DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

The Mistress’s Child

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

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To the enigmatic Signor Candice.

And to the horse-riding Thomas Hietzker

(Ave Maria).

Contents

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

HE WALKED into the office and all her dreams and nightmares came true.

Lisi felt giddy. Sick. But maybe that was just the effect he was having on her heart-rate.

Up until that moment it had been a perfect day—her last afternoon at work before she finished for Christmas. There had been nothing bigger on her mind than the arrangements for Tim’s birthday party the following day and wondering, along with everyone else, whether the threatened snow would fall.

She stared up into the cool, chiselled features and her fingers—which had been flying furiously over the keyboard—froze into stillness. But so did the rest of her—heart, body and soul. For one long, timeless moment their eyes met and she wondered what on earth she could say to him, but just the sight of him was making speech impossible.

He was as devastating as he had always been, but his body looked leaner, harder—all tight, honed muscle which even the elegant winter coat couldn’t disguise.

Instinct made her want to stand up and demand what he was doing there, to ask him how he had the nerve to show that heartbreaking face of his, but the stakes were much too high and she knew that she could not afford to give into instinct.

‘Hello, Philip,’ she said at last, astonished to hear how steady her voice sounded.

He should have been expecting it, but her effect on him took him completely off guard and the sound of her low, husky voice ripped through his defences. Damn her, he thought bitterly as he recalled her soft white thighs wrapped around his body as he had plunged deep, deep inside her, unable to stop himself even though every fibre of his being had tried. Damn her!

He felt the leap of blood, like a fountain to his senses, and it felt like being resurrected. Months which had moved into years of living in an emotional and physical wasteland and she had vanquished his icy indifference simply by the lilting way she said his name. His normally lush, sensual mouth was thin and unsmiling.

‘Why, for a moment there I thought you didn’t remember me, Lisi,’ he mocked softly.

Not remember him? She would have to be dead not to have remembered him, even if she hadn’t had the living proof to remind her every single day of her life.

She kept her face impassive, but in reality she was greedilyregistering every detail of that arrogantly beautiful face. Thinking of her son’s face and searching for heartbreaking signs of similarity—but thank God there was none. His lightly tanned golden skin was so very different from her son’s natural pallor, as were Philip’s startling emerald eyes. They made the aquamarine hue of Tim’s look so diluted in comparison.

And then her heart began to race and the inside of her mouth turned to sandpaper as painful questions began to buzz silently around her head. Why was he here?

Did he know?

The foundations of her world threatened to rock on their axis, but she kept her face as calm as his. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know!

‘Not remember you? Of course I remember you,’ she said, in as bland a voice as she could manage—she even tacked on a weak attempt at a smile as she met the emerald ice of his stare. ‘I always remember—’

‘All the men you’ve slept with?’ he challenged, unable to resist the taunt, cruelly pleased by the sting of colour which brought roses to the whiteness of her skin.

She felt heat flaring across her cheeks, but that was her only outward reaction to his remark. How blatant, to say something as provocative as that, she thought indignantly—especially when you considered his track record. And all the while looking at her with that cold, studied insolence which did nothing to mar the sheer beauty of his face.

She bit back the temptation to remind him that there had been no sleep involved. He had not wanted to sleep with her—and for very good reason. She repressed a shudder as she was reminded of what a gullible fool she had been.

Far better to change the subject completely. To find out what he wanted and to see the back of him.

‘I was about to say that I always remember clients—’ She wished that she could bite the word back. It seemed so cold and unfeeling in view of what she had shared, until she reminded herself that they had shared nothing—except their bodies.

‘Clients,’ she continued valiantly, ‘who have involved this company in as many deals as you once did. You brought us a lot of business, Mr Caprice. We sold a lot of properties through you.’

So she remembered his surname, too. Philip didn’t know whether to be flattered or not, though he was certainly surprised. He suspected that he had been just one in a long line of men she had enticed into her bed—a woman who looked like that would have no trouble doing so. Did she have a photographic memory for all their names?

