Authors: Sara Craven
'I'm quite capable of taking my child to the zoo myself,' she said sharply. 'She doesn't go short of pleasure trips.'
'But she goes short on male companionship,' he said curtly. 'That may be a deliberate ploy on your part, Cass, but I don't believe it's a healthy one, and I intend to redress the balance a little. Today is only the beginning.'
She gasped furiously. 'You said you'd leave me alone.'
'I said I'd transfer my attentions where they'd be appreciated,' he returned. 'I think Jodie appreciates them, don't you?' He paused. 'Words are your
metier
? he went on with soft mockery. 'Didn't your trained ear tell you I was being— slightly ambiguous in what I said?'
'No,' she snapped. 'Obviously I underestimated you, Mr Grant, yet again.'
Jodie came dancing back, changed with the speed of light into her new corded trousers with their matching waistcoat.
'I've put on my best clothes,' she announced.
'You look fantastic,' Rohan said.
'But you'll need a coat,' Cass warned, and Jodie's lip bulged ominously.
'But it's
sunny
today,' she began to protest, but Rohan intervened swiftly.
'It's cold just the same, darling. Simon and James have had to wear their anoraks.' He paused. 'You see, if you catch cold, your mother will never let you come out with me again, and I have all kinds of plans.'
Jodie's face cleared magically at this hint of future delights, and she vanished again.
'Bribery too,' Cass said disgustedly.
His brows lifted sardonically. 'You'd have preferred a scene?' he asked sardonically. 'Well— that figures.'
'I don't want Jodie to think these outings are going to be a regular occurrence,' she said. 'And we don't need your—amateur psychology either. If I feel Jodie is—lacking men's company, then I'll do something about it. I don't need your interference.'
'Don't tempt me to tell you what you do need.' His voice was soft, but the glance which raked down her body, stripping off the unbecoming clothes, was an insult, and the colour stormed into her face.
Jodie returned, forcing her arms into the sleeves of her anorak. 'I did a picture,' she announced. 'A picture of this room, all yellow and pretty.' She fetched it from the table. 'That's Mummy, in her blue dress she wore last night, and that's you,' she added with satisfaction. 'You can keep it if you like,' she went on magnanimously. 'I'll do another for Mummy.'
Rohan put down a hand and stroked back her hair. 'I'll treasure it,' he said seriously. He folded the paper, and put it in his wallet while Jodie beamed.
Cass bit her lip. The original version, she thought bitterly, had contained only Jodie and herself. She'd had no idea that Jodie had made any later additions, and she felt suffocated with angry embarrassment.
'Goodbye, darling.' She smiled at Jodie, ignoring Rohan's ironic gaze. 'Have—have a lovely time, and please don't be late back.'
'I'll keep her safe,' Rohan said quietly. 'I'll have the boys' mother to contend with as well as you, if anything goes wrong,' he added drily. 'And I think my sister Marcia frightens me marginally more than you do.' He paused. 'See you later, Cass.'
The front door closed, and she was alone. She went back to cleaning down the paintwork, but the zest, if there'd been any, had gone out of it.
She'd been out-manoeuvred, she realised angrily. But if Rohan Grant thought that he could reach her through Jodie, he was mistaken. And if he believed that Jodie's talk of Daddies and inclusion of him in her drawing meant anything either, then he was wrong about that too. In fact, his intervention in their lives could be little short of disastrous, she thought worriedly.
She wished that she'd responded more positively to Lloyd's plans. They could have gone to the coast, all three of them, so that Rohan Grant would have found the flat deserted when he called. She wrung out her cloth with a sigh. Lloyd was no less a man that Rohan Grant, but he was, in some unfair way, so much less of a threat.
He'd kissed her the previous night, gently, experimentally, and she'd found his advances pleasantly undemanding. No, it hadn't been the memory of Lloyd's lips which had robbed her of sleep, she thought savagely, but the total, if unwanted, recall of Rohan's brief, incisive possession of her mouth. The kiss had lasted seconds at most, yet it had left a remembrance like a scar in its wake. It should have been easy to put it out of her mind, and the fact that it wasn't easy at all, disturbed her.
But then, she realised, kneeling back on her heels, with a sudden shiver of apprehension, everything about Rohan Grant disturbed her.
