The Beautiful Widow (14 page)

It was a ridiculous thought and she acknowledged its futility in the next breath. She loved him. There was no protection against love. The deeper you went, the more it took over.

The private hospital where Steel was paying for Annie to have her baby was only a minute away by car from the apartment, but it was already past ten o’clock when a starched and somewhat imperious nurse escorted them to Annie’s room. Steel had phoned Fiona from the apartment to tell her not to expect the pair of them at the office until after lunch, and Toni wondered what the other woman had thought. She might assume they were on site at one of the various projects going on, but on the other hand … But she couldn’t worry about what people thought; there was no point. Gossip and speculation were par for the course for any woman associated with Steel.

When they walked into the bright, cheerful little room that was so unlike National Health hospitals’ colour schemes of green or brown or grey, Toni saw a dark-haired girl sitting up in bed reading a magazine with an open box of chocolates on her knees.

‘Steel!’ Annie’s face lit up. ‘And don’t tell me, this must be Toni. I feel I know you already, Steel’s told me so much about you.’

‘Has he?’ Toni couldn’t hide her surprise.

Annie didn’t appear to notice, smiling a smile that was a feminine version of Steel’s. ‘It’s so nice to meet you at last. Come and sit down.’

Toni glanced at the see-through plastic crib holding a tiny shape that was squirming and making snuffling noises.

‘Do you want to hold her?’ Annie offered. ‘She’s due for a feed soon so she’s waking up. Now’s a good time.’

‘I’d love to.’ Toni bent over the crib, inhaling the sweet powdered scent emanating from the little bundle, and carefully picked the baby up. ‘She’s so tiny and so
beautiful,’ she whispered, sitting down on the chair Steel pushed forwards and cradling Miranda Eve in her arms. ‘It seems another age since my girls were this size.’

‘They’re twins, aren’t they? What did they weigh when they were born?’ Annie asked, her eyes—a deeper blue than Steel’s—soft as they stroked over her child.

‘Amelia was exactly six pounds and Daisy was nearly five; I resembled an elephant in the month before the birth, but they were healthy and strong so nothing else mattered.’

Steel was standing, leaning against the wall as he watched her with the baby, his eyes silver slits in the sunlight slanting into the room. He had placed the enormous basket of white and pink rosebuds they had picked up from the florist shop across the road to the hospital on the long broad shelf that ran the length of one wall, between two bouquets standing in vases of water. ‘I take it those are from Jeff,’ he said, indicating the huge arrangement of deep red roses, which had a somewhat garish plastic gold heart attached to the cellophane. ‘Who are the carnations and lilies from?’ The second bouquet was more extravagant than the first and a vision of colour.

Annie hesitated. ‘Barbara,’ she said reluctantly.

Steel straightened, but his voice was expressionless when he said, ‘Barbara? How does Barbara know about the baby?’

Annie shrugged. ‘She’s rung once or twice during the pregnancy asking how I am; don’t ask me why.’

Toni kept her eyes on the baby in her arms. She knew why. The beautiful attorney wanted Steel back and if she could maintain some sort of contact with Annie, it might be a way in.

‘Apparently she woke Jeff up this morning at eight
o’clock when he’d only got home from the hospital at six, asking if the baby had arrived. He wasn’t best pleased. And the flowers came just before you walked in.’

Steel nodded as Toni glanced up at him. His firm mouth was set uncompromisingly and a muscle was working in his jaw. He was angry. Nevertheless his voice was even and without heat as he changed the subject and asked Annie about the food, even teasing her about the box of chocolates and warning her she wasn’t eating for two any more.

They left a short time afterwards so Annie could feed the baby in peace, but before they did so Steel held his niece for a couple of minutes. Toni didn’t think anything had hurt her so much in her life. He was so natural with the tiny infant, so blatantly adoring that it was like a knife through Toni’s heart. One day he would meet someone who could cope with being with a man like Steel and wouldn’t mind the women who flocked round him, would even turn a blind eye to the odd affair as long as it was discreet and he came home to her in the end. Because he would have children. Looking at him holding Miranda, she could see the tiny baby had awakened something in him, something primal and strong.

