Legally His Omnibus (9 page)

‘You’re still very weak—’ he told her, and then broke off as the doorbell rang. ‘That will be the doctor. I’ll go down and let him in.’

As soon as he had gone Kate lifted her hand to her forehead and pressed her skin tightly as she tried to force herself to remember exactly what had happened. Humiliatingly, all her body could and would remember was the pleasure Sean had given it, whilst inside her head she could hear the ringing echo of her own passionate pleas for his possession.

The bedroom door reopened and Sean ushered in the doctor, whose face was full of concern.

‘So, Kate, you are back with us. Good! Your husband has obviously done an excellent job of looking after you.’

Her husband! Kate wanted to remind the doctor that Sean was her ex-husband, but somehow it was too much of an effort. The frightening realisation of just how physically weak she felt was just beginning to hit her.

‘You are over the worst now, but that does not mean you are better. You are very far from better,’ the doctor told her emphatically.

‘So when will I be better?’ Kate demanded, with a show of energy she was far from feeling. A little uncomfortably she saw that the doctor was looking at her as though he knew perfectly well how she was really feeling.

‘Well, if you do as you are told, and don’t try to rush things, I would say that you will be fully back to normal in three weeks or so.’

‘Three weeks!’ Kate struggled to sit up as she stared at him in shock. ‘But, no! That’s impossible!’ she started to tell him frantically. ‘I need to find a new job! I have to go back to work. I’ve just had a bit of a virus, that’s all—it can’t possibly take three weeks for me to get better!’

‘You’ve had a very serious strain of the virus, and without wanting to frighten you...’ the doctor paused. ‘It is fortunate that you have such a naturally strong constitution,’ he told her. ‘And as for you going back to work...’ He shook his head. ‘No, you cannot do that.’

‘Nor will she be doing that, Doctor.’ Sean joined the conversation grimly, giving Kate a warning look as he added smoothly, ‘I know that no employer would allow her to work anyway, until she has been given a clean bill of health.’

Kate felt distraught, but she had to satisfy herself with giving Sean a seethingly furious look as he escorted the doctor to the door.

When he came back, she told him determinedly, ‘I can’t not work for three weeks! I would have found a new job by now if I hadn’t been ill,’ she added fretfully.

When Sean remained silent she reminded him angrily, ‘I have to work. I have a child to support and a mortgage to pay.’

‘We’ll talk about this later,’ Sean said in a clipped voice. ‘It’s time for me to go and collect Oliver from nursery.’

Kate wanted to argue, but her head was pounding and all she could do was watch him leave with helpless fury.

It just wasn’t possible that it would take three weeks before she was back to normal! She was sure the doctor was exaggerating her weakness—no doubt prompted and aided by Sean, she decided, scowling. And she was going to prove it!

The moment she heard Sean leave she thrust back the bedcovers, refusing to acknowledge that even that action left her arms aching. She was in her twenties, for heaven’s sake, not in her nineties, she reminded herself determinedly, and she ignored her dizziness.

Placing her feet firmly on the floor, she stood up, and immediately had to make a wild grab for the bed as her legs refused to support her properly. Okay, she was feeling a little bit weak—but that was because she hadn’t been doing anything, because she had been lying in bed and not using her muscles.

Kate could feel her face starting to burn as she was forced to remember just what she had done in bed. And as she clung unsteadily to the bed other vague images wove themselves in and out of her memory: strong arms lifting and holding her, supporting her whilst she drank, careful hands soothing her hot and hurting skin, the presence of a shadowy but oh-so-comforting figure doing for her everything that needed to be done, even anticipating her every need.

Shakily Kate wondered for just how long the fever had consumed her. She touched her hair; it felt clean and soft. She had an immediate and shocking image of being held beneath the shower, whilst blissfully cleansing water cascaded over her sticky and uncomfortable body.

Sean had done all those things for her. Sean had cared for her as though...as though... As though they were still a couple—a pair bonded together by mutual love and commitment. As though he still loved her!

But he had abandoned her for someone else, she reminded herself fiercely as she forced her weak aching legs to move. He had given the love she had thought exclusively hers to another woman. No matter what her deepest and most secret feelings, she must not allow herself to forget that betrayal.

