CHAPTER TEN

ANOTHER bloody awful day!

Actually, it had started last night, when Lisa had arrived so unexpectedly at his apartment—only to walk out again minutes later when she saw Beth moving quietly out of the sitting-room to the bedrooms, her calculating mind adding two and two together and coming up with an answer that had been crude to say the least!

Or had it started before that, when he had kissed Beth…?

God, what had he been doing? The woman was here to help with the kids, and he had repaid her by attempting to seduce her! Although he wasn’t too sure the bunch of flowers he held in his hand as a peace offering was such a good idea either… What if she took the gesture the wrong way and thought he was trying another seductive ploy? What if—? Oh, damn it; he had brought the flowers as a peace offering, and she could damn well accept them as such!

She wasn’t anywhere in sight to accept anything when he let himself into the apartment. In fact, there was no sign of anyone when he walked into the sitting-room. And after the last couple of days of noise and chaos it was very strange to be met with complete silence, to find himself completely alone. Was this what it was going to be like once the children had gone back to Samantha?

Nick sat down heavily in an armchair, looking about him at the home he had created for himself over the last five years. It was expensively decorated and furnished, unstintingly so, but as he looked at the beautiful objects that adorned his home he could see that that was all they were—objects, beautiful objects, but with no warmth, or caring, or—or laughter. There had been laughter, genuine laughter, in his home yesterday—a warmth that owed much to Beth’s presence, he knew. And somehow his ordered existence—completely selfish, he now admitted—no longer had the appeal it had once had. Oh, it was disruptive and noisy having the children here, but at the same time it was real.

And he knew from last night that Beth was very real too…!

‘Shall I put those in water for you?’

He turned sharply at the sound of Beth’s voice, all his logical reasoning about his behaviour last night disappearing the moment he looked at her again. She was beautiful—the warmth of her hair glowing in those clear green eyes, her smile wide and endearing. Only for him? In a moment of blinding truth, Nick knew that he wanted it to be.

‘Nick?’ Her smile wavered slightly as she looked at him concernedly.

He didn’t like her smile disappearing like that, realised he had been looking forward to seeing this particular smile all day. ‘They’re for you.’ He thrust the red carnations at her, inwardly wincing at how ungracious he sounded, almost as if he half resented giving her the damned flowers. But then, it was a long time since he had actually given any woman flowers; he usually telephoned a florist and had them delivered to the latest woman in his life.

But Beth wasn’t like those other women, and his feelings towards her weren’t the coldly calculated ones of those other relationships either. He didn’t know what they actually were yet, but—

‘Thank you.’ Beth accepted the flowers much more graciously than he had given them, breathing in their perfume. ‘They’re beautiful. And the colour is so appropriate to this time of the year. We’ve bought some lovely red and gold decorations for this room,’ she explained at his blank look.

God, it was Christmas Eve! He had been so busy sitting here staring at Beth, like some love-sick teenager, that he had completely forgotten what day it was.

‘I collected the childrens’ presents,’ he told her abruptly, not wanting to think about how it had been to go into the home Sam now shared with Robert, to have to go into their bedroom, to Sam’s personal wardrobe, to find those presents. It had been a painful experience, not one he would like to repeat in a hurry. ‘They’re downstairs in my car; we can get them later, when the children have gone to bed. Talking of the children,’ he added sharply, ‘where are they?’ He looked about pointedly.

Beth smiled. ‘They’re in their bedrooms, wrapping up your Christmas presents.’

He frowned. ‘My Christmas presents?’

She nodded. ‘Apparently their mother usually takes them out on Christmas Eve to shop for gifts for you.’

And this year, because Sam couldn’t do it, Beth had taken them. With everything else she’d had to do today, she had thought of doing that. Was there no end to this woman’s warmth and kindness towards others? He didn’t think so—it radiated out of her. And last night he had kissed her, wanted to make love to her. And he wanted the same thing now…

‘Beth—’

‘Daddy Nick!’ Lucy rushed excitedly into the room at that moment, throwing herself into his arms, pressing her flushed cheek against his.

Nick’s arms moved about her instinctively as he gathered her close to him. She smelt clean and warm, slightly chocolatey, and looked absolutely adorable as he gazed down at her. Was it possible that he had been wrong all these years—that Lucy was his daughter after all? He had been so angry last night when Beth had insisted that she was, and yet as he looked down into Lucy’s guilelessly innocent face, at that endearingly toothless grin and the glowing blue eyes, something shifted inside him, almost like the collapse of an iceberg. Or was it just the melting of ice around his heart…?

He looked at Beth over the top of Lucy’s golden curls, feeling the unaccustomed sting of tears in his eyes at her barely perceptible nod at his silent questioning. Lucy was his. He somehow knew it so clearly and he ached with the pain of all the wasted years—years when he should have been Lucy’s father, and not the stranger he had tried to make of himself.

‘Just Daddy, darling,’ he told his daughter gruffly as he gently stroked her silky hair.

‘I love you, Daddy.’ She snuggled trustingly against him, instantly accepting this sudden change in him with all the childlike innocence she had.

Nick felt the emotion catch in his throat, knowing he didn’t deserve this instant forgiveness for his past coldness but accepting it anyway, almost overwhelmed by the wave of love that swept over him as he held his daughter tightly to him. ‘I love you too, Lucy,’ he told her huskily.

But as he looked over his daughter’s head at the woman who had, in such a short time, melted his heart, he saw that her smile was tinged with wistful sadness. As his sons came bouncing into the room too, he knew that he couldn’t ask her why just yet. That it would have to wait until later. Much later. But he would ask her.

And he would try to tell her how he felt about her too.