softly as Amber secured her towel.
She shook her head.
‘No, and even if there was I wouldn’t want one.’
‘You’re after bigger game now, is that it? A struggling physician is no longer your beau ideal?’
In his bed Paul stirred, and Joel frowned. ‘I came to tell you it’s nearly eight. Let Paul sleep on this morning. I want to talk to you before I leave for Kendal.’
‘I’ll be downstairs in half an hour,’ she promised curtly.
In her own room, dressing in the same clothes she had worn the previous day she tried not to remember how she had felt when Joel kissed her. Since Rob had left her she had been driven by one ambition and one only: to recover her old mobility and then confront him with all that he had thrown away when he had turned his back on her love because she was no longer the whole, unharmed girl she had been before this accident.
This compulsion had been the only thing that had kept her going; the only reason she had even considered Joel Sinclair’s outrageous suggestion, and yet now she was experiencing another emotion—compassion for Paul, a child who was obviously suffering as much as she was herself. poor little boy. Why wasn’t his mother with him?
Perhaps if she stopped dawdling in her room and went down for breakfast she might find out, she told herself briskly. In the bright morning light her clothes looked dowdy and dull, and just for a moment she regretted the new, pretty things she had bought for the holiday she and Rob had planned, but that moment was swiftly banished, and the fierce light of battle entered her eyes as she remembered how Joel Sinclair had looked at her and kissed her. She wanted the twenty-five thousand pounds he was offering her badly enough to accept his proposition, but she fully intended to make it absolutely clear to him that their marriage would be a business arrangement only, a big step along the road to achieving her ultimate goal; although he was not to know that. The way in which she intended to spend the money he paid her was nothing to do with Joel Sinclair.
She found him in a large, beautifully modernised kitchen with dark oak units and a mellow tiled floor. To Amber’s amazement he was standing by a hob frying bacon, the rich aroma filling the room. Nearby coffee percolated, and the table had been set for breakfast, with grapefruit in two bowls and cereal in the third.
‘What’s the matter?’ Joel enquired in amusement when she came to an abrupt halt just inside the door. ‘Surprised to discover I know how to fend for myself? It’s one of the first rules of survival, although I admit I’m no Cordon Bleu. Besides, a father bringing up a child alone needs to know at least the rudiments of running a home. I’m fortunate in having Mrs Downs, but in the eyes of divorce judges, housekeepers aren’t particularly adequate substitutes for mothers, which is why I need to furnish myself with a wife—albeit on a temporary basis. Hungry?’ he asked, indicating the pan of sizzling bacon and reaching across for some large brown eggs. On the point of shaking her head, Amber suddenly changed her mind. She had had next to nothing to eat yesterday, or for several days come to that, and the bacon did smell tantalisingly appetising.
‘A little,’ she admitted, surprised that she had lowered her guard for long enough to make the admission. ‘Shall I wake Paul?’
‘No, let him sleep. It will be easier for us to talk without him here. You can see what a dangerously vulnerable emotional state he’s in—a result of a combination of things; his accident and losing his mother mainly.’
It was significant that Joel put Paul’s accident first, Amber thought. He was too hard a man to fully appreciate the effect losing his mother would have on a small child—or to admit perhaps that he might himself be in some way to blame for Paul’s vulnerability.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘He seems to have similar injuries to mine.’
‘Which is one of the reasons I put the proposal I did to you.’
‘I guessed,’ Amber supplied wryly. ‘Have the doctors given you any indication as to how bad it will be?’
Joel shrugged. ‘They’re reluctant to commit themselves at this stage—understandably. Paul’s case is complicated by the fact that at the same time as he received his injuries he underwent severe emotional trauma. I’ve already said that he was with his mother at the time. What I didn’t tell you—couldn’t tell you while he was there—was that she was on her way to see her lover and intended to leave Paul with her friend for the afternoon. They say those most closely involved are always the last to know—a cliché, but true in my case. I had no idea. Oh, I knew there was something, Teri had made that much perfectly plain—I even suspected there were… diversions, but not that one of them was serious enough to make her put her child’s life at risk so that she could be with her lover. He was an American working on the North Sea oilrigs whom she met while he was on holiday here. As the son of a Texan oil millionaire he had a super-abundance of the quality that appeals most to Teri in men—money—a trait she apparently shares with you,’ he added cynically. ‘Which is one of the reasons I decided to put my suggestion to you. A woman who can be bought for a few paltry thousand pounds isn’t going to allow emotion to cloud issues at a later stage. This marriage is most definitely only of a temporary nature—I didn’t want someone who might get the wrong idea and want to make things permanent.’
There was no reason why his words should be like a douche of icy water, and certainly in the circumstances Amber had no right to feel mortally affronted both by his cynical observation and being classed with Paul’s mother, and yet for some obscure reason she did.
‘Where is Paul’s mother now?’ she asked curiously, recoiling a little from the heaped plate of bacon and eggs he put in front of her.
‘Eat it while it’s hot,’ he admonished, putting another plate on the table and pulling up a chair to sit down opposite her. ‘Paul’s mother? As far as I know she’s living in bliss and the lap of luxury as Mrs Hal Bryden the Fourth, somewhere in the good ole U.S. of A.’
‘She divorced you?’
Joel shook his head, his eyes hardening to a flinty grey. ‘I divorced her—not because she was unfaithful—I’m not naïve enough to think he was the first. No, I divorced her because of Paul. She’d risked his life once for her own pleasure, I wasn’t about to let it happen again. I asked for custody and got it—now she’s contesting the judge’s decision, claiming that although at the time of the divorce she wasn’t able to offer Paul a stable family background, now that she has remarried she’s more able to claim full custody. My solicitor believes she has grounds for a good and plausible case, and because I can’t afford to take any more risks with Paul’s life, I’m determined not to give her the slightest opportunity of changing the judge’s decision; and that means being able to provide him with as much of a family background as she can—a father and a mother!’
‘But you said you only wanted to be married for six months?’ Amber protested.
‘The longer I have sole custody of Paul without any problems the less likely a judge is to reverse his decision. I know Teri; patience was never her strong suit. Within six months she’ll be ready to admit defeat.’
‘And Paul?’ Amber asked, suddenly angry on the little boy’s behalf. ‘Has anyone consulted him? Has he been asked whether or not he wants to stay with you?’
‘No,’ Joel told her evenly, ‘and for the simple reason that ever since the accident he has never once—until last night—mentioned his mother. In point of fact he didn’t see much of her before the divorce. Teri spent a good deal of time in the
