“I’ve often wondered,” Max said, “what I’d be like as a father. I think I might be rather good.” About the Author Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright

“I’ve often wondered,” Max said, “what I’d be like as a father. I think I might be rather good.”

Often wondered? How cruel could life be? Laura wanted to yell. Why hadn’t he wanted to be a father five years ago? Why hadn’t he wanted a family as much as he clearly did now? And why did he have to keep shoving his happy daddy act in her face all the time? Maybe if he knew what had happened to her he’d choose his words more carefully and stop breaking her heart. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him.

Max appeared at her side. “Cheers,” he said, handing her a glass of wine.

“What could we possibly be cheering about?” Laura muttered, taking a huge gulp.

“Our good fortune!”

“This is good fortune? A miserable little cottage, a ferocious gale and stair-rods of rain outside, two strange children and—and...” Her voice wobbled, betraying her pent-up emotions. “And...worst of...all, you!”

Childhood in Portsmouth, England, meant grubby knees, flying pigtails and happiness for SARA WOOD. Poverty drove her from typist and seaside landlady to teacher, till writing finally gave her the freedom her Romany blood craved. Happily married, she has two handsome sons: Richard is calm, dependable, drives tankers; Simon is a roamer—silversmith, roofer, welder, always with beautiful girls. Sara lives in the Cornish countryside. Her glamorous writing life alternates with her passion for gardening, which allows her to be carefree and grubby again!

Sara Wood gives us “a passionate conflict and smoldering sensuality”

—Romantic Times

Temporary Parents

Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Anna and Chris at Headlands Hotel,

and for The Girls.

CHAPTER ONE

THE trilling of the phone ripped into Laura’s unconsciousness. Her hand fumbled about, knocking over the bedside lamp, two paperbacks, a china hedgehog and a mug with its dregs of hot chocolate before connecting with the receiver.

“Lo?’ she mumbled, drowsily trying to right everything and getting a chocolatey hand for her pains.

‘Laura?’

She sat bolt-upright in bed, suddenly startled and alert. ‘Yes, Max?’ she squeaked.

It was an unmistakable, honey-on-steel version of her name. L-a-u-r-a. Shivers went down her back. Her hand pressed against her chest, as if that would stop the acrobatics of her heart. Max. The years rolled back...

‘I’m coming to see you.’

She blinked. It was pitch-dark in her small bedsit. She pushed back the flopping mass of unruly black hair which could have been obscuring her view—but it was still dark. When she checked the luminous dial of her clock, her huge, summer-sky-coloured eyes rounded in complete amazement.

‘At four in the morning? Oh, for heaven’s sake!’

She slammed the phone down and hauled the duvet over her head. She had to get up in an hour! Angrily she listened to the muted, persistent ringing, wishing that she’d yanked the whole thing from its socket.

And then as she lay there, hating Max, wishing he’d give up, she finally put two and two together. There could be only one reason Max wanted to see her: the secret she and her older sister Fay had kept to themselves for the past five years.

Laura sat up again in horror. Perhaps he knew the truth now. What would he do? Tell Daniel, Fay’s husband? Then what?

She shuddered, suddenly icy cold. Flinging back the duvet, she launched herself in panic at the phone. Both of them landed on the floor, and her African Grey parrot woke up and started screeching in alarm.

‘Shut up, Fred...! Oh, this wretched thing...!’ she wailed in frustration, trying to untangle the cord from her ankle.

She could hear Max shouting somewhere in the depths of the receiver and felt vindictively sorry that the crash hadn’t burst his eardrums.

‘Yes? What?’ she demanded, cross and out of breath.

‘What the hell’s going on? Who’s there with you?’ Max yelled, sounding agitated. Fred screamed on relentlessly.

‘It’s all right, darling!’ she crooned, anxious for her beloved, neurotic pet’s state of mind. ‘Coo-coo-coo—’

‘What?’

‘I was speaking to my parrot!’ she snapped, feeling hysterical.

Fred’s screeching was drilling through her head. She fumbled for the light switch on the fallen lamp and switched it on.

‘A parrot.’

Stung by Max’s slicing tone, she clenched her teeth and tried to ignore the implication that he was dealing with a fool. Max could sneer for England.

‘Hang on!’ she cried, wincing as Fred’s screeches scythed through her. ‘I’ve got to calm him down. He’s emotionally disturbed.’

‘For pity’s sake—!’

Cutting him off in mid-curse, she scrambled unsteadily to her feet, thinking that now she was emotionally disturbed too. Dammit, why had Max crawled out of the woodwork?

Gently she removed the cover on Fred’s night cage, murmuring to him a few soothing words. How nice, she thought wistfully, if someone could do that for her.

The mollified Fred tucked his denuded head under his wing and she stroked him fondly. She’d rescued him from an animal shelter where she worked on weekends, smitten by the ugly, bald, mangy looking bird...and wanting something to love.

Her heart contracted. With her dark, Celtic brows zapped together in a fierce scowl, she stared miserably at the phone, unwilling to make contact with Max. She’d got over him. But not the consequences of their affair.

Max had got her pregnant five years ago, when she had been eighteen and he had been twenty-four. Then he’d moved back to a fiancée he’d had stashed away in Surrey. Then, in a matter of weeks, on to Laura’s sister. Then, who knows? One, two, three. Bunny-hopping through women with a staggering nonchalance.

To Laura’s fury, her eyes filled with tears. She’d thought she’d put all that pain behind her. And now Max was dragging unwanted memories back to the forefront of her mind.

Her small, dainty hands fluttered in a bewildered gesture at her stupidity. She knew how and why she’d got pregnant, why she’d taken that mad and fatal risk. They had held back for a long time and he had been leaving for France... And she’d loved him so utterly that when he’d started touching her she hadn’t ever wanted him to stop and had driven him beyond the point of return.

That one occasion had been enough for her to conceive.

Carefully she replaced Fred’s cover. Like it or not, she had to see Max. She must know his intentions.

Trembling, and afraid of facing the past, she resumed her position on the floor, needing something good and solid beneath her shaking body. She took a deep breath, and spoke before she could chicken out.

‘I’m listening now.’

‘Good. I’ll be arriving at one o’clock lunchtime. Be there. It’s important.’

‘Be where?’ she asked guardedly, hating his curtness and the way her voice quaked.

‘The baker’s shop. Where you work—’

‘How do you know this?’ she cried in alarm.

‘I’ve been talking to Daniel.’

Laura’s right hand wobbled so much that she had to support it with her left. ‘Oh.’

Dimly she heard him trying to get her attention. She couldn’t speak. Her whole body felt completely paralysed. He could already have told Daniel! Fay’s marriage and the future of Fay’s two children could be in real danger with Max around. He could ruin Fay’s life. Laura closed her eyes. As he’d mined hers.

When she’d learnt of Max’s affair with her own sister, she’d been in the fifth month of her pregnancy. The news had shocked her so deeply that she hadn’t been able to eat. Some time—she didn’t know when—her baby had stopped moving.

She felt the scream building up inside her, fighting for release. Her baby. Dead.

Of course she’d willed it to live. Refused to believe that Max’s child—her only link with him—had been lost.

She’d waited, day after day, sure that her baby would wake, punch her with its little fists, kick her with its tiny feet...

She blanched. Her stomach cramped. All those hope-ridden days of carrying her dead baby. Then the high fever, the hours of lonely agony until her aunt had found her, crying with pain in the bathroom.

In her head she could still hear the sound of her racking sobs when she’d known for sure that Max had brought about the death of his own child—even though he hadn’t even known of its existence.

For days she’d lain in her hospital bed, weak and numb, with a nurse in constant attendance. And then...a sympathetic doctor had appeared. He’d told her that the infection had meant the removal of her womb and she could never have children. But it would never show, he’d said cheerfully, as if that would somehow console her.

