Free Legally His Omnibus by Penny Jordan Page B

had been ripped apart and devoured by a pack of scavengers, and that now all that was left of them was the dead bones.
    It was the dry grittiness of her eyes that made her want to blink, not something stupid like crying, she assured herself fiercely. After all, she had done enough of that during the night, hadn’t she? With her face buried in her pillow so that she wouldn’t wake Oliver.
    She was still in shock, Kate admitted to herself, and the cause of that shock was her discovery of just how vulnerable she still was to Sean!
    ‘Oh, no! Look at the time! I’d better go.’ Kate hurried past Laura as she made her exit.
    Behind her shock and pain lay a huge, deep dam of pent-up anger. How dared Sean refuse to believe that Oliver was his child? How dared he be such a hypocrite as to accuse her of sleeping with someone else?
    Thinking of her son made her turn anxiously to her silent mobile. Oliver had complained that his tummy hurt again at breakfast time, but to her relief when she had taken his temperature it had been normal and so she had taken him to school.
    * * *
    Sean drummed his fingers irritably on his desk. Pushing back his chair, he stood up, raking his hair with one hand, and paced the floor as he mentally practised what he intended to say to Kate.
    Halfway through the carefully chosen words he stopped abruptly and asked himself angrily what the hell was wrong with him. All he had to say to Kate was that he wanted her to have the money she had refused to accept when they had divorced. Hell, if need be he could tell her that his accountants were insisting it was handed over otherwise he would invoke some kind of tax penalty. His decision had nothing whatsoever to do with Oliver, other than the fact that he hated seeing Kate have to struggle—especially when she had a small child to support.
    A small child who wasn’t his.
    Opening his office door, he instructed his secretary to tell Kate he wanted to see her.
    * * *
    ‘Jenny rang down to say that you wanted to see me?’
    ‘Yes, I do,’ Sean confirmed, turning away to look out of his office window. ‘You must have found it hard to make time to study for your Master’s?’
    ‘Yes, in some ways I did,’ Kate agreed warily, wondering why he had sent for her and what this was leading up to.
    ‘I imagine that it would have been difficult with Oliver,’ Sean pressed her.
    ‘Yes, it was,’ Kate confirmed.
    ‘Why didn’t you ask his father for financial support?’
    When she didn’t answer, Sean swung round. The light streaming in through the large window highlighted the tension in his face, and for a moment Kate almost weakened. He had been everything to her after all. As she was now everything to Oliver, she reminded herself immediately, before taking a deep breath and asking sharply, ‘What are you trying to do? Trap me? You’re wasting your time, Sean. You are Oliver’s father. Nothing and no one—not even you—can alter that fact.’
    Her stomach churned as she saw Sean’s expression hardening with rejection.
    ‘You are the one who is wasting your time, Kate. Oliver is not my son. He can’t be—’ Sean tensed and stopped speaking, taking a deep breath before he continued tersely, ‘He can’t be foisted off on me!’
    His heart was hammering against his ribs. It was a sign of the effect Kate was having on him that he had come so close to blurting out the truth! Fortunately he had just managed to stop himself in time!
    Kate clenched her hands as she caught the underlying and suppressed violence in Sean’s voice, her dismay giving way to shock as she heard him adding grimly, ‘What I wanted to talk to you about was—’ He stopped speaking as the abrupt shrill of Kate’s mobile cut across his words. Red-faced, she fished it out of her bag, her embarrassment forgotten as she saw that the call was from Oliver’s nursery.
    ‘He’s been sick and he’s asking for me?’ Kate couldn’t keep the anxiety out of her voice as she repeated what