His Child: The Mistress's Child / Nathan's Child / D'Alessandro's Child. Catherine Spencer

      Her lacklustre words belied the shining darkness in her eyes and the need to kiss her overpowered him. ‘You want me to,’ he whispered back.

      ‘No—’

      But he kissed the word away with his mouth, feeling its unresisting softness become as hard and as urgent as his.

      She rocked against him—all the cold and the hunger and frustration she had experienced letting itself go as his mouth explored hers with a thoroughness guaranteed to set her on the path to inevitable seduction. She felt the prickling sensation as her breasts grew heavy and aroused, and a long-forgotten molten sweetness began to build up at the very core of her.

      Her mind was spinning. She wanted to burrow her hands up beneath his sweater and to feel the warm bare silk of his skin once more, but she had been a mother for too long to let her own wishes be paramount. For one split-second she imagined what could—would—happen next, if she didn’t put a stop to it.

      They couldn’t possibly let things progress naturally and make love in front of the fire—Tim might walk in at any second. Which left going to her bedroom and the embarrassment of silently getting undressed, of having to keep their voices—and moans—low, just in case they woke Tim.

      She tore herself away.

      What was she thinking of? She didn’t want to make love to him!

      He had never been so frustrated in his life. ‘Lisi—’

      ‘No!’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘I am not going to have sex with you, Philip. The first time was bad enough—’

      ‘I beg to differ,’ he murmured, thinking how magnificent she looked when she was angry.

      She carried on as if he hadn’t interrupted. ‘When I discovered you were married I felt like hell—but at least I thought that you had been so overcome with desire that you had been unable to stop yourself. Desire for me,’ she finished deliberately.

      His eyes narrowed as he tried to work out exactly what she was getting at. ‘I’m not sure that I understand you, Lisi.’

      ‘It didn’t even have to be me, did it? I was just a vessel for your more basic needs!’ she carried on wildly. ‘Anyone would have done! Your wife was sick and you were frustrated—that’s what really happened, isn’t it, Philip?’

      He went rigid. ‘My God,’ he said, in disgust. ‘You really know how to twist the knife, don’t you?’ He picked up his overcoat and walked to the front door and opened it without another word.

      She wanted to call after him, to take back the hateful words which had seemed to come pouring out of her mouth like poison, but one look at the icy expression on his face as he turned round made her realise that it would be a futile gesture.

      He gave a cold, hard smile. ‘If your idea was to insult me so much that I would go away and never come back again, then you have just very nearly succeeded,’ he said.

      And, bizarrely, the thought that her hurt pride and resentment might have cost Tim a relationship with his father wounded her far more than anything else. ‘Philip—’

      He shook his head. ‘Please don’t say any more—I don’t think I could take it. I’d better just tell you that this particular campaign won’t work. You see, Tim is far more important to me than the obvious loathing you feel for me. I’m here, Lisi—and I’m here for the duration. Better get used to it.’

      And without another word, he was gone.

      CHAPTER NINE

      MARIAN Reece pursed her lips together in a silent whistle. ‘Good heavens—just how much do you think he’s spending on that property?’

      Lisi looked up from her computer, and, lo and behold—another upmarket van was cruising past the office towards The Old Rectory. What was it this time? Lisi peered out of the window and read from the gold lettering on the side of the van. ‘Tricia Brady; Superior Interiors’. ‘He’s obviously having the place decorated now,’ she said, with a sigh.

      Marian’s eyes goggled. ‘And how!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve heard of her—she must have come all the way down from London. This early in the New Year, too—I’m surprised she wasn’t fully booked.’

      ‘She probably was,’ said Lisi gloomily. ‘She’s probably got long blonde hair and legs up to her armpits and Philip probably just outrageously batted those beautiful eyes at her and she probably cancelled every engagement in her diary!’

      Marian gave her a shrewd look. ‘Do I detect a sign of the green-eyed monster?’ she asked.

      Lisi replaced the gloomy look with a fairly good impression of devil-may-care. ‘Not at all,’ she said airily. ‘I expect that’s exactly what happened. Either that or he’s paying well over the odds.’

      ‘He must be,’ said Marian. ‘It’s only the middle of January—and already he’s transformed the place! I’ve never known builders be quite so willing, or so efficient!’

      ‘No,’ said Lisi tonelessly.

      Marian shot her a glance. ‘How’s it going between you two?’

      ‘It’s not between us two,’ replied Lisi carefully. ‘The only relationship I have with Philip is that we happen to share a child.’

      ‘Only?’ spluttered Marian, then sighed. ‘And is it…amicable?’

      Lisi sighed. She had vowed to keep it that way, but ever since her outburst on Christmas night he had been keeping his distance from her. He had been round three times to see Tim, and the atmosphere had been awkward, to say the least.

      For a start, the house always seemed so much smaller when he was in it, and the unspoken tension between them was so strong that Lisi was surprised that Tim wasn’t made uncomfortable by it.

      But no. Tim didn’t seem to notice anything or anyone—he was so enraptured by the man he had almost immediately taken to calling ‘Daddy’.

      The first time he’d done it, Lisi had spoken to him gently at bedtime that night. ‘You don’t have to say Daddy if you don’t want to,’ she suggested gently. ‘Philip won’t mind being called just Philip, I’m sure.’

      He didn’t answer and she wasn’t even sure if he had registered her words or not, but he obviously had, because at the end of Saturday’s visit Philip paused on his way out of the front door, his eyes spitting with undisguised rage.

      ‘Did you tell Tim not to call me Daddy?’ he demanded.

      She sighed. ‘That’s not what I said at all.’

      ‘That’s what he told me!’

      She kept her voice low, tried to stay calm, though heaven only knew—it wasn’t easy. ‘I merely suggested that he might find it easier to call you Philip. For the time being—’

      ‘Until you decided that the time was right, I suppose?’ he questioned witheringly. ‘And when would that be, Lisi? Some time? Never?’

      She stuck to her guns. She was not going to let his hostility get to her. She was not. ‘I just didn’t want him to feel that he was being railroaded into anything—’

      ‘By me?’

      ‘Not by anyone!’ she retorted, her voice rising. ‘It’s just such a huge thing to suddenly start calling you Daddy!’

      He had moved a little closer, his body language just short of menacing—so how come she didn’t feel in the least bit intimidated by it? How come she wanted to tell him to forget their stupid rows and to kiss her like he had done on Christmas night?

      ‘Or is it just that you feel threatened by it, Lisi?’

      ‘Threatened? Me?’

      ‘Yes, you! Unwilling