Penny Jordan - Injured Innocent

It hurt because it was the truth, but Lissa refused to give in to the pain. She had enough experience of Joel’s methods of waging warfare to know that he always aimed for his opponents’ most vounerable spots, and he knew hers to a nicety.

‘I’m not giving them up Joel,’ she repeated coolly, ‘And this is a private office. If you want to communicate with me, please do so through my solicitor.’ As she finished speaking she walked past him and into her own office, firmly closing the door behind her. Two minutes later she heard the outer door slam and then Simon walked into her office.

‘Phew,’ he commented theatrically, raising his eyebrows. ‘So that’s the fabled Joel Hargreaves.’

Joel was constantly appearing in the gossip press. He had fingers in many financial pies and was known as much for being a highly successful entrepreneur as he was for his womanising. ‘Quite a man,’ Simon murmured.

‘If you like the type.’ Lissa managed a thin smile. ‘Personally I don’t.’

‘No, I could see that.’

Lissa had a small smile at the smug satisfaction in Simon’s tone. Physically, they couldn’t be more dissimilar. Simon although tall was slim and boyish with his shock of sunbleached fair hair and his easy smile. Joel in contrast, was taller, broader, the epitome of everything that was intensely male. His skin was olive coloured, his eyes a glinting rich gold, his hair dark and thick. Once, rather fancifully before she had really known him Lissa had imagined that he might have posed for a statue of Achilles. She had always had an overromantic imagination she thought wryly. Joel was no story-book hero. Far from it. Women fell for him like ninepins and he made full use of the power he seemed to have over her sex. Lissa had watched a procession of women come and go through his life, and if he had ever felt anything more than sexual desire for any of them, she had never noticed it.

‘Dinner tonight?’

She dragged her mind back to the present and Simon. Over his anger now, he was a cajoling, eager boy again, but how long would it be before he reverted to type … before he tried to force her into an intimacy she didn’t want to share. She sighed faintly. She liked her job and she liked Simon … but if he was going to be difficult … But how could she give up her job now, when she might need to prove that financially she was able to care for the girls, at least on a part-time basis. She knew there was no possibility of them coming to live with her full time at least not now. For one thing her flat had only one bedroom but in a few year’s time … If, however, she let Joel bludgeon her into giving up her rights to them now, she would have no chance of re-establishing any relationship with them in the future. She knew that.

LISSA STARED at the letter, tapping her nails absently on her kitchen counter as she studied its contents for the umpteenth time. It had arrived three days ago; a coolly worded, imperative demand from Joel that she present herself at Winterly so that they could discuss the girls’ future.

Trust Joel to make sure he had the advantage of being on his home ground, Lissa thought wryly. The letter had surprised her; taken her rather aback. After the way they had parted in Simon’s office she had expected only to hear from him via his solicitor, but instead had come this command, because that was what it was, to go down to Winterly so that they could talk. She was tempted to refuse, but if she did might that count against her in an eventual court hearing? Her solicitor seemed to think so. She pressed the heel of one hand to her aching temple. Perhaps she ought to take Simon up on his offer and hope that her status as an engaged woman might persuade the court to settle in her favour. But Simon wasn’t really interested in the girls; all he wanted was to get her into his bed. She glanced at her watch. Ten o’clock. She had been up since seven, prowling round her small flat, knowing that she must go to Winterly but desperately searching for excuses not to do so.

Chiding herself for her weakness she went into her bedroom, hastily packing enough clothes to last the weekend, and then before she could change her mind, she pulled on a jacket, collected her car keys and carrying her overnight bag marched towards her front door.

There was a freezing wind blowing, driving needle sharp flurries of icy snow into her face, and Lissa huddled deeper into her jacket as she made for the lock-up garage block where she kept her car.

The traffic through the centre of London was bad enough to need all her concentration. Once on the M4 though she turned on her radio, and listened with grim foreboding to the weather forecast. A drop in temperature and snow, but not until late evening. Well she should be safely at Winterly by then.

Once off the M4 she drove carefully along the familiar country roads. She had spent all her childhood living in Dorset, the names of the villages she drove through composed a familiar litany. Her parents’ old home lay only fifteen miles from Winterly. Amanda and John had met at the home of mutual friends, and the tiny village five miles east of Winterly she was now approaching was also the nearest village to her parents’ old home. Nothing had changed, she thought with a hard pang of nostalgia as she negotiated the sharp bend in the centre of the town where the Tudor building now housing a bank jutted dangerously into the centre of the road. A sign outside a shop, fluttering in the cold wind caught her eye and she drew up outside it. A cup of coffee was just what she needed right now. Coward, an inner voice chided her as she climbed out of the Mini and locked it. She didn’t really want a drink, she simply wanted to put off facing Joel.

The small town was busy with Saturday shoppers, but she was lucky enough to find a small corner table still free. A smiling waitress came to take her order, the familiarity of her soft Dorset burr taking Lissa back in time.

She had just received her order when she heard someone call her name in an incredulous voice.

‘Lissa, it is you isn’t it?’ the feminine voice exclaimed, a pretty plump brunette of about her own age hurrying over to her table, a wriggling toddler tucked securely under one arm.

‘Helen … Helen Martin,’ Lissa exclaimed in turn, recognising an old school friend.’

‘Helen Turner now,’ the latter laughed. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

‘No, please do …’

Aware that Helen was studying her, Lissa strove to appear calm and friendly. At one time she and Helen had been ‘best friends’, but after … but after she was fifteen they had drifted apart.

‘I was sorry to hear about Amanda and John,’ Helen said quietly at last. ‘It must have been a dreadful shock for you. Joel has got the children hasn’t he? Poor little things. They must miss their parents dreadfully.’ She pulled a face. ‘Somehow I can’t see Joel in the role of doting uncle. Has he changed at all or is he still as masterful and macho as ever.’

‘I don’t see much of him these days,’ Lissa said assuming a fake casualness. ‘In fact I’m on my way to Winterly now. We’re joint guardians of the girls.’ She might as well let it be known that Joel wasn’t solely responsible for her nieces’ welfare.

‘Yes, you’re godmother to both of them aren’t you.’ Helen broke off as her son reached for his glass of orange juice, almost tipping it over.

‘Are you married yourself?’ she asked when she had rescued the glass. ‘I remember I always used to think you would marry young and have a brood of children.’

‘No, I’m still single,’ Lissa told her calmly. It was true that when they were teenagers she had yearned for the security of a loving husband and children, but in those days she had been so ridiculously innocent, wanting without realising it to compensate herself for the lack of love in her own home.