Tell Me You Do

by Fiona Harper

  ‘I can’t just drop everything and flit off for four days!’ she said, keeping an eye on Cal, who she was trying to teach to swing under his own steam. ‘It’s impossible.’

  Her son was flinging himself backwards and forwards, legs and body working desperately to get up a bit of momentum. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten what Kelly had told him about pushing himself off with his toes and he wasn’t going anywhere fast. ‘Here, let me get you started,’ she told him gently and went to put her hands on his back.

  ‘I want to do it myself!’ Cal yelled over his shoulder, frowning, and doubled his frenzied effort.

  Kelly rolled her eyes. It didn’t matter how beyond him the task was, he never let anyone lend a hand. Why, out of all the qualities she could have passed down to her sons, had it been that dogged stubbornness? Couldn’t Tim’s anything-for-an-easy-life genes have cancelled things out a bit? He hadn’t been able to stick at anything for too long. Especially marriage.

  She caught her sister-in-law’s eye and found her smiling. Kelly knew exactly what was going through her brain.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said.

  She was not being stubborn about going to New York with Jason. She was being practical.

  ‘But you’ve always wanted to go,’ Chloe said, a little too reasonably for Kelly’s tastes. ‘The Empire State Building … Central Park … Little Italy … . Now’s your chance! And you’d get to go business class, stay in a nice hotel—it will be a nice hotel, won’t it?’

  Kelly nodded reluctantly. ‘I expect so. Jason does seem to like the finer things in life.’

  Chloe leaned over and gave her a nudge. ‘He likes you …’

  ‘Stop it,’ Kelly said again. ‘I used to think you were fairly sane until you married my brother, but he’s having a bad influence on you. Now you’re just as pushy as the rest of the Bradfords.’

  Chloe smiled sweetly at her. ‘I like to think of it as having discovered my inner mule.’

  Kelly snorted. She didn’t like it much, whatever it was. ‘It was supposed to be the other way around,’ she said mournfully. ‘You were supposed to mellow him out a bit.’

  ‘I just want to see you have a little fun, Kells. You deserve it.’

  There was that. But there was fun and there was fun. Chloe’s version was all tied up with a pair of long legs, some broad shoulders and a devilish grin. ‘I married that particular brand of fun and ended up in the divorce court,’ she told Chloe, ‘which turned out not to be so hilarious after all. I think I’ve had enough of feckless men to last me a lifetime.’

  Chloe made a scoffing noise. ‘I’m not suggesting you marry this one,’ she said with a saucy glint in her eye, ‘just that you have a little—’

  ‘Fun?’ Kelly interjected, her voice low and grim.

  Chloe shrugged. ‘I was going to say fling, but whatever.’

  Cal had obviously worn himself out with his flapping backwards and forwards and decided the slide was more appealing. Kelly glanced at the empty seat. Stubborn child.

  Ben, as always, copied his brother and dashed off for the slide too. Thankfully, it was the smaller variety, with raised edges and a rubberised floor underneath. She sat down in Cal’s empty swing and Chloe came and sat beside her while they both kept a beady eye on the boys a few feet away.

  ‘Okay,’ she said slowly, ‘say I did decide to go. What would I do with the boys? I can hardly leave them home alone with a can opener and some ready meals.’

  Chloe thought for a moment. ‘Easy. They can come and stay with us.’

  Kelly frowned. ‘But I thought your mother was coming to stay—you’ve been moaning about it for weeks now.’

  ‘That’s what makes it so brilliant,’ Chloe said, nodding. ‘She can help us with the boys. She’ll no doubt love showing me just how proper childrearing should be done—’

  Kelly muffled a laugh with her hand. ‘Good luck with my two!’

  Chloe gave her a quick smile then forged on. ‘I’ll have the perfect excuse not to drag round behind her on her annual shopping spree uptown … and I might even be spared the lecture on having my own offspring before my eggs go bad. Sounds like a win-win deal to me!’

