In Bed with the Boss

by Susan Napier

  ‘Go!’ She pointed out into the darkness and instantly regretted her overly dramatic gesture when an irrepressible spark of humour smouldered to life in the brooding depths of his eyes.

  ‘You’re so cute when you’re acting dominant,’ he mocked as he drew level. ‘Like a fairy fluffed up on steroids. Aren’t you going to tell me never to darken your door again?’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘Don’t tempt me!’

  ‘Why? Afraid you won’t be able to resist…again?’

  ‘If you want me to be at work on Monday don’t—say—another—word,’ she said, cyanide dripping from every carefully articulated syllable.

  He threw up his hands. ‘All right, all right, I’m going.’ He ran lightly down the steps, turning at the bottom to look back up at her slender figure, silhouetted in the doorway, unable to resist claiming the last word.

  ‘’Night, darling.’ His voice was smoky in the gloom. ‘If you have an urgent need for my—er—services over the weekend, you know how to find me—I’m number four on the speed dial of your phone. I see that poor Prior only rates a lowly nine!’

  She might have known his offer to open a few windows for her while she checked through her mail had had an ulterior motive. He must have made the most of his brief opportunity to poke around, as he had in the kitchen. Trust him to notice such a petty detail!

  ‘That’s only because Harry put you on the infernal thing and I don’t know how to change the listings,’ she yelled after his retreating back. ‘I’d soon wipe you off if only I could find the instructions!’

  She slammed the door on his answering chuckle and a few moments later heard the potent throb of the McLaren diminish into the night.

  Why did she let him provoke her like that? He never used to be able to get under her skin but now he was embedded there like a troublesome burr. Thank goodness it was dark, otherwise the whole neighbourhood would have been treated to the sight of that quiet widow from number 43, screaming like a fishwife from her doorstep at that handsome, black-haired devil with the foreign car, and her engaged to that nice blond chap…

  Oh, yes, Kalera could well imagine how the gossip over neighbourly cups of tea would go, and as usual the basic facts would get distorted as they twined around the local grapevine.

  Darkness notwithstanding, maybe she had better mention Duncan’s visit to Stephen, just in case he heard it later from another source…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  KALERA expected to have a dreadful night, tossing and turning and berating herself for her appalling weakness and lack of moral fibre, but once she put her head on the pillow she went out like a light and woke the next morning feeling magnificently alive and wonderfully energetic.

  She had delegated the day for cleaning and sorting, aware that at some vague point in the future she would have to decide what possessions she would carry forth into her new life with Stephen and not wanting to be rushed over the choosing.

  Since none of her undistinguished furniture fitted in with the elegant designer decor of his home it was only her personal belongings that would require packing up, but there were many books, papers, photos and mementos from her marriage with Harry that she needed to look through and decide whether to take with her or store.

  Harry had been a fiend for jigsaw puzzles and there were dozens of them crammed in the wardrobe in the spare room. The two of them had spent many a happy hour taking alternate turns on the most challenging puzzles and although Kalera doubted that Stephen’s sophisticated tastes ran to such simple entertainment it occurred to her that Michael might be old enough to show an interest in some of the simpler versions featuring trains, cars and maps of the world. Stephen hadn’t been very informative about his son’s character but she did know that he was very bright for his age and already reading well above the normal six-year-old level. He might need help on the jigsaws, but Kalera thought that working on puzzles together would be a good way of alleviating the inevitable awkwardness of their step-relationship.

  Imbued with the restless vitality with which she had awoken, by late morning Kalera had done most of her cleaning chores, discarded some old financial files and decided which puzzles she would give away to the local old people’s home. After lunch, she decided virtuously, she would wash the windows. Last time Stephen was in her living room she had noticed him raise an eyebrow at the haze on the glass ranch-slider which looked out onto her flower garden. He had been too polite to say anything but, knowing how immaculately kept his own house was—albeit by a paid housekeeper—she had been attuned to his faint emanations of disapproval. It was just that she had been kept so busy at Labyrinth since she had given her notice that the last thing she wanted to do when she got home in the evenings was physical labour!

