The Christmas Marriage Mission

by Helen Brooks

  Kay nodded, still smiling, but inwardly she was thinking, I was like that right up to the time I met Perry and then it was like I changed overnight. Why couldn’t I see what he was doing to me?

  She dropped her eyes from her mother’s face, taking a sip of her coffee. They said love was blind, but in her case it had been a question of deaf, dumb and blind.

  As her mother continued to chat on, the while chopping and slicing vegetables for the chicken casserole they were having for dinner, Kay gave every appearance of listening but her mind had taken a trip into the past.

  She had gone out with Perry for a year before they had got married on her twenty-first birthday, the same month they had both finished at university, but within a couple of months of the wedding she had been forced to admit to herself she had made a terrible mistake. The cocoon of university life, and especially the last frantic year when she had worked as she’d never worked before, had masked so much that had been wrong in their relationship.

  Perry had been young, good-looking and very charismatic, drawing people to him like moths to a flame with the power of his electric personality, but he had also been a cold-blooded, manipulative control freak—at least with her. She had been so crazy about him, and so busy—it having been her final year—that she hadn’t even noticed that they’d done everything his way. But a few weeks into the marriage, due to a chance meeting with an old school-friend, she had been jolted free of the soporific bubble he’d carefully manufactured round her.

  What had she been doing with herself? her old friend had asked in all innocence. Had she been ill? She looked terrible. Was she working too hard?

  The conversation had been awkward on both sides and Kay hadn’t prolonged the encounter, but when she had got home to the one-bedroomed flat in Belgravia she and Perry had been renting she had taken a long, hard look at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her hair had been strained into a tight knot at the back of her head—Perry hated it loose—and she’d been wearing no make-up—Perry disliked any artifice—but it hadn’t been that so much as the drawn look to her mouth and the expression in her eyes that had brought her up short.

  She looked dowdy and plain, she’d realised suddenly, glancing down at the dress she’d been wearing—one of many things Perry had insisted on buying her. She was killing herself trying to please Perry in every tiny thing rather than having to endure his cutting comments and icy silences when she said or did something he didn’t agree with.

  She’d stood there, in stunned shock, for some minutes. How long had this been going on? she’d asked herself numbly as reality had hit. They were happy, weren’t they? She was so lucky to have him—wasn’t she? He treated her so well, was so kind to her…

  And the answer sounded in her head—everything was wonderful when she was doing exactly as he wanted; he was the best husband in the world then. He told her how to dress, how to wear her hair; he was the one who decided when they went out and when they stayed in, even what programmes they watched on TV. Their friends were his friends; they ate the kind of food he liked and drank the wine he chose.

  She had rubbed a shaky hand over her face, her mind racing. It hadn’t been like that in the beginning, had it? Not for the first month or two. But then an insidious change had taken place and the most absurd thing, the preposterous, stupid and unbelievable thing, was that she hadn’t seen it till now. She just hadn’t realised it had been happening. Because he was such fun and so irresistible and mesmerising when he was being nice, it hadn’t dawned on her that she was subconsciously subjugating her own persona all the time. It was as if she had turned into someone else, someone…alien. Even the fact that he had persuaded her not to look for a job immediately, but spend some time getting the flat round and creating a home for them now took on a new significance.

  ‘I want to be able to picture you here when I’m away,’ he had said beguilingly when she’d made noises about using her degree. ‘Know you’ll be here when I get home. We don’t need your salary, darling, not at the moment, and, with me working for Dad, money will never be tight.’

  She had stared at herself for some time that day. And then she’d run a hot bath, washed her hair and creamed herself all over with a frighteningly expensive body lotion that had been a Christmas present from her parents. After getting dressed in a pair of tight black jeans and little top she’d found pushed in the back of her wardrobe—remnants from pre-Perry days—she had carefully made up her face and teased her hair into soft waves about her face. It had taken ages—her hair always wanted to go its own way and curl outrageously—but eventually she’d begun to recognise the girl in the mirror.

