The Boss's Proposal

by Cathy Williams

  ‘We’ll have to get going early in the morning,’ he’d murmured to her as they’d left the restaurant.

  An exhausted Chloe was draped over Vicky’s shoulder, so her pace of walking was painstakingly slow. No swift escape from the disturbing presence at her side. Unfortunately. Because the more she saw of him with her daughter, the deeper in love she fell. She had watched covertly, looking for signs of the mask slipping, but there had been none. He seemed delighted with Chloe, and she wondered, briefly, whether his joy with her as well as his feelings of responsibility towards her were tied up with his own feelings for the brother now lost to him for ever. She wondered if he was trying, through Chloe, to make amends for family differences that would never now be put to rest. More to the point, Vicky wondered—and agonised—that if Chloe continued to be enraptured with him, she would find herself well and truly trapped in a situation she’d never foreseen.

  ‘How early?’

  ‘Before eight. If we’re to get on the good rides. Which park do you want to go to first?’

  ‘Park?’

  ‘Didn’t you read the guidebook I gave you?’

  ‘Not much,’ Vicky admitted, breathing a sigh of relief as the elevator doors opened. They were staying in the same hotel, but fortunately on different floors, an inconvenience for which the hotel had apologised and for which she was deeply grateful. The doors closed on them.

  ‘You seemed to be absorbed in it when you weren’t playing with Chloe.’

  Absorbed on the one page, she thought, refusing to meet his eyes. Too busy concentrating on the man standing next to her to get any reading done.

  ‘Here, give her to me. I’ll take her the rest of the way.’ He removed the barely stirring child to him before Vicky could protest. ‘I’ll meet you at seven-thirty for breakfast.’ He stroked the dark head on his shoulder, then stood back to allow Vicky to pass as the doors slid open onto the luxuriously carpeted corridor.

  The hotel was mightily expensive, with two sprawling halves which both shared a fabulously child-friendly pool, complete with fake sand.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And then we can go to the Magic Kingdom first. Get there before the crowds start amassing.’

  They arrived at the bedroom door and Vicky stuck in her credit card-style key and pushed open the door before turning to him.

  ‘You can hand her over now.’

  He swept past her, through to one of the double beds which had been turned back and laid Chloe on it; then he proceeded to look critically around the room. ‘Not as big as I’d expected,’ he told her, folding his arms.

  ‘More than big enough for the both of us.’ Vicky stayed firmly positioned by the door, in the manner of someone willing an uninvited guest to depart.

  Max moved slowly towards her, then, when he was about to leave, said casually, ‘What did Chloe mean when she said that I was nicer than Shaun? Did he hit her?’

  ‘No,’ Vicky answered, startled by this abrupt shift in the conversation.

  ‘What about you? Did he ever hit you?’

  She hesitated just fractionally too long before responding with an unconvincing, ‘No.’

  ‘Why did you put up with it?’

  Vicky looked over her shoulder, but Chloe was sleeping with unladylike abandon on the double bed.

  She’d kept the lights turned off so that her daughter would not wake up, but she now wished that she hadn’t, because the darkness imbued their conversation with a level of confidential intimacy that frightened her.

  ‘When did it start? Were you pregnant at the time?’

  ‘He wasn’t a serial beater,’ she said in a low voice. ‘In fact, he only really lashed out at me twice. The first time was when I told him that I was pregnant and the second time was when I told him to stay away from me, after Chloe had been born. But aside from that he was—’

  ‘The perfect partner?’

  ‘Does it make any difference now?’

  ‘It wouldn’t if the past didn’t play such an influential part in our lives. You can’t imagine that by refusing to discuss it it all goes away, like a bad dream.’

  ‘I’m not implying that that’s how I feel…’

  ‘Then talk to me, Vicky.’

  ‘Why? Because you’re on a mission to bond with my daughter and you think that you might as well bond with me as part of the deal?’

