by Penny Jordan
She had to get away from Sean. She had believed that she had stopped loving him, but now she was desperately afraid that she had been wrong. A pain that was not all pure pain, but part helpless longing was unfurling slowly inside her. No matter what Sean might threaten to do she had to leave here, and she was going to tell him so...right now!
Agitatedly she got up and hurried to her office door, dragging it open and hurrying towards the office which had once been John’s and which Sean was now using whilst he familiarised himself with the day-to-day running of the business.
There was no one in the outer office, and, too wrought-up for formalities, Kate rushed into the inner office, only to stare around it in dismay when she saw that it was empty.
Or at least she had thought it was empty. The door to a small private room which contained a changing room and shower facilities was half open, and she could hear someone moving about inside it. Someone? It could only be Sean.
Taking a deep breath, Kate walked purposefully towards it and then hesitated, her hand on the door handle. A part of her wasn’t ready for another confrontation, but another part of her just wanted to get the whole thing over and done with.
Clearing her throat nervously, she took a deep breath and called out, ‘Sean—are you in there? Only, there’s something I need to speak to you about...’
In the empty silence that followed Kate began to lose her courage. Perhaps she had been wrong. Perhaps Sean wasn’t even here...
She started to turn away, stiffening with shock when the door was wrenched back and Sean was standing there naked, apart from the water running over his skin and the towel he was still wrapping around his hips.
For half a dozen seconds she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything other than stare at him whilst her eyes widened and her face burned.
‘Oh. You were having a shower!’ Was that really her voice—that soft, breathy, almost awed thread of sound?
‘I was,’ Sean agreed dryly, emphasising the past tense of his statement.
As she fought down the aching feeling that was spreading through her body Kate seized on anger as her main weapon of defence, telling herself fiercely that Sean should have done more to cover his nudity than simply drape—well, not even drape, really, simply hold, Kate decided, before hurriedly dragging her traitorous gaze away—the smallest of towels around his hips.
It was whilst she was doing battle with her suddenly rebellious sense of sight—and coming close to losing—that she heard Sean saying laconically, ‘You’d better come in—and close the door.’
What?
She was just about to object, and in very strong terms, when he added dulcetly, ‘That is unless you want to risk someone else coming into the office and finding you here with me like this.’
Kate knew there must be a hundred objections she could raise to what he was saying, but as she fought to find one of them Sean reached behind her and quietly closed the door. Closed it and locked it.
‘Why...why have you locked the door?’ Kate demanded, ashamed to hear the betraying quaver of anxiety in her voice.
‘Because I don’t want anyone else wandering in here,’ he told her dryly. ‘Why did you think I’d locked it? Or were you remembering...?’
‘I wasn’t remembering anything.’ Kate stopped him in panic. ‘I just wanted—’
He had moved slightly away from her and inadvertently she glanced at him, her gaze held in helpless thrall by the sight of his virtually naked body.
He had already been a fully adult male when they had met, and she had been thrilled at her first sight of his naked body, her gaze openly eager and hungry to see every single bit of him. She had thought then that it would be impossible for him to be more physically perfect—from the silken strength of his throat and neck to the powerful width of his shoulders, to the arms which had held her so close, the hands that had taken her to places of unimaginable pleasure, the chest so magnificently broad, tapering down to his belly, flat and tautly muscled, with its fascinatingly sensual line of male hair that her fingers had ached to explore.
But she had been wrong! Or had time just done her the favour of allowing her to forget the sexually erotic and perfect maleness of him, her own awareness of it and of him, to save her pain?
An ache at once both familiar and bewildering started to spread out from the pit of her stomach, overpowering her attempt to tense her body against it. A longing that tore at her emotions and her self-control grew with it.
Just above where the towel was knotted she could see the small white scar she remembered so well. The scar was the result of an accident he had had when he had first started working as a labourer, as a boy of fifteen who should have been at school. When he had told her how he had suffered with the pain of his wound, rather than risk being ridiculed by the other men on the gang and also lose a day’s pay, she had wept and pressed her lips to the scar whilst Sean had buried his hands in her hair.
And then he had...
As she recognised the erotic path her thoughts were taking, and that it was not so much a memory from the past that was arousing her but a shocking need to experience it in the present, Kate started to panic. She had to get out of here, and now!
Quickly she turned towards the door.
‘Kate!’
Caught off-guard by her sudden agitated movement, Sean reached out to stop her. The wrist within his grip felt far more fragile than he remembered. It angered him that she should have so little care for her own wellbeing, and it angered him even more that the man whose child she had conceived had hurt her and left her. The thought of anyone hurting her made him want to hold her and protect her.
Before he could stop himself Sean pulled her into his arms, ignoring her demands to be set free as he burrowed his hand into her hair, unwittingly bringing to life at least a part of Kate’s own sensual memory.
