words were barely uttered when she too became aware of the sound of footsteps on the stairs, the heated colour leaving her cheeks as she hurriedly rebuttoned her pyjama top, Garrett stepping in front of her as the door opened, giving her the few precious seconds she needed to complete the task.
‘Garrett!’ her father greeted in some surprise. ‘I had no idea… Sarah!’ He gave a perplexed frown as she stepped out from behind Garrett.
She knew she must look flustered, although her pyjamas and robe were now refastened and tidily back in place. But her cheeks felt pale, and she knew her eyes were wide with the shock of what had just happened. And Garrett looked as coolly composed as ever.
‘Garrett was—we were—–’
‘As you’ve probably guessed, I came to take Jason back to London with me,’ Garrett cut in harshly. ‘Sarah was just trying to persuade me to let him stay on with the two of you for a few days,’ he added. ‘I’ve told her I’ll think about it. We certainly didn’t mean to disturb you, Geoffrey,’ he apologised abruptly.
Her father looked pleased at the fact that Garrett was actually considering letting Jason continue to stay with them, while Sarah felt sick at the implication behind Garrett’s words. He seemed to think that she would willingly have given him her body in an effort to influence his decision in their favour!
She couldn’t explain what had happened between them just now. She realised for the first time that hate could be as powerful an inducement to passion as love. Because she hated Garrett Kingham more than she ever had!
Damn him and his biased presumptions!
‘It doesn’t matter,’ her father dismissed, unaware of the friction between Garrett and Sarah. ‘You don’t need as much sleep when you’re older.’
Garrett gave an abrupt inclination of his head. ‘I’d better be on my way to the hotel. I’ll be back in the morning,’ he added warningly.
He was much quieter about leaving than he had been when he arrived, the car accelerating away seconds later.
‘Well, what do you make of that?’ her father mused in some surprise.
Sarah could see he was already anticipating that Garrett’s answer to Jason staying on with them would be yes. She just didn’t happen to have the same confidence. ‘I think we’ll have to see what he’s decided in the morning,’ she said resolutely.
‘I would have asked him to stay, but—–’
‘Why leave yourself open to insult, Dad,’ she dismissed, her eyes narrowed. ‘Garrett Kingham is just as arrogant as he ever was!’
Her father shook his head sadly. ‘I never could understand how Amanda became involved with him in the first place.’
Even Amanda hadn’t seemed able to explain that, but on the day she married Garrett she had been three months pregnant with his child!
Her parents had been very upset when Amanda had introduced Garrett as her husband of a week, and in the same breath announced that they would be grandparents in six months’ time. Sarah hadn’t quite understood what all her mother’s crying and her father’s shaking of head was about, although she realised it had something to do with them not approving of Amanda’s hasty marriage to Garrett Kingham. Sarah had been twelve before the full significance of Jason’s birth so quickly after the wedding had become clear to her, and by that time her mother had died and her father become resigned to Amanda’s marriage.
Her father sighed. ‘When she left here she was so determined to become an actress; it came as a great surprise when she married Garrett and settled down to being a wife and mother!’
Sarah wouldn’t have exactly called Amanda’s parties and hectic social life ‘settling down’ to anything, but she understood what her father meant. ‘Garrett has been successful enough for both of them,’ she dismissed scathingly.
‘Mm,’ her father nodded with a sigh. ‘But it hasn’t made him happy.’
She wondered if Garrett had ever been happy. Not that she particularly cared; Garrett had disturbed her life enough during the last half-hour for her to hate him more than she already had.
‘What do you think he’ll decide about Jason?’ her father frowned.
She was sure that Garrett had already decided to take Jason away with him in the morning, that he had only told her father he was thinking about letting him stay as a way of showing his contempt for her. After all, he was hardly likely to decide to leave his son in the care of a woman who had just shown him how wanton she could be. And with a man she had quite clearly shown she hated.
‘Don’t get your hopes up, Dad,’ she advised him. ‘I’m afraid my “persuasion” didn’t influence him one little bit.’
Except maybe to convince him she wasn’t a suitable companion for his son!
SARAH was dreading Garrett’s arrival this morning, dreading having to face him again after what had happened between them the previous night. Not that she really knew what had happened! Oh, she could tell herself that they were both emotionally aroused, that she had been challenging his authority over Jason, she could even say that going down to talk to him in her nightclothes was an open invitation. What she couldn’t say was why she had allowed a man she hated and despised to kiss her in that intimate way!
Her cheeks still burnt with the shame of it every time she remembered his mouth on her, those sensitively long hands against her creamy white breasts, his mouth—oh God, his mouth—–! She couldn’t stand to think of the places his mouth had roamed or the way she had been powerless to stop him!
How could she face him again knowing he had been perfectly aware of that?
Jason had greeted the news of his father’s arrival the previous night with wary hostility, only picking at the breakfast Sarah had prepared for him, despite saying he was ravenous minutes earlier.
As she cleared away in the kitchen she could see Jason and her father out on the beach now, engaging in a pebble-skimming contest, already seeming to know they would very shortly be saying goodbye. For her father’s sake as well as Jason’s she wished it didn’t have to be so.
Everyone claimed that retirement was what you worked towards all your life, to the days when you didn’t have to be a slave to your job any longer; they forgot to mention that without the job to go to there was no reason to get up in the mornings, no reason to put on a shirt and tie and make sure your appearance was neat and tidy, neither did they mention how old and useless you suddenly felt.
Her father had always been a busy and active man, until his retirement from the library, and for the last year Sarah had watched him as he became aware of all the things he no longer had without his job to go to. But Jason’s arrival had changed all that, he had seemed to have a purpose in life again. These two needed each other; she only wished Garrett could be made to see that too.
God, how she cursed what had happened between them last night! Without it she would have been able to meet Garrett on equal terms; now she felt that every time he looked at her he wouldn’t see the capable schoolteacher fighting for the happiness
