by Mary Lyons
‘You’ve got ten seconds to make up your mind,’ Jack ground out loudly, his voice heavy with threat and menace. ‘Either you come out of that damn bathroom or I’m going to get the owner of this pub up here. All he’ll need is a good screwdriver and we’ll have that door off its hinges in no time at all!’
‘I really, really hate that awful man!’ she muttered to herself in the mirror, knowing full well, of course, that she didn’t hate Jack, and was behaving in a disgracefully childish manner. But how was she to get out of this impasse? How to face him and still manage to salvage her pride?
Even as she asked herself the question, Laura realised with a sinking heart that she was sounding exactly like that amazingly stupid airhead Melissa Grant. ‘And that, if I may say so,’ she told her reflection grimly, ‘is definitely a fate worse than death.’ Far worse, in fact, than facing the music and forcing herself to apologise to Jack. So, like it or not, she had no choice but to go and eat humble pie.
With a heavy, despondent sigh, she drew back the bolt and slowly opened the bathroom door.
In the brief space of time between leaving one room and entering another, Laura was able to see that the bedroom now looked quite different from when she’d left it, well over an hour ago. The bed had been made, the clothes tidied away, and a round table in the far corner of the room was now covered with a bright, checked cloth and laid for breakfast.
Leaning casually against the window-sill, Jack gazed at her, his hooded grey eyes hard and unreadable, giving her no clue as to his innermost thoughts as the silence lengthened between them.
‘I...um...I’m sorry. I’ve made a total fool of myself,’ she managed to mumble at last, unable to meet his eyes as she stared fixedly down at the carpet.
‘I’m obviously rather deaf this morning,’ he drawled, not bothering to disguise the hard, implacable force underlying his words. ‘I didn’t catch what you just said. Maybe you’d like to repeat it?’
No, I damn well wouldn’t! Laura groaned inwardly, ashamed to suddenly find herself feeling close to tears, and desperately wishing that she could be rescued from her misery. But, since Jack was clearly still very angry, she was just going to have to swallow her pride.
‘Um...’ She cleared her throat. ‘I...er...I’m sorry. I owe you an apology for having been such a fool earlier this morning,’ she said quietly, still staring down at the pattern on the carpet. ‘To tell the truth, I behaved like a blithering idiot,’ she added with a heavy sigh. ‘I’ve got no excuse to offer other than the fact that I had a blinding headache and I obviously wasn’t seeing straight—either mentally or visually.’
‘Good heavens! This all sounds remarkably unlike your normal aggressive self,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘Are you quite sure that you’re feeling all right?’
Stung on the raw, Laura sharply raised her head.
Fully intending to tell him to get lost—because if he didn’t think much of her apology that was just too bad!—she found herself staring deep into his eyes, her mind suddenly flooded with scattered, flickering images. Not only of their lovemaking in Tahiti, or here in this room last night, but also the amazing patience which Jack had shown over the past few months.
The many times he’d forgiven all the irritating and maddening pinpricks which she’d deliberately scattered his way; the warmth and comfort of his arms when she’d been so frightened in the lift, and—above all—the overwhelming love she had for this difficult and complex man.
‘Well?’
‘Maybe I really am going down with some dreadful disease,’ she murmured with a shaky, tearful smile. ‘Because I honestly don’t want to fight you any more, Jack. I’m fed up to the back teeth with all the rows and quarrels we’ve had over the past few months. Not to mention being sick and tired of the stress and strain of not being entirely honest with one another. Who needs it?’
She waved her hands helplessly in the air. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll believe me, but I’m truly not the sort of person who enjoys conflict, or gets a kick from scoring points off other people. I just want... I need...
‘Oh, hell!’ she wailed, turning to run across the room and throwing herself down on the bed, desperately brushing away the weak tears which had suddenly begun trickling down her face.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ he murmured, moving quickly over the carpet, sitting down beside her and swiftly putting his arms about her trembling figure.
