Contracted: corporate wife

by Hart, Jessica

  Awareness of him shivered through her, vibrating out to her fingertips and toes, and Lou had to force herself to look away. Feeling like this whenever you looked at your husband was fine, but not when you and your husband had agreed very clearly that there was no question of a physical relationship. It was just as well that Patrick had arranged separate rooms while they were away.

  It took them less than an hour to reach the hotel he had booked for that night, and the manageress came out to give them her personal attention. 'You must allow me to congratulate you both, Mr and Mrs Farr,' she said unctuously as they checked in. 'I understand you were just married today.'

  Patrick looked up sharply from signing the form. 'How do you know that?'

  She checked her notes. 'A...let me see, yes...Marisa Brandon...rang up earlier. She wanted to arrange for us to put a bottle of champagne in the suite for you to enjoy when you got here, and she mentioned that you would be coming straight from your wedding, so of course we're absolutely delighted to move you to our special honeymoon suite. It's just been renovated and completely refurbished to create a really special intimate and romantic atmosphere.'

  Patrick glanced at Lou, but she shook her head very slightly to indicate that he shouldn't insist on the original arrangement. She certainly didn't want to stand there while he explained that actually they would rather have separate rooms. Some honeymoon they would seem to be on then!

  The manageress insisted on escorting them up to the honeymoon suite, talking proudly about it all the way.

  'I do hope you'll like it,' she said, opening the door for them. 'It's the perfect place for a honeymoon, I think.'

  'It's lovely,' said Lou dutifully, and tried not to look at the bed. There was just the one, naturally. How many honeymoon suites catered for couples who didn't want to sleep together on their wedding night?

  She would kill Marisa when she saw her.

  'Well,' she said when the manageress had finished her tour of the suite, evidently designed to ensure that they appreciated every last intimate and romantic detail, and had at last left them alone.

  'I'm sorry about this,' said Patrick. 'This isn't quite what I planned.'

  'It doesn't matter,' said Lou, who had been thinking about the situation while listening to the manageress with half an ear. 'It won't kill us to share a bed for one night,' she went on briskly. 'There's no need to be silly about it. Look, it's huge,' she said, pointing at the bed.

  Yes, and what a great bed it would be to make love in, thought Patrick, and was immediately cross with himself for being able to imagine doing just that.

  'There's plenty of room for both of us,' Lou was saying, determined to show that the situation didn't bother her in the slightest. 'I don't see why it should be uncomfortable. We've both agreed that our relationship is going to be about friendship and nothing else, and if we are going to be friends, we should be able to share a bed without making a fuss.'

  Her matter-of-fact attitude was beginning to annoy Patrick. So she wasn't bothered by the idea of sharing a bed with him. That didn't help him, did it? Lou obviously hadn't spent most of the day speculating about what he was

  wearing underneath his jacket. If she had, she might find the prospect of climbing into bed with him a lot more problematic.

  Well, he would just have to show that he could be equally cool.

  'Right, well, if you're happy with that, it's fine by me,' he said, a little too heartily. 'But I'm quite happy to go and have a quiet word down at Reception to see if they can give us back the original suite.'

  'There's no need for that.' Lou sat down on the edge of the bed and eased off her shoes, just to prove how totally and utterly relaxed she was about the whole idea of sleeping with Patrick. 'Now that we're married, we're likely to find ourselves in this situation again, so we'd better get used to it.'

  Patrick opened the fridge bar. 'In that case, we might as well have some of this champagne Marisa has provided for us.' He could certainly do with a drink.

  Massaging her sore feet, Lou watched him surreptitiously as he deftly opened the bottle. Patrick seemed convinced by her show of unconcern, even if her insides weren't. Her entrails were clearly still very dubious about the whole business, and were churning and fluttering frantically at the mere prospect of climbing calmly into bed with him.

  Patrick poured out the champagne and put the two glasses down by the bed while he pulled off his tie. Loosening his shirt at the neck, he rolled up his sleeves, took off his shoes and swung his legs up onto the bed so that he could make himself comfortable against the pillows.

