An Indecent Proposal

by Margot Early

  “Actually, I want to make sure your mother gets something to eat.”

  “Food,” Wesley said excitedly, as though he’d just realized the barbecue was in progress. “And tomorrow I’m going to the races. Louisa said I could, if it’s okay with you, Mum.”

  “It’s okay.

  We’re all going,” Patrick told the boy.

  “Hooray! Come on, Beckham. Let’s go to the barbecue.”

  “Don’t let him steal food or jump on people,” Bronwyn warned.

  “I won’t, I won’t.

  He seems happy,” Patrick observed as the boy raced toward the food tables.

  “He does. The happiest he’s been since Ari was arrested.”

  Patrick revealed to Bronwyn some of the feelings Wesley had confided on their rides together.

  “He wants to pay for Ari’s crimes,” Bronwyn murmured. “It’s going to confuse him no end to learn that you’re his father.”

  “You might be surprised. He’s obviously very resilient.”

  “I have to tell him sometime. I don’t know why it feels best to wait.”

  “Perhaps because you don’t trust me?”

  Bronwyn glanced up at him. In truth, the person she didn’t trust was herself. She loved her new life at Fairchild Acres. She wasn’t ready to enter into another relationship which might jeopardize her independence in any way. But what Patrick seemed to be offering looked damned attractive. She liked him, and it would be so tempting to yield to the kind of security a partner offered.

  Well, she was getting ahead of herself. He’d only, asked her to the races and to come to Sydney. It all might be because of Wesley.

  She found herself saying, “I trust you, Patrick.”

  Bronwyn dressed carefully for the races the next day. Marie had the day off and would be accompanying them.

  “I feel silly going on your date with you,” Marie admitted as she and Bronwyn checked their reflections in the mirrors in the bungalow.

  “Well, I feel better with you going,” Bronwyn said. “Besides, they’re all pretty nice. Patrick’s sister will be there.”

  “Why did you marry Ari? I mean, you’d been seeing Patrick.”

  “Ari was very romantic. When he showed up, he seemed like exactly what I’d always wanted. Patrick wasn’t the way he is now. He was a student and had very vague plans for the future. I couldn’t count on him. I loved him, but I felt bad for loving him, because I knew he wasn’t serious about making a living. Maybe not even about making a commitment. He’d really never had to fend for himself in the world.”

  “Well, he’s definitely past that,” Marie remarked.

  “Yes, but back then, he was a history student. It seemed so impractical. Everything about him was like that.”

  “Ah.” Marie looked thoughtful, but said no more.

  Bronwyn, trying to fill in the silence, wondered if she really had made a mistake all those years ago. If she’d stuck with Patrick, would he have become the man he was now?

  Frankly, she doubted it.

  But she felt flashes of anger at Ari, who had married her and yet at his death had left her and Wesley in such a mess.

  “He’s doing it. He’s doing it.” Louisa, eyes fixed to the track with the aid of binoculars, was watching An Indecent Proposal’s progress. “Hold off, Teddy, hold off,” she whispered to the jockey. “He knows his horse,” she said to Bronwyn, who stood beside her, without lessening her focus on the track. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Seconds later, a celebration erupted in the box.

  While champagne was being uncorked, Louisa suddenly drew Bronwyn aside. “Patrick’s going to Sydney next week,” she said, “and I think it’s a good time for you to get some of that training you wanted. I noticed a course for that type of yoga you want to teach, and Patrick says you’re welcome to stay at the penthouse with him.”

  Bronwyn couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Do you have an ulterior motive in this, Louisa?”

  “Nothing secret,” Louisa replied. She flashed a look that included Wesley and seemed to say that Wesley’s parents belonged together.

  Patrick handed Bronwyn a glass of champagne and, met her eyes. “So. Will you and Wesley come to Sydney with me?”

  Bronwyn nodded, wondering why the prospect didn’t make her happier. But she knew the reason. She didn’t like other people making decisions for her, and she detested the thought of being financially dependent again. She’d depended on Ari, and she was happier now, with only herself to rely on. Marrying Ari, she’d traded independence for what she’d believed was security. Now that she had her independence back, she was loath to relinquish any part of it again.

