by Liz Fielding
It had been pushed through her letterbox some time during the night. He’d crossed London with it, wanting her to know the truth. Wanting to give her back something she’d thought lost for ever. And he had succeeded, while she’d only given him pain.
She paid off the cab and climbed the short flight of steps to the door. Then, as she reached for the knocker, she momentarily lost her nerve.
How would he look? What would he say? Maybe he wouldn’t want her to come in.
More importantly, what was she going to say?
Thank you. She’d just say thank you… She sniffed…And he’d know… And then…
‘Romana?’
She waved her hand impatiently at the interruption. ‘Romana, why are you talking to yourself?’
‘Because I have to get it right…’ She swung around. ‘Niall!’
‘You seem surprised to see me. Considering you’re standing on my doorstep.’
‘Yes, well…’ She indicated the front door, then him…Then realised that she was making a complete fool of herself. ‘I was about to knock.’
‘And rehearsing what you’d say first?’ He smiled. ‘How did it come out?’
She lifted her shoulders in an awkward little shrug. ‘I thought I’d start with a simple “thank you” and see how it went from there.’ He was wearing a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt and they—and his arms and hair—were liberally splattered with white paint. He looked, she thought, wonderful. ‘Thank you.’
‘That’s it?’
No, it was far from ‘it’. She wanted to fling her arms about him and give him a very personal demonstration of ‘thank you’. But suddenly she wasn’t even sure she should be here. ‘I have to get back to the office now.’
‘Come and have some lunch first.’ He put a can of paint and some brushes on the doorstep, along with a brown paper sack, and searched his pocket for a doorkey. ‘Public Relations Directors eat lunch, don’t they?’
‘I should be at the hospital lunch right now. So should you. You should be there observing me being brilliant. Being unique. Being utterly irreplaceable.’
‘I’ve already seen you in action. You have ticks in all the right boxes.’ He should have been grinning, but he wasn’t. ‘Are you saying that you missed me?’
‘Of course I didn’t miss you!’ Of all the arrogant…‘I wasn’t even there.’
‘Really? And the sky didn’t fall in? Maybe I should revise those ticks.’
About to say that she wasn’t under any illusion about being indispensable, she realised that such an admission would play right into his hands. Last night she’d ignored the fact that he was a Farraday. This morning she’d all but forgotten.
‘I let Molly run the show. I had something more important to do.’
‘Well, I’m sure she enjoyed having the chance to spread her wings, show what she can do,’ he said, his arm at her back as he ushered her inside. ‘She’s bright and ambitious.’
‘She’s also married,’ Romana snapped back. And then, horrified at having exposed this previously untapped vein of jealousy, she rushed on, ‘If you do get the store, I’ll take her with me.’
‘You’re admitting the possibility? Things are looking up.’
‘I’m admitting nothing.’
‘No? Well, I’m not going to argue with you. But you have to face the fact that Molly might not want to follow you into the wilderness.’
‘You really think she’d work for you?’ she demanded, turning and standing her ground.
‘I might make her an offer she can’t refuse,’ he replied, shutting the door and backing her up the hall in the direction of the kitchen. ‘I bet she’d really like to be head of her own department. And with you there that’s never going to happen, is it? She’ll always be your number two.’
How many days had he been shadowing her? And already he knew more about her assistant than she did. Was she taking Molly’s loyalty for granted? Was she really that insensitive? She swallowed. ‘Maybe,’ she admitted.
‘For certain. You might be sentimental about the Claibourne management style, but I promise you no one else will be. They’ll all be too busy hanging onto their jobs. Come and tell me about your morning.’
‘My morning?’ She needed time to get used to what had happened that morning. ‘What about yours? Does Jordan know that you played hooky?’ she demanded.
‘Jordan doesn’t own me. Besides, I already know everything that matters about you.’ He reached out and took her hand to stop her from backing away from him, and kept walking until she had nowhere left to go.
‘Oh, really?’ She sounded a little nervous, he thought. Maybe she was right to be nervous. Her candy-pink mouth was a wicked temptation to any man.
And she still owed him. Last night had been personal. The kiss was something else. To be collected at his leisure. And as publicly as possible. A debt of honour.
‘And I asked first,’ he insisted. ‘You know where the kitchen is.’
‘Look, I came to say thank you. I’ve done that…’
‘Do it again,’ he said and, with his arm about her waist to ensure she couldn’t escape, he kissed her, just long enough to feel her resistance crumble. Then he stopped. A candy-pink mouth, baby-blue eyes and a neck that was beginning to haunt his dreams. He was beginning to fantasise about her neck. He stopped, waiting for the guilt to kick in. It didn’t. It was as if he’d thrown off some great weight. But he hadn’t. Romana had taken it from him. ‘You really shouldn’t have had your hair cut,’ he said. ‘I could have resisted you with that awful hair.’
‘Right,’ she said, briskly, ‘a little of that kind of compliment goes a long way. And now I’ve said everything I came to say—’
He tightened his hold on her waist. ‘The kitchen, Romana. You’re not going anywhere until you’ve told me all about your morning. Did you see her?’
