Baby Included. Mary Lyons
Читать онлайн книгу.
While they had been all that was left of a once large, well-known collection, he wasn’t prepared to spend too long regretting their departure. Especially since the dark, gloomy scenes of religious life had been highly depressing.
So, all in all, he hadn’t done too badly over these last three months, Ace assured himself. In fact...
His thoughts interrupted by the shrill, ringing tones of the telephone, he strode back to his desk and lifted the receiver.
Grimacing at the all too familiar sounds of his ex-wife’s breathless, child-like voice, he waited with grim patience to discover what she wanted. Because, of course, Martina wouldn’t dream of ringing him up—not unless she needed something. He could only hope that there was no problem with his daughter, Emily.
Looking back, it seemed to Ace as if their marriage had been doomed from the start. Originally captivated by the tall, exquisitely beautiful model, whose face had adorned so many magazine covers, it hadn’t been long before he’d discovered that there was very little in that lovely blonde head. And, to be fair, she had obviously been disappointed to find that she’d married a man who not only took his work seriously, but whom she clearly regarded as a boring workaholic.
Missing the world of the media and show business, it hadn’t been long before Martina had run away from home to live with a cockney pop star. She had also taken their small young daughter with her. Despite desperately missing his little girl, and being prepared to do just about anything to ensure his daughter’s happiness, Ace had bent over backwards to ensure that he remained on good, friendly terms with both his ex-wife and the new man in her life, Joe Tucker.
Surprisingly, it hadn’t proved to be too hard a task. The pop star had turned out to be a basically kind and thoroughly decent man. And Ace could only admire the fact that Joe—professionally known as Frank N. Stein, and lead singer of the Raving Monsters—had turned out to be far too shrewd and down-to-earth to make the mistake of marrying Martina.
Unfortunately, as time had gone by, it began to seem that neither the pop star or Ace’s ex-wife had any idea of how to cope with Emily, by now a thoroughly difficult fourteen-year-old adolescent. And Ace himself was also becoming increasingly worried about the young girl—not only going through a typically ‘rebellious’ phase of life, but also receiving little discipline from her butterflyminded mother.
‘OK...OK...’ he sighed, cutting across his ex-wife’s ramblings. ‘I’ve got the picture. And you can tell Emily that I’m thoroughly ashamed of her behaviour. What on earth possessed her to swear at her teacher? There’s absolutely no excuse for such bad manners. Quite frankly, she’s very lucky to find herself suspended from school for only a few weeks,’ he added grimly. ‘Yes...yes, of course...if you’re having to go abroad for a few days she’s more than welcome to stay here with me. In fact, she can probably make herself useful by keeping the film company off my back.’
And that last remark, he told himself ruefully, putting down the phone some minutes later, had been a bad mistake. Because as soon as his ex-wife had heard the magic words ‘film company’ he’d had the greatest difficulty in persuading her that while Emily was more than welcome Martina definitely was not.
On top of which, there had been a decidedly unwelcome over-friendly tone in his ex-wife’s voice. In fact, he told himself with a frown, if it didn’t sound too ridiculous, it had almost seemed as if she’d been seeking some form of reconciliation...
However, he had absolutely no intention of going back down that road. His daughter, Emily, might be badly in need of a stable home environment, but there was absolutely no way he could ever face remarrying her neurotic, shallow and empty-headed mother.
He’d had several glamorous girlfriends since his wife had walked out all those years ago. But either he’d grown quickly tired of their company or they, too, had become fed up with always coming a bad second to his working life. In fact, Ace had never seen any reason to get married again—basically on the principle of ‘once bitten...twice shy’. Not until his heart had been totally captured following that brief, quite extraordinary meeting with the bewitchingly lovely Eloise.
It was three long months since their passionate encounter, but he could still recall his delight at the miraculous way their two figures had seemed to fit so perfectly together, and the excitement of gently caressing her quivering, trembling flesh, which had almost seemed to melt beneath his fingers. If he closed his eyes, he could still smell the intoxicating, sweetly perfumed scent of her body, still hear her soft moans and breathless gasps of pleasure as their lovemaking had become more intense, both inciting and increasing his own fastmounting desire.
Although he had tried to keep himself well under control, the thrillingly erotic, sensual touch of her hands and mouth on his body had overcome all restraint. Helplessly gripped by the fierce power of a deep primeval force, the like of which he’d never known before, he’d finally possessed her with a raging, thrusting urgency, the loud, pounding thud of her heart beating in rapid unison with his own as they’d both climaxed together in wave upon wave of ecstasy, before spiralling dizzily back down to earth.
Afterwards, as they’d lain entwined together in languorous warmth and tenderness, with Ace gently brushing tendrils of that wonderful fiery red hair from her damp brow, he’d known with absolute certainty that he had never, until that moment, experienced such overwhelming joy and happiness.
Try as he might, he’d been quite unable to forget the impact of that utterly astounding, spellbinding experience. Unfortunately, however much he might have loathed the idea, Ace had known that he had no choice but to return to his new, heavy responsibilities in England. It was also clear that, with the width of the Atlantic Ocean as a permanent barrier between himself and Eloise, there could be no ‘happy ever after’ ending to their brief night of passion.
Besides, he was old enough to know that the sooner he did his best to put Eloise out of his mind, the better. There was obviously no way that they would ever meet again. And to be continually recalling the wondrous, soft quality of her skin, the truly dazzling heights which they’d attained in their lovemaking, could only make his present-day life even harder than it was already.
Lois gazed out of the window of the limousine as it sped along the motorway. The countryside was so different from that in the United States; it was taking her some time to get used to the very small scale of local geography here in England.
London, of course, had been great. When she’d first arrived in the country, some three weeks ago, she’d managed to find the time—amidst costume fittings, voice coaching sessions and learning her script—to see the usual tourist sights of Buckingham Palace, the Tower and Westminster Abbey. But, this last week, which had been spent filming location shots outside various old houses all over the country, had been something else! In fact...
‘You’re going to love this house. It’s far grander than the others we’ve used so far.’
‘Hmm...?’ Lois turned to look at her personal assistant, Peggy Fraser. who was leafing through a large file on her lap.
‘Now... this is what I call a real stately home,’ the English girl said, handing Lois a large black and white photograph.
‘It certainly looks impressive,’ Lois agreed, gazing at the picture of a classical Georgian-style Palladian mansion, whose entrance was dominated by huge stone pillars above a broad, sweeping expanse of wide stone steps. ‘What’s the interior like?’
‘Absolutely frightful!’ the other girl laughed. ‘In fact, the main rooms are in a terrible state. But, as the producer says, that’s all to the good. It’s meant that we’ve had a completely free hand in the decoration.’
‘Are we really staying there?’ Lois frowned. ‘It looks pretty uncomfortable to me. What’s wrong with a nice, quiet local hotel?’
Peggy shrugged. ‘I understand the film company negotiated a really good package deal with the owner. Which means that we can use practically the whole house—including all twenty-five bedrooms!—and the catering company will have masses of room in the enormous