Their Wedding Day
Their Wedding Day
Emma Darcy
THIS TIME, FOREVERHe had returned to save her… Once a handsome prince rescued a beautiful princess … . Well, that was what Rowena Goodman's children believed. And they soon decided that Keir Delahunty was the prince sent to rescue their mother. But Rowena had trouble believing that Keir, who had left her waiting for him all those years ago, and who could have any woman his heart desired, wanted her .Keir insisted he loved Rowena and the children, and that they were essential to his future happiness. To prove his good intentions he set out to slay all Rowena's dragons. That left Rowena with no excuses and one secret to share with Keir… and it concerned her oldest child.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u8c56b9f4-eb7f-5206-8906-509d85a88846)
Excerpt (#u9b35ddb2-d60f-5b47-b4c3-4147688d1f30)
Dear Reader (#u4eb65605-6722-550e-9e47-bf1f87611082)
Title Page (#u92ad95ec-11e3-5192-9971-cf81b65b2b36)
CHAPTER ONE (#uddda44ff-2d9a-515e-92d5-7ec6ae0b62f4)
CHAPTER TWO (#u0e9874be-49df-53a1-84f9-51482893f46e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u1dd31b5c-305a-56d7-96fc-06d424a74cdc)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u0136da17-6e76-55e8-893e-4d4872a7b7e7)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Trust me, Rowena,” he said softly.
A brave prince, she thought. Brave to take me on, and all the baggage I bring with me.
She looked down at their hands, feeling the strength of his seep into her veins. A helping hand, a loving hand, a hand she could hold on to. It wouldn’t slip away from her, would it?
Trust me.
But could she trust herself to do right by him? She was no longer sure what right was. Only that Keir’s hand felt right in hers. Was that enough on which to let the past go and forge a future together?
Dear Reader,
For many years my husband and I shared a communication that crossed all barriers between us and opened up doors we hadn’t known existed. We explored each other’s private inner worlds in ways that brought us much closer together. Frank became more and more involved with the stories I was writing, contributing ideas and slants I would never have thought of myself. We enjoyed developing them together, bouncing thoughts off each other, stretching for the optimum result in whatever story we were creating.
Frank suffered a stroke, then a heart attack just before Christmas 1994. He passed away on 14 March 1995.
He wanted me to go on writing. So I sent my first solo book to London. My editor loved it. She said the hero was wonderful. I smiled. The hero is everything my husband was to me. The book is called Their Wedding Day, and you are just about to read it.
Do enjoy the book and think of Frank while you are reading it.
Best wishes
Emma Darcy
Their Wedding Day
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_8491b6b9-e348-5d6e-ba24-123ca32d6cb3)
ROWENA couldn’t let go without putting up a fight. A seven-year marriage didn’t end overnight. There had to be some way to fix it, some way to stop what was happening. She had to see for herself this woman who had turned Phil’s heart so cold to her and their children. She had to know what she was up against.
Despite the steady determination she had fostered from their home in Killarney Heights to Phil’s work place at Chatswood, nerves fluttered sickeningly through Rowena’s stomach as she drove into the basement car park of the Delahunty building. Her eyes quickly scanned the row of reserved spaces for staff. She didn’t want Phil to be here. If someone told him she had come, he might try to prevent her from confronting the situation head on.
His red Mazda convertible was nowhere in sight. Rowena breathed a long, tremulous sigh of relief. As she manoeuvred the family Ford sedan into a parking bay, it suddenly slid through her mind that Phil might have lied to her about the flashy sports car being an impulse buy. Had he been re-imaging himself to impress the other woman? If so, what kind of love needed sexy status symbols?
Rowena wouldn’t concede it was love, no matter what Phil said. This was another one of his flirtations, an ego boost that had somehow gone too far, probably pushed by the woman. Phil was a very attractive man. He earned a high income as Delahunty’s chief property buyer. He was a catch in most women’s eyes.
But she was his wife, and the flirtations had never meant anything before. A bit of fun. Phil had always assured her of that. Although it hadn’t been fun for her, and it certainly wasn’t fun now.
The shock announcement last night that he was leaving her for another woman, leaving her and their children and their home, had been so devastating she had barely been able to think, let alone try to change his decision. She hadn’t even suspected their marriage was at risk.
It shouldn’t be. Not when they had shared so much together, had so much together. Rowena would not accept what was happening. Not without a fight.
Some shallow infatuation…that was all it could be. Propinquity at the office. She had to believe that. She had to. Or seven years of her life lost their meaning.
She switched off the engine and checked her reflection in the driving mirror. Hours of weeping had robbed her green eyes of any sparkle, but at least the skilfully applied make-up concealed the shadows under them. Her eyelashes were long enough and thick enough to veil the slightly puffy lids.
The ruby-red lipstick looked rather stark against her pale skin but she had read in last Sunday’s newspaper that vibrant shades were part of power dressing and gave a woman clout. Rowena was not about to appear wimpish to her rival. She might be a housewife but she was no walkover.
She brushed her fingers across the fringe that kept the thick curtain of her black hair from falling over her face. It needed a trim. Maybe she should have done something dramatic like getting her hair cut into a short-cropped style, make Phil take a second look at her, but he had always said he liked her hair long. The shoulder-length bob with the soft, razor-cut wisps that framed her face did suit her, and she had washed and blow-dried it to shiny perfection.
She fiddled with the red and green silk scarf she had tied around her neck to add some bold colour to her navy suit, then told herself she was dithering for no good reason and alighted from the car. She looked as good as she could in the circumstances. She hadn’t let herself go. Her figure was slightly more rounded, more womanly than it had been before she had had children, but she certainly wasn’t sloppy.
Whatever Phil had told his other woman about her, she was about to come face to face with the truth, Rowena thought, holding grimly to her purpose as she locked the car and turned to walk to the elevators. She checked her watch. Eleventhirty. Time enough to say all she wanted to say before the lunch break.
A classy BMW swept into the car park and took the space beside the elevators. Rowena froze. It had to be Keir Delahunty, the one man whose path she least wanted to cross, especially today of all days!
It was difficult enough to come to terms with the fact that Keir was Phil’s boss and always being mentioned when Phil talked about his work. She wished the job at Delahunty’s had never come up. Or been won by some other applicant. Anything to be spared the connection to Keir and the memories he evoked.
No matter how better off they were financially from Phil’s move to Delahunty’s, it had been disastrous in every other sense, Rowena reflected miserably. First the unsettling effect of having Keir on the fringe of her life, and now this woman threatening her marriage. Having to face both of them was too much this morning. Better to go back to her car and wait until Keir had gone.
His car door opened, head and shoulders rising above the bonnet. There was no mistaking those broad shoulders and the thick dark hair. She started to turn away, feeling agitated at the loss of time, but more agitated at the thought of being caught with Keir Delahunty and having to share an elevator with him. Did he know what was going on between Phil and another one of his employees?
“Rowena…”
Her heart stopped. No avoiding him now. He’d seen and recognised her. He’d recognised her instantly at the company Christmas party a year ago, despite not having seen her since she was seventeen. Their association had been too long, too close—all her childhood and adolescent years—for him to forget her face. And, of course, there were other things that were unforgettable, however much one might want to block them out.
But she mustn’t think about that now. She had to come up with some bright small chat to get her through the next few minutes. She took a deep breath to steady herself and turned to him with what she hoped was a surprised smile.
“Keir…” She forced her legs into resuming their walk towards the elevators. He remained by his car, clearly waiting for her and expecting some polite exchange between them. “How is everything going for you?” she asked.
“Fine! And you?”
She ignored that question in favour of concentrating on him. A brilliant architect and an astute property developer, Keir Delahunty had not let the grass grow under his feet over the last few years. While he’d established a highly reputable name on the northern side of Sydney Harbour, he was now spreading his business interests to other parts of the city.
“I loved your design for the town houses at Manly,” she said with genuine admiration. “Phil showed me through them. They’ve all been sold already, haven’t they?”
“Yes. They went quickly.” He smiled, and in his eyes was the warm appreciation of a man who liked what he heard. It surprised her when he remarked, “You look very chic this morning.”
“Thank you. It’s kind of you to say so.”
It was a boost to her confidence. If Keir Delahunty thought her attractive today, she had certainly covered up the ravages of last night’s despair. Not that she welcomed such a personal comment from him. It was far too late, with far too much water under the bridge for her to want to be reminded of the attraction—the love on her side—that had been so cruelly severed eleven years ago.
He’d been handsome at twenty-four but he was even more impressive now, exuding the kind of effortless assurance and authority that came with a long line of successes in his chosen field. The terrible injuries he’d sustained in the accident that had killed her brother had left no lasting mark on him. He stood tall and strong and moved with the easy coordination of an athlete in top condition. Not for him the consequences that had torn her family apart.
Was he aware that she was facing a more immediate, more personal family break-up? Had Phil been indiscreet in pursuing this office affair? Why had Keir made a point of stopping to speak to her?
“I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment if you’ve come to see Phil. I left him to do a valuation of a warehouse at Pyrmont. He won’t be back until well after lunch.”
The information was welcome. “Thank you, but it’s someone else I want to see,” she said, her inner tension bringing a brittle tone to her voice.
Keir’s deep brown eyes scanned hers sharply as she drew level with him. Had he sensed something wrong? She quickly moved towards the closest elevator, acutely conscious of him falling into step beside her. He pressed the up button. The doors slid open immediately, much to Rowena’s relief. Another minute at most and she could escape from his disturbing interest.
A Christmas holly decoration was pinned to the back wall of the elevator. Christmas only ten days away. How could Phil leave her and the children at such an important family time? And the woman…She must be young and thoughtless and selfish to ask it of him. Or didn’t she know about the children? She soon would, Rowena vowed.
“It’s been a year since we last met,” Keir remarked casually, gesturing for her to enter the compartment ahead of him. “I was looking forward to seeing you at the company Christmas party last Friday. Was there a problem with the children?”
A tide of heat swept up Rowena’s neck and scorched her cheeks. Phil had lied to her about that, too, telling her the party was limited to staff only this year. She moved slowly to the rear of the elevator, hoping Keir hadn’t noticed her embarrassment.
“I had another engagement,” she said, instinctively covering up her husband’s deception. It was too humiliating to admit. She didn’t want to encourage any enquiries about the children, either. That was too close to all she had to contain.
“I wondered if you were avoiding me,” Keir said quietly.
Such loaded words.
They pressed on Rowena’s heart and constricted her chest. Why now? she railed desperately. She didn’t need this on top of everything else she had to contend with. Pride forced her to swing around and face him as he followed her into the compartment.
“Why on earth should you think that?” she asked with what she hoped was credible astonishment.
His swift scrutiny was offset by a shrug. “Because of Brett’s death. You could have ended up blaming me, as your parents did.”
“You know I didn’t. I visited you in hospital.”
His eyes seemed to take on a piercing intensity. “Did you receive my letter, Rowena?”
She stared at him in confusion. Only days after Brett’s funeral Keir had been flown to the United States for highly specialised corrective surgery, and that had been the end of any contact between them.
“When?” The word sounded like a croak from her throat.
“I wrote from the clinic in California. You didn’t reply.”
She shook her heard. “There was no letter.”
He frowned. “I thought…assumed…”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” she cut in.
