life. I wouldn’t be much of a challenge to a man of your undoubted sexual prowess——’
‘You’re exaggerating again—flattering though it is, I ought to draw your attention to the fact that there have been precious few women in my life in recent years.’
She laughed. ‘I’m sure it’s like riding a bicycle, Jake, and let’s face it, you devoted the majority of your youth to honing your skills in that department.’
‘You’re wrong, Annie, but I can’t be bothered to argue.’
‘Well, there’s a relief!’ She sat down in a chair and curled her feet defensively under her bottom. ‘Look, I don’t want to fight with you. We have to find some way of being together peaceably so that you can get to know Beth——’
‘So you at least agree I should?’
She was shocked. ‘Of course! I’d always intended to tell you about her, but somehow it never seemed the right time.’
He gave a soft grunt of laughter, and dropped back on to the sofa, sprawling out across it with one leg flung up on the cushions, one arm bent, head propped on his fist. His jeans, as always almost indecently tight, were stretched lovingly over his thighs, accentuating the power of his legs and blatantly outlining his masculinity.
She looked away.
‘So where do we go from here, Annie?’ he asked quietly. ‘You seem to want to make the rules. What do you suggest?’
She shrugged, unsure of how to proceed. ‘Play it by ear? You’ll be living next door, so you should be able to have lots of casual chats with her and gradually make friends. Drop in for tea, invite us round for coffee, perhaps the odd walk at the weekend? She wants you to help her build the snowman, too.’
He was watching her again with that curiously intense look that was so unnerving.
‘You are, I take it, including yourself in these arangements?’
‘Of course—I have to, Jake! I can’t just suddenly encourage her to spend hours with you without any reason. Normally I try and stop her from wearing out her welcome with friends, because she’s very open and natural and can’t imagine that anybody wouldn’t want her.’
‘I want her. Make no mistake about that, Annie.’
Her shoulders sagged. ‘Just one thing, because remember I know you, Jacob Hunter. Don’t encourage her affections and friendship and then decide paternity is too boring and fly off into the sunset. Do you understand? I don’t care how you behave with your women, this is a different relationship, and, like it or not, it’s for life. If you don’t think you can hack it, then get out of our lives now. I won’t have her hurt—is that clear?’
‘As crystal.’ He came fluidly to his feet and stood over her menacingly, his voice deathly quiet. ‘There’s one thing you should understand. I intend to be an active parent, Anne. She’s my daughter and before long she’s going to know she’s my daughter——’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Oh, yes. I’m not having her calling me Mr Hunter or Uncle Jake. I want her to know who I am, and that I love her.’
‘But you don’t!’
‘Because I’ve never had the chance, but that’s all changed now, because you’re going to give me that chance. I want to know everything—when she cut her first tooth, took her first step, said her first word—all of it, down to the last sleepless night, and you’re going to tell me if I have to wring it out of you!’
‘That won’t be necessary. I have a book,’ she told him quietly. ‘I knew you would want to know one day, so I recorded everything meticulously. I’ll get it for you. There are also videos of her as a toddler, and in the playgroup Christmas concert, and later in school plays and up at my parents’ during holidays. Do you have a video player?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I brought it up last night.’
She rummaged in the cabinet under the television and brought out three video tapes, and then from the bookcase she produced a baby album and six other photo albums.
‘One for every year,’ she told him. The last one has a few more to go in it.’
‘It must be her birthday soon, I suppose—God, I don’t even know the date of my own daughter’s birthday!’ he said heavily.
‘Sunday,’ she told him, ignoring the anguish in his voice. ‘The twenty-first of February.’
She produced a carrier bag from the kitchen and put all the tapes and albums in it.
‘What have you told her about me?’ he asked.
‘I told her you’d gone away to America. By the time she was old enough to ask, you were married and in private practice, so we could hardly write to you and say, “There’s something you ought to know”.’
‘And when you heard I was divorced?’
She shrugged. ‘It just proved everything I’d always known about you and your relationships with women. I decided then that I didn’t need the aggravation of telling you about Beth and having to deal with transatlantic flights and custody and access battles and all the other trauma. Frankly, Jake, we were better off without you.’
He glanced around at the meagre surroundings, and she felt his disdain for the marked walls, the threadbare carpet, the tatty old furniture.
‘Pretty spartan, Annie. I wouldn’t say you’d done that well.’
She was stung, her pride hurt. ‘I’ve done my best, and there’s more to life than money, Jake, odd though you may find that coming hot-foot from the Big Apple—or should I call it the Golden Nugget?’
He opened his mouth to argue, and then shut it with a snap. Taking the carrier bag from her, he strode down the hall and flung open the front door.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He stepped out into the night, and as she moved to push the door to behind him, he slapped it back against the wall and spun to face her.
‘Incidentally, about that piece of scrap iron on the drive …’he gritted furiously.
She frowned in confusion. ‘Scrap iron? You mean my car——?’
‘Car?’ he snorted. ‘It’s a wreck! The first thing I’m doing is buying you a decent one, because there’s no way my daughter’s riding round in that ancient death-trap!’
Anne was furious. First the house, now the car! ‘How dare you? Just where the hell do you get off calling my car a death-trap?’
‘Look at it! The thing’s lethal—if it has an MOT certificate I’d stake my life it’s cooked. You’ve got no business taking a child in a vehicle like that——’
‘How dare you? It’s none of your business what I do with Beth——’
‘Rubbish!’ he roared. ‘Of course it’s my business! She’s
