem impressed by what she was seeing. ‘Or a suit. It’s not p-pract...?’

  She looked to her mother, who automatically supplied the word, ‘Practical,’ before adding, ‘Don’t be rude, Jas.’

  Alex stepped back out of the shallow water, barely giving his handmade Italian-leather shoes a glance. His daughter had a Scottish accent; the highland lilt was unmistakable. It brought home forcibly the extent of his ignorance. He didn’t even know where she had lived her five years. He had assumed London, but clearly he couldn’t have been more wrong.


  ‘She’s right. My outfit is not beach appropriate.’ His outfit was appropriate for the discussion of oil leases. If the change of venue had been considered unusual by the oil executives who had expected to be in London, they had not said so when he had met the fleet of helicopters personally. ‘But I’ve been working, and you, I see, have been swimming.’

  ‘I can’t swim yet. Mum has tried to teach me but I’m not a natural.’

  Her sigh and serious expression drew a smile from Alex. While he did not know a lot about five-year-olds it seemed to him as a not-totally-objective observer that his daughter was pretty advanced for her age, and she not only looked startlingly like her mother but she was also not afraid of speaking her mind.

  ‘Perhaps I could teach you?’

  He turned his head towards Angel to gauge her reaction to his suggestion. She was bending forward to pick up a towel from the sand, a wet swathe of her hair concealing her face.

  ‘Mummy?’

  Angel dropped the towel around her shoulders. ‘That’s very kind.’ The little girl skipped ahead.

  ‘So do you mind?’

  ‘That’s not the point. You made it impossible for me to say no, and I don’t appreciate that. Don’t manipulate me, Alex.’

  ‘It wasn’t intentional. She didn’t look to be afraid of the water.’

  Angel laughed. ‘Jas isn’t afraid of anything. That’s the problem—she has very little sense of danger. I don’t want to make her scared but it’s a hard balance.... She’s not afraid of water. It’s the cold—she hates it. I first tried to teach her at home when she was a toddler—we have the white sand and the clear seas, but the water is not warm at any time of the year and she is a warm-blooded little creature. She loves the sun.’

  ‘So I see. The accent came as a surprise—charming, but a surprise.’

  ‘I don’t even notice she has an accent. We have an apartment in the castle....’ She saw Alex’s expression and added a quick explanatory footnote, ‘My brother inherited the estate when our dad died—beautiful, remote and a lot of rain. Isn’t it every little girl’s dream to live in a castle?’