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‘You don’t mind if we abandon you for a few minutes, do you, Lex? We won’t be long.’
‘Of course not.’ Courteously Lex got to his feet, hoping he hadn’t missed out on some vital conversation. Willie clearly wasn’t expecting him to go with them, though, and Lex was delighted at the thought of a few minutes on his own. ‘I’ll be very happy to stay here and keep an eye on the fire.’
‘Excellent.’ Willie moved to the door. ‘Magnus will keep you company. He doesn’t like the stairs. Shall we go then, Romy? Oh, I don’t think you’ll want to take Freya, will you?’ he added as Romy bent to pick up her daughter. ‘It’s chilly up there, and you might find the spiral stairs a bit tricky with her.’
‘Oh.’ Already by the door with Freya in her arms, Romy hesitated.
Willie flicked Freya’s nose. ‘You’d rather stay with your daddy, wouldn’t you, precious?’
Daddy?
Lex opened his mouth, but Romy got in first. ‘Er, Lex isn’t actually Freya’s father,’ she said.
‘Isn’t he now?’ Willie’s brows shot up. He eyed Lex narrowly, and then gave a small approving nod, ‘Well, that makes me think the better of you.’
Mystified, Lex looked at Romy, who could only lift her brows with a tiny shrug to show that she was as puzzled as he was.
‘We won’t be long, Lex.’ Willie held the door open for Romy, who threw Lex an agonised glance. She could hardly insist on taking Freya with her against Willie’s advice, he realised.
Heart sinking, Lex went over and she handed the baby over with a speaking glance. ‘I won’t be long,’ she promised.
Freya watched the door close behind her mother and belatedly realised that she had been abandoned. Her eyes narrowed in outrage and she let out a bellow of outrage that startled Lex so much that he nearly dropped her.
‘She’ll be back as soon as she can,’ he said with desperation, but Freya only opened her mouth to wail in earnest.
‘Oh, God…oh, God…’ Frantically, he jiggled her up and down, and for a moment he thought it would work. Freya definitely paused in mid-wail, and Lex could practically see her considering whether she was distracted enough to stop crying altogether, but she evidently decided that she wasn’t ready to be consoled just yet because off she went again, at ear-splitting volume.
‘Shh…. Shh…’ Lex had a sudden vision of Romy walking Freya around the pub at lunchtime, so he set off around the room, jiggling the baby awkwardly as he went.
To his astonishment, this seemed to do the trick. Freya’s screams subsided to snuffly sobs, and then stopped altogether.
Perhaps there wasn’t so much to this baby business, after all? Obviously, the child just needed a firm hand.
Bored of circling the library, Lex stopped and put Freya on the carpet. She promptly started yelling again until he picked her up again, at which point the noise miraculously stopped.
A firm hand. Right.
Lex set off on another circuit of the library.
He was on his fifth when the door opened. He looked round, hoping it would be Romy, but instead it was Elspeth, the housekeeper, who had come to clear the tea tray.
‘The wee one must be tired,’ she said, noting the long lashes spiky with tears and the hectic flush in the baby’s cheeks. And Lex’s harassed expression. ‘Would you like me to show you to your room?’
At least it would make a change from the library, thought Lex as he followed Elspeth up more stairs and along a labyrinth of corridors.
‘I feel as if I should be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs,’ he said, and Elspeth smiled as she opened a door at last.
‘It’s not as complicated as it seems the first time,’ she promised as she left.
Lex was dismayed to see her go. He had considered asking her to look after Freya, but that would have meant admitting that he couldn’t cope, and that wasn’t something Lex could do. He wasn’t the kind of person who admitted failure or asked for help.
It would have been different if Elspeth had offered to take Freya. Then he could have legitimately handed her over. But as it was, she simply smiled and assured him that she would make sure Romy knew where they were, and Lex was left to grit his teeth and get on with it.
He found himself in a magnificent guest room, dominated by a four-poster bed, and with swagged curtains at the windows. The cot, pushchair, high chair and assorted baby bags were neatly stacked in the corner, together with his own briefcase and overnight bag, which had clearly been put in here by mistake.
It was all boding very well for the deal, he thought. If Romy, as a very junior member of the negotiating team, had been allocated a room like this, Willie Grant must be doing more than considering their offer.
