Millionaire's Women Part 20

'Tom!' she said in delight.

'I thought you wouldn't mind an extra guest, Kate,' said Jack dryly.

Tom Logan kissed her affectionately. 'I said he was mad to want his father along when he'd asked a beautiful woman to dinner, but Jack insisted.'

'Quite right, too,' she a.s.sured him, fleeting disappointment replaced by relief. Jack was obviously not expecting feminine solace in return for dinner.

CHAPTER FOUR.

'WELCOME to my humble abode,' said Jack, the mockery in his smile telling Kate her relief was written on her face. 'I'll take your coat.' to my humble abode,' said Jack, the mockery in his smile telling Kate her relief was written on her face. 'I'll take your coat.'

'I'll do that,' said his father. 'You show her the house.'

Kate had pored greedily over the photographs in the magazine article but seeing the house with her own eyes was a different experience. A faded Persian carpet softened the granite flags of the entrance hall,but the main impression was light. The crystal-strung candles of twin chandeliers poured light down on walls and banisters painted pristine white. Kate stood utterly still for a moment then crossed the hall, drawn by the only painting on view,a portrait of a hand some, rakish man in Regency dress over a fireplace obviously original to the building.

'How very grand. He wasn't in the photographs. Is he an ancestor?' she asked, and Jack shook his head, grinning.

'Dad thought the chap looked a bit like me, so he bought it at auction.'

Jack led her across the hall into a long room with more white walls and rows of tall windows, but the light was softer here, from lamps shaded in neutral silk. An antique desk lived in harmony with large-scale modern furniture, but it was the dimension of the room that silenced Kate.

'Say something!' urged Jack.

'It's breathtaking. All this s.p.a.ce!' She smiled as she waved a hand at the windows. 'You've got something against curtains?'

He shrugged. 'No neighbours, and the windows are draught-proof, made to my own specification to blend with the house. I had some blinds made for the bedrooms, but otherwise I let in as much light as possible.'

Kate gazed round her in awe. 'The photographs didn't do it justice. My place is a doll's house by comparison.'

'But equally attractive in its own way.' He took her arm. 'Let's join Dad. It's time I gave you a drink.'

The entire evening proved far more relaxed for Kate with Tom Logan there than if she'd spent it alone with Jack. The food was simple-a ca.s.serole of fork-tender beef slow-cooked with vegetables, herbs and wine and eaten at the kitchen table, with Bran casting a hopeful eye on the proceedings from his bed.

'It's cosier in here for just three of us.' Tom smiled affectionately at Kate. 'And it's not the first time we've eaten together round a kitchen table.'

'No, indeed. I used to love meals at your house.' She pulled a face. 'There was more formality at ours. My sister brought out the best china if Jack so much as ate a sandwich with us.'

'Which wasn't that often,' Jack reminded her caustically. 'Our relations.h.i.+p was cut painfully short.'

'Now then,' said his father sternly. 'You can't ask a girl to dinner, then throw the past in her face. You're not on firm ground there yourself.'

'How very true.' Jack gave Kate an ironic bow as he got up to take her plate. 'My apologies. How about organic ice cream straight from Addison's farm shop?'

'Perfect,' she said lightly.

After the meal Tom Logan took Kate into the living room while Jack made coffee. 'So, what do you think of the house that Jack built?' he asked as he put logs on the fire.

'Impressive,' she told him, gazing round the room. 'It's nothing like my preconceived idea of a mill house, much more of a home. But very definitely a man's home. Other than that muscular bit of sculpture on the desk, there are no ornaments, no photographs-just one solitary landscape and the art deco mirror over the fireplace.'

'It needs a woman's touch,' said Tom slyly, and laughed at the look she gave him. 'Just teasing!'

She grinned. 'I can just picture Jack's face if I suggested cus.h.i.+ons and a flower arrangement.'

'I heard that,' said Jack, coming in with a tray. He set it down on the ma.s.sive slab of rosewood used as a coffee table. 'You find my taste austere?'

'It suits the house.'

'Which doesn't answer my question.'

