Reluctant Father

She took a sip of coffee. Was she here alone? At long last, he had worked around to Jack. Alleluia! But what did he think she had done? Parked the baby with someone and swanned off unencumbered to the tropical sunshine? Come on! Yet by avoiding a direct question Gifford was playing games. She shot him an impatient glance. OK, she would play games, too.

‘On my own?’ Cass repeated, all innocence.

‘There’s no man around?’

She opened her blue eyes wide. If he wanted to be obtuse, she would also be obtuse.

‘Man?’ she enquired.

‘Is Stephen with you?’ he said, and heard the curtness of his voice reflect his distaste for the idea.

‘Stephen?’ She gave a startled laugh. ‘No.’

Stephen was Stephen Dexter, head of the Dexter sports equipment company which had been bought out the previous year by the vigorously expanding Tait-Hill Corporation. She had worked for the young man, first as his secretary, then as his personal assistant, and later in the upgraded role of business aide.

‘Does Edith do all the cooking or do you lend a hand there, too’ Gifford asked.

Cass looked blank. She had been thinking how Stephen had been a loyal and generous friend, but hopeless when it came to trade. It had been his incompetence which had hastened the family firm’s decline, made it ripe for a take-over and thus brought Gifford Tait into her life.

‘I help with minor tasks sometimes—like peeling vegetables—but Edith plans the menus and makes all the dishes. I wonder what’s happened to her?’ she carried on, inspecting the slim gold watch which encircled her wrist. ‘She’s gone to visit her sister and take—’

Cass bit off the words. She had been on the brink of saying that Edith had taken Jack along in his buggy to be fussed over and admired—all the Seychellois seemed to love children—but she refused to open up the subject. The lengthy months of silence had made it clear that Gifford regarded her pregnancy as her fault and the baby as her responsibility—a responsibility which she had willingly accepted. But it was now a point of principle that he must refer to their son first.

‘Edith should be back at any moment,’ she said.

He drank a mouthful of coffee. ‘Whoever’s buying this place must believe they can drum up customers from somewhere,’ he remarked.

She balled her fists, the knuckles draining white. He was a perverse so-and-so. His refusal to speak of Jack—innocent, adorable, fatherless Jack—made her want to

throw things at him. Hard. In the past, Gifford had exhibited a straight-arrow approach to problems—an approach which could be ruthless, as she knew to her cost—so why was he avoiding this issue now?

Cass shot him a look from beneath her too long fringe. Could he be embarrassed by his failure to respond to her letters, make contact and offer help? He was far too urbane an individual to visibly squirm, but did he feel ashamed? Might he want to say sorry, yet be tonguetied by thoughts of his abysmal behaviour?

‘Apparently,’ she said, thinking that when he did pluck up the courage to apologise she would take immense satisfaction in watching him grovel.

‘Has the guy run a hotel before?’

‘Yes, in South Africa.’

‘What made him decide to come here?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Cass said impatiently. Once upon a time they had spent hours avidly discussing business matters, but the pressing topic for discussion now was Jack. Her darling Jack. ‘Edith had the first dealings, and although I met him when he called in a couple of weeks ago basically all I know is that his name is Kirk Weber and he comes from Johannesburg.’

‘What’s he like?’ Gifford asked.

‘In his forties, good-looking, friendly. Edith thinks he’s the bee’s knees and calls him Mr Wonderful.’

‘You said he’s yet to close the sale.’

She nodded. ‘It was supposed to go through a month ago, but Kirk’s been having difficulty transferring his funds, and since then—zilch.’

‘Perhaps he’s changed his mind.’

Her brow crinkled. ‘I don’t think so. He insists the money is on its way and rings every few days to check that no one else has been to look at the property.’

‘Edith always tells him no?’

‘Yes.’

‘An error.’

‘Could be,’ Cass acknowledged.

‘Is. Damn.’

As Gifford had spoken, he had slashed out a hand in emphasis and knocked a spare knife from the table, sending it flying and clattering to the floor a couple of yards away.

She waited for him to rise and, with the athletic grace which she remembered so well, retrieve the knife, but when he didn’t she pushed back her chair. Collecting fallen cutlery had, it seemed, been designated as the waitress’s work. Cass bent, picked up the knife and polished it on a napkin.

She thrust it towards him. ‘May I return this?’ she said.

