His Love-Child

CHAPTER FOUR

WILLOW lay on her back in the king-sized bed and longed for sleep. It had been an hour since she had left Theo’s suite, embarrassed and, if she was honest, burning with frustration. She was still burning; she could still feel the touch of his mouth on hers, could still taste him on her tongue and could still feel the need clawing in her belly. No other man had ever made her feel like this. She had only ever dated a couple of people during the past few years. The latest was a perfectly pleasant man called Dave, who was a GP. They were close but their relationship had not even progressed past a kiss. So why, oh, why was she such a pushover for a man like Theo?

It was so unfair and so unexpected, moisture glazed her eyes. What should have been one of the most triumphant days of her life had ended in disaster, and a solitary tear flowed down her cheek. Until yesterday she would have sworn Theo Kadros meant less than nothing to her. For the past nine years she had lived with the conviction he was beneath contempt. She still thought that, but somehow after meeting Theo again today, talking to him, it was making her question her own behaviour.

A deep sigh escaped her… If he ever found out she had given birth to his child, his son, and never told him… she didn’t dare think what he might do to her. Yet it had seemed the right thing to do, the only thing to do at the time.

Closing her eyes, she let the memories flood back of her arrival in India and the last few precious months she had spent with her mother.

It had never really entered her head that she might be pregnant because Theo had used condoms. She had thought that his mention at the airport of the possibility she might become pregnant had just been a ruse to keep in touch. She had been furious with him, and ashamed of herself, and still young enough to see everything in black and white with no grey area in between. In her mind he was a womanising swine that would quite happily take any girl to bed. His suggestion they spend the weekend together had simply been a ploy to send her back to her own room. She had convinced herself he probably had girlfriends dotted all around the world that his poor innocent fiancée knew nothing about, and he had simply wanted to add Willow to his list.

She had been accepted at Oxford to read English in September, and she’d been determined to put Theo Kadros out of her mind, and enjoy her holiday in India with her mother. She had realised she had made a disastrous mistake succumbing to the sexual overtures of a sophisticated, experienced man, and had mistaken lust for love. She had put it down to experience; determined to learn by it and get over it.

But as the long summer had progressed her mother had become more and more worried about her. Willow had honestly thought her lack of energy and occasional sickness had been because of the hot climate, and her bruised heart. It had only been after nine weeks when her mother had taken her to a doctor, that she’d discovered she was pregnant.

It had been her mother who had convinced her to return to England and make the arrangements to postpone her university entrance for a year and insisted she contact the father straight away.

Willow had reluctantly agreed. She had told her mother her ex-boyfriend was the brother of a friend, implying she had known him for some time. She had been too ashamed to tell her mother it had just been a one-night stand. She had returned to London, and had called at Theo’s house in Mayfair prepared to tell him she was pregnant.

But it had not worked out like that. Oh, Willow had gone to the house all right! But only to find it covered in scaffolding. The contractor, British Land Ltd, had been turning it into prestigious offices, and the foreman had told her he had no idea where the last residents had gone.

Tired and frightened, Willow had returned to her family home in Devon. She had called her mother, and told her the ex-boyfriend was out of the country at the moment. Her mother had told Willow not to worry, her tour of duty in India would be finished in ten days, and when she got back they could contact the boy together.

But her mother had never returned to England and Willow had never seen her again.

Willow rolled over on her stomach and buried her head in the pillow. After all these years, it still brought a tear to her eyes when she thought of her mother. It had been such a needless way to die. She had been on her way back from work at the British Embassy to the apartment she’d rented in the city, when she had been caught up in a riot. The Indian army had fired over the heads of the rioters, but by horrible chance a bullet had ricocheted off a building and hit her beloved mother. She had died instantly.

The Foreign Office had been very helpful, but to the pregnant Willow, who had lost her mother and grandmother within six months of each other, it had been devastating. She had numbly agreed to everything that had been suggested, and she could still remember with horror a dark-suited man arriving at the cottage and presenting her with a brass urn containing her mother’s ashes.

For months she’d been swamped in grief and it had only been with the help of her grandmother’s neighbour, Tess, that Willow had managed to carry on. At seven months pregnant Willow had finally come out of her haze of grief and concentrated on the child growing inside her. She’d decided it was time to do as her mother had wanted, and tell the father. Only it had been too late…

Sitting on the train to London, with the address of Theo Kadros’s British office in her pocket, Willow had opened the magazine she had bought to read on the journey. There in front of her she had seen the marriage of Theo Kadros to Dianne displayed in a dozen glossy pictures of the happy couple. She had left the train at the next stop and gone straight back home.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Willow sat up and brushed the moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand. She was never going to sleep, and she refused to indulge in any more grief or self-pity. Her mind had been made up for her years ago, and she was determined to stick by her original decision. It was too late to change now…

So by the same token the last thing she needed was to meet Theo Kadros for breakfast or at any other time, for that matter.