There was simply no point in a post-mortem over what might have been. Keir could have written again if she’d been really important to him. Or looked her up when he came home all repaired and fit to pick up his life. The past was gone. To open that sealed compartment and invite the old pain out into the open was more than she could handle. It was the present she had to deal with, and Keir was delaying her for no good purpose.
She forced a smile to mitigate any offence in the abrupt snub. “Would you press the button for reception, please?”
With a look of ironic resignation he turned to the control panel, lifted a finger, then unaccountably hesitated, passing over the button she had requested and pressing the one for Close Doors. He then faced her with a direct inquiry.
“Whom have you come to see, Rowena? I know all my employees and the departments in which they work. There’s no need for you to stop at reception. I can direct you to the floor you want.”
It sounded friendly and helpful, but Rowena wished she could die on the spot. She wanted to say it was none of his business. The expression in his eyes told her it was his business. Everything that happened in this building was his business.
It was a bitterly capricious stroke of fate that her arrival in the car park had coincided with his. Here she was, trapped with him in a confined space, his eyes asking her for a direct reply. Even as she frantically sought some evasive explanation for her visit, the certainty came to her that he knew why she had come and what she meant to do.
Maybe the affair had been carried on so blatantly it was common knowledge throughout the whole building. Rowena inwardly cringed at the thought. Then pride clawed through the miserable weight of humiliation, pride and a fierce maternal need to fight for her children’s emotional security. She had done nothing wrong. What other people thought did not matter when so much of real importance was at stake.
She aimed a direct appeal at the man who had the power to stop her. “I’ve come to talk to Adriana Leigh.”
He held her gaze for several fraught moments, then slowly nodded. “Adriana works in an open floor area, Rowena,” he said gently. “I’m sure you’d prefer complete privacy for your talk to her.”
“I’m not exactly overwhelmed with choices,” she confessed, her courage deflating at the idea of a public audience.
“May I suggest you use my office? I can call Adriana to come there, and I guarantee you’ll both be left alone together to say whatever you wish to say.”
Once again unruly heat burned into Rowena’s cheeks. His sympathy to her plight was somehow shaming, yet to reject it was self-defeating. “Does everyone know?” The painful question slid off her tongue before she could clamp down on it.
“There’s been gossip.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed hard. “How long…how long has it been going on?”
“I don’t know, Rowena.” He paused, then quietly added, “More than three months.”
Phil had bought the sports car three months ago. Last night’s despair pressed in again. But she had come to try for a different outcome, to salvage what might not be a total wreckage. She had to try. She would try. She mentally constructed a protective shell around herself and opened her eyes. Keir was watching her, waiting for her decision, his expression carefully neutral.
“Your offer is…very kind,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “Thank you. I’ll take it.”
He turned to the control panel. The elevator started to rise. Rowena fought to keep her composure and her resolve. She watched the floor numbers light up above the doors. They were travelling to the top level of the building. Keir’s eyrie, Phil called it. She would soon find out why.
“Why are you doing this for me, Keir?”
It was an irrelevant question. Silly to ask it, really. It put the situation on a personal footing, which was the last thing she wanted to invite or encourage with Keir Delahunty. Yet something inside her had wormed past common sense…perhaps a need for comfort from someone who cared about her. Although Keir was probably only thinking of saving his other employees on the open floor area from what could be an ugly, disruptive scene, causing more gossip and stopping work.
He looked at her, his face grave, his dark eyes intensely focused on hers. “We were friends for a long time, Rowena. I remember it, even if you don’t want to.”
Friends…and lovers at the end. Did he remember that? Or had concussion from the accident wiped out the memory of the night before Brett was killed? She hadn’t spoken of it when she’d visited him in hospital. They’d both been in shock over what had happened. She wondered what had been in the letter she hadn’t received.
She searched his eyes for some hint of knowledge of the intimacy they had once shared. It didn’t show. Maybe he had no recollection of it at all. Maybe that was why he had never come back to her. Maybe he simply remembered her as Brett’s younger sister, who had once had a schoolgirl crush on him.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. He waited for her to exit first. Courtesy. Consideration. A friend. Brett’s best friend all those years through school and university. Like another brother to her until…But she mustn’t think about until. She had to think about Phil. And this imminent encounter with Adriana Leigh.
She forced her legs to move. She was extremely aware of Keir at her side as he directed her to his private office. A friend. She needed a friend. It was so hard…so very hard…to stand alone.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_8f45350c-1c42-5c13-971b-eb46f885b8d0)
KEIR’S office was an architectural wonder in itself. The outside wall was constructed of massive glass panels, which were angled to extend over half the rooftop. The room was flooded with natural light.
At one end was Keir’s workstation—desk, computers, library, several big drawing boards on stands made of round metal tube with hydraulic lift for height adjustment. Rowena was familiar with the latter. Her brother, Brett, had owned one. She remembered her father getting rid of it, getting rid of everything that connected Brett to Keir Delahunty, photographs, books, postcards, university lecture notes.
Then there was the burning of the sympathy cards and letters that so traumatised her mother. Had Keir’s letter from California been burnt, too? It had been impossible to even mention his name in those dark months after Brett’s death.
Tears blurred her eyes, and she quickly turned to look at the display of models featured on shelves running along the inner wall. These were the buildings Keir had designed, an impressive testament to what he had achieved by himself. It made Rowena wonder if his work took first place in his life and that was why he hadn’t married. Marriage didn’t seem to be popular with high-powered career people. Easy-come, easy-go relationships probably suited their lifestyles better.
How different all their lives might have been if Brett had lived. He and Keir in the partnership they had planned, she and Keir…but that might not have happened anyway. Dreams didn’t always come true.
At the opposite end to Keir’s work area was a round table, furnished with contoured leather armchairs set on swivel bases. He ushered her to one of these seats, then excused himself to speak to his secretary, whose office they had bypassed.
Rowena was glad of the opportunity to sit down and reconcentrate her mind on the problem of Adriana Leigh. Yet it was difficult to come to grips with the idea of a woman she had never met, never seen. I’ll know more when she walks into this room, Rowena assured herself, trusting instinct more than unsubstantiated guesses.
Her gaze drifted to the window view on the other side of the table. It was nothing dramatic, just blocks of homes on tree-lined streets stretching out over the suburb of Chatswood, streams of cars taking people to their chosen destinations, everyday lives going on as they invariably did, regardless of death, births, marriages.
And divorces.
Would it come to that for her?
An underlying sense of panic started churning through her stomach again. She didn’t want to bring up three children alone. She remembered how hard it had been without a helpmate when Jamie was little. Phil had been so kind and generous, taking them both into his heart and life.
She had tried to be the best of all possible wives to him, although in her heart of hearts she had known she didn’t feel for Phil what she had once felt for Keir. It was a different kind of love, less passionate, almost motherly in some ways. Despite being five years older than her, Phil could be boyish at times, wanting to show off, to be the centre of attention.
Looking back over the past year, Rowena had to acknowledge their marriage had become rather flat and routine. But surely every relationship had its highs and lows. It was a matter of working at it, being committed, trying to make it as good as it could be. Both parties were responsible for that. She didn’t understand why this was happening to her. What had she done that was so wrong?
The sound of the office door opening snapped her mind to the immediate present. Keir returning, having summoned the woman she would soon be facing. He looked so big and powerful, a rock to lean on, and Rowena ached for the support that his caring seemed to offer, yet she knew she couldn’t afford to let Keir close to her. It could only muddle everything far more than it was already muddled.
Keir didn’t know he had left her pregnant eleven years ago. He knew nothing of the son she had given birth to nine months after the fatal accident that had destroyed so much. She had come to believe he didn’t want to know, long before she had married Phil.
Whether that was true or not, it was not possible to change the course of events that had taken place. Phil had legally adopted Jamie. To all intents and purposes, Phil was Jamie’s father. It was best for everyone if it stayed that way.
Nevertheless, Rowena allowed herself the indulgence of really studying Keir for the few seconds it took him to walk down the room, noting the likenesses to her son…his son.
Deeply socketed eyes, although Jamie’s irises were hazel, a mixture of her green and Keir’s brown. The hairline was strikingly similar with a cowlick at the left temple. Jamie’s upper lip was softer, fuller, more like hers, and the shape of his face was rounder, less hard-boned. Perhaps as Jamie got older, his jawline would firm into the same mould as Keir’s, but that was not obvious yet.
Her gaze skated down the perfectly tailored grey business suit to the stylish leather shoes on Keir’s feet, feet she knew had longer second toes than the big ones. The mark of a fast runner, Keir had laughingly told her. Jamie had them, too, and he was the best sprinter in his age group at school.
“Rowena…”
She sighed and lifted her gaze.
“Would you like coffee brought in?”
She shook her head.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. I’m grateful to you for this chance to get things straightened out, Keir. This is all I want. I won’t be making a nuisance of myself.”
“I’d never consider you a nuisance, Rowena,” he said seriously.
“You know what I mean.” She grimaced. “I don’t intend to subject Delahunty’s to a series of hysterical scenes.”
“If I can be of any service to you, at any time, please call me, Rowena. I’ll do all I can for you,” he assured her.
She could see the deep sincerity in his eyes, and it hurt. Unbearably. Where were you when I needed you? she cried in silent anguish. It’s too late now. Our lives have moved on.
A courtesy knock on the door heralded its opening. Rowena shot to her feet and stepped away from the table, inadvertently moving close to Keir, who merely turned to greet the newcomer. She wasn’t seeking his support or protection, and wasn’t aware of how they looked together as Adriana Leigh entered the office.
“Good morning, Mr. Delahunty,” she said with a bright, winning smile. Her elegance, sophistication and complete self-assurance were heart-joltingly evident. Not a younger woman. Very much a woman of considerable worldly experience. Rowena was spared a flick of curiosity, but the full beam of Adriana Leigh’s concentration was on Keir as she added, “What can I do for you?”
She was the kind of woman who was always aware of men and knowingly watched for her impact on them. Rowena recognised that instantly. She also knew instinctively there would be no tapping any vein of sympathy or guilt. In a roomful of women, this woman would be bored.
“I’d be obliged if you’d give some time to Mrs. Goodman, Adriana,” Keir answered, his clipped tone making the request more of an order. “Rowena, this is Adriana Leigh.”
The bright smile was only briefly jolted. She batted her eyelashes at Rowena. “How do you do, Mrs. Goodman?” A honeyed voice, dripping with confidence. With barely a pause, she inquired, “Did Phil ask you to come?”
It was a bold and subtle sliding in of the knife.
“No. It was my decision,” Rowena replied, silently challenging the other woman to make something belittling of that.
Adriana Leigh raised perfectly arched eyebrows at Keir. “This is rather different from the usual bounds of work requirements, Mr. Delahunty,” she pointed out, maintaining her decorum while questioning the propriety of his authority in what they all knew to be a personal matter.
“Sometimes extraordinary situations arise,” Keir answered smoothly. “I understood your position as personal secretary to one of my executives requires an ability to handle delicate matters with courtesy and patience.” He paused. Was there a threat left hanging? “However, if you feel unable…”
“Not at all, Mr. Delahunty. As you say, I am used to dealing with such situations.”
“I thought you would be.” A touch of dry irony.
“I’ll do my best to give Mrs. Goodman satisfaction,” she said with her own touch of irony as she started forward, showing no further reluctance to join them by the table. A smart, intelligent career woman would do no less after Keir had put her skills in question.
