The Corporate Bridegroom

by Liz Fielding

  ‘I’ll take you.’ He wasn’t asking her, he was telling her. He couldn’t let her just walk away, shrug off something that for him had been a revelation. For a moment he thought she would argue, insist on a taxi. But perhaps she’d decided it would be easier than facing the awkward silence as they waited for it to arrive because she finally nodded.

  Romana was dying inside. As Niall bent to pick up his shirt from among the scattered photographs she thought she’d never seen a man look so pale. He was pinched white about the nose, and she thought her heart would break at bringing him to such a pitch of guilt.

  Guilt about betraying the precious memory of his wife. And now the additional guilt about what he’d done to her.

  She’d thought she could solve all his problems, but she’d only made things worse. Clutching her clothes to her, she stooped to help him pick up the photographs.

  ‘Leave them,’ he said, catching her hand. They stared at one another, and for a moment Romana thought he was going to put his arms about her, hold her. ‘I’ll get them later.’

  He stood up and she took the chance to escape up the stairs to the only bathroom she’d seen.

  When she emerged he was standing in the bedroom, wearing jeans and a soft sweater, car keys in his hand. ‘You don’t have to do this,’ she said. ‘You’ve had a drink…’

  ‘I haven’t had more than a mouthful of wine.’ He paused. ‘My hospitality is well-intentioned, but somehow it never quite lives up to the promise.’

  She thought he was talking about rather more than food and wine.

  ‘Don’t underrate yourself.’ He looked pale in the soft lighting. ‘You make a mean omelette.’ And she made herself smile. Things were bad enough without throwing a wobbly because he was still in love with his wife. She could at least spare him that.

  She’d been the one who’d wanted to give without any thought of self. Or so she’d believed. Self-delusion was a dangerous thing. And they still had nearly a month of shadowing to get through.

  ‘Will I see you tomorrow? At the store?’ she asked, polite, formal.

  She’d expected him to find some excuse to stay away. He didn’t. ‘Claibourne & Farraday is my primary concern at the moment. Unless you think India is ready to concede?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ she said, taking his cue, slowly shifting their relationship back to business. Where it should have stayed. Something they’d both forgotten in the supercharged atmosphere of grief and remembrance. ‘It’s just pride and stubbornness on your part,’ she continued, with false brightness. ‘Refusing to leave things the way they are.’

  ‘Is that why you came here tonight? To tell me that?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You were right the first time. I expected to find you drowning your sorrows.’

  ‘And were you rushing to my rescue, or were you planning to push me under?’

  ‘That would be telling.’

  Step by step they cranked their relationship back from the brink, sparring as if nothing was altered. As if the world hadn’t just turned upside down for both of them. Then he ruined it all by saying, ‘Just so you’ll know for the future, Romana, I’ll confess to having tried it twice. I discovered two things. One is that sorrow floats.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘That you feel like hell for days afterwards.’

  ‘Wouldn’t once have been enough to show you that?’

  He favoured her with one of those ironical, self-deprecating smiles that he did to perfection. ‘I was just checking to be sure.’

  ‘You’re a thorough man,’ she said, and reached up to touch his cheek, where she’d kissed away his tears. It was the first time she’d seen a man cry. She hadn’t known they were capable of such emotion. She had no experience of it. ‘Will you be all right on your own?’

  ‘And if I say no?’ She frowned. ‘Would you stay?’

  She hesitated a moment too long before she said, ‘That was a one-off, Niall. An inevitable response to an excess of emotion. A repeat performance would be self-indulgence. Or possibly a cynical ploy by me to undermine your position.’ She offered him the chance to blame her for what had happened, ease his guilt. ‘You’d never know.’

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve got a cynical bone in your body,’ he said, rejecting her sacrifice.

  If she hadn’t already made the mistake of falling in love with him, she would have done so then. But falling in love with the enemy was only ever going to leave her exposed on all sides. With no one to turn to for comfort when it all ended in tears. And this time she’d be the one shedding them.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘How cynical are you?’

