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  She walked purposefully to the front door and unlocked it, pulling it open and making it clear that she wanted Sean to leave.

  ‘I want you back at your desk tomorrow morning,’ Sean warned her curtly.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I’m not going to be there,’ Kate responded, equally curtly.

  ‘I warned you, Kate—’ Sean began.

  ‘Tomorrow is Saturday, Sean,’ she reminded him dryly. ‘We don’t work weekends.’

  There was a small, telling pause, during which Kate wondered what the woman who now shared his life thought about the fact that he obviously worked seven days a week, and then he said, ‘Very well. Monday morning, then, Kate. Be there, or face the consequences.’ He walked past her and out of the door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘NO!’ ANGRILY KATE sat up in bed. It was three o’clock on Monday morning and she needed to be asleep, not lying there thinking about Sean, remembering how it had felt when he—

  ‘No!’ she protested again, groaning in anguish as she rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. But it was no use; neither her memories nor her feelings were going to be ignored.

  Well, if she couldn’t ignore them then at least she could use them to remind herself of how Sean had hurt her. To inoculate herself against him doing so again, because on Friday, when he had kissed her, she had nearly forgiven him...

  She could feel the sharp quiver of sensation aching through her body. So her body remembered that Sean had been its lover, she acknowledged angrily—well, her heart had an equally good memory, if not an even better one, and what it remembered was the pain he had caused it.

  But the love between them had been so...so wonderful. Sean had been a passionate and exciting lover who had taught her things about her own body, as well as his, and their mutual capacity for pleasure had been something she had never even dreamed could exist.

  Why was she torturing herself like this? And if she was doing it then why didn’t she do it properly and remember just what it had felt like that first time he had made love to her?

  After she had left her aunt and uncle’s house—she had never thought of it as home—she had moved into Sean’s small flat, but he had told her that he was not going to make love to her properly until they were married. Through the weeks and months when he had courted her he had steadfastly refused to take their passionately intense love-play to the conclusion she ached for, warning her thrillingly—for her—that he was afraid that if he did so she would become pregnant.

  ‘There’s no way my baby is going to be born a bastard like I was,’ he had said grimly.

  He had been reluctant to talk to her about his childhood at first, but she had slowly coaxed the painful truth out of him, and they had shared with one another their dream of creating for their own children the idyllic, love-filled childhood neither of them had known.

  ‘But we could use some contraception,’ she had suggested, pink-cheeked.

  ‘We could, but we aren’t going to,’ Sean had replied with that dangerously exciting hunger in his voice. ‘Because when we make love, when you give yourself to me, Kathy, I want it to be skin to skin, not with a damn piece of rubber between us,’ he had told her earthily.

  They had married in the small country town where her own long-dead mother had originally come from—a wonderfully romantic gesture on Sean’s part, so far as Kate had been concerned. And in order to marry there they had had to live in the town for three weeks prior to the wedding. The completion of some work project had given Sean enough money to rent a small house for them.

  Three weeks was an eternity when you were as passionately in love and as hungry for one other as they had been then, Kate acknowledged. But Sean had made sure that they did wait. He had had that kind of discipline and determination even then.

  They had spent their wedding night completely alone in the small rented house. And it had been so perfect that even thinking about it now she could feel her eyes filling with tears of emotion.

  ‘Mummy.’

  The voice interrupted her wayward thoughts. Immediately Kate got out of her bed and hurried into Oliver’s room.

  ‘What is it, darling?’ she asked him lovingly.

  ‘My tummy hurts,’ he complained.

  Kate tried not to sigh. Oliver was prone to upset tummies. Having checked that he was okay, she sat with him and soothed him, tensing when unexpectedly he asked her, ‘Mummy, when’s Sean going to come and see us again?’

  This was the first time Oliver had mentioned Sean, and she had managed to convince herself that her son had completely forgotten about him.

  ‘I don’t know, Oliver.’ That was all she could find to say. She felt unable to tell Oliver that he would probably never see Sean again, even though she knew she ought to do so. She had always tried to answer his questions honestly, but this time she could not, and the reason for that was the look of shining anticipation in her little boy’s eyes.

  By the time Oliver had gone back to sleep she was wide awake herself, her heart jumping uncomfortably inside her chest.

  It couldn’t be possible for Oliver to somehow sense that Sean was his father, could it? Her little boy couldn’t have taken so uncharacteristically well to Sean because he felt some kind of special bond between them?

  ‘It’s a wise child that knows its own father,’ Kate muttered grimly to herself, clinging to the old saying to protect her from her own wild imaginings.

  * * *

  Apprehensively, Kate parked her car and walked across the car park. The last person she wanted to see was Sean. Why had fate been so unkind as to bring him back into her life? She hated knowing that she was going to be working for him, but, as Carol had pointed out to her when she had told her what had happened, she could not afford to risk him carrying out his threat of pursuing her through the courts.

  She nibbled anxiously on her bottom lip as she hurried into her office. Oliver had assured her that his tummy was better when he had woken up this morning, but she had still warned the nursery school teacher that he hadn’t felt well during the night when she had dropped him off that morning.

