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  ‘Are you going to get married?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘No, darling,’ Kaye said. ‘We’re just going to go on being friends. The only change will be that you’ll have a father, and you’ll see lots of him.’

  ‘But-’ He frowned, trying to take this in. ‘You two-you go together-yes you do.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Jared agreed. ‘We’re very fond of each other and, like your Mum says, we’re good friends. We don’t have to be married. We have you, and that’s all we need.’

  ‘But I want you.’

  ‘And I want you. You’re my son, and we’ll always have each other, whether we live in the same house or not.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Not now. Let’s talk about it another time. Tonight we just celebrate. Look, I’ve got something for you.’ He produced a box from a drawer. ‘You had a birthday recently. I missed that, so this is a belated present, and I’ll never miss any more.’

  ‘It’s a cell phone,’ Mike breathed.

  ‘Your mother says your reading and writing are coming along really well, so we can text as well as call. Let me show you.’

  Mike was an apt pupil, who needed to be shown things only once.

  It was the best gift Jared could have given him, Kaye thought. But there was more to come. With a flourish Jared produced another gift-the most recent version of a game called Champion. It was played with dice and counters, and Mike eagerly undertook the task of instructing the other two.

  Kaye joined in, saying and doing everything that would make the little boy happy, but part of her was standing aside, aching at the thought of how it might have been. Jared grew easier with Mike all the time, because somewhere deep inside him was a natural father eagerly making his way out, and it was a delight to see it emerge into the sunlight.

  What a family they might have made if they could have been together always. But Jared would not agree, because he couldn’t forgive her for their quarrel. In her initial rage she’d rejected him, and he’d turned that rejection back against her, unforgiving.

  Now, for Mike’s sake, she must smile and pretend that all was well. She would do whatever she had to, but inside she was divided between pleasure at her child’s happiness and anger at Jared because it could have been so much better.

  At last Mike began to nod off. Together they put him to bed and murmured goodnight to his sleeping form.

  ‘He fought sleep to the last minute,’ Jared said as they slipped out and closed the door. He was grinning.

  ‘That’s what they all do,’ Kaye said. ‘You’ll soon find out.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘So am I.’

  She took a deep breath. With so much at stake it was worth one final effort.

  ‘Jared, listen to me. This is urgent. I’ve been wondering if Mike has maybe seen things more clearly than we have. He’s right that we belong together. I don’t mean marriage, but I think it would be good for him if-if we lived under the same roof. It doesn’t have to be a close relationship, if you don’t want it, but let us be your home base-the place you come back to between trips abroad-so that Mike always knows he’ll see you soon.’

  But he was already shaking his head.

  ‘It couldn’t work. I’ve done you too much harm.’

  ‘I told you that didn’t matter,’ she protested.

  ‘I think it does, and you know it does. Whatever feeling there was between us, I’ve ruined it. Kaye, don’t try to be kind to me. I betrayed your trust. I let you think everything was on the level while all the time-well, you understand. I damaged you, and I always will if I stay around you. I’ve come to see that it’s the way I’m made. I can’t change it, but I can back off to protect you.’

  ‘Is that it?’ she cried. ‘Or do you blame me for the way I found out and the things I said? Do you hate for knowing the truth you tried to hide-?’

  ‘No,’ he said, almost violently. ‘The only person I blame for anything is myself. Kaye, I’m doing this for you. I beg you to try to understand that. You’re young-you’ll meet another man who’ll treat you properly and give you more children.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter-’

  ‘You think it doesn’t now, but later it will. I’ve seen you and Mike together. You’re a fantastic mother, and that’s an instinct you’ll need to satisfy more than once. With me you never could. Don’t you understand that? I’m no good for you and I never will be. In time you’ll come to hate me.’

  ‘Don’t tell me how I think and feel,’ she said angrily. ‘That’s for me to say.’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you something else. The day you found out that I hadn’t been honest with you everything changed for you-as though a dark cloud had come over the world. Didn’t it?’