Feeling more confident, Lex tried putting Freya down again, but she was having none of it. She insisted on being picked up again, and amused herself for the next few minutes by pulling at his hair, batting his nose and trying to twist his lips with surprisingly strong little fingers.
‘Ouch!’ Lex began to get quite ruffled. Where was Romy? It felt as if he had been walking around with Freya for hours now, but when he looked at his watch he was astounded to see that barely thirty minutes had passed since Romy had handed him her daughter and left. Surely she had to be here soon?
Worse was to come.
Wincing as he pulled her fingers from his nose, Lex was alarmed to see that Freya’s face had gone bright red and screwed up with effort.
‘What’s the—?’
He stopped as an unmistakable smell wafted up from her nappy.
‘Oh, God. Oh, no…’
Dangled abruptly at arm’s length, Freya started to cry again.
‘No, no, don’t cry…your mother will be here soon…just hold on…’
But Freya didn’t want to hold on. She was miserable and uncomfortable and missing the reassuring solidity of his body. She cried and cried until Lex, who had been pretending to himself that he didn’t know what needed to be done, was driven to investigating the bag he had seen Romy take to the Ladies with Freya in the pub, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
He did know what had to be done. He just didn’t want to face it.
‘Where are you, Romy?’ he muttered.
The bag contained fresh nappies and a pack of something called baby wipes. Lex made a face, but took the bag and the baby into the bathroom and looked around for a towel. He had a nasty feeling things were going to get messy.
Cursing fluently under his breath, he spread the towel as best he could one-handed, and laid Freya, still screaming, on top of it.
‘Please stop crying,’ he begged her, wrenching at his tie in dismay at the task ahead of him.
In response, Freya redoubled her cries.
‘OK, OK.’ Lex dragged his hands through his hair and took a deep breath. ‘You can do this,’ he told himself.
He rolled up his sleeves and studied the fastenings on Freya’s dungarees. So far, so good. Gingerly, he pulled them off her and then, averting his face, managed to unfasten the nappy.
‘Ugh.’
Grimacing horribly, he tugged the dirty nappy free, holding it out as far away from him as humanly possible, and put it in a waste-paper basket. Then he braced himself for the next stage of the process.
‘God, what am I doing?’ Lex muttered as he pulled off some sheets of l00 paper. ‘I’m Chief Executive of Gibson & Grieve. I make deals and I make money. I negotiate. I direct. I don’t wipe bottoms. How did I come to this?’
And then—at last!—came the sound of the door opening. ‘Lex?’ Romy called.
‘In here.’
When Romy crossed to the bathroom door, she saw Lex crouched on the floor, a fistful of l00 paper in his hand and Freya kicking and grizzling on a towel in front of him. Both of them looked up at Romy as she appeared in the doorway, with almost identical expressions of relief.
‘Oh, thank God!’ said Lex in heartfelt tones. ‘Where have you been?’
‘With Willie, then I went to the kitchen to find Freya some supper.’
Romy looked from her daughter to Lex. She had never seen him less than immaculate before, but now his hair was standing on end, his tie askew and his sleeves rolled up above his wrists.
He looked so harried that she wanted to laugh, but it seemed less than tactful when he had clearly been doing his best.
‘She was crying,’ Lex said defensively, as if she had demanded to know what he thought he was doing. ‘I thought she needed her nappy changing but I’m not really sure what I’m doing…’
Romy could only guess what that admission had cost him. ‘It was very brave of you to have a go at all,’ she told him. ‘Shall I take over now?’
‘She’s all yours.’
Lex couldn’t get up quickly enough. He watched as Romy cleaned the baby and put on a clean nappy with the minimum of fuss.
‘You make it look so simple,’ he said almost resentfully, and she glanced up at him with a smile.
‘Practice,’ she said.
Freya was wreathed in smiles once more. Romy lifted her up and kissed her, and the tenderness in her expression closed a fist around Lex’s heart and squeezed.
Turning abruptly on his heel, he went back into the bedroom, where a plate of bread and butter with some ham and a banana was sitting on a side table. Freya’s supper, presumably. Lex dreaded to imagine what she would do with that banana.
