Equal Opportunities. PENNY JORDAN
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the same age, it had disconcerted him to discover that her sexual experience was far greater than his own, but he had accepted it when she told him that she had had a previous long-standing relationship with someone else. A relationship that was now over.
Six months later they were engaged. Six weeks after that Francesca had married someone else.
It had been then that he discovered how much she had lied to him. There hadn’t been any long-standing relationship with someone, just a series of very brief affairs with a good many someone elses…men in the main much older and wealthier than Francesca herself.
Calvin Harvey had been one of those previous lovers. A married man now divorced—an extremely wealthy, once married man, who now wanted as his second wife Garrick’s fiancée. And Francesca hadn’t hesitated.
‘But surely you understand, darling,’ she had pouted when Garrick, white-faced and disbelieving, had finally realised that she meant what she was saying. ‘It was fun with you and me, but marriage…Honestly, darling, can you see me as the wife of a poor man?’
‘I wanted you to be the mother of my children,’ Garrick had protested despairingly. He could hear her laughter still. Shrill and acid.
‘A mother? Oh, my poor dear Garrick, what an idiot you are! I shall never have children. Such a bore…and it ruins one’s figure. Don’t worry, darling, it needn’t end between us. Calvin has business interests abroad and he’s away an awful lot. I’ll ring you.’
And so she had, but only once. By then he had realised the truth about her and he had told her in plain and blistering English exactly what she could do with her favours and her much-used body. It had given him some temporary relief to his heartache. What a fool man was that he could realise exactly what a woman was with his mind, and yet not stop wanting her with his body. But all that was behind him now.
It had left its scars, though. Hence his determination not to marry, and his desire to take charge of his second cousin’s child.
He himself had been an only child, but his mother had been baby mad. She had filled the house with the offspring of friends and neighbours. She and his father were retired now. They lived in Cornwall, where his mother painted and his father grew flowers.
He couldn’t expect them to bring Michael up for him. He would need to find a reliable nanny. Perhaps even the girl that Kate Oakley employed. To judge from her behaviour, she seemed fond enough of the child. That shouldn’t be too difficult…But he was running ahead of himself. First he had to speak with Kate Oakley.
He didn’t anticipate having any problems, but he had learned long ago that it was as well to be prepared for all eventualities. If she should refuse to hand over the baby…well, then he would need all the ammunition he could find to prove that she was unfit to have the charge of him.
It had started to rain while he stood in the street, a fine November mizzle that soaked his thick black hair and made it curl. He hunched his shoulders against the damp, and wondered irately what had possessed David Wilder to behave so idiotically. Delegate…delegate…that was what he was always being told, and yet, the moment he did, look what happened!
An early morning cyclist braked to a startled halt as Garrick stepped out into the road in front of him, muttering under his breath.
Apologising grimly to him, Garrick crossed the road. He was thirty-five years old and a millionaire; once that had been said, what else was there to say? The woman who had been sharing his bed for the last three years had announced four months ago that the corporation that employed her was moving her out to New York. She would stay, she had intimated, if Garrick married her. He had told her crisply and incisively that he would not and why. And it had come as a slight shock to discover that he missed her sexually almost as little as he missed her emotionally…which was to say not at all. What was happening to him?
He knew the answer. Life had lost its bite, its savour, its challenge.
He had reached a time in his life when simply to succeed was not enough, and for some reason the thought of having a child, a cause, and perhaps at some later stage a companion as well as a successor, appealed tremendously to him.
Of course, he knew there were any number of women who would be only too pleased to give him a son. But that was not what he wanted. Their children would come with strings attached…demands, both pecuniary and emotional, which he had no wish to bear.
No, this child…this orphan would be ideal. And the child would benefit from their relationship, too. He would see to it. That Oakley woman would probably be all too pleased to give him up.
He now knew all there was to know about Kate Oakley, and he would use that information with all the ruthlessness for which he was so notorious, if he had to.
At eleven o’clock Kate’s doorbell rang and she went to answer it, still wearing her sweatshirt and jeans. She and Michael had been building a tower of plastic blocks, and Camilla raised her eyebrows a little when Kate ushered her straight upstairs instead of into the sitting-room.
‘Well…so this is the young man who’s causing so much disruption, is it?’ Camilla asked, swooping down on Michael and picking him up. ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous, Kate! Makes me feel all maternal inside…Oh, dear,’ she laughed as Michael started to pout and turn his face away from her, holding out his arms to Kate.
With her hair in a ponytail and her face free of make-up, she looked closer to twenty than thirty, Camilla reflected, studying her covertly. At twenty-eight, Kate could still look absurdly young at times; watching her cuddle the little boy, Camilla wondered if she realised how expressive her face was. For a dedicated career woman, she was beginning to look surprisingly madonna-like. Wisely Camilla decided not to tell her so. She knew that Kate prided herself on her independence, and it wouldn’t be kind to point out to her that that one illuminating smile had betrayed all too clearly how very dependent she already was on the small human body she was holding in her arms.
It was odd how kids got to you. Take her own two…She had vowed she didn’t want any, and yet from the moment they were born they had turned her life upside-down and she had let them.
‘Good news, I think,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ve found you a nanny. I got in touch with this friend of mine and she knows the ideal chap. Loads of experience. Adores kids and is especially good with young children. He can start straight away. In fact, the sooner the better. It seems that his previous boss started to get the wrong idea about their relationship, and propositioned him…’ She gave a rich chuckle. ‘It’s good to know that sexual harrassment can work both ways, isn’t it?’
Kate sat down, holding Michael on her knee. ‘Camilla, I’m not sure about this…Perhaps when Michael’s a bit older…’
The truth was that she didn’t want to share her home with a man; she found the mere thought slightly intimidating, and yet, after all, what was there to be afraid of? She would be the one in control, she would be the boss…he would simply be her employee.
‘Not sexual stereotyping, are we?’Camilla tutted archly, grinning at her. ‘Men can take care of babies just as well as women, you know. Besides, I thought that we’d already agreed that a man would be best for you, less of a hassle for you to deal with.’
‘Well, yes,’ Kate admitted, remembering how much trouble her friend was going to on her behalf. ‘But he’ll have to live in.’
There was a small, surprised silence, and then Camilla said briskly, ‘Well, you’ve got a spare room, haven’t you?’ adding firmly, ‘Good heavens, Kate! From what I’ve heard, this man is more likely to be terrified that you’re going to rape him, rather than the other way around…if that is what’s worrying you.’
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ Kate told her testily. ‘It’s just…Well, I’m not used to sharing my home with a man.’
‘No, you’re not, are you?’ Camilla agreed drily, and then reminded her, ‘One day Michael’s going to be a man, Kate, and quite honestly, for his sake…’