‘Have you told Briony about this?’ Marcus demanded shortly.
‘Yes, I have,’ Polly confirmed.
‘And?’ Marcus pressed.
‘She…she wasn’t too keen on the idea,’ Polly admitted, her chin firming as she continued determinedly, ‘But she understands that now that she’s at college and to all intents and purposes an adult, with a life of her own, it’s time for me to branch out a little, add to my CV…’
‘By doing what? Becoming Bernstein’s bed mate?’ Marcus challenged her unkindly.
‘For the last time this has nothing to do with sex,’ Polly protested. ‘The job Phil has offered me—’
‘Is a piece of juicy bait intended to get you into his bed,’ Marcus concluded for her. ‘And you must be as aware of that as I am. Well, if you’re entertaining some romantic fantasy that he’s going to offer you marriage, Polly, I have to tell you Bernstein’s got other plans that you obviously don’t know anything about. Apparently he’s the only male of his generation in his family, and according to Suzi he’s almost obsessive about wanting to have a son to pass his business interests on to. When he marries—if he marries—it will be to someone young enough to provide him with the male children he wants so much.’
Polly had had enough, heard enough. She wasn’t going to take any more of this—why should she? If Marcus was so determined to think the worst of her then let him. She didn’t care. But there was something she did care about—something he hated to be told.
‘I may have an almost adult daughter, but in modern terms I can assure you that I’m still young enough to give Phil a child—and more than one, if that’s what he wants.’
‘You’d actually do that…you’d…?’ Marcus stopped as though unable to actually say the words. His voice was so hoarse and strained that Polly barely recognised it. Something had gone badly wrong, she knew that; Marcus was reacting as though she’d threatened to destroy someone. Was that what he thought being involved with her would do to a man? Why? Because of Richard? Because she was older than Phil? Because she already had an adult daughter?
Well, if what she had just said had shocked him so much, how on earth would he feel if he knew of the secret longing she had to have his child? The dream that had tormented her so often in the early years of her widowhood was that she had had his son in the same hospital room where she had given birth to Briony, with Marcus at her side. And they were all there. Marcus, Briony, herself and their new baby…a son.
Such a foolish dream. To match her even more foolish love.
‘But what if the child he gives you turns out to be a girl? Have you thought of that?’ Marcus asked her grimly. ‘What would you do then Polly? Bernstein doesn’t want female children—ask Suzi.
‘My God, I don’t know what’s got into you recently. Suzi warned me that a woman going through a mid-life crisis can behave…’
Suzi had warned him? Polly had heard the expression about seeing red but had never truly appreciated its significance before now. She was by nature a calm, well-balanced type of person, preferring to avoid confrontation and arguments where she could, but suddenly, in a blinding blood-hot flash, it was there, a burst of scarlet, scalding colour that exploded inside her head. It was like an extra charge of adrenalin, rocket fuel to her emotions, blasting them out of the safe orbit they normally travelled in and launching them and her with them into an attack on Marcus’s unsubstantiated claim.
‘Suzi seems to have been very busy handing out her warnings,’ Polly flashed furiously. ‘I was on the receiving end of one of them myself quite recently—but when it comes to mid-life crises you’re much closer to having one than I am, Marcus. After all, you are a prime candidate for—’
‘For what?’ Marcus interrupted her ominously.
For a relationship with a much younger woman, Polly had been about to tell him, but the idea of any woman of any age not finding Marcus irresistibly attractive was so ludicrous that Polly couldn’t bring herself to voice it. After all, she had seen the way their female guests looked at him, and she knew just why they had looked as well. No, Marcus was simply not the kind of man who would ever need to find himself a much younger partner simply to prop up his own deflating ego.
Instead, unwilling to give up the argument completely, she demanded pettily, ‘Anyway, why shouldn’t I have a baby if I want one?’
‘You want a child?’
Marcus’s incredulity and disbelief fuelled her anger.