Living With Marc

Nothing much seemed to surprise Marc Hammond About the Author Title Page Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Copyright

Nothing much seemed to surprise Marc Hammond

Not much surprised Robin, either; she was used to the unexpected happening around her. Half the time she didn’t know why it happened, and most of the time she didn’t know how to deal with it.

Marc had said that she was a time bomb, but of all the men Robin had ever met, Marc Hammond was the one who seemed to pack so much dynamic energy that she couldn’t imagine life would ever be calm around him.

Jane Donnelly began earning her living as a teenage reporter. When she married the editor of the newspaper, she freelanced for women’s magazines for a while—and she wrote her first Mills & Boon romance as a hard-up single parent. Now she lives in a roses-around-the-door cottage near Stratford-on-Avon, England, with her daughter, four dogs and assorted rescued animals. Besides writing, she enjoys traveling, swimming, walking and the company of friends.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ROBIN had thought the day could not get worse, but when she saw who was sitting behind that desk she had to bite her lip hard or she would have shrieked with hysterical laughter. The sight of Robin was a shock to him too. It took a lot to shake Marc Hammond, but one of the heavy dark eyebrows raised a fraction as he gasped, ‘Good Lord!’

‘Good afternoon and goodbye,’ Robin gulped.

She was turning to leave when he asked, ‘Whatever made you imagine you’d be suitable for the job?’

Robin hadn’t exchanged a word with Marc Hammond for years. But the way he was putting her down now—a big man behind a big desk, so sure of himself in every way—brought back memories.

Last time she had seen him she’d been seventeen and tongue-tied. Now, a few years older, and after one heck of a morning, her self-control cracked. Rage flared in her, bright as her tumbling red hair, and she was across the room, gripping the edge of the desk, leaning over and facing him.

‘Because,’ she snapped, ‘the advert was for a companion-driver to an elderly lady and I reckon I’d be efficient on both counts, but I know you wouldn’t employ me any way, any time, so we have both wasted a few minutes.’

He was leaning back in his chair, chin in hand, watching her as if she was making a show of herself.

‘The old lady in question,’ he drawled drily, ‘has had more than enough excitement over the years. What she’s needing now is peace and quiet, and I don’t suppose there’s much of that around you.’

She should not have flared up. She should have stayed cool-headed. She made a belated attempt to retrieve a little dignity, straightening up, letting her hands fall to her sides, saying, ‘Sorry,’ although she had nothing to apologise to him for. ‘It’s been one of those days.’

‘Have a lot of them, do you?’ he enquired.

More than you, she thought. I bet not much goes wrong with your day, or your life. She shrugged. ‘Not too many. But no job, of course.’

‘No job.’

If he was doing the interviewing the old lady had to be somebody close to him. He’d never consider Robin, and she couldn’t have taken on work that might have kept her under Marc Hammond’s eye.

When he got up she remembered how tall he was. She was over average height herself, but as he came round the desk he was towering over her and she found herself backing towards the door. ‘I’ll see you out,’ he said.

‘No need. I know the way.’ The front door had been opened by a woman who looked like a housekeeper. The office where Marc Hammond had been waiting led off the hall, and Robin did not want him walking anywhere beside her. But he ignored her protests; he was seeing her out, and she bit back the urge to say, You don’t have to watch that I’m leaving empty-handed; I won’t pocket any of the silver.

The wide floor of the hall was of polished wood, there were rugs in dark jewel colours and the paintings all looked like pricey originals.

When Robin had turned from the road into a curving drive leading to a house with white pillars and three storeys of long white windows, she had thought, Wow!

The advertisement had had a phone number and she had been given this address. She hadn’t known who lived here but she had hoped it was the elderly lady who was advertising, because it had looked such a super place to work in. That, of course, was before she had known Marc Hammond was here. Now she couldn’t get out of the house fast enough.

He said nothing to her as they walked down the hall. He might have managed a goodbye when he’d opened the door, but just before they reached it somebody called, ‘Robin?’ and Robin whirled round as an elderly woman came tripping down the stairs with a wide, welcoming smile. ‘Robin? It is Robin?’ And the woman she knew as Mrs Myson threw her arms around her. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I—I came about the job,’ Robin stammered.

