by Jessica Hart
‘No, she’s just miserable with this tooth coming through. And I’m just miserable because I’ve got to go to Windsor for a meeting tomorrow with Tim,’ she added wryly. ‘Although I’m not sure how much use I’ll be. I’ll be lucky if I can string two words together.’
A frown touched Lex’s eyes. ‘In that case, why don’t you let me take her while you try and get some sleep?’
Romy’s body was craving sleep. The need to lie down and close her eyes was so strong that, instead of insisting that she could manage on her own as she would normally have done, she said only, ‘But what about you?’
‘I haven’t got anything urgent on tomorrow-or today, I should say.’ Lex jerked his head in the direction of her room. ‘Go on, go back to bed. You won’t be any good to Gibson & Grieve otherwise,’ he said gruffly. ‘If I can’t manage, I’ll wake you, I promise.’
To Romy’s surprise, Freya allowed herself to be handed over to Lex without a murmur. She subsided, sniffling, into his bare shoulder, and for one appalling moment Romy actually found herself thinking, Lucky Freya. She must be more tired than she thought she was.
She managed four hours’ sleep and felt almost human when she woke. Freya was quieter than normal, but she seemed better, so in the end Romy decided to leave her in the crèche and headed off to Windsor with Tim. They were due back by four. Freya ought to be OK until then, she tried to reassure herself.
‘But ring me if there’s a problem,’ she told the girls in the crèche, who promised they would. They were used to anxious mothers.
Up in the chief executive’s office, Lex was also feeling the results of a broken night. His eyes were gritty and there seemed to be a tight band snapped around his skull. He was distracted all morning.
‘What?’ he snapped at Summer when he caught her watching him narrowly.
‘I was just wondering if you were feeling all right,’ said Summer, who wasn’t in the least frightened of him. ‘You’re not yourself today.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said shortly. ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all.’
When she had gone back to her office, Lex took off his glasses and sat rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was thinking about Freya. She had barely slept all night. Romy seemed sure teething was the problem, but what if it was something else? What if she needed a doctor? The crèche presumably had lots of children to deal with. Would anyone notice if she wasn’t well?
He glanced at his watch. Romy would still be in Windsor.
On an impulse, he leant forward and buzzed Summer. ‘Where’s this crèche we provide?’
‘On the mezzanine.’ Summer didn’t even seem surprised by the question.
‘I’m just going to have a look,’ Lex said on his way out, and then wondered why he was making excuses to his PA.
He would just go and check that Freya was all right, he decided. And then perhaps he could get on with some work.
The crèche manager, flustered by the unannounced arrival of the chief executive, showed him round. The room was full of small children and babies, and the noise was indescribable. Amongst all the tiny tables and chairs, Lex felt like a clumsy giant who had stumbled into a world on quite a different scale. He picked his way carefully across the room, terrified of treading on something.
Freya was being comforted by one of the staff in a quiet corner and looking very woebegone. She had clearly been grizzling but offered a wobbly smile when she saw Lex and held out her arms to him. The girl exchanged looks with the manager as the chief executive took the baby and let her clutch his hair.
‘She doesn’t seem very happy,’ he said severely.
‘We’ve just rung her mother to say that Freya’s a little poorly today. She’s on her way back.’
Lex frowned. ‘It might take her some time to get back from Windsor.’
‘Yes, she said it would be a while, but we’ll keep Freya here. She’ll be fine,’ the manager reassured him.
‘As long as she’s all right.’ Lex tried to hand Freya back then, but she wailed in protest and clung to him until the manager prised her off him.
Feeling like a traitor, Lex headed for the door. Freya’s heartbroken screams followed him until he couldn’t stand it any more. Stopping abruptly, he pulled out his mobile phone and rang Romy.
‘How long will it take you to get back?’ he asked.
‘I’m waiting for a train now. I’ll get a taxi when I get to Paddington, but I’ll still be about an hour, I think.’ Romy’s voice was riddled with guilt. ‘I shouldn’t have left her.’
