had breathed a huge sigh of cowardly relief when her father had accepted the invitation. She could have her meeting with the Hallam man with her father none the wiser. Every day that passed without him having to learn the miserable truth was a bonus.
And Rosie was out of the way, too, safely at school. Had she been at home, she would have wanted to be with her mummy, even though she loved Amy to pieces. Serious conversation with a bubbly, demanding five-and-a-bit-year-old was problematical to say the least.
The trouble was, since the death of her daddy and Steppie—as Helen, her stepgrandmother, had preferred to be called—Rosie had become very clingy. Not that either of them had spent much time with the little girl, and both of them had developed the habit of absenting themselves if Rosie had been ill or just plain tiresome.
Their deaths must have left a hole in the little girl’s life; one day they’d been around—in the background, but around—and the next they’d been blown away. But possibly the most traumatic thing had been her beloved grandpa’s illness and his subsequent need for lots of rest and quiet. Rosie probably couldn’t understand why her grandpa could no longer play those boisterous games she enjoyed or read to her for hours on end.
Claudia sighed and heaved herself out of the bath. The Hallam man would be arriving in half an hour. She couldn’t remember if the solicitor had actually said his name. But it would be Mr Hallam. She definitely recalled him saying that her visitor was the deceased Harold Hallam’s heir. It would be his son. Her solicitor would surely have said, had the new chief executive gone under a name other than the family one.
And what to wear? A simple grey linen suit with a cream silk blouse. Cool, businesslike, entirely suitable for a young widow.
Her soft brown hair caught back into the nape of her neck with a mock-tortoiseshell clip, and with the merest suggestion of make-up, her mind played truant, sliding back to those photographs she’d been looking at on her return from her traumatic meeting with her bank manager. Particularly, the one of her.
How she had changed. Still five feet seven inches, of course, but she’d lost all those lavish curves. After Rosie’s birth she’d fined down but now, since the traumas of the last few weeks, she looked positively scrawny. The Claudia in that old photograph had been a cheerful optimist, with laughing eyes and a beaming, open smile.
The mirror image she scrutinised now was older, wiser, a bit of a cynic with an overlay of composure, a strength of will that practically defied anyone to mess with her. She was through with being anyone’s eager little doormat. She was twenty-four years old, the age Adam Weston had been when they’d first met. She looked and felt a great deal older.
And another difference: the woman in the mirror was as good as bankrupt. The girl in the photograph had been quite a considerable heiress.
And therein had lain the attraction, of course.
She remembered with absolute and still painful clarity exactly how, over six years ago now, she had discovered that particular home truth.
Helen had told her. Helen had been sitting on the edge of her bed, clad in brief scarlet satin panties and bra, looking absolutely furious, yet finding compassion as she grabbed Claudia’s hand and squeezed it.
‘And you know what that slimeball Adam Toerag Weston had the gall to say? I can still hardly believe it! He actually told me not to be miffed because he’d been messing about—as he so chivalrously put it—with you! Miffed—I ask you! As if I’d be interested in a loser like him! As if I’d have some furtive, sleazy affair with a jobless, homeless, penniless layabout when I’m married to a lovely, lovely man like your father! But this is the point, dearest—’
Helen had released her hand with a final squeeze, reached for a scarlet satin robe and wrapped it around her body. ‘He actually said that he’d played up to you because you were quite an heiress. You’d agreed to marry him, or so he claimed, and, as his darling daughter’s husband, Guy wouldn’t object to keeping him in the manner to which he had always wanted to become accustomed—not if he didn’t want to alienate his darling daughter. I only hope, dearest, that you haven’t let him go too far with you, that you haven’t actually fallen for him, or anything stupid like that...’
Claudia had closed her eyes to stop the hurt from showing. She had wanted to scream that it wasn’t true, that Adam loved her, loved her for herself, that he didn’t care about her father’s wealth, Farthings Hall, the land, all that stuff. But she had never lied to herself. And if the evidence of her own eyes hadn’t been enough there had been that conversation on the first date they’d ever had.
It hadn’t been an accident that had found her in the vicinity of the old caravan at the back of the glasshouses about seven hours after she’d first been introduced to Adam. Or an accident that she had been wearing a pair of very brief shorts and her best sleeveless T-shirt. The crisp white garments had shown off her long and shapely legs and accentuated the honey-gold tan she’d managed to acquire.
Her heart had been fluttering wildly as she’d approached the open caravan door, but she’d told herself not to be stupid. She, as his employer’s daughter, had the perfect excuse for being here.
She could hear him moving about, whistling tunelessly beneath his breath, and before she could knock or call out he had appeared in the doorway, still wearing nothing but those threadbare cut-offs, a towel slung over one shoulder. Instead of the heavy working boots, he’d been sporting a pair of beat-up trainers.
‘Hello again.’ He’d smiled that smile. For several seconds Claudia hadn’t been able to speak. She’d felt her face go fiery red and had hoped quite desperately that he’d put it down to the heat, to the sun glinting off the roofs of the glasshouses, boiling down from a cloudless blue sky.
‘I...’ Agitatedly, she had pulled in a deep, deep breath. A huge mistake. Just looking at him, being on the receiving end of that deeply sexy smile, had made her legs go weak, made her breasts feel hot and full and tingly. And dragging air into her lungs that way had made them push against the soft white cloth of her top, and she’d known he’d noticed because his gaze had dropped, fastened there, right there, his lids heavy, thick dark lashes veiling his expression.
So she had begun again, gabbling now. ‘I wondered if you have everything you need? The caravan hasn’t been used in ages, not since—’
‘It’s fine. That nice housekeeper of yours—Amy?—supplied me with a bundle of bed- and bathroom linen, food supplies—and the place is clean, sweet as a nut.’
He had loped down the steps, pulling the van door to behind him. Claudia had swallowed a huge lump of disappointment. She’d hoped he’d invite her inside to see for herself. But what he had said was even better, more than she’d hoped for. ‘I’m told there’s a path through the valley leading down to a cove. I fancied a swim. Coming?’
Was she ever! She’d gone back to the house to get her swimming costume and met him back at the caravan. And it had been lovely, that walk. They’d talked a lot; well, he had, mostly. She’d asked him questions about himself but he’d skirted them, telling her to talk about herself, but she hadn’t been able to; there hadn’t been much to say. So it had ended up with him asking questions, making comments.
“This is a fantastic place. Magical. How does it make you feel, knowing it will all be yours one day? Not yet, of course, but some time in the future. Will you keep it on? Does the responsibility worry you? Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown—and all that.’
They’d been sitting in the soft golden sand by then, the sun dipping down towards the sea. He hadn’t seemed to need an answer; he could almost have been talking to himself. He’d leaned forward, softly tracing the outline of her mouth with the tip of a forefinger. ‘You are very lovely.’
And after that everything else had been simple. He’d gone out of his way to confirm his deductions that the land, the house, the business would all be hers in the fullness of time, and had gone ahead and trapped her with the honey-sweet bait of great sex and her own foolish notions of undying romantic love...