Rowena concentrated on assessing everything about Adriana Leigh before they were left alone together. She had long, toffee-coloured hair, liberally streaked with blonde and deliberately styled in a casually tousled look. It was not only suggestive of a recent tumble in bed but a ready receptiveness to repeating the pleasure at any time.
She wore a long-sleeved, transparent cream blouse with a lace-trimmed, silk camisole underneath. Her full breasts jiggled freely. Her hips swayed, their voluptuous curve from a small waist emphatically outlined by a tan gaberdine figurehugging skirt that was buttoned down to thigh level and left free to swing from a side split. She wore high heels. High, high heels.
This woman exuded sexuality, flaunted it, and Rowena doubted any man would be a hundred percent proof against it. There was no problem in understanding the attraction for Phil. The question was how deeply did Adriana Leigh have her claws into him?
“Rowena.” Keir took her hand, pressing it to pull her attention to him. “I’ll be in my secretary’s office. You have only to call me.”
Part of Rowena’s mind registered his earnest concern and caring. She felt the warmth and strength of his touch. She had a craven urge to cling to it, but the purpose that had brought her here made it inappropriate. Badly inappropriate. Didn’t he realise that?
“I’m all right, Keir. Thank you,” she said in deliberate dismissal.
He gently squeezed her hand before letting it go. Adriana noticed it. Her amber eyes gleamed feline derision at Rowena before she turned her gaze to watch Keir make his departure. The moment the door was closed behind him, she opened hostilities.
“How did you come to be so cosy with our Mr. Delahunty?”
Rowena ignored the dig. “Do you love my husband, or is he simply another conquest to you?” she asked with quiet dignity.
It won a flicker of surprise. “Well, you’re certainly direct.”
“I’d appreciate a direct answer.”
Adriana led from the chin. “I love Phil and he loves me and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“You must have known he was married.”
“So what? He knew he was married, too. I didn’t take anything from you. You’d already lost it. Phil came to me.” Gloating triumph. Power. No sense of guilt whatsoever.
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Divorced?” Perfect and obviously expensive make-up gave Adriana Leigh’s face a youthful glow, but Rowena had no doubt this woman was in her thirties, possibly older than Phil, who was thirty-three.
“No.” She was amused by the questioning.
“Children?”
Her laughter was mocking. “Two abortions.” There was a hardness in her eyes as she added, “I won’t go down that road again.”
It made Rowena wonder if previous lovers had let Adriana down, and she felt a twinge of sympathy, remembering the pain of being left without Keir’s support when she was pregnant with Jamie. The sympathy was short-lived. There was none coming from Adriana for the situation Rowena faced.
“Has Phil ever mentioned our children?”
She shrugged. “Emily is five and Sarah is three. They’re young enough to get over the separation without any lasting trauma. The boy is old enough to look after himself. It’s not as though their father has played a great role in their lives.”
“Is that what Phil told you or what you want to assume?”
“I know the hours Phil works,” she said smugly.
“Since you entered his life.” That truth was obvious now. Rowena silently castigated herself for not realising Phil’s long hours and overnight trips could have another purpose besides work. How complacent she had been to attribute it to ambition!
“Doesn’t his desire to stay with me tell you something?’ Adriana taunted.
Rowena hated her mocking amusement. She might be guilty of complacency, but she hadn’t gone out hunting another woman’s husband to fill in the lonely hours. It took all her will-power to keep her voice steady, her demeanour unruffled. She would not give her antagonist the satisfaction of goading her out of control.
“I suppose you think you’ve rearranged his priorities. For the short term,” Rowena emphasised, wanting to shake Adriana Leigh’s complacency. “Passion does tend to burn out.”
“You don’t know much about men, do you?” Pitying condescension. “They have two brains. Keep the one below the belt satisfied and you can bend the other any way you like.”
Such heartless calculation sickened Rowena. Phil preferred this woman to her? “If that’s the case, I find it odd that you haven’t been able to hold onto one of the many men you’ve obviously had in the past,” she retaliated.
“I haven’t wanted to until now.”
“Then your theory hasn’t exactly been tested, has it?” Rowena pointed out, to no effect whatsoever.
“Face it, darling, you’re beaten. You’ve never satisfied Phil as I do. That’s a fact.” The cat’s eyes glittered down Rowena’s classic navy suit and up again. “I daresay you’re too much of a lady.”
“There’s more to a relationship than sex,” Rowena declared with conviction.
“What?”
“Companionship, sharing goals and achievements, caring about each other, understanding…”
Adriana laughed. “Tell that to a sex-starved man. And there’s so many of them around. Especially fathers.”
The unexpected singling out of fathers bewildered Rowena. She stood, speechless, as enlightenment came in a shower of scorn.
“You dedicated mothers tend to focus all your energy on your children. Your attention is divided. You get tired. You have headaches. And the door opens for another woman to give a man back what his children have taken from him. Quite suddenly he doesn’t give a damn about his children any more. He wants a woman in his life, not a mother.”
“I’m sure that’s what you’d like to think,” Rowena said tersely, disturbed by Adriana’s knowingness. Had Phil complained to her that his wife ignored his needs?
“I’m giving you some good advice for the next time around. The world is full of discontented married men.”
“Why pick on Phil?”
“He was here. He’s what I want. I’ll keep him happy.”
Rowena dearly wanted to rattle Adriana’s mind-battering confidence. A flash of intuition came to her. “Phil wasn’t your first choice, though, was he?”
A pause. A flicker of wariness. Then a return to aggression. “He’s my last choice, and I’ll make it stick, so don’t think you can muddy the issue.”
Rowena pressed further. “You got a job here so you could be around Keir Delahunty and try to catch his interest. He’s the bigger prize, isn’t he? Only he didn’t take the bait.”
Her eyes narrowed with anger. “Did he tell you that?”
“You were still flashing availability signals at him when you came into this office. You’d drop Phil if Keir gave you any encouragement.”
Adriana snorted. “That man is made of stone. Phil’s much more my style, and he knows it. You can’t put Keir Delahunty between us.”
That was probably true, Rowena thought in painful frustration. It didn’t matter how right her observation was about Adriana’s motivations, Keir obviously had a fine sense of discrimination in judging women on the make and wasn’t interested. Why on earth couldn’t Phil see…But maybe Adriana was right about him feeling neglected, overlooked in favour of the children’s needs.
What was the best balance for being both a wife and mother? And why was the onus on her? Shouldn’t a good marriage be mutually supportive?
Her head spun between a confused sense of guilt and a sickening sense of having all her ideals betrayed. Coming here, speaking to this woman, was worse than futile. There was no help in it. None at all. If Phil wanted Adriana Leigh, then let him have her, she thought, resolution undermined by a tidal wave of deep hurt and disillusionment.
But what about the children?
“I take it you’re not overly keen about the role of stepmother,” she said flatly, trying to think of anything that might change the situation, might give Adriana pause for second thoughts about a future with Phil.
“You chose to have kids. They’re your responsibility. Not mine.”
“You honestly believe Phil will be happy about shutting them out of his life?”
“Put it this way. You needn’t worry about any fight over custody. Phil may want to see the girls now and then, and I’ll be happy to go along with that.”
“You’re forgetting Jamie.”
Again she shrugged, as though the burden was not hers to shoulder. “Well, he’s not really Phil’s, is he?” she drawled meaningfully.
“Phil is the only father Jamie’s known.”
“Whose fault is that?”
Angry heat crept into Rowena’s voice despite her resolution to keep cool. “Phil adopted Jamie as his son.”
“When he was how old? Four?”
“Three.”
“No difference. He was a little boy, not a baby. The feeling’s not the same no matter how you want to dress it up. The boy is yours, not Phil’s, and at his age, he’s bound to be a sulky troublemaker.”
Rowena could not trust herself to suppress her outrage at these callous sentiments. Her body was beginning to tremble. “Thank you,” she said tightly. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
“Thank you,” Adriana returned snidely. “It’s always interesting to meet the wife.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_2189fa48-fc07-53c1-922f-12c2d1985e4f)
“MRS. GOODMAN has said all she wishes to say to me, Mr. Delahunty.”
Adriana’s light, almost flippant tone made Keir grit his teeth against an unwise snap. It would be unprofessional to reveal the strong antipathy he felt, knowing as he did that it was aroused by his sympathy for Rowena. He had no right to any personal involvement with this affair. It behove him to maintain some objectivity.
He unhitched himself from the edge of his secretary’s desk in deliberate slow motion. The report he’d been trying to read was still in his hands, and he used it as a point of dismissal. “Thank you for your cooperation, Adriana.”
“My pleasure.”
“To give pain?” The biting, judgmental words were out before he could monitor them. At least he had the satisfaction of wiping the smug look off her face.
“I didn’t ask for this meeting, Mr. Delahunty,” she coolly reminded him.
“A matter of opinion, Adriana. It’s my experience that changing people’s lives incites retaliation, even when the change is innocently caused.”
Rowena’s parents had taught him that. Not that this self-obsessed woman would care what damage she wreaked in going after what she wanted. They were empty words to her.
“I don’t want more company time wasted on gossip, Adriana,” he went on, chilling her out of any further comment. “I’d advise you to keep your meeting with Mrs. Goodman entirely private. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly, Mr. Delahunty. I appreciate your tact.”
He nodded.
She left.
He turned to his homely, middle-aged secretary. “Same for you, Fay. No talk about this.”
“Locked box,” she replied, giving him her owl look.
The tense muscles in his face relaxed into a smile. He liked Fay Pendleton. She not only delivered everything he asked of her with a minimum of fuss and maximum efficiency, her wonderfully expressive face and dry sense of humour always amused him. As did her hair, which was burgundy with wide, blonde streaks at the moment. Every three months she experimented with a new colour combination. Grey, she had declared, was too dull for her.
“I’ll check this later,” he said, dropping the report she had prepared for him on her desk. “Would you make some coffee, Fay, and bring it in with the sandwiches as soon as they’re delivered?”
“Will do.”
He wasn’t about to let Rowena go without any sustenance. She had probably been too wrought up to eat breakfast, and Adriana had undoubtedly gone for the kill. Rowena would be in no fit state to drive. She shouldn’t be alone, either.
Keir reached the office door in a few quick strides. He didn’t know if Rowena would welcome his company or not. He remembered the polite barrier she had maintained between them at last year’s staff Christmas party. He had felt then that she wanted no part of him, and he had reluctantly respected her wishes. It was probably only the shattering effect of knowing her marriage was on the rocks that had allowed the old sense of familiarity to break through this morning. He hoped…
Well, he could only try.
As he entered the office and closed the door quietly behind him, he was intensely aware of the need to tread very carefully. Rowena had come to do what she could to save her marriage. She wanted—loved—Phil Goodman. She was not looking for another man in her life, certainly not in any close capacity.
She sat with her elbows on the table, her head in her hands, fingers pressed tightly to her temples. Pain, defeat…and there was nothing he could do about either. It flitted through his mind that Brett would have pummelled Phil Goodman, inflicting hurt for hurt to his little sister. Keir knew it would do no good in these circumstances, yet he found himself empathising with the urge to do violence. Rowena deserved to be valued. To be cast aside for a woman like Adriana Leigh…
Keir took a deep breath, unclenched his hands and headed down the room to offer what comfort he could. Maybe she would accept a shoulder to cry on. Maybe she would let him drive her home. Maybe there would come some time in the future when she could view him as a friend again. More than a friend.