She hunched up in misery. Max’s philandering had taken away from her the one thing she’d longed for, ever since she could remember.

A happy marriage. Children. A whole row of them in ascending sizes. Oh, God! It was tearing her heart to shreds...

‘Laura!’

But she was weeping too much now to speak—and was too proud to let him know that. Loathing the very sound of him, she dropped the receiver onto its cradle. And then disconnected the phone completely before flinging herself back into bed.

In the shop below her bedsit, there had been an epidemic of babies that morning. One set of blonde twins in matching red rompers and cosy hats to combat the October weather. A huge bruiser with the sweetest marmalade curls. And the endearing Rufus with his lopsided, windy smile.

Laura gripped the order book tightly. One deep breath. Another. Slow, steady. Rufus was now safely outside in his buggy on fashionable Sloane Street, softening up unwary strangers with every waft of his incredible lashes.

‘Wait till you have one of your own!’ his mother had said happily. ‘Stretchmarks, sleepless nights, nappies...!’

Sounded wonderful.

But what had Laura done after that innocently tactless remark? Produced a thin smile and hustled for a decision on the Christening cake design. Refused to look at the child again despite the urge to reach out and stroke his peachy cheek...

‘That’s the second baby you’ve cut dead!’ scolded Luke, emerging from the office.

With a face like stone, she dived under the counter and replaced the order book, hoping against hope that would be the last bundle of joy she saw that day.

Laura made much of checking the ribbons and flat-packed cake boxes. She thought of little Rufus with his mass of black hair, saucer eyes and tiny, screwed-up, dear little face that could have melted steel girders, let alone Laura’s susceptible heart.

As she pretended to root about under the counter, she caught herself responding belatedly to him, the gentle curves of her mouth lifting wistfully.

Rot in bell, Max! she thought, and the sweet-sad smile was sharply erased out. This situation would never alter, so she might as well get used to it.

‘Will you come out of there?’

Reluctantly she emerged and straightened, realising as she did so that Luke was warming to his theme.

‘Look, Laura, in the two weeks you’ve been here you’ve not exactly been Mary Poppins as far as kiddies are concerned.’ He looked at her curiously and she immediately turned her back and began fiddling with the cakes on the shelf behind. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked in exasperation.

Remain calm. Pretend his imagination has run away with him.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she managed, with a fair stab at surprise.

Now take the cake from the shelf. Read the lettering. ‘Happy 30th Birthday, Jasper’. Admire your skill in creating a BMW convertible with only Victoria sponge, icing and your talent to play with. Place it in its box for collection and mind the wing mirrors...

‘You ignored that baby! I don’t know what he ever did to you!’

Luke, the owner of Sinful Cakes and Indecent Puddings, was clearly not going to let the matter rest. Blindly she feigned an interest in the shelf again.

‘Don’t you realise it’s part of your job to coo and sigh and make those noises women make whenever they see babies?’

‘Yes. Shall I restack the shelves with sugar mice?’ she asked, her strained voice squeaky enough to belong to a terrified mouse itself.

‘No!’ Luke grabbed her small, rigid shoulders and determinedly turned her around.

She avoided his eyes, too wound up for a confrontation. Two hours, eight minutes to go before Max turned up. The clock had been counting down in her head all morning, with an unbearable tension increasing every second, just as if she were sitting in a command centre and waiting for a missile launch.

Already her mouth was dry, her hands shaking. Something was happening to her lips. They were beginning to tremble—

‘Laura...’ came Luke’s softly spoken concern.

‘Oh, please!’ she whimpered.

Gentleness was unfair! She could have borne anything but that! She made a half-hearted attempt to twist from beneath his hands but he was too much of a vast and friendly bear to be evaded by a five-foot-two slip of a female on teetering heels.

‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, hopelessly scared of losing control.

He set her free. But she couldn’t move. A sense of hopelessness held her in place just as he’d left her, head drooping, body taut.

The door was being bolted. The bell disabled. There was the sound of the ‘Open/Closed’ notice being turned around. Luke’s footsteps coming closer. His hand supporting her elbow.

‘Coffee and a chat, I think.’

He had such a warm brown, tender voice, as if he knew something of the trauma she contained so silently. He would make a willing listener, and she liked him enormously.

They cooked together in the bakery, shared the deliveries to swanky parties in Knightsbridge where the shop outlet was based and worked behind the counter as a happy and friendly team.

But she didn’t want to tell anyone. If she did, she might break up. That was the last thing she wanted, with Max on his way. She knew Luke would want some kind of explanation, though.

He shut the door which led into the office. There was the delicious smell of baking from the ovens beyond. He moved her bakery sneakers aside and pushed her into an armchair with the obvious intention of settling her down for a confidential heart-to-heart.

‘I know something’s wrong. You’re terrific with customers. You care. People respond to you. But kids are another matter. You clam up. So...what do you have against them?’

‘Nothing.’ She adored them. That was the trouble.

Her face crumpled and the first sob rushed up from her chest. Then Luke was kneeling beside her, holding her, patting her back, murmuring soothingly into her thick bob of black hair.

‘Oh, curses!’ She’d wanted to look wonderful when Max turned up. A kind of ‘look what you turned down’ defiance. To appear independent, successful, content and strong. Instead, she’d be bag-eyed and ready to cry at his first scathing remark. He’d be bound to condemn her and Fay for being push-overs. She’d be pathetic—too feeble to stand up to him.

‘Hush, hush,’ Luke said, consolingly.

It was a long time later before the unstoppable flood of tears dried up. Luke made her a strong, sweet coffee and then she plucked up courage and gave him a shortened version of her story.

‘I—I can’t have children, Luke—’ There was a considerable pause while she drank long and deep, forcing the coffee past the mass of whatever was trying to block her throat. ‘I adore them,’ she said in a small, unhappy voice. ‘It’s as simple as that. And my ex-boyfriend’s coming here lunchtime with some dreadful news about my sister.’

She found that she’d been squeezing Luke’s hand tightly, and eased her grip, leaving a red mark and the impression of her short nails in his palm.

So much passion in her! Who would ever guess? Laura Tremaine, dull and plain! Pint-sized, snub-nosed, with a skewed, enormous mouth. Overlooked because of her bubbly, beautiful and sexy sister but with a cauldron of emotion simmering beneath an apparently docile surface.

‘I think there’s much more to that story, but I won’t pry,’ Luke said shrewdly. ‘Go upstairs. Gather yourself together. When Max comes, I’ll send him up. I’ll be glued to the intercom in case you need me. Go on!’ he urged, when she hesitated.

‘You’re very kind.’

‘Selfish,’ he corrected. ‘You’re a damn good cook, Laura. I don’t want to lose you. We’ll come to some arrangement about the baby side of things—’

‘No. It won’t be a problem.’ She stood up, feeling a little better for her outburst. ‘I’m OK now. Honestly. And...thanks again. You’ve been very understanding.’

Luke opened the door to the shop and then paused. ‘Not surprising. I knew the signs. My wife can’t have kids either, you see.’

Laura went quite cold. Slowly her gaze swivelled to meet his and she recognised his sense of loss with immediate empathy. Only people who were denied children could ever know that desperate, almost frantic feeling of need. It was so fierce and uncontrollable that it could ruin the whole of your life and every relationship that ever came your way.

Max had changed her life totally. She was different—who she was, what she did, her friends, everything. Boyfriends had complained she didn’t give of herself. True. How could she, when she’d nothing to give ultimately?

She felt that her status as a woman had become flawed and inferior, like faulty goods. A hopeless sensation of inadequacy had grown inside her, swelling up and occupying every thought and action as if she had a phantom pregnancy. She knew she’d never get over it, however deep she tried to bury it. The sadness would stay with her for the rest of her life.

Thanks, Max.

And here was Luke, telling her his most personal secret. She held out her arms in silent sympathy, and Luke walked into them. There was nothing sexual about the gesture for either of them. Just two unhappy people linked by a poignant tragedy.

