скачать книгу бесплатно
Still unable to face him, though, when she hadn’t yet come to terms with Lisa’s betrayal, she went back to the flat, packed a bag, and, worried that he might call, took off for the suburbs to be near her mother for the weekend on the first available train.
When she arrived back late on Sunday night it was with the knowledge that the threatened cold following her mother’s operation hadn’t developed into anything serious. Consequently it was the memory of Lisa in the car park with that other man which kept her awake for hours. That, and what she herself was going to say to Cameron when he demanded to see her—as he undoubtedly would, she thought, with a cold apprehension stealing through her.
Finally, though, she drifted into a restless slumber, waking with such a severe bout of morning sickness that she had to telephone the office to say she wouldn’t be in until later.
It was halfway through the morning before she began to feel better, but her stomach muscles tightened painfully when the doorbell rang just as she was preparing to leave.
‘Going somewhere?’ Cameron’s gaze flitted coldly over her short-sleeved white blouse and beige skirt, and the matching jacket she had thrown over her arm.
‘I—I was just leaving for the office.’ Looking unusually pale, she took a step back as he thrust his way in uninvited.
‘The office can wait.’ He threw the door closed behind him, and a contrary mixture of fear and desolation shivered through Nadine. On Friday he’d looked angry. Today he was looking at her with an emotion almost akin to hatred, his voice purposefully soft as he said, ‘You aren’t going anywhere.’
He seemed big and imposing in her tiny hallway, memory serving to remind her, as her eyes registered the impeccable cut of his dark suit, that he had never actually been in her flat before.
‘You’ve already had half the morning off. Another hour isn’t going to make any difference—only to the answers you’re going to give me!’
Apprehensive, Nadine took another step back, feeling the sudden cool barrier of the wall through her thin blouse. So he’d telephoned the office first.
‘Cameron—I know you’ve a right to be angry…’
‘Angry?’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Oh, I’m not angry! I’m downright disgusted!’ She gasped as he moved disturbingly close, his hands coming up, one on either side of her, so that she was imprisoned against the wall. ‘You come and tell me you’re going to keep that baby, without even having the guts to stay and explain why, and then spend the whole weekend conveniently out of reach-and probably at my expense!’
‘That’s not true!’ His words cut into her like shards of jagged glass. His closeness was making her head swim, evoking feelings—memories—of an intimacy she didn’t want to remember.
‘Isn’t it?’ His mouth was a slash of disdain. ‘Then where the hell were you? I’ve been ringing—calling round since you ran out on me on Friday. Where have you been? In hiding? Afraid to face me, Nadine?’ His gaze raked icily over the tense lines of her face. ‘I wonder why?’
His tone had grown so unnervingly soft that she shuddered visibly. He’d judged her actions correctly, if not her motives!
‘Hasn’t a woman the right to want to keep her child?’ she uttered, her green eyes holding his unwaveringly, in spite of herself. ‘It’s something that takes over. A maternal instinct…’
‘Maternal instincts be hanged!’ Tremblingly she shrank from his palpable anger. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Nadine. And why didn’t you tell Lisa? I thought she and you were supposed to be friends. Why come to me with your cold-hearted little message? Or did even the self-centred Nadine Kendall have enough sensitivity to realise that she wouldn’t be able to take it?’
She looked at him, scared. Oh, God! Please don’t let her actions have done anything to…
‘Stop piling on the innocence, Nadine. She was counting on that baby—and you know it! Do you realise the depths of frustration and disappointment she had to go through—the desperation she had to feel to have to resort to asking another woman to provide her with the baby she couldn’t conceive herself? And suddenly to be told she wasn’t going to have it after all—’ She could feel his loathing in the breath that shuddered through his lungs, in the angry, pulsing heat of his body. ‘You’ve broken up my marriage, you mercenary, calculating little bitch! And if you think you’re going to rob me of my child as well as wrecking my home, you’ve got another think coming!’
Nadine stared at him, eyes disbelieving. Lisa—gone? True, she’d seen her in the car park, kissing that other man. But leaving Cameron…
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she uttered meekly, stunned both by the knowledge that Lisa would actually want to end her marriage and the sudden cold fear that Cameron might try to take the baby away.