He studied her—taking all the time in the world to do so—and why not? Hadn’t she haunted his memory with bitter-sweet recall? Given him the acrid taste of guilt in his mouth every time he’d thought of her in nearly four years? Even though he had tried his hardest not to think of her. Tried and failed every time.

But Lisi Vaughan had been a fever in his blood for far too long now.

His eyes skimmed over her. Time had not made much of a mark—certainly not on her face, which was probably the most beautiful he had ever seen. A face completely devoid of make-up, which gave it an odd kind of purity which seemed so at odds with her innate sensuality.

The eyes he remembered because they were icy and aquamarine—unique. Slanting, siren’s eyes, half shielded by a forest of thick, dark eyelashes, which made her look so minxy. The darkness of her lashes was echoed in her hair—deep, dark ebony—as black as the coals of hell itself and made even blacker by its dramatic contrast to the whiteness of her skin. She looked like a witch, he thought, a beautiful temptress of a witch with a body which few men would see outside paradise.

He knitted his eyebrows together almost imperceptibly. Not that her body was on display much today, but some things you couldn’t disguise—even though she had done her level best with some plain black skirt and high-necked blouse which made her look almost dowdy.

No. On second thoughts—certainly not dowdy. Philip swallowed as she moved her head back, as if trying to escape his scrutiny, and the movement drew attention to the unforgettable swell of her breasts. Her waist was as tiny as ever, but her breasts were slightly fuller, he thought, and then was punished with the heavy jackknifing of desire in response.

Lisi could feel her heartbeat growing thready and erratic. She wished he wouldn’t look at her that way. It reminded her of too much she would rather forget. Of tangled limbs and the sheen of sweat, the sweet, fleeting pleasure of fulfilment followed by the shattering pain of rejection. He had no right to look at her that way.

She quashed down the desire to tell him to get out, and forced a pleasantry out instead. He was not the kind of man to be pushed. If she wanted him out of there—and she most certainly did—then he must come to the conclusion that it had been his idea to leave and not hers.

Keep it cool and keep it professional, she told herself. ‘Now. How can I help you?’

He gave her a grim smile, not trusting himself to answer for a moment, and then he lifted his eyebrows in mocking question. ‘What a sweetly expressed offer,’ he murmured.

‘Why, thank you,’ she said demurely.

‘Do you say that to all the men?’

‘Most of them are grown-up enough not to read anything into it.’ She matched his remark with a dry tone of her own and then fixed her eyes on his unwaveringly, trying not to be distracted by that dazzling green gaze. ‘So. Are you interested in a property for sale, Mr Caprice?’

Her unemotional attitude was having precisely the wrong effect on him. ‘Oh, what’s with all this ‘‘Mr’’ stuff?’ Again he felt the sting of life to his senses, but ruthlessly he subdued them and gave a short laugh instead. ‘Come on, Lisi,’ he purred. ‘I think we can dispense with the formalities, don’t you? Surely we are intimate enough with each other to use first names?’

‘Were intimate,’ she corrected, and the heat in her face intensified as she was forced to acknowledge it aloud. ‘Past tense. Remember?’

How could he possibly forget? And wasn’t that why he had come here today—to change the past back to present? To rid himself of her pervasive and unforgettable sensual legacy. Wouldn’t a whole night lost in the scented curves of her siren’s body mean that he would be free of the guilt and the longing for ever? Sensations which had somehow chained him to her, and made him unable to move on.

He looked around the office, where the Christmas decorations were glittering silver and gold. In the corner stood a small artificial tree which was decked with shining crimson-red baubles and tiny white fairy lights.

He found Christmas almost unbearable—he had forgottenits poignant lure while he had been away. You could tell yourself that it was corny. Commercial. That all its true values were forgotten these days—but it still got to you every time.

And this was his first Christmas back in England since working in Maraban, where of course they had not celebratedthe feast at all. He had not even had to think about it.

He was slowly beginning to realise that living in the Middle East had protected him from all the things he did not want to think about. And Christmas brought with it all kinds of things he would rather not think about. Feelings, mostly. Feelings of remorse. The pain of loss and the pain of wanting. Or, rather, of not wanting. For too long now, his body had felt as unresponding as a block of ice until he had walked in here today and seen her, and now his groin was on fire with need. Damn her, he thought again. Damn her!

