She had also kept to herself her belief that the American had perhaps kept her feelings private because she had sensed that Blake did not return her love.
Now, as she saw the way the sunlight glinted on the hair on his arms, turning it from brown to gold, highlighting the underlying muscles in a way that made her stomach lurch disconcertingly and a frisson of sharply dangerous sexual awareness and longing shoot through her, she wasn’t sure if she envied the girl or pitied her.
One thing she did know, and that was that for her a merely sexual relationship with Blake would never be enough, no matter how physically fulfilled her body might feel. Her heart and her mind would still ache and yearn for more.
That was what loving someone did to you. The simple purity of luxuriating in the satisfaction of plain physical need that she had experienced with Joel would never be enough to satisfy her with Blake; she would always long for more, so much, much more… for his love.
‘Philippa…’
Suddenly realising how long she must have been staring at him, she blushed as furiously as an embarrassed schoolgirl when Blake said her name, dipping her head so that her hair swung forward to conceal her flushed face.
* * *
‘You really didn’t need to do this, you know,’ she told Blake over an hour later as she negotiated the heavy trolley out of the supermarket’s automatic doors while Blake took charge of the children.
The supermarket’s car park was busy; it was the school holiday season after all, and Philippa was wryly aware of the envious looks they were attracting from other mothers struggling on their own with both trolley and offspring.
No doubt in their eyes she and Blake represented the perfect family picture. If only they knew the truth.
‘I wanted to do it,’ she heard Blake telling her quietly as they waited to cross the road.
Her heart had started to thump far too fast. Will you stop it? she ordered the recalcitrant organ with silent firmness, warning it that it was getting far too excited over nothing, and that if it didn’t stop she was going to have to take very severe action.
Determined not to betray to Blake what she was feeling and prejudice the friendly relationship they had built up, she forced herself to smile and challenge him teasingly, ‘Why? Don’t you think I can be trusted with a shopping trolley?’
‘On the contrary,’ he told her softly, ‘I think…’
He broke off to step aside, to make way for another shopper to pass them, while Philippa headed determinedly towards the car, feeling thoroughly flustered.
What was the matter with her? Anyone would think that a man had never paid her a compliment before… never tried to flirt with her.
Blake… flirting with her… impossible… Now she was letting her imagination get out of control.
She had almost reached the Volvo when Blake caught up with her, unlocking the doors for her and then opening the boot.
‘Here, let me do that,’ he insisted as she leaned forward to lift the first of the paper cartons out of the trolley. As they both leaned forward at the same time their bodies collided briefly.
‘Whoops…’ As Blake apologised, Philippa laughed. She was facing the sun, its warmth pleasant against her skin, the air current across the car park, which on a cold day could feel as icily bitter as though it had come from Siberia, today a lulling, fresh caress, tousling her hair so that she automatically lifted her hand to push the soft curls off her face.
And then she saw her shadow on the tarmac, saw the way the breeze had flattened her top against her body, the way her lifted arm was throwing the curve of her breast into prominence, the way her whole body seemed to be leaning yearningly towards Blake… Blake, who was standing there, his body completely immobile, his expression hidden from her by the shadow cast by the sun. He moved, leaning towards her, his hand lifted as though to touch her, and shame poured through her as she saw herself as he must be seeing her, practically inviting his touch… his kiss, showing him that she was after all still the same old Philippa… still stupid enough to want…
Quickly she pulled back from him, her body trembling as she turned away and quickly reached into the trolley, her movements jerky and unco-ordinated.
Bleakly Blake watched her, silently cursing himself for his crassness. The way she had pulled away from him just now had been quite unmistakable… told him everything he wanted to know, or rather everything he didn’t want to know! He had seen the look of shock, of horror almost in her eyes when she’d thought he was going to touch her. He had been a fool to think he could resurrect what she had once felt for him; to imagine the woman she had become would even want to be reminded of it, never mind…
Well, he wouldn’t add to her obvious embarrassment and disgust by repeating his mistake. In future he would make sure that he kept his distance from her, physically and emotionally. That was quite obviously what she wanted to do.
His interpretation of the conversations they had shared, of the laughter… of the way she had seemed to listen with such interest when he had told her about his life, her head held slightly to one side, her eyes sometimes alight with laughter, other times soft with emotion, but always, like her, alive and warm, quick to respond to the need in others, had quite obviously been the wrong one. He had quite obviously mistaken mere politeness for something far more personal, and that was his fault and not hers. He turned away from her, his eyes narrowing as he looked into the sun.
He had come back to draw a line under the past, fully expecting that the reality of the woman she had become would finally banish the image of the girl she had been from his heart and his memories.
But instead. He closed his eyes. Watching her just now, seeing the laughter in her eyes, the curve of her mouth, her body, knowing how he felt about her, he had ached so much with love and need… had wanted so much to reach out and just touch her, if only to reassure himself that she was real. Behind the darkness of his closed eyelids he waited for the familiar pain to roll over him in its dull, relentless, unmerciful dragging surge.
He would have to do something, he knew that. Otherwise…
‘You get in the car with the children,’ he told Philippa harshly.’I’ll see to this…’
Philippa didn’t bother to argue… It was obvious that he wanted to distance himself from her, and of course she knew exactly why.