course not!’ She gave a bright smile. ‘A bright little thing like you? No, I just want to tell him how wonderfully you’re getting along. I’m sure he wants to know.’
In fact, she had dressed specially for the purpose of telling him just how well his daughter was doing, and dropping a few hints about the importance of parental support in a child’s life.
Warm though it was, she had worn her navy blue suit with a crisp white shirt underneath, and she would make sure that her long hair was pinned very tightly back from her face, no loose strands anywhere.
In six years she had let her hair grow, and it now reached almost to her waist. Soon she would have to have it cut. Long hair at her age was a bit inappropriate, but she didn’t look like a woman in her early thirties. She knew that. She might be plain, but her face was unlined and her grey eyes were clear. Her friends had stopped telling her that the lines would develop quickly enough, just as soon as she had a couple of children. Marriage and children were subjects which they tactfully avoided now that it looked as though neither was on the horizon.
At five to six she began wondering whether she should meander out to the entrance to wait for him. At five past six she decided not to, and at ten past, when she was beginning to wonder whether he would make an appearance at all, she looked up and saw him standing in front of her, his body outlined in the doorway of the office.
And he was precisely as she remembered him. He was even holding his jacket over his shoulder, exactly as he had done all those years ago as he had walked across to her in Regent’s Park.
She opened her mouth in shock and half rose out of the chair, feeling as though at any minute she would faint. The room felt close, as though there wasn’t enough air in it, making her dizzy, disorientated. She had to place her palms on the desk to support herself.
‘You!’ It was the only form of greeting she was capable of. If he was as shocked as she was, then he recovered quickly, moving towards her with the same graceful, economic stride she remembered.
‘Katherine Lewis,’ he said without smiling. His eyes were hard and shuttered.
‘I had no idea that you were Claire’s father,’ she said, finding her voice at last, and not managing to say what she wanted.
‘Nor,’ he said coolly, ‘did I think for a minute that the Miss Lewis whom my daughter talks about incessantly was none other than you.’ He paused, and his eyes raked her up and down with dislike. ‘What an unpleasant surprise for both of us.’
The memories of him were rushing over her, but that dislike in his eyes restored some of her balance, and she sat down again, indicating to him the chair facing her across the desk.
She could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest, like a trapped, fluttering bird wanting escape.
She had collected some of Claire’s work. It lay in front of her in a neat little pile and she rested her hand on it, hoping that it would remind her what the purpose of this meeting was, but she could feel Dominic’s hard eyes straying over her, and she didn’t have to try too hard to imagine what he was thinking.
Was this the same girl he had known all those years ago? This ageing woman with the neatly pinned hair and the severe suit? She felt momentarily unbalanced by the inspection and had to remind herself that this was one of the reasons why she had walked out on him in the first place. Because this was her, the last sort of person he would find attractive. More the sort of woman he would probably pity.
‘Unpleasant or not, the fact stands that I am Claire’s teacher—’ she cleared her throat ‘—and I called you in to see me so that we could discuss what your daughter has been doing.’
She had never really imagined that he would marry. In her mind, he had remained the startlingly attractive bachelor whom she had known, but, really, it would have been unusual if he hadn’t married.
Had he loved his wife? she wondered. What had happened to her? Were they divorced?
‘I have some of Claire’s work here,’ she said, staring down at the little bundle of papers with their childish drawings and round, uneven writing.
‘You’ve changed.’
‘Everyone changes,’ Katherine said sharply, but his words flustered her badly. ‘It’s the effect of time.’
‘So you’re now a teacher, of all things.’
‘That’s right. Now, shall we discuss your daughter or would you like to spend a bit more time denigrating me? I’m a busy woman, Mr Duvall.’
‘Are you? Busy doing what? No wedding-ring on your finger, so I take it that you’re not married?’
She was feeling more and more addled, like a mouse being toyed with by a cat, confusedly running round and round, looking for somewhere to hide.
‘I’ve got some things that your daughter has done.’ She handed the stack of work to him and he took it, flicking through the papers, holding them in different directions so that he could interpret the drawings. Katherine watched his lowered head and thought that, if she had changed, he certainly hadn’t. It hardly seemed fair that six years could have had so little physical impact on him. His dark looks were just as disturbing as they had been, his body still as lithe and hard. Her eyes strayed to his fingers—long, clever fingers. She briefly closed her eyes and tried not to think back to the feel of those fingers on her body.
He had taken her body once, and he had kept it. She had known no other lover but him, although there were men in her life now. Friends. Harmless, good-natured men, who were husbands of her friends, and David, another schoolteacher, though not at her school. David was harmless and good-natured too and, given half a chance, he would have progressed their friendship on to a far more intimate level. But ever since Dominic… It wasn’t fair, she thought with a burst of angry rebellion. His life had moved on—he had married, produced a beautiful child. Emotionally, and this was the first time she had acknowledged this to herself, her life had stagnated, like a clock that had stopped ticking.
He was looking at her, his eyes guarded, watchful, and she forced herself to resume her efficient, businesslike air.
‘What am I supposed to say about these?’ he asked, depositing the stack of papers on the desk and reclining in the chair.
‘Most parents express delight at their children’s efforts,’ Katherine informed him, keeping her voice even. ‘Workwise, Claire has settled very nicely into class. Was she at school before you came here?’
‘No.’ His voice did not encourage interested debate on the subject.
‘I see. She seems to have a very good grasp of English, in that case. Her knowledge of the alphabet is excellent, and she is quite a fluent reader, considering.’
‘Considering what?’
‘Considering,’ she said, with two angry patches of colour on her cheeks, ‘that this is her first brush with school.’
‘Her mother was bilingual.’ His voice was flat and expressionless and gave no insight into what he thought of this bilingual woman.
‘I see.’ She paused, alarmed by his hostility, and nervously touched the tightly coiled bun at the back of her neck. ‘I do feel, however,’ she continued, ‘that children, especially at Claire’s age, need