‘Glad I told you,’ she said, Luke’s soft jacket muffling her words.

‘Yup.’ He hugged her harder.

At some stage, someone began to bang on the street door. Although Luke’s bulk obscured her vision of the impatient customer, Laura realised they must be in full view.

‘Bang goes your reputation,’ she said, stepping back and producing a wry smile.

It wasn’t funny, but Luke laughed, releasing some of the emotional tension between them.

‘Sounds like Jasper’s come for his BMW! Upstairs now,’ he urged. ‘Put the slap on. Don’t let Max get under your skin. Stick it out. Some time...you might like to meet my wife. You’ll like her.’

He gave a sentimental, dreamy smile and Laura wondered if she would ever find a man who loved her unconditionally.

‘Thanks.’

Laura touched his chest in an affectionate gesture, and ran up the narrow stairs to her bedsit, wishing her legs weren’t shaking so much. She was dreading this meeting.

Her arrival was greeted noisily by Fred. Her face softened and she went over to the free-standing perch by the window.

‘Hi, Fred, darling!’ she murmured, affectionately tickling his stubbly head. He nuzzled up and made ecstatic clicks with his beak. ‘Got to dash,’ she told him reluctantly, and glanced at her watch.

Laura groaned. A thousand butterflies took off in her stomach and began a pitched battle. It was nearly her lunch hour already! Max would be here at one. He was brutally punctual. Where had the time gone?

She whirled and inspected herself in the dressing-table mirror. She looked awful. Rumpled and crumpled with red-rimmed eyes and a blotchy face—and her hair flicking out in all directions and looking as if she’d spent the morning having it whipped up by the dough mixer.

As for her dress... It wasn’t flattering at all. Wondering exactly what was suitable for meeting an ex-lover with a confession to make, she quickly slipped the simple grey jersey down to the floor and stepped out of it, mentally running through the limited choice in her wardrobe.

Something smart. Severe. That would help to keep her nerves together. She was a firm believer that clothes could alter moods.

The shoes were fine. High, as she always liked them, giving her a feeling of authority and efficiency. And altitude. And they bolstered her confidence when dealing with the well-off, well-bred clientele.

Since Max was just on six feet and towered over her, she’d need both confidence and height or he’d be constantly looking down his nose at her. She’d keep them on.

Help! A quarter to one! She felt weak with apprehension. Better hurry. Get the face sorted. The more barriers, the better.

She sped into the bathroom as fast as her smart shoes would allow, feeling chilly in just her chainstore bra, briefs, suspender belt and stockings. Frantically she turned on the cold tap and gasped aloud with shock as she splashed water over her swollen face—and accidentally flung some at her chest, too.

Somewhere in the background, Fred squawked. Probably worried she was being attacked, she thought, absently applying soap to her face. He’d be brilliant if Max became aggressive. That squawk could break the sound barrier.

It must be ten to one now, she hazarded, though she couldn’t see because her eyes were tightly scrunched up against the smarting soap. Still bent double over the basin, with her stockinged legs apart and her three-inch heels dug firmly into the cheap lino, she reached out and flapped a hand in the air, searching for the towel.

It was put into her hand.

Everything froze except her brain. Max! She knew it!

Shivers went down her spine. The sinews in her legs became taut. She felt the clenching of the muscles in her buttocks. The stiffening of her naked back.

And then came the stomach-churning thought that Max was probably noticing the tell-tale changes of panic in her body with huge amusement. The women he knew would have given a little wiggle and invited his touch, while she was going pink with embarrassment and ruining any chance she’d had of presenting herself as a city-wise sophisticate.

‘Don’t get cold, now,’ he admonished with a chuckle.

Cold! She was consumed by hell fire in embarrassment!

It seemed safer to stay where she was than to straighten and offer him a full-frontal view. Her hand curled into a claw, snatching the towel away and flinging it over her near nudity.

Max’s well-remembered, elegant fingers straightened out the folds with a lingering precision which made her want to scream. He was recreating those days when he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her and had devoted himself to cherishing her. Or so he’d pretended. Max was a master at giving women what they wanted. He found it the quickest route to their beds, so she’d been told.

His distressed parents had explained his tactics. He fitted his behaviour to whichever woman he wanted. For her, he’d been protective, thoughtful, dedicated. He had, apparently, found it perfectly possible to be in the same room as Fay and not be dazzled because he’d found, so he’d said, Laura’s button nose and higgledy-piggledy mouth absolutely adorable.

Liar.

Laura was struggling for words and sounded almost incoherent when a few managed to crawl out. ‘What the hell—?’

‘I did knock,’ came Max’s classy drawl, smooth with phoney innocence.

‘But didn’t wait!’ she accused, beside herself with anger at the invasion of her privacy.

‘I never do,’ he agreed cheerfully.

No. Not for anyone or anything. What Max wanted, he wanted now—or he walked away and found the next most pleasing substitute.

‘Well, you can this time. Go back and sit down and wait—or keep walking out of my flat door and don’t come back!’ she cried, rubbing her face hard in temper with a riskily released corner of the towel.

‘You’ve got five minutes,’ he drawled. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

‘Go and feed the parrot,’ she suggested maliciously, knowing Fred would bite off Max’s finger if he tried.

‘No, thanks.’ There was a lazy amusement in his voice. ‘It looks diseased.’

Laura pummelled her wet breasts with the towel as if she were kneading bread, furious on her pet’s behalf. Somewhere in the background she was aware of the sound of Max’s retreating steps.

‘By the way,’ he called back as an afterthought. ‘There’s a ladder exploring your left thigh.’

Laura clapped a hand to the back of her leg. He was right. Red-faced and breathing hard, she clutched the towel securely around her and turned in a violent movement to find that he’d vanished.

She loathed him. He made her want to lash out, to slap that arrogant, smoothie face. To knock him off-balance with a step-by-step explanation of what he’d done to her, with all the gory details.

It beggared belief that he was here to make a shameful admission—and yet was strolling around casually, quite unperturbed by the fact that he ought to be ashamed of his actions.

One day, Max Pendennis...one day! she promised vehemently. Then she felt exasperated with herself. In the back of her mind, she’d wanted to appear cool and collected, the epitome of a woman who couldn’t care less what he did. Yet already he’d got her stamping mad. Her eyes sparked angrily and she tried to haul down her temper from the stratosphere.

All she had to do was listen to him with a superior smile hovering on her face, make sure that he wasn’t going to ruin Fay’s marriage by telling Daniel what had happened, and then show him the door.

She decided not to tell him about her pregnancy. She had no intention of playing the sad victim. Her preference was to appear remote, dignified and unassailable...

And yet, she thought, her sense of humour briefly reasserting itself, she’d opened up the proceedings with a classic girlie-magazine pose, presenting her flimsily clad backside, suspenders and stocking-tops to him!

‘Three minutes, and counting.’

Laura sent a hot-poker glare at the only bit of him she could see, a pair of long, male legs in soft silver-grey suiting crossed at the ankles, and two glassily polished black shoes.

He was sitting in her favourite easy chair, facing the bed and wardrobe, like someone waiting for the next show to begin.

She stalked into the room just as he was reaching down from the chair to pick up the discarded grey jersey dress. Without a word she took it from him, suddenly conscious of the homely untidiness around her.

There were piles of half-read paperbacks near his feet and a stack of various friends’ letters stuffed into the chair beside him. Evidence of her studying lay scattered on every available surface—papers, files, pens, notepads. Max hated mess.

Avoiding contact with his eyes, she stepped over his outstretched legs, toed the daily paper under the small table to join the parrot’s tinkly bell and headed for the wardrobe.

All too late, she realised that she’d been clutching the towel around her so tightly that her figure must have been perfectly outlined for him. She eased her neurotic grip, giving him a few more folds to deal with.