‘You’re too kind.’

‘It’s all part of the service.’

Amusement quirked in one corner of his mouth. ‘And you’ve resisted the urge to carve me up into little pieces.’

She shone a saccharine smile at him. ‘Just.’

As she handed him the knife, their fingers touched. Cass stood rigid. The brush of his skin against hers seemed to create an electric current which tingled in her fingertips and shot up her arm.

‘You look…different,’ Gifford said, his grey eyes starting to move over her in a slow inspection.

Once again, she drew in her stomach. Since arriving on the island a month ago she had exercised every day, and soon she would be firm and trim—back to her original figure. But right now her belly remained a touch flabby.

‘I’ve put on weight which I’m trying to shed. Though it’s hardly surprising. Is it?’ she challenged.

‘You mean because you’re living alongside a restaurant, day in, day out?’ He pursed his lips. ‘I guess not.’ Cass glared. He was so infuriating, so frustrating. I mean because I’ve had a baby! she yelled inside her head.

‘Your breasts are fuller,’ he murmured, and lifted his gaze to hers.

Her heartbeat quickened. She still attracted him. She could see it in the smoky depths of his eyes and hear it in the sensual purr of his voice. She sank down onto her chair. Half of her was pleased, smug even—but the other half, the sensible half, insisted that, from now on, their relationship must be strictly neutral and strictly business. It had been the sexual draw which had caused so much havoc before, but she would not make the same mistake twice.

She was on the point of telling him that she did not appreciate such personal comments when she noticed that Gifford was frowning. He, too, seemed to regret his observation. And no doubt regretted that she still appealed, Cass thought drily.

‘Me and Phyllis were so busy chattin’ the time went flyin’ by,’ someone announced into the silence, and they both jumped and looked round.

A plumply handsome black woman had pushed out through the kitchen doors. Her lustrous dark hair was piled into a bun on the top of her head and she wore a floral button-through dress. She was in her mid-fifties.

‘Hello, Edith,’ Cass said, smiling, then she frowned. Where was Jack?

‘His lordship’s flat out on the verandah,’ the new arrival advised, as if reading her mind. She nodded at Gifford. ‘Bonzour.’

‘Good morning,’ he replied.

‘Cassie opened up early and made you something to eat? You must be special,’ Edith declared, her brown eyes twinkling.

Cass gave a strained smile. Should she say that they knew each other? If so, how much did she reveal? She had told the older woman that Jack’s father was not around, and as man/woman relationships in the Seychelles often seemed to be casual and temporary—en passant was the local term—her statement had been accepted without question. Gifford had not been named.

“This is Mr Tait,’ she said. ‘He’s moved into Maison d’Horizon.’

Edith chuckled. ‘You are special,’ she declared, in her rolling, molasses-rich Creole-accented English. She turned to Cass. ‘Have you asked if—’

‘No, and I’m not going to,’ she cut in hurriedly.

‘Aw, honey, Bernard didn’t mind, and I’m sure Mr Tait—’

‘Please call me Gifford,’ Gifford said, with a smile.

Edith smiled back. Some people you took an instant liking to, and Edith obviously liked him. ‘I’m sure Gifford,’ she adjusted, ‘won’t mind, either.’

‘I mind,’ Cass insisted, shooting the older woman a fiercely pleading ‘keep quiet’ look.

‘Mind about what?’ Gifford enquired.

‘Us asking a couple of favours,’ Edith told him. ‘Bernard was the French gentleman who rented Maison d’ Horizon before you. He was gettin’ on, in his seventies, and came out here to take a break from his evernaggin’ wife and to make drawings of the birds—the parrots, mynahs and such. The island is full of them. He was so obliging.’

Cass gritted her teeth. She knew what was coming next.

‘Look, I—’ she started to protest, but the woman refused to be deflected.

‘Bernard used to come in for meals and a drink at the bar most evenings, and when he heard how we’ve been waiting for a delivery of water glasses since kingdom

come—’ Edith rolled despairing eyes ‘—he brought over two dozen. Don’t know who it was who stocked the villa, but they sure went to town on glasses. Went to town on most everything, like the exercise machines, as you’ll have seen. Bernard never used the machines, but—’

‘Gifford is a keep-fit fanatic and be will,’ Cass inserted, at speed. ‘Yes?’