  She was wavering between making herself a sandwich or salad for lunch when Stephen rang to finalise the time he would pick her up for the charity dinner and symphony concert that they were attending that evening. She mentioned her idea about Michael and the jigsaw puzzles and to her disappointment he was noncommittal, the wary reserve that always appeared in his tone when he spoke about his son as much in evidence as ever.

  ‘Since his mother refuses to accept that I’m getting married again the boy is receiving some conflicting messages. Let’s not confuse him even more with other demands on his loyalty…’

  He always called Michael ‘the boy’, which Kalera felt was slightly dehumanising. Perhaps it was just his way of distancing himself from the pain of knowing that his son was no longer an integral part of his daily life.

  ‘By the way,’ he tacked on diffidently, ‘I rang back last night to ask you what colour corsage you’d like for this evening and you didn’t answer—’

  The doorbell rang and Kalera padded to answer it in her bare feet, the cordless phone pressed to her ear, listening with a sinking heart as Stephen said jokingly, ‘I know Royal is working you like a galley slave but surely you can’t have fallen asleep so quickly? You said you were still finishing dinner when we spoke the first time.’

  Of course he was curious—who wouldn’t be? Curiosity was a perfectly natural, healthy human reaction, thought Kalera, swapping the phone to her other ear as she fumbled to turn the heavy deadlock with her favoured hand. In fact, she probably would have asked the same idle question of Stephen if their situations had been reversed.

  So why did she feel a deep reluctance to answer?

  Last night she had decided in favour of offering him an edited version of Duncan’s visit, but now, faced with the daunting task of censoring as she went, she took the coward’s way out.

  ‘I guess I must have been in the shower,’ she said as she got the door open and, to her horror, found herself staring up into Duncan’s wickedly satyric face.

  Vivid colour rushed into her cheeks as he mouthed ‘hello’ with an exaggerated caution and she realised that he had heard her remark and guessed what it meant.

  ‘I let it ring for quite a while—’ Stephen was saying in her ear as she quickly tried to shut the door again. Too late; a custom-made, crocodile-skin boot was firmly planted as a door-stop.

  ‘Uh—I was washing my hair…it always takes me ages.’ She stepped to one side to block the doorway as Duncan tried to slip past her into the house.

  ‘Are you all right? You sound a bit distracted.’

  ‘Someone’s ringing the doorbell; I’d better go and see who it is. It’s probably only some sleazy door-to-door salesman trying to palm off something cheap and nasty that nobody in their right mind would want,’ she said, aiming the gritty words directly at Duncan. ‘Yes, yes—of course I’ll be careful, Stephen. Bye!’

  ‘Very smooth,’ said Duncan as she flipped off the ‘talk’ button, and propped the phone on the narrow ceramic pipe that she used as an umbrella stand. ‘Do you think he believed you?’

  She planted her hands on her hips, and herself squarely in the centre of the doorway.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  He was wearing another pair o
f jeans, this time white, and a multicoloured woven waistcoat over a collarless white Indian cotton shirt—a striking combination that made Kalera, in her plain blue denims and ribbed pink top, feel very ordinary…but then that was no different from usual!

  What was different was the way that her heart was knocking in her chest—not with apprehension, but in fizzing anticipation of another stormy clash.

  Duncan eased his foot from the door and, when he saw that she wasn’t going to budge, composed his handsome face into sober lines.

  ‘I came to say I’m sorry for last night,’ he said quietly, with the ease of a man who was as open about his faults as he was frank with the rest of his emotions. ‘I lost my temper and said some things that I shouldn’t have…rude, crude and hurtful things that you had every right to treat with bitter contempt. I abused your hospitality and sullied a precious memory of sweet rapture by throwing it back in your face as an insult. My only explanation—because I know it’s not an excuse—is that I was overwhelmed by genuine, strong feelings that were just too big for me to keep inside…

  ‘I hope you can forgive me and give me another chance—I don’t want to lose our friendship…’

  Kalera’s attention, which had briefly snagged on that ‘precious memory of sweet rapture’, caught up with what he was saying. She didn’t trust him when he was being meek and humble and yet she knew him well enough to recognise when he was truly sincere. That sincerity tugged at her heartstrings, even though she noticed that he wasn’t apologising for his deeds, only his words.