  On the drive to Sydney in Patrick’s Range Rover, they listened to The Hobbit on tape. By the time they arrived at Patrick’s penthouse apartment, Wesley was trying to make riddles of his own to match the game Bilbo and Gollum had played. Beckham sat beside the boy on his seat, and Bronwyn heard Wesley ask the dog, “Would you have guessed any of those, Beckham?”

  The book on tape had been Patrick’s idea, and Bronwyn was impressed. He’s already a good father.

  Patrick’s apartment was spacious, furnished in a simple, clean style Bronwyn most liked. He had fantastic views, including one of the Sydney racetrack. Beck-ham leaped up onto the couch first thing.

  “Off!” Bronwyn said. Then, to Patrick, “Has Louisa been here?”

  Wesley hauled the dog off the couch.

  “No.” Patrick looked toward the racetrack. “But I’d like her to stay here the next time one of her horses runs on that track. I’m very fond of her, Bronwyn.You weren’t far off in your suppositions of what first brought me to Fairchild Acres. But soon it wasn’t about the money at all. I began to care for Louisa, and Megan desperately wanted to be close to her. Our parents’ deaths hit her worse than they did me. She wants family. She lives for family.Which is why Dylan and Heidi are so good for her.”

  Bronwyn thought about this.

  “Come on, mate,” Patrick told Wesley. “Let’s have a look at your room.”

  Wesley followed Patrick in to a spacious bedroom and glanced around. He looked somewhat glum.

  “What is it?” Patrick asked, noticing his expression. Bronwyn, who’d followed them to the doorway, could guess the answer. It was so much like Wesley’s old room, reminding him of his former life in Sydney. “Mum, could we call Colin?” he asked.

  “An old friend from Sydney?” Patrick asked.

  “Wesley, we’re guests—” she began, eyeing Beckham as he sniffed a nearby table and wandered toward the kitchen.

  “Yes,” Patrick answered Wesley. “I want you to feel like this room is yours. No one else uses it, and you and your mother will be coming to Sydney more frequently now. As a matter of fact, we should look around for some things of your own to go in it.”

  Bronwyn bit her tongue. Patrick was keeping his word, not telling Wesley the truth about who his father was. So why did she feel uneasy?

  He’s taking over.

  Yet she wasn’t sure she really believed that. What was Patrick doing but trying to make Wesley happy? And hadn’t Wesley known enough unhappiness for any ten-year-old boy?

  Patrick tossed Wesley his own mobile phone. “Why don’t you give your friend Colin a call? See when you can get together.”

  Wesley had not forgotten Colin’s number. He dialed.

  Bronwyn said quickly, “I’ll speak to his mother, Wesley.” She was uneasy. Colin’s parents hadn’t liked their son spending time with Wesley after Ari’s arrest. Bronwyn knew that they believed she’d been unaware of Ari’s criminal activities. Nonetheless, there had been a definite chill. Perhaps they’d believed her appallingly naive—or simply stupid.

  Patrick seemed to read her expression. “Tensions with old friends?”

  She gave a barely perceptible nod. But a few minutes later she was on the phone with Colin’s mother, making arrangements to pick up Colin after school that day. Hanging up, she said, “And speaking of school,
you have some assignments to take care of, young man.” Wesley’s teacher had been flexible about his planned absence and had assigned several projects, one of which included a visit to the museum in Sydney, another to the zoo.

  Colin accompanied them to the zoo.

  At first, Wesley had felt strange with his old friend, afraid Colin would want to talk about Ari. But then they’d practiced football together. Colin had brought his ball, and he and Wesley played with it in the grounds of the zoo. “Let’s go see the snakes,” Colin said.

  Beckham had stayed behind in the penthouse, being unwelcome at the zoo, but Wesley had told Colin about the dog. Now he said, “There was a brown snake in my bedroom in Hunter Valley.”

  “No way.

  Yeah, and Beckham was barking and growling at it. It was scary. Hey, I wonder if there’s a mongoose at the zoo here.”