  She had gone out and bought two steaks for dinner rather than labour over the chicken dhansak Perry had ordered, and she’d collected a paper detailing job vacancies at the same time.

  When Perry had got home that evening he had found a dining table romantically set for two with candles and wine, a smiling, perfumed and groomed wife, and six envelopes containing job applications ready for posting. Even now she didn’t like to think of the things he had said and how cruel he’d been, but it had been the beginning of the end.

  By the time she had realised she was pregnant a little while later—she had been taking the pill but had been ill with a stomach upset at one point, not that that had stopped Perry from all but forcing himself on her one night—the discovery that Perry had begun an affair with one of the secretaries in his father’s catering firm had finished the marriage completely. It had been a time of heartache and desperation and misery, but through it all she’d discovered she was stronger than she had suspected.

  She had stayed on at the flat after she’d thrown Perry out, working right up to three weeks before the twins’ birth and returning shortly after once she had found a good nursery. She had hated leaving them, but Perry’s maintenance payments had not been forthcoming and as he had upped and left the area shortly after the birth she’d had little choice, other than moving back in with her parents. And somehow, and she couldn’t have explained to a living soul why, that would have seemed like the final defeat, much as she loved her mother and father.

  Then had come her father’s massive heart attack, followed by the news his dabbling in the stock market had left his widow almost penniless. At the same time her married brother had lost his job just before his wife had been due to give birth to their second child.

  Kay raised her head now, coming back to the present as she heard the front door slam. This meant their neighbour had dropped the twins off after school; several of them had got an efficient rota system established.

  ‘Mummy!’ As the kitchen door burst open and two little flame-haired figures catapulted into the room Kay prepared herself for the onslaught of small arms and legs with a feeling of deep thankfulness. Her girls were her life, her breath, her reason for living. They had brought her through the worst period of her life, her nurture of their tiny bodies in her womb meaning she hadn’t been able to let herself sink into the abyss of despair she’d felt at the time of her marriage breakup, and their birth filling her with wonder and joy that these two tiny, perfect little babies were really hers. All hers.

  ‘Mummy, I got a gold star today for sitting as still as a mouse during storytime.’

  ‘And Miss Henson’s put my picture on the wall. It’s you, Mummy, and Grandma.’

  ‘A picture’s not as good as a gold star, is it, Mummy?’

  ‘It is. It is as good. Better! Isn’t it, Mummy?’

  Both Georgia and Emily had clambered onto her lap, their arms wrapped round her neck as they struggled for prime position, all but choking her in the process.

  She was saved by the ringing of the proverbial bell.

  ‘It’s for you.’ Her mother had answered the telephone, which had begun to ring just as the twins had entered the room, and as Kay disentangled herself, kissing both small faces and telling them they were very clever girls, the older woman hissed quietly, ‘It’s him, Kay. That Mr Grey you told me about.’
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  ‘What?’ Her mother had her hand over the mouthpiece, which was just as well considering how high-pitched Kay’s voice had suddenly become.

  Leonora now flapped her hand frantically as she pressed the receiver against her chest, mouthing, ‘Quiet, he’ll hear you.’

  Kay looked down at the telephone as though it would scald her, making no effort to take it as she whispered back, ‘How do you know it’s him?’

  ‘He said, of course, unless you know more than one Mitchell Grey?’

  How on earth had he got this number? The card had given the office number but that was all. Kay took the phone, holding it gingerly as she said, ‘Hallo? This is Kay Sherwood.’

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Sherwood.’ The deep voice held the texture of seductively soft velvet over finely honed steel. ‘I hope you don’t mind my calling you at home; I did try the number you gave me but a Mr Brown—your brother, I understand?—told me I was more likely to catch you at home at this time of the day.’

  Cheers, thanks, Peter. Kay tried to inject a note of enthusiasm into her voice when she said, ‘Not at all, Mr Grey. How can I help you?’

