Yes, it was all working out far better than she had imagined. Even her decision not to see Joel again had now become something she genuinely believed had been the right decision for both of them, her brief relationship with him something she could view with tender pleasure and not pain, instead of a forced acceptance of what she knew morally she ought to feel while privately wishing that things could have been different.
Blake had been generous in his praise for the way she was dealing with Anya, and Susie had commented only the previous day that she seriously ought to consider training for some sort of work with children.
Even her parents and Robert had not raised as many objections about her working for Blake as she had expected—probably far too relieved to be freed from any responsibility towards her, Philippa recognised drily.
So, given that everything was so perfectly wonderful and marvellous, why was it that she woke up in the morning with a feeling like a lead weight in her heart?
Why? What was it she had said to herself about only a fool falling in love with Blake a second time when she’d taken the job? she asked herself grimly.
But the emotions she felt now had nothing to do with those fevered teenage yearnings; now it was his tenderness, his warmth, his sense of humour that made her ache helplessly with longing; now it was the reality of him that she loved, not the fantasy she had conjured up for herself.
She didn’t just love him, she admitted as she checked the oven, she liked him as well—liked the way he treated her as an equal, seeking her opinions and her views, discussing things with her, sharing… Showing her sons by his example that being a man was not about taking charge and being in control, that it did not involve the denial of one’s emotions, the distancing of oneself from others, that it allowed for mistakes, errors and vulnerabilities in others as well as in himself; like the way he was setting down for Anya the pattern of the kind of man she would one day look for, a man who would value her and respect her, a man who would love her.
It was hard concealing her emotional responsiveness to him, and even harder sometimes concealing her physical desire.
All right, so she was no longer the teenager who had lain in her bed night after night imagining what he would be like as a lover, but that didn’t stop her from having to fight against that betraying feminine ache deep within her body far, far too often.
No, it wasn’t easy concealing her love for him. Not easy but essential.
It wasn’t just the financial security of working for him she didn’t want to lose. There was Anya to consider, and her needs had to come before her own.
So far, she congratulated herself wryly, she was rather proud of the very neat job of containment she had done on her emotions. Not even Susie suspected how she really felt.
‘Mmm… he’s definitely worth leaving home for,’ had been her approving comment the first time she had met Blake. ‘He’s so sexy you could almost bottle it and sell it. God knows how he’s managed to stay single… why is it that with some men you can just look at them and know that in bed and out of it they just can’t help but turn you on?
‘I mean, he isn’t just sexy, he’s old-fashioned nice as well. I’m glad I’m not in your shoes—I don’t know how I’d be able to keep my hands off him…’ she had added frankly, and then apologised quickly, ‘Oh, hell, Pip, I’d forgotten for a moment what you told me…’
‘It’s all right,’ Pippa had assured her. ‘That was years ago, a teenage crush, that’s all.’
Then, she had believed it.
She smiled valiantly to herself. Well, at least now she was sensible enough not to waste her time indulging in impossible daydreams, to cherish every smile Blake gave her, to place far too much significance on the conversations they shared, the compliments he gave her; these were, she reminded herself, no more than any appreciative employer would give to an employee he or she wished to keep; and Blake did wish to keep her, he had made that very plain, though not for any personal reasons.
It was Anya’s welfare that was at the forefront of his mind when he told her approvingly how much more of a real home she had made the house; Anya’s happiness he was considering when he told her there was no need to shush the children when they were outside playing while he was working in his study, and that he enjoyed hearing the sound of their laughter; Anya’s emotional welfare that brought that warm, almost tender look to his eyes when he commented on the bond of physical affection developing between Anya and herself.
No, the woman she had become would never make the same mistakes as the girl she had once been, never attempt to deceive herself about Blake’s feelings for her, never take the risk of inviting his rejection a second time.
She frowned as she glanced up at the kitchen clock and then opened the back door to call the children in, reminding them that they had the supermarket shopping to do.
‘All right, everyone, upstairs, hands and faces washed and hair combed,’ she announced firmly, ignoring Daniel’s, ‘Must we…?’
Twenty minutes later, just as she was about to lock the back door, Blake’s Volvo came sweeping up the drive.
‘Ah, good, I’ve caught you,’ Blake announced as he climbed out of the car and came over to her. ‘I hoped I might.’
‘Why, is something wrong?’ Philippa asked him uncertainly.
‘No… nothing. But I managed to finish early and so I decided to come home and give you a hand with the supermarket shopping. You mentioned this morning that you intended to do it today and I thought it might be easier if we went in the Volvo.’
‘Yes… yes, it would,’ Philippa agreed.
He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to reveal his forearms. His skin was tanned, the muscles beneath strong and firm, a legacy no doubt from the summer he had spent crewing for a fellow colleague at Johns Hopkins who was a keen yachtsman. Blake had told her how much he had enjoyed the sport one evening when they had been chatting. He had offered to teach the boys if she thought they might be interested, and she hadn’t been able to help contrasting his attitude towards them with Andrew’s.
That had also been the evening he had first mentioned his American girl-friend and the relationship they had shared.
She had kept to hers
elf the fact that, no matter how much the girl might have stressed that their affair was founded on mutual sexual interest and had no deep emotional basis, she found it very hard to accept that any woman could have that kind of long term relationship with a man, especially a man like Blake, without loving him.