  ‘Because,’ he said levelly, ‘I want to know.’ Because, she thought bitterly, you anticipate a long time of seeing me ahead of you if you’re to maintain contact with your niece, in which case you might as well smooth the way between the two of us.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell him to leave you alone?’

  ‘Because he threatened me,’ she said flatly. ‘Because he said that his daughter belonged to him and, if I didn’t play along, he would make sure that his powerful family knew of her identity and they would move in to take her away from me. Fool that I was, I believed him.’

  She heard Max’s indrawn breath and steeled herself not to respond.

  ‘It was always Shaun’s way to prey off people weaker than he was. He liked to be in a situation he could control,’ he murmured, more to himself than to her. ‘You were young and vulnerable and he took advantage of the fact.’

  ‘But I’m not young and vulnerable any longer,’ she reminded him stiffly.

  ‘Which is just as well. The young and vulnerable hold no charm for me whatsoever.’

  With which he’d left her, awake and wondering what he’d meant by that remark. Had he been trying to tell her that she held a certain amount of charm for him? Or had it been a general statement which he had made without thinking? Or maybe he’d just been trying to point out yet one more difference between him and his brother. The permutations were endless, and by the time she’d finally fallen asleep she’d been nursing a mild headache from the sheer workings of her tired brain.

  They both arrived at the hotel breakfast bar the following morning to find Max waiting for them, casually attired in a pair of deep green Bermuda pants and an open-necked, short-sleeved shirt in a dull cream and green check. Outside the heat would be building already. The weatherman—if the local weatherman was to be believed—had predicted a high of early eighties and had confidently assured her that the sky would remain blue and cloudless.

  ‘Busy day ahead,’ he addressed Chloe. ‘Busy, busy day ahead. Lots of characters to meet, lots of exciting rides to go on. Have you even been to a fun park before? With rides and roller coasters?’

  ‘No,’ Chloe said. ‘But I have seen a clown.’

  Max nodded gravely. ‘Yes, that would be impressive as well, I’m sure.’

  ‘And I have,’ Chloe said, gaining momentum, ‘been in that pretend racing car outside the supermarket Mum takes me to at home.’

  ‘Oh, that racing car. Goes fast, does it?’

  ‘Well, it’s just pretend,’ Chloe told him gently. ‘It doesn’t really go anywhere. Does it, Mum?’

  ‘No, honey.’ Vicky looked thoughtful and said in an equally gentle voice, ‘But perhaps Uncle Max thinks that these pretend cars actually shoot off and go places.’

  ‘Thank you for explaining that to me, Mummy,’ he said, raising one eyebrow with amusement. ‘I’ll bear that in mind for future reference.’

  She heard the laughter in his voice and maintained a composed face.

  ‘So which rides do you want to go on?’ he asked Chloe, taking a bite of croissant so that his mouth was instantly covered in buttered crumbs. The sight mesmerised Vicky, who imagined how enjoyable it would be to lick each crumb off. Individually. It would take hours. Or at least seconds, because her tongue would not be able to resist searching his out. That would be the hardest part of seeing him. The seeing and the wanting but the not being able to touch. The agony as she was forced to play the happy, jolly, pally game when her body hungered to be touched by him in a way that was very far removed from pally.

  ‘All of them!’ Chloe’s face was slowly but surely becoming subme
rged in maple syrup, despite Vicky’s best efforts at keeping it at bay.

  ‘Even the Tower of Terror?’ He made his voice go spooky and took another bite of his croissant, this time absent-mindedly licking one finger clean before wiping his mouth with his linen napkin. He had no idea how eerily alike he was to his niece. It was uncanny the way nature could take a shade of hair and a colour of eye and replicate both so precisely in another human being. Even the spacing between the eyes and the shape of the mouth was all Forbes.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You mean your mother didn’t read the description out to you?’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’ Two pairs of grey eyes bearing the same expression stared at her, and she couldn’t help a smile.

