Tell Me You Do

by Fiona Harper

  Kelly was different with her kids around. He’d seen a softer side to her, one that she usually hid. And she was amazing with Ben and Cal. They’d got frustrated at not being able to hit the ball at first but, instead of losing patience with them—as his own father had—and telling them to stop whining and just suck it up, she’d encouraged them. She’d reminded them it was only their first time and just how hard they’d found it to kick a football far when they’d first started. He also liked that she hadn’t given them false praise. She’d agreed they weren’t superstars but she also hadn’t pretended their frustration didn’t matter.

  She loved them the same way she did everything else, he realised, with openness and honesty, and that was a rare thing. He’d thought her guarded and prickly, but maybe she needed to be because it was obvious to anyone with eyes that when Kelly gave herself, she gave herself completely. Those boys were lucky. They were going to grow up feeling secure with their place in the world because of the gift she gave them every day. So many kids weren’t that blessed.

  There were cheers when she took her turn to bat. She’d only been at Aspire a few months, but she was already a popular member of staff. He’d have to talk to Julie about her future with the company. They’d be all the poorer if they lost her to someone else after the temp contract came to an end.

  The bowler narrowed his eyes and focused on the slim, long-limbed woman brandishing the bat. He swung and released the ball. A split second later it cracked against the wood and shot off to the right, sending the fielders running. Kelly threw the bat behind her and sprinted off round the pitch. Their team went wild, yelling and whooping and cheering her on. Jason joined them, and when she shot past fourth base and into the arms of a squealing bunch of women, he had to concentrate on rooting himself to the spot so he didn’t plough through them, peel them off her and do the same.

  Something began to buzz in the pit of his stomach. Something warm and tingly that he hadn’t experienced before. It worried him slightly. Enough to stop him following through on his urge, anyway.

  She joined the end of the line, right behind him. He held up a palm for a high five and she grimaced before smacking it.

  ‘You hit that ball like you meant it,’ he told her.

  ‘I did,’ she said, grinning just a little too widely for comfort. A nasty thought sneaked up on him.

  ‘It wasn’t my head you were visualising hitting, was it?’

  She laughed. ‘No … That honour was reserved for my ex,’ she admitted, then frowned as she scanned the crowd.

  ‘Problem?’ he asked her.

  She shook her head. ‘No, just looking for someone. Inspiration for hit number two.’

  Jason stopped grinning. ‘He’s not here.’

  She stopped searching the crowd and searched his face instead. ‘Who?’

  ‘Payne.’

  Her mouth dropped open, just a little.

  ‘I fired him a couple of weeks ago,’ he said.

  She pressed a palm to her chest. ‘Because of me?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because of a lot of things but, yes, your complaint was part of it.’ And then, because she was looking at him all wide-eyed and soft, because he was worried he liked her looking at him as if he was some knight in shining armour, he forced himself to shrug it off. ‘Darn your civilised employment laws. If I’d had my way, I’d have creamed the guy months ago, not jumped through hoop after hoop to get rid of him.’

  But the implication of violence on his part didn’t seem to put her off any. If anything, she was softening further under his gaze.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  He looked away. ‘No problem. I did it for Aspire. We don’t need jerks like him on our team.’

  Liar, a little voice inside his head whispered. You know why you really did it. And you know why you really wanted to beat the loser into a pulp.

  Jason ignored the voice. Instead he turned and focused on the rest of the game, cheering the other players on and feeling slightly relieved when he and Kelly ended up at far ends of the grassy expanse when it was time to field. This wasn’t the time to change his game plan and get serious about a woman. And this was not the woman to get serious with. She didn’t want a guy like him in her life. Strangely, he couldn’t help but think she was right.

  When the game finished, Secretaries and Stuff coming in a respectable third, they made their way back to Kelly’s picnic blanket. He had to, so he could collect his mother’s idea of an informal lunch.

  Kelly called the boys over, who’d been losing a wrestling bout with Sarah’s three daughters, and she started to pack her things away.

