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She shrugged and gave a resigned laugh. ‘Proposing to a girl will have that effect. If you didn’t want to know, you shouldn’t have asked.’
‘Might as well know what people think of me. So—office gossip. Is there going to be a lot of it. About us?’
‘Are you kidding?’ She laughed properly, genuinely amused for the first time all day. ‘I’m going to be grilled like a fish about this on Monday morning.’
‘You could just not go in,’ Joss offered. ‘Take a few days off. Benefits of dating the boss.’
The smile dropped from her face as the insult hit. As if she could just not show up for work, with no notice, and it wouldn’t make a difference to anyone.
‘I think we need to get a couple of things straight, Joss. One—I work very hard with your father. My job is important, and I can’t just swan off because you say so. Unless you fancy handling his correspondence in Arabic, Italian and French on Monday morning, I’ll be at my desk as usual. Two—we are not now, nor will we ever be “dating”. If I’d wanted to date you, I’d have asked you out for dinner. I’m going along with your little charade because I care about your father. Don’t confuse the two.’
‘Would you?’ He leaned into the arm of the sofa with a smile that was verging dangerously on smug.
‘Would I what?’
‘Have asked me out for dinner?’
She sighed. Bloody man. ‘The key part of that sentence, Joss, was if. I’ve never asked you because I don’t want to date you.’
‘You know, you sound like you’ve given that quite a lot of thought. Should I be flattered?’
‘Honestly. Only a man with your ego could find a way to take that as a compliment. Listen to me carefully, Joss. I don’t want to date you. I don’t want to be engaged to you. I’m going along with it for now. But when the time comes we’ll both extract ourselves from this situation with as much dignity as we can muster and forget it ever happened.’
CHAPTER THREE
EVA SPENT THE weekend in a daze. The further she got from having seen Joss the more ridiculous the whole thing seemed. So when she pitched up at her desk at eight o’clock on Monday morning she was almost surprised to see him there waiting for her.
‘You’re in early,’ she commented, unwinding her scarf from around her neck and draping it over the coatstand. ‘Trying to impress somebody?’
‘I told you—my father wants to start handing things over today. I thought we’d need an early start.’
‘Well, we’ve both beaten the boss in.’ She glanced through the blinds to Edward’s darkened office beyond. ‘Did you see him at the weekend? How is he?’
‘He is marvellous, Eva, dear,’ Edward said, bowling up behind her. ‘Thank you for asking. And I was out of the city this weekend, so I’ve not seen anyone since I left the office on Friday. How about you two? I hope you did something nice with your weekend and didn’t spend it worrying about me.’
‘Dinner on Friday night,’ Joss supplied truthfully.
‘And Borough Market on Saturday,’ Eva added.
No need to mention that she’d gone alone. She disliked the taste of the half-lie in her mouth, but the smile on Edward’s face softened the blow.
‘And arriving together on Monday morning. Were you this indiscreet before or am I really getting old?’
‘Actually,’ Joss said, ‘we thought that now everyone will be finding out our news there’s no reason we can’t arrive together. In fact, I’ll be moving my things over to Eva’s place tonight.’
‘Well, that’s marvellous. Wish it had all worked like that when your mother and I were that age. Now, I’m glad I’ve found you two alone—I’ve been thinking, and there’s something I want to say to you. I don’t know what your plans are, but I don’t want you to rush them for me. I know my news has been upsetting, but I don’t want you hurrying anything up for my sake. Please?’
It was perfect, in a way, Eva realised. They wouldn’t have to find an excuse not to marry before he died.
‘But enough about that. I need the two of you in Milan as soon as you can get there. The store manager’s feeling jumpy, and we have a couple of major suppliers over there as well who would probably appreciate a visit. I need you to smooth things over. Let people see that you’re more than ready for the big job.’
Joss’s eyebrows drew together, and she knew he wasn’t happy at the implication that his employees didn’t trust him.
‘Dad, I met Matteo at the conference earlier in the year and it was all fine. The managers all know me. Surely you want me here? I’m not sure now’s the time for me to be travelling.’
‘Now’s the perfect time, son. We need to steady things. You’re going to have to visit all the flagship stores. The big suppliers too. They’re worried—it’s been a long time since this company faced big changes. This is part of your job now.’
‘But what if something happens here?’
Eva winced. She knew exactly what Joss meant.
‘What if I pop my clogs, you’re asking? It’s not going to happen overnight, son. We have some time. And I’d like to see the old girl looking straight before I go. I promise if anything changes you’ll be the first to know. If it helps you make your mind up, I’m not planning on hanging around London waiting to die. Some places I want to see before I go. But you two need to be on a plane before lunchtime, and I’ve got an inbox the size of Milan Cathedral to work through with Eva before you go.
* * *
Joss walked away, leaving Eva and his father huddled around his computer monitor. Eva was making notes on a pad and occasionally reaching across to touch the screen. It was clear to him how fond she was of his father, and how distressed at the news of his illness.
And now he’d told them that he didn’t want a hasty wedding. Yes, it got them out of having to take this charade too far, but Joss saw something else in it.
How much did his father know about his last marriage? About how he had felt rushed, unable to stop the oncoming commitment even after he’d realised it was a bad idea. More than he had let on at the time, it seemed.
He’d been rash and stupid announcing their non-existent engagement to Edward, and he supposed that he should be grateful that Eva had agreed to go along with it.
She’d told him that it was because she cared for the old man, and Joss didn’t doubt that. But that didn’t mean he believed she’d given him the whole story. There were things that she was hiding. Layers of secrets, he suspected, from the frequently veiled expressions that crossed her face. Well, he was going to find out what they were—they had hours of travelling ahead of them, and she couldn’t dodge his questions the whole way to Italy.
