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He felt the pain of remorse. ‘There was no divorce.’ His eyes were very green—colder than ice and as unforgiving as flint. ‘She—’ He seemed to get ready to spit the next words out. ‘She—died.’
Lisi registered the bizarre and unbelievable statement and flinched as she saw the brief bleakness which had flared up in his eyes.
Died? His wife had died? But how? And why? And when? Not that she could ask him. Not now. And just what could she say in a situation like this? Offer condolences for a woman she had unwittingly deceived? She swallowed down her awkwardness. ‘I’m sorry—’
He shook his head. ‘No, you’re not. Don’t pretend. You didn’t know her.’
‘Of course I didn’t know her! I didn’t even know of her, did I, Philip? Because if I had…if I had—’ She chewed frantically on her lip.
‘What?’ he interjected softly. ‘Are you trying to say that you wouldn’t have gone to bed with me if you’d known she existed?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Of course I wouldn’t.’
‘Are you so sure, Lisi?’
She bent her head to gaze unseeingly at all the property details she had been typing up. Of course she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything other than the fact that Philip Caprice had exercised some strange power over her—the power to transform her into the kind of wild, sensual creatureshe hardly recognised, and certainly didn’t like.
‘Just go away,’ she said, her voice very low. ‘Please, Philip. There’s nothing left to say, and, even if there was, we can’t have this conversation here.’
‘I know we can’t.’ He leaned forward and the movement caused his trousers to ride and flatten over the strong, powerfulshafts of his thighs and he heard her draw in a tiny breath. ‘So let’s have that drink later and catch up on old times. Aren’t you interested to compare how the world has been treating us?’
Something in his words didn’t ring true and again she felt a frisson of apprehension. Why would Philip suddenly reappear and want to catch up on old times?
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, come on, Lisi—what have you got to lose?’
Her freedom? Her sanity? Her heart? She shook her head. ‘I’m busy after work,’ she said, despising herself for being tempted all the same.
But there was something in her body language which told a conflicting story, something which put his senses on full alert—and, besides, he wasn’t going away from here until he got what he had come for. ‘How about tomorrow night then?’
‘I’m busy.’
‘You mean you have a date?’
Lisi stared at a face which held the arrogant expression of a man who was not used to being turned down, and came to a decision. She had thought that playing it polite might do the trick, that he might just take the hint and go away again. But she had been wrong. And the longer he stayed here…
Politeness abandoned now, she rose to her feet. ‘I don’t know how you have the cheek to ask that! My personal life is really none of your business, Philip.’
The fire in her eyes heated his blood, and there was answering fire from his as he echoed her movement and stood up to tower over her, thinking how small and how fragile she looked against his robust height.
‘Like I said,’ he murmured, ‘I’m just curious about ex-lovers.’
Her heart was pounding with rage and fury and with something else, too—something far more threatening—something too closely linked with the overwhelming desire she had once felt for him. ‘I don’t think that the extent of our little liaison really warrants such a flattering description as ‘‘ex-lover’’, do you?’
He wasn’t doing much thinking at all. Not now. He was entranced by the rise and fall of her heavy breasts beneath the thin white shirt and he felt an explosion of need and lust which made him grow exquisitely hard, and he thanked God that the heavy overcoat he wore concealed that fact.
‘If the term offends, then what would you rather I called you, Lisi?’ he asked steadily.
‘I’d rather you didn’t call me anything! In fact, I’d rather you turned straight around and went out the way you came in! What is the point of you being here? Do you honestly think you can just waltz back in here after all this time, and pick up where we left off?’
‘Is that what you’d like, then?’ he asked softly. ‘To pick up where we left off?’
Yes! More than anything else in the world!
No! The very last thing she wanted!
Lisi stared distractedly at the hard, angular planes of his face and—not for the first time—wished that she had more than one beautiful yet unsatisfactory night to remember this man by. And then reminded herself that she had a whole lot more besides.
Imagine the repercussions if he were to find out!
She gave a humourless laugh. ‘I outgrew my masochistic phase a long time ago!’ She looked down deliberately at her watch. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have work to do!’