Her deepest and most secret feelings? A recognition she did not want to acknowledge tightened its hurting grasp around her heart. Gritting her teeth, she took three steps, and then gasped out loud with shock as her legs refused to support her any longer and she sank awkwardly to the floor.

Ten minutes later she was safely back in bed—her bones, never mind her flesh, feeling as though they had been pummelled and bruised, every bit of her filled with an aching, nagging pain she couldn’t ignore.

Kate had never really been physically ill, and the only real physical pain she had had to endure was when she had given birth to Oliver—and anyway, that had been different.

This unfamiliar aching weakness was alien to her, and very frightening. She loathed the thought of being dependent on anyone, no matter who it might be, and that it should be Sean brought a whole raft of emotional complications she just did not feel able to cope with. But she was going to have to cope with them. Because, as she had just proved to herself, the doctor had been quite correct—she was far too weak to even look after herself, never mind care properly for Oliver, or find a new job!

Angry tears burned the backs of her eyes, followed by a feeling of panicky fear. How was she going to manage? How would she support them both? It seemed so unfair that after all the hard work she had done this should happen—now when she had finally begun to allow herself to hope that her plans for their financial security would be successful. Hastily she blinked the tears away as she heard the door open, followed by the sound of Oliver’s excited voice.

The sight of him bursting into her room and running towards her, followed by Sean, immediately lifted her spirits—although she frowned a little to see that he was wearing obviously new clothes she didn’t recognise.

As though he could guess what she was thinking, Sean explained carelessly, ‘I couldn’t get the washing dry because of the rain, so I bought some new stuff.’

Oliver had reached the bed and was scrambling onto it. As she reached down to help him Kate saw the labels on the new clothes and her mouth compressed, her panic returning. Expensive designer labels! How on earth was she going to repay Sean for them? She had only ever been able to afford to buy Oliver good second-hand clothes, and sometimes new things from chain stores.

‘Mummy, you’re properly awake at last!’ Oliver beamed as he kissed her enthusiastically. ‘Look what I painted for you!’ he said, triumphantly showing her the brightly painted paper he was holding.

‘It’s me and you and Sean, and Sean’s house where we’re all going to live.’ Immediately Kate went still, keeping her arm around her son whilst she looked accusingly at Sean. Her heart was pounding so heavily that it hurt.

‘What—?’ she began fiercely, but Sean was already lifting Oliver off the bed.

‘Come on,’ he was saying to Oliver. ‘Let’s go downstairs and make Mummy some tea. We’ll talk later,’ he added quietly to Kate.

‘Yes, and then I’ll read you a story, Mummy,’ Oliver told her happily. ‘We’ve read you a story every night—haven’t we, Sean? But you weren’t properly awake. Having lots of sleep made you get better, though,’ he informed Kate importantly. With a graveness that tore at her heart, Oliver continued, ‘You have to have lots of water to drink, doesn’t she, Sean?’

‘Lots of water, and now some proper food,’ Sean agreed calmly.

Kate could feel her eyes smarting with emotional tears as Sean disappeared with Oliver.

She had been miserably worried about her illness affecting Oliver emotionally, but now it was plain to her that she had worried unnecessarily. Because Oliver had had Sean. Because Oliver had had his father.

A huge groundswell of emotional pain began deep down inside her. How could Sean behave as he was doing with Oliver and yet at the same time so completely reject the fact that Oliver was his son? And as for Oliver’s innocent remark about them going to live with Sean!

Tiredness began to swamp her, overwhelming her angry attempts to fight it off and remain awake.

When Sean walked into the bedroom five minutes later she was fast asleep. Putting down the tray holding the pot of tea he had brewed for her, and the light omelette he had just made, Sean went over to look at her, frowning deeply as he did so. The previous day the doctor had told him that he believed she was over the worst, and today, with her return to full consciousness, Sean had seen that for himself.

He was reluctant to wake her up, but he knew that she needed to start eating again in order to build up her strength.

Going over to her, he reached out to touch her, and then hesitated. The strap of the nightdress he had bought her when he had been forced to go out and buy food and extra clothes for Oliver had slipped down over her exposed shoulder.

