The Perfect Lover Read Free

over her well-being.
    As the silence between them stretched Louise was acutely conscious of the fact that virtually everyone else in the room was probably watching them and remembering...
    As she turned to move away from Tullah, baby Scott reached out and, grinning winsomely at Louise, patted her cheek with one fat baby hand, pronouncing solemnly, 'Pretty.'
    Over his downy head Tullah's sympathetic eyes met Louise's wary, startled ones.
    'Oh, dear. I think I'm going to sneeze.' Tullah told Louise. 'Could you take him for me?'
    Before Louise could protest she found herself holding a solid armful of gurgling, beaming baby, whilst Tullah dived into her jacket pocket for a tissue.
    'No. No, it's gone...' Tullah announced when the threatened sneeze was not forthcoming, but she made no attempt to take her son back from Louise as she commented, 'It's so nice to see virtually all the family here. I know your grandfather isn't always the easiest person to get along with...'
    'You can say that again,' Louise agreed wryly, gently detaching the baby's clutching fingers from the gold chain she was wearing around her neck. 'He's got your colouring but Saul's eyes,' she told Tullah. 'How have the other three...?'
    'So far, so good,' Tullah told her, showing her her crossed fingers. 'It's probably been easier for them, and for us in one way, because they live with us full time. So there's no question of them feeling that Scott, here, gets to see more of their father than they do.'
    Scott, for some reason, had quite obviously taken an immediate liking to Louise, and much to her own astonishment, and Tullah's patent amusement, he started to press loud juicy kisses against her face.
    Louise, despite her determination to focus on her career, had always liked children and enjoyed their company. As a teenager she had often babysat for Saul, and had formed quite a close bond with his three, and now, to her chagrin, she suddenly felt her eyes filling with emotional feminine tears as Scott's baby kisses touched her skin.
    Quickly she handed him back to Tullah, telling her chokingly, 'Tullah, I'm sorry...'
    And both of them knew that it wasn't what was happening now that she was apologising for.
    Very gently Tullah touched her arm.
    'It's over, Lou,' she told her softly. 'Forget it. We have. You were missed at Christmas—by all of us...' As she turned to return to Saul and the children, she paused and dropped a light kiss on Louise's cheek.
    'Forget it', Tullah had said. Louise closed her eyes as Tullah walked away. If only she could. Tullah and Saul might have forgiven her, but she doubted that she would ever be able to forgive herself...
    'Is everything all right, darling?'
    Louise forced a determined smile as she read the concern in her mother's eyes.
    'Fine,' she assured her. A quick look around her grandfather's drawing room reassured her that she was no longer the object of everyone's discreet attention. Taking a deep breath, Louise commented as steadily as she could, 'I was just saying to Tullah that Scott has Saul's eyes but her colouring...'
    'Yes, he has, hasn't he?' Jenny Crighton agreed gratefully, relief leaking through the anxiety that had gripped her.
    In one sense it had been a relief when Louise had finally agreed to come home for her grandfather's birthday, but in another...
    Louise was her daughter, and she loved her, worried over her—how could she not do so?—but she had to admit that she had been anxious.
    Louise had a quick temper coupled with a very easily bruised sense of pride. Watching Max talking with his sister earlier had made Jenny pray that Max wouldn't do or say something to upset his sister and put her on the defensive.
    Tullah and Olivia—Jenny's niece and Louise's cousin—had both tried to reassure Jenny that everything would be all right, that teenage crushes were something that happened to everyone, and that it was just Louise's misfortune that hers had happened to be conducted under such a public glare of