  'That's better,' he said, adjusting a pillow behind him. 'At least we can relax now.'

  Well, he might be able to relax, thought Lou, still perched prissily on the edge of the bed. He was used to sharing beds with the likes of Ariel Harper.

  And that meant that he was hardly likely to be overcome by lust at the idea of her on the other side of the bed, was he? Lou reminded herself, and her churning entrails quietened a little. Really, she was just being silly. She was forty-five, for heaven's sake. Far too old to be getting in a state about something so ridiculous.

  So when Patrick patted the other side of the bed and urged her to put her feet up, Lou calmly scooted up onto the pillows beside him. He gave her a glass of champagne before picking up his own.

  'Here's to us,' he said, toasting her.

  To us and our deal,' she agreed as they chinked glasses.

  Not that the deal was going to be much comfort to him that night, Patrick reflected grimly. It looked like being a very long night.

  And it was a long night. It was all very well reminding yourself that you were grown up, and far too old to be embarrassed about something so silly, but somehow that didn't help very much when you had to contemplate taking your clothes off and climbing into bed together.

  Feeling about sixteen, Lou shut herself in the bathroom to change into the silk nightdress Marisa had given her as a mock wedding present. 'You might as well look good on your honeymoon, even if you are just going to sleep,' she had said.

  If only it weren't quite so obviously made for seduction. Lou regarded herself in the bathroom mirror in dismay. The creamy oyster silk was a cool ripple against her skin, with a plunging back held up by whisper-light straps that were just begging for the brush of a man's hand to send them slithering off her shoulders. It felt lovely, it looked lovely, it was perfect for a sophisticated honeymoon. She just wished that it were a high-necked flannelette nightgown like the ones Fenny sometimes wore in winter.

  132 CONTRACTED: CORPORATE WIFE

  Holding her clothes in front of her to hide as much of it as possible, Lou took a deep breath before walking out of the bathroom with assumed nonchalance. 'The bathroom's all yours,' she said casually over her shoulder, managing not to look at him at all as she put her clothes away.

  Thanks.'

  By the time Patrick came out, she was lying on her side in the bed, the duvet pulled primly up under her chin. She had left a lamp burning on his side, but otherwise the room was in darkness, much to Patrick's relief. He always slept naked, so it had never occurred to him to buy pyjamas, but he had done his best to preserve the decencies by keeping his shorts on. Still, he was very glad Lou's eyes weren't on him as he crossed over to the bed. That glimpse of her bare back emerging from oyster silk had done alarming things to his blood pressure.

  The mattress shifted as he got into bed and switched off the light. 'Goodnight,' he said gruffly.

  'Goodnight.'

  Oh, yes, it was all very polite. They were adults. They could deal with this. But it didn't stop Patrick being burn-ingly aware of her, while, a few inches away, Lou could hear him breathing. It was so long since she had shared a bed that she was aware of every move he made as he stretched and settled in a studiedly relaxed way.

  Long minutes ticked past. They weren't touching at all, but it was stifling under the duvet. Lou eased it off, kicking her legs free as quietly as she could, and cursing the
long silk that kept tangling round her. She was longing to turn over, but she was terrified of brushing against Patrick—not that he would probably notice now. She could tell from the change in his breathing that he had fallen asleep. It was all right for some, she thought sourly.

  She was exhausted, but too tense to sleep, and it felt as

  if she lay there for hours, willing herself to relax. Then, just as she drifted off, she would jerk awake as Patrick sighed or stirred.

  She was cold, too, now, but somehow the duvet had ended up all on Patrick's side. Lou tugged at it as discreetly as she could, and finally managed to get enough to cover herself once more, only to find to her horror that she had roused Patrick from the depths of his slumber. Rolling over, he flung a heavy arm over her and pulled her back into the warmth of his body so that he could nuzzle her neck, and Lou's attempts to wriggle free only made him tighten his grip in instinctive response.

  'Patrick!' she said at last, and jabbed him with her elbow.