‘The manager says that she’s fine, but it’s pretty noisy in there,’ said Lex. ‘Shall I take her to my office? It’ll be quieter there.’
Romy was silent. He could almost hear her instinct not to rely on anyone else warring with her concern for her daughter. In the end, Freya won, as Lex had known she would. Romy spoke to the manager on his mobile, and the moment Lex took her back Freya’s screams subsided. They faded to shuddery little gasps as he waited for the lift.
There were three other people already in the lift when the doors opened. After a startled glance at Lex and his unusual burden, they all kept their eyes studiously on the floor numbers as they lit up one by one, but Lex was sure that behind his back they were exchanging looks. In a matter of minutes, the word would have spread around the building that the chief executive had been spotted in a lift with a baby in one arm, a bright yellow bag sporting teddy bears over the other, and a pushchair in his spare hand.
If Summer was surprised to see Lex reappear with a baby, she gave no sign of it. Coming round her desk, she tickled Freya’s nose, and Freya managed a very little smile for her, but refused to be handed over or put down. Lex ended up dictating as he paced around the office while Summer wisely kept her inevitable reflections to herself.
Eventually, Freya dropped off, worn out. Lex wished he could do the same. He tilted the pushchair back as far as it would go and was laying her carefully in it when the phone rang.
‘That was Romy.’ Summer put the phone down. ‘Apparently there’s some delay on the line. She doesn’t know when she’ll be able to get here now. She sounded frantic, but I told her not to worry, that Freya was fine and sleeping.’
‘Yes, it’s all right for some, isn’t it?’ Lex straightened the blanket over Freya, caught Summer’s eye and stood hastily. ‘Well, perhaps now we can get on with some work,’ he said brusquely.
Summer smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘You haven’t forgotten you’ve got a meeting at four-thirty, have you?’
Lex slapped a hand to his forehead. ‘God, yes! I had forgotten.’
What was happening to him? He never forgot meetings. He knew Summer was thinking exactly the same thing.
‘Let’s just hope she stays asleep,’ he said, looking down at Freya dubiously.
He might have spared his breath. She woke up, bang on time, a minute before the meeting was due to start, all smiles and apparently miraculously cured. She was ready for some attention, she indicated, and had no intention of being left out of the action. When Lex left her with Summer to join the directors waiting in his office, Freya’s bellows of outrage could be heard clearly through the wall.
Lex put his head back round the door. ‘Can’t you keep her quiet?’ he demanded irritably.
‘No,’ said Summer, not mincing her words. ‘She doesn’t want to be with me. She wants to be with you.’
So Lex had to conduct the meeting with Freya tweaking his nose or tugging at his ear lobes. It was hard to look intimidating with a baby on your lap.
That was what was left of his reputation shot to pieces, thought Lex in resignation.
It was almost half past five before Romy got there, looking hot and frazzled. ‘Oh, thank God!’ she said as she swept up a smiling Freya and kissed her. ‘I’ve been so worried. How has she been?’
‘Absolutely fine,’ said Summer. ‘In fact, I’m thinking of taking her on as an assistant. She had all those men in suits terrified. They wer
e in and out of that meeting in double quick time!’ She slid an amused glance in Lex’s direction. ‘And she can run rings around our chief executive!’
‘I thought she wasn’t well,’ Lex said defensively.
‘It was quite a revelation. I’d no idea you were so good with babies.’ Summer’s eyes twinkled. ‘I can’t wait to tell Phin!’
‘God, I’ll never hear the end of it once Phin knows,’ Lex grumbled as he walked Romy and Freya to the lift.
The afternoon might have been designed to prove that work and children didn’t mix. Between lack of sleep and having to drop everything the moment a child was ill, it was impossible to get any work done. He was just glad he didn’t have to deal with crises like this one on a regular basis.
‘I’m sorry Freya threw out your afternoon, but I’m so grateful,’ said Romy. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
He hunched a shoulder. ‘I dare say she’d have been all right in the crèche.’
‘Yes, but she was much happier with you.’
