FORGOTTEN LOVER, Carole Mortimer [chrysanthemum read aloud TXT] 📗

to join me?’ Velvet invited, at the same time sensing Jerard’s presence close by. A curious sensation fluttered down her spine, and she looked up into his hard blue eyes as she came to stand behind Vicki, the cream shirt and brown trousers showing the taut outline of his body.

He didn’t approve of Vicki talking to her, it was there in every hard line of his body, and Velvet’s hackles rose in indignation. Just who did he think he was anyway!

‘Daddy and I ate breakfast upstairs,’ Vicki told her in her serious little voice.

‘Oh. Well, would you like some fruit juice?’ She indicated the jug of fresh orange juice on the table.

‘Yes, please.’ Vicki gave a wide grin and perched herself on one of the chairs.

Velvet looked calmly up at Jerard Daniels as he still loomed over them. ‘Would you like some?’ she asked him casually, pouring Vicki’s into a glass.

The set of his mouth showed his disgust. ‘Not for me,’ he refused calmly enough.

‘Would you like to sit down?’ she invited, not at all daunted by his attitude.

‘No—’

‘Oh, sit down, Daddy!’ Vicki’s nose came out of the glass long enough for her to request, a ring of orange around her top lip. ‘I haven’t asked Velvet yet, and besides, I have to drink my orange juice.’

He did so with ill-grace, his thigh momentarily touching Velvet’s, and her bare skin tingled from the contact. She was wearing yellow silky shorts and matching top, prepared for the heat of the day, although now she wished she had worn something else, something that didn’t make her feel quite so naked.

She looked at Vicki, pointedly ignoring Jerard. ‘Haven’t asked me what, poppet?’

The little girl put down her empty glass. ‘I—We—Daddy!’ she looked to her father for help.

His expression was stern. ‘It was your idea, Vicki.’

‘Yes, but—Daddy, please!’ once again she used that heartrending tone Velvet had thought hard to resist.

‘Very well.’ Jerard obviously had trouble resisting it too. ‘Vicki and I are driving down to Orlando this afternoon,’ he told Velvet stiffly.

She frowned. ‘Yes?’

He gave her an impatient look. ‘To Disneyworld.’

‘Yes?’ She still frowned, surprised by his need to tell her of his movements.

‘We—I want you to come with us,’ Vicki burst out eagerly.

‘Oh no. No, I—’

‘Oh please,’ Vicki pleaded. ‘It will be such fun with the three of us!’

Velvet looked at Jerard for help, but his expression remained impassive, telling her more clearly than any words could do that he wanted no part of her refusal. He probably didn’t want to get the blame for it later. And she couldn’t really blame him, no one would wish a sulky child upon themselves unless they had to.

But he knew she had to refuse, damn him! He should never have allowed Vicki to ask her. The fact that he hadn’t exactly encouraged his daughter slipped Velvet’s mind for the moment, deliberately so if she cared to probe into it. She enjoyed being able to be angry with him, it gave her an excuse to dislike him. Although after the way he had disbelieved her last night she wasn’t sure she needed an excuse!

‘I’m afraid I can’t join you, Vicki.’ She instantly felt guilty as she saw the disappointment the little girl was unable to hide. ‘I really can’t,’ she said contritely. ‘I’m here to work, and—’

‘But you work for Daddy!’ Vicki blinked back the tears, her bottom lip trembling emotionally. ‘Daddy, you’ll let Velvet have time off to come with us, won’t you?’

‘I don’t think she wants to—’

‘It isn’t that,’ Velvet cut in sharply, shooting Jerard a sharp look. He didn’t have to make this any worse than it was. ‘Try to understand, Vicki,’ her expression softened as she looked at the little girl. ‘I’m here to work, and if I take time off I won’t be finished in time to catch my plane home the day after tomorrow. And my little boy is depending on my getting home then. I can’t let him down, Vicki.’

The little girl’s face crumpled and she burst into tears, getting noisily down from the chair to run sobbing out of the room.

Velvet stood up. ‘Vicki—’

‘It’s all right,’ Jerard held her back from running after his daughter. ‘Leave her,’ he ordered curtly. ‘She’ll only go up to the suite.’

‘But I—’

‘I said leave her, Velvet.’

She glared at him angrily. ‘I heard what you said, but I can’t just leave her like that. I have to go after her.’

‘And do what?’ his mouth twisted.

‘Well, I—I—’

‘Are you going to agree to come to Disneyworld with us?’

‘You know I can’t—’

‘Then leave her.’

‘You know I can’t go,’ she babbled out her guilt about disappointing the child, feeling awful about it. ‘I have to finish my work—’

‘Paul tells me he’s more or less finished with you,’ Jerard cut in. ‘That he can take the remainder of the shots back in his studio in London.’

Velvet gasped. ‘You asked him?’

‘It came up in the conversation—’

‘I’ll bet it did!’ she said fiercely. ‘In the same conversation you implied I had spent the night with you, I suppose?’

His mouth quirked with humour. ‘Did I do that?’

‘You know you did!’ she accused heatedly. ‘Carly and Paul both have the idea that I slept with you last night.’

It was as if a shutter had come down; his eyes were once more cold, his expression remote. ‘Then they’re both wrong,’ he rasped.

‘I know that—’

‘Then stop making a damned issue out of it!’ He stood up. ‘I’m going up to Vicki now.’

She grasped his arm before he could move away. ‘I—Did you really mean it about my not having any more work to do?’

Jerard’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes.’

She drew a deep breath. ‘Then I’ll come to Disneyworld,’ she said in a rush.

He scowled heavily. ‘Wouldn’t you rather try and get an earlier flight home?’

She would, of course she would. But she wasn’t really expected back for another two days. Tony would be fine with Simon and Janice, and at the moment Vicki seemed to need her more.

‘Vicki will get over it,’ Jerard told her