The Secret Sinclair (7 page)

The word
duty
lodged in her head like a burr, and she looked down at her anxiously clasped fingers. There was nothing like honesty to really hurt.

‘What do you suggest?’ she asked. ‘Do I have any input
here? Or are you going to just walk all over me because you have lots of money and I have none?’

‘I’m going to walk all over you because I have lots of money and you have none.’

‘Not funny,’ Sarah muttered, remembering his talent for defusing a situation with his sense of humour. Given the conditions years ago, when they had been cooped up on the compound, tempers had occasionally run high and this talent of his had been invaluable. Was he using it now just to get his own way? And did that matter anyway? The prospect of no longer having a daily struggle on her hands was like being offered manna from heaven.

‘I intend to take my responsibilities very seriously, Sarah. I think you should know that. It would be very time-consuming to travel out here every time I wanted to see Oliver. Somewhere closer to where I live would be a solution.’

Now that they were discussing things in a more businesslike manner Sarah could actually focus on what was being said—as opposed to fighting to maintain her equilibrium, which showed threatening signs of wanting to fall apart.

‘I feel as though I’m suddenly on a rollercoaster ride,’ she confessed.

‘Spare a thought for me. Whatever rollercoaster ride you’re on, mine is bigger, faster, and I’m a hell of a lot less prepared for it than you are.’

And yet he was rising to the occasion. It didn’t matter that the only reason they were now even having this conversation was because she had become a responsibility he couldn’t shirk. He had taken it all in his stride in his usual authoritative way. That there was no emotion involved was something she would have to deal with. It wasn’t his problem,
and she wasn’t going to let that get in the way of the relationship he had to build with his son.

‘So we move to another place … There are still all sorts of other things that need sorting out. I’ll have to try and explain to Oliver that he has a … a father. He’s only young, though. I should warn you that it might not be that easy.’

‘He’s four,’ Raoul pointed out with impeccable logic. ‘He hasn’t had time to build up any kind of picture for or against me.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Let’s not anticipate problems, Sarah.’

Now that he had surmounted the sudden bout of intense nervousness that had gripped him in the bedroom, Raoul was confident he would be able to get Oliver onside. Having had a life of grinding poverty, replete with secondhand clothes and secondhand books and secondhand toys, and frankly secondhand affection, he was beginning to look forward to giving his son everything that he himself had lacked in his childhood.

‘We take things one at a time. First the house. Secondly, I suggest you try and explain my role to Oliver. Has he … has he ever asked about his father?’

‘In passing,’ Sarah admitted. ‘When he’s been to a birthday party and seen the other kids with their dads. Once when I was reading him a story.’

Raoul’s lips thinned but he didn’t say anything. ‘You will obviously have to tell your parents that you are moving, and why. Will you tell them I’m on the scene? What my position is?’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t go there just yet,’ Sarah said vaguely.

‘I won’t hide in the shadows.’

‘I’m not sure they’re going to be overjoyed that you’re on the scene, actually.’ She flushed guiltily as she remembered
their distress when she had told them how she had fallen hard for a guy who had then chucked her. The hormones rushing through her body had made her all the more vulnerable and emotional, and she had spared nothing in her mournful, self-pitying account.

Honestly, she didn’t think that Raoul was going to be flavour of the month if she produced him out of nowhere. But she knew that she would have to sooner or later. Her mum always phoned at least three times a week, and always had a chat with Oliver. Sarah wouldn’t want her to find out via her grandchild that the heartbreaker and callous reprobate was now around.

‘I’m getting the picture,’ Raoul said slowly.

Sarah thought it better to move on quickly from that topic of conversation. ‘I’m sure they’ll be very happy.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘They’re very conventional. They’ll be delighted that Oliver will now have a father figure in his life.’

He stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow. No—scrap that. I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon so that I can be introduced to my son.’

The formality of that statement brought a rush of colour to Sarah’s face, because it underlined his lack of enthusiasm for the place in which he now found himself.

