Free The Secret Sinclair by Cathy Williams Page B

that you’ve now got carte blanche to do whatever you like.’ Raoul didn’t care for the direction in which this conversation was now travelling.
    ‘You make me sound like the sort of girl who can’t wait to pick someone up!’
    She was wondering what right he had to lay down any kind of laws when it came to her private life. Raoul Sinclair didn’t want his life encumbered with attachments. True, he had discovered that some encumbrances were beyond his control, but just as he had never contemplated committing to her, so he had never contemplated committing to anyone. It was small comfort.
He
might think that it was perfectly acceptable to lead a life in which he and his son were the only considerations, but it was totally unfair to assume that
she
felt the same way.
He
might want to pick up women and discard them when they were no longer of any use, but
she
needed more than that. For Raoul, a single life was freedom. For her, a single life would be a prison cell.
    ‘I’m not going to suddenly start scouring the nightclubs for eligible men,’ she expanded, with a bright, nervous laugh, ‘but I
will
be able to get out a bit more—which will be nice.’
    ‘Get out a bit more?’
    ‘Yes—when you have Oliver.’
    ‘I don’t think we should start projecting at this point,’ Raoul said deflatingly. ‘Oliver hasn’t even spoken to me as yet. It’s a bit premature to start planning a hectic social life in anticipation of us becoming best friends. Let’s just take one day at a time, shall we?’
    ‘Of course. I wasn’t planning on going clubbing next week!’
    Clubbing?
What did she mean by that? Other men? Sleeping around? While he kept Oliver every other weekend?
    He pictured her dressed in next to nothing, flaunting herself on a dance floor somewhere. Granted, the women he went out with often dressed in next to nothing, but for some reason the thought of
Sarah
in a mini-skirt, high heels and a halterneck top set his teeth on edge.
    ‘Good. Because it won’t be happening.’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘Think about it, Sarah. Oliver doesn’t even know that I’m his father. Don’t you think that he’ll be just a little bit confused if
your friend
, who has mysteriously and suddenly appeared on the scene from nowhere, starts engineering outings without you? You’re the constant in his life. As you keep telling me. For me to have any chance of being accepted we have to provide a united front. We have to get to a point where he trusts me enough to leave you behind now and again.’
    ‘Exactly what are you trying to say, Raoul?’
    ‘That you have to scrap any crazy notions of us having nothing to do with one another. You’re living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that’s going to work. The whole bedtime story, spaghetti Bolognese thing is going to have to involve both of us. Of course it’ll be a damn sight easier when you get out of this place and move somewhere moreconvenient. And less cramped. On the subject of which—I have my people working on that.’
    There were so many contentious things packed into that single cool statement that Sarah looked at him, staggered.
    ‘When you say
involve both of us
…’
    Raoul flushed darkly and dealt her a fulminating look from under his lashes.
    ‘I don’t know the first thing about being a parent,’ he told her roughly. ‘You’ve witnessed my sterling performance out there.’
    ‘I didn’t know the first thing about being a parent either,’ Sarah pointed out with irrefutable logic. ‘It’s just a case of doing your best.’
    The thought of doing things with Raoul and Oliver, a cosy threesome, was enough to bring on the beginnings of a panic attack in her. Already she was finding it difficult to separate the past from the present. She looked at him, and who was she kidding when she told herself that she was no longer attracted to him? Raoul was in a different place, and would be able to take her on board as just a temporary necessity in his life, easily