‘I’ve been s-such a s-stupid fooll’ she cried. ‘I don’t know what I want, but—’
‘Hush, darling. There’s no need to cry, because I know exactly what you want’ He smiled tenderly down at the quivering girl in his arms. ‘In the short term, you need a decent breakfast, before being driven back to London in a comfortable, fast car—followed by a quiet, leisurely dinner at my house in Chelsea and a good night’s sleep. How am I doing so far?’
‘B-brilliantly,’ she sobbed, ashamed of not being able to stop crying, in spite of the deeply comforting warmth and security of his embrace.
‘Ah, well...maybe I can try to do just a little better than that,’ he murmured, taking a large white handkerchief out of his pocket and gently drying the tears from her eyes. ‘Although I’m not at all sure that you will agree. Because I’m sorry to say that I think you’re going to have to make an honest man of me at last.’
‘I’m...what?’ Laura raised her tear-stained face, gazing up at him in startled confusion. Had he really said...? No, of course he hadn’t! Oh, Lord—maybe she really was going down with some awful disease, after all?
Jack gave a heavily dramatic sigh. ‘Oh, dear; I can see it’s all come as a bit of a shock. Well, you win some, you lose some. But that’s life, I guess.’
He shrugged. ‘Of course there’s no way I can force you to marry me. Especially if you simply loathe the whole idea. But I do think that you ought to seriously consider the problems which I’m now having to face. We have, after all, spent a night together in this inn—which, incidentally, is also putting up a large proportion of the film crew. Quite frankly, darling—and if only to protect my good name in show business—I do feel that it’s only fair of you to do the decent thing and—ouch!’
‘You beastly...rotten...horrid man!’ she cried, drumming her fists on his broad chest, laughing and weeping at one and the same time.
‘Really, Laura!’ he protested with a grin. ‘What on earth has happened to the deeply penitent, sadly forlorn girl who was so tired of fighting me?’
‘She’s still here—but only just! Because if you think that you’re going to get away with such a lousy, offhand proposal you’ve got another think coming. “Protect my good name” and “do the decent thing”? What rubbish!’ She glared up at the man she loved so much, struggling to stop herself from joining in the laughter clearly reflected in his gleaming grey eyes. ‘Where, I ask myself, are the red roses and gypsy violins? Not to mention one or two choirs of angels, et cetera, et cetera.’
‘Where indeed?’ he grinned. ‘It’s definitely beginning to look as if I’ve slipped up on some of the finer points of etiquette. But then,’ he added more seriously, his voice heavy with regret, ‘I do seem to have made a complete hash of our relationship, don’t I?’
‘Oh, darling—it wasn’t just you. I’m truly sorry that I’ve given you such a hard time over the past few months,’ she confessed sorrowfully. ‘But we seemed to have got ourselves into a sort of vicious circle. And, however much I tried to break out of it, I just managed to make things worse, somehow,’ she added sadly.
‘There’s no need to blame yourself. It was all my own stupid fault.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Because right from the day you first walked into my office I knew that you were going to cause me problems. I don’t mean aggravation,’ he added swiftly as she stirred restlessly in his arms. ‘I’m talking about my own emotional response to a bright young girl with wonderful auburn hair and sparkling green eyes who’d walked so confidently into my office. When I felt my heart give a sudden lurch, I knew it w
ould be fatal to have you around. Who needs that sort of temptation dangled in front of them every working day?’
‘But...but I was engaged to be married at the time,’ Laura murmured, secretly thrilled at his picture of her as some sort of femme fatale.
‘So you were,’ he agreed. ‘And that’s the only reason I took you on. Not only were you bright and intelligent, but you obviously weren’t likely to be interested in me. So any instant attraction I’d felt could be allowed to die an early death. But you eventually broke off your engagement, and the situation didn’t seem to alter—certainly not as far as I was concerned. The longer we worked together, the harder it got to suppress my feelings.
‘In the end, of course, I gave in to temptation,’ he added with a sigh. ‘And even though we only had two days and nights together I knew that I was in serious trouble.’
