Double Fault Read online

  “A private sale,” the mechanic shook his head sorrowfully. “You’ve been taken for a ride sweetheart. I see it all the time. Now do you want me to patch it up or don’t you?”

  “I suppose you’ll have to,” she sighed, searching in her bag for a scrap of paper. “Here’s my name and telephone number. Let me know when it’s ready to be collected.”

  He pocketed her hastily scribbled details with a nod and then started whistling as he unhitched the rope from his tow truck. The shrill noise grated on Kerry. He had no right to sound so happy when her world was collapsing around her. That car had taken everything she had left in the bank and it was her one material donation to Melanie’s Kitchen. Mel had provided everything else from the initial financial outlay to a new van with a company logo to impress clients. All Kerry had done was buy an old estate car to cope with the bulk shopping and to transport prepared food to Mel’s apartment when her friend didn’t have time to collect it. That and her cooking skills were all she had to offer while on the debit side she had the twins constantly demanding her attention, interrupting phone calls, even spoiling food left on the kitchen counter if she turned her back for a moment.

  “You look frozen,” Pierce’s voice, close to her ear, brought her attention back to the cold wind whipping across the tarmac and for the first time she realized she was shivering.

  “I am,” she acknowledged the damp winter weather with a grimace. “This blouse was not designed with windy car parks in mind.”

  The expression in Pierce’s eyes as he looked down at her reminded her that her blouse was not really designed at all. Instead it resembled something particularly unattractive that might have been left over from her school days. She raised her chin. He could think what he liked. Designer labels cost money better spent on car repairs. She pulled out her cell phone, hoping there was enough credit left to call Mel’s father.

  “I’ll wait in reception while I arrange for someone to collect me and all the boxes.” She hoped desperately that George had finished his Good Samaritan act by now so she wouldn’t have to order a taxi.

  “Don’t be any more of a damn fool than you can help Kerry,” Pierce’s over-tested patience finally gave way as they retraced their steps across the car park. “I’ll take you home or back to your work base, whichever you want, assuming you can bear to stay in my company for another hour or so.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” she forced herself to ignore his sarcastic reference to her bolting act three years ago. “There’s no need for you do that when I can easily ask a friend to help?”

  He pushed open the door and motioned her inside. “I’m not doing it out of the kindness of my heart. I’m doing it because I’m curious. Curious about whatever took you away from me at such speed three years ago. And curious about whatever it is that’s got you behaving like a cat on hot bricks every time you look at me.”

  * * *

  They loaded his car in total silence. The incongruity of the cardboard boxes and plastic coolers against the plush interior of his shiny black Mercedes was lost on Kerry as she worried about what would happen when they reached her house. If she could have gotten away with it, she would have directed him to Mel’s, but somehow it didn’t seem fair to involve her friend. Besides, it would mean an explanation and she had an uncomfortable feeling Mel might disapprove if she knew the twin’s father was being kept in total ignorance of his children. Not that Kerry had ever meant to deceive her but, somehow, Mel and her parents had assumed Kerry had been abandoned by an irresponsible boyfriend when he found out she was pregnant, and it had been easier to leave it like that. No! They mustn’t learn about her past relationship with Pierce or they might put two and two together before she was ready to tell him about the twins. She would just have to let him drive her home and brazen it out.

  “Where’s your coat?” Pierce slid the last two boxes into place and straightened up, pulling on a padded jacket against the wind.

  “I left it in my car,” she shook her head impatiently. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  He ignored her as he dragged a soft blue cashmere sweater from beneath the clutter that now filled his car. “Put this on before you freeze to death.”

  Her protest died unuttered as she saw the determined expression in his eyes and she pulled it over her head. It smelt of him, a familiar, warm, musky smell that enveloped her as she climbed into the passenger seat, and made her hands tremble when she attempted to fasten her seat belt. It was too evocative; the memories it unleashed were too painful. How was she going to bear it?

  Silently Pierce leaned across and fastened the belt for her, his hands brushing against her fingers. She looked away, hoping he would put her clumsiness down to the cold, and studied the outline of Greenleas.

  It was an impressive red brick building with a wide terrace to one side screened by specimen plants and shrubs. There were several tennis courts to the rear and, behind them, a putting green. In the summer it would be lovely, built as it was on the site of an old country house so that the surrounding trees were mature and the grass lush and green. The almost completed accommodation block was cleverly unobtrusive as it was constructed of the same red brick and joined to the main building by a glassed-in pergola that was thick with exotic flowers.

  “What made you give up tennis and buy a country club?” Her question was abrupt as she voiced what had been on her mind since lunchtime. She couldn’t fathom why the great Pierce Simon, darling of the centre court, would want to bury himself so far away from the action.

  “This and that,” he gave a slight shrug. “I doubt you would understand even if I explained.”

  Something in his cool response reminded her of the way he’d always distanced himself from her emotionally before a tennis match. It was something that had always left her feeling insecure and alone. Unconsciously she reacted as she had always done in the past. She tightened her lips and retreated into a taut silence that took them to the end of her road. Pierce didn’t appear to notice anything amiss and he didn’t speak again until he needed directions.

