Not any longer.
Laurel stepped up into the SUV and settled herself beside Dan on the back seat as Xander gunned the engine. The rest of the visit to the farm park had gone okay. She and Xander had kept scrupulously to completely innocuous subjects. But she still felt that sense of depression, of defeat, press her down. But why should it? Why should she care what Xander thought of her? It was hardly new. He’d thought it for seven years, and she’d known he did for seven years.
“Did you enjoy today, Dan?” Xander was asking, probably unnecessarily, as Dan had been regaling them both about the pleasures he’d experienced.
“The tractor ride was the best,” he said enthusiastically. “And the lambs. And the hay-barn was good too!”
“You’re bringing some of it home,” Laurel said, putting aside dark thoughts. She was tired, so tired, of feeling them. She picked off a strand of straw attached to Dan’s jacket. “An early bath, I think. You can have supper in your jim-jams. Dad can give you your bath tonight. A special treat for him.”
“Great!” said Dan.
“Definitely great,” echoed Xander.
Judging by the noise—of splashing and laughter and the occasional yell from Xander, Laurel guessed that bath-time that evening was more about fun than washing, though when they both reappeared, Dan looked scrubbed in his pyjamas, and Xander’s polo shirt was noticeably damp in patches.
Tea was ready for them. Baked potatoes and salmon and tomatoes with green beans. It was a treat to have salmon. On her own budget it was a rare occurrence. As she’d cooked it, her thoughts had been difficult. How easy, how very, very easy, it would be to get used to this kind of affluence, this up-market cottage, all superbly equipped and beautifully furnished.
How very, very easy, too, to get used to Xander being civil, behaving with politeness and consideration as he was doing now. After that exchange at the farm park, which had threatened to turn so ugly again, he had, she could see, made a visible effort to be nicer towards her. As if—she frowned—he was conscious of having upset her by what he’d said. And cared that he had.
That surely, though, was just an illusion. His solicitude, continuing now, was only for Dan’s sake, never hers. The woman he would never think of as anything but a thief.
But whatever the reason, it was pleasanter to experience than his more familiar harshness. He was helping with tea, extracting cutlery from drawers, handing it to Dan to set their places, rustling up some place mats out of another drawer, getting drinking glasses out the cupboard.
As if he lived here, as if this were just part of everyday family life, a family supper together.
But they weren’t a family. They were two people divided irreconcilably who just happened to share an innocent child between them. Two people who’d met on holiday, between whom desire had once flared with an intensity that had swept them both away. Desire that had crashed and burned to bitter ashes…
And even without that wretched bracelet business, there would have been nothing left but the cold embers of a dead affair. He’d still have finished with her and married Olympia.
I was just a bit of summer fun. I knew it then, and it was just as well I did. Nothing could have come of it. So, what did it matter if it ended as viciously as it did?
Except for the long black shadow it cast for seven years. Was still casting.
Because he’ll never believe my innocence. Never. He’s made that clear now, just as he did back then. Guilty forever.
She felt that sense of depression, defeat, creep back in. But what was the use of it? None. All they could do was keep going as they were now, trying, as they had agreed, to put the past aside at least. Not let it flare and bite, and so harm and damage their son.
She seized up a pair of oven gloves, opened the eye-level door and extracted the tray with the salmon on it.
“Watch out! Hot! Coming through!” She set it down on the large mat in the centre of the table. She went to fetch the second tray of baked potatoes, then drained the beans and put them on the table too.
Xander and Dan were sitting there expectantly. Looking so alike…
Emotion rose in her. Father and son.
How much she loved the one and not the other.
And it’s the same for Xander when he sees Dan and me.
And that could never change. The sense of depression and defeat crept over her again…
There was nothing to be done but accept it.
Xander pressed the accelerator, moving into the fast lane of the motorway. It felt odd to be driving on the wrong side of the road again, but it felt good—more than good—to be back in the UK. He’d ripped through his business affairs. As his father got older, he himself was now taking on more and more of the running, and he’d been relieved that his father had been away, visiting friends in Thessaloniki and wouldn’t return till the Orthodox Easter. Xander did not want any awkward questions asked about what was drawing him to the UK yet again. At some point he would have to tell his father why, but not yet.
And just what he would tell him and how, he had no idea.
He wants a replacement for Olympia for me, not—
