Phantom Marriage. PENNY JORDAN

she had been trying to avoid for weeks.

      ‘Meaning?’ she forced herself to say.

      ‘You know what I mean,’ Chas replied in a low voice.

      ‘And if I don’t agree?’

      His answer was simply to glower at her before flinging the door open and striding angrily through it.

      She had known it had to come, and Chas’s attitude had only reinforced all her own doubts about the feasibility of her continuing to work for him, but she could not deny that giving up her job at this particular minute in time was something she simply could not afford to do.

      ‘Why are you looking like that, Mummy?’ Simon demanded suddenly. ‘Does your tummy feel funny too?’

      ‘Sort of,’ she agreed wryly. ‘Now come on, you’d better go and lie down if you aren’t feeling well.’

      It was early evening when she finally decided to ring Susan to accept her invitation for the weekend. They had nothing to lose by going, Tara decided, and besides, she felt totally unable to cope with the twins’ disappointment were she to refuse.

      Susan sounded ecstatic when she thanked her for the invitation and accepted it.

      ‘You’ll have to give me directions on how to find the place, though,’ Tara warned her. ‘Where did you say it was?’

      ‘In the Cotswolds,’ Susan told her airily. ‘But don’t worry about getting there. I’ll send someone to pick you up if you just tell me what time would be convenient, and give me your address.’

      On the point of refusing, Tara remembered the luxurious BMW she had seen outside the school, and contemplated the luxury of being driven in such a vehicle. Susan had mentioned her chauffeur and doubtless this task would be given to him.

      They chatted for several minutes, and when Tara mentioned her job Susan was obviously impressed. ‘Chas Saunders?’ she exclaimed in tones of awe. ‘You lucky thing! He’s incredibly sexy, isn’t he? I’ve never met him myself, but I’ve heard about him.’

      ‘Who hasn’t?’ Tara agreed drily. Chas and his female companion of the moment were popular gossip column fodder.

      ‘You’re not involved there yourself, are you?’ Susan asked, obviously picking up the undertone in her voice.

      Tara’s wry, ‘Chas is strictly a one-night-stand man,’ was an evasive answer, but it seemed to satisfy her friend, who laughed and said teasingly, ‘Yeah, but what a night!’ before announcing that she had to go as she could hear Piers crying.

      With the mercurial resilience of children the world over, Simon declared in the morning that he felt well enough to return to school and Tara was able to go back to the studio.

      She drove there with mounting dread. Chas was alone in the huge room when she opened the door. He looked up, scowled, and then ignored her as she removed her jacket and hung it on the coat-stand. They were supposed to be doing some outdoor shots, so she had dressed comfortably in jeans, and a checked shirt worn underneath a thick, sleveless sheepskin waistcoat.

      When she had removed her coat she turned round to find Chas assessing her slim jean-clad body thoughtfully. Despite her resolve colour rose in her cheeks. She turned away, intending to put the kettle on, but Chas’s ‘Tara,’ halted her in her tracks.

      ‘Look,’ he began irately, ‘I’m sorry about yesterday. I lost my cool, a fatal tactical error.’ He grimaced wryly, running lean fingers through his sun-streaked fair hair. ‘God, I thought I’d learned years ago not to stampede my prey, but it seems I was wrong. You’re determined to spend this weekend with your friend?’

      Dry-mouthed, Tara nodded her head. What was he going to do? Fire her?

      ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he surprised her by saying in a harsh voice. ‘I thought you knew me better than that. I’ve never had to apply pressure to get a woman into bed with me in the past, and I’m damned well not starting now. I want you, Tara,’ he said frankly, ‘but I want you willingly. Sex should be a mutual pleasure, not something to be endured. Why?’ he asked helplessly. ‘Is it just me who revolts you, or is it men in general? You’ve been married, had kids—hell…’

      ‘I’m sorry, Chas,’ Tara broke in quietly. ‘And no, it isn’t you.’ A small smile tugged at her mouth as she remembered how Sue had described him. ‘You know better than that,’ she teased lightly. ‘It’s just that you’re a one-night-stand man, and I’m a woman with two children dependent on her who…’

      ‘Wants the opposite sex to keep its distance from her,’ Chas finished astutely for her. ‘Even if I offered permanency, it wouldn’t make any difference, would it?’ he pressed. ‘You’re still too involved with the guy you married—the twins’ father, that’s the straight up and down of it, isn’t it? For God’s sake,’ he muttered with suppressed violence, ‘when are you going to come out of mourning and realise that life is passing you by? Okay,’ he said wearily when he saw the stubborn set of her lips, ‘I can see I’m battering my head against a brick wall, but if you ever change your mind…’

      ‘You still want me to keep on working with you?’ Tara asked shakily.

      His eyebrows rose, mockery in the brown eyes. ‘Sure I do,’ he confirmed. ‘It’s good for my ego having such a sexy lady about the place, and besides,’ he paused and grinned, ‘you’re the best assistant I’ve ever had.’

      It was with a much lighter heart that Tara went about her work, and she accepted with pleasure when Chas suggested that she take the Friday afternoon off in order to prepare for the weekend away.

      ‘This doesn’t mean I’ve given up,’ he warned her, ‘simply that I’m declaring a cease-fire, okay?’

      She was still smiling when she reached home, even though she was now entertaining grave doubts about the wisdom of agreeing to Sue’s invitation. As the Monday was a Bank Holiday Susan had insisted that the three of them stay over for the extra day, and knowing the twins’ propensity for getting themselves and their clothes grubby, Tara was kept busy washing and ironing prior to their visit.

      Neither of the twins would have much in common with Sue’s toddler, she reflected as she packed their cases, but as they prepared for bed on the Friday night, both of them were so excited about the weekend ahead that Tara’s heart smote her.

      They got so few treats of this nature, it would have been grossly unfair of her to deprive them of it simply because she couldn’t face up to the past.

      Her mother and James were now divorced, or so Sue had said. What had happened to him? Tara wondered. She had learned from her own mother after the twins’ birth that Sue’s mother had had a considerable shareholding in the company James had inherited from his father. He had rarely discussed business with her; their time together had been too precious, too highly emotionally charged for Tara to want to waste any of it discussing business.

      Forget James, forget the past, she told herself sternly, unwilling to acknowledge the small ache which threatened to flare into agonising pain if she let it. Why had she never been able to free herself from the spell of the past? Other girls suffered similar mishaps and went on to make successful marriages elsewhere; to forge loving relationships with other men—why hadn’t she been able to? Was it because she had felt guilty about what had happened? Guilty and besmirched. The attitudes of the small village in which they lived were very narrow, and as well as the burden of James’s rejection she had also had to bear the bitter anger of her mother.

      If she had not woven such romantic daydreams around James none of it would have happened; but she had refused to see the truth, that he was simply a man trapped in an unhappy marriage who had turned to her for sexual solace and had never for one moment felt a tithe of the love for her that burned within her for him.

       CHAPTER THREE

      SHE