‘No?’ Clearly he wasn’t going to accept that, she realised despairingly, feeling a little less threatened when he lowered his arms, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘You think you’re blameless?’
‘Yes! I mean…’ Oh, goodness! What was she trying to say? She’d only been doing what she’d thought was best for the baby—what any mother in the same situation would have done. But if Cameron believed Lisa was so innocent, then let him carry on thinking it! It wasn’t her place to put him straight. He’d hardly thank her for it, anyway. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all she could offer him, rather lamely.
‘Sorry?’ He rocked back on his heels, contempt in every hard inch of him. ‘Are you trying to tell me you didn’t have this planned from the very beginning? If Lisa was right, and you’re as anti-men as she had me believe—’
‘She said that?’
‘She hardly needed to. It’s patently obvious.’ She barely heard his scathing response, still trying to come to terms with Lisa saying something that was totally untrue. ‘You never go out with anyone—not regularly-only the odd, privileged male you might condescend to allow to date you when you’re feeling like some masculine company. So how did you go about choosing the father of your baby? Were you looking for a particular kind of pedigree? Or was it the thought of the five-figure cheque that appealed to the virgo intacta?’
The report that rang through the tiny hall was like the crack of a whip. Open-mouthed, hand smarting, Nadine stared at the reddening mark on his cheek, and she gave a small, frightened cry as he grabbed her, pushing her back against the wall.
‘Don’t you dare raise your hand to me, you cheap, double-crossing little vixen! All that talk about honour!’ His hands on her upper arms were bruising, frighteningly powerful, his contemptuous reminder of that night in that Essex hotel scorching her cheeks with shame. ‘You used me!’
‘That’s not true!’
‘No?’ His fingers tightened relentlessly on her bare flesh. ‘You wanted a child without the inconvenience of a husband. But may I remind you that I’m that child’s father, and I’ll fight you for custody every step of the way?’
Panic filled her eyes and she said desperately, ‘You can’t make me give it up!’
‘Legally, no.’ Of course. He knew the law—better than anyone. ‘Any more than you can extract any more cash from me if you change your mind and decide to. But if you think you can take my money and keep that baby, then I’ll have you know now that I’ll have my money’s worth out of you in other ways!’
‘No!’ Her hands came up to try and hold him off when she saw the threatening purpose in his eyes, but he was too strong for her, his body pinning her to the wall, his mouth coming down on hers with angry, humiliating intent.
His lips were punishing, the hands that had been holding her cruelly against him suddenly ripping at the collar of her blouse.
Dear heaven! He thought her no better than a whore! she thought wildly, her senses ravaged by the scent and heat and anger emanating from him, by that angry mouth against her throat, against her shoulder. Only her frenzied ‘No!’ seemed finally to drag him back to his senses.
Releasing her, and so abruptly that she staggered back against the wall, he turned away from her with a shuddering imprecation, as though he was revolted by her-by himself, for his own loss of control.
‘Do what you will,’ he snarled, contempt twisting his mouth. ‘Go where you will—to the other side of the world if you’ve a mind to. But I’ll find you.’ And as he turned to leave, through a blanket of fear and dizzying nausea, she heard his intimidating promise, ‘As long as you have my child you’ll never be rid of me, Nadine!’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_dab628f4-2b7e-5c7a-8068-e3f725fe0545)
STIFLED by the heat in the overcrowded train, Nadine stood clinging to the handgrip, praying for her station to emerge through the darkness of the Underground as a wave of sickness washed over her.
What was it they said? That it only lasted three months? Well, roll on three months! she thought wistfully as her stomach lurched with the rolling motion of the train. But what then?
With a little shiver of reluctance she recalled Cameron’s resolute promise to her the previous day. Did he intend to fight her for custody eventually, as he’d threatened to do, even without Lisa? Knowing, as he’d already admitted, that he would probably have no chance—or very little—of succeeding? Or did he despise her so much for being—as he believed—instrumental in destroying his marriage, that he intended to make her pay in some other humiliating way?
