by Jessica Hart
‘What?’
She choked, coughing and spluttering while Lex patted her on the back. Well, what else could he do? Lex asked himself. He was supposed to be a concerned lover. Of course he would pat her on the back. It wasn’t just an excuse to touch her.
He was just playing his part. He wasn’t thinking about how little fabric there was between his hand and her skin or how easy it would be to let the jacket slither off her shoulders. He wasn’t thinking about how inviting the nape of her neck looked. How easy it would be to press his lips to it. To pull the clips from her hair and let it tumble down.
Without his being aware of it, his patting had turned into a slow rub. Romy, her eyes still watering, moved unobtrusively out of his reach.
‘Thanks,’ she managed, and Lex’s hand fell to his side where it hung, feeling hot and heavy and uncomfortable. Not sure what to do with it now, Lex stroked Magnus’s head instead.
‘Better?’ Willie smiled and lifted his glass when she nodded. ‘In that case…Slainthe!’
‘Slainthe!’ echoed Lex and took a sip.
‘Well?’ Willie eyed him expectantly. ‘What do you think?’
‘Unforgettable.’
It was true. Lex was gripped by a strange sense of unreality, shot through with an intense immediacy, as if he had shifted into a parallel universe where all his senses were on high alert. He was would never forget anything about this evening: the castle in the snow, the great dog beside him, the taste of this extraordinary whisky on his tongue.
The deal of his life.
And Romy, in the firelight.
Pleased with his response, Willie waved them to the leather sofa where they had sat before. ‘Sit down and tell me all about yourselves,’ he invited. Or perhaps it was a command.
So much for him not asking personal questions. Romy couldn’t resist a glance at Lex, who ran a finger around his collar and didn’t quite meet her eye.
‘What would you like to know?’ he asked Willie stiffly after a moment.
‘Call me a nosy old man, but I like to know who I’m doing business with,’ said Willie, settling himself comfortably into his chair. ‘I’m interested in how somebody with your reputation turns out be so different when you meet him face to face. I was expecting a soulless businessman, and I get a man capable of building a relationship with a beautiful woman, her baby and even my dog!’
His bright blue eyes fixed on Lex’s face. ‘Why do you keep Romy here a secret? I was so proud of Moira, I used to show her off whenever I could, so that everyone could see what a lucky man I was.’
Romy saw Lex’s jaw clench with frustrated irritation and she slid over the sofa and put her hand on his taut thigh before he could snap back that it was none of Willie’s business. Willie might have said that the deal would go ahead, but it wasn’t signed yet.
‘That’s not Lex’s fault,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m the one who wants to keep things a secret for now. It still feels very…new.’
That was true enough, Romy thought. By her reckoning they had been a ‘couple’ for all of two hours.
‘Lex is technically my boss,’ she went on. ‘I didn’t want my colleagues to think that I’d got the job because of him. I want to prove myself first.’
Willie chuckled. ‘So all this time we’ve been talking about the deal, you’ve known more about Lex than anyone?’
Also probably true. Faint colour tinged Romy’s cheeks.
‘We don’t normally work together,’ she said. ‘It’s just that Tim couldn’t come, and I couldn’t leave Freya…so we all came together.’
‘And I’m glad you did,’ said Willie. ‘I’m surprised to hear that this is a new thing. I got the impression that you’ve known each other a long time somehow.’
‘We have.’ To Romy’s relief, Lex managed to unlock his jaw, and she took her hand from his thigh before it started feeling too comfortable there. ‘Our mothers have been friends since they were at school,’ he said. ‘I’ve known Romy since she was born.’
That went down very well with Willie. ‘Ah…childhood sweethearts? Just like Moira and I.’
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly, would you, Lex?’ Romy decided it was better to stick to the truth as far as possible, or they would get hopelessly muddled. ‘Lex was older,’ she confided to Willie. ‘The truth is, he was hardly aware I existed before I was eighteen!’
