“Jeremy just said the same thing to me,” Lalita confessed.
“What are you doing today?” Julia poured herself a coffee, then moved over to the overstuffed sofa and beckoned for Lalita to join her.
“I’m going to have a long soak in the bath. Jeremy is coming around at noon and we’re going for lunch. We’re going to drop by the hospital later on and see Daddy, if you think he’d welcome Jeremy. Then we’re having dinner with Jane, Robert, Jessica, and Wesley at Jane’s house. I am finally going to hold my new nephew.”
“Sounds like a nice relaxing day. You need one, honey. I think this health scare with your father has been hardest on you.”
“I didn’t expect some of the other directors to attempt a coup to take over the company. I had to hustle and campaign all the board members and voting shareholders to keep the company in Evans control. Without Daddy’s forty percent share, it was hard to get enough votes. First thing I’m going to do is amend the bylaws. Then if Daddy can’t vote, you can do so on his behalf.”
“Whatever you want, Lalita. But now that your father is recovering, hopefully we won’t have to face that situation again.” Julia Evans seemed to have aged ten years in the past two weeks.
“Is he really going to be home tomorrow?”
“Yes, the doctors feel he’s well enough. Of course, then my real work begins in trying to keep him at home and out of your hair.”
“I don’t envy you that job.” Lalita took a deep breath. “Mummy, while we’re alone there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yes, darling?”
There was no delicate way to broach the subject. “I met Aisha when I was in Mumbai.”
“Ah, how is Aisha doing? I haven’t spoken to her in a couple of years.” Julia didn’t seem fazed in the least.
“She’s great. I met her whole family, my whole family I guess, except the oldest daughter.”
“I’m sorry, Lalita. I should have told you years ago. I never knew how to start the conversation, though. How did you come to find her?”
“I did some snooping around. What I wanted to ask you, though, is how you could stand to look at me every day knowing I was the product of Daddy’s affair? Wasn’t I a constant reminder of his infidelity?”
“I never once thought of you that way. The only constant reminder you provided was how easy it is to lose everything that is important to me. I was too selfish to go to India with your father when he begged me. I wanted to stay in my comfortable house, be near my family and friends. I didn’t want to put myself out and go live in some foreign country for months on end where I didn’t know anyone.
“When your father flew home and told me what happened, I was devastated. But there was no way I could turn my back on you. And from the moment I held you in my arms, I loved you like you were my own. You don’t think I treated you any differently from your sisters?”
“No, you have been a wonderful mother. I love you so much. It’s just that if I was in your position, if Jeremy cheated on me, I think I’d be more inclined to kill them both than raise their child.”
“Bloodshed did cross my mind, I must admit. But I love your father so deeply I was able to forgive him. I don’t say it was easy. Compared to living the rest of my life without him, it was the only choice to make. I made damn sure, however, he was never in that position again.”
“Thank you for telling me. I’ll leave it to you to tell Daddy that I know.”
Julia wrapped Lalita in a tight hug.
“I like your Jeremy. Learn from my mistake, Lalita. Don’t get so caught up in your own affairs, especially now that you’re running the company, that you forget to love your man.”
“I won’t. Thanks, Mummy.” Lalita hugged her mother again. “I’d better get a move on if I want to have a bath before Jeremy gets here. I’ll see you later at the hospital?”
“Yes, see you then. And bring Jeremy. I think you’ll be surprised at what your father has to say.”
Lalita searched her mother’s face. Julia gave no clue as to the reason for her statement.
“Have your bath, dear. And wear a bright lipstick, you look pale.”
• • •
“Are you ready to meet with my father?” Lalita gave Jeremy’s hand a squeeze as they stood outside the hospital room.
“I don’t want to jeopardize his recovery. But the sooner he comes to accept that we are together and intend to stay that way, the better.”
“I agree,” Lalita said. She stood on tiptoe and kissed Jeremy’s cheek. “Remember, I love you.”
Lalita pushed open the door to her father’s private room. She had worked fourteen-to-sixteen-hour days for the past fortnight and had hardly been to see him. However, they had spoken on the phone each day.
“Daddy!” Lalita rushed to her father’s side. She was happy to see he was sitting up, his cheeks full of color. He folded up Friday’s Financial Times and tucked it under his pillow. Lalita hugged her father and kissed him on both cheeks before sitting on the bed next to his legs.
“Where’s Mummy?” Lalita expected her mother to be with her father.
“She’s gone to get a cup of decent tea. Stuff they make in here is undrinkable. I had to get a copy of the FT smuggled in. When she’s out of the room is the only time I get to read it. Stock is up two percent. Well done, Lalita.”
“We’re not supposed to talk about work, Daddy,” Lalita reminded him.
“It’s a hell of a lot more interesting than talking about my health,” John grumbled. “I see you’ve brought him with you.” John glared at Jeremy.
Lalita stood, turned and reached for Jeremy’s hand, pulling him to her side.
“Get over it, Daddy. I love Jeremy and he loves me.”
