Slave to Love

‘You’d better tell me the rest,’ he invited wearily. ‘What happened in Joel’s office today?’

Anger darkened Roberta’s eyes for a moment, then cleared as she controlled it. ‘I walked into Joel’s office to find Lulu already there. My first instinct was to get back out again as quickly as my legs would take me,’ she wryly confessed, ‘but Lulu attacked first, and...’ With a helpless shrug she told him all of it, the lot, barely missing anything out. ‘And if you don’t believe me,’ she concluded, ‘then just ask Joel—or even Mitzy, come to that, because I think she overheard the whole ugly thing!’

Restlessly she got up, going to take up Mac’s angry pose by the window. ‘In trying to keep your daughter’s love you’ve created a monster,’ she told him flatly. ‘And if you don’t do something about it very soon, Mac, then I think it may just be too late—for poor Lulu, at any rate.’ Turning her head, she looked grimly at him. ‘She isn’t happy, you know,’ she said gently. ‘She can never be happy while she continues to believe that her whole happiness hinges on getting her parents back together.’

‘We won’t do that. Never,’ he grunted, with a small shudder that seemed to say it all.

‘Then don’t you think it’s time one or both of you told her that?’ Roberta suggested. ‘I know I don’t like your daughter very much,’ she admitted, with her usual unfailing honesty, ‘but having watched what goes on from the outside, so to speak, I do have it in me to understand why she continues to hope.’

He sighed, stretching out in the upright chair and throwing back

his head with his eyes closed. He looked wearied to death.

Roberta’s eyes flooded with tears, because she was painfully aware that she was responsible for making him like that. But she turned back to the window, refusing to let herself respond even though the urge to go over and soothe him throbbed achingly inside her. She had regretted her part in the scene with Lulu almost before she had walked out of Joel’s office, but, having had the confrontation, she knew she would be being a fool to herself if she retracted any of it just to ease Mac’s feelings.

‘I think it’s time I explained to you something about Lulu,’ he murmured suddenly, drawing her attention back to him. ‘About three years ago she got in with a bad crowd. Went so wild for a time that Delia couldn’t control her. She even began stealing from the house—oh, not big things,’ he allowed, at Roberta’s stifled gasp, ‘but small things, things that wouldn’t be missed straight away but would fetch her a reasonable price on the street.’ He paused, his mouth folding into a grim, tight line. ‘She was selling them for drugs—nothing heavy,’ he added. ‘Luckily, I found out what she was up to before she’d progressed on to anything seriously damaging. She’s clear now—is even embarrassed if it ever comes up. But...’ There was another pause, followed by another harsh sigh while Roberta stood there, feeling helpless as to what to say. ‘During the therapy she agreed to attend it came out that she was still feeling rejected by me for leaving her and Delia. So I suppose that, since then, Delia and I have got used to putting up a united front whenever she’s around and, like you said, so successfully that Lulu has misread its meaning.’ He opened his eyes to pin her with a sombre look. ‘But I hadn’t realised how much until I overheard all those things she was saying to you that morning at the hospital.’

‘You heard her?’ Roberta gasped.

‘Not just heard her, but tackled her about it afterwards,’ he admitted. ‘Then, to be honest, I just lost patience with her. I thought to myself—’ grimly he lurched forward ‘—what the hell am I doing, putting my life on hold for her when she can lie so bloody glibly about me like that?’ He gave his dark head a small shake. ‘She apologised afterwards,’ he went on. ‘Explained why she’d said some of the rotten things she’d said to you. Half of it was her own conscience, refusing to accept responsibility for any part of her mother’s illness. Delia, you see, had told Lulu that she felt sick before the party. But Lulu had begged her not to tell anyone so that her weekend wouldn’t be spoiled by everyone worrying about Delia!’ His anger and disgust showed in the rasping tone of his voice. ‘So discovering just how ill Delia was and how close to death Delia came by not doing something about herself sooner came as a real leveller to her—so naturally,’ he added sarcastically, ‘she took it out on the nearest person to hand, which happened to be you—or maybe it was only because it was you.’ He sighed. ‘Whatever. It was you who got it in the neck, and me who had to stand there listening to you get it!’

