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‘Thus effectively making sure she won’t go looking for him or for anyone connected with him. Mmm, I suppose it could work.’
His question led to one that had been bothering her. Putting down her half-empty glass, she stood up and walked nervously towards the window, before turning to face him.
‘Jay, what will you do if your … if Heather’s mother ever wants her back?’
‘She won’t.’ His voice was harsh, corrosive almost. ‘Susie made that more than clear. Besides, I took the precaution of getting her to sign an agreement giving me total responsibility for Heather. Do you honestly think I would allow a child as sensitive as Heather is to be torn apart between two parents?’
‘If Susie changed her mind and decided that she wanted to … to come back, you …’
‘I what? Wouldn’t be able to resist her?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Don’t you believe it! Sexually she could still turn me on, I suppose, but emotionally—no … that’s all gone, and besides, she won’t come back. She’s got what she wanted, now that she’s the wife of Brett Brassington the Third.’
There was no mistaking the cynical bitterness in his voice, and Claire’s heart ached for him. It was impossible for her to comprehend the sort of relationship he had had with his ex-wife, and as though he knew it, he said savagely,
‘Our marriage was never the sort of marriage you can visualise, Claire. I loved Susie, yes, but it was an obsessive physical love that didn’t last much longer than the honeymoon. I married her because she was carrying my child which she had threatened to abort, and she married me because she was twenty-six years old, and for a model, that’s old. She could never accept or understand the amount of time I had to give to the business. Sexually she knew all the tricks there are to know; she knew exactly how to make me ache, and she enjoyed making me beg. You heard Heather: we had separate rooms—Susie’s idea not mine,’ he added broodingly. She kept me dangling on a thread for so long that after a while I just lost interest. Things weren’t going well with the business. I was tired of arguing with her; tired of being made to pay and beg for sex; something inside me just seemed to shut off.’ He laughed derisively. ‘She couldn’t believe it; she thought I was trying a few tricks of my own …’ He broke off when he saw the confused look Claire was giving him, and explained rawly, ‘Too much strain overloads the system, Claire; I lost the ability to respond to her in any way at all. Once that happened I think we both knew the marriage was over, and I know I was never her only lover, not even in the early days when I genuinely thought she did care. I tried to keep the marriage going because of Heather, but it wasn’t any good. And when Susie found out that I was able, to put it bluntly, to respond to other women in a way I could no longer respond to her, that was the end. Her pride couldn’t take it.’
Jay was saying that he had been impotent? Claire stared at him, totally unable to comprehend such an eventuality; to her, he seemed such a physical man. Her eyes widened and she looked at him, unable to hide her thoughts.
‘You don’t believe me?’ He laughed again, this time properly. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, but believe me, it’s true. Even now …’ he shrugged powerful shoulders and said lazily, ‘suffice it to say that you need never worry that any brief flings I might have will damage our marriage. It’s too important to me for me to risk it in any way.’
She did believe him, but she also wondered how on earth he had ever confused the obvious physical infatuation he had for his ex-wife with love. His own description of his feelings had been so lacking in that emotion that Claire had been both shocked and saddened by the emotional paucity of their relationship.
‘I … I think it’s time I went to bed.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Mmm, me too. Oh, by the way … the cottage …’
‘The insurance didn’t cover the damage,’ Claire told him baldly.
‘No, I guessed that, but something will have to be done about it. Leave it with me, will you?’
CHAPTER SIX
‘RIGHT EVERYTHING’S arranged. We get married on Thursday in Bath. I’ve booked us into a hotel for a couple of days—that should give us enough time to get the girls and you re-equipped and to do a little bit of sightseeing.’ He put down the briefcase he had brought from the car and opened it, the fabric of his suit jacket stretching taut across his back. Perhaps it was because the only other man she had ever lived with had been her father that she was so constantly aware of, and caught off guard by, the essential maleness of him. Perhaps she had lived too long in the softer world of women, and it was that which made her so conscious of the hardness of his muscled body.
‘Here you are; I brought these back for you to browse through,’ He handed her a pile of glossy leaflets. ‘We don’t have a design department as such, but if you feel you want to engage an interior designer …’
Claire shook her head decisively. Whitegates was going to be her home, and besides, she was looking forward to the challenge of re-planning it herself.
‘Well, just as long as you don’t start worrying about keeping costs down,’ Jay warned her. He grimaced faintly and looked round the kitchen. ‘While you’re at it, how about doing something in here … something …’
‘Warner?’ Claire supplied dryly.
‘Mmm. And Claire, don’t forget you’re going to need to adapt some of the bedrooms into guest suites, complete with en suite baths.’
Claire laughed. ‘It sounds more like I’m going to be running a hotel than a home!’
‘Mmm, talking of which … This is the hotel I’ve booked us into in Bath. I’ve organised a suite with three bedrooms—the girls can share. It’s just on the outskirts of the town and has its own leisure complex, complete with swimming pool. ‘Can Lucy swim?’
‘Yes. Can Heather?’
‘Yes.’
NEWS OF THEIR IMPENDING marriage had spread through the village grapevine faster than an epidemic in a slum, and Claire had got used to being stopped in the street and discreetly pumped for more information. Overall, she gained the impression that the village thoroughly approved.
‘It is such a nice arrangement,’ Mrs Vickers innocently told her. The village apparently did not approve of such modern things as ‘living together’, an
d she gathered that Jay’s ex-wife had not been particularly popular. Indeed, no one seemed to know much about her at all, other than the fact that she had run off with another man, leaving her small daughter behind.
Naturally, both little girls were wildly excited, anticipating the dual treat of the wedding plus the visit to Bath. Jay proposed that they leave after breakfast on the Wednesday morning, which would give Claire plenty of time to get all her shopping done before the Thursday afternoon ceremony.