  ‘Kate!’ Laura gave her a beaming smile as she came into the office and saw her. ‘You’ve changed your mind and you’re going to stay after all!’

  ‘You could say that! Our new boss made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ Kate answered lightly, and then realised what she had done when she saw the curiosity in Laura’s eyes.

  ‘He did?’ Laura sighed enviously. ‘Don’t you think he’s just the most gorgeously, dangerously sexy-looking man you have ever seen?’ she added dreamily.

  ‘No, I do not!’ Kate responded, fighting to ignore the sudden backflip performed by her heart.

  ‘Well, if that’s true you are the only female working here who doesn’t,’ Laura told her forthrightly. ‘And when you think that he’s single and unattached...’

  Now her heart was turning somersaults. ‘Says who?’ she challenged her friend and colleague.

  ‘John,’ Laura informed her smugly. ‘Apparently Sean told him himself.’

  Kate wondered what Laura would say if she were to tell her that, contrary to what Sean had told John, he had one very substantial attachment in the form of her son!

  * * *

  Sean was frowning as he ended his telephone conversation with his accountant. But it wasn’t his business affairs that were causing him problems. He felt as though he was on an emotional see-saw—something more appropriate for a callow youth than a man of his own age. Moreover, a man who considered himself totally fireproof as far as his emotions and his control over them were concerned.

  When he had ended his marriage to Kate he had closed himself off completely from everything that concerned or involved her. He had deliberately and clinically expunged everything about her from his life. From his life, may
be, but what about from his heart?

  Nothing had changed, he reminded himself angrily. The same reasons why he had divorced her still existed today, and would continue to exist for ever. Sean knew that he could never alter them. Nor forget them!

  Pushing back his chair with an unusually uncoordinated movement, he got up and strode to the office window.

  Was that really true? And if it was then what the hell had he been doing this weekend? He did not normally spend his weekends in toy stores, did he? And he certainly did not spend them doing idiotic things like buying ridiculously expensive train sets.

  Sean closed his eyes and pushed his hands into his pockets, balling his fists in angry tension.

  Okay, so he hadn’t deliberately set out to buy the train set. And he had had every excuse to be in the large department store as he had gone there in order to replace some household items. It had been mere coincidence that the toy department was on the same floor as the television set he had been looking at. He didn’t really need to put himself through rigorous self-analysis just because he had bought a train set, did he? After all, he had only bought the damn thing because he had felt embarrassed not to do so when the sales assistant had mistakenly thought he was interested in it!

  And then he had got rid of it at the first opportunity.

  A gleam of reluctant amusement lit his eyes as he recalled the expression on the face of the young boy he had given his embarrassing purchase to. His tired-looking mother had protested at first, but Sean had insisted. He just hoped she didn’t think he had had any kind of ulterior motive for doing what he had done. Not that she wouldn’t have been right to be suspicious of his motives—they certainly would not withstand too much scrutiny! Dwelling on the past and buying toys just because... Just because what? Just because the warm weight of Kate’s son in his arms had reactivated memories from a time in his life that...

  A time in his life that was over, Sean tried to remind himself. But the stark truth was already confronting him, even if he did not want to recognise or acknowledge it.

  * * *

  ‘Fancy going to the pub for lunch?’

  Kate shook her head without lifting her gaze from her computer screen. ‘Can’t, I’m afraid, Laura,’ she responded. ‘I want to get this finished, and anyway I’ve brought sandwiches.’

  Lunch at the pub with her co-workers would have been fun and relaxing, but as a single parent Kate was always conscious of having to watch her budget.

  After Laura had gone, Kate got up and collected her sandwiches. The company provided a small restroom, equipped with tea- and coffee-making facilities and a microwave, for the workforce to use during their lunch and tea breaks. She had just reached the end of the corridor and had started to descend the narrow flight of stairs when suddenly Sean came out of one of the lower level offices and started to hurry up the stairs towards her.

  To Kate’s dismay her reaction was immediate and intense, and unfortunately a relic from the days when they had been a couple. So much so, in fact, that she had taken the first of the few steps that would put her right in his path before she could stop herself.

  Immediately she realised what she was doing and froze in pink-cheeked humiliation as a visual memory came vividly alive inside her head. A memory of Sean rushing up the stairs of their small house to grab her in his arms and swing her round in excitement before sliding her down the length of his body and beginning to kiss her with fierce sexual hunger.

  Later they had gone on to celebrate the news he had brought her—that he had secured a new and lucrative contract—in bed, with the champagne he had brought home...

  Red-faced, she pulled her thoughts back under control,

  ‘Kathy!’ Sean demanded grimly as he saw her shocked expression. ‘What the hell’s...? What’s wrong?’

  Alarmed, Kate tried to move away, but Sean stopped her, curling his fingers round her bare arm.

  ‘It’s not Kathy any more,’ she reminded him sharply. ‘It’s Kate! And as for what’s wrong—do you really need to ask me that?’