‘You never. You did?’ She clasped her hands together and almost did a little dance. ‘But this is marvellous. Marc, how did you find her?’

Marc Hammond looked down on them both. ‘I didn’t,’ he said shortly. ‘Where did you?’

‘You mean she just came along?’ Mrs Myson had silver hair, beautifully styled, and an almost unlined face. Now her blue eyes sparkled as Robin explained.

‘I answered the ad in Friday’s paper. Are you the lady who needs a driver?’ Mrs Myson nodded. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘And I didn’t know you were Miss Johnson.’ Neither had Marc Hammond. There were lots of Johnsons around although none of them was related to Robin. If she had said ‘Robin Johnson’ instead of just ‘Johnson’ he would never have interviewed her.

‘I didn’t know you were looking for a job.’ Mrs Myson’s smile was mischievous. ‘Between you and me, I don’t really think there is a job, but now I know you’re interested I’m changing my mind.’ Her smile took them both in. ‘Well, isn’t this lovely?’

‘I’d put it another way.’ Marc Hammond was tight-lipped, unsmiling. ‘Where did you two meet?’

‘Oh, we’re old friends,’ the old lady said blithely. That wasn’t quite true.

‘Where?’ he persisted.

‘At the Sunday market,’ Mrs Myson said, and now she was holding both Robin’s hands. Getting the job that had been advertised would have been brilliant, because Robin liked Mrs Myson. But with Marc Hammond calling the odds her chances were nil.

The Sunday market was held weekly on the old airfield in countryside a few miles out of town. Anyone could hire a pitch and Robin often turned up to help an old schoolfriend. Amy was a single mother short on funds, who had a flair for sewing and ‘did’ local jumble sales, bought items cheaply then laundered and mended and sometimes restyled, and offered. very wearable clothes at very reasonable prices.

When Robin helped with the selling, trade always improved, because Robin jollied the customers. The market was popular; customers arrived from miles around. When Robin smiled at them most folk smiled back, and in no time she would be helping them find a bargain.

Mrs Myson had been on the charity stall the morning Robin had been buying a little china ballerina, for a friend’s birthday, from the bric-a-brac section. ‘I used to have red hair. Not as beautiful as yours, but red,’ the old lady serving had told her. Robin had liked her on sight. Her gaiety of spirit had made a little bond between them and Robin had looked out for her in the months that had followed.

Mrs Myson was usually on the charity stall. She turned up for all sorts of good causes, from a country ravaged by war or drought or earthquakes to the local cats’ home. And although she was always cheerful Robin wondered if she had a lonely life outside her charity fund-raising.

If the old lady lived in this house and the powerful Marc Hammond was watching out for her, she was hardly alone, but Robin felt she would have quite enjoyed being Maybelle Myson’s companion. There was a refreshing spark of devilment in the old lady, and when Marc said, ‘You work on a charity stall?’ as if he couldn’t believe that Robin would be helping anybody but herself, Mrs Myson defended her indignantly.

‘Yes, Robin has helped on the stall.’ A couple of times when Robin had found Mrs Myson alone and busy she had given a hand. ‘And last week she helped us pack up when we had that cloudburst.’ Mrs Myson was still holding Robin’s hands. ‘You are taking the job?’

‘I’ve already been turned down.’ Robin smiled as she spoke because it was best to treat this lightly.

‘Why?’ Mrs Myson was bewildered, looking at Marc for an explanation.

‘The idea is to find you a congenial companion who can drive a car and keep an eye on you,’ he said wearily. ‘I know you think you could still ferry a raft up the Amazon but you need reminding that you are eighty-two years old, and I have no intention of letting you loose with a juvenile delinquent.’

‘What did you say?’ Robin glared; she couldn’t help it. ‘I am not a juvenile.’ Not even a teenager. Twenty years old today, and so far it had been the kind of birthday she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy. ‘Nor am I a delinquent,’ she snapped. ‘I could sue you for saying that.’

‘Only if you got yourself a very good lawyer.’ That had to be a joke of sorts; Marc Hammond, head of Hammond and Hammond, was the smartest lawyer she was ever likely to meet.

Deadpan, she said, ‘Ha, ha.’ And Mrs Myson protested.

‘That wasn’t a very nice thing to say, Marc. What’s so unsuitable about Robin? Why shouldn’t she be—’ she pulled a face as if this was a silly description ‘—a lady’s companion?’