  Waking with a start, Patrick took a moment or two to remember where he was and what he was doing. When he did, he recoiled as if he had found himself cuddling a black mamba. 'Sorry,' he muttered as he rolled hastily back to the other side of bed. 'I must have thought...'

  'It's OK,' said Lou, not wanting to know who he had thought that she was. 'Go back to sleep.'

  Fat chance of that when he had been pressed against her softness and his face had been buried in her hair and he had breathed in the warm fragrance of her skin! Patrick spent the rest of the night lying grim and rigid on the edge of the mattress, and trying not to remember how it had felt to wake holding her.

  They didn't have to share a room again, and that made things much easier. No more lying stiffly on one side of the bed in case he rolled against her inadvertently. No more thinking about how close she was, or how easy it would be to reach out for her, to snuggle up like spoons the way he had before.

  And what a mistake that would have been, Patrick told himself constantly. That would have been the end of his

  free and easy lifestyle, the end of beautiful girls, the end of freedom.

  So he couldn't get Lou's warm body out of his mind? So he kept thinking about how luminous her skin had seemed in the dim light, and the curve of her shoulder in the darkness? He would get over it as soon as they got home and things went back to normal.

  In meantime, they were friends, and that was fine.

  Both were heartily glad when their supposed honeymoon was over and they could try and establish a new routine in London. Patrick went back to work with his new PA, and Lou stayed in the big, empty house and tried not to miss him. Things were better when the kids came back from Lawrie's. They loved living with Patrick, and the pool was a huge draw, especially while the summer holidays lasted and the house was always full of their friends, who spent the whole day splashing around and shouting.

  There wasn't much for Lou to do, though. 'How are things in the office?' she asked almost wistfully when Patrick came home.

  'OK,' he said, but without much enthusiasm. 'Jo's very efficient, but she's not like you.' He looked at Lou, who was cutting back the wisteria that was running rampant over the back of the house. 'It's funny without you there,' he said slowly. 'I miss you.'

  Lou kept snipping at the top of her ladder. There was no need to start glowing just because he had said he missed her.

  'I miss working with you more than I expected to,' she confessed. 'All those years commuting and longing not to have to work any more, and, now that I don't, I feel at a bit of a loose end. I'm quite glad Theresa's left now. At least I can keep house now. When she was here, I always felt awkward about going into the kitchen.'

  Patrick sat down at the table and stretched his long legs out in front of him as he watched Lou cutting back the tendrils that were rioting away from the wires designed to keep the plant flat against the brick wall.

  'It's all very quiet,' he said, suddenly realising that the pool lay silent and gleaming in the evening light. 'Where are the kids?'

  'They're both on sleepovers with friends,' said Lou as she climbed cautiously down the ladder.

  'Odd how empty the house feels without them,' said Patrick.

  It was extraordinary, he thought, how quickly he had got used to coming home to noise and what seemed like perpetual motion. There always seemed to be a pack of kids running around, or splashing and shouting in the pool. The television would be going in one room, a CD of strange music Patrick had never heard before blasting from another. It had used to be such a quiet house too, he remembered. Quiet and very dull, now that he came to think about it. No wonder he had spent most evenings out.

  Nowadays he found himself coming home earlier and earlier. He could bank on finding Lou in the garden, usually on her knees as she weeded and pruned and watered. Patrick had grown to like the way she looked up at him and smiled a welcome. She would sit back on her heels and brush the hair from her face, leaving a smudge on her forehead.

  Most evenings they would sit together on the terrace and talk over a glass of wine. It felt very comfortable being with Lou, Patrick thought, and was glad that they had opted just to be friends. Later they would have supper in the kitchen with Grace and Tom, often with an assortment of other children whose names Patrick never established. The summer holidays were particularly chaotic, but Lou was

  always serene in the heart of it all. She seemed to know what was going on and who was going where, and after a while Patrick relaxed and left it all to her.