Max inhaled audibly behind her as if exasperated.

‘If you want me to hurry up,’ she said haughtily over her shoulder, ‘then face the other way. I’m not dressing while you look on.’

‘It would save time if you stayed as you are.’ The words slid over her like smooth icing from a spoon. ‘It makes no difference to me what you’re wearing—’

‘Well, it does to me!’ she snapped, and regretted losing control. Again. Giving herself a mental kick for her stupidity, she waited haughtily for him to make a move.

The sigh of irritation was repeated, and then there was a scraping sound as the chair was pushed back. When she checked in the mirror, she saw that he was gazing out of the window and standing a disease-free distance from Fred, who was pacing up and down his perch and measuring his chances of a crafty nip.

Satisfied, she opened the wardrobe door, Max’s reflected image filling her head.

Tall. Hair still a gleaming raven-black like hers. But the thick waves had been tamed and cut to ruthless perfection, as if his barber had painstakingly worked with a ruler, measuring the requisite distance from that razoredged white collar.

Max had wider shoulders than she remembered, poured into a sharply tailored suit which had clearly been built on his hard, sinewy body, inch by perfect inch. His spare frame was not heavy with grossly inflexible muscle, but powerfully shaped nevertheless, like that of an athlete in his prime.

He looked breathtakingly handsome. But then he’d always been that—mooned over by her schoolfriends on the rare occasions he’d come home from his prep and then public schools. Son of the wealthy General William Pendennis. Bright future in the City. Every girl’s dream—hers included.

Except...he wasn’t her Max any more, and hadn’t been for a long time. He belonged in a different sphere. A world of privilege and class, peopled by well-bred, elite movers-and-shakers. A world at large which embraced big business, financial deals and where international flights were far more commonplace than number nine buses.

Perhaps aware that she hadn’t moved for a few moments, he began drumming his fingers on the high windowsill and tapping his foot Max hated being cooped up as much as he hated being kept waiting, she reflected, pushing hangers about aimlessly. He was the most restless and active man she’d ever known.

‘Will you step on it?’ he complained impatiently. ‘I’ve got a flight to catch—and you have one hell of a lot to organise.’

‘I have?’ That didn’t sound as if he was planning a confession about his relationship with Fay—and the consequences. Puzzled, Laura heaved the towel around her top half, grabbed her best suit from the wardrobe and slid the short, straight skirt up over her slender hips. Instantly she felt prim and efficient. ‘You’d better talk while I dress, then,’ she advised edgily.

His persistent drumming and tapping was driving her mad. She felt a dangerous shakiness creeping into her voice, and tried to calm down. Steeling herself, she flung down the gauntlet.

‘Tell me about you and Fay,’ she ordered.

‘Me and...?’

Jerking her head around, alerted by his astonishment, she found that he was facing her, meeting her startled gaze with a hard, uncomprehending stare. She recoiled, shaken. Partly, if she was honest, by the unexpected head-on impact of his stunning good looks.

‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ she demanded, refusing to let him intimidate her. He was the one in the wrong! Was he now going to deny the whole affair? ‘Losing courage to speak? Don’t make me despise you more than I already do, Max,’ she muttered.

His dark eyes narrowed but she realised he hadn’t heard a word. For the first time he was scrutinising her still puffy eyes fringed with wet black lashes, her tousled hair and unevenly pink and white skin, fresh from its brutal assault at the basin.

She stared back at the pure lines of his sculpted jaw and tried not to feel crushed by his assessment, and horribly unattractive.

‘What the devil’s been happening to you?’

The softly spoken concern wriggled briefly beneath her defences. Then she remembered. He didn’t really care a jot. This was how he got women sewing on his buttons.

‘Nothing. A busy morning,’ she replied crossly, struck by the ruthless perfection of his grooming and the messiness of hers. Already he’d lowered her self-esteem.

Desperate not to let it sink further, she straightened the slipping towel around her tiny body, turned back to the mirror and grabbed a brush. As she forced it through her tangled mop, she longed for her hair to miraculously turn into a smooth, sophisticated style for once.

She could see Max watching critically, his arms folded over his lean, taut torso and the plumb-line-straight navy tie accurately bisecting the advertisement-white shirt.

‘I can understand,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘that the guy downstairs mussed your hair up in that clinch...but who made you cry in the first place?’

Her lip quivered and she pulled it into a grimace. He’d laugh if she said a baby! So she said nothing, not even issuing a denial about the clinch. Her brushing became more frantic, but she only ended up with shiny, fly-away hair which flew away in a multitude of directions.

Her face looked small and defenceless, her short upper lip bowing to form an ‘oh’ of dismay. Two enormous, wet-fringed eyes stared back at her. She looked as if she’d been stabbed in the heart.

Max didn’t let up. ‘You and the beefy guy had a row...’ He paused in the middle of his surmising, a faint frown on his beautifully tanned forehead. ‘About me? Because I was coming here and you’d told him we’d been lovers?’ he guessed.

‘Don’t exaggerate your own importance!’ she said, shooting a scornful glance at his reflection.

But she quailed at his piercing, bone-melting assessment and longed to be in full war paint for protection. She picked up a tube of all-in-one foundation and powder and began to spread it with shaking, ice-cold fingers.

‘You were kissing and—’

‘No! That’s a lie!’

Disastrously forgetting her intention to stay composed, Laura whirled around indignantly, her eyes glowing fiercely in anger, hair flying about her briefly animated face in jet black tendrils. The wild gipsy look, he’d once said admiringly, before he’d crushed her soft, poppy-coloured mouth beneath his.

For a moment there was a flash of intense light in Max’s eyes. She felt it searing a path straight for her soul. But she was dead inside and it didn’t reach anywhere important. He didn’t even know he was projecting sexual desire, she thought peevishly. It was as natural to him as breathing.

‘Too vehement a response, Laura,’ he declared quietly. ‘I saw you quite clearly. And why shouldn’t you hug and kiss him? Unless...’ His mouth became a tight snarl. ‘Unless he’s married, of course?’

She couldn’t help widening her eyes at his deduction. ‘He owns the business,’ she said evasively, for something to say.

‘And he employs you,’ Max persisted, in a savage undertone, contempt rippling through his harsh features. ‘He gives you a flat—’

‘It’s a bedsit!’ she declared. ‘Of the non-swinging-cat variety! And I pay for it. And I get up at five to start the ovens—’

‘It’s very convenient,’ he agreed disparagingly.

She fell silent. He was going to think the worst of her, but she wasn’t going to keep protesting her innocence. What was the point? In half an hour or so Max would be out of her life again. She hoped.

His lashes dropped, and she realised he was watching the way the first curves of her pinkly shining breasts rose and fell above the failing towel. They went pinker still and her skin prickled as if he’d switched on an electric current in her body.

She turned her back on him and rummaged in a drawer for her shirt, drawing it on and securing the first two buttons before replying.

‘I don’t owe you any explanation of my behaviour,’ she said flatly.

‘No. You don’t So long as you don’t ask for any explanation of mine.’

They were getting closer to the confession. He felt ashamed of two-timing her. Good!

Triumphantly she finished doing up the last button—only to find it wasn’t the last button at all. She had one left over. Annoyed, she started again. Doggedly she worked her way down, her fingers fumbling because he’d moved to one side and was watching every move she made. Her breathing thickened—or the air did; she wasn’t sure.

‘Are you ready to listen now?’ Max asked.

‘Perfectly.’

She made sure she spoke in a clipped tone. From now on she’d be detached. He wasn’t used to women showing no interest in him and it pleased her that, despite looking and sounding devastatingly handsome and sexy, he’d roused no deep, lingering desires.

A little more confidently, she tucked the shirt in and arranged her small body primly in a threadbare wing chair. Legs neatly crossed at the ankles. Back erect. Distantly involved expression on her face.