‘They were the two most wonderful days of my whole life,’ she cried, throwing her arms about his neck. ‘I was totally heartbroken when you rejected me. I really couldn’t believe it was happening to me! I...I think I must have been out of my mind with pain and agony.’
‘Oh, my love!’ he groaned, clasping her tightly to him. ‘I was such a fool. God knows what possessed me to give you the sack after our trip to Tahiti. All I can say with any certainty is that after flying back to England I spent days and nights wrestling with the problem. Because I’d discovered that I was deeply in love with you, and—’
‘Really?’
‘Really, truly, deeply and—unfortunately as it turned out—quite madly. And, it’s that madness which has, I’m afraid, led to most of our problems over the past months.
‘As I saw it, there were really only three or four courses of action open to me. Either I got rid of you straight away, putting all temptation well out of my reach, and concentrated on work until I’d somehow got you out of my system, or we became an item, carrying on our love affair, and probably causing disruption all over the place. Because I could see very clearly, even if you couldn’t at the time, that having a member of staff sleeping with the boss was bound to lead to trouble and gossip, both within the industry and, more seriously, in the office.
‘So I chose the third alternative: that of removing you from the work environment—and hoping to provide an alternative job so that we could continue to be together.’
‘But that was never going to work,’ she protested. ‘Not unless you’d told me how you felt about me...about us.’
‘I know.’ He shook head at his own folly. ‘I did say that I was madly in love, didn’t I? Because I really think that I must have been temporarily out of my mind at the time. And for some months afterwards,’ he added, with a grim bark of unhappy laughter.
‘Because, of course, there was always the fourth alternative—that of asking you to marry me. And yes, I certainly thought about it. But...well, my marriage to Melissa had been such a total disaster that I dreaded the thought of making another mistake. In the past, for instance, I’d always made sure that I never got myself into a position where the question might arise.’
Laura laughed. ‘That sounds like a case of “Mr Loverman strikes again”!’
‘Oh, come on—that’s not fair!’ he laughed in return. ‘Some journalist once coined that phrase in an idle moment—and it’s a ghastly tag that’s been hung around my neck ever since. However, I’ve always tried to play fair. It’s many years since my marriage broke up, so I’m not going to try and pretend that I’ve lived like a monk,’ he told her with a shrug. ‘However, any girlfriends I may have had always knew right from the beginning of the relationship that I was strictly not interested in any serious emotional entanglement. Until you came along and upset all my careful calculations,’ he added with a heavy sigh.
‘Oh, yes—and what about the lovely Felicity Green?’ she demanded, still not entirely convinced that he hadn’t fallen, if only temporarily, for the girl with such a truly amazing figure.
‘Ah, yes,’ he grinned. ‘I was very encouraged to see just how cross and jealous you were about dear Felicity! Although why you should think that I’d fancy a pneumatic blonde when I was in love with a slim redhead I’ve absolutely no idea.’
‘I wasn’t really jealous,’ Laura muttered, her cheeks flushing as he gave a low chuckle of laughter. ‘Or if I was...just a bit...it’s not really surprising. She really is stunning, isn’t she?’
‘She certainly is!’ he agreed with maddening cheerfulness. ‘In fact, I went to a lot of trouble to pick just the type of girl likely to cause you a few disturbed nights. However, I have to say that I didn’t find her at all physically attractive and she bored me rigid. Sad, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely tragic,’ Laura agreed with a happy grin. ‘But why go to all that trouble? I mean, I was already crazily in love with you. So why dangle Felicity in front. of my nose?’
‘I knew that we were both sexually attracted to one another—but then Donald Hunt suddenly appeared on the scene. You certainly seemed to be very close to him. And since he’d already been partly instrumental in breaking up my marriage I was damned if he was going to carry off the girl I loved. Unfortunately, despite trying to be cool and sophisticated about the situation, I saw no reason why you shouldn’t suffer the same agonies of jealousy that I was going through. Which is why,’ he added with a shamefaced smile, ‘I dangled Felicity in front of you at every conceivable opportunity.’