John’s eyes searched first Lalita’s face, then the tall man standing next to her. To Lalita’s immense surprise, a huge grin spread over her father’s face.
“Then welcome to the family, Jeremy. I am going to wish you the best of luck dealing with Lalita. Come to me if you need any advice, not that I’ve always been very successful.”
Jeremy seemed as stunned as Lalita. He shook John’s extended hand.
“Daddy?” Lalita wondered if her father was still medicated.
“Sit down again, honey. Jeremy, pull up that chair there,” John ordered.
Lalita sat again on the bed. Jeremy brought the requested chair and put it next to Lalita’s legs. She put her arm on his shoulders, toying with a lock of hair behind his ear.
“Your mother told me you had met Aisha,” John began.
“Yes.” Lalita exchanged a glance with Jeremy. He reached up and held her other hand.
“I have never been able to reconcile the worst mistake I made in my life with one of the best things to ever happen to me.”
“I don’t understand,” Lalita said.
“I gave in to a physical weakness and nearly destroyed my marriage. However, in doing so, I created you, one of my greatest triumphs. I love your sisters — they are kind, sweet girls. But you, Lalita, are determined, courageous, and ambitious. You remind me of myself thirty years ago. When you were a little girl, you would ask your mother why you were different from your sisters. Julia would come to me and say we should tell you the truth. For me, however, you were different only because you were more like me than they were. Jane and Jessica take after Julia, while you, Lalita share much of my personality, good and bad. Of course you have your birth mother’s hair and eyes and some of her skin color, and I’m pleased to say, her spirit of generosity as well.”
“We only spent a few hours together but she seems a wonderful person,” Lalita added.
“She is. Back to you, however. I had such dreams for you growing up, and you never once disappointed me.”
Until now, Lalita mentally added.
She squeezed Jeremy’s hand for silent support.
Julia Evans walked into the room holding two large paper cups with white plastic lids. Her eyes darted between the three other occupants of the room and seemed to take special note of the way Lalita was holding onto Jeremy.
“Have you told them yet?” Julia quizzed John as she gave him one of the cups.
“I’m in the middle,” John replied.
Julia sat on the other side of John’s legs, her back to her husband, her eyes on Lalita’s face.
“At Jane’s engagement party, I saw the instant you and Jeremy locked eyes. I saw the passion ignite,” John continued.
“If someone had been standing between you, they would have been electrocuted to death. I swear I have never seen two people react as strongly as you both did to each other,” Julia added.
Blood rushed to Lalita’s face, warming her cheeks. She peeked out of the corner of her eye, as a huge grin covered Jeremy’s visage.
“I worried that it was too soon for you, Lalita. You had too much potential to throw it all away on some man. If you had put your career on hold or abandoned your ambition, then I thought you would one day resent Jeremy and wonder what would have happened if you had met him later in life.”
Lalita considered what her father was saying. She knew herself too well not to deny what he said.
“And Jeremy,” John paused until Jeremy took his eyes off Lalita and turned to her father. “I needed to make sure that you were genuinely interested in Lalita as a person and not just because she was beautiful and potentially rich.”
“I can assure you that her wealth didn’t for a minute cross my mind. I don’t think anything crossed my mind.”
John nodded. “So I sent Lalita away to Asia. With you working at the company, Jeremy, I thought I could keep an eye on you. Decide what type of man you were. Then when the time was right, I’d bring Lalita back and let you get on with it. You threw a wrench in my plans when you quit, son.”
“I wanted to get to know Lalita. I didn’t think working for her father was the best way to go about it. Of course, it was the day after I handed in my resignation that I was told you had sent her off to Asia. Does this mean that when you re-hired me this year it was to get Lalita and I together again?”
“No, not at all,” John quickly clarified. Jeremy seemed to relax.
“Lalita hadn’t mentioned you and I assumed the incident at Jane’s party had been only a temporary aberration on her part. It has been the one thing her mother and I fought about over the past five years. I re-hired you because you are the best there is at what you do.”
“Then why did you threaten me with termination if I slept with Lalita when we went to Asia?”
“And why did you get upset when I told you that Jeremy and I were together?”
“Because of you, Lalita.”
“What?” Surely Daddy can’t think I’m still too young for a relationship with Jeremy.
“Julia and I fell instantly in love. We married within six months of meeting and had a wonderful, easy marriage — until I made that huge mistake with Aisha.”
Julia picked up John’s hand that she’d been holding and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles.
“It was only when I was on the airplane flying back to London to tell Julia what I’d done that I realized what losing her would feel like. I have never felt such terror in my life and I hope never to feel that way again. I thought that if I made it difficult for you two, made you fight for your relationship from the beginning, that you wouldn’t take it for granted. Then you’d appreciate how precious it is to start with and not make the mistakes I did.”
“It worked,” Jeremy whispered.