He gritted his teeth, his gaze moving to her hand. She wore no wedding ring, nor any pale sign that one might have been recently removed, either. But women these days lived with men at the drop of a hat and he needed to find out if she was involved with someone. But even if she did have another man—would that honestly prevent him from doing what he intended to do?

He sat down in the chair opposite her desk, spreading out his long legs and not missing the thinning of her mouth as she watched him do so. He coolly crossed one leg over the other and felt a jerk of triumph as he saw her eyes darken. She wants me, he thought and his heart thundered in his chest. She still wants me.

‘I must say that I’m surprised to see you still working here,’ he observed, looking around the office of the small estate agency.

Lisi stiffened, warning herself not to get defensive. It was none of his business. She owed him nothing, least of all the truth.

‘I just happen to like selling houses,’ she said.

‘I guess you do.’ It had been another aspect of her character which he had been unable to fault—her unerring ability to match the right property to the right client. It had been what had brought him back to this small English villagetime after time as he’d sought valuable property for a clutch of wealthy buyers. In the beginning he had always dealt with Jonathon, the owner and senior negotiator, but after a while Lisi had taken over. Beautiful Lisi, with her ready smile and soft, sympathetic manner.

Part of him had not expected to find her here. He had imagined that she would be running her own place by now—and it was more than a little disconcerting to see her at the same desk, in the same office. As if time had stood still, and she with it. He gave her a questioning look. ‘Most people would have moved on by now—to bigger and brighter things.’

And leave her safety net? Her cushion?

Her job had been the one familiar constant in those dark, far-off days when she had wondered just how she was going to cope—how could she ever have left it? ‘Not me,’ she said staunchly.

‘Why ever not?’ he asked quietly, bemused—because she had not only been good at her job, she had been ambitious, too.

She didn’t break the gaze, even though her stomach was churning over with anxiety, as if he somehow knew her secret and was just biding his time before he confronted her with it. Distract him, she thought. ‘Why on earth should my job prospects interest you?’

‘Call it curiosity,’ he told her softly. ‘Ex-lovers always interest me.’

Lisi repressed a shudder. She didn’t feel like his ex-lover—she felt like a woman who had shared his bed under false pretences before he had disappeared dramatically from her life. But she didn’t want to analyse that—not now and not with him here. Instead she took his question at face value.

‘I love my job,’ she said staunchly. ‘It’s convenient and it’s local—and there’s no reason why I should travel miles to find something which is already on my doorstep, is there?’

‘I guess not.’ But he couldn’t help wondering why she had settled for such steady small-town life when she was still so young and beautiful. His eyes were drawn irresistibly to the lush lines of her mouth, knowing that he would never be satisfied until he got her out of his system one last time.

For good.

He gave a conventional smile as he forced himself to make conventional conversation. ‘And of course Langley is a very pretty little village.’

Lisi was growing uncomfortable. She wished he would go. Just his proximity was making the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up like soldiers and she could feel the prickle of heat to her breasts. She remembered the lightning feel of his mouth as it caressed all the secret places of her body and thought how sad it was that no other man had ever supplanted him in her memory.

She cleared her throat. The last thing she wanted was to antagonise him and to arouse his suspicions, but she could not tolerate much more of him sitting across the desk from her while she remembered his love-making, the unmistakable glint in his eyes telling her that he was remembering, too.

‘You still haven’t told me how I can help you,’ she asked quietly.

Philip narrowed his eyes. He didn’t know what he had expected from her today. More anger, he guessed. Yes. Much more. And more indignation, too. Lisi looking down her beautiful nose at him for daring to reappear without warning and after so long. Particularly after the last words he had ever said to her.

Yet there was an unexpected wariness and a watchfulness about her rather than the out-and-out anger he might have expected, and he wondered what was the cause of it. Something was not as it should be.

He ran a long, reflective finger along the faint shadow which darkened his jaw. ‘You mean am I here today on business? Or pleasure?’

