Good resolutions were forgotten as her temper flared. It was a shock to find that Jared could provoke her like this, but something in his attitude had brought rage screaming to the surface.
‘Do you understand?’ she repeated.
‘Yes, I think I understand. Evidently you have something to tell me.’
‘Tony Williams came to see me at the track, spreading stories, dropping hints. I told him to leave. When he didn’t I insisted. He was rubbing his face when he left.’
‘You hit him?’
‘Twice. I didn’t mean to, but he was saying things about you that I couldn’t bear. Now I’m going to bed.’
‘What things?’
She took a long breath. ‘Now isn’t the time,’ she said at last.
‘Kaye, what did-?’
‘Goodnight, Jared.’
‘No!’ He seized her arm as she tried to pass. ‘We can’t leave it like this.’
‘We can, because I don’t want to talk tonight.’
‘Do you think you can just walk out on me like this? Do you think I’ll allow it?’
‘I’m not asking you to allow anything. I don’t need your permission. Just for once you’re not in charge, Jared.’
He flinched as though she’d struck him over the heart, and when she turned away he didn’t try to stop her. She ran to her own room, slammed her fists against the wall and stayed there, motionless, for a time she couldn’t count.
As last she pulled away and went to sit in a chair by the window. Outwardly she was calm, but inside she was sobbing.
There was a knock at her door. ‘Please let me in.’
‘Go away.’
‘No. I’ll stay here all night if I have to.’
Wearily she unlocked the door, immediately returning to the chair and sitting facing away from him.
He entered quietly, coming over and dropping to one knee beside her chair.
‘Forgive me,’ he murmured. ‘I should never have spoken to you like that.’
He pressed his face against her. She could feel his warmth, but he still felt a million miles away. She didn’t move.
After waiting for her to enclose his head in her hands he drew back, understanding the silent message.
‘Tell me,’ he murmured. ‘I have to know everything.’
‘All right.’ She sighed. ‘Tony Williams came to the pits today. I think he was waiting to get me alone. He told me about the mumps and how it could have left you sterile. He said he knew someone who’d gone looking up old girlfriends, hoping to find that he was already a father.’ She gave a bleak laugh. ‘Who could imagine that?’
He flinched, rising to his feet, needing to get away from the blast of hostility that came from her, cursing himself for stupidity and blindness.
‘You never told me the name of your illness, but it was mumps, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And it left you sterile?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was almost inaudible.
‘That day you turned up suddenly, it wasn’t an accident, was it?’
‘No.’
‘How long had you known about Mike?’
‘Only a short time. Hal showed me a picture of his family and you were in it. He told me about Mike and I realised-’
‘That he was your son.’
‘I thought he could be. Hal mentioned his birthday party, and the date told me he’d been born nine months after we were together.’
‘You remembered the date that well? Oh, but of course-it was three days after the race in Japan, so naturally you’d remember. How convenient.’
He winced at her coldly ironic tone.
‘I’ve never known you like this before. It isn’t you.’
She rose and confronted him, meeting his eyes directly. ‘How would you know, Jared? You have no idea who the real me is. All you know is the compliant me, ready to do or be anything you want because when you’re there she can’t think straight. But this is me too-a woman who doesn’t like being taken for a fool.’
‘I didn’t-’
‘Don’t lie to me. Why did you suddenly turn up after years when you hadn’t shown any curiosity?’
‘I had no idea that I’d left you pregnant.’
‘And of course you couldn’t go back to find all the girls you’d snapped your fingers at-even if you could remember them all.’
‘I told you I thought I’d stopped in time, and then I never heard from you-but it was my fault. I was careless.’
‘And then you heard about Mike and you realised that everything might not be over. You even spied on me. That day in the school car park, I thought I imagined that I saw you-but you were there, watching me.’
‘I wanted to be sure I’d got the right person,’ he groaned.
‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth?’ she asked desperately.
‘Do you imagine I could have?’
‘Yes! Perhaps not at first, but later. It’s what you’d have done if we’d been as close as I thought we were. But I see now that we weren’t. All this time you’ve been playing a clever game to pull me in, so that you can use me to claim your property. I have something you want, and you worked out how to get it. That’s what you always do. Remember telling me that?’
‘That may have been true once,’ he said. ‘And I won’t deny that Mike is my best chance of being a father, and that’s why I approached you at first. But only at first. Kaye, for pity’s sake, don’t you remember how things were between us from the moment we met again?’
‘No!’ she cried in pain. ‘I only remember how you made me think they were. But it was all lies. Everything was lies. Even when-’
She stopped, choked by her tears.
‘I swear it wasn’t,’ he said passionately. ‘When I said I loved you I was telling the truth. When we met again, I never dreamed it would be like this between us. I thought it was all over, but then I knew it was you I wanted. Not just for Mike, but because you’re the one. I love you. I’ve never said it before-not meaning it, anyway. With the others it was just a form of showbiz, but with you it’s real.’
With all her soul she longed to believe him. But his betrayal of her trust was a torture that she couldn’t get past.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said stubbornly. ‘This is just part of the act.’
‘Don’t say that!’ he cried. ‘I know I should have told you the truth before. All this time I’ve been trying to find the right moment, and I nearly managed it, but then you said you wanted more children and I backed off because I was scared.’
‘You? Scared? Don’t make me laugh.’
‘Scared. Terrified. You can’t imagine. When you said that I saw myself as I must look to a woman now: useless, half-crippled, empty. Not a real man. Of course you want more children. You’re a mother, with a mother’s instinct, and you want a man who can help you fulfil that instinct. But I can’t.’ His voice rose in anguish. ‘Don’t you understand that?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘That’s not what you said then.’
‘Nothing would matter if you’d told me the truth, because we would have been so close that I wouldn’t have cared about anything else. But you kept apart with your secret, and now I don’t know who you are.’
As if from a great distance she saw a terrible look on his face: blank, despairing, helpless.
Why, she thought desperately, didn’t his words affect her? Why didn’t her love cause her heart to melt for him? But she felt as though a cage had slammed shut, trapping her inside. She was blind and deaf to his suffering, knowing only one thing: he had lied to her, tricked her. In her present bitter state, it seemed that never for one moment had he been honest with her. And that meant there was only a wilderness between them.