  ‘She’s too young for that particular ride, Max. You can go on it on your own.’

  ‘I shall have to,’ he said indolently, returning his gaze to his niece’s besotted face. ‘However terrifying a ride is, nothing terrifies the great Max Forbes!’

  ‘Nothing?’ Chloe asked, delighted, and Vicky heaved a loud, conspicuous sigh.

  ‘Well. Spiders. Obviously.’

  ‘I’m not scared of spiders. Am I, Mum?’ Chloe glanced across at her mother, allowing her face to be dabbed with a napkin in the process. This, Vicky thought, was the relationship she should have had with Shaun. They should have delighted in each other’s company. Instead, his rare visits to see his daughter had been an ordeal of moodiness, shouting and, after fifteen minutes of fatherly affection, a rapid downhill run to indifference and finally irritation. He’d brought her gifts inappropriate to her age, then had become sulky when she failed to be delighted with them, while Vicky had hovered miserably in the background, not quite knowing what to do and wishing he would just leave. There had never been one pore in his entire body that had possessed anything of the ease with which Max was now enchanting his niece.

  ‘Not the ones in books, at any rate,’ Vicky said, smiling.

  ‘I’m not scared of anything,’ Chloe assured him, abandoning the remnants of her breakfast in favour of conversation, ‘I’m like you! Can I go on the Tower of Terror? Please? Say yes! Say yes!’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Vicky responded immediately. ‘It’s a…’ She plucked the guidebook from her bag, opened it at the relevant page, and read, verbatim, “‘…terrifying plummet, guaranteed to scare the most hardened.” Anyway, there’s a height limit and you don’t measure up, short stuff. Apart from which, that particular ride isn’t at the Magic Kingdom, so you’ll have to settle for something a lot less adventurous.’

  Later, as they entered the fantasy world of the Magic Kingdom, Max said to her, ‘And what about you? Ever been to a place like this?’

  ‘Not quite.’ She paused and looked around her. Ahead was the fairytale Disney palace, pale spires rising up to the sky. It was early, but already beginning to get crowded. ‘In fact, I never went abroad until I was an adult. Not all of us benefitted from a privileged background, financially.’ But her voice was lacking in acrimony. ‘I did go to Alton Towers, though, when I was fifteen, and from what I remember it wasn’t quite like this.’

  Chloe, desperate to get going, tugged her hand. She was in a state of high excitement. Vicky thought that her daughter might just spontaneously combust from it if she didn’t go on a ride quickly. Were there medical services on site for desperate ride-deprived children? She put the question to Max and they both laughed companionably. She could already feel her resolution to remain as distant and as objective as possible beginning to crumble.

  This was what it was all about. Being dragged along by a child, with the sun shining and your heart bursting with love for the man by your side. Had it not been for several clouds on that particular horizon, she would have said that happiness was very nearly within her grasp.

  Even thoughts of Shaun, when she did think about him, had lost their power over her. He’d melted away into a vague shadow, eclipsed by the dynamic presence of his very much alive brother. Had that always been the way? she wondered. She could almost feel a pang of sympathy for him now, an emotion that would have been unthinkable three or four months previously. His ghost had let her go, or maybe it was the other way around.

  The morning was spent on rides, little, delightful rides, for which the queues were not as lengthy as the guidebook had led her to believe. The three of them sat in the little cars, with Chloe between them, and anyone seeing them would have thought that they were the archetypal nuclear family, needing only the dog and the family saloon car to complete them. They would have done a double-take, had they heard the convoluted history behind them.

  And was it her imagination, or had all that hungry, masculine lust bitten the dust? Ever since he’d found out about Chloe, the sexual interest he’d had in her had died. He was behaving with such wonderful ease, was chatting to her in such a friendly and unthreatening fashion, that she wanted to burst into tears. Instead, she forced wide, bright smiles onto her face until the muscles in her jaw began to ache from the strain of it. Over lunch, she watched him from under her lashes, watched the way his attention was focused on his niece, winning her over. When he looked at her, he wasn’t seeing her as a woman, he was seeing her as Chloe’s mother. With all the cards on the table, she couldn’t have hoped for a better situation, nor could she have expected to be feeling as desolate as she was now.