  “What number?” He glanced across at her.

  “Eighty-six,” her answer was reluctant even though she knew she had no alternative. “It’s halfway along on the right, just past the garage.”

  He drove slowly, eventually pulling into the curb outside her house into a space between a very battered Toyota and an old Rover with a crack across one window.

  “I now understand about your car,” his teeth gleamed briefly in the afternoon gloom. “You obviously bought it to keep up with the neighbors.”

  Kerry was suddenly very angry. How dare he sit there in his brand new Mercedes with its personalized number plate and poke fun at her neighbors, most of whom had to struggle to make ends meet. Forgetting that the Kerry Farrow he had known three years ago had had more money than sense, she glared at him, her eyes the same color as the wintry sky.

  “I bought it because it was all I could afford. Most of us don’t earn your sort of money Pierce. We barely earn enough to keep a roof over our heads let alone run a car. I bought four wheels and hoped it would hold together long enough for me to build my business. It didn’t so I hope you’re satisfied!”

  She pushed open the car door as she finished speaking and stormed up the path, searching furiously through her purse for the front door key. By the time Pierce joined her carrying a box under each arm, she was turning it upside down for the third time.

  “Oh no! I can’t get in,” her anger drained away as she remembered her door key was on the same ring as her car keys.

  Surprisingly Pierce grinned as he lowered the boxes carefully to the ground. “I don’t remember you being this disorganized in the past. Does that have something to do with your new working class image as well?”

  “You…you arrogant…” words failed her as her fury came back in force. “What have you become Pierce? A social snob?”

  “Now that is one thing I’m never likely to be,” he folded his arms and lea
ned against the wall, apparently not at all bothered by her predicament. “This is my background, remember, and it took me a lot of years and hard work to climb out of it. Nobody gave me my car Kerry. I bought it with my own money and I’ve every intention of enjoying it, but it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be poor. I’m not going to lose respect for someone who can only afford to run a twelve-year-old car any more than I’m going to judge someone who can’t afford to run one at all. No! The people I lose respect for are the ones who hide their own backgrounds and get a kick out of slumming it. Gives you a good feeling does it, to know you can play Cinderella until you get bored and then run back to Daddy?”

  So that was what was bugging him. He thought she was playing at trying on someone else’s lifestyle for a few months before retreating back into luxury. How stupid of her not to realize. If she had then she could have concocted some sort of story to throw him off track in the same way she had told him tennis bored her, when actually it was the part of him she had loved the most. She’d loved his tenacity and determination and had listened, fascinated, to the never-ending dissection of his every stroke. She’d watched his matches with baited breath, willing him to win, loving it when he did and ready for his frustration when he didn’t.

  Now she needed to do it all over again except it was too late. The trouble was she had lived with the truth for so long she had almost forgotten her former life. To her there was nothing odd about wealthy, extravagant Kerry Farrow living in a shabby house in a dilapidated terrace, but to Pierce it was a new experience. She wondered how to answer him. How much of the actual truth she could reveal without mentioning the twins because although she knew she had to tell him about them eventually, she wasn’t ready yet.

  “I…it’s not…I can’t go back…you see…” she stumbled and faltered as she tried to find the right words to explain that she no longer saw her father.

  “You mean he threw you out of the house and stopped your allowance… but why would he do a thing like that?” The look of scorn on Pierce’s face changed to bewilderment as he picked his way through her hesitant explanation.

  She shrugged, her throat too full of bitterness to answer him. She had expected her father to be angry about her pregnancy of course. She had even expected him to demand an abortion. What she hadn’t expected was that he would disown her so completely. It was something she could never forgive.

  Even now she could hear the vitriol in his voice as he pronounced his judgment and then larded it with the final heartbreak. ‘When your mother told me she was pregnant I wanted her to have an abortion but she wouldn’t. She was obstinate, like you. Having you ruined our marriage Kerry. Children always do. Before you came along your mother was happy with me, with the life we were building together, but once you were born things changed. She didn’t like leaving you, didn’t like it when I insisted we holiday without you, and when I sent you off to boarding school she actually threatened to leave me. I soon put a stop to that, of course, but she was never the same again…and for that I blame you, the same as I blame you for her death. The cancer that started in her womb was your fault. You killed her Kerry!’

  His words had torn her apart and for a short time she had even believed them. Then the memory of the day her mother first told her she was ill came back to her. The love in her eyes as she said the words that were to change Kerry’s life forever was something she had never forgotten. Nor had she forgotten what she said after she told her about the cancer. ‘You are the best thing that ever happened to me and I’d give anything to stay around until you grow up, but I can’t my darling. This illness is going to get me first, so you’re going to have to learn to fight your own battles sooner than I wanted you to.”

