Return of the Forbidden Tycoon

Touched by his thoughtfulness, she shook her head. ‘It’s okay,’ she assured him. ‘I’m planning to change it once the house is sold, which shouldn’t take too long. Which reminds me…I’d like you to come over and have a look at the cottage with me. It’s got some outhouses, which I thought could be converted into a workshop, but I’ll need your advice.’

‘Mmm…sounds good. A second workshop would be very useful. Give me a ring when you want me to come over.’ Harry bent to kiss her cheek and then stood watching until she had driven out of sight.

Harry made her feel warm and cared for, Kate thought happily as she headed for home. In some ways he and his family had become her own, replacing the father she had lost and the mother she had never really known, but as yet she hadn’t told him about Dominic…

But then what was there to tell? Nothing, she told herself firmly, and that was the way it was going to stay.

* * *

Kate prepared for Sue’s lunch with lethargic indifference, knowing she did not want to go, but also knowing that Sue would cross-question her if she did not.

The good weather was holding, heat rippling the tarmac as she drove towards her friend’s, reminding her of how, as a child, she would sit in the back seat of her father’s car with her nose glued to the window, until the undulating road surface was transformed into water.

Reminding herself of how dangerous it was to let her mind wander when she was driving, she banished the childhood memory. The sunshine had filled the roads with drivers, and she was glad when she was finally able to turn off into the road that led to her friend’s home.

The first thing she saw as she turned into the drive was a silver-grey BMW, and her heart leapt frantically in a complex mixture of pleasure and fear, until she realised that the one Dominic had been driving had been a different colour, and that this one must belong to the Bensons.

She was familiar enough with her friend’s home not to need to ring the bell, but to make her way round the side of the house to the large patio at the back, where, as she had expected, she found her host and hostess.

John was bending over a portable barbecue fiddling with something while Sue stood to one side.

The children saw Kate first, abandoning their game to rush over to her, hugging her legs enthusiastically.

The commotion made Sue look up and grin in welcome.

‘We’re just having our usual battle with the barbecue,’ she announced cheerfully. ‘John swears that I deliberately put a hex on it. It will never burn properly if you put so much charcoal on it,’ she protested, turning back to her husband, adding to Kate, ‘Honestly, men! If John left it to me to light… Why on earth does anything to do with making things burn fascinate men so much?’

Her last question was directed at Kate, but it was John who answered it, having successfully ignited the charcoal, his hazel eyes gleaming with amusement as he hugged her briefly and said, ‘It’s part of man’s age-old instinct to protect and succour his womenfolk…keeping the home fires burning…all that sort of thing.’

‘It was women who kept the home fires burning,’ Sue retorted, reaching up to wipe a smut of charcoal dust from his cheek.

Watching them, Kate was filled with a raw, aching pain caused by the knowledge that she would never know that closeness, that sense of togetherness and sharing that existed between Sue and John.

Before their marriage, Sue had trained as a nurse, and had gone on to qualify as a midwife before having her children, and Kate knew that John respected her in a professional capacity in addition to loving her as a woman.

Kate did not make the mistake of viewing her friends’ marriage through a rose-coloured veil. It was not idyllic, Sue often complained that there were times when she felt frustrated and angry that her skills were not being put to use, but on the other hand, she felt that while they were young the children needed her, and also as a local G.P., John needed her to be at home to take his calls, and generally act as an unpaid assistant. Sue had confided to Kate in the early days after she had had the children that she felt there was something essentially diminishing about being reliant on someone else financially having earned her own living, even though John was a generous and thoughtful husband, but on balance, their relationship worked in a way that any relationship between herself and Dominic never could.

For a start he didn’t have an ounce of respect for her as a person. He wanted her only as a physical entity without knowing or wanting to know the woman she actually was. While she…

She was drawn to him in a way that she knew was dangerous. Where she should have felt anger and resentment, she felt compassion and sorrow. It hurt her that he should so desperately have hurt himself, and all so needlessly. She could understand how a father could influence and poison a child’s mind against the female sex, but surely, as an adult, Dominic must have come to the realisation that his father’s views were very one-sided?

‘Ian and Vera are looking at the garden,’ Sue announced, breaking into her thoughts. ‘They’re a very pleasant couple, don’t you think?’ She made a small moue. ‘I was a bit anti at first; incomers and all that… but the more I see of them the more I like them. Did you know that Ian’s business is merging with Dominic’s?’

‘Yes. Vera told me.’

Sue made another face. ‘Now there’s someone I can’t take to, not after the way he insulted you.’

‘Stop bristling,’ teased John, catching the tail of what she was saying, adding to Kate with a wry grin, ‘To look at her you’d never think she was such a fierce little thing, would you?’ He tugged Sue’s fair hair, looking at her with affection. ‘When she was on the wards, senior consultants used to tremble with fear!’

‘Oh, you…’ Sue gave her husband a little push. ‘I think the barbecue’s ready for the steaks. Could you give me a hand bringing out the salad?’ she asked Kate.

They were in the kitchen before Sue resumed the conversation John had interrupted, beginning, ‘As I was just saying, I’m getting very fond of the Bensons, Vera in particular, which makes it all the more…’ She broke off, as she looked through the kitchen window. ‘They’re coming back now. Kate, believe me this wasn’t my idea, but when they arrived Dominic was with them.’

Kate was glad that she had her back to her friend. Her whole system seemed to have gone into civil war. After that first thrill of seeing what she had thought was Dominic’s car in the drive she had been relieved by the knowledge that it wasn’t, and yet here was Sue telling her that he was here after all.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ She marvelled at how calm her voice sounded. ‘I’ll take these out, shall I?’ She picked up two large bowls of salad, avoiding her friend’s eyes, determined not to betray anything of what she felt inside.

Vera and Ian both greeted her warmly, Dominic either strategically or accidentally was busily involved with the children, and by the time Ian had finished quizzing her about the expense of the stained glass Vera had commissioned, her tension was beginning to ease slightly.