She gave a thin smile. ‘I hope it’s the former! Because I don’t think that the atmosphere between us could be described as pleasure—not by any stretch of the imagination.’

Oh, but how wrong she was! You didn’t have to like a woman to want her. He knew that. Liking could die, but lust seemed to have a much longer shelf-life. ‘Then maybe we should try and put that to rights.’

‘By placing as much distance as possible between us, you mean?’

‘Not exactly.’ He leaned back in the chair and narrowed his eyes in provocative assessment. ‘Why don’t I take you for a drink after work instead?’

His audacity left her reeling, and yet there had been weeks and months when she had prayed for such a proposition,when she’d tried to tell herself that what had happened between them had all been one big misunderstanding and that there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for his behaviour.

But those hopes had soon dwindled—along with the growing realisation that Philip Caprice had changed her life irrevocably. And how, she reminded herself. He had brought with him trouble and upheaval, and if she wasn’t very, very careful—he could do the same all over again. And this time she had much more to lose.

‘A drink? I don’t think so. Not a very good idea,’ she told him in a trembling voice and then paused for effect—to try and hurt him as much as he had once hurt her. ‘I can’t imagine that your wife would like it very much. Or has she grown used to your infidelities by now?’

He stilled as if she had struck him, though he had been expecting this accusation from the moment he’d walked in. He was surprised that she had taken so long to get around to it. ‘My wife wouldn’t know,’ he said tonelessly.

‘Oh, so it all became too much for her, did it?’ Lisi sucked in a breath which threatened to choke her. ‘Did she divorce you when she found out about me, Philip? Or were there others? There must have been, I guess—I’m not flattering myself that I was something special.’

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?’

Lisi nodded. ‘That’s right.’ She saw Marian’s rather shocked face. ‘Oh, it wasn’t the classic one-night stand—believe me.’ It hadn’t even been meant to happen. ‘I…I used to see him every couple of months or so,’ she continued painfully. ‘We had grown to like one another, though I realise now that I never really knew him, or anything about him. But the ‘‘affair’’ wasn’t really an affair, as such.’ In fact, it hadn’t lasted beyond midnight.

‘But isn’t it time he found out the truth—whatever has happened between you? I have children of my own, Lisi, and children need a father wherever possible. They need to know their roots and where they come from.’

Lisi sighed. How could she possibly explain this without sounding scheming and cold-hearted? ‘Maybe I’ll tell him if he shows any sign of wanting to be a father, but if I just announce it without careful consideration—can’t you just imagine the consequences? Philip demanding contact. Philip turning up to take Tim out…’ Philip taking Tim’s affection…while feeling nothing for her but lust at best, and contempt at worst. ‘Tim doesn’t even know about Philip!’

‘But surely other people round here must know he’s the father? Someone must know?’

Lisi shook her head. Her night with Philip had gone unnoticed and unremarked upon, and that was how she had kept it. No one knew the truth except for her mother, and that had been a death-bed secret. Even her best friend Rachel thought that her refusal to divulge the identity of Tim’s father was down to some fierce kind of pride at having been deserted, but it went much deeper than that.

Lisi had accepted that Philip could and had just walked out of her life—but she had vowed that he would never play emotional ping-pong with that of her son. A child was a commitment you made for life, not something to be picked up and put down at will—especially if the father of that child was married.

Except now that his wife was dead. So didn’t that change things?

Lisi shook her head. ‘Nobody knows. Not a living soul.’ She stared at Marian. ‘Except for you, of course.’

‘I won’t tell him, if that’s what you’re worried about, Lisi,’ said Marian awkwardly. ‘But what if he finds out anyway?’

‘He can’t! He won’t!’

‘He’s planning on buying a house here. It’s a small village. What if he starts putting two and two together and coming up with the right answer? Surely he’ll be able to work out for himself that he’s the father?’

Lisi shook her head. Why should he? It was a long time ago. Months blurred into years and women blurred into other women, until each was indistinguishable from the last. ‘Maybe he won’t find a house to suit him?’ she suggestedoptimistically, but Marian shook her head with a steely determination which Lisi recognised as the nine-carat businesswoman inside her.

