Starting Over by Penny Jordan Read Free Book Online

woman...a mother...a wife... No, not a wife any more...not now...
    Caspar... Suddenly her whole body started to tremble.
    'Mummy,' Alex had started to cry and Olivia could see the fear in her eyes. More than anything else children needed security and love. No one knew that better than Olivia herself.
    'It's all right darling,' she reassured her. 'I'm going to get up now. You go downstairs and wait for me.'
    Caspar...Caspar... Why hadn't he understood...?
    Why hadn't he helped her...? Why hadn't he loved her...? No one had ever loved her....
    As she walked into her bathroom Olivia raised an unsteady hand to her face to wipe away her tears.
    Her—crying? But she never cried...
    IT WAS five o'clock in the morning and still dark outside. Caspar lifted his head from his pillow. Next to him lay a small toy, one of Alex's. He had found it after she had gone. Gently he touched it with his fingertips. He ached with the pain of missing his daughters—and his wife? His mouth compressed grimly.
    Olivia might be his wife but she wasn't the woman he had married, the woman he had fallen in love with and who he had believed loved him.
    Ultimately they were going to have to sit down and talk. There was no way he intended to be merely a weekend father to his kids, but right now...right now, locked up in the garage of his half-brother's house where he was spending the night was the gleaming Harley-Davidson motorbike he had bought the previous day and tomorrow he was going to start out on the journey he had first promised himself he would make when he was still in high school, right across America from coast to coast.
    'You're going to do what?' his father had asked in disbelief, adding, 'Hell, Caspar, a man of your age can't ride something like that. It's for kids.'
    He shifted uncomfortably in the too soft, too big bed that felt even bigger and emptier without Olivia's presence at his side, her body tucked close to his.
    Tucked close to his. It was one hell of a long time since they had shared that kind of night-time intimacy.
    Closing his eyes he tried to think back to exactly when it had been, certainly before Alex's birth. She had been a colicky, light-sleeping baby causing Olivia to get up so many times during the night to her in the first weeks after her birth that eventually Olivia had started sleeping in the nursery with her. They had both agreed that it would be unfair to Amelia to bring Alex's cot into their room. And after that? After that Olivia had spent so much time working that when she did go to bed it was purely and simply to sleep.
    Was that when sex had ceased to become a shared pleasure between them, turning instead into a reluctant exchange on Olivia's part which he had had to barter for?
    Caspar started to frown. Loving someone wasn't just about sex. But Olivia didn't want his love any more than she wanted his body. Bleakly he closed his eyes.
    'JON...'
    Jon smiled as he saw his twin waiting for him when he got out of his car at Fitzburgh Place.
    'I had to come up to collect some plants from the greenhouses for Honor so I thought I might as well hang around and wait for you,' David explained as they exchanged affectionate hugs.
    'Olivia and Caspar were due back yesterday, weren't they?' David asked with such deliberate studied carelessness that Jon's heart went out to him. 'I expect she's already been round to see Jenny to tell her all about their trip....'
    Jon frowned.
    'No...she hasn't.' There was no easy way for him to tell David what had happened.
    'Livvy's come back David, but Caspar hasn't.
    They've separated,' he told his twin bluntly.
    'What...?'
    Jon could see the shocked disbelief in David's eyes.
    'But I thought they were so happy together.'
    'They were,' Jon agreed heavily, 'But...look, I don't know the full details.'
    'I'm going to go and see her,' David announced starkly, 'She's my daughter...I'm...' He stopped, his face twisting with unhappiness. 'I was going to say that I'm her father but of course, I