No wonder he looked tense—this had to be his nightmare scenario. His apparently ingrained sense of duty was probably the only thing stopping him from heading for the nearest exit at high speed.
Would it be a problem if he did?
Not for her, she told herself. Her life would be a lot easier without Roman in it, a lot more vanilla and safe, which obviously would be a good thing. She could live without drama; she could live without sex.
Always good to wait to be asked before refusing it, Marisa.
Feeling the heat climb into her cheeks, she retracted her gaze, retreating under the shade of her lashes. Any sympathy she might feel for Roman—the man whose antipathy for children was presumably strong enough to make not having them a condition of a marriage proposal, and who had then found himself a father—was tempered by her main concern for Jamie and the effect the sudden appearance of a father in his life would have on him.
Roman was here now, but who was to say that he wouldn’t want to opt out at some future point, a point when Jamie would know he had been rejected? Having something and losing it was a lot different from not missing what you’d never had. A feeling she knew all too well, she mused grimly, reflecting on her blissful ignorance before Roman had taught her how to enjoy her own body and his!
This is about Jamie, Marisa.
‘So is he any good at what he does?’ Roman asked, resenting the ease with which Ashley was making his son laugh as he watched the interaction, the easy rapport between man and boy.
He made it look easy, and Rio had made it look easy too. To Roman it did not seem easy, it seemed—
He didn’t even know what the thing he lacked was, he concluded with a burst of self-contempt for his sheer cluelessness.
Could you learn how to be a good father? Just the basics—or if you couldn’t learn to be a good father, then at the very least one that did no harm.
Roman had achieved much that people would envy in his life, but it had all come so easily to him. At that moment he would have exchanged every single thing he had achieved for the nanny’s ability to be so relaxed with a child, or rather this particular child...his child.
It was her little artificial laugh that broke the downward spiral of his depressing internal dialogue. His glance slewed her way; there was no amusement on her face to match the laugh.
She was standing there ramrod stiff, her chin lifted to a militant angle as she fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare of icy challenge.
‘What exactly is that meant to mean?’
In the past Marisa had taken the teasing comments about Ashley and the inevitable double entendres when friends and other mothers had met the handsome young addition to her household in good part. None of it was malicious, although it got a bit tiresome at times, but nothing she couldn’t handle. If laughter didn’t close down the subject she had a whole list of comical comebacks at her disposal.
Somehow she didn’t feel like laughing now.
Roman’s brows tugged together as he studied her hot, antagonistic face.
‘I mean...’ he began, then stopped, comprehension spreading across his face as his gaze flashed between the young man and Marisa, something kicking hard in his gut as he joined the dots and watched a picture form that explained her defensive attitude.
Was it possible he had jumped to the right conclusion after all? Had she given herself to this youth with as much passion as she had him? Had Ashley watched the concentration on her face as she fought to reach her climax? Had he felt...? Damping the sweat he could feel beading on his upper lip with a slightly shaking hand, he clamped down on the feverish speculation that would only feed the ever-present ache of wanting something he couldn’t have, something that, even after everything that had happened between them, he still had zero control over.
Zero control was a hard thing to admit for a man who prided himself on his, be it on the rock face, delivering a daily word count or picking apart an argument that had stupidity written all over it without losing his temper.
But what she made him feel was beyond his powers of self-deception. Far better to own a weakness than run away from it or get too hung up over it.
No point overcomplicating the situation. He was feeling something he didn’t want to feel; wanting her and not being able to have her was a kind of torture, but, he told himself grimly, he could live with it, treat it like any other chemical imbalance in his brain.
‘Interesting reaction,’ he drawled. ‘Have I touched a nerve?’
His sarcasm freed her from the embarrassment. ‘Ashley lives in the flat over the stables. He is only a boy.’ The moment Marisa said it she wanted to take it back, furious with herself for bothering to explain. Roman could think what he liked.
‘I was a boy once too and a few years’ age gap never seemed like an obstacle to me.’
‘I just bet it didn’t!’ she snapped back. ‘But before you start getting nostalgic about all the notches on your bedpost—’ she diverted her gaze to the game of football ‘—for the record and because you clearly judge others by your very low standards, I am not sleeping with Ashley.’ She shrugged and added, ‘Yet.’
‘Is that meant to make me jealous?’
‘I thought you already were.’
When he didn’t reply, she turned and lifted her gaze to Roman’s face, catching the tail end of a puzzling expression that vanished so quickly she decided she had imagined it. ‘Shall I call Jamie over?’
‘That’s what I’m here for.’
Marisa waved and called out, and with obvious reluctance Jamie came trotting over, his tall nanny following behind, the football in his hands.
‘Jamie, this is someone I want you to meet. His name is
