Bride On Demand. Kay Thorpe
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Liam was eying her quizzically.
‘All right,’ she said, resigning herself to the inevitable. ‘Just don’t expect to be invited in on the strength of it.’
‘No strings attached,’ he assured her. ‘Don’t bother finishing the drink. You didn’t really want it in the first place.’
Regan didn’t attempt to deny it. She was here because there was a part of her that still found it impossible to regard him with the contempt he merited for past maltreatment—a part of her that yearned to give way to the emotions he still aroused in her. If it hadn’t been for Jamie, she might even have been tempted to go along with what he was suggesting and renew the affair.
Laying herself open to further hurt when he’d exhausted what new potential he fancied she might offer, came the cynical thought. It was academic anyway.
Liam revealed a remarkable knowledge of the inner-city road system and managed to avoid the worst of the congestion. All the same, it was almost a quarter to seven by the time they reached their destination.
‘So this is it?’ he said when Regan made to get out of the car with a murmured word of thanks. ‘I don’t get to see you again?’
‘There isn’t any point,’ she responded levelly.
His shrug was more sensed than seen. ‘A matter of opinion, but have it your own way.’
He drew away the moment she was out of the car, leaving her standing on the pavement feeling dull and depressed at the thought of never seeing him again. Yet what alternative was there? If she’d told him about Jamie he’d ten to one have felt bound to make some kind of financial reparation, but that would have been as far as it went. She was better off putting the whole affair to the back of her mind again.
Which was easier said than done. Jamie himself was drawn to comment on her absentmindedness when he was in the bath and she handed him the back-brush instead of the toy submarine he had requested.
‘You’re thinking about something else, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Work,’ Regan improvised. ‘It’s been a busy day.’
‘Is that why you were late coming home?’
It wasn’t in her nature to lie, but this was one time when it was expedient. ‘Yes. Am I going to drive the battleship tonight?’
‘Ships are sailed,’ he corrected in the tolerant tone adopted by most males towards unmechanically-minded females.
‘Sail, then.’ Regan kept a straight face, resisting the urge to hug the small, sturdy body. With his mop of reddish hair and green eyes, he resembled her rather than his father, but there was a certain something emerging in his facial bone structure, even now, that struck a bell—especially after having seen the man in question so recently. Not that there was any doubt as to his parentage, anyway. Liam had been her first, and only, lover.
She did a few odd tasks after he was in bed, watched television for an hour or so, then attempted to pass some time reading, though her mind wasn’t on the written word. When the telephone rang at half past ten she was on the verge of retiring for the night. Liam’s voice sounded so close, so intimate.
‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ he said softly. ‘I want you here with me right now, your hair spread across the pillow, your mouth yearning for my kisses, your body vibrating with desire for my touch! You were always so giving—so utterly without artifice!’
‘The word you’re looking for is artless,’ she said in an attempt to stem the swift-rising heat.
His laugh came low. ‘I know what I’m looking for. The girl I knew seven years ago is still there somewhere, lurking under that veneer. I aim to find her again.’
‘You’d have a long search.’ Regan was amazed at her surface composure, considering the furore going on inside her. ‘It’s no veneer, Liam. I’m a different person.’
The one you made me, she might have added.
‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘Goodnight, green eyes.’
He’d called her that in the past as a term of endearment. Replacing the receiver, Regan did her best to calm her inner tumult. It meant nothing. All he was in need of right now was a warm, responsive female body to share his bed; hers just happened to be the first name to spring to mind.
She tremored as memory ran riot, forming tangible images in her mind’s eye: that lean hard body stripped of all clothing and fully aroused, the ripple of muscle beneath her fingers, the electric prickle of his chest hair against her nipples. In Liam’s arms she had known no reticence, no inhibition. He had taught her so much about her own bodily needs.
There had been times during these past years when she had yearned to know that fulfilment again, but she’d still to meet someone who could make her feel even a fraction of what she’d felt for Liam.
What she still felt for Liam, if she were honest about it, which was all the more reason to keep him at arm’s length. She had made the mistake seven years ago of allowing her emotions to overrule caution. She’d persuaded herself that his ruthless, ambitious, womanising reputation was mostly the product of jealous minds, and look where that had left her. He might have mellowed a little on the surface, but people didn’t change fundamentally. The way he had treated Paula Lambert was proof enough of that.
In any case, there was Jamie to consider. Better no father at all than a reluctant one—who might deny responsibility to start with.
More than half anticipating some further approach, she told herself it was all for the best when she heard nothing more from him over the following few days. Life went on much as it had before, with work taking up the greater part of it. After one further, tentative enquiry, Hugh took the hint and let the subject drop. Her business was her business.
The weekend came round again, this time with no Friday soirée to dress for. Regan took Jamie to the local park to play on the swings and roundabouts for half an hour or so, returning home to a couple of games of Scrabble before tucking him into bed around eight-thirty.
Sarah came up with a bottle of wine. Don had gone out for a drink with a pal, she said, so why not follow suit? They drank a couple of glasses apiece, and enjoyed an undemanding hour talking about whatever came to mind. By the time they parted, Regan was feeling more than a little elevated.
It wasn’t yet ten o’clock, she saw in some surprise. The night was still young! So what? asked the voice of reason, bringing her sharply down again from the heights. So what indeed?
Early as it was, she might as well go to bed, she decided. At least there was the weekend to look forward to, although she’d have to cudgel her brains to find something different to do on Sunday. They’d just about exhausted the affordable pastimes.
She was about to pull out the sofa bed when the doorbell rang. Sarah must have forgotten something, she thought, going to open the door. A joke about the effects of too much wine ready on her lips, she froze in suspended animation for a moment on seeing who the caller was, catching up with a painful jolt as her heart regained its rhythm.
‘How did you get in?’ she demanded.
‘The usual way,’ Liam answered. ‘The outside door wasn’t completely closed.’
Don! she thought. He’d been careless before. Not that it mattered at this particular moment who had left the door open.
‘What do you want?’ she asked, knowing it a pretty stupid question.
His brief smile suggested a similar assessment. ‘I tried staying away. It didn’t work. I had to see you again.’
‘So, you’ve seen me,’ she retorted, hardening herself against the sudden temptation to let matters take their own course. ‘You know the way out.’
He stuck a foot in the door to keep it from closing. ‘Stop playing the hard case. It isn’t the way