He was acutely conscious of the hole in his life, the emptiness that no one had been able to fill since Rowena and Brett had been lost to him. A bond of long sharing and understanding had been broken, and the years since had only hammered home how precious and rare it had been. It was impossible to get Brett back, but Rowena…
Dared he lift her from that chair and enfold her in his arms?
She looked up.
Her beautiful green eyes were awash with tears.
There was no decision-making.
He simply did it.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_a613c6a4-3e0d-508f-bcd8-0f64ae6331f1)
IT HAPPENED so fast, Rowena was scooped from the chair and wrapped in Keir Delahunty’s embrace before she could even begin to think it was wrong to have such intimate contact with him. Then the impact of his body against hers threw her into confusion.
She wasn’t used to being held closely by any man but Phil. It had been so long since Keir had made love to her, yet she was instantly reminded of how it had felt with him. It made her acutely aware of both her sexuality and his.
Images of their youthful nakedness flashed into her mind. Her breasts, pressed flat to his broad chest, started prickling with disturbing sensitivity. Her thighs trembled with the shock of recognising the virile strength of his. Her back burned under the cocooning warmth of his arms. All normal thought processes were paralysed by sensations she was utterly powerless to stop.
One hand slid up to her neck, his fingers splaying through her hair as he gently pressed her head onto his shoulder. Her heart seemed to pound in her ears. The scent of some tangy aftershave lotion assaulted her nostrils. Her stomach contracted in sheer panic at the memories evoked.
“You don’t have to fight the tears, Rowena,” Keir murmured, his cheek resting against her head. “You can let out the grief with me. Just as you would with Brett if he were here.”
Guilt that she no longer had a big brother? Sympathy for her pain? The tears were gone, shocked back to the well of despair that Keir’s action had suddenly submerged. She shouldn’t be feeling other things, but she was. And it was wrong. Terribly wrong!
Her mind shifted from one turmoil to another. Was Keir remembering other times when he’d held her, not as a surrogate brother but as a man who wanted her, needed her to be a woman with him?
She was not seventeen any more. She was well and truly a woman, an experienced woman who was in a highly vulnerable state, with her marriage on the rocks and her husband in love—or lust—with someone else. Did Keir think that made her available to him?
Why hadn’t he married? What kind of man was he now? She didn’t know. The meeting with Adriana had left her feeling she was a naive fool who didn’t know anything!
It was as though all the foundations of her life had been ripped away. Was Keir a steady rock that she could cling to? Confide in? Or was there danger in trusting him, danger in trusting anybody?
His cheek moved, rubbing over her hair. His mouth—surely that was his mouth—pressing warmth…kisses! Her heart kicked in alarm. She jerked her head back and looked up. It wasn’t brotherliness she saw in Keir’s eyes. There was no soft sympathy. She caught a darkly simmering passion that triggered a tumultuous eruption of the doubts and fears Adriana had raised.
“Let me go!” she cried, pushing herself free of his embrace as he loosened it.
“Rowena…”
The gruff appeal fell on closed ears. Her eyes flared a fierce and frightened rejection as she backed away from his trailing touch. “Adriana’s right. Sex is all that matters with men.”
“No,” he denied strongly.
But Rowena took refuge in walking over to the glass wall beyond the table, putting a cold, safe distance between them, wrapping her arms around herself, hugging in the pain of hopeless disillusionment.
She was a married woman. It was wrong of Keir to pretend to offer brotherly comfort and then use the opportunity to change it to something else. Even though Phil…But that didn’t excuse it. Keir must realise she had come to save her marriage if she could. For him to take advantage of her weakness at such a time placed him on the same moral level as Adriana Leigh.
“She would have had you.” The words burst from her, the bitter irony of his behaviour being similar to Adriana’s striking her hard. “Why didn’t you take her on, Keir? She was handy, available…”
“Rowena, I care about you. I always have.”
The soft answer stirred more turmoil. She clutched wildly at the first reason she could think of to disbelieve him. “Then why didn’t you stop what was happening between Adriana and Phil?”
No answer.
She swung around to probe further. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know she fancied you, Keir. Even I saw the signals when she walked into this room.”
His face tightened as though she had hit him, yet there was no backward step in the dark blaze of his eyes. “You want a husband that needs to be rescued from another woman?” he challenged, a sting of contempt in his voice. “Face it, Rowena. Phil isn’t worthy of your love. If he really cared for you, Adriana wouldn’t have had a chance with him.”
Phil had cared for her. Rowena was not about to forget he had cared when Keir’s so-called caring wasn’t anywhere in touching distance. “Who are you to judge that? Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t give him enough…enough—”
“Sex?”
Heat flooded up her neck and scorched her cheeks. It was too shaming to concede she must have left Phil dissatisfied in that area, yet it had to be true. She bit her lips, wishing she hadn’t started this tasteless argument. Even Keir’s mouth was curling in disgust.
“Sex isn’t the glue that keeps a man and woman together, Rowena. It helps, but if other things are missing…” He paused, compelling her full attention. “You have so many desirable qualities, any man should consider himself fortunate to have you in his life.”
Desirable. Is that how Keir saw her? Still? But he had no right. And she mustn’t let herself get confused and distracted.
“The evidence is against it,” she reminded him. “Phil wants to be with Adriana. Everything we’ve shared means nothing against what she gives him.”
“She strokes his ego, Rowena,” he said flatly. “Phil likes to be stroked. He can’t have enough of it. He never will have enough of it. Surely you’ve recognised that weakness over the years.”
“Then why did you hire him?” she demanded, trying to reject his clear-sightedness about Phil’s vulnerability to flattery. It went against her ingrained sense of loyalty to accept it.
“He’s good at his job.”
“Why did you hire her?”
“I didn’t. Phil did. He’s entitled to choose the staff that work with him. Usually it makes for a more effective team.”
All perfectly reasonable. Rowena was left floundering in a quagmire of emotions with no outlet for them. A knock on the office door provided a welcome distraction.
A woman entered, pushing a traymobile. Either the silence or the palpable tension got to her. She paused, her eyes darting from Keir’s rigid back to Rowena’s face, obviously gauging the weather in the room and finding it dangerously volatile. She winced apologetically and started to retreat.
“It’s all right, Fay. Bring it in,” Keir commanded quietly. He turned to wave encouragement. “This is my secretary, Fay Pendleton. Mrs. Goodman, Fay.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Goodman.” The quick greeting was accompanied by a tentative smile.
“Yes. Thank you,” Rowena returned jerkily, surprised by Keir’s choice of secretary. Far from being a slickly sophisticated front person for him, this woman looked more like a homely pudding. Except for her hair. The rich burgundy colour with wide blonde bands had a definite touch of eccentricity.
The traymobile was swiftly wheeled to the table, and cups, saucers and plates were set out with deft efficiency. Black coffee was poured, milk and sugar placed handily, and a plate of artistically arranged sandwiches completed the service.
“Smoked salmon, turkey and avocado, ham and—”
“Thank you, Fay.” Keir cut her off.
She gave Rowena a motherly look, her lively brown eyes kind. “Do try to eat.”
“Fay…” Keir warned.
Rowena watched her leave, instinctively liking the woman and oddly comforted by the fact that she didn’t emanate competitive sexiness. Not that it should matter what kind of woman Keir had close to him at work. It didn’t, Rowena told herself. The contrast to Adriana Leigh was simply a relief.
The click of the door shutting behind Fay Pendleton jolted Rowena into realising she should have left, too. This brief hiatus didn’t change anything. Coffee and sandwiches did not fix anything. In fact, they lent an absurd cloak of normality to a highly charged situation, one she should get out of right now before it developed into something worse.
She steeled herself to look at Keir again, thank him for the use of his office and escape from being alone with him any longer. With slow deliberation, she shifted her gaze from the door and met his squarely, determined to put an end to whatever he had in mind.
No matter what Phil had done, she was still married to him, and Keir had no right to be stirring feelings that should have been buried long ago. Buried along with her brother, Brett, because that had been the end of what they had shared together.
Whether he read her intention or not, Keir instantly forestalled any speech from her. “To answer your earlier question,” he said in a tone of relentless pursuit, “I had no interest in Adriana because I don’t care for manipulative people. I don’t want to be with a woman whose responses aren’t genuinely felt. It’s a complete turn-off, regardless of how physically attractive and available she is.”
“And I’m suddenly a turn-on?”
The tense words hung between them, loaded with too much to back away from. Rowena was appalled at having been goaded into such a provocative retort. Somehow Keir’s supreme confidence in who and what he was diminished Phil as a man, and she resented it. She resented even more the idea that Keir might think he could just step in and take advantage of her vulnerable state, letting her know he found her desirable even if her husband no longer did.
“No. Not suddenly,” he answered quietly. “I doubt that many people forget their first love.”
The yearning for that simpler time was in his eyes, and it hurt. It hurt because if he hadn’t forgotten, he should have done something positive about it when it had really mattered. It hurt because it reminded her how naive and trusting she had been, the faith she’d had that he would come back to her and they’d make a life together.
It was he who had broken that faith, he who had dismissed his first love and put it behind him, and he had no right to call on it now. It was Phil who had brought love into her life again. Yet Phil was betraying that love, just as Keir had.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said desolately.
“It does to me.”
She couldn’t believe him, not after all this time. He might still be able to stir treacherous feelings in her, but his feelings could only be shallow, a response to present stimulus, nothing deep and lasting.
“How many years have we led separate lives, Keir?”
“We’re still the same people, Rowena.”
The burning conviction in his eyes riled her. “No, we’re not. I’m not,” she stated very deliberately, her conviction rising out of the pain of too many losses. I’m scarred, she wanted to yell at him, but pride held her tongue.
There was a shift in his expression. A frown. A doubt. “Do you really want Phil back, Rowena? Knowing what you now know about him and Adriana?”
It stung raw wounds. “He’s my husband. He married me.” When you didn’t. “He’s the father of my children,” she added, then wished she had cut out her tongue before uttering those last words.
His face tightened. The sudden bleakness in his eyes smote her heart, awakening a painful guilt over the secret she had kept from him. His child…his son. But Keir had forfeited any right to Jamie. Phil was the only father Jamie had known, and Phil had been there for him, good to him. Only now…What should she do now? What if Adriana got her way and Phil didn’t want to be bothered with Jamie any more?
Keir’s gaze dropped to the table. He stepped over to it and lifted the milk jug. “Do you still have white with one sugar?” he asked without looking up.
“I don’t want coffee,” she said flatly, wishing he hadn’t remembered how she liked it. The familiarity hurt. Everything hurt. She should go. Why did she feel this heavy reluctance to move? What could be gained by continuing such a disturbing dialogue with Keir?
He slowly returned the jug to the table, then lifted his gaze directly to hers, his eyes having gathered a piercing intensity. “Do you want me to try to take Adriana away from Phil?”
That he should even think of making such a move for her stunned Rowena. “You said you didn’t like manipulative people.”