  She might be Kate now, but Kathy was still there inside her, Kate was forced to acknowledge. Because in direct contradiction of her angry words her body responded to Sean’s touch. Was it because no one had touched her since he had ended their marriage that her caress-starved flesh was quivering with such intense and voluptuous pleasure? Was it because it was Sean who was touching her? Or was it simply that when he had kissed her he had unleashed memories her body could not ignore? Kate wondered frantically.

  Was it a past need her flesh was responding to, or was it a present one? She knew what she wanted the answer to be! But somehow she couldn’t stop herself from stepping closer to him, exhaling on an unsteady sigh of pleasure. Sean was looking at her and she was looking back at him, with the mesmeric intensity of his blue gaze dizzying her.

  She could feel his thumb caressing the inner curve of her elbow, just where he knew how vulnerable and responsive her flesh was to his touch—so vulnerable and responsive that when he had used to kiss her there her whole body had melted with wanton longing.

  It would be so easy, so natural, to walk into his arms now and feel them close protectively around her. To look into his eyes and wait for the familiar look of hot eagerness darken them, whilst his mouth curled into that special smile he had...

  A door opened noisily, bringing her back to reality. Abruptly she stepped back from Sean, her face burning. Maybe years ago she had not needed to hide her feelings from him—her lover, her husband, her best friend—nor her longing and sexual excitement when he looked at her and touched her. But things were different now, Kate reminded herself as she pulled away from him.

  ‘What’s that?’ she heard him demanding as he released her and frowned at the box she was carrying.

  ‘My lunch.’

  ‘Lunch? In that?’ he derided grimly as he looked at the small plastic container. ‘I should have thought for your son’s sake you would want to make sure you ate properly.’

  As she listened to his ill-informed and critical words, her passionate response to him a few minutes earlier was swamped by outrage and anger.

  ‘For your information—not that you have any right to question anything I choose to do any more, Sean—it just so happens that it is for Ollie’s sake that this is my lunch,’ she told him, waving the plastic container defiantly. ‘It costs money to bring up a child—not that you’d know or care anything about that, since you chose not to burden yourself with children,’ she added sarcastically. ‘And a packed lunch is a lot less expensive than going out to the pub. What’s wrong, Sean?’ she demanded when she saw his fixed expression. ‘Or can I guess? You might come across to everyone else here as a caring, sharing employer, but I know different. And I also know, before you remind me, that you are rich enough to eat in the world’s most expensive restaurants these days. But there was a time when even a sandwich was a luxury for you.’

  As she saw his face tighten with anger Kate wondered if she had gone too far, but she wasn’t going to back down, and she hoped that the determined tilt of her chin told him so.

  ‘I imagine that your child has a father,’ Sean said coldly. ‘Why isn’t he providing for his upbringing?’

  Kate looked at him in silence for a few seconds, bitterly aware of how much he was hurting her and how little he cared, and then told him evenly, ‘Oliver’s father isn’t providing for him financially—or in any other way—because he didn’t want him.’

  Unable to risk saying anything more without her fragile control being destroyed, Kate stepped past him and hurried down the stairs.

  Sean watched her go. Packed lunches, a too-thin body, tension and worry that showed in her eyes. Even if she thought she had it well hidden, her life now was a world away from the luxuries he could have surrounded her with.

  Had she thought of him at all when she was
with the man who had fathered her son?

  Grimly Sean shut down his thoughts, all too aware of not just how inappropriate they were but also how extremely dangerous.

  * * *

  All through her lunch hour, and the two hours following it, Kate couldn’t concentrate on anything other than Sean. Her heart was racing at twice its normal rate and she was so on edge that her muscles were aching with the tension she was imposing on them. And the situation could only get worse. She knew that.

  Only the knowledge that she had had to protect the life of the baby growing inside her had given her the strength to get through the pain-filled months after Sean had ended their marriage. What was more, she’d had to make the best of it for Oliver’s sake. Her love was going to be the only parental love he was going to have.

  She had discovered she was pregnant two months after Sean had announced that he wanted a divorce and walked out on her. She had fainted in a store, exhausted by the brutality of her grief.

  Until then she hadn’t cared if she lived or died. No, that was not true. Given the choice, she would have preferred death. She hadn’t been able to imagine how she could go on living without Sean, whose callous words—‘You’ll soon get over me and meet someone else and start producing those bloody babies you want so much’—had cut her to the heart. The only man whose babies she had wanted was his. But he no longer loved her. The house they had shared was empty and she’d been living—existing—in rented accommodation, fiercely refusing to take any money from Sean. She had had no idea where he was living. And then she had found out that she was having his child. The child he had told her he did not want!

  It was in that knowledge that she had made her decision not to let Sean know she was pregnant. He had rejected her and the pain had almost destroyed her. She wasn’t going to inflict that kind of pain on her baby.

  She had promised herself that she would find a way to stop loving Sean, and when Oliver had been born she had thought that she had. Until now.