Free The Secret Sinclair by Cathy Williams

acquired sufficient knowledge to get him by, and employed two formidable gaming geeks to do the rest. He had built an empire on the firm belief that he was capable of doing anything. There were no obstacles he was incapable of surmounting.
    Yet half an hour in the company of a four-year-old hadrendered him impotent. Oliver had been uninterested in every toy pulled out of the bag and indifferent to
him
. There was no past experience upon which Raoul could call to get him through his son’s lack of enthusiasm.
    ‘Most kids would have gone crazy over that toy car,’ he imparted in an accusatory tone. ‘At least that’s what the salesperson told me. It’s been their biggest seller for the past four years. That damned car can do anything except carry passengers on the M25. So tell me what the problem was?’ He glared at her as she serenely fetched two glasses from the cupboard and poured them some wine. ‘The boy barely glanced in my direction.’
    ‘I don’t think it was such a good idea to bring so many toys for him.’
    ‘And how do you work that one out? I would have been over the moon if I had ever, as a kid, been given
one
new toy! So how could several new, expensive, top of the range toys fail to do the trick?’
    With a jolt of sympathy that ran contrary to every defence mechanism she had in place, Sarah realised that he really didn’t have a clue. He had drawn from his own childhood experiences and arrived at a solution for winning his son’s affections—except he hadn’t realised that there was more to gaining love and trust than an armful of gifts.
    ‘Do you know,’ Raoul continued, swallowing the contents of his glass in one gulp, ‘that every toy I ever played with as a child had come from someone else and had to be shared? A remote controlled car like the one languishing in your sitting room would have caused a full-scale riot.’
    ‘That’s just awful,’ Sarah murmured.
    ‘Now you’re about to practise some amateur psychology on me. Don’t. You should have told me that he liked building things. I would have come armed with blocks.’
    ‘You’re missing the point. You need to engage him. Like I said, he’s used to only having me around. He’s going to view any other adult on the scene with suspicion. What happened on birthdays? Christmas?’
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘With you? Didn’t you get birthday presents? What about Father Christmas?’
    Raoul looked at her with a crooked smile that went past every barrier and settled somewhere in the depths of her heart.
    ‘I don’t see what this has to do with anything, but if you really want to know Father Christmas was tricky. Frankly, I don’t think I ever believed in the fat guy with the beard. My earliest memory is of my mother telling me when I was three years old that there was no such person. Thinking about it now, I suspect she didn’t want to waste valuable money on feeding that particular myth when the money could have been so much better spent on a bottle of gin. Anyway, even at the foster home there wasn’t much room to hold on to stories like that. Father Christmas barely rated a mention.’ He laughed without rancour. ‘So—you’re going to give me a lesson on engagement. If Oliver has no time for anything I bought for him, then how do we proceed?’
    ‘Are you asking for my help?’
    ‘I’m asking for your opinion. If I remember correctly, you have never been short of those …’
    ‘Why don’t you go out there and build something with him?’ she suggested. ‘No. I’ll get him to bring his bricks in here, and the two of you can build something on the kitchen table while I prepare supper.’
    ‘Forget about cooking. I’ll take you both out. Name the restaurant and I’ll ensure the chef is only too happy to whip up something for Oliver.’
    ‘No,’ Sarah said firmly. ‘This is what normal life is allabout with a child, Raoul. Spaghetti Bolognese, familiar old toys, cartoons on television, reading