  She already knew the answer. A cynical man wouldn’t have got the name wrong. He wouldn’t have been that lost in desire. And he clearly thought her question beneath answering. Maybe that was why he slotted a CD into the Aston’s music system—why he chose music rather than conversation on the drive across London.

  She couldn’t wait to escape, clambering out of the car before he could help her. But he insisted on walking her up to her front door, waiting while she unlocked it, his hand lightly on her arm, detaining her when she would have turned to shut the door.

  ‘Romana…’ he began. And then couldn’t find the words.

  ‘Don’t! Please don’t apologise. There’s no need. You love Louise. You haven’t come to terms with her death.’ Then, as he turned to go, she was the one with her hand on his arm. ‘Niall—’ He waited. ‘You probably don’t want to hear this…’ But she was going to say it anyway. ‘You’ll honour Louise most by living your own life well. She wouldn’t want you to waste it in self-pity, or regret. In her place…’ She stopped. That was never going to happen. ‘If she loved you—’

  ‘If?’ he repeated.

  ‘If she loved you as much as you love her—’

  But whatever he’d been going to say she’d jerked him out of it, and he wasn’t listening. ‘For a girl whose mother abandoned her for a fat pay-off, whose father thinks a chequebook is the answer to everything, you seem to know a hell of a lot about love.’

  ‘That’s old news,’ she said, and shivered.

  ‘It was new to me.’

  She looked up. He’d been listening to all that rubbish she’d poured out?

  ‘When did you last see her?’ he asked.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, I see. I must live well. You can wallow in self-pity. Well, if you want my opinion, Romana—’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘—I believe your mother was the loser.’

  She swallowed back her own tears. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Her mother had soon made up her loss with other babies. Little titled babies.

  ‘As for Peter Claibourne, he’s a man with a pride problem. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Beautiful women. His children. Possession is all. He’s never learned to cherish the objects of his desire.’

  ‘He loves India.’ The words were out before she’d thought them. But then they’d always been there, buried in her subconscious. Stirring up someone else’s dark memories, she discovered, could backfire. ‘Forget I said that. Please. He loves us all…’

  ‘Love is such a catch-all word, with so many shades of meaning. It involves a lot more than woolly sentiment. If your father had taken the trouble to get to know you, build a relationship, he’d never have bought you that car for your seventeenth birthday.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t I? Isn’t that why you gave it away? Not as some fine altruistic gesture but in a fit of girlish pique.’

  ‘You—’

  His fingers flew to her lips, blocking the expletive. ‘You know I’m right. And if he loved India, really loved her, he wouldn’t have left her with the mess she’s in now. Think about it.’ Then, after the slightest hesitation, he bent and kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Romana.’

  ‘Not if I see you first!�
�

  She shut the door on him. Double-locked it, slid the bolt into place, and with her hand over her mouth, still warm from his touch, leaned back against the door. Then, stripping off her clothes, she flung herself into bed, repeating over and over to herself the word he’d blocked with his fingers.

  It didn’t wipe out the heat of his touch. Or the painful longing to be held that way again. The longing to have him make her believe she was cherished, cared for. Just for a minute. Just so that she’d know how it felt.

  Then, because it was a weakness that she refused to submit to, she got up and splashed her face with cold water.

  She would not love him, she told herself over and over again. She would not love anyone.

  Niall, the wreckage of his life strewn across the kitchen floor, sat for a long time in the dark, thinking about Romana Claibourne. About how she’d broken through the barriers he’d erected to protect himself from feeling anything ever again. How he’d held her, kissed her, made love to her right here on Louise’s sofa.

  Except it wasn’t Louise’s sofa. His wife had been dead for four years. And he had been dead, too, in every way that was important. Until Romana Claibourne, sexy, smart and with a smile that could light up the night, had dropped a carton of coffee at his feet.