She fought a cold, queasy fear as she remembered his remark about taking his money’s worth, recalled the hostility of his kisses before he had finally gained command of himself again, and she was glad when at last the train whined to a standstill and she was out of the Underground. Although her troubles were only compounded by the news which was waiting for her at the office.
‘Larry’s gone,’ Marion, the junior partner’s secretary, came into her tiny office to tell her. ‘He had words with our senior early this morning and walked out. I think it was the ear-ring that finally did it.’ The young woman offered a sympathising smile. ‘I thought I ought to warn you, though…’ She hesitated, as though searching for the right words. ‘I heard the old man telling the other partners he wouldn’t be replacing him…So I don’t quite know where that leaves you.’
Redundant, Nadine thought with a despairing grimace. She had her worst fears confirmed within minutes of the other girl’s revelation and by that lunchtime she had cleared out her desk and left.
Not that she had been compelled to, she reflected when she was on her way to register with the nearest secretarial agency; they had given her the choice of working until the end of the month. But to avoid awkward questions she had planned to leave anyway, before her pregnancy started to show, and so this way, she decided, was best. At least if she was working for an agency suspicions wouldn’t be aroused if her morning sickness sometimes prevented her from getting in some days until after ten!
Fortunate enough to secure a temporary assignment starting the very next day, she found herself working in a very plush insurance office on the other side of town.
She had given the convalescent home the agency’s number in case someone should need to contact her urgently. She was disappointed, however, to have received no contact from Lisa, though she had been only half expecting to, nor a mere telephone call from Larry—if only to express regrets over putting her out of a job!
Still, he was probably too busy looking for one himself, she thought wryly, coming out of the modern office with two other girls at the end of the week. Her companions’ animated, ‘Ooh, what a car! What a man!’ coupled with, ‘Friend of yours, Nadine?’ drew her attention to the gleaming black Mercedes parked at the kerb, whose driver’s window was whirring smoothly open.
‘Hello, Nadine.’ Cameron’s smile was coolly reserved. ‘Get in. I’ll take you home.’
Nadine’s hackles rose at his arrogance in assuming that she was going straight home or that she would even step into his car after the way he had treated her the other day. But her colleagues were responding to that supreme masculine confidence in a way that told her they would take him up on his offer if she didn’t, and the last thing she wanted was to make a scene in front of them, so reluctantly she obeyed, her senses instantly assailed by the light, evocative scent of his cologne mingling with the expensive leather of the upholstery.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t got your own transport by now,’ was his casual comment after he had reminded her to fasten her seatbelt and was pulling away from the kerb.
What did he mean? That he had paid her well enough to afford to? she thought, and decided to dismiss it, giving him the benefit of the doubt by responding with, ‘Driving’s a nightmare in London. I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. Also, it was a choice of running a car or having a decent place to live and I chose the second.’
‘A case of priorities?’
She nodded, wondering if he’d ever had to make similar choices. His car was automatic, too, she remembered from last time, trying not to think about that devastating weekend with him as she watched him drive, not needing to change gear, manoeuvring the big car in and out of the rush-hour traffic with an ease that made a mockery of her statement about driving being a nightmare. Instinctively she knew that everything he did would be effortless.
‘Why did you leave your job?’ For a second that blue gaze lanced across her, piercingly interrogative as it rested on the fine beige cotton of her suit, the rich sheen of her sun-burnished hair. ‘Hoping to avoid any unwanted communication with the father of your child? Is a domestic move on the agenda as well?’
‘No, it isn’t!’ A flush washed over Nadine’s skin from the scathing quality of his remarks, and just to show him that she wasn’t going to be pushed around, she blurted out, ‘And what if it were? It’s absolutely no business of yours where I live—or how often I change my job. And for your information, Cameron, I happen to have been made redundant!’
Surprise lessened the dark austerity of his profile. ‘What happened?’
