Makeshift Marriage

by Marjorie Lewty

  Makeshift Marriage

  By

  Marjorie Lewty

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  MAKESHIFT MARRIAGE

  Blake Morden relied on his secretary Maggie Webster for everything—except the one thing she wanted him to rely on her for. He would never love her, as she had loved him for so long. But then his fiancée jilted him and, on the rebound, he asked Maggie to marry him…

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  First published 1982

  Australian copyright 1982

  Philippine copyright 1982

  This edition 1982

  © Marjorie Lewty 1982

  ISBN 0 263 73969 4

  CHAPTER ONE

  The intercom on Maggie Webster's desk buzzed. She flicked down the lever. 'Yes, J.M.?'

  The Chairman's gruff voice said, 'Maggie? Ask my son to come along to my office, will you? I want a word with him about the Hong Kong contracts.'

  Maggie's stomach tightened. Here we go again, she thought despondently. Another cover-up on Blake's behalf. She should be getting used to it by now, but it still hurt. 'I'm afraid Blake isn't back from lunch yet, J.M. I'm expecting him any time.'

  She glanced up at the clock on the wall of the large, well-appointed office. Ten past three. She supposed that when a man was in the process of getting himself engaged to be married to the gorgeous girl of his choice you could hardly expect him to be back promptly from lunch. But it wasn't her job to tell his father where he was, or what he was doing. Blake himself must have the unenviable job of breaking the news that he was going to marry Fiona Deering.

  Maggie would definitely not like to be there when he did it, for she was pretty sure that John Morden, Chairman of Morden Constructions International, and a man with a formidable temper, would go through the roof when he heard.

  Maggie herself wouldn't exactly go through the roof. Her own feelings were all part of the elaborate cover-up too. She was Blake Morden's efficient and valued personal assistant—the girl he relied on for pretty well everything, except the one thing she wanted him to rely on her for. But that particular hope—always remote— was rapidly passing into history, and would have passed completely when he married Fiona Deering.

  The Chairman was barking into the intercom now, and the instrument almost rattled on Maggie's desk. 'Not back from lunch? It's after three, where the hell's he got to?'

  Maggie smothered a groan. Oh lord, he was in a bad mood; that wasn't going to add any joy to the proceedings. 'I don't know, J.M.,' she said in her low, pretty voice. Everyone admired Maggie's voice and now she made it as soothing as she could. 'I wasn't here when he went out. He left a note on my desk saying he had an important luncheon engagement and might be late back.'

  'Oh well, send him along the minute he gets in, will you, Maggie?'

  'Yes, I'll tell him, J.M.'

  She sat back in her swivel chair. Her desk was loaded with work. All the details of the Hong Kong contract were beginning to come together now, but she gazed at them unseeingly. She would start again in a minute or two; she would do her very best to keep on top of her job until the moment that Blake left for Hong Kong to take on the huge building contract that was his first important solo effort for the Corporation. After that she would bow out as his assistant and he would be on his own—or rather he would have to find himself another assistant, probably when he got to Hong Kong, for he didn't seem to have anyone in mind here in the U.K.

  He had been horrified, yesterday, when she told him she wasn't coming with him. Until that moment he had taken it for granted that she would come, just as he had taken her for granted in the two years she had worked with him. 'Not come? Maggie, you can't do that to me! How can I possibly tackle this job without you? You're my—my—'

  'Right hand?' she had smiled calmly. She had trained herself always to be calm when she was with Blake because if she hadn't it would have been impossible to go on working with him, seeing him every day, suffering the agony of loving him without any of the ecstasy.

  He had stared unbelievingly at her, his eyes fixed on her neat, placid face in dismay, and tried to persuade her to change her mind. But of course she wouldn't. Nothing would induce her to work with Blake once he was married to Fiona Deering, only of course she hadn't given that as her reason.

  She knew his disappointment was genuine. They worked so well together. They could talk in a kind of conversational shorthand and he relied on her for so much of the detail work, she knew that. Two halves of the same team, that's what they were, he told her.

  Well, not exactly halves, she knew. Blake Morden had come down from Cambridge nine years ago at the age of twenty-three with an impressive First in engineering, whereas Maggie herself had a lowly Second from London University. So it was more like three-quarters and one-quarter. But she knew he valued her work because he had told her so, often.

  'You amaze me, Maggie,' he had said. 'In spite of women's equality and all that, somehow you don't expect a pretty girl to be a first-rate civil engineer.'

  Pretty, he had said! She felt a little thrill pass through her. Did a nice figure and a clear skin, light brown hair that curled naturally, dark brown eyes and a rather too wide mouth—did that add up to prettiness? She'd never thought so herself, but Blake had said she was pretty and it did wonders for her self-image.