‘I’m glad you haven’t cut your hair.’
The thick, raw words shocked Kate into stillness. She could feel the heat of Sean’s hand against the back of her head. And against the front of her body she could feel the heat of...him.
Overwhelmed by her own feelings, she made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan, and as though it was the signal he had been waiting for suddenly Sean was kissing her, possessing her mouth with a fierce, driving need and a hunger that her own body instinctively recognised.
There was no past, no pain, only the here and now—and Sean.
His free hand was cupping her face, his fingers caressing her skin, sliding down her throat and then tracing her collarbone.
Hungrily Kate pressed herself closer to him, her fingers automatically seeking the unwanted barrier between them and tugging away the towel. Her actions were those of the woman she had been and not the woman she now was. That woman had had every right to lay claim to the intimacy of Sean’s body, to touch it and caress it however and wherever she wished, just as Sean had had every right to do the same with hers. Those rights had been bestowed on one another with love and strengthened by marriage vows.
And though Kate tried to remind herself that they no longer shared those rights, her senses were refusing to listen. They were too drugged by pleasure.
Sean groaned as he felt Kate’s eager touch against his naked flesh. It had been so long! Too long for his damned self-control, he acknowledged, as his mouth found the tender hollow at the base of her throat and he buried the sound of his need there, registering the pulse that had begun to beat frantically in response.
Unable to stop himself, Sean allowed his hands to dispose of the layers of clothing denying him access to Kate’s body.
Was it Sean who was shaking with pleasure as his hands cupped her naked breasts or was it her? Kate wondered achingly. She could feel the urgent peaking of her nipples and she knew that Sean must be able to feel it as well. When he rolled
the tight, aching flesh between his thumb and finger the ferocity of the pleasure that shuddered through her made Kate press herself pleadingly into Sean and grind her hips against him.
‘You know what happens when you do that, don’t you?’ Sean groaned thickly.
In response, Kate took hold of his hand and guided it down her body.
‘Two can play at that game,’ Sean warned her, but Kate didn’t resist when he placed her hand against the hard, hot flesh of his erection.
She hadn’t touched a man in all the years they had been apart. She hadn’t so much as wanted to touch a man, never mind even think about it, and yet immediately and instinctively her fingers stroked lovingly over him in silent female acknowledgement of his potency before slowly caressing him.
‘Kate...Kate.’
The anguished, tormented sound of her name only added to her arousal, and she stroked him again, moving her fingertips swiftly around the swollen head and down the underside of the thick shaft. The ache deep inside her mirrored the rhythmic movement of her fingers over him.
This was heaven—and it was hell. It was everything he had ever wanted and everything he could never have, Sean recognised as he submitted helplessly to Kate’s power over him. But he was too much of an alpha male to allow Kate to take the lead for very long. Hungrily he pulled her into his arms and started to kiss her with fierce, possessive passion.
She wanted him so much, so very much. Eagerly, Kate clung to Sean, waiting...wanting... And then abruptly they both tensed as a phone rang shrilly in the outer room.
Mortified by what she had done, Kate straightened her clothes and fled, ignoring Sean’s command to her to stay where she was.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘AND NOW THERE’S this wretched virus going round...’
Kate pressed a hand to her temple, trying to ease the pounding of her headache and concentrate on what Carol was saying to her.
‘It’s a really nasty one!’ Carol was continuing. ‘I’ve been wondering whether or not I should keep George away from nursery for the time being.’
Through the pounding of her headache Kate tried not to feel envious of her friend for having the luxury of being able to make such a decision. Without childcare she could not work, and if she didn’t work how were she and Oliver to live?
After Carol had gone, Kate looked a little worriedly at Oliver. Although he had been playing happily enough with George, he was somehow more subdued than usual.
‘Have you still got that pain in your tummy, darling?’ Kate asked him anxiously, but Oliver shocked her into silence.
‘Will Sean come again?’ he asked her.
There was a huge hard lump in Kate’s throat, and a pain in her heart like none she had ever known. She wanted to take hold of her son and hold him tightly in her arms, so that no one and nothing could ever, ever hurt him. But there was no point in trying to hide the truth from herself any longer. This afternoon in Sean’s arms she had known that she still loved him.
And it was that knowledge that had made her run away from him. He didn’t love her any more. He had told her that five years ago. And once it had died love could never be resurrected, surely?
‘No, Oliver. He won’t be coming again,’ she told him gently, her chest locking tightly as Oliver pouted.
‘But I want him to,’ he said truculently.
Kate could feel her self-control being ripped to pieces by her pain. As she stroked his hair Oliver looked back accusingly at her, and then to Kate’s horror asked her the question she had dreaded.
‘Why haven’t I got a daddy, like George?’