When she told him, unintentionally allowing disappointment over Larry’s failure to contact her to creep into her voice, he said, ‘Sounds about par for the course. Larry Lawson’s suffering from a severe case of immaturity—rebelling for rebellion’s sake against everything that’s got him where he is and that he’s privileged enough to be part of. He’s going to have to do some growing up if he’s going to succeed in law.’
‘Oh, really?’ A fiery wave cascaded over her shoulder as she turned to face him. ‘And I suppose you know him well enough to make such profound accusations about him?’ she breathed, indignation bringing her leaping rather too readily to her friend’s defence.
‘Only in so far as the few professional dealings I’ve had with him. And the fact that he comes from a long line of very competent solicitors. I know his father.’
‘You would.’
The obstinate thrust to her lower lip made him smile, the smile more that of a gloating conqueror than an ally. ‘What’s wrong, Nadine?’ His tone was smooth as he changed lanes and started signalling to take a right-hand turning. ‘Don’t you like it when someone stakes a claim on something that is rightfully theirs?’
He meant the baby, and on a small, desperate note she said, ‘It belongs to me as well.’
‘Yes.’ He ground the word through clenched teeth, as though he regretted having ever laid eyes upon her. ‘And as such we’ll discuss it. Where you’re going to live during the term of your pregnancy. What you’re going to do-because like it or not—it is my business, and while you’re carrying my child you’ll do what’s best for it, Nadine.’
She watched a black London cab making a U-turn through the busy traffic. Taxis got away with murder, she thought absently, because they had the gall.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I intend to!’ she retorted hotly, despite the sudden clutch of fear in her stomach that with this man there would be no turning round, no going back on anything he’d said.
‘Oh, yes, I forgot!’ He uttered a harsh, humourless laugh. ‘I’ve provided you with quite a little nest-egg, haven’t I?’
‘You’ll get it back!’ she promised vehemently, to herself as well as to Cameron. ‘Every last penny!’ Secretly, though, she despaired. She owed him a fortune, and from where she was sitting she couldn’t see a day when she would ever be out of his debt. ‘And as for looking after my baby, I can assure you I’m more than capable.’ Quickly she was changing the subject in an attempt to convey responsibility to him. ‘I’ve got a home. A job—’
‘For how long?’ He cast a disparaging glance at her as they came around the corner. ‘Look at you,’ he rasped, keenly aware of the pale, pinched look a more than usually bad day of nausea had given to her fine features. ‘You look all-in before you start. So what are you planning to do for the next six months? Go haring off to every corner of the city at a moment’s notice? Carry on as if you only had yourself to think about? Hardly a very responsible outlook for a woman in your condition. And what happens afterwards? After it’s born?’
His words stirred anxieties she was trying for the moment not to think about and, sticking her chin out defiantly, she murmured, ‘I’ll cope.’
‘Yes,’ he accepted on a harshly released breath. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ There was hard disparagement in the deep voice, in the tough rigidity of his jaw. ‘In an expensive flat? With no transport? And what will you do when you’re out temping? Employ a nanny? You’ll be lucky even to be able to pay her bus-fare on a secretary’s pay! Or was that taken into consideration out of the money you squeezed out of me to father your child?’
Recoiling from his understandable accusation, she searched for some satisfactory answer. But only honesty could redeem her, she realised hopelessly, remaining silent as relentlessly he went on.
‘You’re going to wind up in a crummy little bed-sit-living off the state, Nadine. And I’ll be darned if I’ll allow any offspring of mine to endure an existence like I had. Shunted around from aunt to aunt while its mother’s off somewhere trying to earn a living. Living hand to mouth, trying to make ends meet. Wearing the stigma not only of illegitimacy but of deprivation…’ He laughed coarsely at the shock that had manifested itself on Nadine’s face. ‘Oh, yes. Didn’t you know?’
No, she hadn’t, she thought, stunned, unable wholly to believe it. The inimitable Cameron Hunter? Illegitimate? Poor?
‘So you didn’t.’
Her face must have told him that, she realised, while her brain was still deducing what mental strength and character must have brought him from such humble beginnings to occupy the respected position he held today. The knowledge only served to make her feel even more intimidated by him.
‘No, Lisa didn’t tell me,’ she said quietly.