‘Should I buy him something special to wear?’ she said tartly. ‘I wouldn’t want his appearance to offend you.’

‘That’s not helpful.’

‘Nor is your approach to Oliver!’ Tears stung the back of her eyes. ‘How can you be so … so …
unemotional
? This wasn’t how I ever thought my life would turn out. I always thought that I would fall in love and get married, and when a baby came along it would be a cause for celebration and joy. I never imagined that I would have a child with a man who wasn’t even pleased to be a father!’

Raoul flushed darkly. What did she expect of him? He was here, wasn’t he? Prepared to take on a task which had been sprung on him. Not only that, but she would be the recipient of a new house to replace her dismal rented accommodation, and also in the enviable position of never having to worry about money in her life again. Were hysterical accusations in order? Absolutely not!

He was very tempted to give her a checklist of all the things she should be thankful for. He settled for saying, in a cool voice, ‘I’ve found that life has a funny way of not playing fair in the great scheme of things.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’ Sarah cried in frustration. ‘Honestly, Raoul, sometimes I could …
hit you
!’

Her eyes were blazing and her hair was a tumbling riot of gold—and he felt a charge race through his system like an uncontrolled dose of adrenaline.

‘I’m flattered that I still get you so worked up,’ he murmured with husky amusement.

He couldn’t help himself as he reached out and tangled his fingers in that hair. The contact was electric. He felt her response slam into him like a physical force and he revelled in the dark sexual hunger snaking through his body.
That
was something no amount of hard-headed logic or cool, calm reason could control.

Her lips had parted and her eyes were unfocused and half closed. Kissing her would halt all those crazy accusations in mid-flow. And he was hungry for her—hungry to remind himself of what her lips felt like.

‘Don’t you dare, Raoul …’

He pulled her towards him and noted, with a blaze of satisfaction, the unspoken invitation in her darkened eyes.

That first heady taste of him was intoxicating. Sarah moaned and pressed her hands against his chest. He had always been able to make her forget everything with a single
touch, and her mind duly went blank. She forgot everything as her body curved sensuously against his, every bit of her melting at the feel of his swollen masculinity pushing against her, straining against the zipper of his trousers. Her breasts ached and she moved them against him, almost fainting at the pleasurable sensation of the abrasive motion on her sensitised nipples.

Raoul was the first to pull away.

‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

It took a few seconds for the daze in Sarah’s head to clear, and then she snapped back to the horrified realisation that after everything she had been through, and hot on the heels of her really,
really
wanting to hit him, she had just
caved in
—like an addict who couldn’t control herself. He had kissed her and all the hurt, anger and disappointment had disappeared. She had become a mindless puppet and five years had vanished in the blink of an eye.

‘Neither of us should have …’

‘Maybe it was inevitable.’

‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’

‘You know what I’m talking about. This
thing
between us …’

‘There’s nothing between us!’ Sarah cried, stepping back and hugging herself in an automatic gesture of self-defence.

‘Are you trying to convince me or yourself?’

‘Okay, maybe we just … just gave in to something
for the sake of old times
.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And now we’ve got that out of the way we can move on and … and …’

‘Pretend it never happened?’

‘Exactly! Pretend it never happened!’ She took a few more steps back, but she thought that even if she took a million steps back and fled the country the after-effects of that devastating kiss would still be with her. ‘This isn’t
about
us
. This is about Oliver and your part in his life, so … so …’

Raoul looked at her with a brooding intensity that made her tremble. She didn’t have a clue what was going on in his head. He had always been very good at shielding his thoughts when it suited him. She worked herself up into a self-righteous anger, remembering how terrific he had been at keeping stuff from her—like their lack of future—until she had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. Never again would she let him have that level of control!

‘So just come here tomorrow. You can meet Oliver, and we can work out some kind of schedule, and … then we can both just get on with our own lives …’

B
Y THE
time the doorbell went the following afternoon Sarah hoped that she had risen above her physical weakness of the day before and reached a more balanced place. In other words sorted her priorities. Priority number one was Oliver, and she bracingly repeated to herself how wonderful it was that his father would now be there for him, willing to take on a parental role, whatever that might be. A full and frank discussion of that was high on her agenda. Priority number two, on a more personal level, was to make sure that she kept a clear head and didn’t get lost in old feelings and memories.