  She folded her arms across her chest. She had forgiven him so many times in the past for his fiery displays of temperament that perhaps he was justified in thinking that all he had to do was ask.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  His boot edged tentatively back up onto the doorstep. ‘Perhaps we could go inside and talk it over—sort out where we go from here…’

  Panic flared in her eyes. ‘I was just going out.’

  His gaze wandered down to where her bare toes curled against the doormat and his mouth twitched at the sight of her frosted pink toenails. ‘Like that?’

  ‘I was just about to put my shoes on and get my bag when the phone rang—’

  ‘Where are you going?’ He interrupted her earnest efforts to sound convincing. ‘Shopping?’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I could come with you and we can talk at the same time.’

  ‘No, we can’t. I’m going over to my parents’ place for lunch.’ Kalera was getting so good at lying she almost believed herself!

  ‘Oh.’ He glanced over at her car, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. ‘I remember meeting them briefly at Harry’s funeral,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps I can give you a lift. Where do they live?’

  ‘Not far,’ she evaded. If she gave him an address he was quite capable of turning up there himself. ‘But I want to take my own car. Look—I’ll be late if I don’t get a move on…’ She glanced pointedly at her watch.

  He leaned on the door jamb. ‘OK. I’ll wait here while you get your things.’

  Oh, no! ‘For God’s sake, why?’ she blurted.

  ‘My mother drilled into me that a gentleman always walks a lady to her car,’ he replied glibly. ‘Go on…I promise I won’t sneak inside as soon as your back is turned.’

  If he suspected her of lying he had just effectively called her bluff.

  Trapped, Kalera had no choice but to do as he had bid. If she had to go out to get rid of him she might as well turn fiction into fact and play the dutiful daughter, she thought, digging in her handbag for her car keys as she returned to the front door.

  Duncan offered his elbow to her and grinned when she responded with a frosty cold shoulder. Not even Stephen was so ridiculously punctilious that he insisted on escorting her to her own car parked in broad daylight on her own property!

  Since the house didn’t have a lock-up garage her Toyota was parked under the small carport in the driveway and as they approached it Kalera’s steps slowed. Now she saw why Duncan had been so anxious to wait outside while she was busy getting ready—her rear tyre was flat! Inwardly steaming, she walked silently around the back of the car and discovered that both rear tyres were flat, thus rendering the spare tyre in the boot useless.

  ‘Bad luck.’ Duncan crouched down to take a closer look. ‘Do you think you might have driven over some nails?’

  Kalera looked down at the taut white backside presented to her vision and was very tempted to plant her dainty foot against the straining seam and give a hefty shove.

  ‘Do I look that stupid?’ She boiled over. ‘I’ll tell you what I think! I think that you need a good psychiatrist to cure your Napoleon complex, that’s what! I think you’re a selfish, egotistical swine who’d murder his own mother to get his own way!’

  She took a step forward as Duncan rose to his feet and tried to speak, jabbing him in the chest with her finger in staccato rhythm with her accusing words. ‘How dare you think you can get away with a cheap trick like this? I’m sick of your pathetic games of one-upmanship and sordid attempts at manipulation. And this—this juvenile behaviour is just the last straw—’

  ‘Uh, Mrs Martin? Kalera?’ Interrupted in mid-flow, Kalera swung around to see her neighbour from two doors down urging her angelic-faced eight-year-old twin sons up the driveway towards them.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ the woman said awkwardly, her gaze swinging from Kalera’s red face to Duncan’s annoyed one, and then to the car behind them. She sighed. ‘But then I guess you might be able to figure out why we’ve come…Go on Jeremy—Shane.’ She urged the twins in front of her and gave them a sharp nudge when they remained silent.

