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‘You could always employ a nanny to take care of Heather, you know,’ Claire felt bound to remind him.
‘She loves you, and besides, a nanny couldn’t give the same sort of permanence that would result from our marriage. Lucy needs a father just as much as Heather needs a mother, Claire. I like your daughter very much. I promise you I would always treat both of them equally.’
She knew that he would, and that he was right. Lucy was already becoming very attached to him. On the face of it marriage between them would be the ideal solution to all their problems, but human beings were irrational creatures and marriage was such an irrevocable step—at least to her.
‘Think about it,’ said Jay, drinking the last of his brandy. ‘I promise I won’t mention it again until I come back from Dallas. That should give you time to weigh up the pros and cons.’
‘But what if you should meet someone else … someone you could fall in love with …?’
His mouth compressed. ‘I won’t.’ he told her starkly. ‘I made that mistake with Susie and I soon learned that a woman only wants a man just as long as he remains out of reach. Once she knew I loved her that was it: she lost interest in me, emotionally if not sexually.’
He saw her expression and smiled grimly.
‘Oh yes, there are women like that, Claire, women who enjoy sex uninhibitedly for sex’s sake alone—and Susie was certainly one of them. She married me because she was expecting my child. She didn’t want to, but I persuaded her. She thought I was a wealthy man; when she realised I wasn’t, the marriage began to go sour, but even at its worst we still slept together, right up until the day she left with Brett. I learned after she’d gone that Brett hadn’t been her only lover—he was just the richest. You see, his partnership with me was only one of his business interests. His father is a millionaire.’
He was still very bitter over the betrayal; Claire could also see it so clearly. She could also see exactly why a marriage that was merely a business arrangement would appeal to him. But would he feel like that for ever? Might there not come a time when he was ready to love again, and when he did, what would happen to her?
Why was she even thinking about it? Surely a marriage between them was out of the question? But was it? Sitting talking to him tonight she had felt completely relaxed, and even happy, at least until he had brought up the subject of sex; she could live with him, she knew that, and more importantly, if she married him she would be bringing stability into the lives of both Lucy and Heather.
‘Think about it, Claire,’ he urged again.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUPPRESSING A FAINT SIGH, Claire replaced the telephone receiver. The news from Jay’s insurance broker, that the insurance company had no liability under her policy, had not come as a total surprise, but even so …
Pushing her depression to one side, she stood up and walked over to the drawing-room window. Through it she could see Lucy and Heather playing in the garden. A faint flush of excitement coloured Heather’s pale skin, her happy laughter mingling with Lucy’s.
‘Let’s have no illusions between us, Claire,’ Jay had said before he left, when she had tried to point out to him that it went against everything she herself believed in for her to escape her financial problems by marrying him. ‘We both have something the other needs. I know you well enough to know that you aren’t the mercenary type, if that’s what’s worrying you.’
‘But practical considerations alone are surely no secure base for something like marriage,’ she had protested, and instantly his expression had hardened, his eyes shadowed and cold as he demanded in a clipped voice, ‘What do you consider to be a sound base? Love? Is that what you want, to fall in love with someone and share your life and your body with him?’
She had sensed that he had been deliberately reminding her of what marriage really was, and she had flinched away from him.
‘I need you in my life, Claire, and I’m not too proud to tell you so,’ he had continued. ‘I need you as a mother for Heather, and perhaps later on, if you feel up to it, as a hostess for my business colleagues. If this contract with Dallas gets off the ground, several of the company’s executives will be wanting to come over here and see how our operation works, but entertaining them isn’t something I’d want to press on
you if you felt you couldn’t cope. I’m not ashamed to say that I need you, and if you’re honest you need me too. We both know that you can’t afford to have the cottage repaired. You don’t want to go back to the sort of life you lived before you inherited it. I’m not buying you, Claire, and you’re not selling yourself into marriage with me; we’re entering a mutually beneficial arrangement.’
‘You make it all sound very businesslike.’
‘Isn’t that what you want?’ His expression had unsettled her. ‘Or are you secretly looking for a Prince Charming to release you from your repression with the magic of his kiss?’
Her body tensed as she recalled the mockery in his voice as he delivered those words. Until that moment she had not even known herself how strong a hold that sort of foolish daydream had on her deepest and most private thoughts. Even so, she had denied it vigorously to him, and now, within a few short days he would be back, expecting an answer to the proposition he had put to her.
The girls’ laughter reached her through the thick glass. Outside it was cold, frost riming the edges of the lawn where the sun had still not touched. Inside, the house was comfortably warm; pinching economies like needing to keep a check on central heating bills did not feature in Jay’s world. Did she have the moral right to deprive Lucy of all that Jay could provide—and not just in the more obvious materialistic terms? There were other, more important considerations, such as the fact that already Lucy was becoming attached to Jay, that through him she could have the sort of education that would give her the very best sort of start in life, and that she and Jay together could give both girls the kind of stable, calm background that she sincerely believed gave untold benefits to the children who received them.
And it wasn’t just her own child she had to consider. There was Heather as well. Heather, who was only just now starting to come out of her shell; Heather who clung to Claire at bedtime when she kissed her goodnight, who would appear at her side, almost out of nowhere, as if to check up on the fact that she was still there. All these considerations tipped the scales in favour of Jay’s proposal.
And against it? What was there? Her own stubborn desire to remain self-supporting? Her dislike of any tag being attached to her that might label her as a mercenary, scheming woman taking advantage of a lone male with a small child to bring up? Her very deep-rooted fear of the state of marriage, of the powerful position in her life that it would give to Jay? But she already had his word that their marriage would be a business relationship only, and she knew that she could trust him. She had no illusions about Jay’s sexuality. Even she could see that he was the sort of man whose passion was a powerful motivating force in his life—but he was also good-looking and male enough not to need to coerce any woman where sex was concerned. Putting it at its most cynical and logical, what would be the point in him wasting his time trying to coax her into a sexual relationship when, doubtless, there were countless number of women only too eager to have that privilege? No, she had nothing to fear from him in that way.
But there were other dangers. Claire bit her lip, gnawing anxiously on it. She already knew how vulnerable she herself was to emotional bonding. Witness the way her feelings for Heather had grown to the point where her love for the little girl was almost enough on its own to make her accede to Jay’s proposal.
Jay was a very charismatic and genuinely fascinating man. A man, moreover, who took the trouble to talk to her as an equal—a man whom it would be very easy to come to depend on, in a way she had not had someone to depend on since the death of her parents. Yes, there was a very real danger there, but surely the mere fact that she was aware of it would make her wary and careful. She would not burden Jay with an emotionalism he wouldn’t want, even if it was only the emotion of friendship rather than sexual love.
Both of them, in their separate ways, had been crippled emotionally by life; both of them together could build a secure home for their children that would enable them to put down the strong roots every living thing needed to grow.
‘WHEN WILL JAY BE BACK?’
‘Later on this afternoon,’ Claire responded.
