The Mistress's Child

‘Why, for a moment there I thought you didn’t remember me, Lisi,’ he mocked softly.

Not remember him? She would have to be dead not to have remembered him, even if she hadn’t had the living proof to remind her every single day of her life.

She kept her face impassive, but in reality she was greedilyregistering every detail of that arrogantly beautiful face. Thinking of her son’s face and searching for heartbreaking signs of similarity—but thank God there was none. His lightly tanned golden skin was so very different from her son’s natural pallor, as were Philip’s startling emerald eyes. They made the aquamarine hue of Tim’s look so diluted in comparison.

And then her heart began to race and the inside of her mouth turned to sandpaper as painful questions began to buzz silently around her head. Why was he here?

Did he know?

The foundations of her world threatened to rock on their axis, but she kept her face as calm as his. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know!

‘Not remember you? Of course I remember you,’ she said, in as bland a voice as she could manage—she even tacked on a weak attempt at a smile as she met the emerald ice of his stare. ‘I always remember—’

‘All the men you’ve slept with?’ he challenged, unable to resist the taunt, cruelly pleased by the sting of colour which brought roses to the whiteness of her skin.

She felt heat flaring across her cheeks, but that was her only outward reaction to his remark. How blatant, to say something as provocative as that, she thought indignantly—especially when you considered his track record. And all the while looking at her with that cold, studied insolence which did nothing to mar the sheer beauty of his face.

She bit back the temptation to remind him that there had been no sleep involved. He had not wanted to sleep with her—and for very good reason. She repressed a shudder as she was reminded of what a gullible fool she had been.

Far better to change the subject completely. To find out what he wanted and to see the back of him.

‘I was about to say that I always remember clients—’ She wished that she could bite the word back. It seemed so cold and unfeeling in view of what she had shared, until she reminded herself that they had shared nothing—except their bodies.

‘Clients,’ she continued valiantly, ‘who have involved this company in as many deals as you once did. You brought us a lot of business, Mr Caprice. We sold a lot of properties through you.’

So she remembered his surname, too. Philip didn’t know whether to be flattered or not, though he was certainly surprised. He suspected that he had been just one in a long line of men she had enticed into her bed—a woman who looked like that would have no trouble doing so. Did she have a photographic memory for all their names?

He studied her—taking all the time in the world to do so—and why not? Hadn’t she haunted his memory with bitter-sweet recall? Given him the acrid taste of guilt in his mouth every time he’d thought of her in nearly four years? Even though he had tried his hardest not to think of her. Tried and failed every time.

But Lisi Vaughan had been a fever in his blood for far too long now.

His eyes skimmed over her. Time had not made much of a mark—certainly not on her face, which was probably the most beautiful he had ever seen. A face completely devoid of make-up, which gave it an odd kind of purity which seemed so at odds with her innate sensuality.

The eyes he remembered because they were icy and aquamarine—unique. Slanting, siren’s eyes, half shielded by a forest of thick, dark eyelashes, which made her look so minxy. The darkness of her lashes was echoed in her hair—deep, dark ebony—as black as the coals of hell itself and made even blacker by its dramatic contrast to the whiteness of her skin. She looked like a witch, he thought, a beautiful temptress of a witch with a body which few men would see outside paradise.

He knitted his eyebrows together almost imperceptibly. Not that her body was on display much today, but some things you couldn’t disguise—even though she had done her level best with some plain black skirt and high-necked blouse which made her look almost dowdy.

No. On second thoughts—certainly not dowdy. Philip swallowed as she moved her head back, as if trying to escape his scrutiny, and the movement drew attention to the unforgettable swell of her breasts. Her waist was as tiny as ever, but her breasts were slightly fuller, he thought, and then was punished with the heavy jackknifing of desire in response.

Lisi could feel her heartbeat growing thready and erratic. She wished he wouldn’t look at her that way. It reminded her of too much she would rather forget. Of tangled limbs and the sheen of sweat, the sweet, fleeting pleasure of fulfilment followed by the shattering pain of rejection. He had no right to look at her that way.

She quashed down the desire to tell him to get out, and forced a pleasantry out instead. He was not the kind of man to be pushed. If she wanted him out of there—and she most certainly did—then he must come to the conclusion that it had been his idea to leave and not hers.

Keep it cool and keep it professional, she told herself. ‘Now. How can I help you?’

He gave her a grim smile, not trusting himself to answer for a moment, and then he lifted his eyebrows in mocking question. ‘What a sweetly expressed offer,’ he murmured.

‘Why, thank you,’ she said demurely.

‘Do you say that to all the men?’

