flustered by the picture she had been busy painting, that was the ideal domestic situation—one in which two people were happily married and in love. It certainly wasn’t their situation. As she had told him—and she had meant every word of it—they had no relationship outside the artificial one imposed by circumstance.
‘Okay. I’ll bring Oliver in and you can start chopping some onions. They’re in the salad drawer in the fridge. Chop them really small.’
‘You want me to cook?’
‘Well, to help at any rate. And don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten how to cook. You used to cook on the compound.’
‘Different place, different country.’
‘So … you just eat out all the time?’ Sarah asked, distracted.
‘It’s more time-efficient.’
‘And what about with your girlfriends? Don’t you want to stay in sometimes? Do normal stuff?’
The questions were out before she had the wit to keep her curiosity to herself, and now that she had voiced them, she realised that it had been on her mind, poised just beneath the surface, ever since she had laid eyes on him again. In fact, thinking about it, it was something she had asked herself over and over again through the years. Had he found someone else? Had another woman been able to capture his interest sufficiently for him to make the commitment that he had denied her? He hadn’t loved her, but had he fallen in love with someone else? Someone prettier or cleverer or more accomplished?
‘Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added, and laughed airily.
‘It is now. Haven’t you said that yourself? No women in Oliver’s presence … Rest assured that the only woman in my life at the moment is you …’
‘That’s not what I was asking and you know it, Raoul!’
‘No. You’re just curious to know what I’ve been getting up to these past few years. There’s nothing wrong with curiosity. Curiosity’s healthy.’
‘I don’t care what you’ve been getting up to!’ It was a lie. She cared. Who were these women he had dated? What had he felt for them? Anything? Had he preferred them to her? She was mortified just thinking about that particular question.
‘I haven’t been getting up to anything of interest,’ Raoul replied drily. ‘Yes, there have been women. But I’ve deterred them from doing anything that involved pots, pans, an apron, candlelight and home-cooked food.’
‘Oh, Raoul, you’re such a charmer.’ But a tendril of relief curled inside her. She squashed it. ‘Now, I’m going to fetch Oliver.’
‘Hey, what about you? Don’t I get the low-down on your life? No man at the moment, but any temptations? Do you cook your spaghetti Bolognese for anyone else aside from Oliver?’
His voice was light and mildly amused, and he wondered why he felt so tense when it came to thinking of her with another man. He, after all, had never been and would never be a candidate when it came to marriage and rings on fingers. He was now a father, and that was shocking enough, but that was the only derailment to his carefully constructed life on the cards as far as he was concerned.
‘Maybe …’
‘Maybe? What does that mean?’ The amusement sounded forced. ‘Am I in competition with someone you’ve got hidden in a cupboard somewhere?’
‘No,’ Sarah admitted grudgingly. ‘I’ve been too busy being a single mum to think of complicating my life with a guy.’ She sensed rather than saw the shadow of satisfaction cross his face, and continued tartly, ‘But, as you’ve pointed out, life is going to get much easier for me now. It’s going to make a huge difference with you around, playing a role in Oliver’s life. I won’t be doing it on my own. Also, it’ll be nice not having to think about money, or rather the lack of it, all the time—and it’ll be fantastic having a bit of time to myself … time to do what I want to do.’
‘Which doesn’t mean that you’ve now got carte blanche to do whatever you like.’ Raoul didn’t care for the direction in which this conversation was now travelling.
‘You make me sound like the sort of girl who can’t wait to pick someone up!’
She was wondering what right he had to lay down any kind of laws when it came to her private life. Raoul Sinclair didn’t want his life encumbered with attachments. True, he had discovered that some encumbrances were beyond his control, but just as he had never contemplated committing to her, so he had never contemplated committing to anyone. It was small comfort. He might think that it was perfectly acceptable to lead a life in which he and his son were the only considerations, but it was totally unfair to assume that she felt the same way. He might want to pick up women and discard them when they were no longer of any use, but she needed more than that. For Raoul, a single life was freedom. For her, a single life would be a prison cell.
‘I’m not going to suddenly start scouring the nightclubs for eligible men,’ she expanded, with a bright, nervous laugh, ‘but I will be able to get out a bit more—which will be nice.’
‘Get out a bit more?’
‘Yes—when you have Oliver.’
‘I don’t think we should start projecting at this point,’ Raoul said deflatingly. ‘Oliver hasn’t even spoken to me as yet. It’s a bit premature to start planning a hectic social life in anticipation of us becoming best friends. Let’s just take one day at a time, shall we?’
‘Of course. I wasn’t planning on going clubbing next week!’
Clubbing? What did she mean by that? Other men? Sleeping around? While he kept Oliver every other weekend?
He pictured her dressed in next to nothing, flaunting herself on a dance floor somewhere. Granted, the women he went out with often dressed in next to nothing, but for some reason the thought of Sarah in a mini-skirt, high heels and a halterneck top set his teeth on edge.
‘Good. Because it won’t be happening.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Think about it, Sarah. Oliver doesn’t even know that I’m his father. Don’t you think that he’ll be just a little bit confused if your friend, who has mysteriously and suddenly appeared on the scene from nowhere, starts engineering outings without you? You’re the constant in his life. As you keep telling me. For me to have any chance of being accepted we have to provide a united front. We have to get to a point where he trusts me enough to leave you behind now and again.’
‘Exactly what are you trying to say, Raoul?’
‘That you have to scrap any crazy notions of us having nothing to do with one another. You’re living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that’s going to work. The whole bedtime story, spaghetti Bolognese thing is going to have to involve both of us. Of course it’ll be a damn sight easier when you get out of this place and move somewhere more convenient. And less cramped. On the subject of which—I have my people working on that.’
There were so many contentious things packed into that single cool statement that Sarah looked at
