None of the marriages had lasted longer than three years. Each wife had departed in a flurry of recriminations and alimony. Following the third divorce, Oliver had vowed that he would stick to mistresses. They might be expensive but they were a damn sight less expensive than greedy, vengeful wives.
‘And there were no children?’ said Thea, totally engrossed and not in the least put out by the declaration. She couldn’t imagine anything more thrilling than being an expensive mistress.
This kind of scenario was right up her street.
Oliver looked momentarily uncomfortable. ‘I have a son by my first wife,’ he replied, after taking another puff of his cigar. ‘But we had ... er... a disagreement some years ago. I’m afraid we haven’t been on speaking terms since then.’
With a directness which so often made her elder daughter cringe, Thea rested her chin on her clasped hands and said, ‘Really? What happened?’
‘I tried to stop him making the same mistake ‘I had.’ Oliver Cassidy didn’t make a habit of admitting that he could have been wrong. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that in the matter of Veronique he might have been, but her untimely death had come as a great shock to him nevertheless. ‘I’d been through three disastrous marriages and realized too late that my wives were only interested in my money. My son was living in London, doing very well for himself in his own career. Then, when he was twenty-three, he met a young French girl. She was eighteen years old and penniless. He was besotted with her. Within a few weeks of meeting her, he brought her down to Bristol and informed me that they were planning to get married.’ He paused, remembering the ensuing argument as plainly as if it had happened yesterday. ‘Well. To cut a long story short, I told him he was a bloody fool, and he went ahead and married her anyway. They had two children, and a few years later she died. I attempted to contact my son afterwards, but I’m afraid he wasn’t able to forgive me for disapproving of the marriage in the first place.’
‘But that’s terrible!’ cried Thea, suffused with indignation on his behalf. ‘You only had his best interests at heart. You were trying to help him!’
‘I know, I know. But my son had ideas of his own. You know how stubborn children can be.’
‘So you’ve never ever seen your grandchildren?’ Thea persisted, her dark eyes sympathetic.
Oliver shook his head. There was no need to mention that fateful afternoon when Veronique had brought them to his house. The encounter wasn’t something of which he was particularly proud.
‘Never.’
‘It’s a tragedy,’ she declared expansively. ‘And those poor children ...’
Smiling, he leaned closer. ‘Between ourselves, that’s one of the reasons I’m thinking of buying a house down here. They moved to Trezale a year ago. I’m not getting any younger.’ He spread his hands and added sorrowfully, ‘I’d like the chance to get to know them.’
Her emotions heightened by Chablis and champagne, Thea was on the verge of tears. She took his hand in hers. ‘You know, you really are a very nice man.’
Oliver Cassidy’s plush suite was decorated in peacock blues and greens, and subtly lit.
Unashamed of her body, Thea removed her clothes with neither coyness nor ceremony, then crossed the bedroom to stand naked before him.
‘Who’s seducing who?’ he said, appreciating her lack of artifice.
Thea, loosening his tie, looked amused. ‘Does it really matter? We’re adults. I think we both know why we’re here ...’
He removed his jacket and watched her capable fingers unfastening the buttons of his white shirt. She was still smiling, evidently enjoying herself. And she was right, of course; any further games were unnecessary.
Aroused by her straightforward attitude, as well as by the proximity of her unclothed body, Oliver realized that it was years since he had wanted a woman this badly. He put his arms around her, drawing her against him. He was sixty-one years old and his life wasn’t over yet.
‘Yes,’ he said, inhaling her warm scent and pressing a kiss to her temple, where white hair met tanned, enticingly perfumed skin. ‘And I think you are a very nice woman.’
‘You’re so right.’ Closing her eyes, Thea slid her hands inside his unbuttoned shirt. ‘I am.’
Chapter 13
‘If you don’t eat your Weetabix,’ said Maxine, hating the sound of her own voice and frantically casting about for an appropriate threat,
‘What?’ Josh challenged her, his eyes narrowing. In the two days since his father had been back from France, Maxine had definitely changed for the worse. No longer any fun, she had taken to bossing them around, ruthlessly rationing their television time and insisting they do boring school work even though it was still the middle of the summer holidays. If she hadn’t demanded to see his exercise books he would never even have found the squashed Mars bar in the side pocket of his satchel, so the fact that he wasn’t hungry was all her fault anyway. ‘HI don’t eat my Weetabix,’ he repeated mutinously, ‘you’ll what?’
Hell, thought Maxine, who couldn’t have cared less whether or not he ate his stupid breakfast. All she was trying to do was prove to Guy Cassidy that she could do the job he so obviously didn’t think her capable of, and all she was doing was making everyone miserable, including herself.
And Guy, damn him, wasn’t even paying attention. Buried behind his paper, apparently engrossed in the racing pages, he was drinking strong black coffee and ignoring his young son’s act of rebellion. Maxine, who had been so determined to impress him, wondered why she even bothered.
‘I shall begin by shaving your head,’ she replied sweetly, because Josh was inordinately proud of his spiky blond hair. She had also observed the first furtive flickerings of interest in ten-year-old Tanya Trevelyan, whose parents ran the local post office. ‘And then ‘I shall paint red spots all over your face with indelible felt pen. Then I’ll tell Tanya that you’re madly in love with her!’
Ella screamed with laughter. Josh, turning purple, shot Maxine a look of fury.
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Oh yes, I would.’
Grabbing Guy’s arm, he wailed, ‘Dad, tell her she can’t do that! She can’t tell Tanya I love her ...’