  Mystified, Kalera pinned on a limp smile. Her genuine affection for children had put her on easy terms with most of those in the neighbourhood, and these two were no exception.

  ‘What is it, guys?’

  ‘We’re sorry for letting down your car tyres, Mrs Martin!’ the pink-cheeked cherubs chirped in unison, and Kalera’s jaw fell open.

  ‘They were just imitating something they’d seen on television; they didn’t really appreciate that they were doing something very naughty,’ their mother said hastily, misinterpreting Kalera’s glassy-eyed stare. ‘They were up at the crack of dawn this morning playing cops and robbers in the front yard and I was so pleased they were letting my husband and I sleep in that I didn’t think to check what they were doing. Not that I imagined they’d get up to anything like this! And I’m afraid it wasn’t just you—they let down tyres all the way up the street. When they told me I was just floored!’

  ‘Boys will be boys,’ murmured Duncan, when it seemed that Kalera was going to remain embarrassingly speechless.

  ‘Since I have two more under five that doesn’t exactly reassure me,’ said the woman wryly, relaxing under his sympathetic smile. ‘I’m awfully sorry. We can’t afford to pay for a garage to come and fix all the cars but Don has gone out to hire an air cylinder and he’ll reinflate all the tyres to the proper pressure as soon as he can…’

  When the trio had trooped on towards their next confession, Duncan turned to Kalera with an ironic tilt of his black brows.

  ‘You were saying…?’

  ‘Well, the way you’ve been carrying on lately you can’t blame me for thinking it might have been you,’ she said sulkily.

  ‘You were right on the money about it being juvenile behaviour,’ he responded, with a graciousness that made her feel even more surly when she recalled her volley of accusations.

  She squared her shoulders and said grudgingly, ‘I suppose you want an apology.’

  ‘It does rather seem like the day for them,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But, don’t worry—you’ll have plenty of time to compose one on the way.’

  ‘The way?’

  He indicated his beloved McLaren, slunk at the kerb. ‘It looks like I’ll have to give you that lift after all, doesn’t it? You mustn’t disappoint your parents by not turnin
g up for lunch!’

  Since Kalera had been disappointing her parents all her life, first as a colicky baby whose failure to thrive on breast-feeding had deprived Silver Donovan of the full satisfaction of her ‘earth-mother’ phase, then as a shy child, introspective teenager and stubbornly conservative adult, she was used to fending off their fond fantasies that she would one day ‘get in touch with herself’ and strike out on some bold, creative endeavour that would utilise her hitherto totally dormant artistic talents.

  Therefore it was extremely disconcerting to find herself showered with approval for turning up with Duncan in tow—or, rather, towed by Duncan.

  ‘Crystal Dreams?’ Duncan murmured, his eyes widening as he pulled up outside her parents’ address and read off the swirling letters painted in bright purple along the sagging overhead verandah of the dilapidated wooden building. He double-checked the crooked number above the open door of the shop, sandwiched between a seedy-looking antique store and a vegetarian restaurant, with a retro clothing store displaying a Paisley shirt and red bell-bottoms and a hairdresser’s taking up the rest of the small area of strip shopping.

  ‘This is your parents’ place?’ Unlike Stephen’s reaction on his first—and last—visit, Duncan’s shock held no hint of aversion. Bright with intrigued interest, his eyes rose to the faded upper storey, where a curtain blew out of an open window hung with crystal mobiles, and a profusion of pot plants and wind-chimes joined drying washing on a tiny balcony. His gaze returned to study the artistically arranged crystals, gemstone jewellery displayed cheek-by-jowl in the crammed shop window with Rastafarian beads, homeopathic remedies, New Age books and posters about upcoming Druid festivals, clairvoyants, tarot and psychic readings and gypsy fairs. ‘They own the shop—and live here, too?’

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ Kalera said, squirming out of the scooped seat, vainly hoping her lack of answer would deter his curiosity. ‘My parents’ll drop me home—’