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Emma Darcy
THIS TIME, FOREVERHe had returned to save her… Once a handsome prince rescued a beautiful princess … . Well, that was what Rowena Goodman's children believed. And they soon decided that Keir Delahunty was the prince sent to rescue their mother. But Rowena had trouble believing that Keir, who had left her waiting for him all those years ago, and who could have any woman his heart desired, wanted her .Keir insisted he loved Rowena and the children, and that they were essential to his future happiness. To prove his good intentions he set out to slay all Rowena's dragons. That left Rowena with no excuses and one secret to share with Keir… and it concerned her oldest child.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u8c56b9f4-eb7f-5206-8906-509d85a88846)
Excerpt (#u9b35ddb2-d60f-5b47-b4c3-4147688d1f30)
Dear Reader (#u4eb65605-6722-550e-9e47-bf1f87611082)
Title Page (#u92ad95ec-11e3-5192-9971-cf81b65b2b36)
CHAPTER ONE (#uddda44ff-2d9a-515e-92d5-7ec6ae0b62f4)
CHAPTER TWO (#u0e9874be-49df-53a1-84f9-51482893f46e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u1dd31b5c-305a-56d7-96fc-06d424a74cdc)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u0136da17-6e76-55e8-893e-4d4872a7b7e7)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Trust me, Rowena,” he said softly.
A brave prince, she thought. Brave to take me on, and all the baggage I bring with me.
She looked down at their hands, feeling the strength of his seep into her veins. A helping hand, a loving hand, a hand she could hold on to. It wouldn’t slip away from her, would it?
Trust me.
But could she trust herself to do right by him? She was no longer sure what right was. Only that Keir’s hand felt right in hers. Was that enough on which to let the past go and forge a future together?
Dear Reader,
For many years my husband and I shared a communication that crossed all barriers between us and opened up doors we hadn’t known existed. We explored each other’s private inner worlds in ways that brought us much closer together. Frank became more and more involved with the stories I was writing, contributing ideas and slants I would never have thought of myself. We enjoyed developing them together, bouncing thoughts off each other, stretching for the optimum result in whatever story we were creating.
Frank suffered a stroke, then a heart attack just before Christmas 1994. He passed away on 14 March 1995.
He wanted me to go on writing. So I sent my first solo book to London. My editor loved it. She said the hero was wonderful. I smiled. The hero is everything my husband was to me. The book is called Their Wedding Day, and you are just about to read it.
Do enjoy the book and think of Frank while you are reading it.
Best wishes
Emma Darcy
Their Wedding Day
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_8491b6b9-e348-5d6e-ba24-123ca32d6cb3)
ROWENA couldn’t let go without putting up a fight. A seven-year marriage didn’t end overnight. There had to be some way to fix it, some way to stop what was happening. She had to see for herself this woman who had turned Phil’s heart so cold to her and their children. She had to know what she was up against.
Despite the steady determination she had fostered from their home in Killarney Heights to Phil’s work place at Chatswood, nerves fluttered sickeningly through Rowena’s stomach as she drove into the basement car park of the Delahunty building. Her eyes quickly scanned the row of reserved spaces for staff. She didn’t want Phil to be here. If someone told him she had come, he might try to prevent her from confronting the situation head on.
His red Mazda convertible was nowhere in sight. Rowena breathed a long, tremulous sigh of relief. As she manoeuvred the family Ford sedan into a parking bay, it suddenly slid through her mind that Phil might have lied to her about the flashy sports car being an impulse buy. Had he been re-imaging himself to impress the other woman? If so, what kind of love needed sexy status symbols?
Rowena wouldn’t concede it was love, no matter what Phil said. This was another one of his flirtations, an ego boost that had somehow gone too far, probably pushed by the woman. Phil was a very attractive man. He earned a high income as Delahunty’s chief property buyer. He was a catch in most women’s eyes.
But she was his wife, and the flirtations had never meant anything before. A bit of fun. Phil had always assured her of that. Although it hadn’t been fun for her, and it certainly wasn’t fun now.
The shock announcement last night that he was leaving her for another woman, leaving her and their children and their home, had been so devastating she had barely been able to think, let alone try to change his decision. She hadn’t even suspected their marriage was at risk.
It shouldn’t be. Not when they had shared so much together, had so much together. Rowena would not accept what was happening. Not without a fight.
Some shallow infatuation…that was all it could be. Propinquity at the office. She had to believe that. She had to. Or seven years of her life lost their meaning.
She switched off the engine and checked her reflection in the driving mirror. Hours of weeping had robbed her green eyes of any sparkle, but at least the skilfully applied make-up concealed the shadows under them. Her eyelashes were long enough and thick enough to veil the slightly puffy lids.
The ruby-red lipstick looked rather stark against her pale skin but she had read in last Sunday’s newspaper that vibrant shades were part of power dressing and gave a woman clout. Rowena was not about to appear wimpish to her rival. She might be a housewife but she was no walkover.
She brushed her fingers across the fringe that kept the thick curtain of her black hair from falling over her face. It needed a trim. Maybe she should have done something dramatic like getting her hair cut into a short-cropped style, make Phil take a second look at her, but he had always said he liked her hair long. The shoulder-length bob with the soft, razor-cut wisps that framed her face did suit her, and she had washed and blow-dried it to shiny perfection.
She fiddled with the red and green silk scarf she had tied around her neck to add some bold colour to her navy suit, then told herself she was dithering for no good reason and alighted from the car. She looked as good as she could in the circumstances. She hadn’t let herself go. Her figure was slightly more rounded, more womanly than it had been before she had had children, but she certainly wasn’t sloppy.
Whatever Phil had told his other woman about her, she was about to come face to face with the truth, Rowena thought, holding grimly to her purpose as she locked the car and turned to walk to the elevators. She checked her watch. Eleventhirty. Time enough to say all she wanted to say before the lunch break.
A classy BMW swept into the car park and took the space beside the elevators. Rowena froze. It had to be Keir Delahunty, the one man whose path she least wanted to cross, especially today of all days!
It was difficult enough to come to terms with the fact that Keir was Phil’s boss and always being mentioned when Phil talked about his work. She wished the job at Delahunty’s had never come up. Or been won by some other applicant. Anything to be spared the connection to Keir and the memories he evoked.
No matter how better off they were financially from Phil’s move to Delahunty’s, it had been disastrous in every other sense, Rowena reflected miserably. First the unsettling effect of having Keir on the fringe of her life, and now this woman threatening her marriage. Having to face both of them was too much this morning. Better to go back to her car and wait until Keir had gone.
His car door opened, head and shoulders rising above the bonnet. There was no mistaking those broad shoulders and the thick dark hair. She started to turn away, feeling agitated at the loss of time, but more agitated at the thought of being caught with Keir Delahunty and having to share an elevator with him. Did he know what was going on between Phil and another one of his employees?
“Rowena…”
Her heart stopped. No avoiding him now. He’d seen and recognised her. He’d recognised her instantly at the company Christmas party a year ago, despite not having seen her since she was seventeen. Their association had been too long, too close—all her childhood and adolescent years—for him to forget her face. And, of course, there were other things that were unforgettable, however much one might want to block them out.
But she mustn’t think about that now. She had to come up with some bright small chat to get her through the next few minutes. She took a deep breath to steady herself and turned to him with what she hoped was a surprised smile.
“Keir…” She forced her legs into resuming their walk towards the elevators. He remained by his car, clearly waiting for her and expecting some polite exchange between them. “How is everything going for you?” she asked.
“Fine! And you?”
She ignored that question in favour of concentrating on him. A brilliant architect and an astute property developer, Keir Delahunty had not let the grass grow under his feet over the last few years. While he’d established a highly reputable name on the northern side of Sydney Harbour, he was now spreading his business interests to other parts of the city.
“I loved your design for the town houses at Manly,” she said with genuine admiration. “Phil showed me through them. They’ve all been sold already, haven’t they?”
“Yes. They went quickly.” He smiled, and in his eyes was the warm appreciation of a man who liked what he heard. It surprised her when he remarked, “You look very chic this morning.”
“Thank you. It’s kind of you to say so.”
It was a boost to her confidence. If Keir Delahunty thought her attractive today, she had certainly covered up the ravages of last night’s despair. Not that she welcomed such a personal comment from him. It was far too late, with far too much water under the bridge for her to want to be reminded of the attraction—the love on her side—that had been so cruelly severed eleven years ago.
He’d been handsome at twenty-four but he was even more impressive now, exuding the kind of effortless assurance and authority that came with a long line of successes in his chosen field. The terrible injuries he’d sustained in the accident that had killed her brother had left no lasting mark on him. He stood tall and strong and moved with the easy coordination of an athlete in top condition. Not for him the consequences that had torn her family apart.
Was he aware that she was facing a more immediate, more personal family break-up? Had Phil been indiscreet in pursuing this office affair? Why had Keir made a point of stopping to speak to her?
“I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment if you’ve come to see Phil. I left him to do a valuation of a warehouse at Pyrmont. He won’t be back until well after lunch.”
The information was welcome. “Thank you, but it’s someone else I want to see,” she said, her inner tension bringing a brittle tone to her voice.
Keir’s deep brown eyes scanned hers sharply as she drew level with him. Had he sensed something wrong? She quickly moved towards the closest elevator, acutely conscious of him falling into step beside her. He pressed the up button. The doors slid open immediately, much to Rowena’s relief. Another minute at most and she could escape from his disturbing interest.
A Christmas holly decoration was pinned to the back wall of the elevator. Christmas only ten days away. How could Phil leave her and the children at such an important family time? And the woman…She must be young and thoughtless and selfish to ask it of him. Or didn’t she know about the children? She soon would, Rowena vowed.
“It’s been a year since we last met,” Keir remarked casually, gesturing for her to enter the compartment ahead of him. “I was looking forward to seeing you at the company Christmas party last Friday. Was there a problem with the children?”
A tide of heat swept up Rowena’s neck and scorched her cheeks. Phil had lied to her about that, too, telling her the party was limited to staff only this year. She moved slowly to the rear of the elevator, hoping Keir hadn’t noticed her embarrassment.
“I had another engagement,” she said, instinctively covering up her husband’s deception. It was too humiliating to admit. She didn’t want to encourage any enquiries about the children, either. That was too close to all she had to contain.
“I wondered if you were avoiding me,” Keir said quietly.
Such loaded words.
They pressed on Rowena’s heart and constricted her chest. Why now? she railed desperately. She didn’t need this on top of everything else she had to contend with. Pride forced her to swing around and face him as he followed her into the compartment.
“Why on earth should you think that?” she asked with what she hoped was credible astonishment.
His swift scrutiny was offset by a shrug. “Because of Brett’s death. You could have ended up blaming me, as your parents did.”
“You know I didn’t. I visited you in hospital.”
His eyes seemed to take on a piercing intensity. “Did you receive my letter, Rowena?”
She stared at him in confusion. Only days after Brett’s funeral Keir had been flown to the United States for highly specialised corrective surgery, and that had been the end of any contact between them.
“When?” The word sounded like a croak from her throat.
“I wrote from the clinic in California. You didn’t reply.”
She shook her heard. “There was no letter.”
He frowned. “I thought…assumed…”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” she cut in.
There was simply no point in a post-mortem over what might have been. Keir could have written again if she’d been really important to him. Or looked her up when he came home all repaired and fit to pick up his life. The past was gone. To open that sealed compartment and invite the old pain out into the open was more than she could handle. It was the present she had to deal with, and Keir was delaying her for no good purpose.
She forced a smile to mitigate any offence in the abrupt snub. “Would you press the button for reception, please?”