‘Of course I knew you existed,’ said Lex with a touch of irritation, and he yanked at his tie as if it felt too tight. He looked cross and more than a little ruffled, Romy thought. Not at all like a man who was madly in love with her.
Funny, that.
She plastered on an adoring smile and leaned into his shoulder. Winsome wasn’t a look she did well, but it looked as if she was going to have to do the work for both of them.
‘It’s not as if it was love at first sight, though,’ she pointed out.
‘It felt like it.’
Much to Romy’s surprise, Lex appeared to have come to the same conclusion, or at least to have realised that he wasn’t giving a very good impression of a man who had found the love of his life.
‘I hadn’t seen Romy for three or four years.’ He turned to tell Willie the story. ‘You know what it’s like when you first leave home. I’d lost track of family occasions once I was at university. I remembered a gangly, unruly girl of fourteen or so, but then I called in to see my parents one weekend and Romy was there, and suddenly she was all grown up.’
And then before Romy realised quite what he was doing, he had taken her hand. His fingers closed around hers, warm and strong, and her heart began to bump against her ribs. She remembered that day so well.
‘I just stood and stared,’ Lex said, looking into Romy’s eyes, and it was almost as if he had forgotten Willie entirely. ‘Until then, I thought falling in love was just an expression,’ he said, his voice very deep. ‘But falling was just how it felt.’
He could still remember that moment, the lurch of his heart, the tumbling sensation as if he had slipped over the side of a cliff, the terror and exhilaration of falling, falling, out of control.
The pain of crashing into reality.
Lex took a gulp of his whisky. It burned down his throat, steadied him. Maybe thousand-pound bottles of whisky would have helped twelve years ago. Belatedly realising that he was still holding Romy’s hand, he let it go.
‘Eighteen?’ Willie was evidently doing some calculations in his head. ‘You’ve been together a long time, then.’
Romy glanced at Lex, and then away. ‘No. That time, the first time, we just had a week. We ran off to Paris together. It was very romantic. We had the most…’ She made a helpless gesture, unable to describe to Willie what that week had been like. ‘It was like stumbling into a different world, but we both knew then it couldn’t last.’
‘I thought it could,’ Lex contradicted her. ‘I asked her to marry me,’ he told Willie, ‘and she said no.’
‘I was only eighteen!’ Romy cried. ‘I was much too young to think about getting married. You agreed that it would have been crazy-’
She stopped, realising that Lex had agreed that morning. He hadn’t thought it was a crazy idea in Paris. But this wasn’t something they should be discussing in front of Willie. They were supposed to be in love, not two people still wrangling about the past.
She pinned on a smile. ‘Anyway, the upshot was that we went our separate ways,’ she told Willie. ‘I stayed in France for that year, and then I came home to go to university, but when I graduated I still had itchy feet. I spent the next few years working my way around the world. I ended up in Indonesia.’
Sensing Lex growing restless, Romy decided to speed the story up a bit. ‘That’s where I got pregnant. I came home to have the baby, but I didn’t see Lex again until his brother’s wedding last summer.’
No need to tell Willie that Lex hadn’t come near her all day.
‘Meanwhile, I’d been at Gibson & Grieve, doing what I’d always done,’ said Lex.
‘Then last summer, Phin got married, and Romy was there…’
‘And you fell in love with her all over again?’
Lex drew a breath, then let it out slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said.
When he looked at Romy, her eyes were dark and wary. ‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘I’d never forgotten her-how could I? I think I’d spent all those years just waiting for her to come home. I’d try going out with other women, but none of them made me feel the way Romy did. I was Phin’s best man. I remember standing by his side, and turning to watch the bride, and seeing Romy sitting a few pews behind.’
Willie seemed to be enjoying the story. ‘And that was that?’
‘That was that,’ agreed Lex.
There was a pause. Romy couldn’t believe how convincing he sounded. Beside him on the sofa, she studied him under her lashes. He was so lean and solid and restrained in his suit. What must it be costing him to come out with all this rubbish about being in love with her still? Only that morning, on the plane, he had reminded her that any feelings he’d once had were long dead.
