The Valentine Child

He stopped her with a wave of his hand, and she listened in rising amazement as he instructed the unseen person at the other end of the telephone wire to have the jet standing by.

'How?' She seemed to be incapable of stringing two words together.'

His mouth curved sardonically. 'Easy, Zoe,' he said, coming towards her. 'I am a very powerful man in my own way.' He reached down and lifted her up out of the chair as if she weighed no more than a feather, his hands firmly around her tiny waist. 'But I certainly underestimated you, my dear wife,' he drawled harshly. 'Last night had nothing to do with Wayne Sutton, had it?'

She blushed fiery red as he set her on her feet, but kept a firm hold on her. 'No,' she mumbled; could he possibly have guessed? It was one thing to ask an estranged husband to donate bone marrow; it was quite another to try and get oneself pregnant by the same man, especially knowing he had a very lovely 'significant other' in his life.

'You have good reason to look ashamed,' he said with icy disdain, and, grasping her chin, he tilted her scarlet face back the better to see her. 'You deliberately let me do anything I wanted with your sexy little body last night in the hope of softening me up before telling me about my son.'

Now was the moment to tell him the truth—all of it. 'It. . .' She bit her lip.

'You're little better than a whore, but then I always knew that.'

She looked up sharply, meeting his contemptuous gaze with angry eyes. 'It wasn't like that,' she objected.

'Your reason was noble,' he admitted in a dea

dly quiet voice, 'But don't ever try to barter sex with me again. I will not be used that way. I prefer to do my own hunting.'

A dull foreboding made her shiver; if he ever discovered just how much she had tried to use him he would kill her. . . 'I wouldn't dream of it,' she said quickly, keeping a wary eye on him.

He smiled—a slow, wicked curve of his hard lips. 'Good,' he murmured, his arm tightening around her waist. His black head bent and his warm mouth fastened on hers in a long, sensuous kiss that made her heart thud in her breast.

She caught her breath as he pushed her away, staring up at him, bewildered and vaguely angry. 'Why did you do that?' she demanded shakily.

'You looked like you needed it, and I sure as hell did,' he grated. 'Now for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. What have you told our son about me?' The demand was curt, his dark face taut with resentment. 'If anything.'

Zoe had been expecting the question, but it still did not make answering him any easier. 'You have to understand—Val is very young, and, well, Margy my friend's daughter Tessa is his best friend. Margy's husband was a sailor and he was lost at sea in a round-the-world yacht race.'

'You told him I was dead. . .?' he rasped.

'No, no, I'm trying to explain. Val only asked once about his father. I told him you were a very important lawyer working thousands of miles away across the sea, but one day he would meet you. I thought. Actually she hadn't thought very clearly at all; in the back of her mind she had simply thought, One day. But not yet. . .

'Don't bother, Zoe, I can read you like a book. After the five-year separation a quiet divorce and only then any mention of the child. I suppose I should be grateful he even knows I exist, but under the circumstances I don't feel particularly grateful. Call him now. I want to speak to him.'

Zoe glanced at her wristwatch. It would be early morning in Rowena Cove. Crossing to the telephone, she placed the call.

Within seconds she was speaking to Margy and, after exchanging the usual greetings, her friend demanded bluntly, 'Have you got him, Zoe?'

'Yes, yes, I have, and he would like to speak to Val. Can you put him on, please?'

'Hi, Mom. When are you coming back? Have you got me a present?' At the sound of her son's childish chatter Zoe's eyes misted with tears.

'Slow down, darling. I'll be home tomorrow and yes, I am bringing you a present.' Sensing Justin's presence behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. His dark eyes burnt implacably into hers as he mouthed the words Tell him, while Val's shout of joy and demands to know what it was rang in her ear. 'I'm bringing your daddy home with me; he's here now and would like to say hello!'

Numbly she handed the receiver to Justin, and watched silently as he spoke to his son for the first time. She choked back a sob, amazed to see his eyes luminous with tears. Only then did the full enormity of what she had done by denying him his son sink into her tired brain, and the feeling of guilt was crushing.

'Here. He wants to say goodbye.' The receiver was pushed back into her hand and she managed to pull herself together enough to finish the call.

She replaced the receiver, her hand shaking, the ecstatic delight in her son's voice ringing in her ears. Val sounded happier than she had heard him in months, and it only added to her own self-disgust.

'I suppose I should thank you, but I don't damn well feel like it! That was my son—my boy.' His angry words flayed her like a whip. 'And you only told me because you were desperate.'

He was right and she bowed her head in shame.

'Oh, for God's sake go! Go and have a rest and then pack. I'll be back in couple of hours. I have a few things to sort out—people to see—before we leave.' He was all brutal efficiency and she should have been glad. Instead she watched him walk out of the suite with a pounding heart and her thoughts in chaos.

They arrived in New York in the early evening, and before Zoe had time to catch her breath they were on another private flight out to Brunswick. Justin had done his homework well, and as he deftly swung the rental car off the interstate at her direction and along the small road that ran to Rowena Cove she could sense the tension mounting in his large body.