She began pouring coffee. 'My opinion doesn't matter. You're the one who lives here.' She smiled at him as he added a sugar lump to his father's cup. 'But actually I like your house very much, Jack.'

'It's a big place for one man,' observed Tom Logan, and looked round as Bran padded into the room. 'Is he allowed in here tonight?'

'Of course he is.' Jack bent to fondle the dog's head. 'I give him the run of the ground floor when I'm at home, but upstairs it's permanently off limits. To dogs, anyway,' he added, as Bran stretched out in front of the fire.

'Who cooked the dinner?' asked Kate. 'You, Jack?'

'Molly made it this morning, and I followed her instructions and put it in a slow oven at the required time.' He took a cup from the tray and sat down on the chair nearest to Kate's corner of the sofa. 'I forgot to ask if your tastes in food had changed.'

'What would you have done if I was a vegetarian these days? Opened a tin of baked beans?'

'We often shared one in the old days.'

Kate gave him a serene smile. 'But these are new days, Jack.' She turned to his father. 'Are you playing golf tomorrow, Tom?'

For the rest of the evening Jack was the perfect host. He gave up sniping about the past, and even suggested that Kate came back to see the place in daylight one day and eat lunch on the terrace overlooking the mill pond. 'I keep a small boat if you fancy a row some time. It's a healthy way to keep fit.'

'Sounds good,' said Kate enviously. 'My rare bouts of exercise are in a gym. Rowing on water in fresh air sounds a lot more tempting.'

'Bring your niece in the school holidays,' said Jack. 'The garden in Park Crescent can't be very big. You could give her the run of the grounds here.'

'Poor little thing,' said Tom with compa.s.sion. 'It's been a big upheaval for her. How's she coping?'

Kate's eyes shadowed. 'Christmas was tricky-the first without her parents.'

'Did she come to you in London for it?' asked Jack.

Kate shook her head.' Apart from a brief stay with her grandparents, Joanna spent the entire Christmas break in the Maitland household with me. Both sets of parents were there and neighbours came in for drinks,so there was a lot goingon. One couple brought twin teenage sons along as company for Jo and she got on well with them, and spent quite a lot of time with them over the holiday. I took her shopping for furniture for her new bedroom, and we spent hour sporing over paint charts together-everything I could think of to keep her in the loop over the move to Park Crescent. But neither of us enjoyed the day she went back to school,' she added bleakly.

'Half term can't be far away,' said Jack with sympathy, but she shook her head.

'There isn't one this term. Her school goes for the longer Easter holiday. But I'll drive down to take her out for lunch before then.'

Soon afterwards Tom Logan got up to go.

'You can't leave now, Dad,' protested his son.

'Early round of golf in the morning. Must get my beauty sleep.'

Kate got to her feet. 'Then maybe you'd give me a lift, Mr Logan. You pa.s.s near my place.'

'Don't go yet, Kate.' Jack put a hand on her arm.

'No, indeed. You stay, my dear,' said his father, kissing her cheek. 'Otherwise I'll feel guilty. Jack will run you home later.'

When Jack came back with the dog, Kate turned from the study of tree-fringed water in his painting. 'Where is this?'

'Right here in the grounds. It's the mill pond, complete with willows and chestnut trees.'

'You commissioned it?'

He nodded. 'Local artist. I was impressed by an exhibition of her work. She agreed to do it once she'd approved the location.'

'Would she have turned you down if she hadn't?'

'More than likely. But she took one look and named her price-which was steep. But I paid it willingly when I saw the finished work.'

Kate turned away, smiling wryly. 'How things have changed. When we were together I was just earning peanuts and you weren't much better off.'

'At the time Dad and I were ploughing most of the profits back into the business.' He bent to poke the fire. 'If he hadn't handed my mother's ring over I certainly couldn't have bought one for you right then. I had to borrow money from him for Dawn's settlement.'

Controlling her reaction to Dawn's name, Kate smiled brightly at Jack. 'But nowadays Logan Development is a roaring success and you can buy what you like.'

He straightened, and gave her a look which almost had her backing away. 'Is that your benchmark of success, Kate? To be able to buy what you like?'

