‘I—How is Vicki now?’ she asked guiltily, knowing that his description of her behaviour being childish was an accurate one.
‘She’s with my mother—yes, I have one,’ he mocked at her surprised expression. ‘Vicki often stays with her, even before Tina died. But even my mother agrees with me that we’ve never seen Vicki quite so attached to anyone as she is to you.’
She licked her lips worriedly. ‘You—you told your mother about me?’
‘Only that Vicki had become friends with you in Fort Lauderdale.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Don’t worry, Velvet, the past is dead and buried as far as I’m concerned, very dead and buried. But you knew the risk when you allowed Vicki to latch herself on to you, and you can’t just walk away from that responsibility now that you’re back in England and it suits you to do so.’
Velvet gasped. ‘It doesn’t suit me to at all! I’m as fond of Vicki as she seems to be of me, but my work in America was finished, and—and I had to get back to Tony.’
His harsh features softened as he looked at the now chocolate-covered little boy. ‘He’s a beautiful child,’ he said softly. ‘Very like you to look at.’
‘Thank you,’ she accepted awkwardly, moving to clean her son’s face. ‘All right,’ she laughed once he was clean, ‘you can go down now. Off you go and play with your toys.’
‘Can I use your telephone?’ Jerard asked tersely.
Velvet blinked up at him. ‘I—Yes, yes, of course. It’s in the lounge.’
‘Thanks.’ He strode off into the other room.
Velvet stood awkwardly in the kitchen, undecided about whether or not she should join Tony and Jerard in the lounge. Why shouldn’t she, it was her home after all!
‘Yes, Mother, it’s me,’ Jerard was saying patiently as Velvet entered the room. ‘Yes, she’s back,’ he glanced fleetingly at Velvet as she sat down, her expression one of defiance. ‘I’ll be bringing her and her little boy back to tea,’ he added.
Velvet gasped, sitting forward. ‘You—’
‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ he said firmly before replacing the receiver. He looked at Velvet challengingly. ‘You were saying?’ he drawled.
‘Yes, I was!’ She stood up angrily, lowering her voice as Tony looked up worriedly from playing with his fire-engine. ‘Tony and I aren’t going anywhere with you,’ she told him indignantly. ‘We’ve only just got home.’
‘From where?’
‘You’re very persistent,’ she said tersely.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ve only just realised that?’
‘No, I knew you were arrogant and bossy,’ she snapped.
‘So?’
‘So …? Oh,’ she realised he was still waiting for an answer to his question, ‘I’ve been staying with my brother and his wife.’
‘Is that the truth?’ His eyes were narrowed.
Her eyes flashed deeply brown. ‘Of course it’s the truth! Why should I lie?’
Jerard shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
‘I wasn’t lying!’
He nodded. ‘Shall we get going, then?’
Her mouth set mutinously. ‘I already told you—’
‘Not even for Vicki?’
‘That isn’t fair,’ she said defeatedly.
Jerard’s expression was grim. ‘Neither is letting a child become dependent on you and then just walking out on her.’
Velvet went very pale. ‘I didn’t do that—’
‘The hell you didn’t!’ Jerard exploded. ‘You didn’t have to come to Disneyworld with us, you could have just let Vicki forget you. But you did come with us, and I’m not going to let you walk out on my daughter now. She’s too vulnerable.’
Velvet bit her bottom lip. ‘But I’ve only just got home. I—I’m not dressed to go out.’ Her skirt and sun-top were casual in the extreme.
‘You always look beautiful, and you know it,’ he told her harshly.
‘But—I—Tony’s filthy,’ she indicated his chocolate-smudged tee-shirt and shorts.
‘Then change him,’ Jerard shrugged. ‘But do whatever you have to do quickly. My mother is expecting us.’
She scooped Tony up in her arms with an angry sigh, taking him into the bathroom and washing his face and hands again before changing him into a clean tee-shirt and denims, much to his indignation. He enjoyed nothing more than getting dirty, and disliked nothing more than being changed. She brushed his blond curls into some semblance of order, amazed at how angelic he could look when he had been washed and tidied.
Jerard was stretched out in a chair when she came out into the lounge, putting down the magazine he had been flicking through. ‘It sounded like you were murdering him in there,’ he said with amusement.
Her eyes flashed. ‘He isn’t the one I would like to murder,’ she told him meaningly. ‘Here,’ she put Tony on his lap, ‘I’m just going to change.’ The yell she had been expecting from Tony never came as he gazed up in fascination at Jerard, totally captivated by this new man in his young life.
Jerard didn’t look in the least put out either, holding Tony easily against him. ‘You look all right as you are.’
‘I am not going to your mother’s dressed like this!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because—well, because I’m not,’ she told him firmly. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘You’d better not be,’ he warned. ‘Not if we’re going to get to my mother’s in the specified time.’
She glared at him before slamming into her bedroom, angrily searching through the dresses in her wardrobe for something suitable to wear to meet Jerard’s mother.
Oh God, if only she didn’t love him so much! It had made her offhand and rude to him, and it threw this meeting with his mother out of all proportion. As far as Jerard was concerned, and indeed his mother, she was just a woman his daughter happened to be rather fond of.
Only she could no longer see it in that light, her love for Jerard making her want to make a good impression on his mother. Consequently she was longer than the allotted time, although there were no complaints from Jerard before or after she emerged from the bedroom, looking coolly beautiful in a pale lilac dress that shimmered about her slender body, her legs long