Romy pushed Freya back to the apartment, feeling deeply uneasy. Yes, she was grateful that Lex had been able to help, but it was disturbing to realise just how comfortable Freya was with him. He wasn’t supposed to be important to her. That was exactly what Romy hadn’t wanted to happen.
She was going to have to do something about it, and soon.
‘Is there any news of the contract?’ she asked Lex that night as she wiped down Freya’s high chair.
‘There is.’ Lex had almost forgotten about it in all the anxiety about Freya. ‘Everything’s going ahead much quicker than we thought. Summer has been in touch with Willie’s assistant, and they’re trying to arrange the formal signing at the end of next week.’
‘Next week!’ Romy was horrified at the way her heart leapt in dismay. She was supposed to be looking forward to ending this awkward situation and moving on. Hadn’t she decided that things needed to change soon? It was just that she hadn’t counted on them changing quite that soon.
She summoned a smile. ‘Well, that’s great news.’
‘Yes,’ said Lex, then, thinking that sounded a bit bald, ‘Yes, it is.’
Romy stashed the chair in the corner and began to pull the waxed cloth off the table. ‘I’ll be able to make some plans now.’
‘What sort of plans?’
‘About the future. I had time to think while I was stuck on that train today, and I’ve realised I can’t go on like this.’ She concentrated on folding the cloth neatly. Lex hated it when she just scrumpled it up and tossed it on the floor beside the high chair. ‘Tim offered me a permanent job today,’ she told Lex, who stilled. ‘But I’ve decided not to take it.’
When she glanced at Lex, she saw that his brows were drawn together. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s too difficult being in London. Luckily you were there to take Freya today, but what if she was unwell another time and I couldn’t get to her in time?’
‘I could always help,’ Lex offered stiffly, but Romy shook her head.
‘I couldn’t ask you to do that again. You’re Chief Executive, and I know how busy you are. You’ve got more important things to do.’ She drew a breath. ‘No, I’ve decided I’m going to move to Somerset. If I live near Michael, at least he’d be able to help if necessary.’
She and Freya had met Kate, Michael’s fiancée, the previous weekend. She had seemed very nice, and if she resented the fact that Michael had been suddenly thrust into fatherhood, she didn’t show it.
‘Jenny’s down there, too,’ Romy went on. ‘She said she’d be happy for me to stay until I find a job and a place of my own.’
It made sense, Lex told himself as he lay in bed and tried to ignore the weight pressing on his chest. And not just for Romy. Once she and Freya had gone, life would go back to normal.
He was sick of the edginess that churned continually in the pit of his stomach. He was tired of the way his lungs tightened whenever he caught sight of Romy in the morning, looking sleepy and rumpled and gorgeous. He had had enough of the painful grip on his heart, and the way it squeezed every time she smiled. It was a ridiculous way for a grown man to feel.
He was glad Willie Grant was coming soon, so they could end this absurd charade. He had already ruined his reputation because of it, Lex reminded himself sourly. The whole company would be talking about him carrying a baby in the lift, and if he hadn’t wanted to make it seem as if he cared he would have asked the directors at the meeting to keep quiet about the fact that he had conducted an entire meeting while Freya tugged at his lips and bumped her head against his.
What had he been thinking? It was as if he had taken leave of his senses since Romy had reappeared.
Well, that would end soon. She would leave, and take Freya with her. Let her set up house near her artist, if that was what she wanted. Lex imagined Michael dropping by to see his daughter every day. Freya would have him wound round her little finger in no time. Michael would be the one she held out her arms for. The one she flirted with and played with and wanted when she was teething.
Lex’s jaw set. And that was as it should be. Michael was her father. He would be able to make her happy in a way he, Lex, never could. How could he be a father? He knew nothing about relaxing or laughing or playing. The thought of being responsible for anyone else’s happiness made him recoil. He wouldn’t know where to begin, and he didn’t want to.
No, better that Romy took Freya away as soon as possible.
It was all for the best.
