Had he always spoken in clichés? she wondered bitterly.
One drink, she thought, and then she’d go.
At the bar, which was a popular watering hole for City types, Jack ordered a margarita, but to his chagrin Tara insisted on an iced tonic water.
‘Come on, darling,’ he said impatiently. ‘You don’t have to play the Puritan with me.’
‘This is all I want.’
‘Oh, very well.’ He picked up both glasses and took them to a corner table.
‘So,’ he said, as she unwillingly took the seat opposite to him. ‘My lovely Tara—and not wearing any rings, I see,’ he added, taking her hand and studying it. ‘I thought Daddy would have married you off to some nice safe executive by now.’
‘No,’ she said, releasing herself, and fighting the impulse to wipe her fingers on her skirt. ‘He lets me make my own choices—and my own mistakes.’
A more sensitive man might have twitched, but Jack’s smile remained undimmed.
‘So are you still beavering away industriously at Marchant Southern?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m an associate now.’
‘An associate, eh?’ he repeated with exaggerated admiration. ‘There’s posh.’ He leaned towards her. ‘You know, it’s bloody amazing, running into you like this.’
Not, she thought, as amazing as you think. We were set up.
‘I’ve often wondered what happened to you—how you were getting on.’ He looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘I even thought about calling you a couple of times, but I wasn’t sure what reception I’d get. And now here we are.’
‘Yes.’ Tara sipped her tonic water, reflecting that her fictional headache was now a fact.
‘So what were you doing at tonight’s bash?’ His eyes were curious.
Tara drank some more tonic. ‘Showing the company flag.’
‘Then maybe you should have hung on and met the amazing Caroline after all—although I don’t think she’ll need any help choosing her team,’ he added, with a faint smirk. ‘She’s a formidable lady, even if she is a bit long in the tooth.’
‘Long in the tooth?’ Tara echoed, bewildered. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘About the new editor of
Woman’s Voice
,’ Jack said impatiently. ‘People at the party were saying they’d thought the board would go for someone young and thrusting. No one could believe it when they appointed a woman who’ll never see fifty again.
‘Of course, she doesn’t look her age, unless you get really close,’ he added. ‘But she gave herself away by having her son escort her. Everyone knows he’s in his thirties.’
Tara touched the tip of her tongue to dry lips. ‘Are you telling me that Caroline is—Adam Barnard’s mother?’
‘Didn’t you know?’ Jack gave her a pitying look. ‘You weren’t very well briefed, darling.’ He frowned as she pushed back her chair. ‘Where are you going? I thought we might go on to a club—make a night of it.’ He gave her the smile that had once made her heart swoon. ‘Catch up on old times. Invent a few tomorrows.’
She shook her head as she picked up her bag. ‘No, Jack, thanks.’ She gave him a swift, radiant smile. ‘You see, the truth is—’ she lowered her voice ‘—I wouldn’t have you if you came gift-wrapped. But no hard feelings.’
She managed to pick up a cab right away, and asked to be taken back to the hotel. With luck, she thought, the party would still be in full swing, and she would see Adam—find out the truth for herself.
Her luck ran out a couple of minutes later as her driver braked. ‘Bit of a jam up ahead,’ he told her. ‘Looks as if two cars have smacked each other.’
‘Oh, no.’ Tara bit her lip. ‘Can we turn off—go another way?’
‘Not in this traffic, love.’ He switched off the meter, and they sat for twenty minutes until the collision was sorted out and the damaged cars moved.
‘Still up for the West Lane Hotel?’ the driver asked as he started the engine again.
‘No,’ she said. Even now the traffic seemed to be barely moving. And her confidence was fading too. Because, whatever Caroline’s identity, Adam was still going to be married to someone. He’d told her so. I suppose if I was reconciled with Jack, I wouldn’t be on his conscience, she thought wretchedly.
‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I think I’ll just go home instead.’
As she mounted the stairs and rounded the corner of the passage leading to the flat she saw a dark shape sitting on the floor, leaning back against her front door.
For a moment she was frightened, then it unwound itself and stood up, and became familiar.
She said incredulously, ‘Adam? But what are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for you to come home.’ His voice sounded flat, and unutterably weary. ‘I had to stay—to tell you that however much you love him he’s not right for you, Tara. He’ll never make you happy.
‘I saw you with him—watched you leave with him—and I thought I was going to die. I wanted to follow you, to drag you back out of danger and keep you safe.
‘And all the time I was thinking—if he’s what she really wants, if she loves him, and is prepared to forgive him—then I’m going to have to find some way to live with that.
‘So, I thought I’d wait until you came back. Even if you were gone all night, I’d be here when you returned. And I’d talk to you—plead with you to change your mind. Because the Jack Halstons of this world never change. They’re predators, always looking for the next victim. And it broke my heart to think how unhappy he could make you.’
‘But you sent him to me.’ She couldn’t see his face in the dimly lit passage, but she could hear the pain and loneliness in his voice.
‘Because you wouldn’t tell me about him, and I thought that must mean that you still cared—that you were still hurting. Maybe he was the only one who could put the light back in those frightened eyes of yours. I told myself you deserved to make that choice.’
He paused. ‘Why did you go with him?’
‘Because I couldn’t bear to stay,’ she said. ‘And he was an excuse. Because I swore that I’d never let anyone hurt me again—and then found I didn’t even know what pain was until I faced the emptiness of losing you.’
She threw her head back. ‘I stopped caring about Jack a very long time ago, but I went on using his memory as a shield. Out of habit, I think. But when I met you, I realised you can’t shut yourself away from life—from emotion. You have to risk the pain and accept the consequences. Or you’re only half alive.’
She paused. ‘Why didn’t you tell me Caroline was your mother?’