We’ve both moved on, he had said.
He was a much better actor than she had expected him to be. Romy was sure he must be hating the need to pretend, to talk about feelings, but then, he had an incentive. He would do whatever it took to get Willie’s agreement.
‘Well, you’ve done a good job of keeping all this a secret,’ Willie was saying admiringly. ‘I’ve been trying to find out everything I can about you and there’s been no hint of it. I don’t mind telling you, it made all the difference to me that you were happy to get involved with a baby as well as Romy,’ he said to Lex. ‘That told me that you’re a man I can trust with Grant’s Supersavers, that you’re a man who understands what’s really important in life.’
‘I do,’ said Lex. He smiled at Romy, who did her best to conceal her amazement at how whole-heartedly he was entering into the pretence, and took her hand once more. ‘I thought I’d never find her again, and now that I have, I’m not going to let her go again. Freya’s part of the package.’
Romy’s eyes widened as he lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. ‘I’ve waited a long time for Romy to agree to marry me, and now she has. Between that and a deal to secure Grant’s Supersavers, I’ve got everything I ever wanted.’
Willie was delighted. ‘That deserves another toast!’
He hauled himself out of his chair to find the malt, thus missing the look Romy was giving Lex, who looked blandly back at her. She tried to tug her hand away, but he kept a firm hold of it as Willie splashed more of the precious whisky into their glasses.
‘Congratulations,’ said Willie, lifting his glass towards them both. ‘Here’s to love lost and found!’
‘Here’s to love,’ Lex and Romy agreed, smiling hard, but not meeting each other’s eyes.
‘What on earth did you say that for?’ Romy demanded as the bedroom door closed behind them at the end of that memorable evening.
‘Say what?’ said Lex, tugging his tie loose.
‘You know what! About getting married!’
Romy would have liked to have shouted, but Freya was asleep in the corner, so she was restricted to a furious whisper, which didn’t improve her temper.
Lex just shrugged and pulled the tie from his neck, undoing the top button of his shirt with a sigh of relief. ‘If we’re going to pretend, we might as well do it properly. And you’ve got to admit, it did the trick. Willie was delighted.’
‘He was delighted before. You didn’t need to complicate it with marriage.’ Romy sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off her shoes bad-temperedly.
‘People of that generation feel more comfortable with marriage. How else could I convince him that I was going to do right by you and Freya?’
‘Everyone knows that I’m never going to get married,’ she said, unable to explain just how uneasy the very idea made her.
‘People change.’
‘Not me!’
‘No,’ Lex agreed with a sardonic look, ‘I know not you. Fortunately, Willie doesn’t have any idea how stubborn you are.’
‘It’s not about stubbornness,’ said Romy.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. It’s about being realistic, not stubborn.’
Lex shook his head. ‘No, it’s not. It’s about being afraid. You’re afraid of marriage because you think it might end up badly like your parents’ marriage did, and you’ll be hurt again. Fair enough. I understand that. But I don’t quite see what the problem is here. We’re not getting married. It’s just a pretence.’
‘I know.’ Romy sighed, and twisted her bracelets fretfully. ‘I know you’re right. I just wish Willie wasn’t quite so thrilled. I don’t like lying to him.’
‘It’s a bit late to worry about that now,’ said Lex, exasperated. ‘This was all your idea in the first place!’ His voice had risen, until Romy pointed at Freya’s cot and laid a finger over her lips. ‘And you were the one who started on the “darlings”,’ he added more quietly.
‘I thought it would make us look more convincing,’ she said. ‘Little did I know that, once you got going, you would turn in an Oscar-winning performance! You nearly had me convinced!’
‘Look, what’s the problem?’ Lex had started on his buttons now. ‘We’ve done it. Willie’s agreed to the sale.’
As promised, they had discussed it over an excellent dinner, and come to what Willie called a ‘gentleman’s agreement’. The lawyers would draw up a detailed contract. He and Willie would sign it and the deal would be done.
