Contracted_corporate wife

by Jessica Hart

  'A fantasy that will embarrass you, not me,' she specified firmly.

  It was just as well she had said that, thought Patrick, a mixture of amusement and horror at the narrowness of his escape tugging at the corner of his mouth. For a minute there he had got a bit carried away. Fortunately, her intervention had given him time to unscramble his brains. Reality had slotted back into place and all the disadvantages of explaining to your PA that you were fantasising about her and her choice of lingerie had presented themselves starkly.

  Not a good idea, in fact.

  'OK...' he said, drawing out the syllables. He drank some wine while he tried to focus. Surely he could think of something to tell her? A fantasy...a fantasy...and keep right away from stockings...

  'Right,' he said after a moment. 'Well, how about this one? It's not that different from yours, actually. What I'd really like is all the advantages of marriage without any of the drawbacks. So in my fantasy, I would have a wife who

  was there when I needed her. She would be the perfect hostess, remember all my sisters' birthdays, and mysteriously vanish whenever I met a new and beautiful girl so that I could continue to have guilt-free affairs.'

  Lou rolled her eyes, unimpressed. 'Oh, the old fantastic-sex-without-a-relationship chestnut! I don't think that's like my fantasy at all' she objected. 'But I can see why it appeals to you.'

  Patrick wasn't quite sure how to take that. 'Well, since it's likely to remain a fantasy, I'll reconcile myself to an empty house, to hiring caterers and disappointing my mother.'

  Thinking about it, Lou absently held out her glass for another refill.

  'What you really need,' she said, 'is someone who's prepared to marry you for your money, and treat marriage like a job.'

  'That's not very romantic!'

  'You don't need romance,' she told him sternly. 'You need someone to run your house, to be your social secretary, to be pleasant and interested when you go out as a couple but turn a blind eye to your affairs and generally expect absolutely nothing from you other than access to your bank account.'

  Patrick was impressed by her assessment and said so as he topped up her glass. "That's exactly what I need.'

  'In fact,' said Lou, 'you need to marry me.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  Patrick's hand jerked and he missed her glass, spilling wine on the tablecloth. 'Sorry,' he said as he mopped it up with his napkin. 'I thought you said that I should marry you there!'

  T did.' Lou accepted her glass back with a smile of thanks, quite unfazed. 'Someone like me, anyway. But actually, now I come to think of it, I'd be the perfect wife for you.'

  'You would?' Patrick wasn't sure whether to be amused or appalled.

  'Of course.' Lou gestured grandly with her glass. T know your business, and I could do all that social stuff easily. I know who you need to charm and who to impress, and I'm under absolutely no illusions as to what you're like!'

  'Right,' said Patrick, fascinated.

  'You'd be much better off with someone sensible like me who wouldn't make a fuss about your girlfriends, or expect you to pay me any attention,' she pointed out. 'You wouldn't need to email me every day or buy me flowers or surprise me with mini-breaks to Paris.'

  'O...K,' he said slowly, buying time until he worked out whether she was joking or not. 'But why would you want to marry me?'

  'Oh, I'd be marrying you for your money, of course,' said Lou cheerfully.

  'I thought you didn't want a man?'

  'I don't, but I do want financial security. Do you have

  40

  any idea how tough it is to be a single parent living on a limited income in a city like London?'

  Patrick raised his brows. 'Is this a very roundabout way of complaining about your salary?'

  'No.' She shook her head. 'My salary is fair. More than fair, in fact. If it wasn't, I would have got another job. It just doesn't go very far when you have to pay an extortionate rent and feed and support two growing children into the bargain.'

  'Yes, I've heard that children are expensive nowadays,' said Patrick, thinking of his sisters' complaints.

  'They are, and the older they are, the more expensive they seem to become.' Lou sighed and sipped her wine reflectively. 'I'd like to be able to say that I had raised a couple of thoughtful, unmaterialistic, community-minded children who understood that the love and security you strive to give them mattered more than the latest brand of trainers or the newest computer game, but sadly they're not like that at all!'