Once they were sitting in the car in the small hospital car park, Steel didn’t start the engine immediately. Turning to look at her, he said quietly, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ She smiled a brittle smile. ‘Nothing. The baby’s beautiful and Annie’s so nice.’

Steel being Steel, he cut through the prevarication. ‘Is it because Barbara sent Annie those flowers? I had no knowledge of her contact with my sister, I can promise
you that, and I’ve had nothing to do with her for a long time.’

Toni nodded. ‘I believe you,’ she said flatly, looking through the windscreen rather than at him.

She was aware of his eyes searching her face. ‘Then what’s wrong, Toni? Because you’re a different woman from the one who walked in that place with me half an hour ago.’

‘I told you, nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.’

‘OK.’ He settled back in his seat. ‘I can sit here all day if necessary, all night too, but we’re not leaving until you tell me.’ He locked the doors as he spoke. ‘I mean it.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She stared at him in alarm. ‘Start the car.’

He didn’t answer her, switching on the music and making himself comfortable as he shut his eyes.

‘Steel, you can’t hold me captive here.’

‘Funny, but I thought that was exactly what I’m doing.’

Helplessly, she said, ‘I don’t suppose I liked your ex sending Annie the flowers, OK? That’s it. No big deal.’

He sat up, switching off the music, and the silver eyes raked her face. ‘No, it’s more than that. You’re not peeved or irritated, this is something more serious than that, and I can’t understand if you won’t discuss it.’

‘There’s nothing
to
understand.’

‘Like I said, I can wait all day,’ he said lazily, his easy tone catching her on the raw.

Flooded by emotions as chaotic as a winter’s storm, Toni met his eyes. ‘This is a mistake—us seeing each other, I mean. If it’s too difficult to go back to how we
were, I’ll leave immediately, or I’ll finish the new project first, if that’s what you would prefer.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ He wasn’t shouting, but the lazy note had gone, to be replaced by a softness that was dangerous. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Yes, Steel. I am.’ Her chin came up and her mouth thinned. ‘And you can’t tell me what I can or can’t do. No one can do that any more. That ended with Richard’s death.’

‘This is to do with him, isn’t it? The louse you married? You’re frightened of being with someone again, of feeling something for a man.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m no Richard, Toni.’

Feeling
something? He couldn’t have said anything more guaranteed to make her mad. She loved him, she had been struggling with her feelings for months and driving herself half mad in the process, and he talked about her being frightened of
feeling
something? Her fingers tightened, whitening her knuckles. ‘This is absolutely nothing to do with Richard and all to do with you,’ she said with such transparent honesty he couldn’t fail to believe her. ‘I don’t want to be absorbed into your lifestyle, Steel. To have to try and become the sort of woman you need.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, dammit,’ he bit out through clenched teeth. He had to stop for a long calming breath. ‘You don’t have to try and be anything, just yourself. Is this about Barbara, Toni? The woman means nothing to me—surely you know that?’

It was an unfortunate choice of words but he couldn’t have known that. Toni stared at him. Her voice was quiet now and infinitely sad. ‘You were with this woman, you
shared each other’s lives, you slept with her, and not so very long ago either. Just a matter of months. And now you say she means nothing to you? That’s exactly what I mean, Steel. One day it will be me you’re saying that about.’

His head jerked at the accusation. His eyes blazing silver sparks, he ground out, ‘Never.’

‘And there are so many Barbaras out there, Steel. Beautiful women, available women, women who will throw themselves at you and not take no for an answer. You’re … irresistible.’

‘And you’re saying I have as little emotional maturity as a stud stallion, is that it? All these women who will supposedly throw themselves into my arms I’ll service without thinking twice about it? I’m a man, Toni. Not an animal. I don’t take a lady because she indicates she’s available. Before I met you I had my share of women, but I’ve never denied that or made a secret of it. But it wasn’t a conveyor belt, dammit. And neither was it all about sex. Surprising as it obviously is to you, I do require mental as well as physical stimulation when I’m with a woman.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. It’s just that there are so many women who will want you who are more beautiful and more intelligent than me. I wasn’t enough for—for Richard, and he was an ordinary man. You’re not an ordinary man, Steel.’