  From the first moment he’d set eyes on Romana she’d been impossible to ignore. He’d had all the opportunities in the world to walk away. There had never been any intention to spend all day and every day with her. Heaven alone knew how often she’d told him to go away. Yet he had stayed. Put pressing business of his own on hold.

  He began to pick up the photographs, one by one, looking at each of them for a long time before putting them back into the box. Putting the lid back in place. He would never forget Louise, he knew. She would always be in his heart. But Romana was right. She had loved him. He would have changed places with her if he could. And if he had been the one who’d died, she would have felt the same way.

  That was what love was.

  But nothing could change what had happened. No amount of guilt, no amount of self-imposed suffering would bring her back. And tonight, looking at the photographs of their wedding, he had finally accepted that. That Romana had seen it so clearly, had finally used words that Louise might have used in the same situation, had hurt. But only because she was right. Living well was exactly what Louise would have expected from him.

  He’d cried out her name tonight, but it hadn’t been some attempt to fool himself that the woman in his arms was Louise. It had been goodbye. He just hadn’t understood.

  Romana had released him from a self-imposed prison and unwittingly he’d hurt her. Saying sorry would never be enough. He had to do something, show her how much he cared. And he opened the cuttings file provided by Jordan and began to search for something…anything that might give a clue.

  ‘On your own? No faithful shadow?’ Romana looked up as India stopped by her office door. Then, ‘You look terrible, Ro. Was there a party after the show last night?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I left as soon as it was over.’

  ‘I hear Niall Macaulay didn’t waste much time on the fashion show, either.’ Her sister’s voice rose on a probing little suggestion that maybe they’d been together.

  ‘Really?’ Romana asked. ‘You heard that? I didn’t know Molly was keeping you up to date with all the gossip.’

  ‘She didn’t volunteer the information, believe me. It took thumbscrews. But since you don’t seem to think it’s necessary to keep me up to date—’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. I was tired and Niall had to be somewhere else. And so do you. You’re handing over the neonatal equipment today at the hospital. Had you forgotten?’

  ‘I’m on my way. Can I give you a lift?’

  ‘No. Everything’s organised. Molly can manage without me.’ She picked up her bag. ‘I’ll be along in time for the lunch.’

  ‘Romana…’

  She waited. Her sister crossed the office and picked up the mobile phone lying on her desk.

  ‘Don’t forget this,’ she said, switching it on. ‘I need to be able to talk to you at any time.’

  Romana realised, belatedly, that India didn’t look all that hot either. Her sister’s problems with the store were greater than anything she had to deal with. ‘Have you heard from Dad?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s not answering my calls.’

  No surprise there. Niall was right. Their father had gone on an extended holiday to convalesce, leaving them to deal with the Farradays while he drank cocktails and flirted with pretty women who recognised a good thing when they saw it. ‘We’re on our own, then.’

  ‘Men! Who needs them?’ India grinned. ‘Although from what Molly’s been telling me, you and Niall Macaulay are striking sparks off one another. Maybe you should put personal prejudice on the back-burner and think of the store. If you seduced him, it would utterly compromise him.’

  Romana felt the betraying heat rise to her face as she said, ‘Molly doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’

  ‘Really? And yet you always speak so highly of her when you’re twisting my arm to raise her salary. Didn’t he take you out to lunch yesterday?’

  ‘You girls have had a nice chat.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We had lunch,’ she admitted, and was finally able to grin back. ‘A cheeseburger and fries with a large diet cola at the drive-thru by the roundabout.’

  ‘Right. I guess I’ll save the seduction plan for Flora, then. It’s time she pulled her weight.’

  ‘Lucky Flora,’ Romana said, drily. ‘And how do you propose to go about bringing Jordan Farraday to his knees?’

  ‘I’ve got my moles digging for dirt. There must be some.’

  ‘Watch yourself. They’ve got press cuttings on us from birth.’