With a look of ironic resignation he turned to the control panel, lifted a finger, then unaccountably hesitated, passing over the button she had requested and pressing the one for Close Doors. He then faced her with a direct inquiry.
“Whom have you come to see, Rowena? I know all my employees and the departments in which they work. There’s no need for you to stop at reception. I can direct you to the floor you want.”
It sounded friendly and helpful, but Rowena wished she could die on the spot. She wanted to say it was none of his business. The expression in his eyes told her it was his business. Everything that happened in this building was his business.
It was a bitterly capricious stroke of fate that her arrival in the car park had coincided with his. Here she was, trapped with him in a confined space, his eyes asking her for a direct reply. Even as she frantically sought some evasive explanation for her visit, the certainty came to her that he knew why she had come and what she meant to do.
Maybe the affair had been carried on so blatantly it was common knowledge throughout the whole building. Rowena inwardly cringed at the thought. Then pride clawed through the miserable weight of humiliation, pride and a fierce maternal need to fight for her children’s emotional security. She had done nothing wrong. What other people thought did not matter when so much of real importance was at stake.
She aimed a direct appeal at the man who had the power to stop her. “I’ve come to talk to Adriana Leigh.”
He held her gaze for several fraught moments, then slowly nodded. “Adriana works in an open floor area, Rowena,” he said gently. “I’m sure you’d prefer complete privacy for your talk to her.”
“I’m not exactly overwhelmed with choices,” she confessed, her courage deflating at the idea of a public audience.
“May I suggest you use my office? I can call Adriana to come there, and I guarantee you’ll both be left alone together to say whatever you wish to say.”
Once again unruly heat burned into Rowena’s cheeks. His sympathy to her plight was somehow shaming, yet to reject it was self-defeating. “Does everyone know?” The painful question slid off her tongue before she could clamp down on it.
“There’s been gossip.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed hard. “How long…how long has it been going on?”
“I don’t know, Rowena.” He paused, then quietly added, “More than three months.”
Phil had bought the sports car three months ago. Last night’s despair pressed in again. But she had come to try for a different outcome, to salvage what might not be a total wreckage. She had to try. She would try. She mentally constructed a protective shell around herself and opened her eyes. Keir was watching her, waiting for her decision, his expression carefully neutral.
“Your offer is…very kind,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “Thank you. I’ll take it.”
He turned to the control panel. The elevator started to rise. Rowena fought to keep her composure and her resolve. She watched the floor numbers light up above the doors. They were travelling to the top level of the building. Keir’s eyrie, Phil called it. She would soon find out why.
“Why are you doing this for me, Keir?”
It was an irrelevant question. Silly to ask it, really. It put the situation on a personal footing, which was the last thing she wanted to invite or encourage with Keir Delahunty. Yet something inside her had wormed past common sense…perhaps a need for comfort from someone who cared about her. Although Keir was probably only thinking of saving his other employees on the open floor area from what could be an ugly, disruptive scene, causing more gossip and stopping work.
He looked at her, his face grave, his dark eyes intensely focused on hers. “We were friends for a long time, Rowena. I remember it, even if you don’t want to.”
Friends…and lovers at the end. Did he remember that? Or had concussion from the accident wiped out the memory of the night before Brett was killed? She hadn’t spoken of it when she’d visited him in hospital. They’d both been in shock over what had happened. She wondered what had been in the letter she hadn’t received.
She searched his eyes for some hint of knowledge of the intimacy they had once shared. It didn’t show. Maybe he had no recollection of it at all. Maybe that was why he had never come back to her. Maybe he simply remembered her as Brett’s younger sister, who had once had a schoolgirl crush on him.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. He waited for her to exit first. Courtesy. Consideration. A friend. Brett’s best friend all those years through school and university. Like another brother to her until…But she mustn’t think about until. She had to think about Phil. And this imminent encounter with Adriana Leigh.
She forced her legs to move. She was extremely aware of Keir at her side as he directed her to his private office. A friend. She needed a friend. It was so hard…so very hard…to stand alone.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_8f45350c-1c42-5c13-971b-eb46f885b8d0)
KEIR’S office was an architectural wonder in itself. The outside wall was constructed of massive glass panels, which were angled to extend over half the rooftop. The room was flooded with natural light.
At one end was Keir’s workstation—desk, computers, library, several big drawing boards on stands made of round metal tube with hydraulic lift for height adjustment. Rowena was familiar with the latter. Her brother, Brett, had owned one. She remembered her father getting rid of it, getting rid of everything that connected Brett to Keir Delahunty, photographs, books, postcards, university lecture notes.
Then there was the burning of the sympathy cards and letters that so traumatised her mother. Had Keir’s letter from California been burnt, too? It had been impossible to even mention his name in those dark months after Brett’s death.
Tears blurred her eyes, and she quickly turned to look at the display of models featured on shelves running along the inner wall. These were the buildings Keir had designed, an impressive testament to what he had achieved by himself. It made Rowena wonder if his work took first place in his life and that was why he hadn’t married. Marriage didn’t seem to be popular with high-powered career people. Easy-come, easy-go relationships probably suited their lifestyles better.
How different all their lives might have been if Brett had lived. He and Keir in the partnership they had planned, she and Keir…but that might not have happened anyway. Dreams didn’t always come true.
At the opposite end to Keir’s work area was a round table, furnished with contoured leather armchairs set on swivel bases. He ushered her to one of these seats, then excused himself to speak to his secretary, whose office they had bypassed.
Rowena was glad of the opportunity to sit down and reconcentrate her mind on the problem of Adriana Leigh. Yet it was difficult to come to grips with the idea of a woman she had never met, never seen. I’ll know more when she walks into this room, Rowena assured herself, trusting instinct more than unsubstantiated guesses.
Her gaze drifted to the window view on the other side of the table. It was nothing dramatic, just blocks of homes on tree-lined streets stretching out over the suburb of Chatswood, streams of cars taking people to their chosen destinations, everyday lives going on as they invariably did, regardless of death, births, marriages.
And divorces.
Would it come to that for her?
An underlying sense of panic started churning through her stomach again. She didn’t want to bring up three children alone. She remembered how hard it had been without a helpmate when Jamie was little. Phil had been so kind and generous, taking them both into his heart and life.
She had tried to be the best of all possible wives to him, although in her heart of hearts she had known she didn’t feel for Phil what she had once felt for Keir. It was a different kind of love, less passionate, almost motherly in some ways. Despite being five years older than her, Phil could be boyish at times, wanting to show off, to be the centre of attention.
Looking back over the past year, Rowena had to acknowledge their marriage had become rather flat and routine. But surely every relationship had its highs and lows. It was a matter of working at it, being committed, trying to make it as good as it could be. Both parties were responsible for that. She didn’t understand why this was happening to her. What had she done that was so wrong?
The sound of the office door opening snapped her mind to the immediate present. Keir returning, having summoned the woman she would soon be facing. He looked so big and powerful, a rock to lean on, and Rowena ached for the support that his caring seemed to offer, yet she knew she couldn’t afford to let Keir close to her. It could only muddle everything far more than it was already muddled.
Keir didn’t know he had left her pregnant eleven years ago. He knew nothing of the son she had given birth to nine months after the fatal accident that had destroyed so much. She had come to believe he didn’t want to know, long before she had married Phil.
Whether that was true or not, it was not possible to change the course of events that had taken place. Phil had legally adopted Jamie. To all intents and purposes, Phil was Jamie’s father. It was best for everyone if it stayed that way.
Nevertheless, Rowena allowed herself the indulgence of really studying Keir for the few seconds it took him to walk down the room, noting the likenesses to her son…his son.
Deeply socketed eyes, although Jamie’s irises were hazel, a mixture of her green and Keir’s brown. The hairline was strikingly similar with a cowlick at the left temple. Jamie’s upper lip was softer, fuller, more like hers, and the shape of his face was rounder, less hard-boned. Perhaps as Jamie got older, his jawline would firm into the same mould as Keir’s, but that was not obvious yet.
Her gaze skated down the perfectly tailored grey business suit to the stylish leather shoes on Keir’s feet, feet she knew had longer second toes than the big ones. The mark of a fast runner, Keir had laughingly told her. Jamie had them, too, and he was the best sprinter in his age group at school.
“Rowena…”
She sighed and lifted her gaze.
“Would you like coffee brought in?”
She shook her head.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. I’m grateful to you for this chance to get things straightened out, Keir. This is all I want. I won’t be making a nuisance of myself.”
“I’d never consider you a nuisance, Rowena,” he said seriously.
“You know what I mean.” She grimaced. “I don’t intend to subject Delahunty’s to a series of hysterical scenes.”
“If I can be of any service to you, at any time, please call me, Rowena. I’ll do all I can for you,” he assured her.
She could see the deep sincerity in his eyes, and it hurt. Unbearably. Where were you when I needed you? she cried in silent anguish. It’s too late now. Our lives have moved on.
A courtesy knock on the door heralded its opening. Rowena shot to her feet and stepped away from the table, inadvertently moving close to Keir, who merely turned to greet the newcomer. She wasn’t seeking his support or protection, and wasn’t aware of how they looked together as Adriana Leigh entered the office.
“Good morning, Mr. Delahunty,” she said with a bright, winning smile. Her elegance, sophistication and complete self-assurance were heart-joltingly evident. Not a younger woman. Very much a woman of considerable worldly experience. Rowena was spared a flick of curiosity, but the full beam of Adriana Leigh’s concentration was on Keir as she added, “What can I do for you?”
She was the kind of woman who was always aware of men and knowingly watched for her impact on them. Rowena recognised that instantly. She also knew instinctively there would be no tapping any vein of sympathy or guilt. In a roomful of women, this woman would be bored.
“I’d be obliged if you’d give some time to Mrs. Goodman, Adriana,” Keir answered, his clipped tone making the request more of an order. “Rowena, this is Adriana Leigh.”
The bright smile was only briefly jolted. She batted her eyelashes at Rowena. “How do you do, Mrs. Goodman?” A honeyed voice, dripping with confidence. With barely a pause, she inquired, “Did Phil ask you to come?”
It was a bold and subtle sliding in of the knife.
“No. It was my decision,” Rowena replied, silently challenging the other woman to make something belittling of that.
Adriana Leigh raised perfectly arched eyebrows at Keir. “This is rather different from the usual bounds of work requirements, Mr. Delahunty,” she pointed out, maintaining her decorum while questioning the propriety of his authority in what they all knew to be a personal matter.
“Sometimes extraordinary situations arise,” Keir answered smoothly. “I understood your position as personal secretary to one of my executives requires an ability to handle delicate matters with courtesy and patience.” He paused. Was there a threat left hanging? “However, if you feel unable…”
“Not at all, Mr. Delahunty. As you say, I am used to dealing with such situations.”
“I thought you would be.” A touch of dry irony.
“I’ll do my best to give Mrs. Goodman satisfaction,” she said with her own touch of irony as she started forward, showing no further reluctance to join them by the table. A smart, intelligent career woman would do no less after Keir had put her skills in question.
Rowena concentrated on assessing everything about Adriana Leigh before they were left alone together. She had long, toffee-coloured hair, liberally streaked with blonde and deliberately styled in a casually tousled look. It was not only suggestive of a recent tumble in bed but a ready receptiveness to repeating the pleasure at any time.