He searched her face, seeking an explanation that wasn’t there, a way to get through to her. ‘You cut me and I bleed,’ he said softly. ‘The same as the next man. And your ex was an addict always in search of his next fix. The addiction had nothing to do with you as a person, a woman. Aphrodite herself wouldn’t have been able to change the way he thought and acted. It
was a sickness, Toni. A sickness that controlled and manipulated him until he danced to its tune. That’s the way all addiction works.’

She sat, straight-backed and deathly pale. ‘Like I said before, this is nothing to do with Richard.’

‘The hell it isn’t.’ A vein in his neck throbbed beneath the surface of his skin. ‘He’s made you afraid, afraid to trust your instincts, your emotions, what you feel. He’s crippled you, but in a worse way than if he’d knocked you about.’

‘Don’t talk about me as though I’m a victim.’

‘Then don’t act like one!’

His explosive exclamation caused her stomach muscles to contract but no sign of it showed on her face. She remained perfectly still, a flesh and blood statue.

‘When we first met you told me you didn’t want a man around because of the twins. You didn’t want them “let down” again, remember? But that was an excuse, whether you admit it or not. Deep down it was yourself you were protecting, not them.’

‘How dare you!’ She reared up like an enraged tigress, all pretence of calm gone. ‘You know nothing about it.’

‘Oh, I dare, Toni. This is our future, yours and mine, I’m fighting for. The gloves are off. You’ve just called me a womaniser and a no-hoper, the sort of guy who will take everything on offer and enjoy the ride.’

‘I did not,’ she protested furiously. ‘I never said any such thing.’

‘Virtually.’ His eyes had turned an icy mother-of-pearl.

‘No. I said women will always throw themselves at you and there’s not a man alive who won’t respond to that eventually.’

‘Wrong. You’re looking at him.’

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I don’t want that sort of pressure when I’m with someone, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe ninety-nine per cent of women could cope with it, but I’m me and—and I don’t want to.’

‘One bouquet and I’m hung, drawn and quartered?’

Under the anger there was a bewilderment that wrenched at her heart but she couldn’t weaken now. This relationship had already gone too far. He had permeated her life like the steady drip-drip of water in a cavern, innocuous in itself but with the power to form mighty stalactites and stalagmites. The more she had got to know him, the more she had liked what she’d discovered, which made him a very dangerous man, and if she slept with him, if she opened up her body as well as her heart, she would be lost. She would never be able to walk away from him. And say what he might, she
was
thinking of the twins too. They’d had one male role model in their young lives who, if he had lived, could have given them a distorted view of family life and love that might have affected them for ever. Fate had saved them from that and she had a duty not to put them in harm’s way again.

‘You’re wrong about me,’ Steel said quietly after a full minute had ticked by in screaming silence. ‘I’m like the guy in one of the Sunday school stories we were told as kids, the one who sold everything he had to buy the pearl of great price.’

Toni couldn’t argue any more. He’d never understand and they had no meeting point. She lowered her head, hating the fact her hands were trembling and hoping Steel hadn’t noticed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, all anger and indignation gone. ‘I’m not as strong as I thought I was. You’re right, it only took one bouquet. But there
would be other bouquets, other women through the months and years looking for a way to get your attention. I don’t have a thick skin, Steel, and I wouldn’t be able to laugh such incidents off, regardless of how you might react. I—I’m not made that way.’

She expected him to say more, to fight his corner. Instead, after a long tense moment he started the engine, saying quietly, ‘I would like you to complete the new project before you leave. Is that acceptable?’

She forced her numb lips to move. ‘Of course.’

‘Thank you.’

It was over.