  There was the briefest of pauses before the compelling voice spoke again. ‘I wondered if you are free tomorrow evening?’

  It would be true to say Kay had never been so surprised in her life. She knew her mouth had dropped open, and something in her face even stopped the squabbling of the twins because they, like her mother, were now staring at her curiously.

  Kay’s brain was racing, her thoughts tumbling over each other. He couldn’t mean he was suggesting a date? He couldn’t, could he? No, he must mean some sort of job. An evening delivery maybe? That must be it.

  And then she was disabused of this idea when he added, ‘I’ve tickets for the theatre, and I thought perhaps a spot of dinner first?’

  Say something, Kay told herself. Anything. Except yes. She moistened her lips. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Grey, but I’m busy tomorrow night,’ she lied politely.

  ‘Next week some time?’

  She stared frantically at the three very interested faces at the kitchen table, and when no help was forthcoming said carefully, ‘I’m sorry but this is really a very busy time for us at the moment and it’s all hands to the plough.’

  ‘You don’t take time out to eat?’ he asked smoothly, continuing before she had a chance to reply, ‘How about lunch instead, then? And before you tell me how sorry you are again, perhaps I ought to mention that I was hoping to discuss a business proposition I had in mind.’

  So it hadn’t been a date! Kay was so relieved she spoke without thinking, not realising how her voice had changed. ‘A business proposition? Oh, of course, Mr Grey,’ she said eagerly. ‘Shall we say Monday?’

  ‘Let’s.’ It was dry in the extreme. ‘I’ll call at your office at one o’clock. Goodbye, Mrs Sherwood.’

  And he had put down the phone before it dawned on her that one didn’t normally suggest theatre and dinner to discuss a business proposal.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IF KAY picked up the telephone once on Monday morning to cancel her lunch with Mitchell Grey, she picked it up a hundred times. She’d thought of little else during the weekend, going over their conversation in her mind until her brain was buzzing and her nerves were frazzled.

  One moment she was telling herself that it was the height of arrogance to think that a man like him—clearly very wealthy, successful and drop-dead gorgeous—would ask her for a date, and that the proposed meeting must—must—be a business one. Then the memory of his voice when he had suggested the theatre and dinner would reverberate in her head, firing the panic button.

  She had telephoned Peter as soon as she had put down the phone from Mitchell Grey on Friday afternoon, but her brother hadn’t been particularly helpful.

  ‘Why did I give him your home number?’ Peter said breezily when she challenged him. ‘Well, why not? It’s not a secret, is it? You’re not ex-directory or anything like that.’

  Kay bit down on her lip and prayed for patience. She loved Peter dearly, and his wife and two boys meant a great deal to her, but just at that moment in time she could have hit him hard without a shred of remorse.

  After a few more minutes of questioning, Peter grew impatient. ‘What do you mean, how did he sound?’ he asked her irritably. ‘What sort of dumb question is that? I told you—he phoned up and wanted to speak to you, said he’d talked to you earlier in the day and there was something more he wanted to discuss. When I said you weren’t around he asked if you’d got a number where he could contact you, and so I said yes. Not the deepest or most meaningful conversation in the world admittedly, but there it is.’

  Kay mentally cancelled the new sound system she’d been planning to buy him for Christmas and substituted a pair of socks instead. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ she said tightly.

  ‘Don’t, then.’ Peter spoke with true brotherly compassion.

  ‘It’s not as easy as that. What if he does want to discuss something that would do the firm some good? What then?’

  ‘Kay, correct me if I’m wrong but we’re talking lunch here, aren’t we? The guy isn’t suggesting you go up and see his etchings or nip off to Bournemouth for a dirty weekend. What’s your problem?’

  She slammed the phone down then, telling the twins their uncle was the most irritating man in the world before they all got ready to leave for the autumn fête whereby her mind was taken off Mitchell Grey for a little while.

  Peter’s last words came back to her now as she glanced nervously at her wrist-watch. Ten minutes and counting. She shut her eyes tightly for a second before she opened them again, speaking out loud into the small office they rented on the ground floor of a converted house. ‘So, what is your problem?’

