Wildfire
Page 58
She continued to frown. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’ she said. ‘A great risk.’
‘What I said’, he told her, ‘is that I’d put every cent I owned behind you.’
‘And of course the man had read his newspapers and knew you were biased,’ she said, her hands on her hips.
‘He may have thought that,’ Max conceded with a shrug, ‘but why ask me if he already knew what I was going to say?’
Rhiannon was still eyeing him warily. ‘I’ll get back to you on that one,’ she said.
‘I’ll keep the line free,’ he told her, ‘but if you’re thinking I’m anything to do with the consortium that’s starting up this channel you’re wrong. The first I heard of it was when I got a call from Hans Sverhardt, the Swiss banker who’s putting up some of the money.’
Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed.
‘I swear I’ve got nothing to do with it,’ Max cried, holding up his hands in innocence. ‘I just got asked for a reference.’
‘It’s OK, I believe you,’ she said.
‘So why are you looking at me that way?’
‘Because’, she said, sitting on his lap and putting her arms around him, ‘I’ve never met anyone more able to control my career, yet more at pains not to – even though it would make his life a whole lot easier if he did.’
He laughed. ‘Ah, but only in the short term,’ he said, before kissing her very intimately for a very long time. ‘And I want you long term, Rhiannon,’ he said. ‘Very long term. So the decisions have to be yours as well as mine.’
Rhiannon’s eyes were on his and so full of love it made him laugh. ‘I was thinking,’ she said, looking at his lips, ‘there might be a way . . .’ She stopped, as taking her by the shoulders he pushed her back to take a good clear look at her.
‘You’ve been thinking about us?’ he said with a mock incredulity that she quickly realized wasn’t quite so mock. ‘Are you telling me you might have a solution as to how we can spend our lives together?’
Rhiannon looked at him, knowing that there was more to this yet not sure what or how.
He laughed. ‘I wasn’t in touch for a while,’ he said, ‘because I hoped it would concentrate both our minds on finding a solution. I’ve come up with one, I just hope to God it’s the same as yours.’
Rhiannon started to grin. ‘You first,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘No, you first. It has to be you, because if I’m wrong about this I don’t want to have to own up to everything I’ve done towards making it happen.’
‘Oh God, Max,’ she laughed. ‘I love you so much.’
‘I know that,’ he said, holding her off as she tried to hug him. ‘Will you just tell me what you want.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘New York. I want to live in New York.’
His eyes closed and his head fell back against the chair. ‘Thank God for that,’ he murmured.
‘What?’ she laughed. ‘You knew I was going to say New York?’
‘Let’s just say I hoped you would,’ he confessed.
‘You’re amazing,’ she said, shaking her head and laughing.
‘Yeah, I guess so,’ he agreed. ‘So, you reckon New York will work for you?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she answered. ‘I did as you said, I got on with my life, didn’t put anything on hold for you, but I have made myself reasonably dispensable here in London and if I take the satellite job, New York will be an obvious base. Plus, I’d enjoy the challenge. Now, what about you? Will it work for you too?’
‘Sure it’ll work for me.’
‘What about the children?’
‘I think it’ll work for them too. I’ve sold the house where everything happened and Marina’s been helping get a whole lot of other houses lined up ready for you to look at. That’s why I wasn’t in touch, because I couldn’t trust myself not to tell you and the last thing I wanted was for you to think I was pushing you. So that’s why I say thank God you said New York, because I’ve spent the last three weeks . . . I’m going to start repeating myself here and I don’t think we’ve got time for it.’
‘I’ve got all the time in the world for this,’ Rhiannon told him happily.
Laughing, he put his fingers under her chin and brought her mouth to his.
‘Oh God,’ she groaned, her head falling back as he let her go. ‘It’s all too perfect. Something’s going to go wrong. If not today, then next week, next month, next year.’
‘That’s what I like, a woman who looks on the bright side,’ he commented. ‘It really works for me, that.’
‘I’m serious,’ she cried. ‘Something will go wrong, because something always does.’
‘Then we’ll work our way through it,’ he replied.
‘I wish we could just stop the world and stay exactly as we are now,’ she sighed.
‘But I promised George we’d be at the party,’ he said.
Rhiannon’s smile fled. ‘Who?’
‘George. Your father,’ he answered.
Rhiannon stared at him in disbelief. ‘George? My father?’ she repeated.
‘Now don’t get mad,’ he said, already pinning her arms to her sides, ‘but you’ve got to understand, I’ve never asked anyone to marry me before, which I know sounds strange coming from someone who’s been married twice already, but it’s a fact. So I thought, as this was the first time, I’d do it the right way. Well, the old-fashioned way is I guess how you’d describe it.’
‘Oh God, I don’t believe this,’ Rhiannon groaned. ‘Please tell me this is a nightmare. You’ve met him, haven’t you?’
He nodded and just the look on his face caused Rhiannon’s embarrassment to start at her toes. ‘I met him just before I came here,’ he said.
Rhiannon didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense any longer,’ she said, steeling herself.
Max’s eyes were alive with laughter. ‘He took a while to think about it,’ he said, ‘then he told me that I had his blessing on the proviso that: I didn’t run off with another woman a week before the wedding; that I didn’t show up with any butt-ugly fiancées the week after the wedding, and that I was prepared to spend my honeymoon night with you and no one else.’
‘No, please, tell me he didn’t say that,’ Rhiannon begged, hiding her face. ‘Actually, he’s not my father. I found him . . .’
‘That’s what he said,’ Max confirmed, cutting her off. ‘And there was one other proviso,’ he added.
‘I don’t know if I can bear this,’ Rhiannon muttered.
‘He wants us to go on a trip down the Nile with him.’
Rhiannon’s face was back in her hands. ‘Don’t tell me you said yes,’ she implored. ‘Please don’t tell me you said yes.’
Max lifted her face. ‘Well someone’s got to say yes to something,’ he said, ‘and I haven’t heard one from you yet.’
‘Yes,’ she said instantly. ‘Yes to everything. What’s the question?’
‘The question is . . .’
‘Shouldn’t you be down on one knee?’ she interrupted.
‘Don’t push it,’ he warned.
‘Can we go back to Paris for this?’ she asked.
‘Sure we can. What about the party?’
She was on the point of saying that they didn’t need to go, when she realized that if they didn’t they were going to miss out on the big entrance she was so looking forward to.
‘I can see tomorrow’s headlines already,’ she whispered to him an hour later as a murmur of surprise spread through the crowd and a panoply of flash bulbs popped all around them, ‘Max and Rhiannon Get In Focus.’
‘Paris is a great idea,’ he responded, making her laugh, and shaking Andy by the hand as Lizzy embraced Rhiannon, he added, ‘I think we’re in very grave danger of upstaging your show.’
‘You haven’t met Sharon yet,’ Rhiannon told him and winking at Lizzy, she turned her face up to his and laughed as the cameras went wild trying to capture the kiss.
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Susan Lewis has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in Great Britain in 1997 by William Heinemann First published in paperback in 1997 by Mandarin Paperbacks
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