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When they were gone Lisa prepared a quick salad lunch. Before she could finish it the doorbell rang. She wasn't expecting anyone. Could it be Marcus? The question came instantly to her mind, fuelling her longing for him. Perhaps there was something he had to say to her in person, a new development.

Trying not to hurry, she saw the outline of a man through the panel of frosted glass in her front door, and her heart made a flip of anticipation. Maybe Marcus had decided to come—to surprise her. With a smile on her face, she flung the door open in expectation.

The smile froze, an awful parody of delight, as shock hit her like a physical blow. For a second or two her heart seemed to stop beating.

'Hello, Lisa,' the man said. 'May I come in?'

When she didn't reply, couldn't reply, he smiled. It was a smile that had no warmth or humour in it. 'Don't say you've actually forgotten my existence, Lisa,' he said, his voice a sarcastic drawl. 'Already? Who would have thought it?'

'Rich—' Lisa swallowed a hysterical lump in her throat, her voice catching. 'Richard! What. . .what are you doing here?'

'I'll explain, if you invite me in,' he drawled coldly. 'I always did know where your parents lived, you know. I figured you would still be here.'

Fighting for composure but recovering quickly, Lisa stood firmly in the doorway. 'What do you want?' she said bluntly. 'You never bothered to contact me in more than a year. I assumed you didn't want to. Well, Richard, I can honestly say now that the feeling's mutual.' How
odd it was that she would once have flung herself into his arms.

Lisa swallowed to clear a nervous lump in her throat. Of their own accord, it seemed, her feelings had changed irrevocably. When she had seen that it was Richard she had at first felt shock, and not a pleasant shock. It had been coupled with something else that took her a few moments to analyse. It was a feeling of repulsion.

Richard had put on some weight in the intervening months since she had seen him. There was a jowly coarseness about him which had not previously been there, as though he overindulged himself in the good things of life.

There was no way that Lisa wanted to invite him in and let him know that she had a baby. At one time she would have wanted him to know—had desperately longed for his support, even though she had known in her heart of hearts that it would have been inadequate. Yet he was still the same Richard—dominating, powerful, overbearing and, yes, attractive in a rather heavy, swarthy sort of way, with a sexuality that promised much but didn't necessarily deliver.

'Don't play coy, Lisa,' he said roughly, his eyes going over her bare arms, then down to her feet and back again in a way that was familiar, as though he had a right of ownership. 'I understand you have a baby. My baby. Why the hell didn't you tell me you were pregnant?'

As she licked her dry lips Lisa felt as though all the blood was draining from the periphery of her body and rushing to the region of her heart. Don't say that he was going to make trouble for her, say that he had some sort of claim on Emma Kate! Please...

'And have you accuse me of becoming pregnant deliberately so that I could have some sort of permanent hold over you?' She laughed harshly. 'That is what you would have done, Richard. I know you only too well, you and your ego. If you're honest you'll admit it.'

Apparently, he was not about to be honest. 'I had a right to know that I had a child,' he said, looming large and threatening in the doorway, 'and I actually had to hear it from a third party. How do you think that made me feel? Like a first-class dummy, that's what!'

There was a note of exaggerated disgust in his voice, a tone that was familiar. She had forgotten how often he'd used that tone in the past to intimidate, or how often she had tried to overlook it. Now it jarred, a sickening memory. Yes, right from the very beginning he had been a bully. She had simply failed to recognize it for what it was until too late.

Not so long ago she would have flung herself at him. Now she could only stare, a sharp fear in her heart. 'A third party?'

'Dr Blair at University Hospital,' he said. 'I understand from him that you work there.'

'M-Marcus!' she said, stammering slightly in her surprise. 'How do you know Marcus?'

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her knowingly, not answering the question. 'So we're on first-name terms, are we?' There was a barely disguised sneer in his voice. 'You and...er...Marcus?'

'Yes,' she said bravely, her emotions chaotic. 'We're all on first-name terms in the emergency department. How do you know him? I.. .can't believe he would have told you without my permission.'