A quick glance at her wrist-watch told her it was two-thirty in the morning; no chance of a train back to Devon tonight. What the hell? She was a published author who had just signed a lucrative deal for film rights; she could afford it this once, and it was an emergency…

Quickly and quietly she washed and dressed in blue jeans and a checked shirt and slipped a blue lambswool sweater over the top. She packed her overnight case and glanced around the room. Spying the list of pamphlets on the table, she quickly flicked through them until she found what she wanted. She dialled the number and breathed a sigh of relief. A car would be waiting for her in ten minutes.

It didn’t matter about the hotel bill, as it was in the name of her publishers and they were paying.

She did not use the lift, but walked down the stairs from her third-floor room. She had noted that the staircase ended very close to the exit door, and would save her having to cross the foyer, where somebody might see her.

‘Madam, do you need a cab?’ the doorman asked, blinking; the poor man was half asleep.

‘No, I have a car picking me up,’ she said truthfully, and slipped him the key to her room and a high denomination note, and suddenly he was wide-awake. He opened the hotel door for her, and escorted her to the pavement without batting an eyelid!

Willow heaved a sigh of relief as she slid into the back seat of the waiting car. ‘You know the way?’

A cheerful female face turned back to smile at her. ‘Yes, ma’am. I checked on the way over here; this is the best fare I have had in months.’

On that note, Willow finally closed her eyes. The immense relief she felt at having slipped away from the hotel and Theo, combined with the steady drone of the car’s engine, encouraged her to sleep. Within minutes she had dozed off into a restless slumber.

Damn it to hell! Theo swore as he drained the bottle of whisky into the crystal glass. The witch had turned him inside out all over again, but this time… this time he had decided to proceed with caution where the lovely Willow was concerned.

It had nearly killed him to let her walk out of his suite, hence the almost half a bottle of whisky he had downed since she’d left. He didn’t usually drink much at all. He had learnt his lesson the hard way.

After Willow had left him standing at the airport, feeling furious and betrayed, he had vowed to banish her from his mind. The method he’d chosen was to drink too much, which had resulted in him making a foolish decision. He had got back together with Dianne, and agreed to marry her. She was a great lawyer but not a great wife, and their marriage had very quickly sobered him up. When he had found his wife in bed with another man, divorce had been inevitable, and he wasn’t sorry.

Contrary to the opinion of the popular press, he was not the playboy they painted him. He had had three mistresses in the four years since his divorce. The latest one being Christine, who lived in Athens. Recently he had contemplated marrying her simply as a means to provide him with an heir. His work was his life. A life he had been quite content with until he had stood in the hotel reception this morning and watched Willow Blain walk down the stairs.

Draining the glass, he strolled over to the telephone and gave the night-duty receptionist his instructions. He wanted a wake-up call at six-thirty. But more importantly if Miss Blain tried to book out, he was to be informed immediately. His mind was made up; Willow would not escape him so easily this time.

At eight the next morning a snarling Theo spun the hotel register around and read the entry. ‘Willow Blain. Care of Henkon Publishing’ and the address.

‘What time did she leave?’ he demanded icily of the cowering manager.

‘According to the night porter, about three in the morning. A car was waiting for her, apparently.’

Famed for his business acumen and his quick, incisive mind, Theo was in danger of losing it completely and sacking everyone on the spot. Until it struck him there was something very odd about Willow’s behaviour. He wasn’t a fool. He knew women, and he knew the sexual tension, the chemistry between them was electric. He could, with very little persuasion, have had Willow in his bed last night.

Willow might not want to renew their relationship, but all she had to do was say, ‘No’. So why did she feel the need to escape in the middle of the night? That was the real question. He had to give Willow credit—she was crafty. A wry smile twisted his firm mouth. The woman wrote detective novels; he should have expected as much. But the lovely Willow obviously had something to hide, and Theo was not going to rest until he found out.

It was eight in the morning when the cab pulled up outside Willow’s thatched cottage overlooking the river. Willow paid the driver and, with a sigh of relief, let herself into her home. Stephen was staying with Tess and her husband at their home a hundred yards further up the road, and they were not expecting her back until this afternoon.

She glanced around the familiar hall and smiled. She had probably overreacted, leaving London in the middle of the night, but she didn’t care. She was home, and it felt great. Running upstairs to her bedroom, she placed her weekend case on the bed and swiftly unpacked. She took a quick shower and washed her hair. Standing in front of the mirror, she set about drying her hair. As she glanced at the naked reflection of herself a vivid mental image of Theo’s dark head lowered over her breasts, his sensuous mouth suckling the rose-tipped peaks, suddenly flashed in her mind. A shaft of heat lanced through her slender body and she almost groaned. No! her mind cried. Sex and all that was behind her, had been for nine years, and that was the way it was going to stay. She continued drying her hair with more force than was necessary.