  They had hugged one another for a long time after that, only drawing apart when fourteen-year-old Kerry had finally accepted what her mother was telling her. Later, mingled with the tears, there had been practical discussions about school and about how things would be at home once her mother was no longer there. ‘Your father will take it badly…he might even say and do things that will upset you. If he does then don’t take it to heart. Whatever he tells you, just keep remembering it’s not your fault. Nothing is your fault. Not this…not the problems between your father and me...I always wanted you Kerry…always.’

  She hadn’t really understood what her mother was trying to tell her until her father simply stopped speaking to her. It was immediately after a funeral where there had been no affection or sharing of grief, just an expectation she would keep her emotions in check as she greeted the other mourners. As soon as it was over he withdrew so completely that Kerry had to get herself back to her boarding school, and when she came home again he was still the same.

  Although he had never been an easy father, far too wrapped up in his own life and career to ever be there with stories and cuddles, and far too much of a disciplinarian for her to ever be at ease in his company, he had at least acknowledged her while her mother was alive. Now he simply ignored her, waving her away impatiently whenever she tried to speak to him. The only thing that didn’t change was his financial support. As the owner of a highly lucrative investment company he was a very wealthy man with a strong media presence, and she soon learned that her monthly allowance had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the clothes and lifestyle that reflected his position in society. In the weeks immediately following her mother’s death she often got it wrong. A messy hairstyle, a dress of the wrong length, not behaving appropriately when visitors came to the house, all resulted in a cruel tongue-lashing. Eventually she learned what was expected of her however, and with no other option, obeyed the rules he imposed.

  Then, on her eighteenth birthday, everything changed. Calling her into his study he told her there was a job for her at Farrow Holdings. Plucking up every ounce of courage she had, she protested. When he discovered she wanted to train to be a hotel manager, his fury as he told her to forget it drained the color from his face. ‘No daughter of mine is going to work as a skivvy in a hotel. You’ll leave school right now and start working for Farrow Holdings immediately. It might knock some common sense into you as well as broaden your experience of the world.’

  Well it had certainly done that all right, but not in the way he had anticipated. Instead she’d made a mess of the job she hated, and made a mess of her life as well. She sighed as she wondered why it had taken her so long to pluck up the courage to defy him. She had spent years making plans to leave home but had always been too frightened to follow any of them through. It had taken Pierce to rescue her. And look where that had got her.

  All this flashed through her mind as Pierce watched her and she looked away in case he saw the truth in her eyes. She kept as close to the facts as she could. “We fell out about my lifestyle. He didn’t like what I was doing with my life and when he realized I wasn’t going to back down, he…we went our separate ways.”

  He thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Well at least that explains why my letters went unanswered and why he refused to see me when I called. At the time I thought it was your doing and I was beyond angry.”

  Kerry’s eyes widened in panic because it had never occurred to her that Pierce would try to track her down. She had assumed he would accept her letter of explanation at face value and quickly replace her with one of the many girls on the circuit.

  “You didn’t ever meet him then?” She heard the tremor in her voice.

  “No! He all but had me kicked off his property. It was a most unpleasant experience and I’ve spent the past three years blaming you.” Pierce’s expression was grim as he pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket and after a moment’s deliberation, fitted the largest one into the keyhole.

  Kerry watched him, her thoughts divided between the fact that he couldn’t possibly know about her pregnancy if he hadn’t managed to speak to her father, and the evidence that he was unlocking her front door.

  The door won out. “Those are my keys,” she step
ped forward indignantly and snatched them out of his hands.

  “Of course they are. I was hardly likely to leave all your keys over with a complete stranger was I?” She read smug satisfaction in his smile as he bent to retrieve the boxes and then nudged the door wider with his hip, leaving her with little alternative but to return to the car and start unloading the rest of her paraphernalia. Feeling like all sorts of an idiot she was still heaving them onto the pavement when he returned and gave a hiss of irritation.

  “For god’s sake go indoors and get warm. Make some coffee or something while I bring the rest of these in.”

  She swallowed the protest she was about to make and instead, realizing it would give her time to hide anything belonging to the twins, hurried ahead of him down the path. The hall was still strewn with cardboard boxes from her frantic foray into the cupboard earlier that morning and the sink was full of dirty dishes but, unusually, the children’s toys were remarkably absent. They were still jumbled into a plastic tub in the tiny utility area off the kitchen, next to their shiny wellington boots. Even their cereal bowls, bright with nursery rhyme characters, were hidden by piled up crockery. She gave a sigh of relief and concentrated on unpacking the cooler boxes as Pierce dumped them on the table, avoiding his eyes in case he looked sorry for her.

  It was all very well for him to say he had come from this sort of background but it would take a lot to convince her he could truly remember what it was like. He had earned too much money for too long to look at her shabby little house with any sort of sentimentality. He would see it for exactly what it was; a home tacked together with second-hand furniture and other people’s cast offs, and judge her accordingly.

  As if in confirmation of her dark thoughts, he dumped the final two boxes on the table and then pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. When he eventually spoke he sounded puzzled. “Can’t you do better than this Kerry? Surely, with your education and background, you could have found something a bit more glamorous than working for a home catering service. I would have expected you to go for something that pays a bit better as well because it’s obvious you’re really struggling.”