Escape Me Never (21 page)

Jodie had stopped crying, but her mood was subdued, her large eyes anxious, and Cass felt her heart contract as she turned to give her a smile she hoped was reassuring.

She remembered what Rohan had said about Jodie picking up vibrations from her for good or ill, and strove to present an attitude of calm normality, but it wasn't easy, even with Marcia's fluent assistance.

As they neared the cottage, Cass felt her nails curling into her palms with tension.

Marcia sent her a faint smile. 'Chin up,' she advised softly. 'Remember, I'd really like to have you as a sister-in-law, Cassie, and don't let me down.'

But any hopes about Marcia's confident prophecy that Rohan would still be sleeping were soon dashed. As Marcia drove up the track towards the cottage, Cass could see him standing beside his own car.

He turned, when he heard the car, but he made no attempt to smile or come forward in welcome, and Cass felt chilled as she helped Jodie to scramble out.

Marcia deposited their cases beside them with more haste than grace.

'I think I'll push off,' she said in an undertone. 'Rohan in this mood brings out all the coward in me. Good luck.'

Cass walked forward slowly, her eyes fixed on his grim face. When they were a few yards apart, Jodie detached herself with ease from her mother and ran forward.

'Rohan,' she said stretching out her arms imperiously, and his face softened a little as he bent, swinging her up into his arms.

'Hello, sweetheart.'

'Mummy didn't believe me,' Jodie announced. 'She thought I was making up stories, when I said you were going to marry us.'

'And you managed to convince her?' Rohan kissed the tip of her nose. 'Then you're cleverer than I am.'

The irony in his voice was lost on the child, but it made Cass wince.

Jodie was wriggling, looking round her. 'Can I go and explore? Rohan—may I? It's a pretty house.'

'Yes, off you go.' He lowered her to ground level. 'Mind how you go on the stairs,' he cautioned.

As she scampered off, he turned back to Cass.

'So you came back,' he said bleakly. 'That was not the impression your note gave.'

She moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue. 'I know, and I'm sorry, but I didn't realise…'

'That my intentions were honourable,' he broke in almost contemptuously. 'Well, I can understand that. Trust has never featured very prominently in our relationship to date. But I was fool enough to think that last night might have changed all that. I imagined that the fact you'd actually given yourself to me really meant something.'

She swallowed miserably, 'It did.'

'Really?' he came back at her implacably. 'So what did it mean, Cass? That you found having sex with me sufficiently bearable to tempt you to do your best for Jodie—to provide her with the kind of security, the kind of upbringing she deserves?'

He paused, the hazel eyes fixed remorselessly on her pale face, and quivering lips.

Then he said, more gently, 'I love Jodie. I wish that she was my child. I wish I'd put the seed she grew from into your body. I wish I'd been there with you when she was born. But I'm not prepared to be married for her sake only, Cassandra. I'm selfish enough to need my wife to want me for myself, as I want and love her. Not because I'm a suitable father-figure for her daughter.' He paused again. 'If she hadn't persuaded you, would you have come back, I wonder?'

She said in a low voice, 'It was because of her that I left. If it had been myself alone, I'd have stayed with you, Rohan, for as long as you wanted, been anything to you that you wanted. I—I didn't expect marriage. You could have anyone, after all.'

'I've spoken to you before about being humble,' he said grimly. 'So, what did you think I wanted from you. A quick sexual romp?' He shook his head slowly. 'Cassie, what happened for us last night was a miracle, and God knows I never expected it. Feeling as you did, I'd expected it to take months for us to reach anything approaching that kind of rapport. Years even.' He sighed. 'I took you last night because it seemed to me that going to bed with me had become some kind of obstacle for you. An emotional hurdle that we needed to get across together. I thought once that "first time" with all its connotations was behind us, we'd have something to build on. And then—suddenly— there was Paradise. I thought it was mutual. When I woke this morning and found you gone, I didn't believe it. Why did you go?'

'Because I couldn't bear to see you walk away from me eventually or, worse still, hang around out of a sense of—of compassion.' A slow scalding tear trickled down her cheek. 'It seemed to me that if I stayed, I was only piling up heartbreak for myself—and for Jodie, who'd have started loving you and relying on you more and more, the longer it went on.'

'So you decided to break my heart instead.' Rohan smiled faintly. 'Cassie, did you really think I was so starved of female companionship that I needed to go to those lengths to win you, if all I wanted was a few weeks' sex?'

Colour rose in her face. 'You never mentioned—caring for me.'