‘Fire away,’ she said, with all the appearance of a woman about to hear something boring. But she felt she might snap at any moment.

Max began wandering about and fingering everything he came across. ‘I hope you realise I should be in Paris.’

Absently he stroked the gleaming top of the cluttered mahogany sewing table which had once belonged to her grandmother. He seemed absorbed by the feel of the highly polished wood, his whole face responding to the satiny sensuousness beneath his fingertips. It was a very hedonistic action and had Laura’s gaze glued to every lingering caress.

She heaved her mind back to his remark. ‘Of course I didn’t. Paris, you say?’ she asked, intending to sound rudely uninterested, but her remark came out with croaky edges. She cleared her throat as surreptitiously as possible.

Max gave her a look of lazy curiosity and she hardened her eyes in case he got the wrong idea. ‘I’ve had to cancel two meetings.’

He moved lithely on to the mantelpiece, nonchalant and loose-limbed. Casually he began to examine a china herring-gull her mother had sent her. Laura wriggled, uncomfortable with the way he delicately traced the smooth curves of the beautiful bird.

‘Must be important news, then,’ she encouraged him.

‘You can say that again. One of these days, your sister will go too far!’

‘I thought she already had,’ Laura retaliated, wishing he wouldn’t prowl so. It made her feel restless. And it set off his long, sinewy legs and lean thighs too well.

He was already on the other side of the room, his hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders hunched as he brooded at her. Such an electric force field surrounded him that, by moving around, he was filling her tiny bedsit with his energy. If he carried on much longer she’d begin to feel suffocated by it.

‘Daniel rang me,’ Max said sternly.

‘I thought you and your brother hadn’t spoken since the day he married my sister,’ she remarked, lacing her voice with asperity.

Family feuds were so stupid in her view, and Max was small-minded where Fay was concerned. He owed her sister more courtesy than a flat rejection of her existence.

But then, Fay had said he was carrying a torch for her. Max wouldn’t have liked being superseded by his less prepossessing brother.

Max grunted. ‘I’ve been funding Daniel for the last few years.’

‘Oh. That’s very brotherly of you.’ She waited while Max did his best to wear out her cheap carpet.

‘I did it for the kids.’

She stiffened. Was he going to say more? ‘So you should—’

‘But,’ he went on, snapping out the word and glaring at her for interrupting, ‘it seems I was funding something else.’ He came to a halt in front of her, his face unnervingly grim.

‘Wh-what do you mean?’ she asked, prompted by his air of utter disgust.

Her sister had done some stupid things in her time. She and Daniel acted like flower-children, wandering around the country with travellers in battered old vans and defying authority.

‘Daniel and Fay have been arrested,’ Max said starkly.

Her heart sank. ‘Trespass? Again?’ she ventured, remembering she’d had to bail Fay out last time for refusing to leave some farmer’s land.

‘You don’t understand.’ Max’s mouth tightened as if he didn’t want to continue. His shoulders lifted and stayed high while she stared at him anxiously, then he said, punching out the words with barely contained anger, ‘They’re in jail in Marrakesh.’

Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open in sheer astonishment as his rage became clear. She knew how much he hated Daniel’s way of life. He was furious with his brother for blotting the family name. It was all right to get village girls pregnant and dump them, that was what the squirearchy did for kicks, but jail was unthinkable.

‘For... what?’ she asked breathlessly, her whole attention on his narrowed, glittering eyes.

‘Possession of drugs.’

‘Oh, God!’

She slumped heavily into the chair, staring into space, appalled.

‘There’s no time for histrionics—’ he began testily.

‘What histrionics? Did you see histrionics?’ she seethed through tightly clenched teeth. ‘I was thinking about the children. What’s happened to them? And what can we do about getting Fay and Daniel out—?’

‘Nothing,’ he said brutally.

‘Nothing? But—’

He silenced her with a scowl and a wipe-out gesture of his expressive hands. ‘The kids are the first priority.’

‘Of course, but—’

‘Listen, will you?’ he snapped tetchily.

‘You’ve had time to get used to this!’ she protested.

‘I’m just trying to get my head around what’s happened. OK. So who’s looking after Perran and Kerenza now?’

‘A traveller friend who’s now got tired of playing mothers and fathers.’

Her mind reeled. ‘In Marrakesh?’

‘No. Port Gaverne.’

Laura’s mouth fell open again. ‘But that’s in Cornwall!’ He gave her a slow, mocking hand-clap, making her feel stupid. ‘I don’t understand...are you telling me...Fay’s in Marrakesh and she left her children in Cornwall? How could she go away when Kerenza’s only a few months old?’

‘She’s not noted for her devotion to domesticity,’ Max said in a grim and disapproving voice.

Laura secretly agreed. She loved Fay, but her sister’s behaviour was beyond her. They’d always been chalk and cheese. If she had a four-year-old and a baby she’d have to be torn away from them. But then, if something came easy you didn’t value it—and Fay had always bemoaned the ease with which she fell pregnant and how the kids hampered her freedom. Laura lowered her eyes to hide the pain. She’d love her freedom to be hampered.

‘Well, thanks for telling me,’ she said woodenly.

‘Someone had to.’

‘Presumably the children are at your parents’ house right now?’

Max gave her an odd look. ‘My mother and father don’t live in the manor any more. They’ve moved to Scotland. The kids are staying in the cottage my father gave Daniel.’ He began quartering the floor again, clearly impatient to impart all the details and then go. ‘Not that he’s ever used it much. It’s been rented out most of the time, so goodness knows what kind of state it’s in.’

She remembered it. A tiny white stone building set into the side of a cliff. A narrow road ran down from it to the narrow inlet which formed Port Gaverne Bay, the less populated community next to the more bustling Port Isaac, where she’d been brought up, the child of a fisherman.

Fay loathed the cottage. She said it wasn’t big enough for a rat—and couldn’t the old man have done better than that. The Pendennis family had lived in Pendennis Manor then, further up Port Gaverne Valley. Fay had been hoping for something similar.

‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ Laura said, not sure at all.

She studied a slender leg, thoughtfully. This was a different kind of news from the sort she’d been expecting. Her face grew dreamy. Images came to her: sunny blue skies, glittering waves, dark cliffs. The smell of the sea was so real that she could almost taste the salt on her lips. For a moment she felt the spring of sea pinks beneath her feet, and then there was nothing other than the thin, worn lino.

She smiled faintly, wistfully. ‘Perran is probably having a great time on the beach every day—’

‘He’ll be there on his own by tomorrow morning,’ Max informed her sourly. ‘The friend is off to some music festival.’ He seemed as edgy as she was about the situation.

‘Well, that’s out! She can’t leave the children!’ Laura protested, bristling with indignation.

He shrugged. ‘The woman wasn’t paid to babysit. Why should she stay?’

‘Because they’re in need!’ she spluttered, amazed at people’s lack of responsibility.

‘She’s adamant about going. I don’t blame her. Fay promised they’d only be gone two days on a trip to London, and it’s now two weeks. She deliberately lied. Your sister isn’t too familiar with the truth, is she?’

Laura wished she could defend Fay. Her sister was wonderful fun to be with, but not very grounded in the real world. ‘I’m sure there’s a good reason—’

‘There is. Fay’s not cut out to be a mother and the children hinder her activities,’ Max said drily.

She winced. ‘What’s to be done?’ she asked, concentrating on the practical.

Max paused and lifted a black eyebrow. He seemed to be fixated on her softly parted mouth. She closed it and swallowed, bringing his gaze to her throat. Warmth stole over her skin and she knew she was flushing like a stupid schoolgirl. Angry with herself, she set her teeth and fixed her gaze somewhere in the mid-distance.

‘Isn’t that obvious?’ he observed smoothly. ‘If someone doesn’t get down there to take over, the kids’ll be dumped on the beach and abandoned.’

