The Beautiful Widow

‘Thank you.’ She had stiffened slightly as he spoke.

‘Very different personalities; almost like the two halves which make up their mother.’

She was taking a sip of wine, but was surprised into looking at the pearly eyes. She couldn’t resist asking, ‘What does that mean?’

‘One so sure of herself and how she sees the world; a go-getter with boundless enthusiasm and a zest for life. The other more shy and vulnerable, needing to know she’s safe and secure, holding on to what she knows because she’s afraid of getting hurt.’

Toni stared at him, a hot prickly sensation running up and down her spine as she saw he was perfectly serious. His insight unnerved her totally and to combat the weakness she took refuge in a feigned cynicism, managing a scornful little smile before she said, ‘And you saw all that in two little girls in, what—five minutes? I hardly think so.’

‘You’re telling me I’m wrong?’ His voice was mild, reasonable.

‘Of course, Amelia and Daisy are much more complex than that.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the twins.’

Toni took a deep breath. He was her boss and she needed this job, but she was blowed if she was putting up with whatever game he was playing. ‘Don’t attempt to analyse me when you’ve hardly spent any time in my company,’ she said tightly.

He didn’t seem the least offended. In fact he smiled, the hard angles of his face breaking up into attractive curves. ‘Fair enough,’ he said silkily, ‘but I know I’m right. Tonight you look about sixteen, do you know that? And infinitely more lovely than the capable career woman of daylight hours. I thought at first that I was seeing you with the outer shell removed, but that’s not true, is it? It’s still there, it’s just taken a different form.

What would it take for you to relax, really relax in a man’s company, Toni?’

She cleared her dry throat. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

‘At work you’re a remarkably gifted and enterprising woman, one who isn’t afraid to take chances and think outside the box. And such enthusiasm is catching. You’ve certainly excited me,’ he said, deadpan, before adding, ‘I can’t wait to see the finished apartments in due course.’

She stared at him, flustered and confused. When he’d said she excited him for a moment she’d thought … But he hadn’t meant she excited him, she told herself in a hot flush of embarrassment at her ridiculous assumption. Merely that her plans for the apartments did. She had to get a hold of herself around this man.

‘But then the other side of you is incredibly wary and suspicious,’ he went on softly, ‘which is perfectly understandable after all that’s happened.’

Her chin rose. ‘I’m not wary and suspicious. That’s nonsense. I admit I’m very aware of being a single mother with two small children depending on me, and I certainly don’t intend to be the sort of woman who introduces a succession of “uncles” to them either. That simply won’t happen, now or in the future.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said solemnly.

Her lips tightened. Was he laughing at her? Anger made her speak before she thought as she bit out, ‘And we’re better off keeping it to just the three of us. I won’t allow them to be let down again. We’re perfectly happy just as we are.’

‘You love them very much,’ he stated quietly. ‘Don’t you?’

‘They are everything to me and I to them. It’s always been that way since they were born.’

‘And their father? Where did he fit in?’

Not sure if she sensed criticism, she glared at him. ‘You needn’t feel sorry for Richard. He wanted nothing to do with the girls. I didn’t shut him out or anything.’

‘I didn’t say I felt sorry for him, I asked where he fitted in. That’s quite different.’

Yes, it was, and she didn’t know why every word he said caught her on the raw. She swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry, I thought …’ She looked away but the robin had gone. She really was on her own with him now. Gathering her thoughts, she said flatly, ‘Richard was the sort of man who should never have fathered children. He didn’t like them. It was as simple as that. He had no time for little ones, none at all.’

‘Not even his own?’

If she hadn’t been so tense she would have smiled at the incredulity in his voice. ‘Not really. We knew each other for such a short time before we got married, just twelve weeks or so.’ Stupid. Very stupid. ‘He was … different afterwards, but by the time I was beginning to think we’d made a mistake I found out I was expecting a baby. Two, as it happens.’ She gave a wan smile but his dark face was still in the lengthening shadows. ‘I’d had a stomach upset on honeymoon. They said it had probably interfered with the pill. Richard wanted me to have an abortion and we rowed terribly when I refused.’

She shifted slightly in her chair, wondering why she was telling this to Steel Landry, of all people. ‘I’d always thought my going through with having the babies had made our marriage the way it was, blamed myself for it, I suppose, although I would never have considered doing anything else but what I did. Of course I knew nothing about the gambling, this whole other life he lived. Whether I could have helped him if I’d found out, I don’t know.’

‘Not if he didn’t want to be helped,’ Steel said quietly. ‘The first step in conquering any form of addiction has to be a desire to be rid of it.’

She nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

‘I know so.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘My father was an alcoholic, on and off the wagon once or twice a year. Most of the time he was a good husband and father, but when he was on a bender …’ He shook his head. ‘But my mother loved him. He’d been on the wagon for months before they went out one night with friends to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary. He started drinking that night and although he wasn’t falling-over drunk when he left the pub he was on his way. Apparently, according to one of their friends, my mother wanted to drive but he wouldn’t let her. He changed when he was drunk and she wasn’t strong enough with him so she gave in. He killed himself and my mother and a young couple with a four-month-old baby in the crash that followed.’