He showed real exasperation for the first time, his voice suddenly harsh, ‘For God’s sake, look at her.’

Robin knew what he meant by that. Her hair was so bright a red that only those who had known her since she was a child believed that it was natural, and she wore it almost waist-length. But even when it was tucked away under a hat Robin Johnson was still a knockout. She had a model girl’s long-legged figure, with high cheekbones, a wide mouth and restless green eyes. Without deliberately doing a thing, Robin was a stirrer. Around her, life quickened and sometimes got out of hand.

She knew how she was looking now—her cheeks flushed and her eyes glinting, because Marc Hammond had that effect on her—but Mrs Myson seemed to see nothing wrong in her appearance. ‘I can’t believe you’d turn Robin down just because she’s young,’ Mrs Myson said.

Marc Hammond smiled at that. Cynically. And his voice was sarcastic, as he said, ‘I take back the juvenile; I’m sure Miss Johnson is old for her years.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ Robin muttered. She managed to get one hand free from Mrs Myson, who had a very firm grip for someone in her eighties.

‘But you still think she might be too hot to handle?’ Mrs Myson was teasing Marc and he was looking at her with amused tolerance.

‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘She certainly was last time.’

‘Last time?’ the elderly lady echoed.

‘When she worked for me,’ said Marc Hammond. ‘Briefly.’

‘Oh, dear.’ Mrs Myson was smiling. ‘This has to mean there was some sort of trouble.’

‘There would have been,’ he said drily, and Robin flared up.

‘Don’t make it sound as if I was robbing the till.’

There had been no tills in that office. Hammond and Hammond were the top law firm in town, the building they occupied was one of the most impressive, and Robin had arrived there as a trainee receptionist.

And had met Marc Hammond. She had seen him crossing the foyer—a tall, dark, strikingly good-looking man. He had come across, looked hard at her and welcomed her to the firm. She had gulped, feeling her breath catch in her throat, and she had still been holding her breath when he’d walked away. After that he hadn’t seemed to notice her at all until her first Friday.

Others had. A studious, bespectacled junior clerk had fancied her from the first day, and when Robin had had lunch with him he had gone back to the office on cloud nine. He’d even grinned at the husky biker in studded leather who had been leaning on the counter under the disapproving eye of the senior receptionist, until the biker had come over and knocked him flat.

The clerk’s first impression was that here was a homicidal maniac, and for the first time in his life, and probably the last, he started frantically to fight back.

Robin shrieked. She knew the biker. She had had a very brief fling with him and wanted no more. She yelled, ‘Stop it, you idiots,’ but the biker went on throwing the punches and, seeing blood, the receptionist gave a high-pitched scream that went on and on.

Hammond and Hammond was a law firm. Folk came into their offices carrying a load of grief and resentment, but there had never been a scene as physically violent as this, a rough and tumble between two men, fists and feet flying, and a girl with long flaming red hair dodging around screaming their names and trying to shove them apart.

When Marc Hammond came down the stairs Robin didn’t see him until he yanked the biker away and threw him through the door into the street. Jack was two hundred and ten pounds but he went out bodily, hardly touching the ground.

Then Hammond turned on his employees. ‘Right, you two—in my office,’ he said.

The receptionist was moaning now, staring at the spots of blood on Robin’s white shirt. There was more on the junior clerk because it was his nose which was bleeding, although it didn’t show up on his dark suit. He dug into his pocket for a tissue, trying to staunch the flow as they trailed after Marc Hammond, through a small, empty office into a large room with panelled walls and a huge desk with a black leather top.

Hammond closed the door and Robin thought that she and the clerk must look a wretched pair. Tony had realised he had been fighting with Robin’s boyfriend in front of Hammond himself and that this was probably going to cost him his job. His nose was sore, and he’d lost his glasses, so that he could hardly see. But he could see enough for Marc Hammond, still immaculate and cool as a cucumber, to look more formidable than a gang of roughnecks.

Robin was flushed and breathing fast, her hair all over the place, and miserably aware that most of this was her fault. The young man blinked, head ducked. Robin looked up at Marc Hammond and wondered if there was any way she could plead for her colleague.

‘You’d better clean up and go home for the day,’ he said.

