had some phone calls to make and one or two bits of paperwork to deal with, but he just wanted to grab a few precious, quiet minutes to himself. The children were tucked up in bed, the television was finally silenced and Fran was unpacking her possessions in her flat.
He closed his eyes and pictured her, those beautiful blue-grey eyes that said so much, bare lips the colour of a faded rose, full and soft and ripe. There was something incredibly English about her looks, the pale alabaster of her skin, the warm glow in her cheeks, the fine cheekbones. Her hair had been up, the dark, gleaming tresses scraped back into a loose knot and secured at her nape with a clip.
It made his fingers itch. He’d wanted to remove the clip, to free her hair and watch it fall in a curtain around her shoulders, to thread his fingers through it and touch the softness.
He’d wanted all sorts of things, like the feel of her body against him, the taste of her mouth on his tongue, the slide of her skin against his own, but he would never know these things.
She was an employee, a member of his team at work, a pivotal part of his home life, please, God, and he needed her in that capacity far more than he needed the mere gratification of his sexual desires. He’d managed without since Sara had died, and he could manage for as long as it took to sort Chrissie out.
Maybe then he’d allow himself the luxury of an affair—if he could find anyone stupid enough to take him on.
With a short sigh he swung his feet to the ground and went out to the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of wine from the bottle in the fridge. It was nothing special, just a supermarket cheapie that he’d picked up the other day, but it was cool and refreshing and it might blur the edges a bit, if he was lucky.
Not a chance. Fran came down the back stairs and through the door, her hair down around her shoulders, wearing jeans and a simple sweater that hugged her waist and showed off the soft, ample fullness of her breasts, and desire slammed through him like an express train.
Dear God. He was going to have to live with this woman, work with her, share almost every detail of his life with her.
Mere sexual gratification? Mere? He set his glass down with exaggerated care and forced himself to meet her eyes. ‘Wine?’
‘Oh, lovely, thanks. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the children, particularly Chrissie, and I wouldn’t mind a lesson in pulling out that ramp thing and clipping in the wheelchair, if you can be bothered.’
‘Sure,’ he said, glad to have something positive to focus on apart from the gentle swell of her breasts and the way her hair fell in those soft, shining waves across her shoulders. He pictured it spread out over a pillow, and stifled a groan. ‘Let’s go and do that now before it gets even colder,’ he said, and, shrugging on his coat, he grabbed his car keys off the fridge and headed for the door, collecting the wheelchair as he went.
He seemed a little abrupt, Fran thought. Tired and preoccupied, perhaps? Worried about the children?
All of the above, probably. She hurried after him, practised slotting the ramp in and out and clipping in the wheelchair until she was sure she could do it blindfolded, and then they went back inside and he poured her the glass of wine he’d promised her and picked up his own.
‘Let’s go into my study,’ he said. ‘It’s comfortable, and there’s no danger of being overheard by the children.’
She nodded and followed him yet again. She seemed to have spent a great deal of time doing that today, she thought, but it was quite an interesting view, one the dogs must be quite used to as well. She stifled a smile and went into his study after him, the dogs trotting along beside her, and closed the door softly behind them all.
It was a lovely room, the walls completely lined with books, a battered desk of some considerable vintage set at right angles to the big, low window overlooking the drive. There was a huge leather swivel chair behind the desk and a toning leather chesterfield beside the fireplace.
Shoving the dogs off onto the floor, Xavier dropped into the chesterfield, waved at the other end of it and watched her as she settled into the other corner, a brooding look on his face.
She wondered what she’d done wrong, but apparently it was rather what she’d done right.
‘You have no idea how grateful I am to you for stepping into this post with so little warning,’ he said quietly. ‘I was at my wits’ end. I’d literally run out of options, and the kids were going to have to come to the surgery by taxi and sit in the office till I’d finished every night. Can you imagine Nick sitting still for that long? He’d be murdered by the staff before the week was out.’
Fran could believe it. He was certainly a live wire, she thought, although she couldn’t imagine Chrissie being any trouble if you could cope with the cold-shoulder treatment. She’d come in that evening, settled herself down at the kitchen table in silence and ploughed her way steadily through her homework.
Nick, on the other hand, had had to be retrieved from his bedroom and practically screwed to the chair by his exasperated father before he’d finally given in and opened his books.
‘Tell me about that little computer thing Chrissie has,’ Fran said, remembering how she’d communicated with her father and brother during the evening.
‘Her palm? It’s just that, a tiny computer that fits in her hand and means she can communicate without writing—well, she does write, simplified letters that the computer reads and then brings up into print on the small screen for us to see. It’s slower, but it means she doesn’t ever run out of paper and, besides, it’s cool. It gives her street cred, and I suppose in her position that’s important.’
Fran nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ She hesitated, then plunged on regardless. ‘I hate to bring it up again, but—do you have any idea what it might have been about the accident that made her stop talking?’
A shadow came over his face and he shook his head. ‘No. None. To be honest, I’ve hardly discussed it with her. Every mention of it distressed her so much in the beginning that we just avoided it, and opinion is divided on the efficacy of counselling in post-traumatic stress disorder—if it is PTSD. I still don’t know if I believe that. I can’t believe a healthy, active teenager would deliberately confine herself to a wheelchair and restrict herself to immobility and silence, no matter how traumatised.’
‘What do the experts think?’ she asked, curious as to their opinions, but he just laughed, a humourless, rather sad sound.
‘Oh, the experts couldn’t agree. Some wanted to try pressing her, forcing the issue; others said it was profoundly dangerous and she’d come out of it in time on her own. So what do you do? Who do you believe?’
‘What did you do?’
Xavier shrugged. ‘Nothing helped. The therapy made her even more withdrawn, so we stopped it and we just manage the situation as well as we can. She sees a physio twice a week and I do resisted exercises with her every evening, and she goes swimming on her games afternoon at a special hydrotherapy session, and I just hope to God she comes out of it before her body’s permanently damaged.’
He looked down into his wineglass, his face taut, a muscle working in his jaw, and Fran had an overwhelming urge to take the glass out of his hand and lay him down and massage the tension out of his shoulders. He was like a bowstring, she thought, strung so tight he would break, and she wondered if he ever did anything for himself, took any time to be himself and not a father or a doctor.
With one hand he was idly fondling the ear of one of the dogs, propped lovingly against his leg, and the other dog had her chin on his foot.
Such devotion. It wasn’t hard to see how he inspired it, she thought. He was so kind, so generous with himself, so thoughtful. He’d brought her things in out of her car, the few pitiful possessions she’d brought with her from London, and put them upstairs in the pretty little flat that was her new home.
He’d found her some clean linen and helped her make up the bed, turned