She worked steadily through the afternoon, then took a swift bath, and washed her hair. She dried her hair grimly, subduing its soft waves into the former severity, and dressed herself in what she knew to be one of her least becoming dresses, a donkey brown tent which swamped her, and muddied the clear tones of her skin, adding ribbed tights, in spite of the weather's mildness, and flat shoes.
It was past six when they returned, and she opened the door, giving Rohan a coolly civil smile, instantly aware of the incredulity in his eyes as he took in her appearance.
'You haven't finished the room yet,' Jodie exclaimed disappointedly.
'Hold your horses.' Rohan followed her in, although that was not what Cass had intended. 'Your mother isn't Superwoman. And she's had some transformation work to do on herself as well as the decor,' he added softly.
'Did you have a good time?' Cass asked Jodie directly, ignoring him.
'It was wonderful,' Jodie said rapturously. She looked wonderful too, her cheeks full of colour, her eyes sparkling, and the marks of illicit lollies round her mouth. 'I liked the monkeys best. They did rude things, and James said…'
'I think we'll draw a veil over what James said,' Rohan interrupted her with amusement. 'Can't you tell your mother about something reasonably polite and educational—like the aviary, or watching the lions being fed?'
'Oh, I saw them too,' Jodie agreed. 'But the monkeys were
funny
.'
Cass nerved herself to speak to him. 'Thank you for giving her such a good time, and bringing her back so promptly,' she said, too politely. 'I hope you didn't find three children too much of a handful.'
'Jodie behaved impeccably,' he returned courteously. 'And Marcia wouldn't allow any child of hers to be a handful. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.'
'I'm starving,' Jodie brought in plaintively, and Rohan gave her hair a tweak.
'You've had tea, you appalling brat.'
'That was ages ago,' Jodie said wistfully. 'Are we going to have supper soon, Mummy, and can Rohan stay?'
Cass was aghast, on a number of counts. She said immediately, 'Jodie—you don't address Mr Grant by his first name. It isn't—respectful.'
'But he likes it,' Jodie said wide-eyed. 'And that's what James and Simon call him too.'
'I really do prefer it,' Rohan put in drily. 'I'm sorry if it upsets your susceptibilities, Cass. I didn't realise you were so conventional.'
Her lips tightened. She looked at Jodie again. 'Well, let that pass. But don't you think Mr Grant has been kind enough for one day? He's a very busy person, much in demand. He has other things to do this evening.'
'No,' he said silkily. 'Not a thing. I'd love to stay to supper.' He smiled at her across Jodie's head, his eyes meeting hers with the insolent message;
and breakfast too
.
In the voluminous folds of her skirt, Cass's nails curled into the palms of her hands.
'I'm sorry to seem inhospitable,' she said. 'But we're having goulash, and I'm afraid it's a small one, certainly not large enough for three,' she added with quiet satisfaction.
Jodie's face drooped instantly, but Rohan said easily, 'Then why don't we have something else.
The goulash will keep, I'm sure. Marcia always says casseroles taste better on the second day. I noticed a Kentucky fried chicken place just round the corner. Why don't we shock our well-ordered digestions with some junk food?'
Jodie crowed with pleasure, shooting her mother a triumphant look. Cass stood blankly, aware that once again the wind had been taken out of her sails, and wondering what she could do about it.
She started again, 'Jodie—it really isn't a good idea. The room's in a mess, smelling of paint, covered in dust sheets. Mr Grant won't want to stay.'
'He does, he said he did.' Jodie's face was full of reproach. 'I want him to stay.'
'Then there's nothing more to be said,' Rohan smiled down at her. 'Clear off the table, brat, and find some plates, and I'll be back presently.' As Jodie flew to obey, he said in an undertone, 'Don't spoil her day, Cass. She neither shares nor understands your hostility.'
'She hasn't the same reason,' Cass returned bitterly. 'You win again, it seems. Enjoy your little victories, Mr Grant. You're going to find them short-lived.'
He smiled. 'But I don't want war between us, Cass. I want peace—on my terms,' he added softly.
Cass cleared off the table and helped Jodie lay it. Jodie was bubbling, and although Cass knew that sooner or later she would have to have a serious talk with her, convince her somehow that Rohan Grant was not the right person to have in their lives, she knew that now was not the time.