  Kelly watched Cal showing Ben how to untangle his legs from underneath himself at the top of the slide and something inside her melted. Stubborn, yes. Generous and caring, also yes. As much as they made her life interesting at times, she didn’t know what she’d do without her boys.

  ‘Don’t you and Dan want kids?’ she asked, then realised belatedly it was probably another one of those things she shouldn’t bring up.

  Chloe sighed.

  ‘Just tell me to shut up,’ Kelly said. ‘Most people do.’

  ‘It’s not that …’ Chloe looked at the pale yellow clouds gathering on the horizon. ‘I’d love kids, but it’s … complicated.’ Her expression hardened a little and she turned to Kelly. ‘And I’m not doing it just to suit my mother’s timetable.’

  Kelly nodded. She might be a plain talker, but she could read between the lines as well as the next woman.

  So Dan was a little hesitant. It made sense, she supposed. His first marriage had ended catastrophically after his baby son had died, and he and Chloe had only been married a couple of months.

  Kelly noticed the sheen in not just her sister-in-law’s eyes. ‘He’ll come around to it,’ she told her. ‘Just like he did to the idea of marrying again. He just needs a little time to sort it all out in his head.’

  Chloe nodded, but her chin crumpled as she said, ‘I hope so.’

  Kelly was going to put an arm round her, but Chloe preempted her by shaking off her pensiveness and smiling brightly at her. She supposed she could help her sister-in-law out by being a distraction technique. Just this once.

  ‘So …’ Chloe said, ‘now we’ve got all that sorted out, what shoes are you going to pack for New York?’

  Kelly fussed around with her aeroplane seat, putting her laptop in a pocket, stowing away some headphones, rearranging the magazines on offer. She picked up the emergency landing card, grimaced then put it away again. Where could she put her laptop mouse? This was a work trip. She would be working.

  ‘I can’t believe they put us in first class,’ she muttered for the fifteenth time.

  ‘The benefit of a company frequent-flier account and offices on both sides of the Atlantic,’ Jason told her. ‘I get upgraded all the time.’

  Business class would have been bad enough, thought Kelly. She was used to being in economy with her knees around her chin, but all of this—the comfy seats, three acres of legroom, the proper pillows and polished wood—just made her feel as if she was in a dream, not in the middle of what should be just another working day.

  She shouldn’t feel this excitement bubbling up in her stomach. Butterflies had arrived that morning before the alarm had gone off, the kind that only usually came with the rumble of case wheels in the pre-dawn quiet or when speeding down a deserted motorway as the sun rose. But this wasn’t a holiday; she needed to remember that. So she tried to stamp on the pesky butterflies, but they just flitted up from the floor of her stomach and messed with her heartbeat instead.

  She glanced across at Jason, who was looking cool and unconcerned. He was used to this. Even though he’d refused to book first class on the company dollar, she’d bet his family travelled this way all the time. They were certainly rich enough. And if the looming meeting with Dale McGrath was bothering him, he certainly wasn’t showing it.

  She stared at the blank screen of the personal TV that was presently lying flat against the side of her little cubicle, or whatever they called it. She had to get a grip. This was going to be a long flight and she’d probably be sitting within centimetres of Jason for the whole time, so she really needed to stop tingling and just focus on what she was here to do—her job. She slumped back into her comfy seat and sighed. The sooner they took off and she could get her laptop out, the better.

  She turned and looked at him. ‘We’re going to go ove
r the figures again once we’re in the air, right? I mean, the one advantage of all this space is that it has to be easier to work, yes?’

  ‘Lots easier to work,’ he said, smiling, then prised the laptop mouse she hadn’t realised she’d still been clutching out of her hand and tucked it into a convenient side pocket. ‘Also lots easier to relax.’ He nodded at a rather pretty cabin attendant and she instantly smiled and headed their way with glasses of champagne.

  Kelly took the drink but looked at it warily. It wasn’t helping with the whole ‘remember this is just work’ thing. This felt suspiciously like a treat.

  ‘Jeez, Kelly! Unclench a little,’ Jason said, laughing slightly, but then his expression became more serious. ‘You’re not afraid of flying, are you?’