‘Oh, no, Lisi—don’t even think of going down that road. This is strictly business. And if a client—any client—wants to buy a house from this agency, then we find one for him to buy. Beginning and end of story. I simply can’t allow you to prejudice any sale because of some past quarrel with your child’s father—which in my opinion, needs some kind of resolution before Tim gets much older.’

‘An outsider doesn’t know how it feels,’ said Lisi miserably.

‘Maybe that’s best. An outsider can tell you what she thinks you need rather than what you think you want.’ Marian’s face softened again. ‘Listen, dear,’ she said gently, ‘why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off? You look much too shaken to do any more work. Peter will be back from his viewing shortly—and it’s always quiet at this time of the year. Think about what I’ve said. Sleep on it. It may be better in the long run if you just come clean and tell Philip the truth about Tim.’

Better for whom? wondered Lisi as she took off her work shoes and changed into the wellington boots she always wore to work when the weather was as inclement as it was today. It certainly wouldn’t be better for her.

She felt disorientated and at a loss, and not just because of Philip’s unexpected reappearance. Tim didn’t finish nursery until four, which meant that she had nearly two hours going spare and now she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. How ironic. All the times when she had longed for a little space on her own, when the merry-go-round of work and single motherhood had threatened to drag her down—and here she was with time on her hands and wishing that she had something to fill it.

She didn’t want to go home, because if she did then she would feel guilty for not putting any washing into the machine, or preparing supper for Tim, or any of the other eight million tasks which always needed to be done. And mundane tasks would free up her mind, forcing her to confront the disturbing thoughts which were buzzing around inside her head.

Instead, she turned up her coat collar against the chill breeze, and headed up the main village street, past the duck pond.

The light was already beginning to die from the sky and the contrasting brightness of the fairy lights and glittering Christmas trees which decorated every shop window made the place look like an old-fashioned picture postcard. How their gaiety mocked her.

The breeze stung her cheeks, and now and again, tiny little flakes of snow fluttered down from the sky to melt on her face like icy tears.

The weathermen had been promising a white Christmas, and, up until today, it had been one of Lisi’s main preoccupations—whether her son would see his first snow at the most special time of year for a child.

But thoughts of a white Christmas had been eclipsed by thoughts of Philip, and now they were threatening to engulf her, making her realise just why she had put him in a slot in her memory-bank marked ‘Closed’. She had done that for reasons of practicality and preservation—but seeing him today had made it easy to remember just why no one had ever come close to replacing him in her affections.

And now he might be here to stay.

She climbed over a stile and slid down onto wet grass, glad for the protection of her heavy boots as she set out over the field, but she had not walked more than a few metres before she realised that she was being followed.

Lisi knew the village like the back of her hand. She had lived there all her life and had never felt a moment’s fear or apprehension.

But she did now.

Yet it was not the heartstopping and random fear that a stranger had materialised out of nowhere and might be about to pounce on her, because some sixth sense warned her to the fact that the person following her was no stranger. She could almost sense the presence of the man who was behind her.

She stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned around to find Philip standing there, his unsmiling face shadowed in the fast-fading light of dusk. Out here in the open countryside he seemed even more formidable, his powerful frame silhouetted so darkly against the pale apricot of the sky, and Lisi felt the sudden warm rush of desire.

And she didn’t want to! Not with him. Not with this beautiful, secretive and ultimately deceitful man who had given her a child and yet would never be a father to that child.

She had overplayed the bland, polite card in the office today and he had not taken heed of her wish to be rid of him. The time for politeness was now past.

‘Do you always go creeping up on people in the twilight, Philip?’ she accused.

He gave a faint smile. ‘Sometimes. My last employment meant that I had to employ qualities of stealth, even cunning.’

She resisted the urge to suggest that the latter quality would come easily to him, intrigued to learn of what he had been doing for the past four years. ‘And what kind of employment was that?’

