The Mistress's Child (12 page)

'When the paramedics arrived on the scene, they didn't think she'd make it. She had suffered massive head injuries.

They took her to hospital, and for a while it was touch and go.'

Lisi winced. What words could she say that would not sound meaningless and redundant? He must have heard the same faltering platitudes over and over again. She nodded and said nothing.

'Her body was unscathed,' he said haltingly. 'And so was her face—that was the amazing thing.' But it had been a cruel paradox that while she had lain looking so perfect in the stark hospital bed—the Carla he had known and loved had no longer existed. Smashed away by man's disregard for safety.

I used to visit her every day—twice a day when I wasn't out of London.' Sitting there for hours, playing her favourite music, stroking the cold, unmoving hand and praying for some kind of response, some kind of recognition he was never to see again. Other than one slight movement of her fingers which had given everyone false hope. 'But she was so badly injured. She couldn't speak or eat, or even breathe for herself.'

'How terrible,' breathed Lisi, and in that moment her heart went out to him.

'The doctors weren't even sure whether she could hear me, but I talked to her anyway. Just in case.'

He met a bright kind of understanding in her eyes and he hardened his heart against it. I was living in a kind of vacuum,' he said heavily. 'And work became my salvation, in a way.' At work he had been forced to put on hold the human tragedy which had been playing non-stop in .his life. He gave her a hard, candid look. 'Women came onto me all the time, but I was never...'

She sensed what was coming. 'Never what, Philip?'

'Never tempted,' he snarled. 'Never.' His mouth hardened. 'Until you.'

So she was the scapegoat, was she? Was that why he

had seemed so angry, when he had walked back into her life? 'You make me sound like some kind offemmefatale,' she said drily.

He shook his head. That had been his big mistake. A complete misjudgement. Uncharacteristic, but understandable under the circumstances. 'On the contrary,' he countered. 'You seemed the very opposite of afemme fatale. I thought that you were sweet, and safe. Innocent. Uncomplicated.'

Achingly, she noted his use of the past tense.

'Until that night. When we had that celebratory drink.' He walked back over to the window and stared out unsee-ingly. 'I'd only had one drink myself—so I couldn't even blame the alcohol.'

Blame. He needed someone to blame—and she guessed that someone was her. 'So I was responsible for your momentary weakness, was I, Philip?'

He turned around and his face was a blaze of anger. 'Do you make a habit of getting half-cut and borrowing men's hotel rooms to sleep it off?' he ground out, because this had been on his mind for longer than he cared to remember. 'Do you often take off all your clothes and lie there, just waiting, like every man's fantasy about to happen?'

'Is that what you think?' she asked quietly, even though her heart was crashing against her ribcage.

'I'm not going to flatter myself that I was the first,' he said coldly. 'Why should I? You didn't act like it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.'

His words wounded her—but what defence did she have? If she told him that it had felt like that, for her, then she would come over at best naive, and at worst—a complete and utter liar.

'I'll take that as a compliment,' she said, and regretted it immediately. 'I'm sorry,' she amended. 'I shouldn't be flippant when you're telling me all this.'

Oddly enough, her glib remark did not offend him. 'It was a long time ago,' he said heavily. 'I don't want to be wrapped up in cotton wool for the rest of my life.'

'Won't you tell me the rest?' she asked slowly, because she recognised that he was not just going to go away. And if he was around in her life—then how could they possibly form any kind of relationship to accommodate their son, unless she knew all the facts? However painful they might be.

He nodded. 'That night I left you I went straight to the hospital. The day before Carla had moved her fingers slightly and it seemed as if there might be hope.'

She remembered that his mood that day had been almost high. So that had been why. His wife had appeared to be on the road to recovery and he had celebrated life in the oldest way known to man. With her.

'But Carla lay as still as ever, hooked up to all the hospital paraphernalia of tubes and drips and monitors,' he continued.

He had sat beside her and been eaten up with guilt and blame and regret as he'd looked down at her beautiful but waxy lips which had breathed only with the aid of a machine. Carla hadn't recognised him, or had any idea of what he had done, and yet it had smitten him to the hilt that he had just betrayed his wife in the most fundamental way possible.

