He frowned. “Can’t afford it?” The expression in his eyes changed. Hardening, rather than softening. “Are you saying that your husband didn’t leave you and your family sufficiently provided for? I thought he was a successful lawyer.” He glanced round at the expensive furnishings, the new carpet, the impressive built-in shelves lining an entire wall.
She spread her hands helplessly. “He had…a lot of expenses. Overwhelming expenses.” She wasn’t going to run down Nicky’s father…not now that Darrell was gone and unable to harm them any further. She was determined to keep his image as a loving, caring father intact for his son’s sake. “Please…I don’t want to talk about it.”
Cain regarded her speculatively. She must have loved the creep…and must love him still, despite the bitterness and hurt he’d inflicted on her. Poor woman. And it was his wife who’d taken Mardi’s husband from her, his wife who was responsible for her pain. In some odd way, it made him feel responsible, too.
“Look…whether you send Nicky back to St. Mark’s or not, the boys can still see each other…if you’ll let them,” he argued on his son’s behalf, though in his heart he didn’t want the boys thrown back together any more than she did. Seeing more of the Sinclair family—of Darrell Sinclair’s widow in particular—would be a constant and humiliating reminder of their spouses’ shoddy affair.
But what he thought or felt or wanted didn’t matter. It was Ben who mattered…the son he’d taken little notice of in the past five years. The ruthless quest for wealth, success and position—and damn it, for parental approval, too—had taken over his life, coming close to alienating him from his son. Ironic, when he thought about it. He’d been so determined that history wouldn’t repeat itself.
Mardi saw his mouth tighten and felt a shiver brush down her spine. Cain Templar would be a dangerous man to get mixed up with.
“Doesn’t Ben have any grandparents who can help out?” As the question left her lips, her eyes grew pensive. Nicky had never known any of his grandparents, only his great-grandfather Ernie. Her parents had died when she was six, and Darrell’s widowed father, who’d been in a nursing home for years, unable to recognize anyone, had died early last year.
“No.” A cold, unequivocal no. “Sylvia had no parents, and my father and stepmother live in New Zealand.” A sudden chill turned his blue eyes to ice. “We’re not close.”
Mardi’s gaze searched his. Was there pain under the ice? Anger? It was impossible to tell. She shivered again, the coldness in his eyes seeming to chill the very air around her.
“You didn’t get on with your stepmother?” she ventured, injecting sympathy into her voice, hoping it might make him reveal a bit more about himself.
“I didn’t get on with my father.” His face was granite hard, his frosty eyes clearly warning her Subject closed.
She backed off. “I didn’t realize you were a New Zealander,” she said lightly. She would never have picked it from his accent, which sounded more Australian, or even slightly English.
“I’m not. I’m a naturalized Australian.”
“But you were born and brought up in New Zealand?”
“I left when I was eighteen, to go to Sydney University.” His eyes grew remote again, and even more discouraging.
But this time she didn’t take the hint. “And you haven’t been back since then?”
She almost took a step back as his powerful frame tensed, his face darkening. “Once,” he ground out at length. “When Ben was about eighteen months old.” He’d thought, more fool he, that the sight of his first grandchild might have softened his father’s stony heart, but it hadn’t—any more than his own growing wealth and success had impressed his narrow-minded parent.
Mardi swiftly brought the conversation back to Ben. “Well, what about aunts and uncles? Do you have any brothers or sisters who could help you with Ben? Or cousins who could play with him?”
“No.” As sharp and implacable as before. “I have a couple of stepsiblings, but as far as they’re concerned, I don’t exist. And vice versa,” he said with grim satisfaction, crushing any pity she might have had for him.
“Look…” His tone changed, the grimness wiped out as if it had never been. “Our two boys still have a week before school starts,” he reminded her. “If we allow the boys to see each other, a week should be long enough, hopefully, for them to get over their obsession with each other…and calm Ben down a bit.”
Mardi shook her head doubtfully. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea….”
His brow lowered again. “You’re being very hard on the boys. I thought you’d have more compassion.” A hard, silvery glint kindled in his blue eyes. He looked almost threatening for a second. A man, Mardi thought unsteadily, not used to losing his battles…and not liking it when he did.
“So what if they do get closer?” Cain threw out the challenge. “If it helps my son—and he badly needs help—it’s worth taking that risk.” A betraying roughness edged his voice.
It was the first real emotion he’d shown and it pierced her own fragile armor. Especially his accusation that she didn’t feel for the boys.
She tilted her chin. “I am thinking of the boys. They’ve been apart since before kindergarten broke up last year. Why throw them back together now, when we know it will only be for a short time?” Why throw the two of us together, she wanted to add, when it will only keep the bitter memories alive for both of us?
But Mardi knew in her heart that it wasn’t bitter memories she was worried about. It had more to do with a tall, handsome, potently attractive man with cobalt-blue eyes who’d been haunting her dreams for months. Why did that stranger at the gate have to turn out to be Sylvia Templar’s husband and Benjamin Templar’s father? And why did he have to turn up here, making demands that would force her to see more of him?
“They’re only five years old,” he said, visibly changing tack, the hard light in his eye softening a trifle. “They don’t understand what’s happened, or why they’re being kept apart. They only know they want to see each other again.”
He leaned forward, using the full force of his compelling blue gaze. “I know it will be as difficult for you as it will for me, Mrs. Sinclair, but I think we should put our own feelings aside…for the sake of our sons.”
For the sake of our sons. Mardi felt a tremor, recalling Nicky’s plaintive pleas to see Ben again. Was she being selfish by keeping the boys apart? Was she thinking more of herself than two little boys in need? “Mardi,” she reminded him absently, as she found herself wavering.
“Mardi.” He gave a brief smile, and her eyes flickered under its impact. What, she wondered dazedly, would a real smile be like?
“Look, let the boys see each other…for as long as you’re still here.” Cain injected a note of pleading into his voice. “Come to dinner with us tonight. A casual meal together to break the ice.”
She thought of Nicky’s unhappy face, of his constant pleas to see Ben, and felt herself weakening even more. But she wasn’t going to cave in yet. “We—we can’t come tonight. There’s my grandfather to—”
“Maybe