‘Yessir,’ the clerk mumbled into his bloodstained tissue as he stumbled blindly out of the room.

Then Hammond turned his attention to Robin. There was a scorching feeling of danger about him. She could feel the heat burning her cheeks.

‘Has this kind of thing happened before?’ he was demanding.

She nearly said no. But once or twice it had, so she muttered, ‘Well—’

‘I thought so. Well, you might get a kick out of two men fighting over you but our clients don’t expect to walk into a blood bath when they come through the door.’

She was getting the sack. Aunt Helen had been right. ‘You’ll never keep a job there,’ she’d said when Robin had told her and Uncle Edward that she’d had an interview and was starting on Monday. This would be just what Aunt Helen had expected, but all through lunch the young clerk had been talking about his career prospects. He was so pleased to be working here.

‘What will happen to him?’ she asked. ‘It wasn’t his fault.’

‘I can believe that,’ Hammond drawled. ‘Somebody like Tony wouldn’t stand much of a chance if you moved in on him.’

That was not what she’d meant. She hadn’t made the moves. The first day she’d arrived he had asked for a date and gone on asking, but it was not until today she’d agreed just to have a sandwich with him. She said, ‘I meant the fight; Jack hit him first.’

‘I’m sure he did. I think Tony’s ego has been damaged enough for one week. We can forget him. The problem is you.’ She felt even younger than she was, standing there while he passed judgement on her. ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll make your mark,’ he said drily. ‘But not in my firm. And I hope you don’t do too much damage to others on the way.’

She went downstairs to get her coat. The receptionist was dealing with a smartly dressed man and woman and avoided looking Robin’s way, and Robin thought that it was just as well they hadn’t arrived five minutes earlier. They didn’t look the sort to be impressed by a member of the firm having a punch-up with a biker.

Now, three years later, the biker had long gone. Robin might have passed the clerk in town since without noticing him, but they’d certainly never spoken another word to each other.

‘So what happened?’ Mrs Myson was wanting to know. She looked from Robin to Marc and he answered.

‘Three years ago, you were with us how long?’ He knew how long, Robin would bet. ‘Nearly a week, wasn’t it?’ She nodded and he told Mrs Myson, ‘Two of her admirers had a fight in the foyer.’

‘The office foyer?’

‘That’s the one.’

She crowed with laughter. ‘I never heard about it.’

‘We kept it quiet.’ His grin took the sternness from his face, making him look suddenly light-hearted. ‘We didn’t want rumours getting around that dissatisfied clients were beating up the staff. The only witness was Edna Hodgkiss, and you know what a soul of discretion she is.’

Mrs Myson wasn’t shocked; her eyes were twinkling. But Robin knew the joke was on her. At just seventeen she had wanted to crawl away. Now she would have said, I didn’t get a kick out of it. They’re a couple of morons, like a lot of the men I seem to meet, and that’s their problem, not mine.

Mrs Myson waved the matter away. ‘This happened years ago; it’s all forgotten by now, and Robin needs a job. You say I need a companion. Well, I’d like Robin.’

‘We’ve had much more suitable applicants, and you’ve turned them all down,’ said Marc Hammond.

‘I didn’t want them,’ said Mrs Myson. She nearly pouted, and Robin glimpsed the dazzling, demanding girl she must have been, and still was under the skin.

‘No way,’ he said implacably.

Robin pulled her other hand clear but Mrs Myson had her at once by the elbow and was smiling sweetly at Marc. ‘At least Robin must stay to tea.’

‘No, thank you,’ Robin said promptly. She would choke trying to swallow while he watched her.

‘With me,’ said Maybelle Myson. ‘I am allowed guests, aren’t I?’ That was another joke, and again he shook his head at her, a smile lifting the edge of a mouth that Robin would have likened to a rat-trap.

‘I’ll tell Elsie to bring up a tray,’ he said.

‘This way, my dear,’ said Maybelle.

As she followed the old lady up the wide staircase Robin didn’t have to look back to know that Marc Hammond was still standing in the hallway below, watching her. She could feel his eyes on her almost like a hand shoving her, so that she took every step carefully as if she might stumble.

She hadn’t realised the effect that meeting him again face to face might have on her. She would never forget how she was sacked; it had been so humiliating. But it was more than three years ago. Since then she had had her share of bad scenes and she had thought she was tough.