His mouth twisted. To love and to cherish. In sickness and in health. Vows he had made and vows he had broken.

He had always considered himself strong, and reasoned and controlled—and the weakness which Lisi had exposed in his character had come as an unwelcome shock to which had made him despise himself.

And a little bit of him had despised her, too.

'She died a few months later,' he finished, because what, else was there to say? He saw her stricken expression and

guessed what had caused it. 'Oh, it wasn't as a result of what you and I did, Lisi, if that's what you're thinking.'

'The thought had crossed my mind,' she admitted slowly. 'Even though I know it's irrational.'

Hadn't he thought the same thing himself? As though Carla could have somehow known what he had done.

'What did you do?' she questioned softly.

There was silence in the big room before he spoke again.

I went to pieces, I guess.' He saw the look of surprise in her eyes. 'Oh, I functioned as before—I worked and I ate and I slept—but it was almost as if it was happening to another person. I think I was slowly going crazy. And then Khalim came.'

'Khalim?' she asked hesitantly.

'Prince Khalim.' He watched as the surprise became astonishment, and he shrugged. 'At the time he was heir to a Middle-Eastern country named Maraban—though of course he's ruler now.'

'How do you know him?' asked Lisi faintly.

'We were at Cambridge together—and he heard what had happened and he came and took me off to Maraban with him.'

'To live in luxury?'

He smiled at this memory as he shook his head. 'The very opposite. He told me that the only way to live through pain and survive it was to embrace it. So for two months we lived in a tiny hut in the Maraban mountains. Just us. No servants. Nothing. Just a couple of discreet bodyguards lurking within assassination distance of him.'

Her eyes grew wide with fascination. 'And what did you do?'

'We foraged for food. We walked for hours and sometimes rode horses through the mountains. At night we would read by the light of the fire. And he taught me to fight,' he finished.

Tofight

He nodded. 'Bare-knuckled. We used to beat hell out of each other!'

'And didn't he...mind'?

Philip shook his head. 'Out there, in the mountains—we were equals.' Indeed, he suspected that Khalim had learned as much from the experience as he had—for certainly the two men who had emerged from their self-imposed exile had been changed men.

She had wondered what had brought about the new, lean, hard Philip. Why he had looked so different—all the edges chiselled away. She swallowed. 'And then?'

'Then he offered me a job, working as his emissary. It took me all over the world.'

'And did you enjoy it?'

'I loved it.'

'But you left?'

He nodded.

'Why?'

'The time had come. Everything has its time of closure. Khalim fell in love with an English woman. Rose.'

His mouth curved into a warm and affectionate smile and Lisi felt the dagger of jealousy ripping through her.

'Khalim and I had developed the closeness of brothers— in so much as his position allowed. It was only right that Rose should have him all to herself once they were married.'

In all the time she had been listening to his story, Lisi had been entranced, but as he drew to the end of it reality reared its head once more.

She gave a little cough. 'Would you like to see upstairs now?'

'No, thanks—I've seen enough.'

Thank God! She nodded understandingly. 'Well, I'm sure

we'll be getting a lot more properties on the market—especially after Christmas.'

He gave a slow smile as he realised what she was thinking. 'You may have misunderstood me, Lisi,' he said silk-ily. 'I want this house and I want you to put an offer in.'

'But it's overpriced! You know it is!' she declared desperately. 'Ridiculously overpriced!'

He wondered whether she tried to put other buyers off in quite such an obvious way, but somehow doubted it. 'So Marian Reece told me.'

'And they've stated unequivocally that they can't possibly accept anything other than the full asking price.'

'Then offer it to them,' he said flatly.

She could not believe her ears. This was Philip Caprice speaking—the man famed for driving the hardest bargain in the property market! 'Are you serious?' she breathed.

