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      Scarlet endured with equanimity the astonished, searching scrutiny that came her way. The reaction didn’t surprise her. Sam was an exceptionally beautiful child, and Scarlet knew the only thing exceptional about herself was her ordinariness, but even so the softly breathed, ‘Unbelievable!’ did bring a faint flush to her pale cheeks.

      As if she realised her lapse in manners, a flicker of something akin to embarrassment flickered across the beautiful features of the VIP guest.

      ‘And how old is Sam?’

      ‘He was three in April.’

      ‘He seems very advanced for his age.’

      ‘Sam is quick,’ Scarlet agreed, unable to stifle a flicker of parental pride at this praise.

      ‘You and your husband must be very proud of him.’

      ‘I’m not married.’ Even in this enlightened age Scarlet was used to her single motherhood producing disapproval in varying degrees, but the inexplicable flicker of relief she saw in Natalia’s brown eyes was not a reaction she’d encountered before.

      It only lasted a moment and Scarlet almost immediately put it down to a trick of the light or her imagination. After all, she asked herself, why would her being unmarried make a total stranger relieved?

      ‘Then Sam’s father…?’

      ‘There’s just me and Sam and we like it that way,’ Scarlet explained cheerfully.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘BUT it must be hard for a woman alone?’

      ‘One-parent families are not exactly unusual.’

      ‘But you’ve never been married?’

      Scarlet, who was beginning to feel puzzled with the older woman’s pursuit of the subject, shook her head. ‘Never.’ This might be a good time to change the subject and admit she had contacted the tyrannical son.

      ‘Listen, Mrs O’Hagan—’

      ‘Natalia, please, my dear.’

      ‘Natalia, I know you asked me not to.’ Scarlet took a deep breath and made a clean breast of it. ‘The thing is I called Mr O’Hagan…that is your son, the control freak one,’ she explained unhappily.

      ‘I don’t blame you being angry with me,’ she continued, ‘but I really did think that someone should know—’ Scarlet stopped in response to a cool hand laid on her arm.

      ‘I’m not angry with you, child.’

      Scarlet gave a sigh of relief. ‘I’m glad about that.’

      ‘Did you speak to Roman yourself? I ask,’ she added, ‘because I have a problem doing so myself sometimes.’ She gave a light laugh. ‘He is guarded zealously.’

       You can say that again!

      ‘I did manage to, eventually,’ Scarlet admitted with a guarded smile.

      There was something in the other woman’s manner…she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but Scarlet couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something.

       ‘My, you must be a determined girl, or have special access that I don’t?’ Her laughter had a forced sound to it.

      ‘I could have done with it, but I had to fall back on my natural talent—I’m stubborn.’

      Natalia nodded; her expression suggested her thoughts had already moved on. ‘I sometimes think this security business has got out of hand, you know. Since the stalker affair Roman is not a very accessible person, but no doubt you know that.’

      ‘Stalker?’ Scarlet queried, pausing to briefly wonder why his mother would assume she knew anything at all about her son.

      ‘Oh, I’m sure you read about it. That woman who became obsessed with him? It was about four years ago.’

      Scarlet shook her head. She was not about to explain that four years ago her world had narrowed to the bedside of her dying sister.

      ‘Perhaps you were out of the country?’

      ‘Not likely,’ Scarlet returned. ‘I get seasick and have a phobia of flying.’

      ‘How inconvenient. Actually it was covered quite widely in the papers—this woman developed a thing about Roman.’

      ‘An ex-girlfriend?’ That figured. Any woman who went out with him had to be slightly unbalanced to begin with.

      ‘Well, no, that’s the thing, they had never actually met, but she became convinced they had a relationship. She wrote to him, telephoned him, sent him gifts…initially Roman felt sorry for her and thought if he ignored her she’d go away. Things came to a head when he arrived at the office one morning to find her holding his PA at knifepoint.’

      ‘Gracious!’ Scarlet gasped, her eyes widening in horror. ‘Was anyone hurt?’

      ‘Roman managed to talk her into letting Alice go and apparently she was going to hand over the knife when the police arrived. The woman panicked and became quite frenzied. Roman and Alice both got injured, Alice badly. Fortunately they both recovered.’

      ‘That must have been very traumatic.’

      ‘It was, though Roman was more concerned that he had unwittingly put someone else’s life at risk. Oh, I know it wasn’t his fault.’ Scarlet, who hadn’t been going to suggest anything of the sort, remained, silent. ‘But Roman has a very overdeveloped sense of responsibility.’

      Scarlet smiled politely and wondered privately how much a mother’s natural bias had coloured this version of events. Certainly this caring, sensitive paragon didn’t sound much like the man the newspapers were so fond of writing about or the one she had spoken to earlier!

      ‘Roman admires a woman with spirit.’

      Roman manages to hide his admiration pretty well. ‘Really…?’ she responded, not sure what else she was supposed to say to this apparently irrelevant comment.

      ‘And what did my son have to say for himself?’

      Beyond threaten to sue the socks off me? ‘Oh, we didn’t really chat,’ she responded lightly.

      ‘Well, you’ll be able to get reacquainted properly when he arrives. The years have changed him, you know, my dear.’

      The turn of phrase struck Scarlet as distinctly odd, but she was so relieved that the older woman appeared resigned that her son was coming to collect her that she didn’t comment on it.

      ‘Scarlet.’ David appeared at the door. ‘Could I have a word for a moment? Mrs O’Hagan, it’s good to see you looking so much better.’

      Now that he said so, Scarlet too saw that the older woman had perked up considerably. ‘I’ll СКАЧАТЬ