Laura wasn’t slow. She could see where this was leading. It was written all over his face. So she pre-empted him. ‘And you’re going down to look after them,’ she said, giving him what she imagined to be an admiring look. ‘Very good of you—’

‘It’s not good at all. You’re going.’

She looked at him steadily. No way. It was a suggestion so far into the stratosphere that she didn’t even fear it would come true.

She’d vowed never to return. Nor would she get involved with her sister’s children. She’d never even seen them. Kerenza was a baby. The other...

Perran was Max’s child.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE’D feared that Max had found out and had come to claim his rights as a father. Instead, he was asking her to look after his own son and a little baby! Perhaps he didn’t know about Perran after all!

‘I can’t. I have my job,’ she explained, proud to be as cool as a cucumber.

‘OK.’

To her surprise, he made no attempt to argue but headed straight for the door. She gaped at him. Was that it?

‘What are you going to do about the children?’ she cried in astonishment.

‘Me?’ Max half turned, presenting his clean-cut profile. ‘I saw that as your responsibility. If you’re not interested, well...there it is. I’ll let you know the phone number of the Home they’re in—’

‘Home? What do you mean “Home”?’ she yelled, jumping up.

‘It’s a place where orphans or children at risk go—’

‘I know what a Home is!’ she hurled. ‘You know what I meant—don’t be so obtuse! You couldn’t possibly contemplate the idea of putting your own nephew and niece into care.’

‘What other options are there?’ With infuriating rationality he ticked off the reasons for his conclusion on his long, lean fingers. ‘You won’t go, I can’t go, so they’ve got to be cared for by the State, since you’re not keen to let them live on the street and raid dustbins.’ Quite unconcerned, he put his hand out to open the door.

Laura was there before he made contact, sliding herself between him and the thin chipboard. He had no heart. Since he was his own boss, he could easily take time off to care for his son and niece. But he wouldn’t bother to put himself out, would he? Her face registered its disgust, and when a small smile played about his lips she gave him her fiercest scowl.

‘For once in your life,’ she said, the pitch and intensity of her voice showing the full force of her anger, ‘do something for someone else! For two little children—’

‘Ditto back.’

How could he be so unemotional about this? Almost amused! Laura knew she had to persuade him to take on his responsibilities as an uncle. And father.

‘I repeat. I have my job—’

‘I’m sure Huggy Bear will give you leave under the circumstances,’ he said, sublimely relaxed and watching her as though she was unwittingly entertaining him.

Laura glared. ‘I’ve got two twenty-first birthdays, an eightieth and a silver wedding cake to make this week! Plus a business conference with one hundred men demanding treacle sponges and bread puddings!’

‘Sounds delicious—’

‘Stop patronising me!’ she flared. ‘I’m not part of some huge operation where someone can go off and not be missed! Luke and I need each other—’

‘Yes. I saw.’

Impatient with his curt condemnation, she brushed his sarcasm aside. ‘You’ll have to cope with the situation. I can’t let Luke down.’

‘He’d have to manage if you were ill,’ Max pointed out, angling his dark head in a ‘Mr Reasonable’ attitude. ‘What would happen then?’

‘He’d work overtime or call his sister in to help,’ she admitted. ‘But I couldn’t possibly ask him.’

Then I will. I doubt he’d refuse. He’d look too churlish, wouldn’t he?’

She wondered if Max ever took no for an answer. ‘OK! I need the money!’ she claimed, abandoning her pride and any pretence that she’d made good. He’d seen the flat, hadn’t he? There was no way he’d believe she was madly successful.

‘I’ll pay you.’ Max beamed as though that solved everything.

‘I wouldn’t take money from you if I was homeless and living in a cardboard box in a multi-storey car park in sub-zero temperatures!’ she yelled.

Instead of being suitably offended, he appeared to be fighting down a grin. His eyes positively twinkled at her. ‘Stalemate, I think. Unless you have any bright ideas?’

‘Yes. You could go and play uncle!’ she insisted, feeling hot and bothered.

He shrugged off that idea as ludicrous. ‘I’d probably poison them. I don’t know anything about kids.’

‘Neither do I!’ she cried, her voice quavering with emotion.

‘No?’

He folded his arms. They brushed against her breasts—and she had nowhere to go except through the chipboard door. She made herself as thin as possible, conscious of the heat building up between them. Her eyes pleaded with his. He didn’t budge an inch.

‘No. What would I know?’ she muttered, trying not to breathe heavily.

The dark eyes kindled with warmth. ‘Some women are naturally maternal. You were always looking after the village kids. I called you the Pied Piper, remember?’

Incapable of speech, Laura kept on staring at him as misery gathered like a huge knotted blanket in her throat. Max’s voice gentled and his mouth became unfairly soft and tender.

‘They hung around you as if you were their idol—’

‘No!’ she jerked out in surprise, shaking her dark head emphatically.

‘Of course you were. Didn’t you tell them stories? Invent adventure games? Teach them about the plants and birds and generally mother them—?’

‘They were older! Not infants in nappies,’ she broke in, harshness masking her distress. ‘Seven...nine, ten... I wouldn’t know the first thing a-about...’

She felt treacherous tears welling up and got rid of them through sheer will-power, squashing the fact that she’d boned up on babies once by reading everything she could lay her hands on. She’d wiped all that from her mind. She couldn’t look after little Kerenza. She just couldn’t. It would break her heart.

‘It’d come to you, what to do. You’re a woman,’ Max said, transparently pleased with his logic.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she spat, livid with fury.

He touched her rigid shoulder lightly and she jerked his hand off with unaccustomed violence, the calming, protective sensation quite unnerving her.

‘I’m not being chauvinistic,’ he murmured. ‘Your sister aside, women have instincts. They’re genetically programmed to be caring and tender, and they notice things that we men would miss—’

‘Then you’ll just have to try harder, dig down deep and search for some stray shred of love and tenderness and apply it to this situation, won’t you?’ she flung.

‘Meaning?’ he asked quietly, his eyes boring into hers.

It delighted her that he’d been offended at last. ‘I think I’m being as clear as crystal. Work at it. Find your heart, crank it up and use it. It’d do you good.’

‘Hmm.’ For a brief moment, she thought Max was contemplating the idea. Then he shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t work. I’ve got no yardstick. I wouldn’t know about bedtimes or what to feed them.’ He adopted an earnest, searching look. ‘When can babies eat chips and stuff?’

‘You’re not that ignorant!’ she scathed. ‘Ask the fed-up friend when you get there. Do your charming act and she’ll willingly clue you up. In fact she’ll probably stay to help.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘Thanks for your faith in my powers of persuasion.’

‘You don’t need any abilities. You’re just good-looking,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t have to do anything, just stand about in masculine poses and look gorgeous.’ Appalled at her bitchiness, shamed by his stony silence, she blamed her venom on her shredded nerves.

‘Isn’t that look-ist or something?’ he asked tautly.

‘Not when it’s true. You’ve always relied on your appearance to get what you want.’

He studied her with interest, a dangerous glint in his dark, almost luminous eyes. ‘Shall we explore that statement further?’ he suggested, with menace lurking in every word.

‘No. I want to get the children settled!’ she replied, two glowing splashes of colour on her cheeks. The last thing she wanted was a rerun of her helpless crush on him. ‘Max, give it a try,’ she pleaded. ‘You know you could persuade the friend to stay.’

‘Perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘Though I doubt it would be a good move. If she’s prepared to abandon the kids, then she’s the usual sort of person Fay and Daniel gather around them.’

‘You can’t generalise...’

‘I’m drawing a reasonable conclusion, given the facts,’ he drawled. ‘Fay attracts people like her. Fickle. Fey. It wouldn’t surprise me if this friend doesn’t have the first idea about looking after children. Laura, I know from what Daniel told me that you’ve never seen the kids—’

‘Have you?’ she shot back, so sensitive about that fact that she took his remark for a reproach.