She opened the door to a casually dressed Raoul.

‘Oliver’s in the sitting room, watching cartoons,’ she said, getting down to business straight away.

Raoul looked at her carefully, and noted the way her eyes skittered away from his, the way she kept one hand on the doorknob, as though leaving her options open just in case she decided to shut the door in his face. In fact she had only half opened the door, and he peered behind her pointedly.

‘Are you actually going to let me in, or do you want me to forge a path past you?’

‘I just want to say that we’ll really need to discuss … um … the practicalities of this whole situation …’

‘As opposed to what?’

‘I’ve been thinking, Raoul …’

‘Dangerous,’ Raoul said softly. She was in a pair of jeans and a tight tee shirt that reminded him a little too forcibly of the mysterious physical hold she still seemed to have over him. He had spent the night vainly trying to clear his head of images of her.

‘I’ve been thinking that we should have as little to do with one another as possible. I don’t want anything to happen between us. Been there, done that and have the tee shirt. The important thing is that you get to know Oliver, and that should be the extent of our relationship with one another.’

‘And have you told him who I am?’

Sarah was startled and a little taken aback at the speed with which he had concluded a conversation she had spent hours rehearsing in her head. Had she hoped that he would at least try and knock down some of her defences? Had she erected her
Keep Off
sign in the expectation that he might just try and steamroller through it? Had she secretly
wanted
him to steamroller through it?

‘Not yet,’ she said crisply. ‘I thought it best that you two get to know one another first.’

‘Okay. Well, there’s some stuff I’d like to bring in.’

‘Stuff? What kind of stuff?’

He nodded to his car, which was parked a few spaces along. ‘Why don’t you go inside? I’ll be a few minutes.’

‘You haven’t bought him presents, have you?’ she asked suspiciously, but when she tried to step outside to get a closer look, he gently but firmly prevented her.

‘Now, how did I know that you would disapprove?’

‘It’s not appropriate to show up with an armful of gifts the very first time you meet him!’

‘I’m making up for lost time.’

Sarah gave up. You couldn’t buy affection, she conceded, but perhaps a small token might help break the ice. Oliver had had no male input in his short life so far aside from her own father, whom he adored. She had been too busy just trying to make ends meet to dip her toes in the dating pool, and anyway she had not been interested in trying to replace Raoul. To her way of thinking she had developed a very healthy cynicism of the opposite sex. So Oliver’s sole experience of the adult world, to a large extent, had been
her
.

He was in the process of trying to construct a tower of bricks, with one eye on the manic adventures of his favourite cartoon character, when Raoul appeared in the doorway. In one arm there was a huge box, and in the other an enormous sack.

There was more in the boot of the car, but Raoul just hadn’t had the arms to bring it all in. Now he was glad that he hadn’t. Oliver appeared to be utterly bewildered, and Sarah … Her mouth had fallen open in what could only be described as an expression of horror. Couldn’t she say something?

Feeling like a complete fool for the first time in as long as he could recall, Raoul remained standing in the doorway with what he hoped was a warm smile pasted to his face.

‘Oliver! This is … this is my friend, Raoul! Why don’t you say hi to him?’

Oliver scuttled over to Sarah and clambered onto her lap, leaving Raoul trying to forge a connection by introducing a series of massively expensive presents to his son.

An oversized remote controlled car was removed from the box. The sack was opened to reveal a collection of games, books and stuffed toys which, Raoul assured a progressively more alarmed Sarah, had come highly recommended
by the salesperson at the toy shop. He stooped to Oliver’s level and asked him if he would care to try out the car. Oliver, by way of response, shook his head vigorously, to indicate very firmly that the last thing he wanted was to go anywhere near the aggressive silver machine that took up a fair amount of their sitting room space.