Returning to the bedroom, she looked out of the window at the view of the river sparkling in the bright early morning sunshine and smiled again. This was her life now and it was a good one. So what if she didn’t have a man in her life? She didn’t need one. Stephen was more than enough for her.

She quickly put on clean briefs and a multi-coloured Indian cotton summer dress with short sleeves, the skirt swinging around her calves. She slipped her feet into flat sandals, and with a flick of her long hair she went back downstairs.

She’d have a quick breakfast and then call at Tess’s and surprise Stephen. Then she would walk him to school as she usually did. Everything back to normal and no more city jaunts for her, she vowed. It was the first time since Stephen was born that she had spent a night away from him, and she had no intention of repeating the exercise.

Ten minutes later as she opened the gate to Tess’s cottage the front door opened, and her heart expanded in her breast at the sight of the dark-haired dynamo of a boy that shot out.

‘Mum… Mum, you’re back. I have had a really great time, you wouldn’t believe,’ Stephen called out as he ran full tilt down the garden path followed by a beaming Tess. ‘The reporter from the local paper called and interviewed me, and he took a photograph of me. He said my picture might be in the paper, and that you were going to make tons of money.’

Shock held her rigid for an instant. ‘That’s great,’ she finally managed to say, and swept the firm young body of her son up in her arms, and hugged him so tightly he yelped.

‘Hey, Mum, put me down. I’m eight, not a baby.’ Reluctantly she let him go.

‘I didn’t think you would mind,’ her friend Tess said, grinning. ‘You winning the award is the most excitement this village has ever seen.’

‘Thanks,’ Willow said, trying to smile. Inside she was horrified at the thought of Stephen’s photo appearing in a newspaper. But Tess did not seem to notice anything was amiss and continued speaking.

‘How did you get back so quick?’

‘Well…’

‘No, it doesn’t matter. I guess you want to walk Stephen to school. Call in on your way back. I will have the coffee ready and I want to hear every little detail.’

Stephen continued chattering nineteen to the dozen as they headed for the primary school two hundred yards away and for the first time in his young life Willow was barely listening to what he was saying, feelings of fright and panic already consuming her. She tried to tell herself it was a local paper, very few people read it, and she was worrying for nothing, but mixed in with her fear was guilt.

She glanced down at her son’s beaming, excited face and wondered if she had made the right decision all those years ago. Stephen had not looked particularly like Theo when he was born. His eyes had been a deep blue, but within months they had turned dark brown. Most of the people in the village, because of his black curly hair, had automatically said he looked like Willow. But as he had grown older the baby curls had some how straightened out, and his skin tone had become much darker than hers. More and more Willow could see his father in his features.

‘Anyway,’ Stephen said, ‘when the man asked who my father was, Tess told him to stop, and then he left.’

‘What?’ Willow exclaimed, the mention of father registering like a bullet to the brain. ‘Well, that was very wise of Tess.’ She smiled down into his suddenly serious face, and felt even worse.

‘Mum, you know you said my father married someone else and then vanished to the other side of the world but you didn’t know where? Well, now you are going to make a lot of money, do you think we could look for him? Today is the last day at school, and next week is half-term holiday, so we could start looking from tomorrow.’ He looked at her with such innocent, trusting eyes her heart turned over in her breast.

‘Well, I don’t see why not,’ she conceded, and then felt terrible for lying to him. But was it a lie? She had always known deep in her heart that at some point Stephen would want to meet his dad, and the event of the last twenty-four hours had simply reinforced her belief.

Smiling down at Stephen, she added, ‘In any case, a holiday will do us both good.’ The idea of taking Stephen away somewhere for a week suddenly seemed a brilliant idea. By the time they returned the press would have hopefully forgotten all about them. Part of her problem solved for the moment, she was relieved to see Stephen’s friend Tommy run towards him as they approached the schoolyard, Stephen’s thoughts of his father evaporating as he eagerly joined in his friend and vanished into the school building, without a backward glance.

‘Well,’ Tess exclaimed, ‘tell all! Is the gorgeous Mr Carlavitch as handsome and sexy in the flesh? And is he going to make you rich? And, most important, did you fancy him?’

Sitting at Tess’s kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee, Willow laughed. It was either that or cry. ‘I don’t know,’ she responded honestly. ‘He was quite attractive I suppose.’ She had had another man entirely on her mind during that time, and still had.

‘Are you all right?’ Tess frowned. ‘I thought you would be ecstatic winning the award and everything, yet you look a bit done in.’

‘Yes, I am a bit,’ Willow said, getting to her feet, grateful for the excuse to get away and be alone with her turbulent thoughts. ‘I did travel half the night in a car, you know. Thanks a million for looking after Stephen, I really appreciate it. I think I will just nip into the village for some milk, and then go home to rest for a while.’

