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‘And you say he took a shine to you?’
Alex smiled faintly. ‘I made a bit of a hit with Nemo. From then on I was in, but he’s a great little boy.’
Cathy Spencer sipped her coffee, then put her cup down with something like decision. Alex held her breath, expecting to have to somehow fend off Cathy claiming Nicky and taking him away, but she got a surprise.
‘Have you any idea how I got myself into this mess—what is your name?’
‘Alex, but—’
‘Alex, then, I need to talk to someone,’ Cathy said with just a glint of her former fire. ‘I need to try to make someone believe I’m not quite the hard-hearted person I’m painted. I honestly didn’t believe it was Max’s child! Without going into too many details of my love life, I’d gone off the pill, it wasn’t agreeing with me, but I hadn’t told Max.’
She paused and Alex was forcibly reminded of Max’s Scheherazade remark because she sensed she was going to get drawn into this tale whether she liked it or not.
‘We were coming to the bitter end of our relationship,’ Cathy continued. ‘We weren’t communicating other than rowing. He wanted us to get married, he wanted a conventional wife who was like the jewel of his household, who would never embarrass him, who would always be there, who would always do the right thing. I’m not like that. I’m a free spirit at heart and I had no desire to be drawn into the Goodwin machine—and it is a machine. We had one last tempestuous night, then I walked away and fell into the arms of a friend for a couple of weeks.’
She closed her eyes. ‘I wasn’t thinking too straight, but I did have at the back of my mind that it can take some time to conceive after you’ve come off the pill.’ Her dark lashes swept up. ‘Then I realized I had conceived, but whereas with—with my friend, it could have been the right time of the month, with Max it should not have been. I just didn’t,’ Cathy Spencer said sadly, ‘take into consideration that my cycle had gone quite haywire.’
‘Your friend,’ Alex said, and hesitated.
‘He never knew. Oh, he was sweet enough and he helped me to pick up the pieces, but I had no more desire to be tied to him than I’d had to be tied to this empire.’ She looked around, then she grimaced. ‘Funnily enough, given the circumstances, I just couldn’t bring myself to have a termination.’
She looked down and pleated the hem of her jumper. ‘I think,’ she said with a frown, ‘it was because I’m such a believer in life and in creating things rather than destroying them. And it was also a part of me.’ Cathy raised her hands to point inwards to her chest, then she sighed. ‘Of course the irony that Nicky should turn out to be a mini-Max hasn’t failed to strike me.’
‘There’s one area he’s very like you,’ Alex said. ‘He adores drawing and painting. He’s the most artistic six-year-old I’ve ever met.’
For a moment Cathy Spencer’s long-lashed blue eyes glowed.
‘So when did you find out whose baby he was?’
The glow in Cathy’s eyes diminished and she smiled wearily. ‘At first Nicky looked like my father, according to my mother—I didn’t know my father, he died before I was born. Then, if anything, he looked like me, and there was always going to be the possibility he’d be blue-eyed with dark hair so it wasn’t a pointer, necessarily, to Max. But by the time he was walking and talking, he was growing more and more like Max. Now, they even have the same shape feet.’
‘So why didn’t you tell Mr Goodwin then?’
Cathy gripped her hands together. ‘I could not lose the feeling that it would be like handing Max a tool to—to control me, but not only that, I love Nicky and I do want what’s best for him. I did think it would be best to go it alone with him rather than subject him to—’ she closed her eyes ‘—a father and mother who—’ Cathy gestured eloquently and shook her head with a question mark in her eyes.
Alex sat back. The house was quiet. Both Nicky and Nemo obviously slept on.
What could she say? she wondered. Was she expected to answer that unspoken question? What would she say if she had no trauma to do with Max Goodwin herself?
Her next thought was to take herself to task immediately. She had no place in all this. If Max felt anything for her it was a small spark, that was all. How it had come about, if it really existed, she didn’t know; she could only theorize. He’d been under immense strain; he’d shown concern for her; she had fallen into his lifestyle with Nicky almost as if she’d been made for it.
So alongside that small spark, or perhaps it had grown out of it, there was gratitude on his side and affection—how could it ever be more? Above all, she was only a bit player in this drama, and if she had any sense at all she would cease even to be that.
There was only one way to answer the implied question Cathy Spencer was posing—the answer she would have given if she’d truly been an u
nbiased outsider.
‘I think you’ll find Mr Goodwin also has Nicky’s best interests at heart and very much so,’ she said quietly. She drew a deep breath and went on, ‘And, forgive me, but to be honest, if two people can’t find some road to travel that gives the child they’ve created an even, loving passage, they would not only be foolish, they’d be, to my mind, incredibly self-centred.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
MONTHS later, Alex could remember word for word what she’d said to Cathy Spencer, her stunned reaction to it, and how the rest of that fateful morning had panned out.
Cathy had still been staring at her, wide-eyed and with an expression of growing guilt, when Mrs Mills had come in with a remote phone.
‘Mr Goodwin would like to speak to you, Miss Spencer,’ she said, and handed the phone to her.
Alex got up. ‘We’ll leave you alone,’ she murmured.
