any older. He swung on his heel, snapping his fingers at his nearest employee. ‘Please follow that woman and report back to me with her address.’
‘Yes, sir.’
If the young man was surprised he didn’t show it. He spurted into immediate action. There was no arguing with the new owner of Gerards. He’d had everyone on their toes ever since he took over a few months ago.
’Sweetheart, what did you ask for?’ Megan looked down at her beloved daughter, who was skipping happily along at her side. There hadn’t really been time to visit Santa’s grotto but Charlotte had pleaded so eloquently that Megan couldn’t find it in her heart to refuse. There was always another train, even if it meant travelling home at the height of the rush hour.
‘For a daddy.’
Megan hid her surprise, smiling indulgently instead. ‘I don’t think Santa supplies daddies. You were supposed to ask for a toy.’ Her heart felt heavy as she spoke. Charlotte was right, she did need a father, and if Luigi had been different…
Megan halted her thoughts. It was no good letting them run along those lines. She had been an idiot for marrying him, for allowing her parents to convince her that she could do no better. He was a man with big ambition; she would never want for anything, they had said.
She could understand their reasoning because money had been the bane of their lives, her father never able to hold down a job for long due to ill health, so for that reason she hadn’t told her parents that she was leaving Luigi. She had simply disappeared, telephoning them later so that they would know she was safe, but not giving them her address. They had not been happy, telling her that she was making a big mistake. But Megan didn’t think so.
Luigi’s chief aim in life was making money, and he was very good at it. His wife was someone to clean his home, and cook and wash for him, and to make love to whenever the urge drove him. But there was no love in his heart; she had found that out after the first few months of marriage. She doubted he was capable of feeling any such emotion. Whereas she had loved him with a passion that had sometimes scared her.
With an effort she pushed him out of her mind, concentrating instead on her chatterbox daughter. Santa had given her a parcel and they played a guessing game all the way home as to what was inside.
Home was a rented terraced house in Greenwich, which she shared with Jenny Wilson whom she’d met when she first arrived in London. As soon as they were indoors Charlotte ripped the wrapping paper off her gift. If Megan was disappointed her daughter wasn’t. She was delighted with her soldier doll.
‘Look, Mummy, I can pretend he’s my daddy. Wasn’t Santa kind?’
It was a clear case of the boys and girls presents getting muddled but Megan hadn’t the heart to tell Charlotte this. ‘He certainly is, sweetheart. What are you going to call him?’
‘Daddy, of course,’ said Charlotte scornfully. ‘Come on, Daddy, come and play with me.’
It broke Megan’s heart to see her daughter being so passionate about a doll. She hadn’t realised that Charlotte missed having a father. Where had the idea come from? Surely she was too young to know?
Daddy doll was a part of their lives for the next few days and on Sunday morning, when Charlotte jumped into bed beside her, the doll had to come too. Megan was sometimes tempted to conveniently lose the doll, except that she knew her daughter would be heartbroken. The trouble was, all this talk about Daddy dragged up memories she would far rather forget.
When the doorbell rang loudly and insistently she was tempted to ignore it. This was Sunday morning for heaven’s sake. No one of any consequence called at this hour. It was probably for Jenny anyway, and she was spending the weekend with her fiancé. But the ringing didn’t stop; whoever it was kept their finger on the button with no intention of going away until it was answered.
Impatiently Megan pulled on her dressing gown. ‘Stay there and keep the bed warm,’ she told her daughter. Someone was going to get a piece of her mind. But that someone robbed her of speech. She felt the colour drain from her face, and her heart skipped a couple of beats before resuming at a startling pace.
The very last person she had expected to see was her husband. After all these years she had thought she was safe. In fact she’d felt extremely secure in the knowledge that he had no idea where she was. Not that she’d expected him to come looking. He might just as well have employed a housekeeper for all the notice he’d ever taken of her.
He was still as handsome as ever, his dark Latin looks improving with age rather than fading. Black hair aggressively short, deep brown eyes intensely disturbing. There was maybe a line or two around their corners but it added rather than detracted from his appearance. His nose was strong and straight and his generous lips were at this moment compressed into a grim line.
Although there was a step up into her house he still stood a couple of inches taller. He was six three compared to her five feet six and she was glad at this moment of the extra few inches the step afforded her. He could be very intimidating when he chose.
And it looked as though this was one of those occasions.
‘I’ve come to claim my daughter.’
The bald statement left Megan gasping. This was her worst nightmare come true. She clung to the door handle for support as her legs threatened to buckle. ‘H—how did you know?’ She felt a tightness in her throat that threatened to choke her.
‘So she is mine!’ he claimed triumphantly, a gleam of light entering those dark, dark eyes.
He had tricked her! Megan felt like taking a swipe at him. Or at the very least slamming the door in his face. But what good would that do? He wouldn’t go away until he’d got what he came for. She dared not think what that might be.
‘Can I come in or shall we negotiate on the doorstep?’
Negotiate? Negotiate what? Visiting rights? Some hope of that. He was no longer a part of her life, their lives, hers and Charlotte’s. She ought to have divorced him. How had he found her? The question whirled round and round in her head.
He lived in Derbyshire; he had no connections with London. She had thought she would be safe a hundred and fifty or more miles away in a big anonymous city. So how had he discovered her whereabouts? Had he been looking for her all these years? Somehow she doubted it. He had declared he loved her before they got married but there had been very little show of affection afterwards, certainly not enough for him to take time off from his precious work to scour the country after her.
He looked as though he’d done well for himself. A short black Crombie overcoat, mohair trousers with perfectly pressed pleats, Italian leather shoes. Yes, he wasn’t short of a few pennies. Not that he ever had been. But he was far more polished, far more mature and self-confident. Even the way he stood told her that.
There was not an ounce of diffidence. He was here on a mission and expected to get his own way. No, not expected, he would demand it—as his right. She could see it in his expression. Dark eyes overpowered her, making her step back and invite him silently into her private domain.
She didn’t want to do it but she had no choice. He was hypnotising her into obeying. Or was it because she didn’t want to argue with him in full view of her neighbours? Whichever, she was