  It had all worked out better than he had imagined, he congratulated himself. Now and then he would remember the other life that he had planned for himself, but it was puzzling now to know how that would have worked. He had been going to have a completely detached existence, hadn't he? The idea was to go out with other women with a guilt-free conscience, and to have nothing much to do with Lou and certainly not with her children. Patrick had been so sure then that was what he wanted.

  Now...now it was different somehow.

  He looked at Lou as she pulled off her gardening gloves and brushed wisteria leaves from her hair. She was wearing a faded shirt and the loose trousers she kept for gardening, and her hands were grubby. For an incongruous moment he remembered his cool, immaculate PA in her neat suits, but it was hard to reconcile her with the warm, slightly dishevelled woman who stood in front of him now.

  'It's just us tonight, then?' he said.

  'I'm afraid so.' Lou reached for a brush and began to sweep up the wisteria trimmings.

  'Why don't we go out to dinner?' Patrick asked her on the spur of the moment, and she sent him a quick glance before bending back to her sweeping.

  'You don't need to entertain me,' she said carefully. 'I'm fine on my own. Why don't you take Ariel out instead?'

  Ariel? It took Patrick a moment to remember who she was talking about. 'Didn't I tell you? Ariel's gone back to the Maldives.'

  Lou looked up from her broom. 'Really?'

  'Apparently she met some diving instructor or something while we were there, and now she's decided that she wants

  to marry him and have babies. Whether he'll be able to keep her in the manner to which she is undoubtedly accustomed is another matter,' said Patrick in a dry voice.

  'Are you OK with that?' asked Lou cautiously. He certainly sounded OK, but with Patrick you could never tell.

  'Of course,' he said, surprised. 'I was just glad to be spared a horrible emotional scene when we came back. She'd made up her mind even then. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about her until you mentioned her.'

  Lou bent to brush the leaves into a dustpan and dumped i them in a wheelbarrow. 'Haven't you found anyone else to catch your fancy?' she said, determinedly casual and friendly. It was the kind of thing she would ask Marisa, after all. She and Patrick were friends, and asking how the other's love life was going was part of what friends did.

  'No,' said Patrick slowly, realising that it was true. 'No, not yet.'

  'Well, I don't mind
being taken out until you find a new date,' said Lou, determinedly cheerful. 'I'll need to shower, though.'

  'There's no hurry.'

  Patrick had to force himself not to imagine Lou in the shower as he flicked through his organiser for the number i of a restaurant. There were any number of trendy restaurants where he was pretty sure of getting a table, but it was hard to picture Lou in them. They were the kind of places you took glamorous girls like Ariel who cared about seeing and being seen. Lou wouldn't be bothered with any of that, he just knew.

  'We're not going anywhere too smart, are we?' Lou called down the stairs, as if reading his mind.

  Patrick went out into the hall and craned his neck to see her hanging over the banister from the landing. Her hair

  was wet, her shoulders bare above the cream towel she had wrapped around her, and she looked pink and glowing.

  And alarmingly desirable. Patrick wondered what it would be like to be able to climb the stairs towards her and tell her how she looked. What would it be like if she smiled at the expression in his eyes and reminded him that they had the house to themselves for once? Would she laugh as he pulled her into the bedroom? Would she fall with him onto the bed? Would she let him unwrap her, unlock her, let his hands drift over her curves as he savoured the texture of her skin, the taste of her, the touch of her?

  No, she wouldn't. Patrick reeled his wayward thoughts abruptly back. Of course she wouldn't. That wasn't the kind of thing you did when you were just friends, was it?

  'Where would you like to go?' he asked, aware that his voice was hoarser than usual.

  'Let's just go to that little Italian round the corner,' said Lou. 'It's always good there and we won't need to book. I'll be down in just a minute,' she assured him, disappearing from view.

  Patrick went into the sitting room and sat on one of the sofas, dropping his head into his hands. He had to stop thinking about Lou like that, or one of these days he would i| forget himself, and that would spoil everything. It was only now that he was realising how important she was to him, and he didn't want to lose her as a friend. He was happy with how things were, and Lou seemed happy too, but that would only last if he stuck to the deal they had agreed.