He didn’t answer immediately. He wasn’t sure how much of his past he wanted to share with her. What if anything he wanted to share with her, other than the very obvious. And his years as emissary to a Middle Eastern prince could not be explained in a couple of sentences in the middle of a field on a blisteringly cold winter’s afternoon. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you about it some time,’ he said softly.

So he wasn’t going to fill in any gaps. He would remain as unknowable as he ever had been. She looked at him in exasperation. ‘Why are you really here, Philip? What brought you back to Langley after so long?’

An unanswerable question. How could he possibly define what his intentions had been, when nothing was ever as easy as you thought it was going to be? Something had compelled him to return and lay a increasingly troublesome ghost to rest, and yet the reality was proving far more complex than that.

He had been dreaming of her lately. Images which had come out of nowhere to invade his troubled nights. Not pin-point, sharply accurate and erotic dreams of a body which had captivated him and kept him prisoner all this time. No, the dreams had been more about the elusive memory of some far-distant sweetness he had experienced in her arms.

Part of him had wondered if seeing her again would make the hunger left by the dream disappear without trace—like the pricking of a bubble with a pin—but it had not happened like that.

The other suspicion he had nurtured—that her beauty and charm would be as freshly intact as before—had sprung into blinding and glorious Technicolor instead. His desire for her burned just as strongly as before—maybe even more so—because nobody since Lisi had managed to tempt him away from his guilt and into their bed.

Not that there hadn’t been offers, of course, or invitations—some subtle, some not. There had been many—particularly when he had been working for the prince—and some of those only a fool would have turned down. Was that what he was, then—a fool?

Or was it that one night with her had simply not been enough? Like a starving man only being offered a morsel when the table was tempting him with a banquet?

He looked into her eyes—their bright, clear aquamarine shaded a deeper blue by the half-light of approaching dusk. Her face was still pale—pale as the first faint crescent of the moon which was beginning its nightly rise into the heavens. Her lips looked darker, too. Mulberry-coloured—berry-sweet and succulent and juicy—what wouldn’t he give to possess those lips again?

‘Maybe I wanted to see you again,’ he murmured.

It sounded too much like the kind of declaration which a woman dreamed a man would make to her, but there was no corresponding gentling of his tone when he said it. The deep-timbred voice gave as little away as the green, shuttered eyes did.

‘Why?’ She forced herself to say it. ‘To sleep with me again?’

Philip’s mouth hardened. He wasn’t going to lie. ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

She let out a cold, painful breath as the last of her hopes crumbled. It was as she had suspected. The warm, giving Philip whose bed she had shared—that man did not exist. It had all been an act. He was merely a seductive but illusionaryfigure who had let his defences down enough to have sex with her, and then had retreated to his real world—a world which had excluded her because he’d had a wife.

Not just cruel, but arrogant, too!

‘And you think…’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Do you really think that I’ve been sitting around, just waiting for you to come back and make such a—’ she almost choked on the word ‘—charming declaration as that one?’

‘But I’m not telling you any lies, am I, Lisi?’

She shook her head violently, and some of the thick, dark hair escaped from the velvet ribbon which had held it captive. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Lies aren’t your thing, are they? You lie by omission rather than fact! Like you omitted to tell me that you were married when you seduced me!’

‘Seduced you?’ He gave a short laugh and his breath clouded the air like smoke. ‘You make it sound as though we were both starring in some kind of Victorian melodrama! There was no wicked master seducing some sweet little innocent who knew no better, was there, Lisi? Quite the contrary, in fact. You were the one who stripped naked in my bed. You knew exactly what you wanted and what you were doing. So please don’t play the innocent. That night you kept me delightfully and memorably entertained—something which is simply not compatible with someone who isn’t…’ he narrowed his eyes into hard, condemnatory slits ‘…experienced.’

Lisi swallowed. He was insulting her, she knew that—and yet it was like no insult she had ever heard. The disparaging tone which had deepened his voice did not have her itching to slap the palm of her hand against that smooth, golden cheek the way it should have done.

Instead, it seemed to have set off a chain reaction which began with the quickened pace of her heart and ended with the honey-slick throb of a longing so pure and so overwhelming that she could have sunk down into the thick, wet clods of earth and held her arms open to him.