  “What’s a mongoose?”

  Wesley began to relax as he answered his friend. But when they were in the reptile house, Colin said, “My dad says your dad’s a snake.”

  My dad’s dead, Wesley thought. Why was Colin being so mean? He spun on his friend. “It’s not true!”

  “What’s not true? You mean your dad’s not a mobster? He didn’t cheat people?”

  Wesley remained silent.

  Suddenly, Colin looked sorry. He said, “This one seems okay, though.”

  Wesley knew he was talking about Patrick, who had followed them into the room with Wesley’s mother. Wesley saw his mother shudder as she observed an anaconda behind the glass.

  “There’s something wrong with a reptile getting that big,” she said.

  “Mum, tell Colin about the brown snake,” Wesley said. “Patrick, do you think there’s a mongoose here?”

  “Let’s find out,” Patrick said.

  Colin was right about one thing, Wesley thought. Patrick was okay.

  There was no mongoose, but Wesley and Colin were both captivated by the zoo’s binturong cub, Indah. The Asian bearcat was, Bronwyn had to admit, adorable. Her personal favorites were the red panda cubs, though. Patrick preferred the penguins and the tapir.

  “He’s weird-looking,” Wesley commented about the latter.

  “Maybe that’s why I like him,” Patrick told him.

  They ate dinner at the zoo then dropped Colin back at his house. The following day, Bronwyn would start her yoga training program. When they returned to the penthouse, Wesley put Beckham’s leash on him and took him downstairs for a walk, then set to work writing about the animals he’d seen at the zoo.

  When it was Wesley’s bedtime, Bronwyn read to him from a new book which Patrick had bought for him at the zoo, while Beckham lay on the floor beside the bed.

  “Mum,” Wesley said when she had finished.

  Bronwyn looked at him.

  “Colin’s dad called my dad a snake.”

  Bronwyn tried to remember if she had ever called Ari a snake to her son. Considering the rage she’d felt during their desperate trip to the Hunter Valley, it was possible. Surely now was the moment to tell Wesley that Patrick was his father. Yet maybe it wasn’t. He seemed in such pain already, confused and upset.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It must have hurt to hear that.

  But my dad was a good man, too, wasn’t he? You always told me he was a good man.”

  And what can I say now? “Wesley, people are so complicated. I’m not sure it’s up to us to say someone is good or bad. We can look at things they do and say, ‘This is a good thing,’ or ‘That was bad.’ But people? We can’t know what goes on inside anyone. And sometimes people do bad things for reasons the rest of us can’t understand.”

  “I love you, Mum.

  And I love you, Wesley.”

  When she emerged from Wesley’s bedroom, Patrick had put a CD on the stereo. Allison Kraus and Union Station. A game box sat on the coffee table. “Challenge you to Scrabble?” he asked.

  It was something they’d done in college. Actually, they’d been rather bloodthirsty about it.

  “You’re on,” Bronwyn said with sudden enthusiasm, glad that Wesley’s proximity made it impossible for them to discuss the need to tell him who his father really was.

  “Tomorrow,” Patrick said, “I have a couple of appointments. Since you’ll be at your yoga seminars, I thought I’d take Wesley with me. There will be a place where he can be safe and supervised while I’m in meetings. Then, he and I can go find some fun—or maybe go to the museum, since we’ve promised his teacher.”

  “Yes, that’s fine.” Bronwyn had gotten first draw, first play. Her letters were a dream. QUAFF, with Q on the double letter and all on the double word.

  “Revolting,” Patrick said, noting her score. “As usual, you intend to win by a combination of unbelievable luck and unbelievable luck.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him.

  He took more time with his choice and came out with a formidable forty-two points. “By the way, we’ll want to look for an apartment for you while you’re here. I do own two others, but they’re both rented at the moment.”

  “Why an apartment?” she asked.

  “Does that mean you’re willing to live with me?” He smiled.

  “No, it means I have a place to live, and so does Wesley. Fairchild Acres.”