  ‘Are you going home?’

  She nodded. ‘Not only are the boys worn out, but it’s a long trip home. I know this isn’t far from the offices, but I have quite a long commute.’

  As if on cue, Cal yawned. Kelly smiled at him, then bent to kiss the top of his head. ‘If we don’t set off now we’ll be really late home for tea, and you don’t want to know just how grouchy my little dinosaurs get when they’re hungry.’

  Ben looked up at her. ‘Mum? Can’t Jason come home with us for tea?’

  Kelly stopped what she was doing and stood up. It was a couple of moments before she met Jason’s eyes. ‘Would you? Like to come back for something to eat? It’s the least I could do after the help you’ve been this afternoon.’

  Normally Jason would have sprinted away as fast as the famous Dale McGrath at such an invitation, but he discovered he wanted to say yes. ‘I could drive,’ he found himself saying, ‘save you the Tube journey.’

  She just looked at him. Not the normal, half-suspicious surveillance, but an open and unguarded look, as if she was trying to see inside his head and read what was there. And he let her. He let her see because, for once in his life, he couldn’t be bothered to find an angle to play. Whatever she saw, it surprised her, because her eyes widened just a fraction, but she still didn’t look away.

  The sounds of the park faded. All Jason was aware of was a pair of big grey-green eyes staring back at him, the dark lashes framing them, the rise and fall of her ribcage in time with his own.

  Suddenly he understood that what they were considering would mean crossing a line. Not just between professional and private, office and home, but something deeper, something less easily defined and much more dangerous.

  It was Kelly who broke away first. She looked away across the park, then back at him. ‘Tell me one thing, Jason.’

  He swallowed. The mood had gotten very serious and he had a feeling that whatever she was about to ask was very important.

  His throat felt tight when he answered. ‘Sure. Fire away.’ ‘Do you own a set of golf clubs?’

  He blinked. That was the all-important question? He almost laughed it off, but she was looking at him intently, waiting for his answer.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  She considered that for a moment. ‘And where do you keep them?’

  He frowned and opened up his mouth to ask where the heck this line of interrogation was going but she held up a hand.

  ‘Just humour me, will you?’

  Jason shrugged. It wasn’t top-secret information. ‘At the moment, they’re gathering dust in my hall closet,’ he told her and paused for a moment, calculating just how long they’d been there. ‘I really should get back to golf some time soon …

  Kelly nodded, more to herself than to him, and hitched the cool bag higher on her shoulder. ‘Actually, I’m exhausted too. I’ll probably just resort to beans on toast when we get in …’ She shrugged. ‘But maybe another time?’

  He nodded because he was supposed to. ‘Sure.’

  She held out a hand for each boy. ‘Come on, you two.’

  They paused as their gazes snagged again and silent communication zapped between them. He nodded. ‘See you Monday.’

  She tried a smile that didn’t quite fit. ‘Monday,’ she repeated, and then she turned and walked away without looking back.

  Jason let out
a sigh then looked at the sky. He’d always said she was a smart lady, and she’d just proved him right again, had saved them both from something that would only have gotten messy and complicated. He understood. Hell, he even agreed.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t stop thinking about her as he offloaded the rest of his mother’s fancy picnic on his employees. And that didn’t mean that when he set off for his car, empty hamper swinging from his hand, he didn’t think of his riverside apartment and how large and empty it would feel when he stepped inside it that evening.

  Kelly walked into Jason’s office on Monday morning with her blouse and skirt pressed to perfection and her chin lifted high. Back to normal. Fantastic.

  But as she got closer to the desk she realised that, even though Jason was wearing a suit, she could still see the man with the soft blue jeans and sun lighting up his dark hair. She could still see the man who’d pretended to be a dinosaur so a little boy would eat his lunch.

  The word that echoed round her head was not one she’d have wanted her kids repeating.

