Legally His Omnibus by Penny Jordan Read Free Book Online

closer to him, exhaling on an unsteady sigh of pleasure. Sean was looking at her and she was looking back at him, with the mesmeric intensity of his blue gaze dizzying her.
    She could feel his thumb caressing the inner curve of her elbow, just where he knew how vulnerable and responsive her flesh was to his touch—so vulnerable and responsive that when he had used to kiss her there her whole body had melted with wanton longing.
    It would be so easy, so natural, to walk into his arms now and feel them close protectively around her. To look into his eyes and wait for the familiar look of hot eagerness darken them, whilst his mouth curled into that special smile he had...
    A door opened noisily, bringing her back to reality. Abruptly she stepped back from Sean, her face burning. Maybe years ago she had not needed to hide her feelings from him—her lover, her husband, her best friend—nor her longing and sexual excitement when he looked at her and touched her. But things were different now, Kate reminded herself as she pulled away from him.
    ‘What’s that?’ she heard him demanding as he released her and frowned at the box she was carrying.
    ‘My lunch.’
    ‘Lunch? In that?’ he derided grimly as he looked at the small plastic container. ‘I should have thought for your son’s sake you would want to make sure you ate properly.’
    As she listened to his ill-informed and critical words, her passionate response to him a few minutes earlier was swamped by outrage and anger.
    ‘For your information—not that you have any right to question anything I choose to do any more, Sean—it just so happens that it is for Ollie’s sake that this is my lunch,’ she told him, waving the plastic container defiantly. ‘It costs money to bring up a child—not that you’d know or care anything about that, since you chose not to burden yourself with children,’ she added sarcastically. ‘And a packed lunch is a lot less expensive than going out to the pub. What’s wrong, Sean?’ she demanded when she saw his fixed expression. ‘Or can I guess? You might come across to everyone else here as a caring, sharing employer, but I know different. And I also know, before you remind me, that you are rich enough to eat in the world’s most expensive restaurants these days. But there was a time when even a sandwich was a luxury for you.’
    As she saw his face tighten with anger Kate wondered if she had gone too far, but she wasn’t going to back down, and she hoped that the determined tilt of her chin told him so.
    ‘I imagine that your child has a father,’ Sean said coldly. ‘Why isn’t he providing for his upbringing?’
    Kate looked at him in silence for a few seconds, bitterly aware of how much he was hurting her and how little he cared, and then told him evenly, ‘Oliver’s father isn’t providing for him financially—or in any other way—because he didn’t want him.’
    Unable to risk saying anything more without her fragile control being destroyed, Kate stepped past him and hurried down the stairs.
    Sean watched her go. Packed lunches, a too-thin body, tension and worry that showed in her eyes. Even if she thought she had it well hidden, her life now was a world away from the luxuries he could have surrounded her with.
    Had she thought of him at all when she was with the man who had fathered her son?
    Grimly Sean shut down his thoughts, all too aware of not just how inappropriate they were but also how extremely dangerous.
    * * *
    All through her lunch hour, and the two hours following it, Kate couldn’t concentrate on anything other than Sean. Her heart was racing at twice its normal rate and she was so on edge that her muscles were aching with the tension she was imposing on them. And the situation could only get worse. She knew that.
    Only the knowledge that she had had to protect the life of the baby growing inside her had given her the strength to get through the pain-filled months after Sean had ended their