Elizabeth Lane - Rags To Riches - At Home With The Boss - The Secret Sinclair / The Nanny's Secret / A Home for the M.D.

Yet half an hour in the company of a four-year-old had rendered him impotent. Oliver had been uninterested in every toy pulled out of the bag and indifferent to him . There was no past experience upon which Raoul could call to get him through his son’s lack of enthusiasm.

‘Most kids would have gone crazy over that toy car,’ he imparted in an accusatory tone. ‘At least that’s what the salesperson told me. It’s been their biggest seller for the past four years. That damned car can do anything except carry passengers on the M25. So tell me what the problem was?’ He glared at her as she serenely fetched two glasses from the cupboard and poured them some wine. ‘The boy barely glanced in my direction.’

‘I don’t think it was such a good idea to bring so many toys for him.’

‘And how do you work that one out? I would have been over the moon if I had ever, as a kid, been given one new toy! So how could several new, expensive, top of the range toys fail to do the trick?’

With a jolt of sympathy that ran contrary to every defence mechanism she had in place, Sarah realised that he really didn’t have a clue. He had drawn from his own childhood experiences and arrived at a solution for winning his son’s affections—except he hadn’t realised that there was more to gaining love and trust than an armful of gifts.

‘Do you know,’ Raoul continued, swallowing the contents of his glass in one gulp, ‘that every toy I ever played with as a child had come from someone else and had to be shared? A remote controlled car like the one languishing in your sitting room would have caused a full-scale riot.’

‘That’s just awful,’ Sarah murmured.

‘Now you’re about to practise some amateur psychology on me. Don’t. You should have told me that he liked building things. I would have come armed with blocks.’

‘You’re missing the point. You need to engage him. Like I said, he’s used to only having me around. He’s going to view any other adult on the scene with suspicion. What happened on birthdays? Christmas?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘With you? Didn’t you get birthday presents? What about Father Christmas?’

Raoul looked at her with a crooked smile that went past every barrier and settled somewhere in the depths of her heart.

‘I don’t see what this has to do with anything, but if you really want to know Father Christmas was tricky. Frankly, I don’t think I ever believed in the fat guy with the beard. My earliest memory is of my mother telling me when I was three years old that there was no such person. Thinking about it now, I suspect she didn’t want to waste valuable money on feeding that particular myth when the money could have been so much better spent on a bottle of gin. Anyway, even at the foster home there wasn’t much room to hold on to stories like that. Father Christmas barely rated a mention.’ He laughed without rancour. ‘So—you’re going to give me a lesson on engagement. If Oliver has no time for anything I bought for him, then how do we proceed?’

‘Are you asking for my help?’

‘I’m asking for your opinion. If I remember correctly, you have never been short of those …’

‘Why don’t you go out there and build something with him?’ she suggested. ‘No. I’ll get him to bring his bricks in here, and the two of you can build something on the kitchen table while I prepare supper.’

‘Forget about cooking. I’ll take you both out. Name the restaurant and I’ll ensure the chef is only too happy to whip up something for Oliver.’

‘No,’ Sarah said firmly. ‘This is what normal life is all about with a child, Raoul. Spaghetti Bolognese, familiar old toys, cartoons on television, reading books at night before sleep …’ Except, she thought, suddenly flustered by the picture she had been busy painting, that was the ideal domestic situation—one in which two people were happily married and in love. It certainly wasn’t their situation. As she had told him— and she had meant every word of it —they had no relationship outside the artificial one imposed by circumstance.

‘Okay. I’ll bring Oliver in and you can start chopping some onions. They’re in the salad drawer in the fridge. Chop them really small.’

‘You want me to cook ?’

‘Well, to help at any rate. And don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten how to cook. You used to cook on the compound.’

‘Different place, different country.’

‘So … you just eat out all the time?’ Sarah asked, distracted.

‘It’s more time-efficient.’

‘And what about with your girlfriends? Don’t you want to stay in sometimes? Do normal stuff?’

The questions were out before she had the wit to keep her curiosity to herself, and now that she had voiced them, she realised that it had been on her mind, poised just beneath the surface, ever since she had laid eyes on him again. In fact, thinking about it, it was something she had asked herself over and over again through the years. Had he found someone else? Had another woman been able to capture his interest sufficiently for him to make the commitment that he had denied her? He hadn’t loved her , but had he fallen in love with someone else? Someone prettier or cleverer or more accomplished?

‘Not that it’s any of my business,’ she added, and laughed airily.

‘It is now. Haven’t you said that yourself? No women in Oliver’s presence … Rest assured that the only woman in my life at the moment is you …’

‘That’s not what I was asking and you know it, Raoul!’

‘No. You’re just curious to know what I’ve been getting up to these past few years. There’s nothing wrong with curiosity. Curiosity’s healthy.’

‘I don’t care what you’ve been getting up to!’ It was a lie. She cared. Who were these women he had dated? What had he felt for them? Anything? Had he preferred them to her ? She was mortified just thinking about that particular question.

‘I haven’t been getting up to anything of interest,’ Raoul replied drily. ‘Yes, there have been women. But I’ve deterred them from doing anything that involved pots, pans, an apron, candlelight and home-cooked food.’

‘Oh, Raoul, you’re such a charmer.’ But a tendril of relief curled inside her. She squashed it. ‘Now, I’m going to fetch Oliver.’

‘Hey, what about you? Don’t I get the low-down on your life? No man at the moment, but any temptations? Do you cook your spaghetti Bolognese for anyone else aside from Oliver?’

His voice was light and mildly amused, and he wondered why he felt so tense when it came to thinking of her with another man. He, after all, had never been and would never be a candidate when it came to marriage and rings on fingers. He was now a father, and that was shocking enough, but that was the only derailment to his carefully constructed life on the cards as far as he was concerned.

‘Maybe …’

‘Maybe? What does that mean?’ The amusement sounded forced. ‘Am I in competition with someone you’ve got hidden in a cupboard somewhere?’

‘No,’ Sarah admitted grudgingly. ‘I’ve been too busy being a single mum to think of complicating my life with a guy.’ She sensed rather than saw the shadow of satisfaction cross his face, and continued tartly, ‘But, as you’ve pointed out, life is going to get much easier for me now. It’s going to make a huge difference with you around, playing a role in Oliver’s life. I won’t be doing it on my own. Also, it’ll be nice not having to think about money, or rather the lack of it, all the time—and it’ll be fantastic having a bit of time to myself … time to do what I want to do.’