Without thinking, his actions still on the automatic pilot of having looked after her, he curled his fingers around the strap and started to tug it back up.

Kate woke up immediately, her whole body tensing as she saw Sean leaning over her.

The sight of the afternoon sunshine falling against his skin made her stifle a small sound deep in her throat. She had never admitted it to him, but she could still remember how all those years ago, when they had first met, she had deliberately walked past the building site where he was working, unable to stop her avid gaze feeding hungrily on the sight of his naked torso, pinpricks of dangerous excitement prickling all over her body. Just as they were doing now, Kate realised, as the emotions she was fighting to hold in check swept through her.

She must not allow herself to react to him like this, she told herself fiercely. She must not weaken and let him touch her emotions. She must not forget now much he had hurt her and, much more importantly, how much he could still hurt Oliver.

Thinking of her son gave her the strength to drag her gaze from Sean’s and look pointedly at where his hand still rested on her shoulder.

‘You must let me know how much you have spent on mine and Oliver’s behalf,’ she told him stiffly. She knew just from the feel of the fabric against her skin that the nightdress would have cost far more than she would ever have paid—and far more than she could possibly afford. But no way was she going to be beholden to him, even though she felt sick at the thought of having to waste her small precious savings on such unnecessary luxuries.

‘There are several things we need to discuss,’ Sean told her equably. ‘But first you must have something to eat.’

Rebelliously Kate looked at him, the words ‘I’m not hungry’ dying on her lips as he added gently, ‘Doctor’s orders, Kate, and if necessary I can assure you I am perfectly willing to feed you myself.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘Good.’

Unable to contain herself any longer, she burst out, ‘I can’t be off work for three weeks.’

‘You can’t
not
be,’ he corrected her curtly. ‘And personally I don’t think that your doctor is going to change his mind and allow you to return to work sooner. I take it that you haven’t found another job as yet?’

Kate’s mouth compressed whilst she contemplated lying to him, but then she was forced to admit that she was unlikely to get away with doing so. ‘No,’ she answered tersely. ‘But I intend to spend the time I have to have off work looking for one.’

‘On the contrary,’ Sean told her firmly. ‘What you are going to be spending the next three weeks doing is recuperating, as I am sure your doctor will inform you. But if you don’t believe me you can check with him yourself. He’ll be coming back to see you tomorrow, to make sure you’re well enough to travel to...’ He paused, and then continued coolly, ‘To my home.’

‘What?’ Kate went hot and then cold with shock and disbelief. ‘Oh, no. No way!’ Kate shook her head violently. ‘No way am I ever,
ever
going to live with you again, Sean...’

‘Oliver is already looking forward to it,’ he said blandly.

Kate felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach. ‘You had no right to say anything to Oliver. Nor to use him to—’

‘To what?’ Sean challenged her. ‘Right now you need someone to look after you—someone to look after you both. Physically and financially,’ he emphasised unkindly.

‘You don’t know anything about my financial situation,’ Kate denied hotly. ‘And you have no right—’

‘I know that on the salary you are being paid, given the outgoings you must have, you will have to budget carefully.’ He gave a small shrug to conceal from her what he was really feeling. ‘Logically it seems unlikely that you have a financial cushion to fall back on if, for instance, you are unable to work. As is the case now!’

Kate could feel a dangerous prickle in her throat as her emotions reacted to his extremely accurate assessment of her situation.

‘I may not have your wealth, Sean, but I don’t need your charity, or—’ she began, only to be cut short as Sean interrupted her.

‘Not for yourself, maybe, Kate. But you do need it for Oliver’s sake—and don’t bother trying to deny it!’ He gave another dismissive shrug and turned slightly away from her so that she couldn’t read his expression.

Helplessly Kate acknowledged that what Sean had said to her was true. For Oliver’s sake she had no option other than to give in and agree to what Sean was suggesting.

Besides, wasn’t there somewhere deep inside her still a foolish little shoot of hope that, given time and the opportunity to be with Oliver, Sean would somehow recognise and accept that Ollie was his child? And a part of her wanted that desperately—not for her own sake, but for their son’s.