  They must have if the one in her bag was anything to judge by. An envelope had been lying on her doormat when she’d dragged herself from bed at the insistent ringing of the alarm. She’d opened it and found a magazine article about her mother. The small note attached said, ‘Nothing is ever as simple as it appears from the outside. Ask her to tell you her story. Niall.’

  Romana didn’t phone first. She’d used to do that when she was a teenager—ring her mother’s number, hoping to hear her voice. But there had always been someone else to answer the telephone. An au pair, or a housekeeper. And if her mother had answered she’d have hung up anyway. Because what was there to say?

  She stepped out of the taxi and looked up at the elegant town house as she paused for a moment to take a deep breath, steady her pounding heart. Then she walked up the path and knocked on the front door.

  It was opened by a tall, tanned young woman, with a child of perhaps six or seven clutching at her legs. She smiled shyly up at Romana, then coughed.

  ‘Bless her, she’s got a cold,’ said the au pair, an Australian whose warm voice was full of laughter as she scooped the child up and hugged her.

  ‘Who is it, Charlie?’ a voice called from a room at the rear of the house.

  ‘I’m Romana Claibourne,’ she told the girl, handing her the magazine clipping. ‘Will you please give this to Lady Mackie and ask her if she’ll see me?’

  ‘Charlie?’ Romana’s mother appeared at the end of the hall. Her stunning figure had thickened a little with the years and the babies, and tiny lines plucked at the corners of her eyes, but she was still a great beauty. She always would be. And in the flesh her face had a warmth that the glamorous photographs Romana had cut out of magazines as a child and a teenager, and hidden away in a shoebox at the bottom of her wardrobe, had never captured.

  Then she’d got older and realised her romantic fantasies about why her mother had left her were so much nonsense, had stopped listening to that tiny hopeful voice that had reasoned that one day—one day—she’d come. She’d stopped reading the stories. Stopped looking at the pictures. Made a little funeral pyre of the shoebox fantasies and let it all go.

  But N
iall was suggesting there was another side to the story. Prodding her as she’d prodded him.

  For a moment her mother stared against the light, her eyes narrowing as she sought to recognise her caller.

  ‘It’s Romana Claibourne,’ the au pair said, handing her the cutting before taking the child upstairs.

  ‘Romana?’ The voice was soft and husky. Familiar and yet strange. ‘Romana, is it really you?’

  Romana fought the pull, the emotional need. ‘Someone—a friend—gave me that cutting and I had to know if it was true. What you said. About making mistakes. Do you really regret—?’

  But her mother didn’t wait for her to finish. She reached out, took her hands. ‘Oh, my dear, dear child. I’d almost given up hoping. I thought you’d never come.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘HOW’S it going?’ Romana looked around, trying to spot Niall in the crowd, listening to India giving her short speech. ‘Where’s Niall?’

  Molly raised her eyebrows. ‘I assumed he was with you.’

  ‘But I…’ She stopped. Niall had anticipated that she’d go and see her mother and had given the hospital a miss in order to catch up on his own affairs. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘But what about this lunch? There’ll be a gap at the table. Who’s the Honourable Whatsit going to sit next to?’

  ‘You’re my deputy. Deputise!’

  Outside the hospital, she was able to use her mobile phone to call Niall’s office. His secretary appeared to be expecting her call and told her that Niall was away from the office for a few days.

  She called him on his mobile. All she got was his voice, asking her to leave a message. But a message wouldn’t do. Some things were too important for a message.

  Last night she couldn’t have imagined any circumstance under which she would return to his house in Spitalfields. But this morning…this morning anything might be possible.

  She hailed a black cab and gave the driver his address.

  The taxi seemed to crawl through the midday traffic. She would have been faster on her bike. But it gave her time to think. Think about him going home last night to an empty house, those poignant photographs. Instead of cursing her for pushing him to confront his grief he’d set about searching out a magazine article—one that described her mother’s involvement in a charity working with the children of divorced couples. In it she’d spoken so sadly of mistakes that she’d made, her regret that her own daughter was lost to her.