‘I meant to,’ he said. ‘I was going to—as soon as you took one step towards me, instead of two steps back. In the meantime it gave you someone to focus on. Stopped you asking awkward questions about the girl I was going to marry.’
His voice roughened. ‘I knew from the first it wasn’t going to be easy to get close to you. I was terrified if I pushed too hard—came on too strong—I might frighten you. That you might run from me, and I couldn’t risk that.’
He shook his head. ‘I thought if I could present myself to you just as a friend you might start to trust me. To like being with me.
‘I swore I’d be patient—let you dictate the pace—and the terms—but you made it so difficult. I used to walk for miles with Buster, just to put some distance between us, but even then you were in my head every step of the way. My God, I used to fantasise about you naked like some adolescent I used to look across at your house and imagine you there—at the window—waiting for me.’
She gave a little breathless laugh. ‘You don’t know how true your fantasy was. That’s why I tore up your painting—because I thought you’d actually seen me and I was embarrassed.’
There was a silence, then he said carefully, ‘I really wish I’d known that’ He paused. ‘And I’d like to see you now, only the lighting out here makes it difficult.’
‘Would you like to come in—for coffee?’ She was shaking inside, half-joyful, half-scared. She unlocked the door and went in, switching on the lights.
Adam followed, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to face him, his blue eyes scanning her face with heated intensity.
He said, ‘I love you, Tara. And I want you to be my wife. From the moment I saw you, hurtling through the front door in a fury, I knew you were the one. It was that simple.’
Her voice shook. ‘Adam—this is crazy. You—you hardly know me.’
‘Is that a fact? Then how is it I don’t need to ask what your favourite colour is—or what books you read? The music you prefer? Because I already know. I’ve always known about you. You were implanted in my brain when I was born, and all I had to do was find you. And if we’d only met for an hour it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Because you’re my other half. My completion. So don’t tell me it’s too soon, my only love. We’ve wasted too much time already.’
He looked down at her searchingly—pleadingly. ‘I’ll wait for you, Tara, if that’s what it takes. Just as I did tonight, and for as long as you need. Only don’t send me away this time.’
‘No,’ she said, and her lips trembled into a smile. ‘Not again. Never again.’
He kissed her, and the world went away. They clung to each other, half-laughing, half-crying.
‘We were going to have coffee,’ she teased against his lips.
‘No coffee,’ he whispered back. ‘No tea—or orange juice or any other damned thing. Just you—now and for always.’
They left a trail of clothing all the way to the bedroom. For a while they let themselves know the peace of lying in each other’s arms, lovers no longer afraid to speak their love, or to look at each other. Able to smile without shadows.
He began to kiss her delicately, his lips brushing the wing of her eyebrow, the curve of her cheek, the pulse in her throat, and she felt her breathing quicken as the sweet, erotic tension began to build within her.
His hands were gentle as he began to love her, caressing her breasts, coaxing the rosy nipples to stand proud and firm under the subtle play of his fingers. He moulded the slenderness of her waist, showing her, with laughter in his eyes, how he could nearly span it with one hand, then lingered over the flat plane of her stomach and the graceful curve of her hips, before, finally, claiming the moist heated silk of her parted thighs.
Her body arched to meet him, the breath sighing from her throat as he touched her, the cool fingers stroking the tiny crest of her womanhood, creating slow tides of pure sensation, as if she was the sea and he the moon that drew her.
She moaned softly in delight, her hands seeking him in their turn, holding him, adoring the male power of him, then guiding him to her. Into her.
For a moment they were both still, as though acknowledging the miracle of their coming together. Then they began to move, their bodies creating their own intimate harmony, rising and falling, giving and receiving. Inciting, too, and withholding, balancing on some knife-edge of pleasure.
Until, at last, control became impossible, and there was only rapture.
A long time later Adam fetched wine, and they drank together out of the same glass, and talked softly about the life they would have together—and, with wonder, how impossible it had once seemed.
‘I thought I’d lost you after I rushed you into bed,’ Adam confessed. ‘I hoped so badly that you’d tell me you loved me—but instead we were further apart than ever.’
She framed his face tenderly between her hands. ‘I was just being noble. Handing you back to the woman you were promised to.’
‘And all the time it was you.’ He kissed the tip of her nose, then paused. ‘Tara—if I’d told you that first night we had dinner together, what would you have said?’
‘I don’t know,’ she told him honestly. ‘I knew there was—something powerful there, but I’d spent a long time telling myself that love wasn’t for me. Maybe I’d have stayed and listened. More probably I’d have run.’
She lifted herself on to an elbow. ‘Where are we going to live?’
‘I have a house in Hampstead,’ he said. ‘I thought you might look at it. See if you like it.’
‘How big is it?’
‘Big enough for two.’ He smiled at her. ‘Or more.’
She laughed, stretching luxuriously. ‘Sounds ideal.’
‘And for weekends we’ll have Dean’s Mooring,’ he went on.
‘But you were going to develop it...?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I abandoned that plan some time ago. Decided the place deserved another chance at family life. And I’m getting a lot of hassle from Bernie as a consequence. She saw it in commercial terms. I had to tell her my future happiness depended on it’
‘Oh,’ Tara said, as light dawned. ‘I see now. Bernie’s your partner—your
business
partner.’ She grinned. ‘Well, Leo was right. She’s certainly gorgeous.’
‘Her husband and two sons obviously think so,’ Adam said drily.
‘Why did you change your mind—about Dean’s Mooring?’
‘Because of you,’ he said. ‘And because the ambience of the place had started to get to me, in spite of the past I’d always thought of Dean’s Mooring in terms of anger and unhappiness, and hated it. But being there with you made me see it didn’t have to be like that.’