‘So you sent me away,’ she murmured softly.

‘Had to,’ he gritted. ‘However angry I was with Lulu, her mother was seriously ill, and I had to wait for the outcome there before I could even begin to tackle her outburst to you. What really surprises me,’ he said frowningly, ‘is that, after all of that, she dared to start on you again today.’

‘She hates me,’ Roberta murmured heavily. ‘She’s a typically selfish eighteen-year-old, who would hate and resent anyone trying to spoil what she sees as her ultimate plan in life. Which is to get you and Delia back together again.’

Mac leaned forward to rest his elbows on his spread knees, sighing in weary acceptance of that. ‘Can you get Mitzy to make me some coffee?’ he then asked suddenly. ‘Only, I’d just walked in the door from New York when Lulu rang me to pour all your insults over me, and to be frank—’ he grimaced. ‘I’m bloody spent.’

‘Of course,’ she said, glad of something to do other than listen and think and hurt for all of them.

She stepped over to her desk and buzzed Mitzy for coffee then, after hovering for a few moments, fighting a battle with herself, rounded the desk to go down on her haunches beside him, her weak heart winning out over stern resolve to keep herself aloof from him.

But he looked so endearingly vulnerable sitting there, slumped over like that, and her hand went tentatively to his cheek, unsure whether she would be rejected or not. But, far from rejecting her, he took the hand into his own, kissed her fingers gently, then kept it captured as he lowered it down to her lap.

‘I have a lot to apologise to you for, don’t I?’ he murmured gruffly.

Roberta smiled, watching the way he played absently with her fingers. ‘Not really,’ she denied. ‘I probably deserved most of what I got, simply because I allowed it to go on.’

‘Until Lulu’s party,’ he said. ‘When you suddenly found you’d had enough.’

More than enough, she thought, remembering painfully how those words had hit her full in the face that night.

He moved so unexpectedly that Roberta started in puzzled surprise as he climbed to his feet to begin pacing the room, suddenly the dark, restless man she was more used to seeing. He was thinking, she realised, coming more slowly to her own feet. He’d recovered from the shock and was now doing what he did best: looking for the best solution to solve the problem.

Mitzy came in with a tray of coffee, eyeing him warily as she put it down on Roberta’s desk then disappeared as quickly as she could. Roberta didn’t have a chance to pour the coffee before Mac was there and doing it himself. He gulped down two cupfuls, black, strong and sweet, before pacing away again. She watched him, this powerhouse method of thinking exciting her even though she knew she shouldn’t let it.

But this was Mac. Mac the man she’d fallen in love with. Mac the man who could turn all of this restless energy into pure, undiluted passion. And her mouth went dry at the idea of it, her body stirring into tight, tingling shocks of awareness.

Wicked, she accused herself breathlessly. Wicked—wicked! Mac is dealing with a big problem in his life and you’re standing here wanting to devour him.

He turned suddenly, catching her hungry look, but thankfully too preoccupied to recognise it for the wicked thing it was. Instead he strode over to the desk and snatched up the phone, sharp fingers punching in a well-remembered set of numbers. ‘Delia?’ he said almost instantly.

Something cracked inside Roberta. He was calling his ex-wife. Mac had come to a big decision about something, and she had a horrible feeling that she knew what that decision was.

‘Is Lulu still there?’ He sounded so brisk and alive that Roberta wanted to weep. ‘What?’ he drawled. ‘Already?’ His mouth took on a rueful twist. ‘It didn’t take her long to recover, did it?’

Whatever Delia said by way of reply made his expression harden. ‘It’s sorted, Delia. More than sorted,’ he said grimly, glancing at Roberta in a way that made her sure they were discussing her. So in response her chin went up, green eyes spiralling into cool challenge. Yet, oddly, he smiled at her, before returning his attention to the telephone. ‘How are you feeling, darling?’ he enquired of Delia, reminding Roberta that Delia must still be recovering from her operation. ‘Only, I think you should know that we have a small crisis brewing and we urgently need to talk about it.’ Delia said something that made his face darken. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Not just Lulu, but you and me, too. May I come round in, say—’ he glanced at his watch ‘—half an hour?’