He remembered her as uncomplicated and easygoing, but now he heard the sound of unmistakable frost in her voice and he found himself overwhelmed by the urge to kiss the warmth back into it. And it was so long since he had felt the potency of pure desire that he found himself captive to his body’s authority. Compelled to act by hunger and heat instead of reason—but then, that was nothing new, not with her.
A pulse began to beat at his temple. ‘You don’t look too busy to me.’
Like an onlooker in a play, Lisi stared with disbelief as she saw that he was moving around to her side of the desk, with a look on his face which told its own story.
‘Philip?’ she questioned hoarsely as he bent towards her.
‘Answer me one thing and one thing only,’ he demanded.
His voice was one of such stark command that Lisi heard herself framing the word, ‘What?’
‘Is there a man in your life?’ he murmured. ‘A husband or a fiancé or some long-time lover?’
This truth was easy to tell, but then perhaps that was because she was compelled to by the irresistible gleam of his eyes. She shook her head. ‘No. No one.’
He looked down at her for one brief, hard moment and knew a moment of sheer, wild exultancy before he pulled her into his arms with a shudder as he felt the soft warmth of a woman in his arms again.
The blood roared in her ears. She wanted to push him away and yet she was powerless to move, so tantalising was his touch. Suddenly she knew just how a butterfly must feel shortly before it was impaled against a piece of card. Except that a butterfly would receive nothing but pain—while Philip could give her untold pleasure.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she breathed as she felt the delicious pressure of his fingers against her skin through the shirt she wore.
‘You know what I’m doing.’ Doing what he had been wanting to do ever since he had walked back in here again today. Doing what had haunted him for far too long now.
‘You need kissing, Lisi,’ he ground out and pulled her even closer. ‘You know you do. You want me to. You always did. Didn’t you?’
His arrogance took away what little of her breath was left, because just the sensation of feeling herself in the warm circle of his arms again was enough to make her feel as weak as a kitten.
‘Get out of here! We’re standing in the middle of my bloody office—’ she spluttered, but her protest was cut short by the ringing of the doorbell and Marian Reece, her boss and the owner of Homefinders, walked in, her smile of welcome instantly replaced by one of slightly irritated bemusement as she took in the scene in front of her.
‘Hello, Lisi,’ she said steadily, looking from one to the other. ‘I’m sorry—am I interrupting something?’
Hearing the unmistakable reproof in her boss’s voice, Lisi sprang out of Philip’s arms as if she had been scalded, thinking how close he had been to kissing her. Would she have let him? Surely not. But if she had…?
Her heart was crashing against her ribcage, but she struggled to retain her breath and to appear the kind of unflappable employee she usually was. ‘H-hello, Marian. This is Philip Caprice. We were, um, we were just—’
‘Just renewing our acquaintance,’ interjected Philip smoothly and held his hand out to Marian, while smiling the kind of smile which few women would have the strength to resist.
And Marian Reece was not among them.
Lisi had known the forty-five-year-old since she had bought out the estate agency two years ago. She liked Marian, even though the older woman led a life which was streets apart from her own.
But then Marian was a successful businesswoman while Lisi was a struggling single mother.
‘Lisi and I are old…friends,’ said Philip deliberately. ‘We go way back.’
‘Indeed?’ said Marian rather tightly. ‘Well, call me a little old-fashioned—but mightn’t this kind of fond greeting be better reserved for out of office hours?’
Fond? Inside, Lisi almost choked on the word. ‘Yes, of course. And Philip was just leaving, weren’t you, Philip?’
‘Unfortunately, yes—I have some business to see to.’ He glittered her a look which renewed the racing in her heart. ‘But I’ll be back tomorrow.’
Lisi thought it sounded more like a threat than a promise. ‘Back?’ she questioned weakly. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Of course. You haven’t forgotten that you’re going to sell me a house, have you, Lisi?’
Lisi blinked at him in confusion. Had she had missed something along the way? ‘A house?’ He had mentioned nothing about a house!
‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said gently. ‘I’m looking for a weekend cottage—or something on those lines.’
Was she being offered a lifeline? In the old days he had done deals for rich contemporaries of his from university—they had valued his taste and his discretion.
‘You mean you’re buying for someone else?’ Lisi stared up at him hopefully.
Her obvious resistance only increased his desire for her—although maybe she knew that. Maybe that was precisely why she was batting those aquamarine eyes at him like that and unconsciously thrusting the narrow curves of her hips forward. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart—but I’m looking for a country home for myself.’
