The Mistress's Child. Sharon Kendrick

shook her head. ‘Nobody knows. Not a living soul.’ She stared at Marian. ‘Except for you, of course.’

      ‘I won’t tell him, if that’s what you’re worried about, Lisi,’ said Marian awkwardly. ‘But what if he finds out anyway?’

      ‘He can’t! He won’t!’

      ‘He’s planning on buying a house here. It’s a small village. What if he starts putting two and two together and coming up with the right answer? Surely he’ll be able to work out for himself that he’s the father?’

      Lisi shook her head. Why should he? It was a long time ago. Months blurred into years and women blurred into other women, until each was indistinguishable from the last. ‘Maybe he won’t find a house to suit him?’ she suggestedoptimistically, but Marian shook her head with a steely determination which Lisi recognised as the nine-carat businesswoman inside her.

      ‘Oh, no, Lisi—don’t even think of going down that road. This is strictly business. And if a client—any client—wants to buy a house from this agency, then we find one for him to buy. Beginning and end of story. I simply can’t allow you to prejudice any sale because of some past quarrel with your child’s father—which in my opinion, needs some kind of resolution before Tim gets much older.’

      ‘An outsider doesn’t know how it feels,’ said Lisi miserably.

      ‘Maybe that’s best. An outsider can tell you what she thinks you need rather than what you think you want.’ Marian’s face softened again. ‘Listen, dear,’ she said gently, ‘why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off? You look much too shaken to do any more work. Peter will be back from his viewing shortly—and it’s always quiet at this time of the year. Think about what I’ve said. Sleep on it. It may be better in the long run if you just come clean and tell Philip the truth about Tim.’

      Better for whom? wondered Lisi as she took off her work shoes and changed into the wellington boots she always wore to work when the weather was as inclement as it was today. It certainly wouldn’t be better for her.

      She felt disorientated and at a loss, and not just because of Philip’s unexpected reappearance. Tim didn’t finish nursery until four, which meant that she had nearly two hours going spare and now she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. How ironic. All the times when she had longed for a little space on her own, when the merry-go-round of work and single motherhood had threatened to drag her down—and here she was with time on her hands and wishing that she had something to fill it.

      She didn’t want to go home, because if she did then she would feel guilty for not putting any washing into the machine, or preparing supper for Tim, or any of the other eight million tasks which always needed to be done. And mundane tasks would free up her mind, forcing her to confront the disturbing thoughts which were buzzing around inside her head.

      Instead, she turned up her coat collar against the chill breeze, and headed up the main village street, past the duck pond.

      The light was already beginning to die from the sky and the contrasting brightness of the fairy lights and glittering Christmas trees which decorated every shop window made the place look like an old-fashioned picture postcard. How their gaiety mocked her.

      The breeze stung her cheeks, and now and again, tiny little flakes of snow fluttered down from the sky to melt on her face like icy tears.

      The weathermen had been promising a white Christmas, and, up until today, it had been one of Lisi’s main preoccupations—whether her son would see his first snow at the most special time of year for a child.

      But thoughts of a white Christmas had been eclipsed by thoughts of Philip, and now they were threatening to engulf her, making her realise just why she had put him in a slot in her memory-bank marked ‘Closed’. She had done that for reasons of practicality and preservation—but seeing him today had made it easy to remember just why no one had ever come close to replacing him in her affections.

      And now he might be here to stay.

      She climbed over a stile and slid down onto wet grass, glad for the protection of her heavy boots as she set out over the field, but she had not walked more than a few metres before she realised that she was being followed.

      Lisi knew the village like the back of her hand. She had lived there all her life and had never felt a moment’s fear or apprehension.

      But she did now.

      Yet it was not the heartstopping and random fear that a stranger had materialised out of nowhere and might be about to pounce on her, because some sixth sense warned her to the fact that the person following her was no stranger. She could almost sense the presence of the man who was behind her.

      She stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned around to find Philip standing there, his unsmiling face shadowed in the fast-fading light of dusk. Out here in the open countryside he seemed even more formidable, his powerful frame silhouetted so darkly against the pale apricot of the sky, and Lisi felt the sudden warm rush of desire.

      And she didn’t want to! Not with him. Not with this beautiful, secretive and ultimately deceitful man who had given her a child and yet would never be a father to that child.

      She had overplayed the bland, polite card in the office today and he had not taken heed of her wish to be rid of him. The time for politeness was now past.

      ‘Do you always go creeping up on people in the twilight, Philip?’ she accused.

      He gave a faint smile. ‘Sometimes. My last employment meant that I had to employ qualities of stealth, even cunning.’

      She resisted the urge to suggest that the latter quality would come easily to him, intrigued to learn of what he had been doing for the past four years. ‘And what kind of employment was that?’

      He didn’t answer immediately. He wasn’t sure how much of his past he wanted to share with her. What if anything he wanted to share with her, other than the very obvious. And his years as emissary to a Middle Eastern prince could not be explained in a couple of sentences in the middle of a field on a blisteringly cold winter’s afternoon. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you about it some time,’ he said softly.

      So he wasn’t going to fill in any gaps. He would remain as unknowable as he ever had been. She looked at him in exasperation. ‘Why are you really here, Philip? What brought you back to Langley after so long?’

      An unanswerable question. How could he possibly define what his intentions had been, when nothing was ever as easy as you thought it was going to be? Something had compelled him to return and lay a increasingly troublesome ghost to rest, and yet the reality was proving far more complex than that.

      He had been dreaming of her lately. Images which had come out of nowhere to invade his troubled nights. Not pin-point, sharply accurate and erotic dreams of a body which had captivated him and kept him prisoner all this time. No, the dreams had been more about the elusive memory of some far-distant sweetness he had experienced in her arms.

      Part of him had wondered if seeing her again would make the hunger left by the dream disappear without trace—like the pricking of a bubble with a pin—but it had not happened like that.

      The other suspicion he had nurtured—that her beauty and charm would be as freshly intact as before—had sprung into blinding and glorious Technicolor instead. His desire for her burned just as strongly as before—maybe even more so—because nobody since Lisi had managed to tempt him away from his guilt and into their bed.

      Not that there hadn’t been offers, of course, or invitations—some subtle, some not. There had been many—particularly when he had been working for the prince—and some of those only a fool would have turned down. Was that what he was, then—a fool?

      Or was it that one night with her had simply not been enough? Like a starving man only being offered a morsel when the table was tempting him with a banquet?

      He looked into her eyes—their bright, clear aquamarine shaded a deeper blue