'Well, he did.' He smiled. 'I'd say you've got a thing going with our Dr Blair. Off with the old and on with the new, eh?'

'You were the one who wanted "off with the old", Richard. Or do you have a memory defect or something?' she said, lifting up her head to stare him full in the face.

'If you like, I can tell you what you said at the time— about how a year was the limit, maximum, that you could spend with any woman, that you got bored, had to have variety, or you'd go mad.'

'Did I say that?' he drawled, acting surprised.

'You know you did.' Lisa tried to keep any residual bitterness out of her voice. 'You didn't have anything against me, you said. It was just the way you were. And I just had to accept it. Maybe you would be that way with a child, too.'

He wore a suit with a shirt and tie and a light gabardine raincoat over the top of it, even though the day was warm, as though he had been somewhere formal. Seeing her perusal of his attire, he grinned slightly. 'I just came from a job interview, Lisa,' he said evenly. 'Dr Blair very kindly came to the hospital to interview me, even though he isn't on call this weekend.'

'What?' She was feeling slightly sick. Some months ago she might have welcomed this.

'Yes, that's right, Lisa. I'm going to be working in the emergency department at University Hospital for a period of three months before I take up a permanent position out west in the Yukon. Dr Blair..
.Marcus
—' he gave the name a special emphasis '—has very kindly agreed to take me on as a sort of senior trainee.'

This couldn't be happening, Lisa thought frantically. Surely Marcus wouldn't take him on?

'He knew who I was, of course. After he told me I had a child I was able to put him straight about a few things,' Richard said, leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe.

'What do you mean?'

'I assured him that I certainly would have stood by you during your pregnancy and at the time of your delivery— had I known you were pregnant,' he said, with perfect calm and an apparent sincerity. Only she knew that it was false.

'You had no right to say that! I know otherwise,' she said, clenching her fists. 'The very thing I wanted to avoid was having you make me feel beholden to you, as though you were doing me a great big favour. That's why I didn't tell you. And I was right. I'm managing perfectly well.'

Without warning, Richard pushed past her into the hallway of her flat, pushing the door shut behind him at the same time.

'I'd like to see my baby,' he said.

'Why, Richard? What happened to the woman you left me for?' Lisa said, facing him. 'Or is she past history? It's well over the limit of a year since you started with her.'
_;

He pursed his lips, his features hardening, so that Lisa took her assumption as a given. Without another word, he pushed past her and entered her sitting room. While she waited in the hall, feeling sick with a fear that he was trying to take her baby from her, she heard him go from room to room on the ground floor. Then, without looking at her, he mounted the small staircase to the second floor and the two bedrooms there.

'Where is she?' he demanded when he came down again.

'My mother's taken her out to visit friends,' she said calmly. 'They won't be back for some time. Don't think you can intimidate me, Richard.'

He made a sound of disgust as he went to the door. 'I intend to speak to my lawyer,' he said, turning to look at her, unsmiling, 'to find out exactly what my rights are.'

Lisa's mind moved like lightning over all the possibilities of future action on his part. One thing she had learned indelibly from living with him—he liked to win, liked to be in control.

'You do that, Richard, if it pleases you,' she said, knowing that overt resistance would only harden his resolve. 'I know you like to play power games. I don't think there is any court that would give you the child after your behaviour to me.'

'It will be a different story when they know I had no idea you were pregnant.'

'I don't think so. You left me. A reluctant man wouldn't make a good father,' she said. Knowing that he needed to appear to have won, in his own eyes as well as in hers, she added, 'By all means see her, if you wish. I wouldn't prevent you from doing that.'

Richard frowned. 'Like now,' he said sarcastically.

'I had no idea you were coming,' she said.

They faced each other for silent moments. 'I reckon we could make a go of it if we tried,' he said unexpectedly. 'Get together, I mean.' His expression belied his words. There was no warmth in his regard.

Intuitively, Lisa again knew what this was all about— control.

'I don't think so, Richard,' she said quietly, 'for several reasons. One of them is that I don't love you any more.'