Lalita opened her mouth to berate her father for his actions, but saw the exhaustion that even this little discussion had brought on. A hospital room wasn’t the best place to hash out the other arguments she had with her father over his interference in her love life and lying to her about Aisha. That was the past, it wasn’t going anywhere. But she needed to be absolutely clear about her future. “So you really don’t mind that Jeremy and I are together?”
“Not if you make each other happy. But I still stand by what I said, Jeremy. If you break her heart, I will have you killed.”
“Understood.”
“Now I am sure you both have something better to do than sit around some old man’s hospital bed. If you don’t mind, though, I want a private word with Lalita before you go.”
Jeremy stood and returned the chair to its original location. He shook John’s hand and kissed Julia on the cheek. “I’ll be in the waiting room, take your time,” he told Lalita.
Lalita watched Jeremy leave the room before turning to her father.
“He’s what you want?”
“Absolutely,” Lalita didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Then fire him.”
“What?”
“Jeremy Lakewood is a real man. He wants to support his woman. He doesn’t want to answer to her professionally. If he stays working for you, it will slowly eat away at him, bringing a tension to your relationship that you don’t need. You’re going to have enough pressure running Evans.”
“I hadn’t thought about that, but I do have a plan that would work. I was going to wait for six months until the Board relaxed a little in my stewardship. However, with your support, we can bring the launch date forward.”
“Tell me,” John instructed. He seemed excited to hear his daughter’s plans.
• • •
“Marjorie called. The CEO wants to meet with you. I’ve put her in your diary for four o’clock today. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” Jeremy answered his secretary. He wondered briefly at Lalita’s formality. If she wanted to see him, she usually called him personally on his mobile and he was up in her office in minutes. So far they’d been able to keep their relations in the office on a purely professional basis.
It helped immensely that Lalita had all but moved into his Southgate cottage while they searched for a larger, more convenient property closer to the office. They had been careful not to bring company business home with them, making sure they had time as a couple. First one home would cook dinner, which they’d eat while watching the news. Then the television went off and they’d talk about places they’d like to go together or things to do when they had a weekend free.
Weekends they looked at properties, spent time with her family, especially Jane, Robert, and baby Matthew. And almost every Sunday they had lunch with his mother. Susan had got a council flat and moved out, and Brian and Natasha had decided to start their own business selling party favors. Surprisingly enough, they seemed to be enjoying it and doing well. Jeremy had even managed to convince his mother to take a brief holiday to Spain with Daisy so she could dry out her lungs.
“You can go right in,” Marjorie said when Jeremy approached Lalita’s office exactly at four o’clock.
“Thank you,” he replied as he opened the large oak door.
Lalita sat behind the massive desk, rubbing her sensuous fingers across her forehead. She appeared tired. Jeremy fought the urge to pick her up and carry her to the sofa and kiss her until all the tension left her body, or at least was replaced by a tension that he could release. He pulled his mind back from that vision. That would have to wait until they got home.
Lalita glanced up as he closed the door. She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. Jeremy had a moment of panic.
“Is everything okay?”
“Just frustrated, that’s all. Please, sit down.”
“What’s up?” Jeremy lounged in the dark brown leather chair in front of the desk.
“Marjorie has let me know that she wants to retire. I contacted Grace to see if she wanted to come to the UK to be my assistant. However, she, too, has offered her resi
gnation. Evidently she and Corey have fallen in love.”
“I’m happy for her, but I can see your problem. How can I help? Are you after my secretary? She’s efficient at what I ask her to do. I don’t know if she’s as pro-active as you need, though.”
“I’ll have to think about it. An assistant is as important as a partner, the fit has to be perfect or it doesn’t work. That’s not the reason I’ve asked you to my office. I want you to hear me out before you say anything.”
Lalita stared into his eyes. Jeremy’s heart, which had been working quite efficiently over the past month, started to beat erratically again.
“Go on,” he said carefully.
“As the Chief Executive, I have had to make some painful decisions in the past month. However, this one is the most difficult. We both knew that our relationship would cause some raised eyebrows. The Chairman and the Board have requested that I address the issue.”
“Are you firing me? Or ditching me?”
“Firing you,” Lalita answered. “It is much easier for me to replace the Director of Marketing than the Love of my Life.”
“Good. Another job I can get easily, another woman might take me a little longer.”
Lalita smiled. “You could try. Didn’t my father tell you I’m irreplaceable?”
“I agree with him. Having fired me, are you going to cry at home tonight? Because, as the sackee, I may be conflicted in consoling you.”
“Perhaps we could engage in mutual consolation. However, I’m not really sacking you. I have an opportunity to present to you.”
“I’m listening,” Jeremy said, intrigued. Lalita had been having a lot of meetings lately with her father who had taken over the position of Chairman of the Board. It meant John could still keep his hand in the business without having to deal with the day-to-day stress. The appointment had appeased the Board who now whole-heartedly supported Lalita as CEO.
“We want to set up a separate entity, an autonomous division, to provide marketing advice to our clients. This new company would also be at liberty to seek out its own clients and take on other markets. The Chairman, the Board, and I unanimously support the appointment of you to lead this new venture.”
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