  ‘You’re getting red,’ he said, as they headed towards the MGM studios.

  ‘Thank you,’ Vicky snapped shortly. An unsightly blush added more unwanted colour to her cheeks and further worsened her temper.

  ‘And you’ve gone into a sulk.’

  ‘I have not gone into a sulk.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking that Chloe’s having a wonderful time,’ she lied, looking at her daughter, who was ahead of them by a few paces. ‘I’ve never been able to afford many treats for her.’

  ‘That needn’t be a problem from now on.’

  ‘Because she’s got an uncle with a bottomless wallet to oblige her? In case you’re interested, money causes as many problems as it solves, and I don’t believe in flinging it at children willy-nilly.’

  ‘Stop spoiling for an argument.’ He looked sideways at the angry tilt of her head, the tight mouth, and felt an irrational desire to smooth it all away with his fingers. He wanted to stroke her face and produce a smile, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. His feelings for his niece, unexpected as they were, had been remarkably easy to find, but for a man who’d never had a problem with women her damned mother was proving to be a brick wall. He’d made a decision to back away from her, to win her over without suffocating her with an arrogant need to get what he wanted, and he was baffled that she was so tangibly failing to respond. Even when he’d managed to bring a smile to her face her eyes had slithered away from his and found sanctuary in her daughter.

  ‘I am not spoiling for an argument. Why would I want to argue with you?’ She glanced at him and tossed her head, like a beautiful wild filly rearing up angrily against restraint.

  Had it not been for Chloe skipping ahead, looking back every so often to make sure that she was still within the fold, he would have been seriously tempted to drag Vicky back to the hotel room and restrain her in any way he could. Which would have had her bolting off in the opposite direction. He couldn’t win, could he?

  ‘You tell me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Do you resent me because your daughter and I get along? Are you jealous?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Is it?’ He didn’t want to. At least, he knew he shouldn’t, but he pulled off the band securing the end of her plait and wove his hand into her hair, relishing the soft fall around his fingers and tightening his grip when he felt her automatically try and pull away from him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she breathed.

  He dodged the question. There was no acceptably polite way of telling her that he was fighting the urge to do something very physical an
d very satisfying with her.

  ‘I am trying to get your attention.’

  ‘Well, you’re not setting about it the right way.’ She gave her head a gentle tug, but abandoned the effort when Chloe turned around. Instead she forced herself to smile, and when her daughter pranced to them and held her mother’s hand she was reduced to having his hand in her hair, caressing her head. What was he playing at? She heard herself chatting to Chloe, valiantly keeping up the pretence that her body wasn’t on fire, as his fingers softened and finally his hand dropped to curl around her waist.

  He could feel her body tense. He could also smell the expectancy there and it thrilled and frustrated him at the same time. It was as though he knew the numbers to the combination lock, but not the right sequence and, however much he jostled with the digits, he never quite managed to get it right. The gentle brush of her slight body against his thigh was a sweet, agonising reminder of how capable she was of tormenting him, without even realising it.

  She had a quality of stubbornness about her and, even though he could work out its origin, he still found it exasperating. It was as if her gentleness had hardened through experience into bull-headed pride, which had a nerve-racking tendency to shift into place just when he thought that he was getting through to her. He glanced down and hungrily eyed the gentle bounce of her small breasts, two mounds pushing against her light salmon T-shirt. Under normal circumstances, their one act of lovemaking, which had been the most satisfying he’d ever experienced, would have naturally led to more, but she’d dug her heels in and was continuing to dig her heels in.

  By the time they had made it to the MGM studios, his imagination had taken his frustration to new, unrewarding heights.