‘We’ve done exactly what we set out to do,’ he reminded Romy. ‘We can go home tomorrow, and no one else will ever know that you once pretended for five seconds that you would consider the possibility of marriage.’
Romy wished he would stop unbuttoning his shirt. It was distracting her. Averting her eyes, she began to pull off her bangles one by one.
‘What if Willie finds out that we’re not really engaged?’
‘You said yourself he never leaves Duncardie now,’ Lex pointed out. ‘And we’ve already told him why we’re keeping it a secret for now.’
‘I suppose so.’
Romy wasn’t sure why the whole question had made her so twitchy. It was something to do with sitting next to Lex all evening. With the feel of his fingers warm around hers, his palm strong and steady on her back, his thigh beneath her hand.
She had been desperately aware of him. Ever since she had walked into the bathroom and seen him looking harassed at the prospect of changing Freya’s nappy there had been a persistent thumping low in her belly. A jittery, fluttery, frantic feeling just beneath her skin that was part nervousness, part excitement.
How was it possible to be furious with someone and still want to wrap yourself round him? To kiss your way along his jaw and press against the lovely lean hardness of his body?
At least the argument about the stupid marriage thing had got them over the awkwardness of being alone. Having divested herself of bracelets and earrings, Romy stomped into the bathroom to get undressed. Lex might be happy to start stripping off in front of her, but she didn’t have his cool.
She didn’t possess a nightdress. She hadn’t been expecting to share a room, so all she had with her was an old sarong. Romy eyed it dubiously as she wrapped it tightly under her arms. It was hardly the most seductive of garments, but she couldn’t help wishing it were a little more substantial.
If she had had time to think about her packing, she might have considered that a castle in the Highlands in the middle of winter might not be the most appropriate place for a sarong, and then she would have been prepared with a sensible winceyette nightie that would have kept her warm and, more importantly under the current circumstances, covered. Not that Lex had shown any sign of preparing to pounce, but, still, it was unnerving to contemplate the prospect of sharing a bed with nothing but a skimpy strip of material for modesty.
Well, it would just have to do.
When Romy went back
into the bedroom, holding her clothes protectively in front of her, Lex was peering in the wardrobe. He had stripped off his shirt, but still wore his trousers, to her relief. The sight of his broad, bare, smooth back was enough to dry her mouth and set her heart thudding against her ribs as it was. God only knew what state she’d be in if he’d taken off any more clothes!
‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for an extra blanket,’ he said without turning round. ‘I’ll sleep on the floor.’
‘Lex, it’s snowing outside! You’ll freeze to death, even on the carpet.’ Romy dumped her clothes on top of her overnight case and checked that Freya was still sound asleep. Having been stomach-twistingly anxious about the prospect of sleeping with him, she was now perversely determined to prove to Lex that it didn’t bother her at all.
‘It’s an absolutely huge bed-and it’s not as if we’ve never shared a bed before, is it?’
‘No,’ he said, turning to face her, ‘but as you said before, that was twelve years ago and we’re different people now.’
‘We’re twelve years older and twelve years more grown up,’ said Romy firmly, hoping to convince herself as much as Lex. ‘We’ve got over all that.’ She saw Lex’s brows rise and flushed. ‘You know what I mean. And even if we hadn’t, how could I possibly sleep knowing that you were on the floor? There’s room for ten in there,’ she said, gesturing at the bed.
An exaggeration, perhaps, but it was certainly a very large bed. They would easily be able to avoid rolling into each other.
She hoped.
CHAPTER SIX
PULLING back the heavy cover, Romy climbed up into the bed and made a big show of making herself comfortable. ‘It’s up to you, of course,’ she said, ‘but if you’re worried about me making a fuss about sharing a bed, then don’t. I really don’t see why it needs to be a big deal.’
‘Well, if you’re sure…’
Lex splashed water over his face and brushed his teeth. He knew Romy was right. It was only sensible. The floor would be uncomfortable, not to mention cold, and there was no convenient sofa.