She wore a long-sleeved, transparent cream blouse with a lace-trimmed, silk camisole underneath. Her full breasts jiggled freely. Her hips swayed, their voluptuous curve from a small waist emphatically outlined by a tan gaberdine figurehugging skirt that was buttoned down to thigh level and left free to swing from a side split. She wore high heels. High, high heels.
This woman exuded sexuality, flaunted it, and Rowena doubted any man would be a hundred percent proof against it. There was no problem in understanding the attraction for Phil. The question was how deeply did Adriana Leigh have her claws into him?
“Rowena.” Keir took her hand, pressing it to pull her attention to him. “I’ll be in my secretary’s office. You have only to call me.”
Part of Rowena’s mind registered his earnest concern and caring. She felt the warmth and strength of his touch. She had a craven urge to cling to it, but the purpose that had brought her here made it inappropriate. Badly inappropriate. Didn’t he realise that?
“I’m all right, Keir. Thank you,” she said in deliberate dismissal.
He gently squeezed her hand before letting it go. Adriana noticed it. Her amber eyes gleamed feline derision at Rowena before she turned her gaze to watch Keir make his departure. The moment the door was closed behind him, she opened hostilities.
“How did you come to be so cosy with our Mr. Delahunty?”
Rowena ignored the dig. “Do you love my husband, or is he simply another conquest to you?” she asked with quiet dignity.
It won a flicker of surprise. “Well, you’re certainly direct.”
“I’d appreciate a direct answer.”
Adriana led from the chin. “I love Phil and he loves me and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“You must have known he was married.”
“So what? He knew he was married, too. I didn’t take anything from you. You’d already lost it. Phil came to me.” Gloating triumph. Power. No sense of guilt whatsoever.
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Divorced?” Perfect and obviously expensive make-up gave Adriana Leigh’s face a youthful glow, but Rowena had no doubt this woman was in her thirties, possibly older than Phil, who was thirty-three.
“No.” She was amused by the questioning.
“Children?”
Her laughter was mocking. “Two abortions.” There was a hardness in her eyes as she added, “I won’t go down that road again.”
It made Rowena wonder if previous lovers had let Adriana down, and she felt a twinge of sympathy, remembering the pain of being left without Keir’s support when she was pregnant with Jamie. The sympathy was short-lived. There was none coming from Adriana for the situation Rowena faced.
“Has Phil ever mentioned our children?”
She shrugged. “Emily is five and Sarah is three. They’re young enough to get over the separation without any lasting trauma. The boy is old enough to look after himself. It’s not as though their father has played a great role in their lives.”
“Is that what Phil told you or what you want to assume?”
“I know the hours Phil works,” she said smugly.
“Since you entered his life.” That truth was obvious now. Rowena silently castigated herself for not realising Phil’s long hours and overnight trips could have another purpose besides work. How complacent she had been to attribute it to ambition!
“Doesn’t his desire to stay with me tell you something?’ Adriana taunted.
Rowena hated her mocking amusement. She might be guilty of complacency, but she hadn’t gone out hunting another woman’s husband to fill in the lonely hours. It took all her will-power to keep her voice steady, her demeanour unruffled. She would not give her antagonist the satisfaction of goading her out of control.
“I suppose you think you’ve rearranged his priorities. For the short term,” Rowena emphasised, wanting to shake Adriana Leigh’s complacency. “Passion does tend to burn out.”
“You don’t know much about men, do you?” Pitying condescension. “They have two brains. Keep the one below the belt satisfied and you can bend the other any way you like.”
Such heartless calculation sickened Rowena. Phil preferred this woman to her? “If that’s the case, I find it odd that you haven’t been able to hold onto one of the many men you’ve obviously had in the past,” she retaliated.
“I haven’t wanted to until now.”
“Then your theory hasn’t exactly been tested, has it?” Rowena pointed out, to no effect whatsoever.
“Face it, darling, you’re beaten. You’ve never satisfied Phil as I do. That’s a fact.” The cat’s eyes glittered down Rowena’s classic navy suit and up again. “I daresay you’re too much of a lady.”
“There’s more to a relationship than sex,” Rowena declared with conviction.
“What?”
“Companionship, sharing goals and achievements, caring about each other, understanding…”
Adriana laughed. “Tell that to a sex-starved man. And there’s so many of them around. Especially fathers.”
The unexpected singling out of fathers bewildered Rowena. She stood, speechless, as enlightenment came in a shower of scorn.
“You dedicated mothers tend to focus all your energy on your children. Your attention is divided. You get tired. You have headaches. And the door opens for another woman to give a man back what his children have taken from him. Quite suddenly he doesn’t give a damn about his children any more. He wants a woman in his life, not a mother.”
“I’m sure that’s what you’d like to think,” Rowena said tersely, disturbed by Adriana’s knowingness. Had Phil complained to her that his wife ignored his needs?
“I’m giving you some good advice for the next time around. The world is full of discontented married men.”
“Why pick on Phil?”
“He was here. He’s what I want. I’ll keep him happy.”
Rowena dearly wanted to rattle Adriana’s mind-battering confidence. A flash of intuition came to her. “Phil wasn’t your first choice, though, was he?”
A pause. A flicker of wariness. Then a return to aggression. “He’s my last choice, and I’ll make it stick, so don’t think you can muddy the issue.”
Rowena pressed further. “You got a job here so you could be around Keir Delahunty and try to catch his interest. He’s the bigger prize, isn’t he? Only he didn’t take the bait.”
Her eyes narrowed with anger. “Did he tell you that?”
“You were still flashing availability signals at him when you came into this office. You’d drop Phil if Keir gave you any encouragement.”
Adriana snorted. “That man is made of stone. Phil’s much more my style, and he knows it. You can’t put Keir Delahunty between us.”
That was probably true, Rowena thought in painful frustration. It didn’t matter how right her observation was about Adriana’s motivations, Keir obviously had a fine sense of discrimination in judging women on the make and wasn’t interested. Why on earth couldn’t Phil see…But maybe Adriana was right about him feeling neglected, overlooked in favour of the children’s needs.
What was the best balance for being both a wife and mother? And why was the onus on her? Shouldn’t a good marriage be mutually supportive?
Her head spun between a confused sense of guilt and a sickening sense of having all her ideals betrayed. Coming here, speaking to this woman, was worse than futile. There was no help in it. None at all. If Phil wanted Adriana Leigh, then let him have her, she thought, resolution undermined by a tidal wave of deep hurt and disillusionment.
But what about the children?
“I take it you’re not overly keen about the role of stepmother,” she said flatly, trying to think of anything that might change the situation, might give Adriana pause for second thoughts about a future with Phil.
“You chose to have kids. They’re your responsibility. Not mine.”
“You honestly believe Phil will be happy about shutting them out of his life?”
“Put it this way. You needn’t worry about any fight over custody. Phil may want to see the girls now and then, and I’ll be happy to go along with that.”
“You’re forgetting Jamie.”
Again she shrugged, as though the burden was not hers to shoulder. “Well, he’s not really Phil’s, is he?” she drawled meaningfully.
“Phil is the only father Jamie’s known.”
“Whose fault is that?”
Angry heat crept into Rowena’s voice despite her resolution to keep cool. “Phil adopted Jamie as his son.”
“When he was how old? Four?”
“Three.”
“No difference. He was a little boy, not a baby. The feeling’s not the same no matter how you want to dress it up. The boy is yours, not Phil’s, and at his age, he’s bound to be a sulky troublemaker.”
Rowena could not trust herself to suppress her outrage at these callous sentiments. Her body was beginning to tremble. “Thank you,” she said tightly. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
“Thank you,” Adriana returned snidely. “It’s always interesting to meet the wife.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_2189fa48-fc07-53c1-922f-12c2d1985e4f)
“MRS. GOODMAN has said all she wishes to say to me, Mr. Delahunty.”
Adriana’s light, almost flippant tone made Keir grit his teeth against an unwise snap. It would be unprofessional to reveal the strong antipathy he felt, knowing as he did that it was aroused by his sympathy for Rowena. He had no right to any personal involvement with this affair. It behove him to maintain some objectivity.
He unhitched himself from the edge of his secretary’s desk in deliberate slow motion. The report he’d been trying to read was still in his hands, and he used it as a point of dismissal. “Thank you for your cooperation, Adriana.”
“My pleasure.”
“To give pain?” The biting, judgmental words were out before he could monitor them. At least he had the satisfaction of wiping the smug look off her face.
“I didn’t ask for this meeting, Mr. Delahunty,” she coolly reminded him.
“A matter of opinion, Adriana. It’s my experience that changing people’s lives incites retaliation, even when the change is innocently caused.”
Rowena’s parents had taught him that. Not that this self-obsessed woman would care what damage she wreaked in going after what she wanted. They were empty words to her.
“I don’t want more company time wasted on gossip, Adriana,” he went on, chilling her out of any further comment. “I’d advise you to keep your meeting with Mrs. Goodman entirely private. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly, Mr. Delahunty. I appreciate your tact.”
He nodded.
She left.
He turned to his homely, middle-aged secretary. “Same for you, Fay. No talk about this.”
“Locked box,” she replied, giving him her owl look.
The tense muscles in his face relaxed into a smile. He liked Fay Pendleton. She not only delivered everything he asked of her with a minimum of fuss and maximum efficiency, her wonderfully expressive face and dry sense of humour always amused him. As did her hair, which was burgundy with wide, blonde streaks at the moment. Every three months she experimented with a new colour combination. Grey, she had declared, was too dull for her.
“I’ll check this later,” he said, dropping the report she had prepared for him on her desk. “Would you make some coffee, Fay, and bring it in with the sandwiches as soon as they’re delivered?”
“Will do.”
He wasn’t about to let Rowena go without any sustenance. She had probably been too wrought up to eat breakfast, and Adriana had undoubtedly gone for the kill. Rowena would be in no fit state to drive. She shouldn’t be alone, either.
Keir reached the office door in a few quick strides. He didn’t know if Rowena would welcome his company or not. He remembered the polite barrier she had maintained between them at last year’s staff Christmas party. He had felt then that she wanted no part of him, and he had reluctantly respected her wishes. It was probably only the shattering effect of knowing her marriage was on the rocks that had allowed the old sense of familiarity to break through this morning. He hoped…
Well, he could only try.
As he entered the office and closed the door quietly behind him, he was intensely aware of the need to tread very carefully. Rowena had come to do what she could to save her marriage. She wanted—loved—Phil Goodman. She was not looking for another man in her life, certainly not in any close capacity.
She sat with her elbows on the table, her head in her hands, fingers pressed tightly to her temples. Pain, defeat…and there was nothing he could do about either. It flitted through his mind that Brett would have pummelled Phil Goodman, inflicting hurt for hurt to his little sister. Keir knew it would do no good in these circumstances, yet he found himself empathising with the urge to do violence. Rowena deserved to be valued. To be cast aside for a woman like Adriana Leigh…
Keir took a deep breath, unclenched his hands and headed down the room to offer what comfort he could. Maybe she would accept a shoulder to cry on. Maybe she would let him drive her home. Maybe there would come some time in the future when she could view him as a friend again. More than a friend.
He was acutely conscious of the hole in his life, the emptiness that no one had been able to fill since Rowena and Brett had been lost to him. A bond of long sharing and understanding had been broken, and the years since had only hammered home how precious and rare it had been. It was impossible to get Brett back, but Rowena…
Dared he lift her from that chair and enfold her in his arms?
