Phantom Marriage
Penny Jordan
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
IF she didn’t hurry she was going to be late picking the twins up again, Tara acknowledged, glancing in resignation at the heavy-duty watch which looked so incongruous against the fragility of her wrist.
Today Chas has been more difficult than ever. Twice he had had the model in tears, and only her own deft soothing had enabled them to carry on.
It was not merely luck and knowing the right people that had taken Chas to the top as a fashion photographer, and even when she was appalled at the brutal, uncaring way he treated his models, Tara still found it possible to admire his skill, and the driving desire for perfection his unyeilding determination evidenced.
Today he had been particularly savage, and not just with the model, and Tara knew the reason why. Ever since she had started working for him as his personal assistant he had made his desire for her very evident. In a way she knew she ought to be flattered that he wanted her when so many beautiful girls were only too ready to share his bed, but then Chas was cynical and hardbitten enough to know that his models were only too happy to sleep with him if it meant it would further their career, whereas she… She stifled an impatient sigh as he gave terse instructions to her regarding the development of some of the shots he had taken. Photography had always been one of her interests, and when she had been left alone after the twins were born she had turned to it as a means of earning a living. Eventually she hoped to have a studio of her own, and this she had made plain to Chas when she first went to work with him. As far as work went she couldn’t fault him. He was marvellously patient in showing her all the tricks of the trade and helping her with her own photography; unstinting with both genuine praise and genuine criticism, and was now allowing her to take on some of their more routine work entirely unsupervised. An ad they had done for stockings several weeks ago had brought a positive paean of praise from the client, and Chas had given her full credit for her work. No, it was not where work was concerned that Chas was becoming impossible. In a way it was almost ludicrous that he should find her desirable; at twenty-four and the mother of six-year-old twins she had long ago ceased thinking of herself as the object of any man’s desire.
‘And don’t forget, we’ve got that weekend assignment coming up,’ were Chas’s final words as she hurried to where her car was parked.
It was an assignment Tara was privately dreading. They had received a commission to take some fashion shots at Leeds Castle which would take up an entire weekend. Tara had protested that she couldn’t possibly leave the twins, but Chas had overruled her, saying that his housekeeper would be delighted to look after them for her. The real reason she didn’t want to go was that she sensed that Chas would use the weekend to force her into an affair with him—an affair she didn’t want, but offending him might ultimately mean losing her job, which she enjoyed very much and which was extremely well paid.
Sighing, she eased herself into her ancient Mini, adjusting the driving mirror as she did so, pausing as she caught sight of her own reflection. Twenty-four; she grimaced wryly. She didn’t look it, which was ridiculous when she remembered that at eighteen she had looked older. Eighteen… She grimaced, tossing the thick length of her brown-blonde hair off her shoulders. Normally she wore it in one single plait for work but this morning they had overslept and there hadn’t been time. Her face free of make-up belied her years, freckles standing out plainly across the bridge of her nose. Her hair had a natural tendency to curl, tiny tendrils feathering across her forehead. Her eyes were an unusual mixture of hazel-green; hazel one moment, jade green the next, in accordance with her mood. As a child she had been volatile, given to impulsive gestures, but age and experience had cured her of that.
She switched on her engine, swearing mildly as she glanced again at her watch. Her skin was faintly tanned still from a trip she had made to Greece with Chas earlier in the year. Her mother had looked after the twins for her, but grudgingly. She had never really got over the fact that they had been born illegitimate. Tara grimaced as she pulled out into the main stream of traffic. It had not been purely for the twins’ sake that she had invented a ‘deceased husband’ for herself when she moved to London shortly after their birth. As she had quickly discovered in the months following their arrival, while some areas of ‘sophisticated’ society now quite happily condoned the birth of children outside marriage, in male eyes there was still an element of the ‘fallen woman’ attached to girls who admitted to fatherless children, and Tara had grown sick of the men who had offered friendship and affection merely because they assumed her unmarried mother status meant they would quickly gain access to her bed. They had soon learned their mistake, just as she had quickly learned from hers. She had left the small town where she had gone to stay with her aunt and uncle to await the birth of the twins, and started anew in the safe anonymity of London where no one cared enough to question her youthfully widowed status.
It had been a lucky move. She had managed to get the twins enrolled at an excellent nursery, while she herself had gone to college to complete the education so rudely shattered by the discovery of her pregnancy. It had been impossible for her to go to university, but she had gained a sound grounding in secretarial work, which had meant that at least she had been able to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads. An unexpected Premium Bond win had provided the money for the deposit on the small terraced house she had bought in what had been a very unfashionable part of London, but which was now fast moving up-market as more and more young couples made it their home, and there had been sufficient money left for her to afford the fees at the small private kindergarten the twins were attending. This last expense was a bone of contention between Tara and her mother. Her mother had moved to the same town as Tara’s aunt and uncle after the twins’ birth, complaining bitterly that she could no longer stand the shame of living in the same place that had witnessed her daughter’s disgrace. Tara’s father had been killed in a road accident when Tara herself was five and she could barely remember him, so her mother and her aunt and uncle had been the only family she had known. All three of them now felt uncomfortable with her, she acknowledged, and so her visits to them were infrequent. Her mother considered private education to be morally wrong, but Tara had pointed out to her as gently as she could that she wanted the best for the twins.
When she had first discovered that she was pregnant her mother had wanted her to have her child adopted, but Tara had remained adamant that she wouldn’t. There had been no possibility of marriage to their father, of course. Her eyes darkened, the fingers gripping the steering wheel suddenly white. Oh God, how that still hurt after all these years when surely she ought to have put it long behind her, but James’s total rejection of her still had the power to wound. It wasn’t even as though