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He drew up outside her address and shot a look up at the shabby Victorian house, the woodwork cracked and peeling, the front door needing new paint. The garden was neglected and overgrown, full of uncut grass and rambling bushes.
‘Is this your family home?’ he asked slowly.
‘No, it’s let out by the room—I rent one room here.’
He grimaced. ‘If I were you, I’d move. It looks as if cockroaches and rats live here, too.’
‘No cockroaches or rats, but there is the odd mouse,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t like to kill the one in my room; like me, it has to live somewhere! But this place is cheap, and the room is quite spacious. I’m used to it.’ And she couldn’t afford anywhere better.
‘Where do your family live?’
She hesitated, hating to talk about her background, then defiantly told him, ‘I haven’t got one.’
He shot her a sharp look. ‘No parents?’ He sounded incredulous, disbelieving.
‘No family at all.’
His grey eyes searched her face; she looked away from their penetrating probe, feeling like someone under searchlights.
?
??How long have you been alone?’
‘Always.’ She paused, hesitating about saying any more, then plunged on, ‘I was found as a baby. I’ve no idea who I really am or who my mother was.’
There was a little silence, then he said gently, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t have had a very happy childhood. I’m lucky. I have a sister, although both my parents are dead now. And I’m married, of course, with a child. Having a family roots you in life.’
‘Yes,’ she muttered, because she, of all people, knew that. She dreamt of marrying one day, having children, having a family of her own at last.
She didn’t want to talk to him any more; she hurriedly got out of the car, whispering, ‘Thanks for the lift, Mr Harding. Goodnight.’
He sat watching her as she fled up the path and unlocked the front door. Pippa was aware of his gaze, but didn’t look back. She was a very down-to-earth person; she knew she must not let herself think about him too much. He was her boss; that was all. Just that, nothing else, ever.
Yet whenever she forgot to keep a guard on her mind she thought about him that evening, sitting in her lonely room, listening to her second-hand radio. She couldn’t afford a television but radio was some sort of companion: another voice in her room, music, plays.
She had never been in love, never thought much about other people. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about Randal Harding, remembering his vivid grey eyes, the charm of his smile, the grace and beauty of his male body.
She was filled with curiosity about him. Was his home as beautiful as his car? Elegant, luxurious, comfortable? He wouldn’t be alone tonight, like her—he would have his wife and child for company. Did he know how lucky he was?
That was the beginning. Over the weeks that followed she saw him most days, and each time he gave her that smile, sending her temperature sky-high. Occasionally she had to work for him, and tried hard to stay calm and collected, but it wasn’t easy when it made her heart race dangerously whenever he smiled or his hand brushed hers.
One day he called her into his office while Miss Dalton was having coffee in a café across the street with some friends—a birthday celebration, Judy had told Pippa. Judy knew all the office gossip: what was going on and who was dating who.
‘They make these wonderful cakes,’ she’d said enviously. ‘Coffee-iced walnut cakes, chocolate eclairs that melt in your mouth. It’s the place to go, if you can afford it. I’ve been once and still dream about it.’
‘Sounds blissful,’ Pippa had agreed; she could never have afforded food like that. Her budget was far too restricted.
Mr Harding had put his head round the door at that minute. ‘Come through,’ he told Pippa, who had got up, flushed and anxious, while Judy whistled under her breath.
‘Let’s hope Dalton doesn’t get back while you’re with him! Or your head will roll. Come to that, I’m suspicious, too—why does he always ask for you? Why never me?’
Pippa hadn’t even tired to answer that; she couldn’t. Randal had taken some sort of interest in her from the beginning—was it because of what he had found out about her background? Was he sorry for her? She didn’t like that idea.
When she went into the other room and found Randal Harding standing with his back to her, staring out of the window at the blue, cloudless sky, she began to breathe rapidly, shallowly. While she gazed at that long, supple back, those even longer legs, he turned his head to smile at her, making her heart roll over in a now familiar, disturbing fashion.
‘I want to ask a favour of you—this isn’t work, so feel free to refuse if you’re not happy about it—but I’m very busy today and I can’t spare the time to do it myself. My son is five tomorrow and I haven’t bought him a birthday present yet. Do you think you could go shopping and choose something for him?’
Taken aback, since she hadn’t expected that request, she stammered, ‘Well, of course, but…I don’t know what toys he already has or what he likes…’