  Kelly opened her mouth to say no, she wasn’t, but then she closed it again. ‘It’s been a long time. Not since before I had the boys … . And having kids made me neurotic in all kinds of new and unexpected ways.’ Perhaps that was why the butterflies were here. Perhaps that was why she was feeling so out of sorts. Nothing to do with the man sitting next to her at all. ‘Maybe I am a little nervous,’ she said, almost hopefully.

  Jason nudged her champagne glass in her direction. ‘Then this will help.’

  Kelly sighed and took a sip. It did help. But not in the way she wanted. She wasn’t sure she wanted to relax, to get comfortable chatting with Jason as they flew across the ocean. All day.

  ‘So how long has it been since you’ve been on an aeroplane?’ he asked.

  She looked at him. Jason wasn’t really one for chit-chat. The softness in his eyes confirmed her suspicion—that he was indulging in small talk to make her feel more comfortable, that he was being chivalrous. The rat.

  She shrugged. ‘Eight years … maybe nine. And I’ve never done a long-haul flight before. Only quick trips to Spain on package holidays.’

  Jason’s eyebrows rose higher. ‘You’ve never been to the States before? To New York?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’d always planned to, though. One day.’

  He grinned back at her and the butterflies started doing a clog dance. ‘Well, that day is today,’ he said, and she couldn’t help picking up on some of his infectious enthusiasm. ‘We’ll have to make sure you see some of the sights.’

  Kelly swallowed. She wasn’t sure that was a good idea. ‘We’ll be too busy for that,’ she said quickly, hoping that was the case. Jason had been a little tight lipped about the itinerary. ‘I’ll just grab glimpses as we travel around, maybe do the Empire State Building one evening—if we can squeeze it in.’

  But then she thought of standing in the balmy summer-evening air with Jason by her side, staring out across a fairyland of coloured lights and movement, breathing in the energy and magic of the city that never slept, and she started to panic.

  Quick. Change the subject. Get it back to something neutral, something less … butterfly encouraging.

  ‘So, will we be dropping in on Knight’s head offices while we’re there?’ she asked him. It seemed like the perfect opportunity. She was curious to find out more about Aspire’s parent company.

  Jason’s grin froze and he knocked back half of his champagne. ‘Like you said. Busy schedule. We’ll see.’

  He didn’t say much after that, just stared blankly at the back of the next row of super-duper lie-flat seats. Kelly breathed out. He’d stopped smiling. He’d stopped looking at her as if something amazing was about to happen and they’d be co-conspirators when it did. That was good. She could breathe again.

  But the tingling didn’t stop. If anything, it got worse.

  Because she could guess what was going on inside his head. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought up head office. She knew he had issues with his father, that they ran deep, so why hadn’t she just veered away from that subject like a sensible person, kept her nose out and her big mouth shut? Nice going, Kells.

  She picked up the in-flight magazine and leafed through it as the plane began to taxi towards the runway.

  But she knew why she hadn’t been able to stay silent. Boys needed their fathers, needed the approval only that central figure in their life could give, and she ached for her two when their dad didn’t come to see them as often as he should. Jason might have almost thirty years on her two sons, but the same longing was still there, no matter how hard he clamped it down. And now she was aching for him too, which was way worse than the flickering lust that had waylaid her since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

  Way worse.

  She closed her eyes and let the magazine drop into her lap as the engines began to roar and the plane sped down the runway. She’d been right about one thing: this was going to be a very long flight.

  ‘Wow!’

  Jason almost bumped into Kelly and sent her flying. She’d stopped dead in the middle of the hotel lobby and was staring at the ceiling. ‘It’s a chandelier,’ he said. Hadn’t she seen one of those before? It wasn’t like London didn’t have plenty.

  Kelly was still staring upwards. ‘It’s massive.’

  ‘Welcome to the Waldorf Astoria,’ he said, grabbing her elbow and trying to get her to move.