Laura threw back her head and roared with laughter. ‘It’s nice to know that I’m not the only idiot around here. Honestly, Jack—how can you be so blind? It’s Susie who interests Donald—not me!’
‘Oh, dear! Hmm...well, it seems that I may have made a slight miscalculation there.’ He laughed. ‘Anyhow, once Donald appeared on the scene, I finally decided that I was going to marry you if it was the last thing I did. Only unfortunately it nearly was. Because the reason I was hunting in your handbag for my car keys—which seem to have totally disappeared, by the way—was because I had left what I hoped would prove to be your engagement ring in the glove compartment in my car. You see, I had planned to give you the ring this morning. Alas for the best laid plans...’
‘And I spoilt it all,’ she groaned. ‘I’m so sorry, darling. How could I have been such an idiot?’
‘Well, looking back over our tempestuous love affair, I must say that I’m forced to the conclusion that we’ve both been idiots. So why don’t we forget the past and simply look forward to the future?’
‘I’ll second that,’ she agreed fervently. “The only thing is...what about business? I know you don’t think we ought to work together,’ she added quickly. ‘And it may surprise you to know that I agree with you.’
‘Now I know you’re not well!’ he laughed.
Laura grinned. ‘OK—less of the wisecracks, if you don’t mind! But seriously, Jack—what are we going to do?’
‘Well, I’ve obviously given the matter some thought, and I feel that the best solution is to sell my present house and buy something much larger, with a basement or attic, which can be solely devoted to your business. Because you’re quite right—the idea of sharing the same office building is absolutely out! And I think pinching each other’s clients would have to be grounds for divorce, don’t you?’
‘You’ve got no arguments so far,’ she said.
‘Hmm...you may not be too happy with my final stipulation. I really am going to insist on strict working hours—for us both. If you can successfully maintain a balance between your business and our family life, that’s fine by me. But, even at the risk of sounding a complete male chauvinist, I want your husband and children to be the most important things in your life—with business well in second place. Am I asking too much?’
Laura gazed at him for a moment, realising that he was quite right. She loved her business. She’d be very unhappy not to be able to continue a career which she loved. But, at the end of the day, there was really no choice. Because, if she’d learned nothing else over the past few months, she was very certain of o
ne fundamental fact: that without Jack by her side life for her had no meaning at all.
‘Well?’ he demanded, the slight trembling in his hands the only evidence that he wasn’t one hundred per cent certain of her answer.
‘Oh, I don’t know...’ Laura muttered, struggling to keep a straight face as his arms tightened possessively about her. ‘Maybe we could give it a whirl. The script needs polishing, of course, and you still haven’t signed up the leading lady,’ she teased. ‘But on the whole I’d say the scenario has a certain amount of promise. On the other hand, maybe...’
“There isn’t going to be any damn “maybe” about it!’ he growled huskily, crushing her fiercely to him, his mouth descending to cover her quivering lips in a kiss of demanding, hungry possession.
‘OK, OK... I think I’ve got the message!’ she gasped breathlessly as she lay dazed in his arms some moments later.
‘And about time too!’ He smiled down at her. ‘So are you going to marry me—with or without the gypsy violins?’
‘Oh, yes, Jack!’ she murmured happily, winding her arms about his neck.
‘And you’re going to promise to love, honour and obey me—as long as we both shall live...?’
‘You’ve always had my love and honour.’ She smiled up into his eyes. ‘I’m not so confident about the “obey” bit of the marriage vows, of course—but I’ll certainly do my best.’
‘Hmm...possibly we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on the likelihood of obedience?’
‘How wise and clever you are, Mr Loverman!’ she laughed. ‘Although I do promise to try and mend my ways.’
He laughed. ‘Not too soon or too suddenly, my darling Laura. I really don’t think I could stand the shock! Let’s just take one day at a time.’
‘One day—every day—for the rest of our lives,’ she murmured lovingly as he took her lips in a kiss of fierce possession and total commitment.