He saw the way her lips parted in disbelief and he felt a wild urge to kiss them, to imprison her in his arms and to take the clips from her hair and have it tumble down over that masculine-looking jacket. His eyes slid down past the pencil skirt to the creamy tights which covered her long legs and that same wildness made him wonder what she would do if he began to make love to her.

Should he try? See if she would respond with passion and let him slide his hand all the way up her legs and touch her until she was begging him for more. He struggled to dampen down his desire.

'I've never been more serious in my life,' he said, and then his voice became clipped. 'Tell the vendors that my only condition is that I want in and I want them out. So let's tie up the deal as quickly as possible, shall we?'

If she could have had a wish at that moment, it would have been to have been given a huge sum of money— enough to buy back her own home herself instead of letting it go to Philip Caprice. Couldn't he guess how much she

loved the place? Wasn't he perceptive enough to realise how heartbreaking she was going to find it, with him living here.

Or maybe he just didn't care.

He was walking around the room now, touching the walls with a proprietorial air she found utterly abhorrent. She gritted her teeth behind a forced smile. 'Very well. I'll get that up and running straight away.' There was a question in her eyes. 'Though it's going to need a lot of work to get it up to the kind of specifications I imagine you'll be looking for.'

His answering smile was bland. 'Just so.'

'You certainly couldn't expect to be in before Christmas. Probably not until springtime at the earliest,' she added hopefully.

Her wishes were beautifully transparent, but, unfortunately for her, they were not going to come true. 'Not Christmas, certainly,' he agreed, and saw her visibly relax. 'But I think spring is a rather pessimistic projection.'

'All the builders and decorators around here are booked up for months in advance!' she told him, trying to keep the note of triumph from her voice.

'Then I shall just have to bring people down from London, won't I?'

She glared at him. 'As you wish,' she said tightly. 'And now, if there's nothing further, I'll call into the office and then I really must get back—'

'To Tim?' he interjected softly.

How she wished he wouldn't use that distinctly possessive tone! He might be Tim's father—but the two had barely exchanged a few words. He couldn't just walk back into their lives unannounced and expect to be an equal partner!

'Yes, to Tim,' she said coldly, and began to walk towards

the hall, her high heels clip-clopping over the polished floorboards.

'Oh, Lisi?'

She stopped, something in his tone warning her that she was not going to like his next words, either. She turned round, wishing that he were ugly, and that he didn't have those piercing green eyes which could turn her knees to jelly. 'Yes?'

'We haven't discussed Christmas yet, have we?'

'Christmas?' she echoed stupidly. 'What about it?'

I want to spend it with Tim.'

She fought down the urge to tell him that he could take a running jump, but she knew that open opposition would get her nowhere. Softly, softly it must be.

She put on her most reasonable smile. 'I'm afraid you can't. I'm really sorry.'

Yeah, she sounded really sorry. He kept his face impassive. 'Oh? And why's that?'

'Because we've already made arrangements for Christmas.'

'Then unmake them,' he said flatly. 'Or include me.'

She drew in a deep breath. 'We've arranged to have lunch with my friend Rachel and her son, Blaine—he's Tim's best friend. I couldn't possibly take you along with us!'

He thought about it. 'I'm supposed to be having lunch with my parents,' he reflected. 'But I'll drive down here afterwards. We can all have tea and Christmas cake together, can't we, Lisi?'

'No!'

'Why not?'

'Because...because he doesn't know who you are!'

He narrowed his eyes, but not before she had seen the flash of temper in them. 'You mean you haven't told him yet?'

'When?' she demanded angrily. 'In the hour I had this morning between waking up and being summoned into the' office at your bidding?' •

The accusation washed over him. 'I thought that it was important for you to see where I was buying.'

'Why?'

'Because eventually Tim will come to stay with me. Naturally.'

Feeling as though her world were splintering all around her, Lisi prayed that it didn't show. Keep calm, she told herself. He may be powerful and rich, but he can't just ride roughshod over your wishes. He can't.  She drew a deep breath.

'Listen, Philip—I can understand that you want to build a relationship with Tim—'

'How very good of you,' he put in sarcastically.