‘I
’M SORRY, TONI, BUT
I think you’re stark staring mad.’ Poppy stared at her with something approaching horror. ‘He’s the most gorgeous man on the planet and absolutely loaded, and by your own admission he was great with the twins and they adored him, and you give him the old heave-ho. And not because you’ve caught him cheating or anything, but simply because other women find him attractive. Don’t you think that’s a teensy bit unreasonable?’

Toni shook her head. She’d been hoping Poppy would be sympathetic, but she might have known she’d get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from her friend. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘Excuse me, but I think it is.’ Poppy was standing hands on hips. ‘And you like him, don’t you? I mean,
really
like him?’

Toni nodded. Understatement of the year.

‘Oh,
Toni.
What have you done?’ Poppy said sadly.

‘Don’t.’ Toni’s voice wobbled. ‘I’ve cried enough already and I don’t want the twins to see me upset.’

‘They’re fine, hark at them.’ Amelia and Daisy and Poppy’s two boys were playing in the boys’ bedroom and, if the shrieks and laughter were anything to go by,
were having the time of their lives. Rose was playing at their feet and the baby was asleep.

It was Saturday morning, and the last three days had been the worst of her life. Since their talk in the car park Steel had retreated somewhere very distant. He was still present physically, still polite and courteous when he spoke to her, but it was clear to her she’d achieved her aim and whatever had been between them was dead as far as he was concerned. And following on from this thought, Toni said now in her defence, ‘He never spoke of love, you know. Commitment. For ever. It was a sexual thing on his side. Something that would be short-lived and semi-permanent.’

‘Even if that was true, and I don’t think it was but I’ll come on to that in a minute, I’d still say you were the luckiest woman alive. Again by your own admission he was sweet and thoughtful and not at all the big I am, like some men would be in his position, and you’d have had a fabulous time together. He’d have wined and dined you and the bedding part would have been out of this world.’

‘Poppy—’ She didn’t think she could take any more of this.

‘But I think it was more than that with him. See it from his side for a moment, Toni. Right from the word go you made it clear you were off limits because of what had happened with Richard and you being a single mother and everything, and so why would the poor guy say anything about for ever with you liable to run screaming if he did? He did the softly-softly routine for your sake. He didn’t give into his macho desires and take you on the office desk or in his chair or anywhere else he’d no doubt fantasised about, he let you get to know him, really know him. Now we all know men
mostly think with a part of their anatomy a lot lower than their heads, so if he did all that for you I’d say it was more than good old lust driving him. And let’s face it, he could have any woman he wanted just by crooking his little finger if it was only sex motivating him.’

‘You’re not making me feel better. I wanted you to say I’d done the right thing and good riddance.’

‘To Steel Landry? No can do. Tell him you’ve changed your mind,’ Poppy urged. ‘Cry a bit and fall on his manly chest—they can never resist that, especially if you’re saying he was right and you were wrong.’

Toni had thought she’d never smile again, but now the corners of her mouth turned up. ‘You look like the backbone of the WI, all home-made jam and sponge cakes and church fetes. How come you’re such an out and out vamp under the skin?’

‘I could tell you stories about one or two WI members that would make your hair curl,’ Poppy said, grinning. ‘But seriously, don’t let this one slip out of the net. He might have had more than a brief affair on his mind and you’ll only know if you give him a chance and chill out a bit.’

Toni gazed at her friend over her coffee cup, her smile dying. ‘I love him, Poppy. That’s the thing. And whether he wanted me just for a while or something more permanent, I still can’t be with him. You’ve seen him. He’s …’

‘Oh, yes,’ Poppy agreed.

‘And rich and powerful—the whole package. I wouldn’t know how to go about keeping a man like that. I wouldn’t be able to. And then it would be a question of trying to ignore his little … indiscretions, and I’d die, inch by inch.’

‘I think you might be doing him an injustice. Who
says he’s going to play around? He’s drop-dead gorgeous, yes, but even sublime beings like him are allowed to find “the one".’

‘And what if I’m not the one? What then?’

Poppy stared at her, suddenly deadly serious. ‘I know you love him, but do you trust him?’ she said very quietly as the noise upstairs reached new heights. ‘You’ve seen him almost every day for six months and you’ve worked closely with him on and off. And all those late-night cosies when everyone else had gone home. With all you’ve learnt about him, do you trust him?’

