before he could ask, she was gone, the door swinging on its hinges behind her. And he didn't follow, even if it left him clenching his teeth, feeling angrier than he had in a long, long time.
If he'd had any sense at all he would have done any 'talking' through a solicitor. But he had wanted—what?
Frankly, he was already too angry to look for an answer to that. What he hadn't wanted was to be made painfully aware of just how much of an effect her presence could have on his libido. And he'd just got that in spades, hadn't he?
The sooner he was out of this place the better.
CHAPTER TWO
'So, Mum, can I get a pony? And maybe a dog?'
Rhiannon smiled affectionately as they made their way out of the cavernous hallway and through the front door to scrunch across the gravel to her Jeep. Lizzie had hidden her first day at school nerves behind incessant chatter all the way through the breakfast that her mother had hurried in order to get them out before Kane appeared from wherever he had slept.
If she'd had her way they'd have eaten slices of toast in the Jeep. Just to be on the safe side.
'How about we get properly settled in first before we stock a zoo?' Though, after the adventure of the night before, a dog might not be a bad idea. They were two females alone in the middle of nowhere, after all. A dog would be a good idea. Something of a manageable size, with a nice deep, scary bark, that could live downstairs in the kitchen.
'Whose car is that?'
Rhiannon's heart sank, her hand on the Jeep's door. She'd so very nearly got away from the house without any questions. So near and yet so far.
Pinning a bright smile on her face, she glanced briefly at the sleek, low-slung sports car peeking from the edge of the house. He must have gone into the house at the back.
'It belongs to a friend of Uncle Mattie.' Well, it wasn't a lie. He had been a friend of Mattie's, more so the last few years than when she had first met them all.
Lizzie looked all the more intrigued. 'In the house? Why didn't he come down for breakfast? Will I get to meet him after school?'
Not if her Mother had anything to do with it, she wouldn't. 'No, he'll be gone by then. He didn't know we'd moved in yet.' A thought occurred to her. 'How did you know he was a "he"?'
Lizzie shrugged her narrow shoulders, her blue eyes still wide with curiosity. 'Guessed. What's he like? Can't he stay till I meet him? We can talk about Uncle Mattie. I'd like that.'
Rhiannon's heart twisted at the simple statement. Of course she'd want to meet people who'd known her favourite 'uncle'; talking about him was something that Rhiannon had been encouraging her to do. It was healthy. And, much as it killed her to have to deal with it when Lizzie hadn't even reached the grand age of ten yet, she didn't want her to bottle things up. But neither did she want her talking to Kane. About anything.
'He's very busy; I'm sure he'll be gone by the time you get back.' The look of disappointment on her daughter's face almost doubled her up with guilt. It was only natural for her to try and reach out for something comforting in the face of so much change. Talking about her Mattie with someone must have seemed an ideal security blanket, 'How about when you come back we go and see what pictures of Uncle Mattie we can find to put on that wall in the library?'
Lizzie brightened a little, her head bobbing up and down, which flicked her long, dark chocolate-brown pony-tail out behind her. 'Okay.'
'Right, well, let's get you to school, then.'
It was only once Lizzie was settled into her new classroom in the primary school, a universe smaller than the city one she was used to, that Rhiannon allowed her thoughts to return to what she had to face back at Brookfield. She wasn't looking forward to it.
And the night before she had tossed and turned, her ears straining to hear any sound of Kane moving around the house, while her thoughts had run riot, trying to cope with how her hatred of him burned like