His brow furrowed. ‘Yes.’

‘Even so,’ Edith continued blithely, ‘you’re not going to be exercisin’ all of the time. Cassie here’s hung up on slimming down her figure. though Lord knows why because she looks more than slim enough to me. Real shapely.’

His eyes moved over Cass again. ‘True,’ he agreed, and his frown cut deeper.

‘Bernard was happy for her to work out whenever she wished, so—’

‘You want to borrow the glasses again, and Cass would like to make it burn?’ Gifford enquired, in a slightly terse summing-up.

He had chosen the Seychelles for his recuperation because the islands were a very long way from home. He had wanted to be anonymous, living alone and keeping himself to himself, with no visitors. He had never imagined he would meet anyone he knew, least of all Cass.

The black woman grinned. ‘Please.’

Frowning, he considered the proposition, then he nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘There you are,’ Edith said, swinging Cass a triumphant smile. ‘Must go now and start on lunch.’ She reverted to her native Creole. ‘Orevwar.’

‘Au revoir,’ Gifford said.

‘Edith was speaking out of turn,’ Cass began as the swing doors dovetailed shut. ‘We can manage with-out—’

‘There’s no need to manage. Give me a ring to let me know when you’re coming and you can have the glasses,’ he told her. ‘We can also fix a time for your aerobics sessions.’

She dithered. His agreement had been reluctant and, call it foolish pride, but she did not want to be the recipient of his largesse. Yet she was keen to lose those few excess pounds.

‘Thanks. Will do.’

‘Fitting out the gym must’ve cost an obscene amount of money,’ Gifford remarked. ‘Take the computerised exercise bike. The only place I’ve ever seen a machine like that before was in an exclusive sports club in Aspen. It…’

As he talked on, Cass drank the rest of her coffee. He had failed to make any mention of Jack. How could he? She felt so hurt, so wounded, that he had not immediately demanded to see her—his—child. Didn’t he care about him just a little? Didn’t he feel any curiosity? Or compassion? The answer had to be a resounding no.

Her hurt hardened into a cold, stony anger and, clattering her cup down onto her saucer, she rose to her feet. Gifford might resent being landed with a son, but she would make him acknowledge and accept him.

‘Back in a minute,’ she said, and marched away.

Passing Edith, who was dicing sweet potato in the kitchen, she went through the wedged-open side door and out onto the verandah. There, in the shade, stood a navy-upholstered baby buggy. Walking quietly over, Cass looked down. With his thumb fallen from his mouth and his dark lashes spread on peach-smooth cheeks, Jack was fast asleep. She felt a catch in her throat. She loved him so much.

Her forehead puckered. She had always known that he looked like Gifford, but until she had seen them together—almost—she had not realised how strong the resemblance was. Their dark hair grew in the same way, they had the same broad brow, the same determined chin. But she would, she thought fiercely, do her damnedest to ensure that Jack grew up with a far softer heart.

Releasing the brake, she took a grip on the push-bar. Like it or not, the unwilling father was going to meet his son—now.

Cass wheeled the buggy through the kitchen and, holding one of the swing doors aside, strode forward. She stopped dead. The table was empty. A sheaf of notes in payment for his meal was tucked beneath a saucer, but Gifford had gone.

The prospect of coming face to face with his offspring must have been too much to take, so he had fled the restaurant. Was he also intending to flee from the bungalow and from the island? By the end of the day, would Gifford Tait be flying back to the States? She tossed her head. She could think of nothing which would suit her better.

CHAPTER TWO

THE hair stylist smiled down into the buggy. ‘Doesn’t your mama look as pretty as a princess?’ she enquired.

The baby grinned, blue-grey eyes smiling and a dimple denting one round cheek, then he pursed his rosebud lips and blew a raspberry.

Cass laughed. ‘He may not be too thrilled, but I think

it’s a big improvement.’ She took a final, appraising look at herself in the mirror. Thanks a lot.’

Gifford’s arrival the previous day had had one plus, she thought wryly as she steered the pushchair out of the salon and started off along the spacious marblefloored lobby of Club Sesel. The interruption had made her think twice about wielding the scissors.