  “Yes, that’s my home base, too, now. But I’m going to need to be in Sydney some, and you should be here, too. I’m willing to help, but I’m not going to support you to the extent Ari Theodoros did.”

  Bronwyn’s sudden rage was monumental. She sat back from the game board—perhaps to remove herself from the temptation of spilling the letter squares into his lap. “I think we’ve covered this ground, Patrick. You are not going to be supporting me. And Wesley will be remaining with me at Fairchild Acres. As your great-aunt and I have agreed,” she continued acidly.

  “It’s worked out well for you,” Patrick remarked.

  Bronwyn tried to let that slide, suspecting what was behind his words. “Yes, it has. Let’s drop this. We need to keep the peace over the coming week, so if you’re entertaining bizarre suspicions about me or my motives, please keep them to yourself.”

  “Just as long as you remember that I won’t up the ante.” He changed his voice to a whisper, but looked directly at her as he uttered each of the next words. “Even if you continue to put off telling Wesley the truth.”

  Bronwyn had no idea how to disabuse Patrick of this strange belief that she wanted him to support her. “What makes you think that’s what I want?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “Many things about people change—but not natures. You revealed your nature when you turned your back, on your lover of two years and chose a playboy old enough to be your father.”

  Bronwyn was stung. “Let’s just review this history you think you know so well. You asked me to marry you. I asked what you planned to do with your life. You said—” and she counted on her fingers “—one, you weren’t sure. Two, you thought you might like to write, though once again, you had no idea what, whether it would be fiction, nonfiction or poetry.” She stressed the last. “Three, when I said I was unwilling to support an artist, you told me that once you were successful you would then support me. I told you that was unrealistic, and I told you I had no fantasies about someone else supporting me. I wanted to make my own way—”

  “Which you did, accepting the first multimillionaire who asked.”

  Bronwyn sighed. “What are you afraid of seeing Patrick?”

  He pressed on as though he hadn’t heard her. “Did you know you were pregnant?”

  “I did not, and keep your voice down,” she added. “Look, Patrick. I was in love with Ari. And, yes, the fact that I’ve never known my father probably had something to do with it. His money did not.”

  Patrick had gone white. But he didn’t reply angrily, didn’t seem to feel anger, not now. He seemed washed in some recollection.

  Bronwyn focused on her Scrabble letters, trying to quiet her own anger.


  Patrick studied her, but didn’t see her. He saw the past, saw himself, a carefree university student, caught in the romance of other ages, thrilled by learning. That world seemed rich and many-layered to him. His parents had been stockbrokers till their deaths, and he’d thought their world paralyzingly dull.

  But it wasn’t. Once he had entered this world, he’d found it exciting and satisfying. Once he’d begun, he’d realized that he found tremendous fulfillment working with money. It was a game to him, one he enjoyed, and he was damned good at it. He was not a gambler. He simply knew what worked and what didn’t.

  He blushed as he recalled the things he’d said to Bronwyn. He’d become Megan’s guardian long before he’d imagined really having children of his own. And he’d been annoyed whenever his sister had shown interest in men he considered impractical.

  Bronwyn had never had a father to look after her interests that way, but she’d known how to look after her own. And instead of applauding her good sense, he’d spent the last decade thinking of her as a gold digger.

  Because that had hurt less than thinking that she might love another man more than she’d loved him.

  He didn’t bother to say he was sorry.

  Sorry didn’t cover it. He was changed, changed by this conversation. No wonder she seemed to be putting, off telling Wesley who his father was. She probably thought he was simply insanely jealous. Or something worse.

  No wonder other women hadn’t interested him over the past years. What other woman would have dared to speak to him so plainly? Only his sister, Megan, and even Megan was sometimes restrained by his being the older sibling.

  No, only Bronwyn—and Louisa—had proven so willing to call a spade a spade.

  He returned his thoughts to the game and finally settled by saying, “I hear you.”

  He thought she glanced up at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes.

  He didn’t want to, because now when he saw those eyes, only one thing filled his mind. He was falling in love with Bronwyn Davies, falling in love again.

  Chapter Nine