‘Most of them are grown-up enough not to read anything into it.’ She matched his remark with a dry tone of her own and then fixed her eyes on his unwaveringly, trying not to be distracted by that dazzling green gaze. ‘So. Are you interested in a property for sale, Mr Caprice?’

Her unemotional attitude was having precisely the wrong effect on him. ‘Oh, what’s with all this ‘‘Mr’’ stuff?’ Again he felt the sting of life to his senses, but ruthlessly he subdued them and gave a short laugh instead. ‘Come on, Lisi,’ he purred. ‘I think we can dispense with the formalities, don’t you? Surely we are intimate enough with each other to use first names?’

‘Were intimate,’ she corrected, and the heat in her face intensified as she was forced to acknowledge it aloud. ‘Past tense. Remember?’

How could he possibly forget? And wasn’t that why he had come here today—to change the past back to present? To rid himself of her pervasive and unforgettable sensual legacy. Wouldn’t a whole night lost in the scented curves of her siren’s body mean that he would be free of the guilt and the longing for ever? Sensations which had somehow chained him to her, and made him unable to move on.

He looked around the office, where the Christmas decorations were glittering silver and gold. In the corner stood a small artificial tree which was decked with shining crimson-red baubles and tiny white fairy lights.

He found Christmas almost unbearable—he had forgottenits poignant lure while he had been away. You could tell yourself that it was corny. Commercial. That all its true values were forgotten these days—but it still got to you every time.

And this was his first Christmas back in England since working in Maraban, where of course they had not celebratedthe feast at all. He had not even had to think about it.

He was slowly beginning to realise that living in the Middle East had protected him from all the things he did not want to think about. And Christmas brought with it all kinds of things he would rather not think about. Feelings, mostly. Feelings of remorse. The pain of loss and the pain of wanting. Or, rather, of not wanting. For too long now, his body had felt as unresponding as a block of ice until he had walked in here today and seen her, and now his groin was on fire with need. Damn her, he thought again. Damn her!

He gritted his teeth, his gaze moving to her hand. She wore no wedding ring, nor any pale sign that one might have been recently removed, either. But women these days lived with men at the drop of a hat and he needed to find out if she was involved with someone. But even if she did have another man—would that honestly prevent him from doing what he intended to do?

He sat down in the chair opposite her desk, spreading out his long legs and not missing the thinning of her mouth as she watched him do so. He coolly crossed one leg over the other and felt a jerk of triumph as he saw her eyes darken. She wants me, he thought and his heart thundered in his chest. She still wants me.

‘I must say that I’m surprised to see you still working here,’ he observed, looking around the office of the small estate agency.

Lisi stiffened, warning herself not to get defensive. It was none of his business. She owed him nothing, least of all the truth.

‘I just happen to like selling houses,’ she said.

‘I guess you do.’ It had been another aspect of her character which he had been unable to fault—her unerring ability to match the right property to the right client. It had been what had brought him back to this small English villagetime after time as he’d sought valuable property for a clutch of wealthy buyers. In the beginning he had always dealt with Jonathon, the owner and senior negotiator, but after a while Lisi had taken over. Beautiful Lisi, with her ready smile and soft, sympathetic manner.

Part of him had not expected to find her here. He had imagined that she would be running her own place by now—and it was more than a little disconcerting to see her at the same desk, in the same office. As if time had stood still, and she with it. He gave her a questioning look. ‘Most people would have moved on by now—to bigger and brighter things.’

And leave her safety net? Her cushion?

Her job had been the one familiar constant in those dark, far-off days when she had wondered just how she was going to cope—how could she ever have left it? ‘Not me,’ she said staunchly.

‘Why ever not?’ he asked quietly, bemused—because she had not only been good at her job, she had been ambitious, too.

She didn’t break the gaze, even though her stomach was churning over with anxiety, as if he somehow knew her secret and was just biding his time before he confronted her with it. Distract him, she thought. ‘Why on earth should my job prospects interest you?’

‘Call it curiosity,’ he told her softly. ‘Ex-lovers always interest me.’

Lisi repressed a shudder. She didn’t feel like his ex-lover—she felt like a woman who had shared his bed under false pretences before he had disappeared dramatically from her life. But she didn’t want to analyse that—not now and not with him here. Instead she took his question at face value.

‘I love my job,’ she said staunchly. ‘It’s convenient and it’s local—and there’s no reason why I should travel miles to find something which is already on my doorstep, is there?’

‘I guess not.’ But he couldn’t help wondering why she had settled for such steady small-town life when she was still so young and beautiful. His eyes were drawn irresistibly to the lush lines of her mouth, knowing that he would never be satisfied until he got her out of his system one last time.

For good.