Not his problem, he reminded himself. Thank God.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he called back to Romy as he retrieved his bag and briefcase. ‘What time are we expected for dinner?’
Romy appeared in the doorway with Freya. ‘Drinks at seven thirty.’
‘Fine. I’ll have time for a shower and can change these trousers.’ Lex shook each leg in turn. Between Freya and the snow, he didn’t think they would ever be the same again. ‘I don’t suppose you know which is my room?’
Romy settled Freya into the plastic chair that she had fixed to the table. She handed her the plate of bread and ham and turned to face Lex, drawing a breath.
‘This one,’ she said.
‘All your stuff is in here,’ said Lex. ‘You might as well stay here, and I’ll take your room.’
‘This is our room.’
Halfway to the door, Lex stopped. Frowned as he realised what she was saying. ‘You mean…?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Faint colour touched Romy’s cheeks. She hadn’t been looking forward to breaking this to Lex. ‘There seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding when Summer rang up,’ she said carefully. ‘They thought that because we were bringing a baby, we were all together.’
‘Didn’t you tell them that’s not the case?’
She hesitated. ‘Not yet.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘I wasn’t sure what to do.’
Edgily, Romy walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain. Outside, the snow was still swirling in the darkness while great, fat flakes piled up on the window sill. If they weren’t careful, they would be snowed in here, and then what would happen?
Lex eyed her back in baffled frustration. ‘What do you mean, you weren’t sure? You could just tell the truth!’
‘The thing is, Willie was so pleased.’ Romy turned from the window, trying to make Lex understand what it had been like. ‘He was supposed to be showing me some charter, but he really just wanted to talk about you, and how happy he was to discover you weren’t at all like your reputation. There he was, expecting some soulless businessman, and you
turn up with a baby and start bonding with his beastly dog… Willie was absolutely delighted to discover that you were a family man after all!’
‘But I’m not Freya’s father,’ Lex objected, pacing back from the door. ‘We told him that.’
‘I know, but that only makes it better from his point of view. Apparently his mother was a single mother who struggled without any support from her family or his father or anyone, and helping single mothers is a big issue with him.’
Romy fiddled with her bracelets. ‘He just assumed that you and I were.’ Somehow she just couldn’t bring herself to say ‘lovers’. It was too close to the truth. And too far.
‘Together,’ she said in the end. ‘So the fact that you’re prepared to be in a relationship with me and be a hands-on father figure to Freya…well, that clinched it for Willie.’
Hands-on? Lex raked a hand through his hair. This was getting worse and worse!
‘Why didn’t you put him right straight away?’
‘Because you told me you wanted this deal signed at all costs!’ said Romy defensively. ‘This is important, you said.’
‘Good God, Romy, you can’t have thought I meant you to lie to the man!’
‘I didn’t lie. I just…didn’t tell him he’d got it all wrong. I could barely get a word in edgeways as it was.’
Romy was starting to get cross. ‘Willie was going on and on about how pleased he was to discover that you weren’t at all like your reputation, and how much happier he felt knowing that Grant’s was going to be part of a chain run by a man with the right priorities. At what point was I supposed to interrupt and say that actually you weren’t like that at all, and that actually you didn’t want anything to do with me at all and that you’d rather stick pins in your eyes than deal with a baby?’
‘There must have been something you could do!’ Lex took another turn around the room, watched round-eyed by Freya, who was intrigued by his agitation. ‘Eat your supper!’ he said to her irritably as he went past, and obligingly she stuffed another finger of bread in her mouth.
‘Leave Freya out of it!’ snapped Romy, moving to stand protectively over her daughter.
Picking up the banana, she began to peel it as she made herself calm down. There was no point in getting into an argument with Lex. She didn’t for a moment think he would sack her out of spite, but, when all was said and done, he was still her boss.
‘Look,’ she said after a moment, ‘I know it seems awkward, and I’m sorry, but I just didn’t know what to do. It seemed so important to Willie.’
She sliced up the banana and put it on Freya’s plate, while Lex continued to prowl around the room. ‘I got the sense that he’d almost decided that he didn’t want to sell to you, but, between Freya and the dog, you’ve changed his mind. He told me in the tower that he’s really keen for the deal to go ahead as soon as possible now.’