  She stretched her smile wide as he looked up. He seemed slightly taken aback, as if her unusually bright grin was blinding him a little, but he smiled back. A half sort of smile, not a full-on Jason sort of smile.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head. ‘Nothing. In fact, everything is going great. I have the contract for the endorsement deal in front of me. One signature and Miles Benson, supreme decathlon champion, is ours.’

  He stared at the bit of paper and his pen stayed where it was on the desk, lying perfectly perpendicular to the top of the contract.

  ‘So why don’t you sign it?’

  Jason looked up at her, a slight frown crinkling his forehead. ‘I will. I just … It feels like it should be a moment, and this doesn’t feel like a moment.’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘Don’t you think it should be …?’

  She gave him a wry look. ‘A moment?’

  Jason shook his head and looked away. Kelly studied him. For a man who sometimes had more bounce than an excited Labrador, he was awfully still and quiet this morning.

  She walked over to the bookcase and picked up the picture of Jason with his father and brother. She’d seen the photo a hundred times, but suddenly she sensed something in the body language, in just the feel of the image that she hadn’t noticed before. After placing it back on the shelf, she turned to Jason. ‘He’s the favourite, isn’t he?’ she said, nodding back at the picture.

  Jason didn’t look at it. ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘But he deserves to be.’

  ‘No parent should pick and choose. I love both my boys the same, even if they’re very different.’

  Jason shrugged. ‘Families like mine can’t help themselves. It’s all about being the best, having the most. They can’t just switch it off when the kids come along.’

  She shook her head. A family didn’t have to be rich and powerful to have favourites. Just look at her father! He’d adored his two strapping lads, but hadn’t known quite what to do when a little girl had unexpectedly joined their family. She’d had to be twice as much of a boy as Dan and Jonathan to keep up, and even then there had never quite been the same glow of pride in their father’s eye for her as there had been for her brothers.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean you have to accept it,’ she told him. ‘That doesn’t mean it’s right. You have to fight it! ’

  ‘No point,’ Jason said, shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t matter what I do now. Brad’s already won. He’s triumphed through the adversity I caused. He’s got the gold medal that I’ll never have. No one can compete with that.’

  ‘But you still try,’ she said quietly, because that was what the shoes were about really. Suddenly it all made sense.

  Jason huffed and stood up to look out of the window across the London skyline. ‘For all the good it does.’

  ‘Don’t you dare give up!’ She shocked herself at the vehemence of her outburst. ‘Those shoes are good and you know they are.’

  Jason turned round and leaned against the window. ‘I know that.’

  She walked over to stand next to him, nodded over her shoulder at the paperwork on his desk. ‘So sign …’

  Jason just heaved in a breath and let it out again.

  ‘You don’t want to.’

  He turned and looked at her, the truth as evident in his eyes as the crumbs on Cal’s shirt after he’d raided the biscuit tin.

  ‘As good as Benson is, you don’t want him, do you? You still want McGrath.’

  He exhaled heavily. ‘I can’t envision the whole thing without him. He’s the best. And with him on board, people would have to take notice.’

  Jason might have said people, but Kelly heard the silent word behind it. My father would have to take notice… .

  She recognised this for what it was: defeat mixed in with an unhealthy dollop of self-pity. Kelly didn’t like self-pity. It sucked the life out of a person. She should know. She’d almost succumbed to it when the cancer diagnosis had come and Tim had left. But then she’d got angry. Fighting angry. And that fight had got her through.

  She took a deep breath. By saying what she was going to say next she might just find a boot in her backside and security officers to escort her to the front door, but she was going to be doing Jason a favour. He needed the same kind of medicine she’d had, and she was going to make him take it.

  She put her hands on her hips and stared him down. ‘You’re a coward,’ she said. ‘You’re too scared to go after what you really want, and you’re letting Mercury down by settling for second best. And if your heart’s not in it, Mercury will flop and you’ll prove to them—to everyone, including your father—that you aren’t up to it.’

  His eyes narrowed as he looked back at her and—whoomph!—it was like a pilot light had ignited a boiler behind them. Kelly fought back a smile.