She looked up.
Her beautiful green eyes were awash with tears.
There was no decision-making.
He simply did it.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_a613c6a4-3e0d-508f-bcd8-0f64ae6331f1)
IT HAPPENED so fast, Rowena was scooped from the chair and wrapped in Keir Delahunty’s embrace before she could even begin to think it was wrong to have such intimate contact with him. Then the impact of his body against hers threw her into confusion.
She wasn’t used to being held closely by any man but Phil. It had been so long since Keir had made love to her, yet she was instantly reminded of how it had felt with him. It made her acutely aware of both her sexuality and his.
Images of their youthful nakedness flashed into her mind. Her breasts, pressed flat to his broad chest, started prickling with disturbing sensitivity. Her thighs trembled with the shock of recognising the virile strength of his. Her back burned under the cocooning warmth of his arms. All normal thought processes were paralysed by sensations she was utterly powerless to stop.
One hand slid up to her neck, his fingers splaying through her hair as he gently pressed her head onto his shoulder. Her heart seemed to pound in her ears. The scent of some tangy aftershave lotion assaulted her nostrils. Her stomach contracted in sheer panic at the memories evoked.
“You don’t have to fight the tears, Rowena,” Keir murmured, his cheek resting against her head. “You can let out the grief with me. Just as you would with Brett if he were here.”
Guilt that she no longer had a big brother? Sympathy for her pain? The tears were gone, shocked back to the well of despair that Keir’s action had suddenly submerged. She shouldn’t be feeling other things, but she was. And it was wrong. Terribly wrong!
Her mind shifted from one turmoil to another. Was Keir remembering other times when he’d held her, not as a surrogate brother but as a man who wanted her, needed her to be a woman with him?
She was not seventeen any more. She was well and truly a woman, an experienced woman who was in a highly vulnerable state, with her marriage on the rocks and her husband in love—or lust—with someone else. Did Keir think that made her available to him?
Why hadn’t he married? What kind of man was he now? She didn’t know. The meeting with Adriana had left her feeling she was a naive fool who didn’t know anything!
It was as though all the foundations of her life had been ripped away. Was Keir a steady rock that she could cling to? Confide in? Or was there danger in trusting him, danger in trusting anybody?
His cheek moved, rubbing over her hair. His mouth—surely that was his mouth—pressing warmth…kisses! Her heart kicked in alarm. She jerked her head back and looked up. It wasn’t brotherliness she saw in Keir’s eyes. There was no soft sympathy. She caught a darkly simmering passion that triggered a tumultuous eruption of the doubts and fears Adriana had raised.
“Let me go!” she cried, pushing herself free of his embrace as he loosened it.
“Rowena…”
The gruff appeal fell on closed ears. Her eyes flared a fierce and frightened rejection as she backed away from his trailing touch. “Adriana’s right. Sex is all that matters with men.”
“No,” he denied strongly.
But Rowena took refuge in walking over to the glass wall beyond the table, putting a cold, safe distance between them, wrapping her arms around herself, hugging in the pain of hopeless disillusionment.
She was a married woman. It was wrong of Keir to pretend to offer brotherly comfort and then use the opportunity to change it to something else. Even though Phil…But that didn’t excuse it. Keir must realise she had come to save her marriage if she could. For him to take advantage of her weakness at such a time placed him on the same moral level as Adriana Leigh.
“She would have had you.” The words burst from her, the bitter irony of his behaviour being similar to Adriana’s striking her hard. “Why didn’t you take her on, Keir? She was handy, available…”
“Rowena, I care about you. I always have.”
The soft answer stirred more turmoil. She clutched wildly at the first reason she could think of to disbelieve him. “Then why didn’t you stop what was happening between Adriana and Phil?”
No answer.
She swung around to probe further. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know she fancied you, Keir. Even I saw the signals when she walked into this room.”
His face tightened as though she had hit him, yet there was no backward step in the dark blaze of his eyes. “You want a husband that needs to be rescued from another woman?” he challenged, a sting of contempt in his voice. “Face it, Rowena. Phil isn’t worthy of your love. If he really cared for you, Adriana wouldn’t have had a chance with him.”
Phil had cared for her. Rowena was not about to forget he had cared when Keir’s so-called caring wasn’t anywhere in touching distance. “Who are you to judge that? Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t give him enough…enough—”
“Sex?”
Heat flooded up her neck and scorched her cheeks. It was too shaming to concede she must have left Phil dissatisfied in that area, yet it had to be true. She bit her lips, wishing she hadn’t started this tasteless argument. Even Keir’s mouth was curling in disgust.
“Sex isn’t the glue that keeps a man and woman together, Rowena. It helps, but if other things are missing…” He paused, compelling her full attention. “You have so many desirable qualities, any man should consider himself fortunate to have you in his life.”
Desirable. Is that how Keir saw her? Still? But he had no right. And she mustn’t let herself get confused and distracted.
“The evidence is against it,” she reminded him. “Phil wants to be with Adriana. Everything we’ve shared means nothing against what she gives him.”
“She strokes his ego, Rowena,” he said flatly. “Phil likes to be stroked. He can’t have enough of it. He never will have enough of it. Surely you’ve recognised that weakness over the years.”
“Then why did you hire him?” she demanded, trying to reject his clear-sightedness about Phil’s vulnerability to flattery. It went against her ingrained sense of loyalty to accept it.
“He’s good at his job.”
“Why did you hire her?”
“I didn’t. Phil did. He’s entitled to choose the staff that work with him. Usually it makes for a more effective team.”
All perfectly reasonable. Rowena was left floundering in a quagmire of emotions with no outlet for them. A knock on the office door provided a welcome distraction.
A woman entered, pushing a traymobile. Either the silence or the palpable tension got to her. She paused, her eyes darting from Keir’s rigid back to Rowena’s face, obviously gauging the weather in the room and finding it dangerously volatile. She winced apologetically and started to retreat.
“It’s all right, Fay. Bring it in,” Keir commanded quietly. He turned to wave encouragement. “This is my secretary, Fay Pendleton. Mrs. Goodman, Fay.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Goodman.” The quick greeting was accompanied by a tentative smile.
“Yes. Thank you,” Rowena returned jerkily, surprised by Keir’s choice of secretary. Far from being a slickly sophisticated front person for him, this woman looked more like a homely pudding. Except for her hair. The rich burgundy colour with wide blonde bands had a definite touch of eccentricity.
The traymobile was swiftly wheeled to the table, and cups, saucers and plates were set out with deft efficiency. Black coffee was poured, milk and sugar placed handily, and a plate of artistically arranged sandwiches completed the service.
“Smoked salmon, turkey and avocado, ham and—”
“Thank you, Fay.” Keir cut her off.
She gave Rowena a motherly look, her lively brown eyes kind. “Do try to eat.”
“Fay…” Keir warned.
Rowena watched her leave, instinctively liking the woman and oddly comforted by the fact that she didn’t emanate competitive sexiness. Not that it should matter what kind of woman Keir had close to him at work. It didn’t, Rowena told herself. The contrast to Adriana Leigh was simply a relief.
The click of the door shutting behind Fay Pendleton jolted Rowena into realising she should have left, too. This brief hiatus didn’t change anything. Coffee and sandwiches did not fix anything. In fact, they lent an absurd cloak of normality to a highly charged situation, one she should get out of right now before it developed into something worse.
She steeled herself to look at Keir again, thank him for the use of his office and escape from being alone with him any longer. With slow deliberation, she shifted her gaze from the door and met his squarely, determined to put an end to whatever he had in mind.
No matter what Phil had done, she was still married to him, and Keir had no right to be stirring feelings that should have been buried long ago. Buried along with her brother, Brett, because that had been the end of what they had shared together.
Whether he read her intention or not, Keir instantly forestalled any speech from her. “To answer your earlier question,” he said in a tone of relentless pursuit, “I had no interest in Adriana because I don’t care for manipulative people. I don’t want to be with a woman whose responses aren’t genuinely felt. It’s a complete turn-off, regardless of how physically attractive and available she is.”
“And I’m suddenly a turn-on?”
The tense words hung between them, loaded with too much to back away from. Rowena was appalled at having been goaded into such a provocative retort. Somehow Keir’s supreme confidence in who and what he was diminished Phil as a man, and she resented it. She resented even more the idea that Keir might think he could just step in and take advantage of her vulnerable state, letting her know he found her desirable even if her husband no longer did.
“No. Not suddenly,” he answered quietly. “I doubt that many people forget their first love.”
The yearning for that simpler time was in his eyes, and it hurt. It hurt because if he hadn’t forgotten, he should have done something positive about it when it had really mattered. It hurt because it reminded her how naive and trusting she had been, the faith she’d had that he would come back to her and they’d make a life together.
It was he who had broken that faith, he who had dismissed his first love and put it behind him, and he had no right to call on it now. It was Phil who had brought love into her life again. Yet Phil was betraying that love, just as Keir had.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said desolately.
“It does to me.”
She couldn’t believe him, not after all this time. He might still be able to stir treacherous feelings in her, but his feelings could only be shallow, a response to present stimulus, nothing deep and lasting.
“How many years have we led separate lives, Keir?”
“We’re still the same people, Rowena.”
The burning conviction in his eyes riled her. “No, we’re not. I’m not,” she stated very deliberately, her conviction rising out of the pain of too many losses. I’m scarred, she wanted to yell at him, but pride held her tongue.
There was a shift in his expression. A frown. A doubt. “Do you really want Phil back, Rowena? Knowing what you now know about him and Adriana?”
It stung raw wounds. “He’s my husband. He married me.” When you didn’t. “He’s the father of my children,” she added, then wished she had cut out her tongue before uttering those last words.
His face tightened. The sudden bleakness in his eyes smote her heart, awakening a painful guilt over the secret she had kept from him. His child…his son. But Keir had forfeited any right to Jamie. Phil was the only father Jamie had known, and Phil had been there for him, good to him. Only now…What should she do now? What if Adriana got her way and Phil didn’t want to be bothered with Jamie any more?
Keir’s gaze dropped to the table. He stepped over to it and lifted the milk jug. “Do you still have white with one sugar?” he asked without looking up.
“I don’t want coffee,” she said flatly, wishing he hadn’t remembered how she liked it. The familiarity hurt. Everything hurt. She should go. Why did she feel this heavy reluctance to move? What could be gained by continuing such a disturbing dialogue with Keir?
He slowly returned the jug to the table, then lifted his gaze directly to hers, his eyes having gathered a piercing intensity. “Do you want me to try to take Adriana away from Phil?”
That he should even think of making such a move for her stunned Rowena. “You said you didn’t like manipulative people.”
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Emma Darcy
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: THIS TIME, FOREVERHe had returned to save her… Once a handsome prince rescued a beautiful princess … . Well, that was what Rowena Goodman′s children believed. And they soon decided that Keir Delahunty was the prince sent to rescue their mother. But Rowena had trouble believing that Keir, who had left her waiting for him all those years ago, and who could have any woman his heart desired, wanted her .Keir insisted he loved Rowena and the children, and that they were essential to his future happiness. To prove his good intentions he set out to slay all Rowena′s dragons. That left Rowena with no excuses and one secret to share with Keir… and it concerned her oldest child.