‘Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking of. I’ll catch you later.’

‘I’ll pop back in after I collect Stephen from school this afternoon. Actually, I am thinking of taking him away tomorrow for the half-term holiday, down to Falmouth like we did last year, and a trip to France for a day or so. He likes the boat trip and he deserves a treat; he has been so good.’

‘Good idea. But in that case you will need all the sleep you can get.’ Tess chuckled.

But when Willow returned to her cottage thirty minutes later sleep was the last thing on her mind. After she’d accepted the congratulations of what appeared to be half the village, clustered around the post office, someone had complimented Willow on the picture in one of the national tab-loids. In horror she had scanned the photo. It was her, all right, standing in the foyer of the hotel the day before. But alongside the picture of her was another one of Stephen, obviously thanks to the miracle of a computer and modern technology. When she read the article she felt sick.

Willow moved around her much-loved home, scrubbing and cleaning in a frenzy of activity, anything to take her mind off her troubles. She paused for a long moment in Stephen’s bedroom, a sad smile curving her lush mouth. The Thomas the Tank Engine wallpaper he had loved when a toddler had been replaced by cool blue paper, posters of his favourite cars adorned the walls, and a computer stood on his desk. At eight he was clearly growing up, and she had buried her head in the sand for far too long. His demand today that they go and look for his dad had proved that.

Fearful for the future and what it held, she gave up any idea of lying down to rest, and walked back downstairs. She had a horrible premonition that Stephen might get his wish a lot sooner than he expected. She knew Theo Kadros was still in London. She tried to tell herself she had nothing to worry about—a man like Theo only read the financial papers. But she could not shrug off the fear that somehow he was going to discover her secret.

A stony-faced Theo glanced through the Financial Times waiting for the car that was to take him to his meeting, but his mind was not on business. He had called Henkon Publishing and asked for Willow’s address and been turned down flat.

‘Sir.’

‘Yes,’ he snapped at the hotel manager.

‘I know this is not the kind of newspaper you usually read, but I thought you might be interested.’ He wasn’t the manager of a top-class hotel without having a good brain and good insight where people were concerned. He had a shrewd idea that Mr Kadros might be very interested and hopefully very appreciative of his suggestion. ‘It is a very good picture. Don’t you think?’ He handed the paper to his boss folded at the correct page.

Theo glanced at the picture, and then at the smaller one next to it, and looked again. His dark eyes widened incredulously, and then blazed black with fury. His lips tightened into a hard, bitter line creating a ring of white around his mouth as he read the accompanying article.

Who would have guessed that the winner of this year’s Crime Writers’ Prize, J. W. Paxton, for his novel A Class Act Murder, would turn out to be not a man but a woman? The stunningly attractive Willow Blain, and yes, folks, that is her real name.

The film rights were sold only hours after the award ceremony to Mr Carlavitch, the famous American film producer.

Willow is also a single mother, but without a marriage behind her, living in Devon with an eight-year-old son she has brought up entirely on her own.

Theo took out his mobile phone, barked out a few instructions, then dialled again and cancelled his arrangements for the day.

CHAPTER FIVE

WITH a hotel booked in Falmouth for tomorrow night, and their suitcases packed, Willow was ready to leave first thing in the morning. A week away together would do them both good, she told herself. As for looking for Stephen’s father… She couldn’t lie to her son, but at least the break would give her time to come to terms with the fact that Stephen had a right to know who his father was and maybe some time in the future meet him. But not yet…

Meeting Theo for a drink last night had been a huge mistake and had seriously dented her pride and her confidence. Convinced she could handle the situation with mature sophistication, she had been terribly shocked to realise that, in the sexual stakes, she was no further forward where Theo was concerned than when she was an eighteen-year-old virgin. She hadn’t been able to resist him then, and it had been humiliating to realise that nothing much had changed.

True she had said, ‘No,’ and escaped, but not before she’d been forced to face the shattering realisation that for some bizarre reason her body seemed to be programmed to respond instantly and helplessly to one particular man: Theo Kadros. It was only lust. An unfortunate chemical reaction, nothing more. She knew this, but even so she needed time to build up her defences before even contemplating telling him he had a son.

Still too ill at ease to rest in the now spotless house, she walked out into the garden. Perhaps a stroll along the riverbank would ease the emotional turmoil the events of the past twenty-four hours had created in her mind. Spying a thistle among the profusion of flowers that lined the path, she stooped and tugged viciously at the offending weed. The spikes pierced the palm of her hand, and she cursed long and bitterly under her breath. The brief physical pain was nothing compared to how foolish she felt. She had allowed her editor, Louise, to persuade her into entering her book for the award, and to attend the ceremony in London.