The Secret Sinclair (21 page)

‘I did what I thought was right at the time.’

‘And I understand that now.’

‘Do you? Really? I look at the way you are with your family, Sarah, and I see how badly you must have been affected by our break-up. You’ve grown up with security and a sense of your own place in the world. I grew up without either. I never allowed myself to get too close to anyone, and even when we met again, even after I found out that I was a father, I kept holding on to that. It was different with Oliver. Oliver is my own flesh and blood. But I still kept holding on to the belief that I wasn’t to let anyone else in.’

‘I know. Why do you think it’s been so hard for me, Raoul? You’ve no idea what it’s been like, standing on the side, wondering if the time will ever come when I can just get inside that wall you’ve spent a lifetime building around yourself.’ She sighed and dragged her eyes away from him. The moon was almost full and it was a cloudless night. ‘Look, you’re not the only one who was afraid of getting hurt.’

Raoul opened his mouth to protest that he wasn’t scared of anything, and then closed it.

‘I know you hate the thought of anyone being able to hurt you.’

‘God, it’s ridiculous how well you seem to know me.’

There was wry, accepting amusement in his voice and, heartened by that, Sarah carried on.

‘I spent so many years thinking of you as the guy who broke my heart that when we met again I
still
wanted to think of you as the guy who broke my heart. Yes, there was Oliver, and there was never any question that I would tell
you about him and accept the consequences, but it was so important for me to keep you at a distance. And you kept looking at me and reminding me how much I still wanted you.’

‘And yet you could never come right out and say it,’ Raoul inserted gruffly. ‘You were driving me crazy. I wanted to sleep with you and I knew you wanted to sleep with me, and you carried on fighting it. Every time I looked at you it was as though we had never been separated by five years. I didn’t even know it at the time, but I let you into my life five years ago, Sarah, and you shut the door behind you and never left. I only thought you did.’ He groped for her hand and linked her fingers through his. ‘Asking you to marry me was a very big deal for me, Sarah.’

‘You said that we were unfinished business …’

‘If that’s all you were to me I would never have asked you to marry me, because it wouldn’t have bothered me if eventually you found another man.’

‘You were worried about losing Oliver.’

‘I think I knew, deep down, that that wouldn’t happen. You would have allowed me all the access I wanted—and, let’s face it, it’s not as though children of parents who don’t live together end up forgetting who the absent parent is. No, I asked you to marry me because I wanted you in my life and I couldn’t envisage life without you in it.’

‘Oh, Raoul.’ Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes and she smiled at him, a smile of pure joy.

‘I love you, Sarah. That’s why I asked you to marry me. Like a fool, I’m only now admitting it to myself. I loved you five years ago and I never stopped. I love you and want you and need you, and when you retreated into that shell of yours and only came out at night when we were making love, it was as though the bottom of my world had dropped out.’

Sarah flung her arms around him, almost sending them both toppling off the narrow seat, and buried her head in the crook of neck.

‘Are you telling me that you love me too?’

She heard the broken quality of his voice and knew that underneath the self-assurance there was still uncertainty–a legacy that he hadn’t yet left behind.

‘Of
course
I love you, Raoul!’ She kissed his cheeks, his eyes, and her hands fluttered across his harshly beautiful face until he captured them and kissed the tips of each of her fingers. ‘I was so scared of getting hurt all over again,’ she admitted, with a catch in her voice. ‘I thought I’d be able to handle our relationship,
us
, without getting involved. I mean, I was so shocked when I saw you again. But I told myself that I’d grown up and learnt lessons from the way things had turned out between us. I told myself that I was free of whatever influence you had over me …’

She thought back to those many weeks when he had infiltrated her life and shown her flimsy notions up for the nonsense they had been from the very beginning.

She lay back against him and stared up at the bright constellations. ‘When Oliver met you and the two of you didn’t … um …’

‘Exactly hit it off?’ It seemed like a very distant memory now.

‘Yes … Well, I realised that the two of you would have to learn to interact, and I knew that the only way that would happen would be if I intervened. I just didn’t take into account how devastating it would be to have you back in my life, virtually full-time … We were both older … somehow it felt like I’d started seeing the real you … and I fell in love with you all over again.’

‘Was that why you broke my heart by pushing me away?’

‘Stop teasing. I didn’t really break your heart …’

‘You did. Into a thousand pieces. I came here intending to give you everything. I wasn’t going to let you get away with being my woman by night and a person I barely recognised by day.’

‘And you thought I’d rejected you …’

‘Somehow just wanting me for my body didn’t work.’ He laughed with incredulity. ‘I can’t believe I’ve just said that.’

‘Of course,’ Sarah breathed, in a lingering, seductive voice, ‘wanting you for your body isn’t
such
a terrible thing … especially now that you know that I want you for so much more …’

They were married a month later, at the little village church. It was a quiet affair, with friends and family mingling easily and getting to know one another, and Sarah had never felt happier than when Raoul slipped that ring on her finger and whispered how much he loved her.

And then her parents had Oliver for ten days while they had a blissful honeymoon in Kenya. For their last three days they went back to the compound in Mozambique where they had first met, so that they could both see the changes that had taken place over the five years. And there were many changes, thanks to Raoul’s generous contributions over the years, although the house with all the steps, which they had shared along with the other gap year students, was still there, and a moving reminder of where it had all begun.

Even the log was still there—the very same log she had sat on, filled with misery and despair. It had survived the punishing weather, and she wondered who else had sat on it and thought about their loved ones.

The new batch of students working there seemed so young that it made her laugh.

They finally returned to London, and the very first thing Raoul said, on walking through the front door, was that they needed a house in the country.

‘I never thought I’d step outside London again,’ he confessed as they lay in bed on their first night back. ‘But I’m beginning to think that there’s something quite appealing about all that open space …’

He gently smoothed her hair back from her face, and she smiled at him with such tenderness and love that he felt, once again, that feeling of safety and a sense of completion.

‘We could go there on weekends … somewhere in Devon … it’s not that far …’

‘Yes,’ Sarah replied seriously, ‘that might not be a bad idea. I mean, it would be great to see more of Mum and Dad—especially now that you’ve managed to convince Dad that he should take up the bee-keeping thing, with lots of help from you—and the children would like it …’

‘Already planning an extension to our family?’ Raoul laughed softly, and slipped his hand underneath her lacy top.

They had made love less than an hour ago, but just the feel of her swollen nipple between his fingers was sufficient to rouse him to an instant erection. He pushed the top up, licked the valley between her breasts, which was still salty and damp with perspiration, and settled himself to suckle on the sweet pink crests.

‘I thought we were talking,’ Sarah laughed.

‘Fire away. I’m all ears.’

‘I can’t talk … when …’ She gave up, arching her body to greet his eager mouth as he sucked and teased her breasts,
then moved lower down to torment the little bud already swollen in anticipation.

The flicking of his tongue stifled all hope of conversation, and it was a long time before she whispered drowsily, ‘Not so much
planning
an extension to our family as thinking there might be one arriving in the next few months or so …’

Raoul propped himself up and looked at her with urgent interest.

‘You’re pregnant?’

‘I was going to tell you as soon as I did a test—but, yes, I think I am. I recognise all the signs …’

And she
was
pregnant.

She had almost stopped believing in fairytales, but now she had to revise that opinion—because whoever said that fairytales
didn’t
come true …?

* * * * *