'I was afraid of frightening you still further,' he said ruefully. 'And don't forget you've been spitting at me like an angry cat ever since we met. I had no real reason to believe that you'd be prepared to listen to any kind of declaration from me.' He slanted a sardonic look at her. 'If I'd gone down on one knee and proposed to you when I first brought you here, would you have fallen into my arms with delight? Or would you have kicked me in the teeth and walked out?'

'Probably that,' she mumbled.

'Exactly,' Rohan said drily. 'Which is basically why I said nothing. I thought it was best to let you get used to me first, even enjoy being with me, before I started talking about a permanent thing like marriage.' He threw his head back and looked at her. 'Because in my family, Cassandra, marriage is for life. We don't give up easily.'

'As you've already demonstrated,' Cass said, with something of her old fire. 'Wasn't there something about "Escape me? Never" even that first day at Finiston Webber?'

'There was,' he said levelly. 'You ran into my arms, and it was like electricity. I thought—an advanced case of instant sexual chemistry, and proceeded accordingly. But it wasn't until the next day when I came to the flat and found you in bed with 'flu that I realised what was really going on.' He smiled reminiscently. 'You were ill and peevish, and by no means the delectable woman I'd fancied so avidly the day before, and yet I couldn't tear myself away. I straightened your bed, and gave you a drink and just sat there watching you. And I thought, "That's my wife." It was that simple. The problems began when I tried persuading you.'

'That simple?' Cass's brows lifted. 'Are you forgetting Serena Vance?'

His smile became a grin. 'I don't wear my heart on my sleeve, Cassandra. If you thought for one minute, I was going to hang round "alone and palely loitering" while you did your
Belle Dame sans Merci
act all over London, then you could think again. And Serena was—there. Very convenient. But that's all she was.'

She was still uncertain. 'But you brought her here, and Marcia was positive you'd never asked anyone to the cottage but me.'

He frowned slightly. 'Marcia's right.'

'But you told me when I asked that she thought the place was quaint,' she pointed out with a pang.

'So she did,' he said casually. 'She was at Graystocks once, having turned up uninvited I may add, when I was showing Marcia some before and after photographs I'd taken of the cottage. Serena never misses out on an opportunity to gush,' he added caustically. 'But I wouldn't have had her within a hundred miles of the place. This is my home, Cassandra. The place I intend to share with the woman I love.' He paused, almost uncertainly. 'If that's what she wants too, of course. You may not want to be stranded with me in this backwater on a permanent basis. You've got a career, after all.'

'For the time being, I have.' She began to smile again, the glow of love and desire irradiating her entire being. 'But I'll be happy to retire here when those brothers and sisters you've been planning with Jodie start coming along.'

He said gently, 'Tell me you love me, Cassandra. Let me hear the words. You've given me a bad time too, remember.'

She looked at him with her heart in her eyes, 'I love you, Rohan. Too much, I think.'

'It can never be that.' He came to her then, at last, his arms going round her, drawing her against him. She registered wonderingly that he was trembling. He whispered, 'You have a hell of a way to go to catch up with me, darling.' He bent and kissed her mouth with heart-stopping tenderness, and the beginning of passion. When he lifted his head, he said unevenly, 'You'll never know what I went through this morning when I reached for you, and you weren't there. That isn't going to happen again.'

She bit her lip. 'Rohan, I can't sleep with you. What will Jodie think?'

'Leave Jodie to me,' he said. 'Anyway, she'll be too busy hatching up this bridesmaid's dress with Marcia to worry about what we're up to.' He paused. 'My mother and father get back from their trip in a fortnight. I thought we'd get married then.'

She said uneasily, 'And how are they going to react to you marrying a widow with a child?'

'With enthusiam, when I talked to them about it on the telephone,' he said. 'I told them I adored you, and that Jodie was a bonus.'

The bonus chose that moment to come flying out of the house.

'I love your house,' she announced, inveigling herself between them with the air of one who has the right. 'I'd like the littlest bedroom to be mine, only someone else is using it.'

'No, they're not,' Rohan told her. "Your mother's decided to sleep in my room from now on, so it's all yours.'

Jodie drew a deep breath, and looked up at them, her face unclouded. 'Just like a real Mummy and Daddy?' she demanded.

Rohan ruffled her hair. 'Exactly like that, madam.'

'Oh.' The breath she drew seemed composed of sheer ecstasy. The gaze she turned on her future stepfather was angelically beguiling. 'And I've seen a wonderful place for the swing.'

Cass began to shake with laughter. 'Darling,' she said. 'Are you sure you know what you're taking on?'

'Quite sure,' Rohan said, and the words sounded like a vow. He picked Jodie up and settled her on his hip, then slid an arm round Cass and began to walk with them both towards the front door. 'Now, let's go home.'