  That was when she had first started to work for him, and just about the time she found herself falling in love with him. She would lie in bed at night in her small flat near Regent's Park, summoning up a picture of him— the lean, rangy body; the keen grey eyes flecked with green that could flash with amusement or harden into crushing contempt over some business associate whom he considered unscrupulous or disloyal; the dominant, stubborn chin and sculptured mouth with the undoubtedly sensual lower lip; the thick dark brown hair that curled just slightly into his neck; the way he walked, with an arrogant spring in his step—a man who knew where he was going in life and was determined to arrive.

  She could see him so plainly behind her closed eyes. And he thinks I'm pretty, she told herself over and over again, savouring the word. Well, that was a start. Perhaps it was the begin
ning of some more—more personal relationship. She would snuggle deeper into the bed, her body growing warm and languorous as she let her imagination wander over intimacies that she hadn't, as yet, shared with any man.

  But that was at first, before she had come to take for granted the ceaseless flow of gorgeous girls who had breathed huskily down the phone, 'Will you put me on to Blake, he's expecting a call from me?'

  They came to the office and draped themselves languidly over the corner of Maggie's desk, hopefully expecting to be admitted to the inner sanctum—which they seldom were. They waited below in the car park, swathed in furs, or snappy little summer outfits, sitting at the wheel of racy little sports cars. They telephoned incessantly.

  And the worst of it was that Blake relied on Maggie to deal with them. 'Tell her I'm busy all day—be a pal, Maggie, get rid of her, for God's sake,' he would plead impatiently. But the satisfaction would be spoiled for Maggie when he added, 'Say I'll meet her at the usual place tonight.'

  He never let his gorgeous girl-friends interfere with his business life, and if they showed signs of being too possessive they were apt to fade out of the picture fairly promptly, Maggie had noticed.

  Some day, she told herself, he'll get tired of all the marshmallow froth, and then he might turn to a girl who had something different to offer. Something more enduring. Herself, for instance. The closeness and understanding between them seemed to her so important and unique and precious that it was almost unbelievable that eventually, when he had finished playing around, Blake wouldn't want to make it permanent. Was it just wishful thinking on her part? she agonised. Could liking ever turn into loving? She just didn't know.

  Meanwhile the procession of gorgeous girls went on, and each time an affair came to an end Blake would say casually to Maggie, taking her interest for granted as one friend to another, 'We're all washed up, I'm afraid,'—referring to Clare, or Sylvia, or Judy. And Maggie would breathe again and enjoy a brief respite from fear until the next one appeared on the horizon.

  Then, a month ago, Fiona Deering came along, and this time it was different. Maggie sensed it at once, from the bemused look in Blake's eyes, from the way he sat twiddling his pencil, staring out of the window at the London traffic below, from the lengthy telephone calls and the even lengthier lunch-hours, and the relief with which he began to put his papers together earlier and earlier in the evening. Blake, for whom no business day had ever been too long!

  Maggie felt a chill begin to settle round her heart. She told herself that this girl was no different from all the other good-time girls, but she couldn't quite believe it.

  Then came the black, bitter day when he said, 'Fiona's the one, Maggie, the one and only for me. I want you two to meet and you'll see what I mean,' and Maggie had put a smile on her stiff lips and said, 'Yes, I'd like to meet her,' and felt the cold creeping into the very marrow of her bones.

  They had met. Somehow Maggie had managed to steel herself to accept Blake's invitation to dinner at his penthouse flat near London Bridge, overlooking the river. That night he was in euphoric mood. 'My two best girls!' He had thrown an arm round each of them. 'You two have simply got to like each other, because I can't get along without both of you in my life. I'm greedy that way.'

  It was an agonising evening for Maggie. She had to admit, in all honesty, that Fiona was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. A body that somehow managed to be both slender and voluptuous at one and the same time, curving temptingly out of the scanty black velvet dress she was wearing. A fall of silky hair the colour of moonlight, which she had a habit of tossing away from an exquisite small face, in the manner of the TV commercials. Not surprising, really, for she was, Blake had said proudly, a top photographic model. Yes, she had all the tricks, Maggie thought sourly, watching the tip of a pink tongue passing over dewy lips that parted slightly in invitation when she gazed up at Blake. She was so crashingly obvious that Maggie kept half expecting to meet Blake's eyes in a shared secret amusement, as had so often happened in the past when one of his girl-friends behaved in a particularly blatant fashion. But this time he was lapping it up. Couldn't he see the kind of girl she was? Could a man so brilliant at his job be so idiotic about a girl? The answer was clearly: Yes.

  The dinner was probably superb, but Maggie wasn't aware of what she was eating. Blake was going out of his way to be pleasant to her so that she wouldn't feel left out, she knew that. But even while he was joking with her, his eyes could hardly bear to leave Fiona's lovely face, and his hands kept straying towards hers across the table.