  She didn’t know, she admitted miserably, which wasn’t like her. She was a practical person at heart, not given to flights of fancy or goose-pimply feelings, but there was something about Mitchell Grey…

  It didn’t help that both Peter and Tom were out on deliveries either, which meant she was waiting all alone without any conversation to take her mind off the forthcoming encounter. Peter might be the most exasperating soul on earth at times, and Tom could be nearly as bad, but at least there was never a dull moment when the two of them were around. Of course she could have wandered in to either the watch repairer’s or the accountant’s—the two other offices on the ground floor of the premises—and passed the time of day for a while, but with no one else to man the phone it would have been an indulgence.

  She glanced down at her lightly structured jacket and short skirt in shot blue silk, which had cost her an arm and a leg in the summer, and which had been bought for the wedding of her cousin, and again blessed the fact that the October day was mild and sunny. She hadn’t spent much on decent clothes lately—the twins always seemed to outgrow their shoes before she could blink and there always were a hundred and one things to buy before she indulged herself—but then she didn’t really need anything. Her leathers were her working clothes, and the nearest she ever got to going out was taking the twins to the park or swimming at the local pool.

  Had she scrubbed up sufficiently well to hold her own on a lunch appointment with Mitchell Grey? For the umpteenth time since she’d arrived at the office that morning she opened the bottom drawer of her desk and fished out the small hand mirror she kept there.

  Wide brown eyes set under brows that were fine and straight stared back anxiously, a couple of coats of mascara the only make-up she was wearing. She patted one or two errant curls back into the high loose pony-tail on top of her head, the style deceptively casual considering it had taken an hour to complete first thing that morning.

  ‘You have beautiful hair.’

  Her head shot up at the same time as she hastily threw the mirror back into the drawer, slamming it shut and breaking a nail in the process.

  Mitchell Grey was standing just inside the open office door, and in the same moment that Kay registered the hard, h
andsome face, full of sharply defined angles and planes made all the more threatening by the jet-black hair, she mentally cursed the fact that, after her being on watch the whole morning, he had to sneak up on her at the very moment she was at a disadvantage.

  Her voice reflected some of what she was feeling when she said, ‘Mr Grey. I didn’t hear you come in.’

  He raised his eyebrows, his voice lazy and faintly amused. ‘I apologise.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean—’ She stopped abruptly. She had meant, actually, she told herself ungrammatically, and she was blowed if she was going to say otherwise, business proposition or no business proposition. She compressed her soft mouth, and then saw his lips twitch with a dart of fury. He thought this was funny, did he? He thought she was funny?

  She rose to her feet as gracefully as her old saggy chair would allow, tweaking her skirt into place when she saw the silver eyes rest briefly on the inordinate amount of leg the action had revealed. ‘You found us all right, then?’ She moved across to him with her hand outstretched, determined to seize hold of the situation.

  He nodded, his voice now holding the sort of gentleness that suggested he was humouring her when he said, ‘My chauffeur was born and bred in these parts; I don’t think there’s an alley or back way he isn’t familiar with.’

  His chauffeur. Oh, wow. But of course a man like Mitchell Grey would have a chauffeur, she told herself helplessly. He probably hadn’t meant it that way but it was a subtle reminder that he was the one holding all the aces and that she couldn’t afford to be touchy around him—not until she knew whether it was going to cost them hard cash, at least.

  ‘You said something about a business proposition?’ she asked him now as their hands connected.

  ‘Let’s get on our way first.’

  He didn’t have to ask twice. The feel of his warm, hard flesh had unnerved her every bit as much as it had before, and more so considering they were alone here. Besides which, she hadn’t really appreciated just how tatty their premises were until he had walked in—designer perfection personified, she thought nastily, wishing she could honestly tell herself there were something of the dandy about him but knowing it wouldn’t be true. He was all male. Intimidatingly so.