Toni’s eyes were stricken. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Richard undermined you when he was alive and even more when he died and you found out the truth. The male sex suddenly became unreliable and treacherous and devious, I can understand that. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked if you trusted Steel. Perhaps I should have asked if you trust yourself.’

There was suddenly a huge thud upstairs that rocked the ceiling, followed by howls loud enough to wake the baby in her crib by the side of the kitchen table. As Poppy ran upstairs to see what was what Toni picked up the infant and reassured little Rose, who was looking worried. When Poppy came back all four children were in tow, Nathan with an egg-sized lump on his forehead and sniffling, looking very sorry for himself.

‘They were playing Superman,’ Poppy said ruefully, ‘and Nathan tried to “fly” off the top bunk. We’re all going to have a drink and a biscuit now, aren’t we?’ she added to the four subdued children. ‘And then we’re going to do some nice drawing and colouring at the kitchen table where Mummy and Aunty Toni can keep an eye on you.’

It was the end of further meaningful conversation.

That night as she lay in bed Toni thought about Poppy’s last words; they had been very profound, especially considering it had been Poppy speaking. At three in the morning she still hadn’t gone to sleep, and at five she gave up all hope of dropping off and got up and made herself a hot drink.

It was bitterly cold outside, the frosted windowpane in the kitchen telling its own story. Snow was forecast in the next few days and everyone was predicting a white Christmas. The kitchen was freezing, the central heating hadn’t come on yet, but the chill inside Toni was worse.

She stood at the back door, her hands wrapped round the hot coffee cup as she surveyed Jack Frost’s handiwork. Poppy was right. She didn’t trust herself any more: her judgement, her self-worth, her discernment—not in matters of the heart anyway. Maybe if she had met Steel five years from now, when she’d had time to sort herself out and get back on an even keel again, it would have been different. But she hadn’t. And it wasn’t different. She was too frightened of making another huge mistake, and this time she knew she would never recover if it went wrong. So it was better to walk away now. It might be the wrong decision, she’d never know, but, even if it was, it was preferable to staying with him and everything coming unstuck at some time in the future if her worst fears came true. Cowardly it might be, but that was what self-survival came down to sometimes.

By the time the girls came downstairs she was washed and dressed and breakfast was on the table. She was in control again, she told herself firmly. Everything would pan out. Soon she would stop crying when she was in bed at night and feel like eating again. The new project on Steel’s house was already underway and she would
be spending plenty of time on site; so she wouldn’t see much of him, she could make sure of that. He, himself, had made that possible when he’d insisted on giving her carte blanche regarding everything from the alterations and colour schemes to the furniture and fittings.

And once the house was finished—a hard knot formed in her stomach—she would leave; and she had already given Steel a letter of resignation stating this, to which he had agreed with a curt nod of his head as he had read it. She had made some inroad into paying off Richard’s debts; the rest would have to happen more slowly when she found another job. All this wasn’t the end of the world.

It just felt like it.

Toni worked hard over the next few weeks. She fell into bed each night too exhausted to think, but once she was in dream land her subconscious played all sorts of tricks on her and she couldn’t keep Steel at bay. Each morning she awoke feeling more tired than when she had gone to bed, but she forced herself to get up, shower and start the day.

Christmas came and went and the girls were ecstatic when they had a sprinkling of snow on Christmas Eve. Steel gave each employee a Christmas bonus, and when she opened her envelope she could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw the noughts after the ten. ‘Ten thousand pounds?’ She went straight in to see him, holding the envelope in her hand. ‘I didn’t expect anything like this. It’s too much.’

‘Everyone gets a healthy bonus twice a year. It’s a good incentive,’ he answered, without looking up from the papers he was working on. ‘The money is already in your account.’

She stood staring down on the dark head, knowing if she tried to say anything more she’d burst into tears, and then left the room.