  'Oh?' said Patrick, rather taken with the idea that Lou's children weren't the paragons he would have expected them to be. He found her attitude refreshing. He'd had to listen to too many mothers telling him how clever and talented and generally marvellous their children were.

  'They're not bad kids,' said Lou, 'but they're like all their friends. They want to be in with the in-crowd, to be like everyone else and to have what everyone else has. At least I haven't been able to spoil them,' she added with a wry smile. 'The silver lining of living on a strict budget. Although naturally Grace and Tom don't see it that way!'

  'Doesn't their father give you any financial support?' asked Patrick, ever the businessman. As a man who specialised in taking failing businesses and turning them round,

  he was clearly offended by the idea of losing control of your finances.

  Lou sighed a little, thinking of Lawrie. 'He's always willing in principle, but when it comes to transferring money there's always some great scheme that he needs to buy into temporarily which will solve all our problems.'

  'And does it?'

  'No. The last time he had any real money to invest, he lost us our house,' said Lou, trying to make light of it. 'There's no way I'm getting back on the property ladder in London now.'

  'Unfortunate,' commented Patrick, looking disapproving. He was far too canny a businessman ever to take the kind of risks Lawrie ran all the time.

  Lou thought of the day Lawrie had come home and confessed that he had borrowed against the house, and lost it all on some idiotic venture that a child of six could have told him would fail.

  Oh, and that by the way he was leaving her for a younger, prettier woman who wasn't so boring about being sensible about money.

  Of course, the other woman didn't have two children to worry about, so it was easy for her.

  Lou had lost her home and her husband on a single day. A double whammy as her world fell apart. Not one of the best days of her life.

  Tt was a bit,' she agreed, smiling bitterly at the understatement.

  There was a pause. Patrick was having to adjust his ideas about Lou. She had always seemed so cool and in control, it was hard to imagine her dragged down by a feckless husband, having to scrape and make do.

  'So marrying for money might solve some of your prob-

  lems?' he said, trying to lighten the atmosphere, and Lou was glad to follow his lead.

  'Well, I've got to admit that I haven't given it a lot of thought as an option before,' she said, 'but I really think it might. In fact, I wonder if marrying you might not be just the thing!'

  'I'm glad you think I might be of some use to you!'

  'When you're in my position, you can't afford to be proud,' said Lou frankly. 'I'm sick of scraping by and worrying about money the whole time. And I hate not being able to give Grace and Tom the kind of life I want for them.'

  'You said you didn't want to give them things,' Patrick reminded her, and she nodded.

  'I don't. They don't heed things, but they do need more space, for instance. If you saw where we live now...'

  She trailed off with a grimace at the thought of the flat. 'I know we're better off than some, but it's a tiny apartment for the three of us. Grace and I have to share a bedroom, and Tom's is barely more than a cupboard. If you want to have any privacy, you have to go into the bathroom, and even then there's always one of them banging on the door.'

  Lou sighed. 'It's so small we all get on top of each other, and that makes ev
eryone scratchy. I'm sure we wouldn't argue nearly so much if we had more space.' She cocked her head at him. 'You've got a big house, haven't you?'

  'I've got three.'

  'There you go, then. Plenty of room to spread ourselves. And I bet you don't have neighbours going through a marital crisis on one side of you, while those on the other put the television on full blast at seven in the morning and don't turn it off until well after midnight?'

  'I don't know what state my neighbours' marriage is in,

  or what their viewing habits are, but I certainly can't hear them,' agreed Patrick.

  'I didn't think so. And you probably don't have people upstairs either?'

  'No, I've got the whole house to myself.'

  Lou sighed enviously. 'Our neighbours upstairs are perfectly nice, but every footstep reverberates through the ceiling, and we can hear almost everything they say above a whisper.'

  'It sounds as if marrying me would certainly improve your accommodation prospects,' said Patrick dryly.