Anguish and despair washed icily through her. How could she tell him that he did have, but that his father hadn’t wanted him? He was too young to understand the truth, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him.
‘Not all daddies and mummies live together like George’s mummy and daddy do,’ she explained gently, watching as he silently digested her words.
‘So where does my daddy live, then?’
It was the pounding in her head that was making her feel so sick, Kate tried to reassure herself. But the knowledge that one day Oliver would not be so easily sidetracked felt like a heavy weight dragging down her heart. ‘It’s bedtime, Oliver. What story would you like me to read tonight?’
For a moment she thought he was going to refuse to be sidetracked and then repeat his question, but to her relief he didn’t.
* * *
Sean stared bleakly out of the window of the luxurious penthouse apartment he was renting whilst he assessed the future of his new acquisition. On the rare occasions when he had allowed himself to think about Kate ever since their divorce, he had visualised her living in contented rural bliss, with a doting husband and the houseful of children he had known she wanted to have. The reality of her life had shocked him. Yes, she had fulfilled her longing for motherhood—but where was the man who should be there with her, loving her and supporting her?
Sean hadn’t forgotten the life he had had before he had become wealthy—how could he?—and he knew her current life must be a hard financial struggle for Kate.
Why the hell hadn’t she made at least some kind of financial claim on the bastard who had deserted them both? In Sean’s opinion any man who fathered a child should contribute financially to its upbringing. Sean thought of his own childhood—he knew how hard a child’s life could be when growing up in poverty. Not that Oliver was growing up in poverty, but it was obvious that his mother was having to struggle to support him.
Angrily Sean pushed his hand into his hair. When he had met Kate—Kathy, as she had been then—he had been an uneducated, anti-social young man with a very large chip on his shoulder. Kathy hadn’t only given him her love, she had given him a lot more as well. She had helped and encouraged him in every way she could, and it was because of her faith in him, her love for him, that he was the man he was today.
If only he could acknowledge that debt to her.
He turned away from the window. The penthouse looked like something out of an expensive magazine, and it was definitely not child-friendly. Not like the rectory he had once promised Kate he would buy for her.
Sean closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Had she loved the man who had fathered Oliver? And who the hell was he anyway?
His car keys were on the immaculate kitchen worktop. It would take him less than half an hour to drive to Kate’s cottage.
Sean had made up his mind what he was going to do. He was going to insist that she give him the name of Oliver’s father and then he was going to make sure that the man was made aware of his responsibilities to both his son and his son’s mother, and that he fulfilled them.
* * *
Oliver was in bed and asleep, and her headache had finally dulled. The washing she had hung out to dry this morning before leaving for work was dry and ready to iron, filling the kitchen with its clean fresh-air smell.
Kate liked to do as many of her chores as possible in the evenings, when Oliver was asleep, so that she could keep her weekends free to be with him. The village possessed a small shop, and it was part of their weekend ritual to walk there every weekend to collect the papers and chat with their fellow villagers.
Kate was determined to do everything she could to provide Oliver with a sense of community and belonging, even if she wasn’t able provide him with his father.
A shadow darkened the kitchen window, causing her look up from her ironing. She froze when she realised that the shadow belonged to Sean.
A tiny shudder ran through her,
the hairs lifting on her skin as she fought against an illogical fear that somehow her own thoughts were responsible for his presence.
Her thoughts or Oliver’s need?
She must not think like that, she told herself firmly as she unplugged the iron and then hurried to open the door before he could knock. She didn’t want him waking Oliver.
What had he come for? To tell her that he had changed his mind and that he didn’t want her working for him after all? Irrationally, instead of bringing her pleasure, that thought only brought her more pain. Pain and a fear that her response to him earlier might have caused him to recognise, as she had, that she still loved him.
Whatever else he was, Sean was certainly not the kind of man whose vanity was so great that he would enjoy knowing a woman loved him when he could not and did not love her back. Judging from his determination to remove her from his life, he would be equally as brutal now as he’d been when he had divorced her.
As Sean strode into the kitchen she just about had time to reflect on how ironic it was that now she was fearing him sacking her when it wasn’t long since she’d been determined to hand in her resignation from the company.
‘Sean. What are you doing here? What do you want?’ Kate demanded, but as she spoke she was achingly aware that what she wanted was for him to take her in his arms and then...
Already a familiar and dangerous weakness was slipping through her veins. He was standing far too close to her—close enough for her to see that he had shaved, and that there was the smallest of nicks on his throat.
Out of the past she could see herself standing opposite him on the sunny street where he had been working. He had been teasing her and she had tried to tease him back, commenting naïvely on his unshaven face. He had looked at her and then he had responded with deliberate sensuality to her comment, telling her that he preferred to shave before he went to bed. ‘So I won’t scratch your skin,’ he had added, watching the bright colour burn her face as the meaning of his words sank in.