Past experience had shown that she was a ‘chopaholic’, so chances were her hair would have wound up looking as if it had been sheared by a lunatic with a chainsaw. Instead, her fringe was softly feathered, while the fall of burnished wheat-gold hair ended in a straight line at her shoulders. Cass tweaked at the silky black top which she wore with stone-coloured chinos. Today she looked stylish. Stylish enough to be mistaken for a hotel guest.

Club Sesel—Sesel was the Creole word for the Seychelles—catered for the wealthy. Guests stayed in individual granite bungalows which were discreetly sited amidst landscaped hillside gardens full of tropical blooms, ate in a chandeliered dining hail and could browse in the designer outlets which lined the lobby. She swung a look around. The lobby and shops were currently deserted. In general, there seemed to be few guests.

Reaching the gift shop, Cass stopped to study a window display which featured exclusive beachwear and mother-of-pearl jewellery arranged around a pair of polished coco de mer nuts. The huge nuts, which had a suggestively intimate female shape, were reputed to grow only in the Seychelles. These days restricted numbers were sold as expensive souvenirs, though in the past their kernels had been regularly ground up and used as an aphrodisiac.

A shadow clouded her blue eyes. There had been no need for aphrodisiacs when she and Gifford had met. Like their emotional rapport, the sexual attraction had been instant and compelling. And when they had made love it had been a passionate explosion of feeling which—

Her gaze swung sideways. A door bearing the word ‘Manager’ in gold letters had been opened, drawing her attention, but the man who had started to come out had swivelled and was disappearing inside again. As the door clicked shut behind him, Cass frowned. With wellgroomed fair hair, and wearing a silver-grey gabardine suit, he had looked suspiciously like Kirk Weber. She did not know where the South African stayed when he came to the island—nor had she been aware that he was here now—but Club Sesel would be handy for him.

Setting off again, she negotiated the buggy down a couple of shallow steps and out into the dazzling sunshine of the paved forecourt. Could Kirk’s presence mean he was about to finalise his purchase of the Forgotten Eden? she wondered as she slid on her dark glasses. She crossed mental fingers. She hoped so.

‘Yoo-hoo, Cass!’ a voice shrilled, and when she turned she saw a woman with short, gel-slicked auburn hair and wearing a gold lamé swimsuit waving at her from the far side of the small kidney-shaped swimming pool.

‘Hello, Veronica,’ she called back, smiling, and waited as the redhead teetered towards her on high goldsandalled heels.

Over the past two weeks, Veronica Milne had become a regular visitor to the Forgotten Eden. She would arrive in her hire-car around midday or in the evening, pick at her meal, then switch to sit at the bar where she would make eyes at Jules Adonis, the Seychellois barman who, with clean-cut looks, long, sun-lightened dreadlocks and a beguiling white smile, lived up to his surname. A surname which was surprisingly common in the islands.

If the baby happened to be around, she also made a big fuss of him.

A thin, twittery woman who talked non-stop, Veronica was hard going after the first five minutes—but Cass felt sorry for her. Behind the determinedly bright expression, she sensed a lost soul.

‘Just thought I’d tell you that I shall be along for lunch today,’ Veronica said. ‘Will Jules be there?’

‘He should be, though he has been known to sleep in and not wake up until it’s too late. Or forget which day it is,’ she said ruefully.

‘He’s such a heartthrob. Like this little fellow,’ the redhead declared, stretching down a hand to tickle the baby’s tummy.

Jack wriggled and giggled.

‘Do you have children?’ Cass enquired.

Veronica straightened. ‘No. I run my own fashion boutique—we sell only the best names-and there’s never been time to fit in a family. And now I’m divorced; the decree absolute came through last month. This is the first time I’ve been on holiday on my own. The first time I’ll go back to an empty house.’ She looked down at her noticeably denuded wedding-ring finger, though her other fingers were banded with rings of all shapes and sizes. ‘Of course, I could always marry again and have a baby. I’m only just into my forties, so it isn’t too late.’

‘I suppose not,’ Cass said, and hoped she did not sound doubtful.

‘I think Jules fancies me,’ Veronica declared, and lowered her voice into a giggly, conspiratorial whisper. ‘I fancy him, too.’

Cass felt a stab of concern. The woman might sport a trendy elf-in-a-rainstorm hairstyle and wear glamorous clothes, but rather than ‘just into’ her forties she looked more in her mid-forties, if not heading towards fifty. Jules was twenty-five.