‘I wonder why?’
Had she imagined that sudden drag of breath through his lungs, that sharpened edge to his voice? Or was she mistaking deep, masculine pain…?
‘Has she…? I mean, have you heard anything—?’ She broke off, hesitating, flinching as he came back with a swift, cutting retort.
‘Do you really care?’ Tension made the line of his cheek more prominent, whether from anger or some other personal emotion Nadine wasn’t sure. ‘Well, you’re going to be made to care—for the future of our child if nothing else,’ he promised with inexorable softness. ‘And just in case you’ve got any ideas of flitting off somewhere where you think I can’t reach you, you’re going to pack in both that job and that flat of yours and live under my roof—in my cottage—as originally arranged, until the child’s born!’
A surge of hot anger burned through Nadine’s veins from his supreme arrogance. ‘That’s what you think!’ she riposted determinedly. There was no way she was agreeing to that! He was right, though. She wanted to get as far away from him as she possibly could, to minimise the risk of his trying to take the baby away from her. ‘You can hardly force me to, can you?’ she challenged him on a small note of defiance.
And perhaps he realised it too, she thought, relieved when his mouth firmed in what she could only deduce was frustrated acknowledgment and he went on to ask in an almost bored tone, ‘How’s your mother keeping these days?’
Glancing out at the eternal queues at the bus-stops, the endless traffic, Nadine felt her body stiffen. ‘All right.’ It was difficult to lie—to pretend.
‘What did she say when you told her you were pregnant?’
She looked at him quickly. Why did he want to know that?
Unconsciously her fingers tightened around the handbag on her lap. ‘I haven’t,’ she answered, as nonchalantly as she was able.
‘Oh?’ Cursorily he glanced across at her, his gaze travelling down over the shallow rising of her breasts to her fingers curling tensely into the soft fabric of her bag. ‘But you’re going to? Or are you planning not to chance a visit home until after you’ve given birth?’
He sounded mildly amused and she said, ‘Of course I’ll tell her.’
‘But you won’t be telling her the absolute truth?’
She made a distinct effort to relax as she saw his glance stray casually to her hands again. ‘No,’ she responded cautiously, wondering why he had sounded so sure.
‘What are you going to tell her?’
‘I don’t know,’ she murmured, and was glad when he leaned across to close the central air-vents, because the exhaust fumes from a dusty van in front were making her feel sick.
He started talking casually about pollution then, and the growing congestion in the city—things she felt strongly enough about herself to be able to engage in sympathetic discussion with him until he turned into the street of smart, semi-detached houses, pulling up outside her flat.
‘There you are,’ he said almost congenially, a smile touching his lips as he clicked the handbrake into place, and then, surprisingly, pulled the keys out of the ignition. ‘Now, do as you’re told and go up and pack as many things as you’ll need to see you through a long stay in the country, because you’re moving into that cottage tonight!’
Startled flecks showed in Nadine’s green eyes as she stared at him. ‘By whose authority?’ she snapped, flabbergasted.
‘By your own glimmer of a conscience, Nadine.’ Leather squeaked softly as he turned to face her, one finely clad arm resting disturbingly across the back of her seat. ‘Unless, of course, you would prefer me to pen a very detailed and informative account of your behaviour to your mother—?’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
He didn’t even need to answer that. Seeing the inexorable determination on that uncompromising mouth, Nadine realised now what he had been doing when he had asked those seemingly casual questions about her mother. He’d been testing the water, as the saying went-or her reaction anyway—understanding her body language with all the skill and shrewdness of his profession.
He’d obviously heard her telling Lisa all those weeks before not to mention their arrangement to Dawn Kendall if she, Nadine, did become pregnant; had heard her begging Lisa, making her promise. He’d clearly realised how desperate she’d been to keep it from her mother, even if he hadn’t known—still didn’t know—the reason why. And now she’d played right into his hands! she thought hopelessly, without seeing the manipulation behind those cleverly posed questions. Otherwise she could have said she’d already told her mother the truth, or that she was intending to. Anything but suffer this humiliating defeat.