  'Oh, don't worry, I'd want your money too.' Lou waved a piece of bread at him gaily. 'Not millions, just enough to be able to do the kind of things I could have done for them if Lawrie had stayed and we hadn't lost the house. I'd love to be in a position where I could encourage their interests, give them a chance to develop their talents, open their eyes to how other people live...'

  She trailed off wistfully. 'I'd really like to be able to take them abroad for a holiday one year. Grace has friends whose father took them to the States last summer. They had a week in Florida, and a week in New York, where they stayed in some swish apartment and got taken round the Statue of Liberty in a private speedboat. Grace was so jealous, she could hardly speak to Alice and Harriet when they got back. I know she'd love a holiday like that, but all I can afford is to take them to see my aunt in the Yorkshire Dales. It's not that exciting for a fourteen-year-old.'

  It didn't sound that exciting to a forty-eight-year-old either, thought Patrick, and then sucked in an exasperated breath as he saw the waiters bearing down on them once more with their main courses. They had to go through the whole rigmarole as before, both waiters hovering syco-

  phantically around Lou and vying to top up her glass or express the hope that she would enjoy her meal.

  And Lou just sat there, encouraging them with that smile of hers.

  Patrick watched them grovel off at last with a disgruntled expression. 'If things are that tight, wouldn't it be cheaper for you to move out of London?'

  'Yes, I often think that,' said Lou as she picked up her knife and fork. 'It's the rent that's so expensive anywhere within commuting distance of London. I'd love to live in the country, and I'm sure I could get some kind of job, although it's not easy starting in a new place when you're over forty.'

  'So why don't you do it?'

  'Because the kids would hate it. They're both settled at a good school in the centre of London. London's all they've ever known, so they're real metropolitans now. It's bad enough taking them to the Dales for a week. They just droop around and say that they're bored. Tom's not too bad when you get him up and out, but Grace pines for her friends.'

  'You can't arrange your whole life around your children,' said Patrick, looking down his nose disapprovingly.

  Lou put down her knife and fork and looked at him in wonder at his lack of understanding. 'But that's exactly what you have to do,' she corrected him. 'That's the thing about having children. They always come first.

  'And the fact is that Grace and Tom would be miserable living in the country now,' she went on, picking up her cutlery once more so that she could tuck into her meal. 'All their friends are in London. That's their home. They're used to taking the tube and jumping on and off buses.

  'No,' she said with mock resolution. 'It's a choice between marrying you or winning the lottery.'

  Patrick was enjoying Lou's novel approach. Not that he had any real intention of getting married, but at least her frankness about his money made a change from tears and protestations of love and tedious conversations about why he wasn't prepared to commit.

  'Let's just say for the sake of argument that I did marry you,' he said. 'How would it work?'

  'It would be a meeting of our two fantasies,' said Lou, warming to the idea. 'We wouldn't have to pretend to be in love or any of that nonsense. I'd do the dutiful-wife act. I'd run your house, turn up for business dos and remind you to ring your mother, but other than that you'd hardly know I was there. You could chase girls all you liked and I wouldn't be the slightest bit jealous. I'd just wave you off, tell you to have a nice time and remind you to leave me your credit card!'

  She laughed at the absurdity of the idea. Honestly, she must have had far too much to drink, but she was at the merry stage where she couldn't bring herself to care.

  Patrick was having a bit of trouble disentangling the fantasies they had discussed from the one they definitely hadn't. Clearly, Lou wasn't talking about the one with the stockings, anyway. He'd certainly know she was there in that one.

  With an effort he remembered what she had told him about her fantasy. Something about having someone to talk to, wasn't it? Nothing about stockings, that was for sure.

  'So what would I have to do?'

  Lou was enjoying herself. 'Oh, you'd just have to be there occasionally for me to have a moan about things, but it shouldn't cut into your seduction time too much. All I'd really want would be the run of the house and the security of knowing I wasn't going to find myself homeless again.'

  'Does that mean if it was all a disaster and we ended up getting divorced I'd have to give you my house?'