  After the meal they sat in the luxurious sitting room, Maggie in one chair, Fiona and Blake close together on a deep sofa. Fiona dispensed coffee and was sweet as saccharine to Maggie, asking questions about her work, expressing admiration and amazement that a girl could be so clever at a job that was—well, not exactly feminine, was it? 'Oh dear, that sounds beastly, but I don't mean it like that.' She leaned forward and squeezed Maggie's hands, looking down at the scrupulously-kept, squarish fingernails, devoid of lacquer, and then, complacently, at her own gleaming, mother-of-pearl talons.

  'Isn't Maggie simply marvellous?' she appealed to Blake, voicing an admiration that sounded prettily sincere. 'I don't know how she manages it. The right kind of brains, I suppose. Darling,' she sighed, 'don't you find me terribly stupid after working with Maggie all this time?'

  Blake had laughed and put his hand on her smooth white shoulder. 'Your talents lie on other directions, my sweet,' he had told her, and the look that spelled out what those other directions were made Maggie wince and say she really must be going, she had some work to catch up on at home.

  Blake rang for a taxi, paid the driver, and leaned in briefly at the window. 'Well, what do you think, Maggie? I'm right, aren't I? Fiona's the one.'

  Maggie's face was stiff, her throat dry as dust. 'She's very beautiful, Blake, and you're very lucky,' she managed to croak, before the taxi drove away.

  There followed several weeks when Blake was almost impossible to work with. He was obsessed with Fiona, but he wasn't sure of her. There was, it seemed, a racing-driver called Pietro Mattioli, and Fiona was having a wonderful time playing the two men off against each other.

  Blake took to wandering round to Maggie's flat in the evening, when Fiona wasn't available. Maggie had to listen, with jangled nerves, while he went on and on about Fiona.

  He explained earnestly that she was so lovely that people might be inclined to overlook her more solid qualities. 'There's so much more to her when you get to know her, she's not just a pretty face, as the saying goes,' he brooded, while Maggie sat with a fixed smile on her lips and wished she were dead.

  At other times he got really angry, and looked a little like his father, the Chairman, as he thumped the table and raged, 'Why does she have to go around with that flashy bastard Mattioli? Can't she see through him, for God's sake?'

  Maggie wanted to say, 'And can't you see through her?' but of course she restrained herself. Blake was in love, and she knew from bitter experience that when you are in love you are blind to the faults of the beloved, or at any rate you find some excuse for them. Blake had his faults, heaven knows, she thought. He had a nasty temper and he was,' at times, too critical, too quick to judge. But it didn't make any difference to her love for him.

  She kept thinking, though, that it would be wonderful if Fiona finally settled for the Italian. Two flashy types ought to suit each other very well—for as long as it lasted.

  Then, at other times, she felt guiltily that she might be misjudging Fiona. Perhaps, as Blake insisted, Fiona had hidden depths. Well, maybe she had, Maggie admitted, trying to be charitable. Certainly, if they existed, Blake was in a better position to discover them than she was. She tried quite sincerely to hope he was right. She even tried to hope they would be happy together, but she never quite managed to make the hope stick.

  If Fiona had been a different type of girl—even if she had been a beautiful, silly little nitwit who w
orshipped him and was prepared to spend her life slaving for him— it might have been just about bearable. But Maggie had the strongest belief (which didn't arise purely from jealousy) that under that exquisite, fragile shell Fiona Deering was made of cold, tough steel all through.

  But that was in the past now. Fiona seemed to have finally made her choice and Blake was deliriously happy, and he had taken her to lunch today to put the ring on her finger. Maggie had seen the ring. Blake produced it yesterday with a flourish, when he came back from the jewellers. 'How about that, then?' he grinned triumphantly.

  Maggie had stared at the beautiful, glittering object in its tiny velvet-lined case and remembered that diamonds are so hard that they can cut through almost anything. These diamonds seemed to be cutting through her flesh, straight into her heart.

  She looked up again now at the clock on the office wall. Any moment Blake would be back, and Fiona would be with him, surely. Maggie's stomach felt quite hollow. She wanted desperately for the whole painful matter to be finished and over. After a decent time had elapsed she would look out for another job, out of London perhaps, or even out of the country, and begin forgetting Blake Morden. It was going to take a long time.

  The office door swung open and she lifted her head like a startled animal. But it was John Morden, the Chairman, who strode across the room and stood frowning down at her. 'Not back yet? Where the blazes has he got to? I've had Forster on the phone three times in the last hour, and a solicitor's time is money, in case my son doesn't happen to know.' The big man looked keenly at Maggie. 'He's not out with that Deering woman again, is he?'

  Maggie felt the heat rise to her cheeks. 'I—I don't know for sure, J.M., but I suppose he could be.'