‘Don’t talk about him!’ she muttered, keeping a wary eye on the door in case Johnny appeared there. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘I know you love me,’ he coolly informed her, taking her breath away.
She sat upright, face flushing dark red, then turning white. ‘You know nothing of the kind! Your vanity is mind-blowing. What on earth makes you think I love you? I’ve got more sense.’
He sat down on the arm of her chair, caught her face between his palms and kissed her fiercely. She couldn’t escape or avoid that devouring mouth, and after a moment of writhing indignation she stopped wanting to, her lips quivering under his, her arms going round his neck.
Without lifting his mouth, he whispered, ‘Tell me, Pippa. Tell me you love me. Stop lying to me, and yourself. I love you; you know that. Yesterday I discovered you love me too; you’d never given yourself to me if you didn’t. So, tell me! I need to hear you saying it.’
A single tear rolled down from under her closed lids. She gave a small, pathetic sob, pushing at his powerful chest, trying to make him let go of her.
‘All you ever think about is what you need. What about what I need?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Time,’ she groaned. ‘Time to think. I’m so confused. A week ago I was planning my marriage to Tom. Now here I am, with you. I feel as if I’ve been through an earthquake. The landscape of my life has been torn up; I don’t know where I am, or what I want to do. And you keep pushing me, trying to make me do what you want me to do! Leave me alone, Randal. Give me some time and space to work out how I really feel!’
He studied her, frowning, then dropped a light kiss on her nose. ‘Okay, we’ll talk about it some other time. But you do like Johnny, don’t you? I’ve been watching you with him; I can see you do. I know you said you wanted to be first with anyone you married, not come second after their child—but that was before you got to know Johnny. Do you still feel the same?’
She worried her lower lip, sighing. ‘I don’t know. No, I suppose not. Seeing him with his mother, I felt so sorry for him. I had a loveless childhood, myself—that’s why I badly want to be loved, to come first with the man I marry. I can understand where Johnny’s coming from, though; I’ve been through what he’s going through. And I think it’s worse for him, because he does have a mother who’s alive, but seems quite indifferent to him, whereas I had nobody. I was lonely and neglected but I wasn’t getting hurt the way Johnny is.’
Grimly, Randal said, ‘Renata’s a selfish woman who puts herself first, always has. You see, that’s what happens when a woman demands to come first.’
‘That’s not fair!’ she protested angrily. ‘I never said I’d put myself first if I ever had a child!’
‘No, I believe you wouldn’t, but Renata does, always has. There’s no room in her life for a child. The less Johnny sees of her, the better. He won’t get so badly hurt if he doesn’t see her too often. But I don’t want him blaming me, telling himself I kept her away. I have to let her visit him if she ever feels like it, although I wish I could stop her seeing him.’
They kept their voices very low, neither of them wanting the boy to hear what they were saying.
‘I made a terrible mistake when I married her,’ Randal dryly said. ‘If I’d known what she was really like I wouldn’t have got involved, but I was a lot younger, and she was really lovely.
‘Still is.’ Pippa shrugged. ‘Don’t deny you couldn’t stop looking at her; I saw you staring.’
His mouth quirked sideways in amusement. ‘Well, she is quite a knock-out! In fact, I’d say she’s lovelier now than ever. She knows how to dress and use make-up.’ He gave her a mocking smile. ‘I knew you were jealous, little green eyes!’
‘I was not!’ she flared immediately, and he laughed.
‘Oh, yes, you were. But you didn’t need to be! I told you that yesterday. Yes, she’s drop-dead gorgeous, but I’m not a romantic boy any more. I want a woman to have a lot of other qualities. Beauty isn’t everything. In fact, beauty isn’t very much at all. It’s just a façade. To be a real woman you need a heart, warmth, caring. And I want a woman with a sense of humour, brains…all Renata offers is what she looks like, and that isn’t enough for me now.’
His grey eyes were deadly serious; she had doubted him yesterday but now she was ready to believe him. She had seen the cynicism in his face as he watched his ex-wife. Renata didn’t take him in.
Johnny ran into the room a moment later and his father got up to greet him, raking back his slightly dishevelled black hair.
‘Hello, enjoyed your cartoons?’
‘Yeah. When are we having lunch?’ the boy demanded.
Randal looked at his watch, made a surprised face. ‘It’s half past twelve. Do you want to go down now?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘You’ve got ice cream round your mouth,’ Pippa gently reminded him. ‘Maybe we should all go to the bathroom before we leave?’
‘Okay.’ Johnny streaked away and his father shuddered.
‘I wish I had his energy! Not to mention his stomach. He’s hardly digested that ice cream but already he’s thinking about more food!’
‘He’s a growing boy!’ Pippa grinned; she found Johnny’s unashamed delight in food amusing. But then she liked the boy a lot; in some ways he reminded her of his father, in other ways he was very much himself.
