The Beautiful Widow. HELEN BROOKS
leave her face as he continued, ‘What were you thinking about just now?’
She had only known him a matter of hours but she already knew prevarication wasn’t an option. Deciding a half-truth would carry the weight she needed, she said quietly, ‘I was thinking how someone’s life can be turned around in an hour or two. When I came to see you tonight the future looked like an uphill struggle I might never get control of, but now, now I feel I’ve been given my life back. Richard left us in a terrible mess and it was hard to come to terms with the fact I’d never really known him in spite of being married for four years. But that is the past and I have to look to the future for me and the girls. I can do that now.’
He was still watching her closely but his tone was light when he said, ‘What would you have done if I hadn’t offered you the job?’
She shrugged. ‘Picked myself up and carried on.’
‘The English bulldog we-will-not-be-beaten spirit?’
It was faintly mocking and, as had happened more than once that evening, he’d caught her on the raw. ‘No,’ she answered steadily, ‘just the spirit of a mother who is determined to make a good life for her children, that’s all. Whatever it takes.’
‘A mother.’ His eyes ran over her for a second, and although she had her coat on she felt her breasts tingle as though he had reached out and touched her. ‘I find it difficult to see you as a mother. Not that I doubt you’re a very good one,’ he added hastily, ‘but you look so young and—’ his tone changed, becoming self-derisive ‘—untouched.’
‘Looks are deceptive.’ His brief inspection had left her feeling panicky and afraid of something she couldn’t put a name to. And it was because of this she felt compelled to add, ‘I am totally a mother; Amelia and Daisy are the only people who really matter to me and that’s the way it’s going to be from now on. We don’t need anyone else.’
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