She was tough. She had had to be. She had learned as a child not to wear her heart on her sleeve or to show hurt or anger unless she was unbearably provoked. But Marc Hammond seemed to storm through her defences. She found herself almost holding her breath, until they reached the top of the stairs and she followed Mrs Myson into a room and the door closed behind them, shutting him out down in the hall.

This was a sitting room. Chairs and a long sofa were covered in pale blue silk. There were fresh flowers—an arrangement of freesias and roses. Their perfume filled the air. It was a delightful room.

Mrs Myson sat with her feet up on the sofa and Robin took a low stool. Mrs Myson began telling her about some of the other applicants for the job. Some of them sounded reasonable to Robin, although

Maybelle Myson had been dead set against every one—almost as prejudiced as Marc Hammond was against Robin, and Robin was the one she couldn’t have.

‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you turned up,’ Maybelle said.

‘He won’t let me stay,’ Robin pointed out.

‘We’ll see.’ Maybelle gave a little nod, and Robin wondered if the old lady would go against Marc Hammond’s advice. Perhaps he was here in a professional capacity, as her lawyer, although that was not at all how it had seemed.

‘Are you related?’ she asked. Maybelle could have been his grandmother

‘Marc’s grandmother was my sister,’ she said. ‘I’m his aunt—well, his great-aunt. We had no children. I would have liked a daughter, a granddaughter.’ Briefly she sounded wistful, then her eyes filled with tenderness. ‘But Marc has always been like a son to me. Better than most sons I hear about.’

There was a tap on the door and the woman who had let ‘Miss Johnson’ into the house came into the room carrying a tray. Maybelle Myson thanked her and she put down the tray on a side-table, pausing to give Robin a long, hard stare from head to foot before she went out.

The tray was laid with tiny sandwiches, a Dundee cake, cream, sugar and lemon, and a teapot, cups, saucers and plates in beautiful china.

Robin poured, and took lemon tea because the amber liquid and the lemon rind looked so pretty in the eggshell-thin white cup. She took a bite of cake, letting the crumbs melt on her tongue, listening to Maybelle Myson.

Until now Robin had known next to nothing about Maybelle. She was always well dressed and anyone could see she was a lady in the true sense of the word-but their talk had always been cheerful chatter—no heart-to-hearts or confidences. But somehow Robin had felt they were on the same wavelength in spite of an age gap of a couple of generations.

Now, as they took tea together, she listened enthralled while Maybelle talked, telling Robin she had been a widow for years. Her husband had been an engineer and they had travelled the world together. Marc Hammond was right; Maybelle Myson had had a life packed with adventure in far-away places.

Listening had Robin on the edge of her chair, because it was nearly like being there herself. One of Robin’s dreams was to really travel—not to holiday resorts but somewhere explorers and archaeologists went—and although Marc Hammond could stop her getting a job here he probably wouldn’t stop her keeping in touch. Or coming to tea, perhaps. Because the more she saw and learned of Maybelle Myson, the more she liked her.

Several times Mrs Myson had started to ask Robin about herself but Robin had answered briefly and got Maybelle back to her memories. They were fascinating and, to Robin, Robin’s own life was not. She would much rather hear how a bridge had been built over a raging river in a jungle than talk about herself. Although, after their second cup of tea and when most of the sandwiches had gone, Maybelle Myson said firmly, ‘Now, tell me about yourself.’

‘What do you want to know?’ Robin asked.

‘Well, where do you live?’

‘At home. With my aunt and uncle. They’ve brought me up since I was five, when my mother died. She was my mother’s sister.’

Maybelle Myson said, ‘Like Marc’s grandmother and me.’ She went on gaily, ‘I always approve of aunts.’

You would not approve of mine, thought Robin, but she managed to keep her voice light and bright, asking, ‘Are you really eighty-two? You don’t took anywhere near that.’

She was not trying to flatter. Maybelle Myson could have knocked ten or more years off her age and got away with it easily, and now she said, ‘Thank you,’ and laughed. ‘Most of the time I feel, say, fifty-something, although there are days when I am every minute of my age, but don’t tell anyone that.’ Robin laughed with her. ‘How old are you, Robin?’ she enquired.