He was also a happy-go-lucky Romeo who flirted with females—any female—out of habit and on autopilot. She had assumed this was glaringly obvious, but perhaps Veronica preferred not to see? Newly divorced, she could be feeling adrift and eager for male attention. Too eager.

‘Jules has a girlfriend,’ Cass said gently, not wanting her to get hurt. ‘In fact, he has several. I must go. I look forward to seeing you later. Goodbye.’

‘Bye, bye,’ Veronica trilled; but she was smiling at Jack and waving.

Cass pushed the buggy up the hotel’s sloping drive and out onto the hard-baked red earth of the road. She had spent most of last night tossing and turning and thinking about Gifford, and as she set off for the Forgotten Eden her mind returned to him again.

Yesterday, her reaction to his exit from the restaurant had been, Good riddance! But it had been a knee-jerk reaction. And he had not fled the island. A distant glimmer of lights from the bungalow the previous evening, plus the slam of a door this morning, had indicated that he remained in residence.

She frowned. Whilst becoming a single parent had never featured in her scheme of things—heaven forbid!—she had coped with all the various traumas and got her life back on track. Plans had been made for the future. But now Gifford had appeared and thrown everything into confusion.

‘I was going to send your daddy photographs of you on your first birthday, she said, speaking to the baby who sat in the pushchair. ‘And if he didn’t reply I was going to send another batch when you reached two. Then, if that failed to produce a response, I intended to take you over to the States, plop you on the middle of his office desk and say, Hey, buster, I’d like to introduce your son and heir. That would’ve concentrated his mind, yes?’

Jack clapped small, starfished hands—his latest trick.

‘I don’t expect him to be an every-day daddy,’ Cass continued, becoming grave, ‘but I believe that every child has the right to know its father, and I want him to show a respectable amount of care and consideration. Like remembering your birthdays and taking you on the occasional holiday when you’re a big boy, and being available at times when you particularly need a dad.’

‘Blah.’ her listener said.

‘I was going to tell him all this when you were two. When you’d be starting to realise that other children have daddies and wondering where yours had got to. Only he’s turned up now.’

The baby stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked noisily.

There could, of course, be a second reason for Gifford’s abrupt departure from the restaurant, Cass reflected. He might have been eager to return to a companion. A female companion, whom he had left in bed. He was a red-blooded male with all the usual appetites—as she could confirm, she thought astringently—and whilst he might be here to convalesce she could not imagine him spending the days alone and doing nothing. So it seemed possible that he had a woman in tow.

Halting, she lowered the buggy into its recline position, laid down her son and drew forward the hood. Jack’s chubby arms and legs were lightly tanned, but she was wary of him getting too much sun.

Cass walked on. Might Gifford’s companion be the glamorous Imogen Sales? The more she thought about his attitude the previous day, the more she felt there had been an air of strained secrecy about him. He had been hiding something. What? The fact that he had come to the Seychelles with the actress who had followed her into his arms and his affections with insulting, hurtful speed?

She pushed the buggy down into a crater of a pothole and up out of it again. A few months ago she had seen the American woman in a TV film. Cass grimaced. She had had the kind of shiny, swinging raven-black bob which was more usually seen in shampoo adverts, a serenely aloof face and, wearing a succession of slinky numbers, had been disgustingly slim. Imogen had also, she thought cattily, displayed an inescapable need to pose and possessed all the acting skills of cardboard.

Her expression shadowed. She did not welcome the idea of producing Jack and discussing what were essentially private matters with Imogen Sales around Yet, even if the actress or some other woman was living with Gifford in the villa, it was vital that they should talk. For her son’s sake, lines of communication needed to be established.

Cass strode on. Once upon a time, she had considered herself to be a good judge of character. She had been convinced that her lover was conscientious, reliable, trustworthy, but it had been all smoke and mirrors.

‘How could I have been so wrong?’ she muttered, and fell silent, bombarded with memories of the past…

It had been Henry Dexter, Stephen’s elderly father and, at that time, head of the company, who had first brought the Tait-Hill Corporation to her attention.

‘Those two will go far,’ he had declared, marching into his son’s office one morning to thrust a trade magazine at him. ‘Read the article and see how ambitious they are, how well informed and on the ball.’ He had frowned. ‘Take note of how hard they work.’