she told him emotionlessly.
His anger seemed to explode over her.
‘Don’t lie to me, Briony!’ he gritted furiously, ‘I saw your face when you walked into that office and saw me sitting there. You hate my guts, don’t you. Don’t you?’ he demanded when she refused to answer.
‘Haven’t I the right?’ Her hands were curled into two small fists. ‘After what you did.…’
For a long moment he said nothing, merely watching her in a way that made Briony shiver with apprehension. Why should he examine her with such contempt? He was the one at fault. He was the one who….
‘You’re quite right,’ he said softly, cutting across her bitter thoughts. ‘The Beth I knew has gone completely. You’re quite a woman, aren’t you, Briony? A woman of iron and steel, according to the office grapevine. The Beth I knew would never have held on to a grudge so tightly, nor become so bitter. But then the Beth I thought I knew never.…’ He broke off and without warning leaned over her, watching her eyes spit defiance. It was only when he kept on coming, and Briony eventually shrank back, that she thought she saw some emotion flicker deep in the narrowed eyes, but it was gone almost instantly, his expression withdrawn as he said curtly, ‘You’re perfectly safe. You’ve made your point, but I don’t intend working with a secretary who looks at me as though I’ve crawled out from under a particularly slimy stone. So if I were you I’d have another look at this.’ He dropped the directory he had removed from the shelf behind her on to her desk with a derisive smile, and started to walk towards the door.
‘One thing at least hasn’t changed,’ he said unkindly, pausing to watch the wary expression creep into her eyes. ‘At least not if all the gossip one hears is correct. It seems you still enjoy turning men on and then freezing them off. With one notable exception.’
Briony gasped at the unfairness of the accusation, and the cynical, twisted smile which had accompanied his last words, and was just about to demand an explanation when Kieron added acidly:
‘You’ve made how you feel about me quite plain, Briony. You hate and loathe me, right?’
When she didn’t comment, he breathed out sharply, anger etched deep in his face.
‘God, you must want to keep this job very badly!’
‘Very badly,’ Briony agreed coolly, hoping that her voice wouldn’t betray anything that she was feeling. How on earth she was going to work for Kieron and keep her sanity she did not know, but work for him she must.
‘So that you can be with Matt?’
Before Briony could get over the shock of the accusation, Kieron was saying with bitter contempt, ‘Is that what your taste runs to these days? He’s not a man, he’s a babe in arms!’
Briony went white, but Kieron had already turned away. She fumbled for a piece of paper and put it in her typewriter, her fingers rattling over the keys in an even staccato rhythm, but the typewritten words were blurred by a mist of tears she was powerless to control.
IT was after seven when Briony stepped wearily off the bus at the end of her road. There had been a last-minute panic necessitating recall of an article and she had worked late to help Doug get the crisis sorted out. The adrenalin flow which had helped her through the day had abated, leaving her feeling drained and exhausted. Her feet dragged as she walked up the tree-lined avenue. It had been a perfect spring day, and now as long golden shadows fell across the pavement the last liquid notes of birdsong filtered sweetly through the air.
She had a long way to commute, but she had particularly wanted a house with at least some pretensions towards being rural. She knew North London wasn’t fashionable and people raised their eyebrows when they discovered how far out of town she was, but the house had a long back garden, which was enclosed with hedges and boasted half a dozen wizened apple trees, and in the spring when they were in blossom and the cherry trees flowered along the surburban pavements she could almost convince herself it was as good as the country.
She had bought the house three years ago, a necessity rather than a luxury, and as well as realising her modest investments she had had to take on a seemingly huge mortgage. House prices had soared since the sale of her parents’ old home, especially in London, and she had been desperate when she found this house. Split into two self-contained flats, it was ideal for what she needed and she occupied the lower flat, the upper being let to an Italian couple who were living in England on a temporary basis. They had a baby girl and Briony got on very well with them, especially Gina, who was her own age and very much on her wavelength.
Gina was waiting for her when she opened the front door, and her heart instantly started to pound with fear, her mouth dry with dread.
‘Has.…’
‘Everything is fine,’ Gina soothed her fondly. ‘Never have I known such an anxious mamma! It is because you cannot be with your child as you would wish. This I understand. I came down merely to get his night things, he is tired from playing in the garden.…’
Relief swept over her in a wave and she sagged against the door, her face white with strain. This was the penalty she must pay for being a working mother. Gina watched over Nicky as though he were her own child, she knew that, and yet always at the back of her mind was the consuming fear that something might happen to him through her inability to be with him; that he would need her and she would not be there. She was lucky to have Gina, she knew. The Italian couple had been desperate when they came to her, and she had let them have the flat at a very modest rent, but she had never regretted it, and in return Gina, who did not work, had looked after Nicky. When her own baby had arrived ten months after Nicky’s birth he had been fascinated by the child, and Briony bitterly regretted that he, like her, would never know the pleasure of having brothers and sisters.
They went upstairs together, Gina pushing open the door to her flat and standing aside as a small dark-haired tornado flung himself into Briony’s open arms. As she cradled the soft and infinitely precious body of her son in her arms Briony gave a tiny sigh of relief. He smelled of baby powder and clean skin, his dark, thick hair still damp from his bath, his eyes huge and reproachful as he asked where she had been.
‘I’ve been at work, earning lots of pennies,’ she told him softly.
Nicky knew that his mummy had to earn pennies, but Briony still felt an unbearable pang every time she had to tell him. She had already missed so much of his young life and he was growing up so quickly. Gina was more of a mother to him than she was.
‘He’s had his tea,’ Gina told her with a smile. Briony thanked her without taking her eyes off her son, her expression illuminated with love and pride. The people who worked with her would never have recognised Doug’s cold, withdrawn secretary in this adoring young woman. Tonight as she went over each belovedly familiar feature she found herself scrutinising them more than normal, her heart thumping betrayingly.
‘Have you been good for Gina?’ she asked him.
He nodded solemnly, eyes twinkling, and Briony’s heart contracted on a wave of love. He had wound his way so tenaciously into her heart and life, this child whom she had borne in such pain and despair, without realising that her love for him would far outweigh the circumstances of his birth.
‘Go and get your toys for Mummy,’ Gina instructed