  'Well, if you've got three, you could probably spare one,' said Lou frankly. 'It doesn't seem very fair though, I agree.'

  She pondered the matter, her brows drawn together in concentration as she continued to sip her wine absently. 'I'm sure we could draw up some kind of pre-nuptial contract. You know, like they do in Hollywood. We'd just put in some clause that said you had to give me some money if you got fed up of me,' she decided.

  'But, hey, why would you want to divorce me?' Lou went on breezily. 'A marriage of convenience would solve all your problems. In fact, we'd both get exactly what we wanted.'

  'Right,' said Patrick, a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth. 'Remind me again where our fantasies collide.'

  'I want financial security. You want sex without commitment. Honestly, it's ideal,' said Lou. 'We would both know exactly where we were. There'd be no question of falling in love, or any of those messy emotions you're so afraid of. I don't want to get involved any more than you do.'

  Patrick studied her with amusement. She had obviously had even more champagne than he had. He had the feeling that they would both regret this conversation in the morning, but for now he was finding it very entertaining.

  'So you think you're the ideal wife for me?'

  'I do,' she said with owlish dignity. 'I'm offering you a great deal here!'

  'What about the two stroppy adolescents that come with you?'

  'Yes, I'm afraid that Grace and Tom would come as part of the package, and I can see that they could be a bit of a

  drawback from your point of view,' Lou conceded, determined to be fair. 'But you did say that your house feels empty sometimes, and they would fill it up nicely. I presume you've got bedrooms for us all?'

  Patrick did a quick calculation. 'Six.'

  'Six?' She paused for a moment to consider how much a six-bedroom house in Chelsea must be worth. The answer made her mind boggle, and she shook her head.

  'What on earth were you doing buying a house with six bedrooms when you live on your own?'

  'It had good off-road parking.'

  He sounded quite serious, too.

  'Well, it's high time you filled up some of those rooms, if you ask me,' she said, recovering her nerve. 'It sounds excellent for us. There would be plenty of room for the kids to spread themselves, and we can all have a room each, and have two spare for v
isitors.'

  'Oh, so you and I wouldn't be sharing a room, then?' said Patrick, having worked out the bedroom allocation.

  Dark eyes met his squarely across the table. 'Not as long as you're sleeping around,' she said.

  Ah. Not quite that intoxicated, then, thought Patrick.

  'Some wife you'd be,' he pretended to grumble.

  'You don't want to sleep with me,' Lou pointed out, 'and I certainly don't want to sleep with you!'

  So much for his stockings fantasy. 'Well, that seems clear enough.' Patrick knew that she was right, but couldn't quite prevent the slight edge to his voice.

  Lou heard it, and realised belatedly that she hadn't been very flattering. 'That's not to say that you're unattractive,' she tried to reassure him, even as part of her wondered why she was bothering to prop an ego that was already quite big enough. 'In fact, you're much more attractive than I thought you were.'

  Oh, God, she'd had far too much to drink! She hadn't meant to say that at all. 'When I said I didn't want to sleep with you, I didn't mean...at least, I did mean... Well, I was just trying to say that it's not that—'

  She stopped abruptly. There was no way that sentence was going anywhere she wanted it to, so she might as well give up on it now.

  'I know what you meant,' said Patrick, keeping his face straight with difficulty. 'I think! I can see it would still be a pretty good deal for me,' he added, taking pity on Lou's confusion.

  'It would be.' She beamed at him, grateful for rescuing her from the great big hole she had dug for herself there. She picked up her glass. 'You should think about it.'

  Patrick looked at her, pink-cheeked and distinctly dishevelled by now. He could hardly recognise his prim and proper PA.

  'Maybe I should.'

  Lou stared fixedly at the lift button and tried not to sway. Really, she must have drunk more than she thought.

  'I don't usually drink this much,' she confided to Patrick, with the nasty feeling that she was slurring her words. Getting to her feet had been more difficult than it usually was, too, and the walk across the hotel lobby to the lifts had involved a lot more concentration than it should have done.