Or maybe he’d sleep instead of quizzing her, because that definitely hadn’t been happening enough since his father had dropped his bombshell. He’d have liked to say it was grief over his father’s illness that was causing his insomnia, but he knew that it was something else.
It was sleek chestnut hair and hazel eyes. The memory of a rose-pink slip under a serious navy dress. It was the thought of his holdall of clothes stashed in his office, destined for her flat just as soon as they got back from their trip. The thought of living in such close quarters with a woman he’d determinedly avoided since he’d noticed his attraction to her.
Back in his office, he dug out his toothbrush and a change of clothes from the holdall. If they weren’t on a plane until lunchtime, he knew that they’d need to stay over. With his dad sending him off in such a hurry, he guessed it wasn’t going to be a short meeting at the other end.
A noise caught his attention and he looked up to see Eva, stalled at the entrance of his office. He felt that familiar pull, the heat in his body he knew was inevitable when he was near her. Again he silently cursed whatever impulse it was that had made him lie to his father.
He felt a twist of pain in his belly. He knew how dangerous secrets could be—keeping his feelings bottled up had turned toxic before, and lying to his father felt unnatural now.
Intellectually, he understood the reasons he’d done it. Because he’d let his father down so many times over the years. He’d married his university girlfriend, a friend of the family, because she was ‘the right sort of girl’ from ‘the right sort of family’, and everyone had expected it to happen. He’d done what he’d thought was the right thing—stood up in front of their friends and their family and made the commitment that was expected from him, no matter how wrong it had felt inside.
As his depression had grown and his marriage had darkened, he’d ignored the problems. Blinkered himself against his wife’s pain and buried himself in his work rather than go back on his word and end a marriage that was never going to make either of them happy. Until she’d upped and left, and he’d seen the disappointment in his parents’ eyes that he had failed. Failed his wife. Failed both their families.
It had only been after the breakdown of his marriage that he’d realised he needed help. He’d gone weeks with barely a couple of hours’ sleep a night. Seen his weight drop and his appetite disappear. It had only been when he’d looked up his symptoms on the internet that he’d realised they were classic signs of depression.
As soon as he’d read that, everything had fallen into place—that was the dark tunnel that he’d found himself in as his personal life had hurtled towards marriage while he’d buried his head in the sand, concentrating on the business.
So he’d gone to his doctor, worked hard at therapy. Eaten and exercised well. Taken the meds he’d been prescribed. And he’d recovered from his illness with a clarity and a focus that he’d not felt in years.
He shouldn’t have been in that relationship to start with. He should have called it off as soon as he’d had doubts—before his illness had blinkered his vision and left him feeling that he didn’t have a way out.
His parents had hinted over the years since his divorce that he should start seeing someone else, get back out there. But he knew he didn’t want to be a bad husband, a bad partner, again. He couldn’t risk doing that to someone else.
But he also knew that his father wanted to see him settled and happy—that was what had made it so easy for those words to slip out of his lips in the heat of the moment. And it was what made him burn with guilt now, knowing that he was misleading him. He suspected his father felt partially responsible for Joss feeling he had to go along with family expectations. If this lie made Joss feel uncomfortable, it would be worth it if it meant that his father could let his guilt rest before he died.
The recent spate of sleepless nights was a worry, though. It was years since he’d felt this drag of fatigue, and it reminded him of a time in his life he had absolutely no wish to revisit. This time it carried with it an extra shade of dread. He didn’t want to be ill again. Didn’t want his world to shrink and pale as he fought with his own brain chemistry to feel even the smallest amount of hope.
And right there was another good reason not to listen to the pull of his body when Eva was near. No. They had to keep real life, real feelings, and their charade separate. Regardless of how attracted they were to each other.
He considered his own thoughts. Was he right? Was she attracted to him as he was to her?
‘Hey, come in,’ he said, remembering that she was still standing, watching him from the doorway.
She shut the door behind her and Joss shifted in his chair at the sudden charge in the room that their isolation created.
‘How’s Dad getting on?’ Talking about his father seemed like the safest option.
‘He’s great. Same as always. If he hadn’t told us, I still wouldn’t know there was anything wrong. Says he’s looking forward to some more time out of the city. You?’
‘I’m good. Could do without this trip, if I’m being honest.’
‘Yeah.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Your dad’s asked me to book us a room. Said he thought the meetings might go on a bit. I need to go home and pack a bag, so I’ll just meet you at the airport.’
‘It’s easier if I come with,’ Joss said, leaning back in his chair. ‘You’re only around the corner. We’ll get a cab from there. It means I can drop my stuff off too.’
‘You brought it to the office?’ Eva looked horrified.
‘What? Are you still worried about the gossip?’
‘It’s easy for you to joke about it. You’ve not been grilled about our grand romance every time you’ve so much as looked at the coffee machine.’
‘I’m sorry you’re getting the brunt of it. Do you want me to say something?’
She sighed and shook her head. ‘What? A formal announcement about our fake relationship? A little weird, Joss.’
‘Fine. Well, we’ll be out of here in an hour. Think the news has reached the Milan store already?’
‘Oh, I can guarantee it’ll travel faster than we do.’
* * *
As the plane lifted from the runway Joss itched to reach into his bag for his laptop, hoping to relax in the familiarity of a working journey. He’d travelled between stores more times than he could count, and he knew he could get plenty of work done before their meeting. Plus staring at the screen of his computer was safer than glancing across at the woman sitting beside him.
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