‘No. I imagine we’ve missed out for the same reasons. Fay and Daniel have spent the whole of their married life travelling around the back lanes of Britain and picking up their welfare cheques. It’s been almost impossible to keep in touch. Laura, think about this again. Perran would be easily catered for. Treat him as if he’s older, like a seven-year-old without any sense. As for Kerenza, well, babies sleep and eat a lot...don’t they?’ he asked uncertainly. ‘If your sister can cope, anyone can. I’m sure it’s no big deal, looking after them.’

‘I have a better idea. Your best bet is to employ a nanny. Go down and make friends with the children then introduce the nanny—make sure she’s kind,’ she said anxiously, ‘and—’

‘A nanny! That’s a brilliant idea!’ he said, much to her surprise. ‘Only...there’s a flaw in it. I wouldn’t have the first idea about the qualities a nanny should have,’ Max admitted. He studied her anxious, uptight figure and suddenly seemed to be hit by inspiration. ‘Wait a minute!’ he cried, his face creasing into smiles.

Laura took the full force of his charisma and felt a sucking sensation in the pit of her stomach. ‘Why should I?’ she asked ungraciously.

‘I have a compromise solution.’ He extended the smile to one of his dazzling grins.

She frowned, knowing perfectly well that he believed he could get anything from anyone if he just put on that open-faced, beguiling expression.

‘What?’

‘We both go down to Cornwall—’

‘Both? You and me?’ she squeaked, aghast.

‘I wasn’t thinking of asking Luke!’ he replied, his eyes sparkling with humour.

‘The answer’s no.’

‘Laura, we can reassure the children and hand out sweets or whatever you do—’

‘No.’

‘And stay till we’ve found a nanny with your help—’

‘No!’ Would he never accept that as her answer?

‘That couldn’t possibly take more than a few days,’ he went on, unwittingly responding to her silent question. ‘I’ll then fly to Marrakesh and pull a few strings so Daniel and Fay are released.’ And, with what was plainly a carefully judged, coaxing smile, he added softly, ‘It’s either that or the children must go into care. I leave it to you to decide.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

He didn’t know what he was asking. He wanted her to look after his son. She might as well stick knives into herself and be done with it.

She stared gloomily at her feet. From his casualness about Perran’s welfare, it was obvious that Max didn’t know he was the boy’s father. Fay had kept her secret and that was a small consolation.

But...it would be a terrible strain to do what he suggested. She’d be cooped up in a tiny cottage with Max, his child, and a little baby. More worrying, she’d want to cuddle the children and love them—but if she did she’d get terribly hurt.

She’d be forced to watch Max taking his turn—because she’d insist—in rocking the children to sleep or reading them bedtime stories. Simulated parenthood. The reality she could never have. The situation would be too poignant and it would create too many new scars.

No. Impossible.

A few days of longing, heartache, loving. Then emptiness again. The ultimate in masochism.

‘What’s it to be? Your needs or theirs?’ drawled Max cruelly.

Her spiky black lashes flicked up and there was a mute appeal in her brimming Wedgwood-blue eyes.

‘I—I...can’t! I—’ Her voice cracked up and she jammed shut her trembling mouth.

Max’s superficially genial expression changed in an instant. Charm was replaced by tensile steel. ‘It’s Luke, isn’t it?’ he demanded roughly. ‘God! You’re faced with a choice between your sister’s kids and your boyfriend and you choose him? He means that much to you?’

‘Stop browbeating me! I have to think this through,’ she said shakily, abandoning her door-barring pose and walking with unnatural care to sit tensely on the arm of a chair.

‘How long do you need to decide?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know!’

‘It’s at least a five-hour drive there,’ he pointed out in grim tones. ‘I’d like us to leave in a few minutes. The friend ought to introduce us to Perran before his bedtime. The kiddie would be bewildered and frightened if he woke to find two strangers in the house claiming to be his aunt and uncle.’

So he did have some human concern after all. And he was right. She had to make a snap decision. Her hand wove its way through her hair, mussing it up thoroughly. Her heart was leaping erratically at the prospect that she’d be playing mummies and daddies with Max.

Unable to cope, she slid sideways into the chair and landed with a thump. Untangling her legs and twitching her short skirt back in place, she said with a weird huskiness, ‘You’re asking too much.’

‘No.’ Max folded his arms. ‘Your sister is. She always does.’

‘You really dislike her, don’t you?’ she accused.

‘utterly.’

She glared at his uncompromising agreement. It had been Daniel who’d led Fay astray, Daniel who’d got them into the travelling scene and introduced Fay to drugs. Fay had told her everything.

‘What about your brother?’ she said, rounding on Max, determined not to let an injustice pass. ‘He could have stopped this jaunt if he’d wanted. He’s equally guilty of deserting his children for his own selfish needs—’

‘You’re evading the issue,’ Max reminded her. He pulled out an ultra-slim mobile phone from his inside breast pocket. ‘I’m not wasting any more valuable time. I can ring Directory Enquiries and get the children’s officer to go along and pick the kids up. They’ll be off our hands. An easy solution. What do you think?’

‘You brute!’

‘Practical, though.’ He began to punch numbers. ‘Hello? Directory Enquiries...?’

She shuddered, staring into space. Perran was only four. A total stranger would haul him and his baby sister off to live in some regimented institution. However caring it might be, she doubted that Fay had ever imparted any discipline to her children and it would be a total culture shock.

He rang off, a piece of paper in his hand with a phone number hastily scrawled on it. ‘Do I call them or not?’

A heaviness claimed her limbs as she slumped further in the seat. She had no option. Whatever her feelings, the needs of the children came first. She’d do her best for their sakes.

Pale and tense, her eyes almost silver as she tried to face the stark choice she was having to make, she met Max’s inscrutable gaze and steeled herself to the decision.

‘I’ll have to take my parrot.’

Max visibly relaxed. ‘You can take the entire contents of this flat, if you like, but get moving!’

She felt the whole of her body shaking. She was so weak that she knew it would be an effort to get up.

‘Just Fred,’ she said in a small, unhappy voice.

‘You’ll be back before you know it,’ Max said gruffly. ‘Do you want to ring your mother and let her know?’

‘She’s in New Zealand,’ Laura said, her face soft with affection. And, knowing Max would be astonished that her mother had left her beloved Cornwall, added, ‘She met a tourist from Auckland a couple of years ago and fell in love. They’re very happy,’

‘I’m very pleased—and not at all surprised. She’s a lovely lady. Very caring, well-liked.’ He paused. ‘So there’s only Luke here for you. I can imagine,’ he conceded, ‘how you feel, having to leave someone you care for.’ There was a moment’s silence as though he was thinking of something in his own past. ‘Still, look on the bright side—Luke will realise how much he misses you. That’s always good for a relationship between lovers, isn’t it?’

She stared at him dumbly. Leaving aside the fact that she didn’t have that kind of a relationship with Luke, no, it wasn’t a good thing. When men went away they found new partners. You couldn’t trust them. Out of sight, out of mind. She was so miserable that she didn’t bother to disillusion him about Luke. She didn’t have the energy.

‘I’d better tell him,’ she said wearily.

He put up a hand to stop her. ‘No. I’ll explain. You pack. I want to get on the road immediately—we’ve wasted too much time haggling as it is.’

‘You really believed I’d leap at the chance to babysit, didn’t you?’ Resentful of his assumption and bossiness, Laura heaved herself out of the chair.

‘Of course I did. You always adored kids. I’m surprised you haven’t had any,’ he said, striding to the door and thus not noticing her expression of anguish. ‘Throw some things into a case and I’ll be up to carry your stuff down while you’re saying your goodbyes to Huggy Bear.’

Laura doubled over when he’d gone, burying her face in her hands. She felt ice-cold and sick. This was going to be worse than she’d thought.