Lex sucked in his breath at the news. This was the moment he had been waiting for. He wanted to punch the air and shout ‘Yes!’ but it didn’t seem appropriate now that everything was muddled with this misunderstanding about his relationship with Romy.
He paced some more. He wanted this deal—oh, how he wanted it!—but did he really want it under false pretences?
Romy was watching him warily. ‘I was afraid that if I told Willie the truth, he would be so disappointed that he’d change his mind back again,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t just thinking about you,’ she added as Lex pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. ‘I was thinking about all the work Tim and the rest of the team have put in on this deal. We all want it as much as you do. So rather than throw up my hands in horror when I realised what Willie was thinking, I thought I should talk to you first. You’re the boss,’ she said. ‘I think you should decide whether you tell him the truth or not.’
Lex had ended up at the window. He stood, exactly where Romy had done, looking broodingly out at the snow that spiralled silently past, catching the light from the room in a brief blur of white before drifting down into the darkness. His hands were thrust into his trouser pockets, his shoulders stiff with exasperation.
‘God, what a mess!’ he said with a short, humourless laugh.
Romy said nothing. It seemed to her that there was little more that she could say now. It was up to Lex.
Freya, quite oblivious to the tension in the room, was stuffing banana into her mouth. Romy sat down next to her and turned her bracelets while her eyes rested on the back of Lex’s head. How was it that it could still look so familiar after all this time?
Unaware of her gaze, Lex tried to roll the tension from his shoulders and she sucked in a breath at the stab of memory. He was such a guarded man, such a cool and careful man, and he held himself so tautly that it was easy to forget that beneath the suit, beneath the tie and the immaculate shirt, was a man of bone and muscle, of firm flesh and sinew, a man hard and smooth and strong.
Romy remembered running her hands over those shoulders, feeling the flex of responsive muscles beneath her touch. His back was broad and solid and warm, his skin sleek and underlaid with steel.
She couldn’t see his face, but she knew that it would be set in harsh lines, and that a nerve would be jumping in his jaw. She could go to him, put her arms around him from behind, and lay her cheek against his back. She could hold onto his hardness and his strength, and offer in return the comfort of her warmth and her softness. She could tell him that she would be there for him, whatever happened.
She could, but she wouldn’t.
It was just a fantasy. A stupid fantasy, Romy knew. A dangerous fantasy.
The trouble with Lex was that he made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. Something about him bypassed all her rational processes and tugged at a chord deep inside her. Romy didn’t want it to be love. Love, she knew, laid you open. It made you vulnerable, made you blind. It was a trap that could spring shut at any moment, and she had no intention of blundering into it. She couldn’t afford to get tangled up in loving anyone, least of all a man who had made it plain that he had no interest in Freya.
I do want you, he had said. I just don’t want a baby.
And that wasn’t a problem, because she didn’t want him, Romy reminded herself.
So, no fantasies. No remembering, no thinking about how he had felt or the clean, male smell of his skin. She was here on business, and she had better not forget it.
The silence lengthened, broken only by Freya loudly enjoying the banana. Bath time next, Romy thought, and was about to get to her feet when Lex spoke at last.
‘I went to see my father last week,’ he said suddenly, without looking round.
Thrown by the apparent change of subject, Romy hesitated. ‘How is he?’ she asked at last.
‘A stroke is a terrible thing.’ Lex kept his eyes on the snow. ‘He’s trapped in a useless body, but his mind is as sharp as ever. He was such a powerful man, always in control, and now all he can do is lie there. He can’t bear the humiliation of it.’
‘He must be glad to see you,’ Romy said, not entirely sure where this was going.
‘Must he? I think he hates the fact that I can walk into the room on my own. He hates the fact that I can walk out. He hates the fact that I run Gibson & Grieve now. I don’t know which of us dreads my visits more,’ said Lex bleakly.
‘But still you go.’
‘My mother says he wants to know what’s going on at Gibson & Grieve now he’s not there any more. She says it’s all that keeps him going. It’s certainly all we’ve got to talk about.’
Lex’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘You know what’s the worst thing about those visits? It’s that every time I hope that he’ll think the company is doing all right. You’d
think I’d know by now that he’s never going to say, “Well done”,’ he added, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘I could tell him we’d quadrupled our profits, and he’d still say it wasn’t good enough!’