On the point of asking Who? in the same defensive stance that she’d always used when asked about her mother, she stopped herself. She no longer needed to feel defensive and she had Niall to thank for that. Without him she would never have known the truth.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I saw her.’
‘And?’
‘We talked. She told me things.’ She took the bag from him. ‘This smells good. What is it?’
He let her go now that he knew she’d stay for a while. ‘Some mezze from a Lebanese restaurant on the other side of the market. Sit down and I’ll get some plates.’
‘No, really—I have to get back… We’ve got a fund-raising lunch tomorrow.’
‘Leave Molly to worry about it. The practice will be good for her. And you look tired.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It was a comment, Romana, not a criticism. You’d still turn heads if you were walking down the street.’
On the point of collapsing onto the sofa, she hesitated, then pulled out a wooden chair and sat at the table.
‘Just stay away from take-away coffee-cartons and you’ll be fine.’
‘You’re never going to forget that, are you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It was a life-changing moment. You never forget those.’
He’d been having rather a lot of them lately. That moment she’d invited him to enjoy the scent he’d bought her. The way she’d straightened his tie. Her skin beneath his hand when he’d stopped her from digging a deeper and deeper hole with her runaway mouth. The way she’d looked with wet cotton clinging to her breasts, how it had felt with her legs wrapped around him, her voice whimpering softly, begging for more…
‘Did you know who I was?’ she demanded. ‘When I got out of that taxi?’
‘No. I was expecting a sober-suited businesswoman with a lawyer in tow.’
‘Wait until June,’ she murmured.
‘Of course if you’d been laden with C&F carriers, instead of designer bags, I might have twigged. Not that I’m criticising the result,’ he assured her. ‘The dress was stunning.’
‘It was supposed to be understat
ed.’
Heaven help him if she ever chose to make an impact. ‘Try a sack next time,’ he advised, and changed the subject before the rush of heat got out of hand. Next time he wanted her in bed. He wanted her there when he woke up.
Thoughts like that didn’t help, so he fetched some plates and concentrated on their lunch. ‘Tell me about your mother,’ he pressed, pulling out the chair next to hers. Anything to stop thinking about the way she’d un-buttoned her shirt. Or the fact that he was close enough to reach out and unbutton the one she was wearing now. ‘How was it? Meeting her?’
‘We talked a lot. She said that my father lost interest in her within a year of their wedding.’
‘Not a man given to long-term commitment?’
‘No. I suppose we should be grateful that he stopped marrying his amours after number three,’ she said. ‘Apparently fidelity isn’t his strong point. She put up with his affairs for as long as she could because of me. Then she met James and discovered what love was all about.’
‘So why didn’t she take you with her?’
‘My grandmother apparently had her investigated when she married Daddy, and somehow found out that she’d had an affair with an older man before they met. A public figure. They’d met at a party and she’d been totally infatuated, pursued him relentlessly, and of course he’d been flattered.’
‘She was very lovely,’ he said. Her daughter had the same bone structure, the same generous mouth. He could have lived with the hair if he’d had to. Without it, he was lost.
‘And he was very lucky,’ she said. ‘His wife forgave him, the newspapers were too busy hounding some politician caught with his trousers down to get wind of it, and my mother retired from the scene—miserable, hurt, feeling rather stupid, very guilty at the damage she’d done and very conscious of how much worse it could have been.’
‘And your father picked up the pieces?’
‘I doubt he noticed how vulnerable she was. Just how lovely. They both got what they wanted from it for as long as it lasted. She said that Daddy didn’t make a fuss when she wanted out.’
‘But your grandmother wasn’t as kind?’
‘My grandmother didn’t care about my mother. She only cared about keeping custody of me. She threatened to send details of the affair to the newspapers unless she left me behind. The man involved is very special, Niall. He’d made one stupid mistake and my mother blamed herself entirely for that.’
‘A little harsh.’
‘Maybe. But she wasn’t prepared to ruin him.’
‘So she got her quickie divorce and a cash settlement to ease her pain, courtesy of Grandmama.’
‘The money was nothing to do with it, but that’s the way it looked. Everyone thought she took the money and ran. Compared with Daddy James wasn’t rich, but he certainly wasn’t a pauper. No one cared about that. The gossip was much more entertaining.’
‘She could have demanded access.’
‘No. That was the deal. Walk away. Don’t look back. And she felt it was her punishment. She’d been bad; she didn’t deserve me. She just hoped that one day I’d come and ask her why she’d done it, so that she could tell me everything. In the meantime she devoted herself to her husband and her family, worked hard for charitable causes.’
‘Living well in the hope of a day like today?’
‘There’s been so much wasted time, and without that magazine cutting I’d never have made the first move. And you crossed London in the middle of the night to bring it to me.’ She reached out, shyly touched his hand. ‘I’ll always be grateful.’
‘Last night you made me see how much time I’ve wasted. It made me think about the years that you and your mother had missed. I had this feeling…something at the back of my mind…maybe something my father once said… It doesn’t matter. I just thought I might find something if I looked in the cuttings.’ He covered her hand with his own. ‘It was that kind of night. Time to tidy up, put things in order, say goodbye. I have you to thank for making me face it.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘You’ll get your reward.’