Lisi’s world threatened to explode in a cloud of black dust. ‘Around here?’ she questioned hoarsely.
‘Sure. Why not? I know the area. It’s very beautiful—and just about commutable from London.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘Sounds just about perfect to me.’
‘Does it?’ asked Lisi dully.
‘Yes, of course we’ll be delighted to find something for you, Mr Caprice,’ said Marian crisply. ‘I can look for you myself, if you prefer.’
He shook his head. ‘Oh, no,’ he contradicted softly. ‘I’m quite happy to deal with Lisi.’
Well, I’m not happy to deal with you, she thought hysterically, but by then it was too late. He was charm personified to Marian as he said goodbye, and then he took Lisi’s hand in his and held it for just a little longer than was necessary while he held her gaze.
‘Goodbye, Lisi. Until tomorrow.’
‘Goodbye, Philip.’ She swallowed, while inside her heart raced with fear and foreboding.
She stood in silence with Marian as they watched him leave and Lisi’s hands were shaking uncontrollably as the door clanged shut behind him.
Marian turned to look at her and her eyes were unexpectedly soft with sympathy. ‘So when are you going to tell him, Lisi?’ she asked softly.
Time froze. Lisi froze. ‘Tell him what?’
‘The truth, of course.’ She placed a perfectly manicured hand on Lisi’s shaking arm. ‘He’s the father of your child, isn’t he?’
CHAPTER TWO
LISI stared at Marian. ‘You can’t know that!’ she babbled, and now her knees really were threatening to give way. ‘Tim looks nothing like him!’
‘Sit down, dear, before you fall down.’ Marian gently pushed her back down onto her chair and went and poured a glass of water from the cooler, then handed it to her. ‘Now drink this—you’ve gone even paler than usual.’
Lisi sucked the chilled liquid into her parched mouth and then shakily manoeuvred it to a corner of her desk before raising her eyes beseechingly to her boss. ‘He doesn’t look anything like Philip,’ she repeated stubbornly.
‘Lisi,’ said Marian patiently. ‘Tim is your living image—but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t inherited any of his father’s characteristics. Sometimes a mother can blind herself to what she doesn’t want to see. Sometimes it’s easier for an outsider to see the true picture. I knew immediately that Philip was Tim’s father.’
‘But how?’ Lisi demanded brokenly.
Marian sighed. ‘Well, Tim is an unusually tall boy for his age—we’ve always said that. He has his father’s strength and stature—and there’s a certain look of him in the shape of his face, too.’
A chasm of frightening dimensions was beginning to open up in front of Lisi’s feet. ‘A-anything else?’ she demanded hoarsely.
Marian shrugged awkwardly. ‘Well, I’ve never seen you behave like that with a man before—’
‘Because he was hugging me in the office, you mean?’
‘Hugging you?’ Marian raised her eyes to heaven. ‘That’s a new way to describe it! He looked more like he wanted to eat you up for breakfast, lunch and tea—and vice versa. Like no one else existed in the universe other than him.’
And he had always had that effect on her—even though she could have been nominated for an Oscar, so hard had she always tried to hide it in the past. Philip could do and behave exactly as he pleased and Lisi would always be there with a smile for him. No questions, Lisi. Weak Lisi. Foolish Lisi.
Well, not any longer!
‘It must have been a very passionate relationship,’ observed Marian.
If only she knew!
‘The question is, what are you going to tell him?’
Lisi shook her head. ‘I’m not. I’m not going to tell him.’
Marian screwed her eyes up. ‘Oh, Lisi—do you honestly think that’s a good idea?’
Lisi shook her head. ‘I know it isn’t ideal, but it’s the only thing I can do.’
‘But why, dear? Why not tell him? Don’t you think he has the right to know that he has a beautiful son?’
‘The right?’ Lisi looked at her boss and knew that she could not tell her whole story—but part of the story would surely make her point for her. And illustrate as well as anything just how little she had meant to Philip.
‘Marian—he walked out on me. He made it clear that he thought our night together was a big mistake, and that he wanted nothing more to do with me.’
Marian frowned. ‘One night? That’s all it was? Just one night?’
