Boardroom Proposal

by Way, Margaret

  Hours later when they arrived at the domestic terminal where they were met by a company employee, Eve felt she knew every nuance of Susan’s soft melodious voice. Eve had to admire her, as well. Susan knew her stuff. Obviously she had listened when Sir David had talked about his pet project and kept abreast of things. She knew everyone’s role and asked very intelligent questions, a lot of which Drew allowed Eve to answer.

  In a way he’s showing me off, Eve thought. Which meant he had to be proud of her. It was a good feeling.

  “If I ever need another briefing session I’ll know who to call on,” Susan laughed, studying Eve with fresh eyes. She saw a young woman, coolly beautiful, with quite a brain and being given full rein to use it.

  “Eve’s very important to me,” Drew said. “She makes things happen. She’s won the respect of the rest of the team, as well. No mean feat when so much is expected.”

  “Vice-president material in time.” Susan smiled. “I sometimes regret I gave up a very successful career.”

  They spent a couple of hours in the afternoon walking around the site holding in-depth conversations with the chief supervisor and key personnel. It was winter, or what passed for winter in Brisbane, the state capital, but over a thousand miles north the weather was glorious. The monsoonal season was over and the tourists had arrived in droves, seeking out all the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef This was the time of year tropical North Queensland was invaded by southerners on holiday, turning normally sleepy coastal towns into playgrounds; relaxing on the beautiful beaches, filling the waterfront hotels and motels, enjoying seafood lunches and dinners in the restaurants that were dotted all over the beautiful coastline.

  Susan was wearing a sunshine-yellow silk shirt and matching narrow-legged pants that afternoon, taking Drew’s hand as he helped her across a planked area.

  “So David’s dream is really coming true,” she said softly, tears gathering in her lovely blue eyes. “Oh, Drew, he was proud of you.”

  If Eve didn’t feel abandoned she certainly thought Susan would have been happier had she stayed at home.

  Later, the two women swam in the large free-form swimming pool at their hotel, while Drew attended to faxes and phone calls. Susan was looking almost fragile in a navy blue Lycra bikini. She had noticeably lost weight in the months since she had lost her husband. No swimmer, she cooled off quickly in the turquoise water then towelled herself off beneath the canopy of palms and tree ferns, wrapping her dark head in a yellow and navy Gucci scarf. Next she spread herself out on her brilliantly patterned towel, smiling and waving at Eve who was still lapping the pool.

  It was all a daze, Eve thought, flooded with impressions of Susan and Drew together. Dangerous relations, she thought. Susan wasn’t bothering to hide her affection.

  Just as she was thinking of getting out, Eve saw Drew walking down through the terraced gardens. He was wearing a bright resort shirt over his swimmers, a fringed beach towel over his shoulder, his dark eyes shaded by a pair of Raybans. He looked wonderful, long tanned legs beautifully straight, his shirt hanging loosely over his taut, bronze torso. Susan must have thought he looked wonderful, too, because as he stopped to say something to her, she caught at his hand. She loves touching him, Eve thought. In fact she can’t keep her hands off him. That had been apparent for most of the day.

  I have to trust him. Eve tried to fight out of her deeply embedded scepticism. If I love him, even if I’ve had the sense not to say it, I have to trust him. Drew was a stunningly attractive man. Not only that, he had power and a fortune. He was exactly what every woman wanted. It would be very easy for the woman in his life to become phobic. Hadn’t Carol confided her endless fears he was being unfaithful? It didn’t help either women had a habit of throwing themselves at him.

  Whatever the exchange, it was brief. Drew threw off his shirt and towel, walked round to the deep end of the pool, to the delight of every woman in the vicinity, and dived in. He surfaced beside Eve, putting up his hands to slick back his dark hair. Wet, it clung to his beautifully shaped skull, beads of water sheening his smooth tanned skin and the eyelashes a woman would die for.

  “Hell,” he said in exasperation. “It’s hard to get you alone.”