‘Niall, I don’t want…’ She was lying. She wanted him so much that it hurt. ‘This isn’t anything to do with Claibourne & Farraday.’
‘I know. That’s something else entirely.’ Then, ‘It wasn’t the middle of the night, though. It was dawn before I put that envelope through your door. I considered knocking, waking you up and inviting myself in for breakfast.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Because it hadn’t been breakfast he wanted. Because it had been too soon, too complicated. Because he had fences to mend before they could ever share breakfast. He didn’t tell her that. Instead he said, ‘Look in a mirror. Anyone with half an eye can see you need all the beauty sleep you can get.’
‘Yeah, right. And I’m dying of hunger too. Are we going to get lunch, or what?’ He shared his lunch between two plates. ‘What is this?’
‘Tabbouleh, humous, stuffed vine leaves, grilled vegetables,’ he said, pointing to each in turn with his fork. Then he scooped up some stuff and offered it to her. ‘Try this. It’s called Imam beyeldi…“the Imam fainted”…’ She tried it. ‘Good?’
‘Very good. Though whether I’d faint…’ She waggled her hand back and forth to indicate that it was in doubt.
He tore a pitta bread in two and handed half to her. ‘He apparently fainted over the cost of the olive oil involved in making it.’
‘Oh, well, a man after your own heart, then,’ she said. And immediately wished she hadn’t. But he smiled, apparently taking it as the joke she had meant it to be. For a while they ate in companionable silence. Then Romana said, ‘You haven’t told me about your morning.’ She reached out, touched the streak of paint on the back of his hand. ‘You’ve been painting?’
‘The ceiling in the drawing room upstairs. It’s stupid, really, I can’t possibly do it all. It’s a gesture. A commitment.’
‘To what?’
‘To the future. To moving on. You said I should get out of here and I thought perhaps you might be right.’
‘A first, then.’
‘You talked a lot of sense last night and I did think about it. Seriously. I considered a Docklands apartment—all pale wood and brushed-steel minimalist. Or a mews cottage in Chelsea. Somewhere just to please myself, without the burden of history to live up to. The trouble was I couldn’t see myself in any of them. For years I’ve camped out here, refusing to make it into a proper home because Louise isn’t here to share it. But in spite of my neglect it is my home, and it’s where I want to stay.’
‘With the ghosts?’
‘There are no ghosts here, Romana. Only me.’
‘You and the very latest thing in eighteenth-century interior decoration.’
‘No. I meant it about moving on. I thought I’d keep to the spirit of the age, though. Pale yellow with hand-painted ivy swags?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll get a couple of students from the local art college in and let them loose.’
‘It sounds charming,’ she said, picturing the room drenched in sunlight rather than lurking in shadow. ‘You’ll keep the painted panelling in the hall, though?’
‘You like it?’
‘Does it matter what I like?’
‘You like it?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, I like it.’
‘Then it stays.’
‘Great.’ Romana had the disconcerting feeling that something had just happened and she’d missed it. ‘Well, I really do have to be going.’
‘I hoped you might volunteer to stay and help with the decorating.’
‘Really?’ It was hard to keep her racketing heart from running away with her mouth when staying and spending the day with him was such an appealing idea. But this was something he had to do on his own. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘For fun?’
‘When I want fun,’ she replied, ‘I’ll go shopping. I’ll ask our interior design team to come and give you a quo
te, if you like. The whole works. Heating, plumbing, decoration.’
‘I’d get a better rate if I waited until we take over.’
‘Get real, Niall. It isn’t going to happen. Beneath that stern exterior you’re pure mush. You wouldn’t take the store away from me.’
‘Wouldn’t I? And even if that were true, there’s still Bram and Jordan. They’re about as mushy as concrete.’
‘They have to shadow Flora and India,’ she countered. ‘Ice and steel respectively,’ she assured him. ‘But thanks for lunch; it was a treat.’
‘We’re getting better at it,’ he said. She looked up. ‘The food thing. Maybe we could risk a restaurant next time?’
‘Don’t let’s get ambitious.’
‘You want to take it in easy stages? Okay, I’ll give the formal lunch a miss tomorrow—’ No! That wasn’t what she wanted to hear! ‘I’ve got some stuff I have to clear up. Let’s see how we manage at the ball on Saturday night. Who knows? We might even manage dessert.’
‘Buffets are tricky things. The scope for disaster is legion.’
‘I’m prepared to take the risk,’ he said. ‘If you are.’
His eyes seemed to be saying a lot more than the words. Romana swallowed. ‘You’re still coming to the charity ball, then? I thought you said you’d learned everything there was to know about me.’
‘I lied. I have no idea if you can dance. Save something slow for me.’
‘You dance?’
‘That might be an exaggeration. I need someone to hold on to.’
‘Niall…’ He waited. ‘Nothing. I’ll make sure Molly’s got you on the seating plan, shadow-man.’
‘Don’t forget that a shadow has to be…’ he reached out and brushed his fingers against her throat ‘…touching close.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