For a few moments she breathed deeply. It didn’t do much for her wobbly legs, but the nausea eased. Experimentally she staggered to her feet and, barely able to walk a straight line, she dragged out her suitcase from under the bed. And stared at it helplessly, the seconds and minutes ticking away in the silence.

The last time she’d used the case had been for her escape from Port Isaac, pregnant, afraid, bound for her aunt’s house in distant London—a city she’d never visited in her whole, unworldly life. So scared, so miserable and ashamed...

Her mother had stayed to keep an eye on Fay. Not very successfully...

So much had happened since then. She knelt on the floor, remembering how desperately lonely she’d felt. The week before she’d fled, Max had gone to Paris on business and his parents had turned up, their kind faces full of sympathy for her as they’d explained about the beautiful, sophisticated fiancée waiting for him and how upset they were that Max had sown his wild oats with a decent village girl.

Almost immediately afterwards she’d known she was pregnant. Swearing her mother and Fay to secrecy, she’d gone to London. The noise, the traffic, the greyness had punched into her like a fist. She’d cried herself to sleep every night with homesickness.

‘Need help?’

‘Oh, Luke, I—!’ Longing to confide her fears, she turned around in an almost desperate relief—and then clammed up.

Max was standing next to her boss, a tight frown of irritation on his handsome face. He looked taut, poised like a wound-up spring ready to snap, an air of grim determination about him as if he was coming to a major decision about something then and there.

‘Luke says it’s OK for you to go.’

He met her eyes in an unspoken challenge. She shrank back, suddenly afraid. When her glance slanted to Luke, she was aware that Max’s chest inflated with an inexplicable anger. It couldn’t be jealousy—what did he care? Something else, then. Laura swallowed nervously, drawn back to Max’s face as if by a magnet.

The contrast between the two men was striking. Luke, for all his size, seemed to pale into insignificance, dwarfed by Max’s compelling darkness.

Her eyes remained fixed on Max’s beautifully sculpted features even when Luke came over and knelt beside her, taking her hands in his.

‘Do you think you can cope?’ he asked quietly.

‘I’ll be fine—’

‘I’m not asking her to run an orphanage single-handed!’ scathed Max.

Laura raised her eyes comically to heaven to show Luke that she was equal to anything Max threw at her. ‘Known for his charm,’ she said drily, and Luke grinned in transparent relief. She leapt to her feet, determined not to show her true emotions. ‘Right. Get Fred into his travelling cage,’ she ordered Max, ‘while I pack and tell Luke about the cakes I was supposed to be baking.’

‘I’ve got the list.’ Luke lumbered to his feet too, and pulled the paper from his pocket. ‘I’ll manage fine.’

There was a furious screech from Fred and an even angrier one from Max. Serves him right, Laura thought, and turned around, all innocent enquiry.

‘Did he bite?’ she asked, inanely, since Max was sucking his knuckle and hurling a look to kill at Fred.

‘You know damn well he did,’ Max said, flashing her a look of pure menace from beneath his black brows.

Luke exchanged glances with Laura and chuckled, then ambled over and coochie-cooed Fred, who did his little dance and meekly stepped onto Luke’s hand.

‘In you go,’ he said. ‘I’ll get his food tin, shall I, Laura?’

‘Please,’ she answered vaguely, grabbing handfuls of underwear and flinging them in the direction of her case before moving on to the wardrobe. Old jumpers, jeans...they found their way—well, almost their way—to the suitcase.

When she’d finished and began collecting up her wash bag and make-up, she found that Max was grimly folding her clothes and organising everything sensibly, her shoes being neatly stuffed with briefs and bras...

‘Max,’ she pleaded faintly, disturbed by seeing him touching her most intimate things. ‘Leave that!’

‘I’m trying to get some urgency into the proceedings!’ He shot her a baleful glance. ‘Time is ticking away. I think we must leave.’

Feeling as if a lighted fuse was burning inside her, she dragged her jacket on, grabbed her study folder and pushed books into a plastic carrier bag.

‘I’m ready.’

They all trooped downstairs with their respective loads, and the two men, bristling like rival dogs, packed the dark-chocolate Range Rover which Max had arrogantly left parked on the pavement. Fred screamed in protest at his disturbed routine until Laura cooed to him and threw the night cover over his cage.

‘Say your goodbyes,’ Max ordered curtly, his head stuck under the bonnet, checking the oil level.

Luke drew her into the shop out of sight behind the pasty display. Lord! she thought shakily. She’d be eating Cornish-baked ones in a few hours!

‘You going to be OK? He said a couple of days—’

‘No trouble. I’ve got his measure,’ she pretended. ‘And I’m sorry to muck you about. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘I know that,’ reassured Luke. ‘I’ll be thinking of you. The kiddies need you more than I do. And if you want a friendly ear...’ he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and brought out a card. ‘This is my home number. My wife’ll be only too glad to chat. She’s one in a million, Laura. You can trust her to understand.’

‘Thanks. You’ve been terrific.’

She reached up and gave him a hesitant kiss on the cheek, and hurried out, wondering if she’d ever regain complete control of her legs again.

Max, ever the superficial gentleman whatever his mood, was holding open the car door for her. It was on the driver’s side. Tucking Luke’s card into her jacket pocket, she looked at him questioningly.

‘I have to make a few calls while we’re going along,’ he explained.

He took her elbow, and she wondered what had made his voice so husky and laced his eyes with...pain? That couldn’t be right—unless he felt nervous about looking after two children. She hoped he was in for a steep learning curve.

‘You drive,’ he prompted.

Laura dragged her mind back to his request. ‘I can’t!’

He was staggered. ‘You...can’t...drive?’

‘It’s not that unusual, surely? I came here straight from home when I was eighteen, remember?’ she replied huffily. He was acting as though driving was essential for anyone who wanted to be regarded as belonging to the human race! ‘You don’t need a car in London. It’s almost stupid to have a car in London. There was never the need.’

‘Hell.’

He stalked around to the passenger side and waited while she struggled up the high steps, flashing, she was sure, a long length of leg.

Not that it would look at all enticing, she remembered with a silent groan. It would have been taken up almost entirely by a ragged ladder, and she wasn’t sure whether she was pleased or dismayed.

They were through Kensington and Chiswick and on the M4 before she’d even steadied her pulses. Max had always been a masterful driver. With every mile they clocked up, his mood lifted a little further and he stopped scowling.

Laura found herself watching how he handled the vehicle, admiring his confidence and quick reactions. He didn’t get angry when other drivers vacillated or invented their own versions of the Highway Code, but dealt decisively with each situation as it came up. He’d be good in a crisis, she thought absently. She stored away that information without knowing why.

‘OK,’ he said, easing himself comfortably in his seat as he cruised past everything in sight. She didn’t like the sound of that OK. There was an air of resolution about it. She gripped the edge of her seat and was surprised when all he said was ‘Lunch.’

‘Are we stopping?’ she asked, confused.

‘It’s in the glove box. I asked Luke to put something in a bag for us.’

Laura cautiously flicked the catch and extracted a ‘Saucy Sandwich’ carton. Two Cornish pasties, smoked salmon on brown bread sandwiches—probably with lemon—chocolate éclairs and an assortment of chocolate bon bons.

‘My favourites! Good old Luke,’ she exclaimed fondly.

‘To hell with Luke. Feed me,’ Max ordered, concentrating on the road.

She sighed audibly, like a martyr forced to do yet another penance, and thrust the pasty in the general direction of his face.

‘Break off bits,’ he instructed.

Driving seemed to take up all his attention. She’d never seen anyone so intent on the traffic before. Certain that this was part of some game he’d devised, she deliberately passed him a chunk of the crimped end which was just pastry and no filling.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he lifted his hand from the steering wheel and closed it over hers, like Ronald Coleman accepting a cigarette from Bette Davis in an old black and white movie.

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