  Magnet-like, Eve stayed close to him. “Having Susan along might explain a lot.”

  “Are you saying you’re jealous?” It was impossible to know if he was serious or teasing.

  “No.” She shook her gold head slowly. “I’m simply stating a fact.” Then, abruptly changing the subject, “Would you like to race me?”

  “Evie, you’re good, but I’d win.”

  “Of course. You would have to give me a start.”

  “If I say yes, I want a promise out of you,” he said, dark eyes dancing. He was more handsome, more seductive, than any man had the right to be.

  “I want to know what you’re asking first,” she said, feeling, extraordinarily, he had leaned forward and kissed her.

  “I want you, Evie.” His hands below the water held her tight around her velvet hips.

  Every muscle tightened deep within her. The magic of being with him! But she was far too aware of Susan’s presence and watching eyes.

  “What if I say you have to live with it?” That when her whole body was avid for his.

  “Is that so?” In a flash he ducked her, the two of them sinking beneath the water, his hands moving to cup her breasts cocooned in a white flower-strewn bikini top.

  She was burning hot inside before he released her. “Drew, cut it out,” Eve pleaded.

  “Say please.” He encircled her with his arms. “I’m tired of this, Evie. I never was good at playing games.”

  Her back to her, Eve wondered if Susan had left. “That from a top athlete,” she jeered. “I’ve heard all about your track and field exploits at university. That’s before you became the famous yachtsman.”

  “Susan’s worrying you, is that it?”

  Eve turned her body in the water. Susan was still there. Sitting up, dark glasses covering her eyes. “Only up to a point. But I wouldn’t put it past her to come knocking on my door just to check where I was.”

  He shrugged a wide shoulder. “You’d be with me. Now let’s drop the subject of Susan for a moment and have that race. Freestyle, I take it?”

  “Backstroke,” Eve announced. It was her best stroke. “But I want half the pool start,” she warned.

  “Take as much as you like.” His smile was like a flash of light. “I’ll still win.” Which he did.

  Dinner saw them all back together again. Susan must have searched her huge wardrobe for just the right clothes. Widow’s weeds were out. She was wearing a long, one-shouldered jersey dress in broad black, white and sapphire stripes. Perfume rose from her clothes and she had tucked a fuchsia hibiscus behind her ear. So hard to fathom the human condition! Eve hadn’t the slightest doubt Susan had cared deeply for her husband, a combination of respect and admiration, but she really was in love with Drew. It gave Eve no joy.

  “I’m so pleased you’ve given me the opportunity to see over the construction, Drew,” Susan said in her soft voice. “I can’t wait for the research centre to take shape. This is the very nicest, most peaceful time I’ve had since... since...” She broke off with a little wince of distress.

  “We’re glad, Susan,” Drew told her gently.

  Their meal, when it came, was delicious. They lingered over coffee. All three went for an after-dinner stroll along the beach-front promenade, enjoying the brilliantly glowing stars and the breeze off the sea. Ménage à trois, Eve thought, herself excluded somewhat as Susan threw constant casual references to people and places Eve scarcely knew of into the conversation. For God’s sake, why didn’t I stay home? Eve thought.

  “I think I’ll go to bed now,” Susan announced with a little yawn when they returned to the spacious foyer with its wonderful assemblage of orchids. “Early start in the morning.”

  Drew had suggested, to make her stay more pleasant they take the
helicopter to Royal Hayman on the Barrier Reef, have lunch there before returning late afternoon. The helicopter flight alone was a wonderful experience.

  “Coming, Eve?” Susan asked, pairing them off. Two girls together. Female solidarity.

  Drew answered her question, a glimmer of something Eve couldn’t read in his eyes. “You go ahead, Susan, I want to fill Eve in on a few developments. She won’t find it all out from the faxes.”

  “Oh.” Susan shut off her disappointment before it showed on her face. “See you tomorrow then.”