But she had played the fool with Philip Caprice once before, and once was too often.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘You know, you really ought to make your mind up how you feel about me. On the one hand you seem to despise me for my so-called experience—while on the other you seem unable to forget what happened.’

‘Can you?’ he demanded as he felt the heavy pull of need deep in his groin. ‘Can you forget it, Lisi?’

Of course she couldn’t! But then, unlike Philip, she had a very tangible memory of that night.

Tim.

She thought of Marian’s words—wise, kindly experienced Marian who had urged her to tell him, who had emphasised how much a child needed a father. But what if this particular man had no desire to be a father? What if she told him and ruined both her and Tim’s lives unnecessarily? What if Philip had children of his own?

Was now the time to ask him? In a field on a cold December night where stars were now beginning to appear as faint blurry dots in the skies?

She steeled herself. ‘What happened to your wife, Philip?’

She took him off guard with her question, though perhaps that was because these days he had schooled himself not to remember Carla more than was absolutely necessary. The living had to let go—he knew that—just as he knew how hard it could be.

He used the same words as the press had done at the time. ‘She was involved in a pile-up on the motorway.’

She nodded, painfully aware of how much the bereaved resented other people’s silence on the subject. She remembered when her mother had died, and people had seemed to cross the road to avoid her. ‘Was it…was it instant?’

‘No.’ The word came out more harshly than he had intended, but he did not want to discuss Carla, not now. God forgive him, but he wanted to lose the pain of death in the sweet, soft folds of living flesh. ‘Can’t we go somewhere warmer, if we’re going to talk?’

She shook her head. Tim would be out of nursery soon enough and she had no desire to take Philip home and have him see her little house with all its childish paraphernalia, which might just alert his suspicions.

And where else to go to talk in Langley on one of the shortest days of the year—the pub would have shut by now. There was always the hotel, of course, she reminded herself, and a shiver of memory ran down her spine.

‘I don’t think there’s any point in talking. What is there left to say?’

He watched the movement of her lips as she spoke, saw the tiny moist tip of her tongue as it briefly eased its way between her perfect white teeth, and a wave of lust turned his mouth to dust. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he agreed softly. ‘How can we possibly talk when this crazy attraction is always going to be between us? You still want me, Lisi—it’s written all over your face,’ and he reached out and pulled her into his arms.

‘D-don’t,’ she protested, but it was a weak and meaningless entreaty and she might as well not have spoken for all the notice he took of it.

He cupped her face in the palm of his hand and turned it up so that she was looking at him, all eyes and lips and pale skin, and his voice grew soft, just as once it had before. ‘Why, you’re cold, Lisi,’ he murmured.

It was the concern which lulled her into staying in his arms—that and the masculine heat and the musky, virile scent of him. Helplessly, she stared up at him, knowing that he was about to kiss her, even before he began to lower his mouth towards hers.

The first warm touch of him was like clicking on a switch marked ‘Responsive’. ‘Philip,’ she moaned softly, without realising that she was doing so, nor that her arms had snaked up around his neck to capture him.

The way she said his name incited him, and he whispered hers back as if it were some kind of incantation. ‘Lisi.’ Her mouth was a honey-trap—warm and soft and immeasurably sweet. He felt the moistness of her tongue and the halting quality of her breath as it mingled with his. Even through the thickness of his greatcoat, he could feel the flowering of her breasts as they jutted against him and he felt consumed with the need to feel them naked once more, next to his body and tickling both hard and soft against his chest. ‘Oh, Lisi,’ he groaned.

All she could think of was that this was not just the man she had found more overwhelmingly attractive than any other man she had ever met—this man was also the biological father of her child, and in a way she was chained to him for ever.

Just for a minute she could pretend that they had been like any other couple who had created a child together. They could kiss in a field and she could lace her fingers luxuriously through the thick abundance of his hair, and feel the quickening of his body against hers and then…and then…

Then what?