As she said the words she knew, with a tremendous sense of relief, that they were true. The passion that she had felt for him had been like a fire which had burnt itself out, leaving only cold ashes. Without the underlying caring on his part to fuel the flames, they had died.

'Is that so?' he said dangerously. 'I shall tell my lawyer that I offered.'

'Don't threaten me, Richard. Don't pretend that you give a damn about me. The baby has a good home here, a loving home.'

'You're a single mother. I have money on my side. I will earn far more than you will ever earn,' he said.

Lisa shrugged. 'Do what you will,' she said. 'I'm past being intimidated by you. This is the nineteen nineties. I think you're about fifty years out of date.' Reaching past him, she released the latch on the front door and pointedly stood back for him to leave. 'Goodbye, Richard.'

'We'll see about that,' he said, as at last he left. Moments later she heard the engine of a car start up.

Leaning back against the wall, she felt weak with relief at his going, as well as some apprehension for the future. Was it possible that he could challenge her? She doubted it very much, yet she would get her father to speak to the family lawyer first thing on Monday morning. If she knew anything about Richard Decker he had little real interest in being a loving father to Emma Kate—the whole focus of his life was on himself.

Hard on the heels of that realization came another sharp anxiety, a sense of betrayal. Marcus had told Richard that she had a child. Then he had actually offered him a job where she worked. At the moment she could see no sense in any of it unless Marcus was completely disregarding her in this equation.

Distractedly she put a hand to her head and closed her eyes wearily. Life had been good over the past few weeks, apart from the nightmare of Charlene Damero with whom she felt she could cope. Now everything seemed to be slowly unravelling before her eyes. Guilt about Emma not having a father was now compounded by the awful realization that she, Lisa, couldn't accept Richard as Emma's father, even though he was the biological father. What a mess! Restlessly, she began to pace.

Making a quick decision, her mind now clearer, she went into the sitting room and left a note for her mother to say that she was borrowing her car and would be out for a short while. She intended to drive over to see Marcus and confront him face to face. There was no way she wanted to discuss this over the telephone. She wanted to see his expression, hear the tone of his voice.

There were several cars parked in the driveway of Marcus's house when, a short time later, Lisa brought her mother's small, compact car to a halt in the quiet street. The sight of them caused her resolve to waver for a few seconds. It seemed that he had visitors.

The man who answered the door was wearing a discreet uniform. Lisa wondered whether this was the butler that Marcus sometimes hired. Somehow the uniform didn't look quite right.

'Can I help you?' the man asked, as his eyes moved over her from head to toe, his manner not exactly welcoming.

'I'm a colleague of Dr Blair's,' she said. 'I'd like to see him, if I could.' It occurred to her then that he was a security guard.

A burst of laughter and the sound of conversation came to her from the direction of the drawing room which she knew from her previous visit. It looked as though she had interrupted a social gathering and she suddenly felt nervous, as though Marcus were an unknown quantity. But it was too late now to back off. She might as well go through with the confrontation, or whatever it turned out to be.

'Name?' the man said tersely, his gimlet eyes unsmilingly on her face.

'Lisa Stanton,' she said. Perhaps this man was from Ravi Davinsky's agency.

He spoke into a walkie-talkie, repeating her name to someone.

'Dr Blair will be out in a moment,' he said to her. It was clear that he was going to remain with her until Marcus appeared.

'Thank you,' she said.

To her relief, just when she was beginning to feel like an actress taking part in a third-rate movie, Marcus came out of the drawing room and walked rapidly towards them.

'Lisa.' He was obviously surprised, trying not to show it in front of the other man. 'It's nice to see you.' He nodded at the man with the walkie-talkie, who nodded in return and walked away.

'Not the butler, I guess,' Lisa commented dryly, looking after him.

'No. One of Ravi's men.' Marcus gave a small quirk of the mouth in that devastatingly rueful way that he had, which normally made her very susceptible to his charm. This time she tried hard to concentrate on the sense of betrayal that had brought her there in such a hurry.