She wouldn’t marry him, she was adamant about that. He had stopped asking her. But she slept with him, she ate with him, she dressed with him. That was as far as it went. She wanted no more children, she had made that as plain as day. In fact, it was only her sporadic visits to see her son that revealed any kind of human warmth or feeling in her. Then he saw the girl he had known before, the child, the Briony with whom he had fallen hopelessly in love. Her son, her sisters and the girls who worked for them were her whole life now. She looked after them all like a mother hen.

He knew she loved him in her own way, cared about him deeply, but not in the same way he loved her. Even knowing this, he couldn’t leave her. He knew he would take whatever she offered him and be grateful, because he couldn’t live without her. Acknowledging this to himself, he knew his course was set.

Briony walked back into the room with the tray of coffee and smiled at him, her tiny hands holding the tray steady. Placing it on the desk between them, she picked up the coffee pot. ‘Shall I be mother?’

‘You can be mother. And yes, Bri, I’m in on the new deals.’

She slammed down the coffee pot and rushed around the desk to plonk herself none too gently in his lap.

She kissed him hard on his lips and laughed.

‘You won’t regret this, Tommy. We’ll rake the money in!’

He smiled and kissed her back.

‘I know we will, Bri. We always do.’

He held her to him, feeling the smallness of her, the tiny waist, the firm breasts that poked through the thin material of her dress, and breathed in the scent of her. If only once he could spark some life into her sexually, he would be a happy man. He wanted to throw her to the floor and make love to her there and then, to make love to her and have her respond, just once, with the same passion he felt for her.

It was her total passivity that ensnared him, he knew. If he pushed her to the floor now, she would allow him to undress her, caress her body and make love to her as hard or as gently as he felt he wanted to. Then, when he was spent, she would get up, dress herself and smile at him, as she always did. He would not have touched her mind.

Instead he kissed her and petted her, the way he knew she liked, and held himself in check.

If she would only respond to him in bed ... but he knew she never would. Though every time he touched her, he lived in hope.