‘Is that why you feel you have to prove something with this deal?’
‘Damn right it is.’ Lex turned to face her at last. ‘When I told him about taking over Grant’s, my father said that Grant wouldn’t sell. He said he’d approached him before, and they couldn’t make it work, so I wouldn’t be able to pull it off either. Talking is a big effort for him nowadays, and his speech is slurred, but he made sure I got that message. It won’t work, he said.’
Lex’s jaw was clenched. ‘I’m going to go back and tell him that Grant will sell, that it will work. I want him to know that he was wrong, and that Gibson & Grieve is bigger and better without him.’
CHAPTER FIVE
ROMY bit her lip. ‘Lex, he’s very ill. Making him admit that he was wrong won’t make you feel any better.’
‘It’s not about feeling, said Lex angrily. ‘It’s about doing what’s best for the company. And signing this deal with Grant is the best thing for Gibson & Grieve.’
‘So…?’ Romy’s dark eyes were wary.
‘So let’s not disillusion him.’ Lex made up his mind so abruptly that he couldn’t believe that he had been hesitating. Surely it had been obvious?
He pulled the curtain back across the window and came to join Romy and Freya at the table.
‘You’ve told me it makes a difference to Willie if we’re together or not, and if that’s the case I’m not prepared to risk him changing his mind. If we start bleating on about separate rooms and not really being a couple, it’ll just be embarrassing for everybody.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Romy.
‘What does it matter if Willie thinks we’re a couple?’ Lex, talking himself into the whole idea, made the mistake of looking at Freya, who smiled at him through a mouthful of banana. He averted his eyes quickly. ‘It’ll only be for a night. How hard can that be?’
‘As long as he doesn’t ask too many personal questions.’ Romy thought she should inject a note of caution, but Lex was committed now.
‘We’re going to talk business tonight,’ he said. ‘If Willie is really concerned about getting the best deal for Grant’s Supersavers, he’ll have more important questions to ask.’
How hard could it be? Lex had asked, and at the time it had seemed all quite straightforward. The deal was within his grasp. He and Romy would have dinner with Willie Grant. They would discuss the arrangements and come to a gentleman’s agreement, and the deal would be done. The next day, he and Romy would return to London. Romy would go back to Acquisitions, Freya would go to the crèche that he had had no idea existed, and he could tell his father that he had succeeded where he never could.
Simple.
Only he hadn’t counted on the intimacy of sharing a room with Romy. Lex flipped open his computer to check the markets, while Romy had a bath with Freya, but it was impossible to concentrate with the squeals and splashes and laughter coming out of the bathroom. Romy’s vividly coloured outfit hung on the wardrobe door, and her perfume lingered distractingly in the air, coiling around his mind and making the Dow Jones Index dance in front of his eyes.
Worse was to come. The door opened, and Romy came out, carrying Freya. ‘I found this behind the door,’ she said, gesturing down at the towelling robe. ‘I hope no one will mind if I use it.’
‘I’m sure they won’t.’ Lex’s voice came out as a humiliating rasp, and he cleared his throat and scowled at the screen. Much good it did him. There might as well have been a photo of Romy there instead, her skin glowing, her hair damp to her shoulders, her face alight with joy in her daughter….
Romy threw a towel on the floor and laid Freya on it. ‘There’s not much room in the bathroom,’ she explained over her shoulder, ‘so I thought it would be easier to dry her out here. It’s all yours.’
Of course, what he should have done was get up straight away and have a shower, but instead Lex sat on at the computer, pretending to himself that he was working, forcing his eyes back to the screen whenever they drifted over to where Romy was kissing Freya’s toes and blowing raspberries on her tummy while Freya shrieked with delighted laughter and clutched at her mother’s hair.
Lex knew exactly how silky it would feel in Freya’s fingers. He knew how it felt tickling his skin, and memory hit him like a blow to his diaphragm: the hitch in his chest at Romy’s pliant warmth in his arms, her soft laughter in his ear, her kisses drifting down his throat, down, down, down. All at once he lost track of his breathing. It got all muddled up with the twist of his guts and the vice around his chest and he had to force his lungs back to order.