The logical conclusion to what they were starting clamoured into her consciousness like a bucket of ice-cold water being torrented over her and Lisi pulled herself out of his arms, her eyes wide and darkened, her breath coming in short, laboured little gasps.

‘You thought it would be that simple, did you, Philip? One kiss and I would capitulate?’

The ache of her absence made his words cruel. He raised his eyebrows in laconic mockery. ‘You weren’t a million miles away from capitulation, were you?’

She drew her coat around her tightly and the reality of the winter afternoon made her aware that she was chilled almost to the bone. ‘I may have had a moment’s weakness,’ she hissed, ‘but I can assure you that I have, or had, absolutely no intention of letting you take me in some damp and desolate field as if I were just some girl you’d picked up at a party and thought you’d try your luck with!’

‘Luck?’ he said bleakly, stung by the irony of the word. Maybe it was time he told her. Maybe he owed her that much. For what kind of bastard could have walked out on a woman like Lisi with only the baldest of explanations—designed not just to hurt her but to expurgate his own guilt? ‘I really do think we need to have that talk, Lisi—but not now, and not here—’

‘I don’t think talking is what you really have in mind, do you?’ she enquired archly. ‘So please don’t dress up something as simple as longing by trying to give it a respectable name!’

‘Something as simple as longing?’ he echoed wryly. ‘You think that longing is ever in any way simple?’

‘It can be for some people!’ she declared hotly. ‘Boy meets girl! Boy falls in love with girl!’

‘Boy and girl live happily ever after?’ he questioned sardonically. ‘I’m a little too old to believe in fairy tales any more, Lisi, aren’t you?’

His scent was still like sweet perfume which clung to her skin, and she drew away from him, frightened by the depth of how much she still wanted him. ‘I’m going home now,’ she said shakily, and fought down the desire to do the impossible. ‘And I’m not taking you with me.’

He nodded, seeing that she was fighting some kind of inner battle, perversely pleased that she was not going to give into what he was certain she wanted. Maybe it had all happened too quickly last time. Maybe this time he should take it real slow. ‘I’ll walk with you.’

Her heart missed a beat. ‘No, you won’t!’ She didn’t want him to see where she lived, or catch a glimpse of her as she left the tiny cottage to go and collect Tim. And then what? For him to observe the angel-child who was her son and to start using that clever mind of his to work out that Tim was his son as well?

It was too enormous a decision to make on too little information, and who knew what Philip Caprice really wanted, and why he was here? She wasn’t going to take the chance. Not yet.

‘I’m not letting you walk home alone,’ he said imperturbably.

Was it her imagination, or had he grown more than a little autocratic in the intervening years? ‘Philip—this is the twenty-first century, for goodness’ sake! How do you think I’ve managed to get by all these years, without you leaping out of the shadows ready and willing to play the Knight in Shining Armour? Langley is safe enough for a woman to walk home alone—why else do you think I’ve stayed here this long?’

He gave her a steady look. ‘I don’t know, Lisi. That’s what makes it so perplexing. It doesn’t add up at all.’

Her breath caught like dust in her throat. ‘Wh-what doesn’t?’

‘You. Sitting like Miss Havisham at the same desk in the same office in the same estate agency. What kind of a life is that? What’s your game plan, Lisi—are you going to stay there until you’re old and grey and let life and men just pass you by?’

She caught a sudden vivid image of herself painted by his wounding words. A little old woman, stooped and bent—her long hair grown grey, her skin mottled and tired from the day-in, day-out struggle of being a single mother, where money was tight. And Tim long gone. She drew in a deep sigh which was much too close to a sob, but she held the sob at bay.

‘I don’t have to stay here and be insulted by you,’ she told him quietly. ‘Why don’t you just go away, Philip? Go back to where you came from and leave me alone!’

He gave a wry smile. If only it were as easy as that. He didn’t try to stop her as she turned away from him and ran back over the field, the heavy mud and the heavy boots making her progress slow and cumbersome.

But she leapt over the stile like a gazelle and he stood watching the last sight of her—her hair almost completely free of its confinement now, and it danced like crazy black snakes which gleamed in the light of the moon—while his heart pounded like a piston in his chest.