A Night of No Return

It was the most he’d ever told her about himself. The first really personal exchange they’d had. ‘So she basically had an affair with the boss.’ Emma felt her mouth dry and he looked at her with that keen, perceptive gaze she found so unsettling.

‘If you’re making the connection you appear to be making then I can assure you there are no similarities at all. This was a lengthy relationship which was supposedly based on love and trust—’ his tone was threaded with cynicism ‘—whereas—’

‘You don’t need to finish that sentence.’ She interrupted him hastily. ‘We’ve been over this a thousand times already. I know what last night was.’

‘Do you?’ He was unnervingly direct and she knew that there was no way she could confess that she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Still less could she admit that it wasn’t just the sex she was thinking about; it was him. The more she discovered about him, the more her vision of him shifted. He was no longer her cold, detached boss. He was a man with a past.

‘I love my job. I’d never do anything to jeopardize that. To be honest I can’t afford to let anything jeopardize that. And I’m not in a position to have a relationship with anyone right now. There isn’t room in my life. And then there’s the fact that you’re far too bitter and twisted for me.’

He frowned slightly, those dark brows pulled together in silent contemplation as if he wanted to say something else. And she didn’t want him to say it. She wanted him to stop talking because every time he spoke he revealed something else and the more he revealed the more personal it became.

‘So your mum discovered that she was pregnant, and then what?’ Colour touched her cheeks as she remembered a small detail from the night before. The man had been half out of his mind with drink and grief, but he hadn’t forgotten the condom, as if some part of him was programmed to remember. And she was relieved about that, of course, because the situation was already complicated enough without adding to it, but still, it made her wonder.

‘He duly announced he was getting married to another woman. Perhaps if she hadn’t made that fatal mistake, he might have let her stay. He was perfectly happy to have a lover on the scene, but a child would have made the whole thing vastly inconvenient and not at all British, so that changed things.’ The words flowed from him and it was so unusual to hear him talk like this that she sat still and just listened. She wondered if he even realised how much he was telling her.

‘So your mother resigned?’

‘No. My mother never would have resigned so he had to find another way of getting rid of her.’ He sat down across from her and picked up his fork. ‘He accused her of theft. So not only did he humiliate her and ruin her chances of getting another job, but he made her hate him. And it made her hate me too, because I was inadvertently the reason for all that.’

The lump in her throat came from nowhere. ‘Couldn’t she have taken him to court or something? Got some help?’

‘I don’t know what went through her head. Maybe she did talk to a lawyer. I don’t know, but certainly nothing came of it—’ he sliced his omelette in two ‘—all I know is that it was a struggle. We lived in the smallest room you have ever seen. It had just one window and it never let in enough light.’ He frowned. ‘I couldn’t work out why anyone would have designed a window that didn’t do the job it was intended to do. That was when I started to dream about buildings. Buildings with space that let in the light. I drew myself a house and promised myself that one day I was going to build it and live in it.’

It was easy to imagine him as the child, drawing his dream. Especially when you saw the man he’d become. ‘Did he never acknowledge you?’

‘No. And the irony was, he never had any more children. I was his only child. Now isn’t that poetic justice? He wanted a family. The tragedy was that he actually had one, but he never acknowledged it. You’re not eating. Is there something wrong with your omelette?’

She’d been so lost in his story she hadn’t taken a single mouthful of her food. ‘Did you meet him?’

‘When she found out that he had no living heir, my mother was determined that I should have the recognition that she felt was my right.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Or maybe she was hoping that he’d take me on so that she could have her life back.’

‘You went to see him?’

‘Yes, but not because I wanted him to suddenly play “Dad”. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. And his response was that it didn’t matter what she did, he would never give me Chigworth Castle. I was thirteen years old and so angry with him that I punched him, then I told him he didn’t need to give it to me because I was going to just take it from him when I was ready. It gave him quite a laugh, this skinny kid without a penny to his name trying to give him a black eye and then threatening to take his castle.’ He gave a cool smile. ‘He wasn’t laughing on the day I took ownership. Cristiano Ferrara fronted the deal so he had no idea who was buying it until it was sold. Not that it would have made any difference. He’d spent all his money so he wasn’t in a position to negotiate or withdraw. But I wouldn’t have put it past him to burn the place to the ground rather than stop me owning it.’