  ‘I didn’t give up and I didn’t settle for second best,’ he said with a clenched jaw. ‘I put everything into that promotional package, but McGrath wouldn’t listen.’ His voice rose in volume as he reached the end of his speech and Kelly knew her plan was working.

  ‘Then tear up this contract and go after what you want. Care enough to take a risk rather than going for the easy option!’ she yelled back at him. ‘Make McGrath listen!’

  Jason just stared at her, looking as if he’d like to set her alight.

  ‘I researched him,’ she said, ‘after he knocked us back.’

  Jason shook his head. ‘You don’t think I did that before I jumped into this? I know everything about the man—what his kids are called, what subjects he studied at school, even his dog’s name! None of it helped.’

  Kelly walked back to Jason’s desk and rested her backside on the edge of it, folding her arms. ‘The presentation was cool, it was fun, it was everything you wanted it to be but, at the end of the day, it was all smoke and mirrors, and that’s not what McGrath responds to.’

  He gave her a disbelieving look.

  ‘Think about it! You know what a lot of sprinters are like—they swagger, pose for the cameras, show how cool they are before a race. Does McGrath do any of that?’

  Jason blinked, and then after a few seconds he shook his head. ‘I thought the video rocked,’ he said, just a little defensively.

  ‘It did!’ Kelly replied, excitement making her pitch rise. ‘But I think you need to save all that slickness for the ad campaign. McGrath is a cool customer. He’s serious about running. He doesn’t even pretend it’s no big deal like the rest of them do. I think he wants a serious shoe—and that’s not what we showed him.’

  Jason frowned. ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘You and I know that Mercury is a serious shoe. Maybe we don’t need all that glitz and hype. That’s what people do to dress something up when it’s not very good. And I know that you believe in this product. I see it in the way you talk about it, how dedicated you are to it. You made me believe in Mercury and I think you can
do the same for Dale McGrath.’

  The fire in Jason’s eyes solidified into determination. ‘Okay, I’m biting. But isn’t this shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?’

  Kelly smiled. ‘You’re a pretty persistent kind of guy, you know. I reckon if you transferred some of that energy into courting McGrath instead of chasing the female population of London around, you’d have a pretty good chance. What you need to do is get McGrath to talk to you face to face—solo—without all the glossy brochures and the spinning logos. I reckon you’d have him sold in under an hour.’

  Jason’s stern expression melted. ‘Thank you,’ he said, looking straight into her eyes, ‘for giving it to me straight.’

  Kelly felt her cheeks heat and she looked away. ‘Just trying to protect my own backside,’ she mumbled. ‘I need this job.’

  He walked back over to his desk, dropped into his chair and fired up his laptop. ‘He’s not due back in London for months.’

  Kelly shook her head. Men! They were always so literal.

  ‘Then don’t see him in London,’ she said softly. ‘Go to New York and see him there.’

  He froze. She knew the idea had just slammed into his brain and he was taking time to process it. And when she saw him nod, she could tell he knew it made sense.

  ‘Okay … I will,’ he said, and then he looked up at her. Right into her, it seemed. ‘But on one condition.’

  One corner of Jason’s mouth hitched and she got caught up in looking at it. ‘And what’s that?’ she asked, her voice shaky. For some reason she was having a severe and extremely lucid flashback of that kiss outside the Tube station, remembering how good that mouth had felt against her lips.

  ‘You come with me,’ he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘GO, FOR GOODNESS’ sake!’ Chloe said and pushed Ben high on the swing.

  Kelly squinted at her in the low sun. There’d been just enough time to get a trip to the park in before bedtime. She sighed. Thank goodness for long summer evenings. Sometimes, despite all the mayhem her boys caused, she longed for those days when she’d been a stay-at-home mum and hadn’t had to snatch time with them at odd hours of the day. The rest of the park was practically deserted, most of the other kids having visited after school before they went home for dinner.