A Very Public Affair. Sally Wentworth
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their room and began to throw their things, which they’d unpacked only an hour ago, into the case. ‘Come on. Come on.’ She rushed him downstairs again and thrust some money into the hands of the astonished landlady. ‘Sorry, something’s come up. We won’t be able to stay after all.’
Clare threw the case in the boot and jumped in the car. ‘Do your safety belt up. Quickly, now, Toby.’ The road south went past the entrance to the lane that led to the house, but there was nothing Clare could do about that. She put her foot down and drove as fast as she dared, desperate to get away.
A slow-moving delivery van blocked the way and there was a car coming from the opposite direction. As it passed Clare glanced across and saw that Jack was driving it. He saw her—and his eyes widened in astonishment as he saw Toby in the back!
MILLIONAIRE FIGHTS FOR ACCESS TO LOVE-CHILD
Jack Straker, 35, the entrepreneur who has made a fortune out of his worldwide business empire, has found that money can’t buy him what he wants most in the world—a son to carry on his name and inherit his vast fortune. Divorced and childless, with no sign of wishing to marry again, Straker looked set for a lonely future until chance took a hand and he met again a woman he had known some years ago—and found that she had borne him a son!
To his great disappointment, however, the child’s mother, Miss Clare Long man, 25, has refused to allow the millionaire near the boy. It’s rumoured she even denied the relationship at first, until it was found that she’d entered Straker’s name on the birth certificate. The boy, known as Toby Long man, is five years old and a pupil at an exclusive school in London, where he lives with his mother.
Jack Straker comes from a working-class background but showed great business skills from an early age, starting his first company when still at school and running that and two more while attending university, where he attained an honours degree. Often called ‘the man with the golden touch’, every enterprise that Straker undertakes seems to pay off. But will he win through this time? He has been forced to go to law to gain access to his son, but the boy’s mother is said to be fighting him all the way.
What happened between the two to make the lady so against him neither will say. Maybe it’s because Miss Long man is from an upper-class background; her father—who along with her mother was killed in an accident soon after she was born—was a Colonel in the Guards. It would be intriguing to find out! We await the outcome of the lawsuit with interest and wish Straker—a well-known philanthropist---every success.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN Clare walked into the room she felt all the eyes turn on her, heard the sudden lapse in the conversation. Chin high, she resolutely ignored it and walked up to the director of the auction house.
‘Clare. So pleased you were able to come.’ He shook her hand, his manner pleasant enough, but she noticed the speculative look in his eyes. She encountered the same look, or something very near it, on the faces of the other people who were gathered in the large room, people she had previously regarded as friends and colleagues. But now, since that damning piece about her in all the tabloids, their manner towards her had subtly changed—especially that of the men.
It had taken some courage to come tonight. Perhaps it would have been easier if it had just been people she knew, but this evening the auction house was sponsoring a major charity auction in aid of a London hospital for children. As one of their leading experts on art deco and art nouveau, Clare was expected to attend, and it would have been cowardice not to come. So, much as she would have liked to bury herself at home, Clare had put on her newest cocktail dress, stitched a smile on her face and here she was. Let them talk about her. So what? She could take it But she was furious on Toby’s behalf; already he was being teased at school about that damn lawsuit.
She took a glass of champagne and mingled with her fellow experts, trying to keep her manner as calm and natural as she could. But half an hour later the double doors of the salon were thrown open and the first of the guests arrived: the organisers of the occasion, rich society women and their husbands. They were followed by celebrities from all walks of life: the theatre, business, politics—everyone who wanted to see and be seen in this exclusive circle. As one of the hosts, Clare was kept busy, mingling with the guests, thanking those who had made donations to the charity, ignoring the small, knowing smiles when people recognised her. But her cheeks flushed when she saw the heads of two women close together and heard one passing on the gossip. ‘Didn’t you know? That’s the girl Jack Straker had an affair with. And there’s a child involved, evidently. It was in all the papers.’
Quickly Clare moved away, cursing her bad luck. There had been no real reason—except for her terrorstricken reaction—for Jack to suspect about Toby from that one glimpse he’d had of him in the car a couple of months ago. But he had. And it had taken him no time at all to track her down, and then look up Toby’s birth certificate. But when he’d tried to contact her she’d returned none of his phone calls, hadn’t answered his letters and had refused to let him in when he had called at the flat. But then he’d brought the lawsuit, so she’d had to take notice of that.
Clare turned towards the door. She’d done enough; no one would notice if she left now. A newcomer had arrived and she found herself gazing at the one man she didn’t want to see—at Jack Straker. He took a purposeful step towards her but Clare. quickly went to join a small group gathered round the most famous guest, a minor royal. The director good-naturedly presented her, and Clare took good care to stay within the group until the auction started a short time later and everyone went to their seats.
She sat on a spare chair at the end of a row, so that Jack had no chance of coming near her. Already people had noticed that he was there too, and were nudging their friends, whispering the news. Not that they were interested in Clare particularly; she was a comparatively small fish in a big pool. But Jack was famous—a shark who could devour every other fish for breakfast. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, Clare saw him take a seat on the other side of the room. He looked towards her, his expression deeply sardonic, and she hastily shifted her gaze to the front—but her chin came up, set and determined. There was no way she was going to let Jack have a part in Toby’s life. Not after the way he’d treated her, used her.
The auction began and her thoughts drifted, away from that warm room with its bejewelled women and evening-suited men, back to the coldest winter’s night she’d ever known...
CHAPTER THREE
THE car that paused at the road junction was big and sleek, silver-grey in colour beneath the street lights. It made a statement that was easy to read: whoever drove a car like this had to be successful, rich, a winner. Huddled in a shop doorway and shivering with cold, Clare—hopeless, completely broke, a loser—raised tired lids to glance at it, deeply envying the mobile cocoon of warmth and luxury on this freezing winter’s night.
The lights changed to green and the car drove on, but turned into the courtyard of a block of flats just a few yards down the street on the opposite side. Watching, Clare saw the car pull up at the entrance and a man get out. He seemed in a great hurry, almost running through the doorway. He didn’t even bother to shut the car door properly. Such casual disregard held Clare’s attention. She waited for the man to come out again, her eyes fixed on the car, her whole mind consumed with the thought of the warmth inside it.
Slowly she dragged herself to her feet and as if drawn by an invisible but powerful magnet crossed the road towards the flats. Once out of the shelter of the doorway the icy blast of the wind caught her, made her gasp at its fierceness and brought tears that ran like icicles down her cheeks. Reaching the other side, Clare peered through the ornate iron railings that surrounded the block. The man still hadn’t come out and the car door was definitely open a couple of inches. She glanced round to see if anyone was watching, but it was almost one in the morning and the street was empty. Even the London traffic had ceased, everyone eager to get home on such a cold night.
For a moment longer she hesitated, but a gust of freezing wind chilled her to the marrow and sent her hurrying through the entrance, up to the car. A moment later her numb