He sent Amelia and Daisy parcels through the post too, with a small card saying the exquisite little gold charm bracelets were from the ‘steel man'. Toni’s mother oohed and ahhed over them to the girls but made no comment to Toni. They’d had to agree to disagree over her finishing with Steel and it was now a forbidden subject. Toni made Christmas special for the girls but she was glad when the ‘jolly’ season was over, and everyone she came into contact with was miserable because they’d spent too much, eaten too much and drunk too much. It fitted her mood.

The one thing that kept her going, apart from Amelia and Daisy, was the work on Steel’s house. She’d fallen in love with the magnificent old cottage and was determined each alteration and each room would be perfect, as the house deserved. This was to be her swansong with Steel’s firm and everything had to be right. She wouldn’t allow herself to picture Steel living here with another woman, starting a family, enjoying winter evenings together in front of a roaring fire or summer afternoons with cucumber sandwiches and lemonade on the patio while watching the children play in the fresh air. She’d had one day when she had made the mistake of indulging such notions and had got herself into such a state she had been physically sick.

January was a month of heavy blue-grey skies and squalls of blustery sleet and icy rain, but the wave of thick snow that had been forecast way back in December had never materialised. The army of workmen employed on site had meant the project flowed without interruption,
and in the first week of February Toni could finally say the job was all but finished.

She’d had intermittent contact with Steel during the last two months. When she was in the office he made no effort seek her out, but when she had to consult with him about something he was always businesslike and agreeable. Once or twice she had caught him staring at her, but there was never any readable expression on his face. As far as she knew he wasn’t dating, but he could have been. That was something else she didn’t allow herself to think about.

He hadn’t actually visited the site once since the day he had taken her there. It was unfortunate that the boss of the building firm she’d contracted for the alterations had an Aston Martin too. A number of times her heart had stopped as she’d heard the car draw up, but it had never been Steel unfurling himself from the sleek interior. Just a paunchy little man who laughed too loudly and stank of BO and garlic.

The day she had set aside for Steel to come and view her work was one of extreme cold and bitter winds. She arrived at the house early in the morning, driving there as soon as she had dropped the girls off at breakfast club.

After checking every cushion was in place and every drape arranged just so, she wandered through to the beautiful drawing room and stood gazing out over the grounds. The frozen landscape intensified every colour and shade, highlighting the few brightly toned leaves clinging to a mature beech tree and the green of the ivy climbing a far wall. The sky had clouded over as she’d been titivating this and that, and there was the smell of snow in the air when she opened the front door to Steel mid-morning.

He smiled at her and a vice gripped her heart. It was the first time for some weeks she had allowed herself the luxury of looking straight at him, and the silver-blue eyes cut through to her soul. He looked wonderful but tired. Definitely tired.

‘You have a house to show me, I think?’ His voice was warm, relaxed, and yet she thought she detected something else underneath. A tenseness perhaps? Or perhaps it was just excitement. This was to be his home, after all. It was much more important than her previous projects.

He wandered through the downstairs rooms, saying very little. The soft green and cream colour scheme for the drawing room met with his approval, and the taupe and pale lemon for the dining room. The kitchen was now a thing of beauty. When deciding to go all out and make the first reception room into the magnificent drawing room it was always meant to be, Toni had chosen warmer, more family colours for the smaller sitting room. The soft cherry red and mix of dusky pinks made the room cosy and welcoming, a place where children could play and watch TV.

Upstairs each bedroom and en-suite had its own colour scheme, but she was especially pleased with the master bedroom, partly because she felt it was a tribute to her professionalism that she’d made this room as perfect as she could and ignored the fact that Steel might be occupying it with the lady of his choice.

The pale coffee and gold mixed with a blend of oatmeals wasn’t overtly masculine or feminine, and she’d taken care the full-length walk-in wardrobe was divided into two distinct halves for the occupants who would share the huge, billowy soft bed, which had been specially made and constructed inside the room and
which dominated the space. The drapes that framed the full-length French windows were in the same fabric as the duvet, and the windows opened out onto a stone balcony from which there was a wonderful view over the grounds and the countryside beyond.