  ‘Jared-’

  ‘Didn’t it?’ He was holding her shoulders and now he shook them slightly. ‘Didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes-all right, yes. These last few years I’ve found it so hard to rely on people, and when you returned I kept my distance because I was being careful. But you overcame that and I found I could love you. I didn’t want to, but it was as though the years had rolled back. Things I thought I could never feel again-closeness, confidence, belief in life and people-’

  She stopped, hurt to the heart by the despairing resignation on his face.

  ‘You felt those things again,’ he said sadly, ‘and then I destroyed them-again. And I always would. I won’t let that happen. I’ve hurt you enough. I won’t hurt you any more. From now on I’ll live on the fringes of your life-just close enough to be a father to Mike, but not close enough to harm you.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said desperately. She was losing him again. She didn’t want him on the fringes of her life. She wanted him at the centre, in her heart.

  ‘I know what I have to do-for both our sakes, for Mike’s sake. You won’t lose, Kaye. I’ll see to that.’

  She would lose everything, she thought, and he would never understand.

  ‘You know nothing about what I’ll lose,’ she said bitterly. ‘Let’s have the truth, Jared. You’re not doing this for me, but yourself. You don’t love me, and you don’t want to be encumbered by me.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he raged. ‘Of course I love you. I love you more than I can bear. Why can’t you-?’

  The door opened and Mike stood there, looking worried.

  ‘Are you mad at each other?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Jared said with forced brightness.

  Kaye was filled with inspiration.

  ‘Well, actually, I am a bit annoyed at your father,’ she said, managing a smile. ‘We’ve been playing Champion again, and I think he’s cheating. Fancy that!’

  ‘But he doesn’t need to cheat,’ Mike said indignantly. ‘He always wins everything he does.’

  ‘Only because he cheats,’ Kaye said, with a fair assumption of teasing indignation.

  ‘I do not,’ Jared returned, understanding what she was doing and falling in with it.

  ‘You certainly do,’ she insisted.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Do.’

  Relieved, Mike gurgled with delight as they squared up to each other, glaring with just the right amount of comic aggression.

  ‘You’ve done me an injustice,’ Jared declared.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I know so.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ he demanded. ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  They met each other’s eyes, each sending a silent message of pain and farewell, so different from the laughing performance they were giving the child.

  ‘I think I’d better give in,’ Jared said. ‘Your mother’s a very determined lady.’ He winked at his son. ‘I’ll bet you could teach me a thing or two about that game,’ he said, ‘but now it’s time you were back in bed.’ He gave Mike a hug. ‘See you tomorrow. Goodnight, yo
u two.’

  He was gone before Kaye could say anything. She heard his footsteps going down the corridor, and his door closing.

  Looking back, she could see how that evening had set the pattern. After their return to England any contact they had was all for Mike. On the night before he went back to school Jared called him, and next morning there was a text wishing him good luck.

  A week later there was the Italian Grand Prix.

  ‘Please, Mum,’ Mike begged.

  ‘No, darling. It’s too soon after the start of term. I want you to concentrate on school.’

  Even so, she thought she might have yielded if Jared had asked them to be there. But he hadn’t.

  ‘I blew it,’ she told Ethel. ‘You were right about me. I am judgemental. Otherwise we could have sorted it out quietly, he might not have had that crash, and then things would have been all right. But a curtain has come down in his mind and I can’t get past it. Perhaps because he doesn’t really want me to.’

  ‘Or maybe fate still has a nice surprise for you?’ Ethel suggested.

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen. Life doesn’t work that way.’

  But she was wrong.

  She discovered just how wrong she was on the night before the race. At first she couldn’t take it in. The implications of what had happened were so tremendous that she could only sit and stare at the wall until Ethel came in, wanting to know what was up.

  Kaye told her.

  ‘Get going,’ Ethel said at once. ‘Call a taxi, go to the airport, catch the first plane you can.’

  Dazed, she obeyed. In the early hours she was on her way to Italy, looking out of the aeroplane window at the darkness. So many nights she’d stared into that darkness in tearful despair, as much for Jared as for herself. Now she knew hope again-but with it the fear that hope might once more betray her.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Please-one more chance-for his sake-please.’

  Nobody knew she was coming, and at the airport she queued for a taxi and gave the address of the track.

  She arrived at the same time as several members of the team, who recognised her and steered her through Security.

  ‘We thought you weren’t coming to this one,’ someone said.