  “Let’s have a nightcap,” Drew suggested a few moments after Susan had disappeared, taking Eve by the arm and steering her towards the lounge. “What will it be?”

  “Just plain mineral water,” Eve said, wanting a clear head.

  “I should have guessed.” He sounded amused.

  When he returned, he found her poised like a creature about to take flight. “Running away, Evie?” There was a devastating tilt to his eyebrow.

  “I don’t want to sully your reputation.”

  He laughed deep in his throat. “Believe me, it’s a lot better than you’ve ever given me credit for.”

  “You should strive to be perfect.” Eve dipped her head, one side of her hair sliding across her cheek. “I’m sorry, Drew. You’re too gorgeous and I’m a very suspicious woman.”

  “I was hoping I could help you with that.” He put his hand over hers, feeling her whole body respond.

  A deep silence, an intense communication. “So what’s happening I should know about?” Eve finally managed.

  He took a mouthful of his Scotch on the rocks. “Keep calm. You know it all. That was for Susan’s benefit.”

  “Aren’t you wicked,” she mocked.

  “I’m dying to be if you’d only give me half a chance.” His eyes slid over her luminous beauty. She was wearing another one of her little slip dresses, sleeveless, a deep V-neck, the fluid rose-pink material sliding with such sensuousness over her body. He had never known a woman who so effortlessly combined a look of purity and unmistakable sexiness.

  “Why do you look at me like that?” Eve asked, her eyes blazing emerald in the light from the wall bracket.

  “Because you give me such pleasure,” he answered simply. “Sometimes I think we’re almost there but you slip away from me again. There are so many things I want to discuss with you but there never seems to be the time. Tell me about your father.”

  He almost saw the shutters come down.

  “He lives while my mother died.”

  “Evie!” The note in his voice somewhere between sympathy and gentle censure made her flush.

  “So I sound terrible. I don’t want to talk about it, Drew.” She raised a hand protectively to her throat.

  “We discussed my father at length,” he pointed out in a quiet reasonable voice.

  So they had in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

  “He was unfaithful to my mother.” Evie tried again. “He betrayed us.”

  “Yet you speak of him with such feeling.”

  “I loved him once. I thought we were very close but he pushed me away. He rejected my mother. He punished us all.”

  “Do you ever see him?” Drew asked, his dark eyes intent on her changing expressions.

  Eve gave a long sigh. “Drew, it does no good to talk about this.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He wants to come back into our lives. I don’t know why.”

  “He’s remarried, of course?”

  “A woman young enough to be my sister. They have two children, a boy and a girl.”

  “Have you ever met them?”

  “To what purpose?” Eve’s expression froze.

  “It might make a difference, Evie. They’re your blood, are they not?”

  “They’re their mother’s children,” Eve pointed out bleakly. “Just as we are our mother’s children. I’m not terribly good at forgiveness.”

  He could clearly see the embattled child. “That’s because you were very badly hurt and at such a sensitive age. How does Ben feel about all this?”

  “It’s hot in here, isn’t it?” Eve asked suddenly, looking around her for a path of escape.

  “No.”

  “Ben thinks the same as I do,” she spoke rapidly. “My father chose another life. He chose another family. End of story.”

  “All right.” Drew broke off the interrogation as her agitation intensified. “Finish your drink. If you want to weep, I want it to be in my arms.”

  She shook her head. “Drew, listen to me.”

  “What is it?” He answered a little roughly wanting to sweep her up, lock his arms around her, draw her head against his chest.

  She couldn’t catch her breath. He seemed to look into her soul. “Since I met you I’ve gone a little crazy.” This with a soft burst of broken laughter.

  “What else is falling madly in love?”

  “There’s no way to know it will last.” Even saying it was a knife in her breast.

  “I hear your fears, Eve,” he responded deliberately. “You want my advice? Concentrate on your own life.”

  The blood rose to her cheeks and she started to rise. “I’m going to bed.”

  He caught her hand. “So let’s go. I’m done with waiting.” He could feel her trembling as his grip tightened.