Her eyes narrowed coldly. 'If it were would I have turned my back on a highly paid job?'

'I thought you did that to take care of your niece.'

'If it had been absolutely vital I kept the job Joanna could have shared my flat in Notting Hill, and I would have paid someone to look after her in the school holidays. But to me it seemed far more important to make a home for her here and look after her myself.'

'And you're right, Kate,' he said, with contrition. 'You obviously care very deeply for Joanna. I don't have a child in my life-one of the many things money can't buy.'

She turned away, looking at her watch. 'I should be going soon.'

'Why? I thought the great advantage of the new job was its flexibility.'

'I'm making a start on my bedroom. I'm sleeping in Jo's for the time being.'

'But there's time for a nightcap before you go, Kate. It's early,' he added, 'and you haven't seen the rest of the house.'

'I'll have some fruit juice, if you like, but I'll leave the rest of the tour, Jack.' The last thing she wanted at this stage was a visit to his bedroom, much as she'd like to see it. He might talk about being friends,but it wasn't easy. He'd been her lover for a brief, ecstatic time when they were young, but there had been long years after that when she'd thought of Jack Logan with no love at all.

'Sit down again,' said Jack. 'I'll bring your drink.'

Kate bent to fondle Bran instead. The dog half-closed his eyes in ecstasy as she found exactly the right spot behind his ear.

'You're a very handsome fellow,' she told him. 'I always wanted a dog like you.'

'You weren't allowed to have one?' asked Jack, and handed her a gla.s.s.

Kate shook her head. 'Elizabeth wouldn't allow it, and her word was law. As you know, my mother died when I was born, and my father when I was ten, not long after Elizabeth got married. So Lizand Robert seemed like parents to me-and pretty strict ones at that. But it was good of them to take care of me,' she added hastily.

'You're repaying them by taking care of Joanna?'

'Absolutely not. I'm doing it because I love her.' She s.h.i.+vered. 'Let's talk about something else.'

'Come and sit down.' He switched off two of the lamps, stirred the fire into life and led her to the sofa. 'I never thought this would happen,' he said, sitting beside her.

Kate made no pretence of misunderstanding. 'You mean the two of us together like this in your amazing house?'

'Exactly.' Jack turned to smile at her, a glint in his eyes that had turned her knees to jelly when she was twenty.

But she wasn't twenty any more. 'I know what you mean. When I found those pictures in the magazine, I never imagined I'd see the place for myself.'

'It must have been quite a surprise to come across my face in your Sunday paper.'

Surprise didn't begin to cover it. 'Yes,' she said dryly, 'it certainly was.'

'Were you between fiances at the time?'

'You sound as though I had a string of them!' she said tartly, and sipped some of her drink. 'I happened to be alone that morning, but I showed the article to Rupert later and mentioned that I knew you. I searched the piece for personal details about you, but the emphasis was on your professional life.'

'That was the deal with the journalist.'

Kate turned to look at him. 'Jack, where did you live when you were married?'

His eyes shuttered. 'Dad suggested we move into the block of flats the company was renovating on Gloucester Road at the time. I tried to make a go of the marriage, but Dawn and I had so little in common it was obvious from the start that it was never going to work.' He drained his gla.s.s and turned to look at her. 'It's a part of my life I look back on with no pleasure at all-or pride.'

'You fulfilled your obligations, Jack.'

'But I did so for the wrong reasons,' he said savagely. 'I wanted to hurt you as much as I wanted to do the right thing for Dawn.'

She nodded sadly. 'You succeeded on both counts.'

'And soon realised my colossal mistake.' He was silent for a long interval, his eyes sombre as he stared into the fire. 'The surprise came when I learned that the baby wasn't mine. I found I'd actually wanted a child. My child, anyway. Does that sound mad to you?'

She shook her head mutely.

He smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand in silence for a while. 'So tell me,' he said, turning to look at her. 'Why did you send the third man packing? Was he another one wanting babies and a place in the country?'

'No. He didn't want children at all.' Her eyes kindled. 'I broke up with Rupert because he refused to take Joanna as part of the deal.'