  Kelly just kept staring at the thousands of glittering crystals above them. ‘I can’t believe we’re staying at the Waldorf,’ she said, shaking her head.

  Jason groaned inwardly. If they were going to have a repeat of the whole ‘first class’ thing, he needed a stiff drink. It had taken a couple of hours for that to die.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she whispered, and then she turned round and noticed the glossy black grand piano sitting on a mezzanine level over the entrance and she let out another gasp of rapture.

  Jason watched her with interest. He was quite happy that Kelly had finally stopped trying to talk business with him. Who knew all it took was a bit of glittery glass and a marble floor? As much as he appreciated her efforts to support him on this deal—that was why he’d asked her to come, after all—his head was throbbing with all the facts and figures and strategies they’d gone over on the flight. They didn’t need them.

  But Kelly didn’t know that. He hadn’t quite told her everything about this trip. Not yet. She was freaked out enough as it was. And she wouldn’t understand that this was all part of the game of big business. Going direct to McGrath hadn’t helped. This time they needed to plan a little better, manoeuvre. Like chess. Just like chess. But that meant Jason needed to keep a clear head. He needed to still the whirling numbers inside his brain and push them to one side.

  What he really needed was a basketball court.

  But he was pretty sure the Waldorf didn’t have one of those, and they might not appreciate it if he tried to shoot hoops in the grand ballroom. They didn’t have a pool either.

  But there was a Y a couple of blocks away …

  He glanced across at Kelly, tugging at her travelling clothes and doing her best not to feel out of place in this rather glitzy New York institution. When he’d booked this hotel he’d thought she’d get a kick out of it, but now he was wondering if the decision hadn’t backfired on him a little. She obviously was a little overwhelmed. Which meant she was probably just going to increase her efforts to justify her presence. That meant more facts, more reports to read through. More strategies to discuss …

  What he needed to do was distract her. From cluttering up his head again, yes, but also from asking too many questions about when and where they were meeting with McGrath. He’d fibbed a little. Told her they had loose plans for this evening, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to occupy themselves for a couple of hours, doing something that didn’t involve talking. Just until he worked it all out in his head.

  And the other reason …?

  Oh, that.

  Well, maybe Kelly herself was a little distracting. Maybe she was adding to this sense of jitteriness he just couldn’t shake.

  It was weird. Now they were away from the office, things were different. Like they had been the day of the picnic. An
d he’d spent too long at close quarters with her, inhaling her subtle, slightly spicy perfume, being aware of every move she made, even though their first-class seats had given them ample space. He knew they’d reached a silent understanding to back away from whatever had been building between them, but he was starting to forget why.

  Another reason to burn off some of that excess energy fast, before he did something dumb. Again.

  So when the receptionist handed him the keys, he handed them straight back to her and asked if their bags could be taken up to their room. Then he grabbed Kelly by the hand and headed down the marble steps to the main entrance.

  ‘Jason! What are you doing?’

  ‘We’ve had a long journey and we need to do something to unwind before the busy evening ahead.’

  She twisted to look over her shoulder and attempted to slip her fingers out of his. ‘But the spa’s that way …’

  He snorted. ‘Spas are for wimps,’ he told her. ‘We’re going to do some real relaxing! We’re going swimming.’

  Kelly’s mouth worked. ‘Swimming? But I don’t even have my—’

  ‘Not a problem,’ he said as he shoved her into the revolving door and the spinning glass panels cut off the end of her sentence.

  As they’d left the Waldorf Jason had pulled out his phone and issued a set of instructions, and by the time they’d arrived at the pool, a mysterious Knight Corporation dogsbody had magically appeared with swimming things for the pair of them in the right size. Kelly didn’t want to think about how hard Jason must have been studying her body to get her measurements just right, but at least he’d picked a tasteful one piece instead of a bikini woven from dental floss.

  Swimming was the perfect way to clean off the plane dirt, Jason had said, but Kelly wasn’t so sure. She’d rather have been doing what her fellow passengers on the flight into JFK were now doing, normal things like zonking out on their ridiculously comfy hotel beds or drinking cocktails.