  “I’m not a possession.” She could feel the heat inside her increasing.

  “Of course you aren’t, and I’ve never treated you like one. I don’t want to hear that again. You hunger for me, Eve, like I hunger for you. We only have to touch each other to discover that. Come on,” he urged very gently, his arm enfolding her. “I’m going to undress you and kiss every inch of you better.”

  Upstairs in her hotel suite Susan lay wide awake, one hand cupping the other, right thumb rotating in her left palm, a form of acupressure she sometimes found worked for her when her mind started to whirl and she couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t working for her tonight. She had discarded the badly needed sleeping pills her doctor had prescribed for her in the early days after David’s death.

  Why had she come here? She writhed in shame. She was only jeopardising her dignity. When Drew had rung to say he could be out of town for a few days—she had done her utmost to pinpoint where—she had all but invited herself along on the trip. Now it was causing her acute embarrassment. Nothing was working out as she hoped.

  Something was definitely going on between Drew and Eve Copeland. But how serious? Over the years Drew had had quite a few relationships, not the least of them marrying the glamorous, bone-selfish Carol. This girl was something else again. She was beautiful, clever enough to make herself a key player in project Capricornia, she was also very sensitive. Susan had seen flashes of understanding in her eyes as though in divining Susan’s secret she somehow felt sorry for her. That in itself was a humiliation. Susan wasn’t used to other women feeling sorry for her. Becoming Lady Forsythe had precipitated her into a world of power and envy.

  Why, then, hadn’t she taken more care? She made an attempt at self-justification. Because it had been impossible to predict what would happen? When exactly had her fond feelings for Drew tipped into infatuation? She decided she wasn’t sure. Was it when she had lost the child? David had been away and Drew had been so kind and supportive. In the old days of chivalry he would have been a knight.

  When had David begun to suspect her feelings for Drew had changed? She remembered him that night after the Capricornia party. The way he had turned and looked at her as if he had loathed what he understood. But he had never said anything, as though the shock was too great. A few short weeks were to elapse before his fatal heart attack. Was it the stress of knowing his wife had fallen in love with his own son? Susan twisted her hands until her knuckles gleamed white. To make everything so much worse they had quarrelled that last night. She had been frightened he was going to bring up the subject of Drew, but Drew was never mentioned. David knew beyond a shadow of a doubt his son was blameless.
Falling in love had been solely Susan’s mistake. It wasn’t even private. If he had seen the light in his wife’s eyes, so could others. It could become a public humiliation.

  Then David had died.

  It’s impossible. Perfectly impossible, Susan thought, while deep inside her, wild hopes continued to flourish.

  A woman on the brink.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS Ben, in the end, who brought Eve’s relationship with Drew to a sort of crisis point.

  Taking an urgent phone call one afternoon—the meeting wasn’t to be interrupted—Eve’s face drained of all colour.

  Drew who had swivelled in his chair to answer a staffer’s question, turned back to scan her face.

  “Evie, what is it?” He noticed that her hand was trembling and covered it with his own. “What’s happened? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.”

  “It’s Ben.” She was speaking with great difficulty. “That was the Wesley Hospital. He’s been admitted for observation. He collapsed during a lecture.”

  “Right.” Drew stood up immediately, looking around the conference room. “That will do for this afternoon, people. Jamie, get all those documents signed for the Pacific Rim merger. I want them on my desk first thing in the morning. Lew, have your paperwork ready, as well.” He put out his arm to Eve, shepherding her in. “Come, I’ll drive you.”

  Eve thanked him, anxiety in her eyes. “I wish... I just wish he didn’t work so hard. I’ve told him.”

  “He’s young, healthy. But I agree he can’t go on like this.” Drew tightened his hand on her.

  It was good to have Drew with her. It made Eve realise Drew made her feel safe.

  When they reached the hospital Drew made enquiries at reception, where they were directed to the ward where Ben had been taken.

  They found him, sitting up in bed watching the television.