When Rohan returned, he was carrying not just a carrier bag of food, but a bottle of wine from the local off-licence and coca cola for Jodie.
'It's like a feast,' Jodie said rapturously. 'I wish James and Simon had come too.'
'Next time, maybe,' he said, and Cass tensed in rejection of the casual words. There would be no next time.
'What did you do with your nephews,' she asked, trying to sound nonchalant. 'Leave them for the lions?'
He shook his head. 'Marcia's taking them down to the country tonight. Her husband's in oil out in the Gulf, and they've been with him there, but he's decided to send them home as the situation's currently not very stable. The boys will be starting school here after Easter, and Marcia will be staying at our family home for the time being. She's supposed to be looking for a house,' he added with a wry smile. 'But I'll bet she gives Bill more grey hairs by rushing back to join him as soon as the boys are settled.'
Cass put the food on to warmed plates. She didn't like the note of amused affection that he used when he spoke of his family. It made him seem too human. She needed to think of him as the high-powered tycoon who was steering a multi-national company pretty well unscathed through a world recession. Although what such a person had to do with the casually dressed, attractive stranger who was sitting at her small dining table, teasing Jodie as he poured coke into her glass, and preparing to eat chicken and chips, she hadn't the slightest idea.
The Rohan Grants of this world were more usually found sealing million pound deals at Le Gavroche.
She ate her chicken, and drank her wine, dry and delicious, and listened indulgently to Jodie's excited chatter, conscious all the time that she was watching him more and more under her lashes. That all kinds of questions about him were surfacing in her mind, and not receiving satisfactory answers.
One thing was certain, she thought. Apart from that fleeting physical resemblance, evinced by their colouring, he was in no way like Brett. Her husband had never been so masterful, so totally sure of himself, the world, and his place in it. Perhaps if he had, then his life might have been very different, she thought with a little inward sigh. And, of course, she would not have married him at all. She didn't like men who dominated and manipulated, or who saw women in terms of bed only.
And that, she must never forget, was why Rohan Grant was here, eating a meal he would never have considered in ordinary circumstances, and charming her daughter. Because to him, it was all a means to an end. She'd injured his vanity by refusing to go out with him, and only her total capitulation to him sexually would salve the wound.
He has to prove he's so bloody irresistible, she told herself savagely, feeding her resentment, banishing the traitorous thought that the girl she'd once been might well have found Rohan Grant irresistible.
But not now. So why couldn't he be content with the Serena Vances of this world, and stop tormenting her? Perhaps the clue was in the poem he's mockingly quoted at her the previous night. She'd found her copy of Browning when she was shifting her books, and she'd looked it up, despising herself as she did so.' "Me the loving",' she thought ironically. "And you the loth, While the one eludes, must the other pursue…'" Only there was no love involved, just the instincts of the hunter, intent on bringing down his prey.
The meal took much longer than she'd hoped, because Jodie discovered the fresh fruit salad she'd made, and it had to be served. She offered coffee with overt reluctance, hoping he would take the hint and leave, but he accepted with a sardonic lift of the eyebrow.
When she got back from the kitchen, she found with dismay that Jodie had produced a jigsaw, and that she and Rohan were already apparently absorbed in fitting together its frame.
She said hurriedly, 'It's too late to start that now, Jodie. It's nearly bedtime.'
'Oh, just a few minutes,' Jodie appealed. 'While Rohan has coffee,' she added beguilingly. 'And then he's going to tell me a story.'
'No, he isn't, sinner.' Rohan shook his head. 'Although he might tuck you in, if you don't make any more fuss about going to bed.'
Cass bit her lip. Those few quiet moments at the end of the day with Jodie were some of her most precious, and private. She enjoyed being with her daughter, chatting softly, soothing her into sleep with quiet laughter, banishing as far as she could night's shadows. The thought of this man, this stranger intruding into their time together was almost unbearable.
It was physically painful to her to see him with the child, winning her affection for selfish, degrading motives. She decided she would rather not watch, and went back into the kitchen, running water into the sink with angry energy.
She didn't realise she was no longer alone, until, having rinsed the last dish, she turned away to dry her hands and saw, with a start, that he was leaning in the doorway watching her, his hazel eyes inscrutable.