  ‘Something’s happened. Where’s Jared?’

  She found him in the garage, inspecting the car with his race engineer and a few mechanics. He looked up, amazed at her entrance and at the determined look on her face.

  ‘Is something wrong with Mike?’ he asked.

  ‘No, he’s fine. This isn’t about Mike. It’s about us. In fact, it’s about this.’ She held up a small plastic strip. ‘Do you know what this is? It’s a pregnancy test, and it’s positive. I’m pregnant.’

  ‘You-you can’t be.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I can or can’t be. I know that I am. I’ve suspected it for a few days and last night I did this test. It’s positive.’

  ‘Kaye-’

  ‘Two or three percent, eh? Well, sometimes the numbers come up, and this time they have.’ Keenly aware of the fascinated crowd gathering around them, she raised her voice. ‘That’s twice you’ve made me pregnant, and this time you’re not going to escape.’

  She was watching his face, seeing every fleeting feeling from disbelief to incredulous joy.

  ‘Kaye-’ he whispered. ‘Kaye-don’t say it unless you’re sure-I beg you-’

  She moved closer, murmuring so that only he could hear.

  ‘That doctor told you there was still a tiny chance. Well, the chance was on our side.’

  Suddenly inspiration came to her. Now she knew what she must do. Jared had suffered in his masculine pride, and now it was in her power to give it all back to him. If she did nothing else she would do this for him.

  She raised her voice again, so that the crowd could hear and understand that this was a man who still had everything-could father a child, could hold his head up among other men.

  ‘I’m pregnant, Jared. It didn’t take you long, did it? Just a few weeks and here we go again. Well, this time you have to make an honest woman of me. Or I’m going to make an honest man of you. Whichever is the easier.’

  Cheers and applause from the mechanics. She dropped her voice again.

  ‘I won’t take no for an answer. I know you don’t love me, but-’

  ‘Don’t be so damned ridiculous,’ he roared. ‘Of course I love you. I’m mad about you. How could you be blind enough not to know that?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t,’ she yelled back. ‘You’ve kept it a mighty secret.’

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve given myself away at every turn. Everyone else knows I’m crazy about you. Why don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe because you didn’t want me to know?’ she accused.

  ‘You are one infuriating woman!’

  ‘I need to be to put up with you. I never know where I am.’

  ‘Then let’s settle it,’ he growled, and yanked her into his arms.

  More cheers and applause, but neither of them heard, so totally absorbed were they in enjoying each other as they had thought never to do again. It was like being kissed for the first time, and yet being kissed by a man whose kisses she knew with every fibre of her being, and wanted to know for their rest of her life.

  When they became aware of the joyful audience Jared pulled her aside into a tiny room.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said urgently.

  ‘Quite sure. You read that strip.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. Are you sure I won’t harm you if-?’

  ‘If you marry me? You’re going to marry me. Haven’t you understood that yet? You’re mine. I claim possession. No argument. Now I’m in the driving seat-my foot on the accelerator, my hands on the wheel.’

  ‘We go wherever you say,’ he agreed.

  ‘Think you can live with that?’

  ‘I think it sounds wonderful,’ he said fervently, discovering to his own surprise that he meant it.

  He could have trusted no other woman in the world like this. But she knew everything about him: the best-his strengths, his determination, the power of his heart-and the worst-his weaknesses, the things he feared, the things he couldn’t say and relied on her to know without words.

  That knowledge gave her power over him, and he was content to have it so.

  ‘Love, honour and obey,’ he said, smiling faintly.

  ‘Think you can manage all three?’ she challenged.

  ‘I guess I’ll have to.’

  ‘Let’s call Mike.’

  ‘Yes, let’s. Then we’ll talk to Sam and Ethel-ask them to start looking for a house big enough for all five of us.’

  She gave him a joyful kiss, and made the call. From outside came cries of ‘Why are we waiting?’ and they went out to be smothered with cheers and embraces.

  It was time for the race. Jared took off around the track, driving the race of his life, and when he sped triumphantly across the finishing line he knew that his family were with him, as now they would always be.

  For the first time in years he was not alone, and he would never be alone again. It was his greatest victory.

  ***

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