‘Thanks, Carol.’ Kate bent down to receive the full weight of Oliver’s compact sturdy little-boy body as he ran towards her, only too glad of an excuse to conceal her face. Picking up Oliver, she avoided looking at both her neighbour and Sean.
‘Er…I’ll be off, then,’ she heard Carol saying hurriedly as she backed out of the door.
Sean stared at the child in Kate’s arms in shocked disbelief. She had a child—it was her child; he knew that. She had a child, which meant…Which meant that some other man must have…
Oliver was wriggling in her arms and demanding to be put down. Reluctantly Kate gave in and did so. The moment his feet touched the floor he turned to look at Sean, and Kate felt as though her heart was being clenched in a hard, hurting fist when he demanded, ‘Who are you?’
‘Ollie, it’s bedtime,’ she told him firmly, and without looking at Sean she added, ‘I would like you to leave.’
‘I meant what I said about working for me, Kathy,’ Sean responded grimly.
‘Don’t call me Kathy!’
Too late Kate realised that Oliver was reacting to the anger in her voice. His eyes rounded and he put his hand in hers and stared at Sean. But her distress at upsetting him was nothing compared to the rage she felt when Sean told her curtly, ‘You’re upsetting the boy!’
To her shock, and before she could voice her fury, Sean bent down and picked Ollie up in his arms.
Kate waited for her son to struggle, as he always did when anyone unfamiliar touched him, but to her chagrin, instead of pulling away from Sean he leaned into him, looking at him gravely in silence before heaving a huge sigh and then saying determinedly, ‘Story, please, man!’
Kate felt as though her heart was going to break. Her ex-husband was holding their son, and Oliver was looking at his father as though he were all of his heroes rolled into one. The pain knifing into her was unbearable. She wanted to snatch Oliver out of Sean’s arms and hold him protectively in her own. Her poor baby didn’t know that his father had rejected the very idea of him even before he was born!
‘Oliver’s friend’s father reads him a story when he comes home from work,’ she told Sean in a stilted voice, in explanation of her son’s demand.
Oliver! She had even called the child by the name he had…And yet as he looked into the little boy’s solemn eyes Sean found it impossible to resent or hate him.
‘Story?’ he enquired, smiling at him and ignoring Kate.
Oliver nodded his head enthusiastically. ‘Mummy—book,’ he commanded imperiously, turning his head to look at Kate.
‘Please use proper sentences, Oliver,’ Kate reminded him automatically.
‘Mummy, give me book for man to read, please.’ Oliver smiled winningly and Kate could feel her whole body melting with love.
‘Sean has to go,’ she informed Oliver, automatically using Sean’s name without thinking. ‘I will read you a story later.’
‘No. Sean read Oliver story!’
The frowning pout he was giving reinforced Kate’s awareness that her son was overtired, and all too likely to have one of his rare tantrums if he was thwarted—the very last thing she wanted him to do in front of Sean, who would no doubt enjoy seeing her in such an embarrassing situation.
‘Why don’t you just give me the book?’
The quiet voice and its soft tone made Kate turn her head and stare at Sean in surprise. Oliver was already lying against Sean’s shoulder.
‘It isn’t really his bedtime yet,’ she said.
‘Is there a law which says he can only have a story at bedtime?’
Mutely Kate shook her head, too caught up in the heart-wrenching sight of her son in his father’s arms to protest any further as she went to get Oliver’s favourite story book.
Half an hour later Sean nestled Oliver deeper into his arms and told Kate, ‘By the looks of him he needs to be in bed.’
‘Yes. I’ll take him up.’
Automatically she moved to take Oliver from him, but Sean shook his head.
‘I’ll take him up. Just tell me which room.’
Weakly, she did so.
As he laid Oliver down on his small bed Sean felt the ache of an old and powerful emotion he had thought safely destroyed. Kathy’s child. He could feel his eyes starting to blur and he blinked fiercely.
As he left the room he hesitated outside the other bedroom door, and then quickly opened it.
‘Where are you going? That’s my bedroom!’
He hadn’t heard Kate come up the stairs, and they confronted one another on the small landing.
‘And you sleep there alone?’ He couldn’t stop himself from asking the question he knew he had no right to ask.
‘No. I don’t!’ Kate turned her head, not wanting him to see the expression in her eyes and therefore missing the one in his. ‘Sometimes Oliver comes in and gets into bed with me,’ she continued.
He had no valid reason to feel the way he did right now, Sean acknowledged, and no valid right either!
‘How do you manage on your own? I know you work full-time.’ He was frowning, looking as though he was genuinely concerned, and Kate turned away from him quickly and hurried towards the stairs. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again—thinking that Sean had real feelings.
‘I manage because I have to, for Oliver’s sake. I’m all he’s got—’
‘You mean his father abandoned you?’ His voice was harsh and almost condemning. ‘He left you?’
Kate could hardly believe the censure she could hear in his voice. ‘Yes, he did,’ she agreed as calmly as she could, once they were both back downstairs. ‘But personally I think that Ollie and I are better off without him.’
She walked purposefully to the front door and unlocked it, pulling it open and making it clear that she wanted Sean to leave.
‘I want you back at your desk tomorrow morning,’ Sean warned her curtly.
‘Well, I’m afraid I’m not going to be there,’ Kate responded, equally curtly.
‘I warned you, Kate—’ Sean began.
‘Tomorrow is Saturday, Sean,’ she reminded him dryly. ‘We don’t work weekends.’
There was a small, telling pause, during which Kate wondered what the woman who now shared his life thought about the fact that he obviously worked seven days a week, and then he said, ‘Very well. Monday morning, then, Kate. Be there, or face the consequences.’ He walked past her and out of the door.
CHAPTER THREE
‘NO!’ ANGRILY Kate sat up in bed. It was three o’clock on Monday morning and she needed to be asleep, not lying there thinking about Sean, remembering how it had felt when he—
‘No!’ she protested again, groaning in anguish as she rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. But it was no use; neither her memories nor her feelings were going to be ignored.
Well, if she couldn’t ignore them then at least she could use them to remind herself of how Sean had hurt her. To inoculate herself against him doing so again, because on Friday, when he had kissed her, she had nearly forgiven him…
She could feel the sharp quiver of sensation aching through her body. So her body remembered