‘That was a fine meal,’ said Willie, leaning back in his chair and patting his stomach appreciatively. ‘If only all business dinners were as good. You’re a grand cook, Romy. And, Lex, you’re a very lucky man!’
Lex’s smile was brief. ‘I know,’ he said. He didn’t look at Romy.
Willie’s visit was going exactly as planned. Willie himself was in high good humour, as well he might be, Lex reflected. He had been delighted to come to the apartment and Freya had been on her best behaviour with him before she went to bed. Romy had remembered that Willie’s favourite food was lamb, and she’d roasted a leg with a herby crust. Lex had handed over a staggering amount of money for a bottle of Willie’s favourite whisky.
Rarely had a major business deal taken place in such a cordial atmosphere. There was no question of Willie changing his mind now. Everything was perfect.
So why was Lex’s stomach knotted with unease? Why was there this uncomfortable feeling between his shoulders?
Realising that the smile had dropped from his face, Lex put it back and forced his attention back to Willie, who was telling Romy about his marriage.
‘Moira and I were together forty-seven years. She was a wonderful woman. Not everyone gets as lucky as you and I, Lex,’ he added with a twinkling look. ‘You’re clearly a man who was prepared to do whatever it took to hang onto a good woman when you found her.’
And that was when Lex realised that he couldn’t go through with it.
‘Willie,’ he said. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Oh?’ Willie’s smile faded and he put down his glass. ‘That sounds serious.’
‘It is.’ Lex swallowed. ‘I’ve brought you here under false pretences.’
Romy drew a startled breath and he held up a hand to stop her protest, keeping his eyes steadily on Willie.
‘Romy and I aren’t a couple, Willie, and we don’t normally live together. This is nothing to do with Romy,’ he added. ‘When we realised that you thought we were a couple, it seemed important to you, and I saw a chance to persuade you to sign.’
‘Actually, it was my idea,’ Romy tried to put in, but Lex overrode her.
‘It was my responsibility,’ he said firmly. ‘I told Romy I’d do anything to make this deal, but I should have drawn the line at lying.’
After the first moment of surprise, Willie’s eyes had narrowed, but he said nothing, just watched Lex, who found himself trying to loosen his tie that all
at once felt too tight.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have confessed all this before, and given you the chance to change your mind about the deal. You still can, of course.’
There was dead silence round the table. Willie looked from Lex to Romy and then back to Lex.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ he asked at last.
Lex, who had braced himself for anger or disgust or disappointment, was thrown by the mildness of Willie’s tone.
‘I think the deal will be a good one for both our companies,’ he said carefully after a moment. ‘It’s one I’ve wanted for a long time, and I thought I would do anything to make it happen, but…’
He stopped, tried to gather his thoughts. ‘Before, you were just the owner of a chain of stores. I had respect for your business acumen, but I didn’t know you. Now I do, and I’ve realised that your opinion matters to me.’ Lex sounded almost surprised. ‘Now I respect you as a person, and going ahead with this deal while effectively lying to you isn’t respecting you. I don’t want to do it.’
‘I see,’ said Willie thoughtfully. ‘So you’re telling me you don’t love Romy?’
Lex hesitated. ‘I’m telling you we’re not a couple.’
Willie turned to Romy. ‘And you don’t love Lex?’ he asked, sounding genuinely interested, and she bit her lip.
‘I’m so sorry, Willie. We’ve just been pretending all this while.’
‘Well.’ Willie sat back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You’re not a real couple?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
There was a short silence. ‘I’m sorry?’ said Lex.
‘Why aren’t you a couple?’ Willie said, all reasonableness. ‘It seems to me that you’re good together, and I notice you both avoided a direct answer when I asked about love.’
Romy glanced at Lex. ‘Love isn’t the problem,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Then what is?’
She couldn’t tell Willie how her father had swept her up into his arms and called her his best girl, and abandoned her the next day. How could she explain how hard it was to trust when the man you loved most in the world, the man you trusted above all others, let you down? How could she tell him about Lex, who strove for his father’s approval and kept his world under tight control?
