‘I’ve already said I don’t want to have dinner with you,’ Alix said angrily.
‘Running away and hiding isn’t going to solve this.’
‘There’s nothing to solve—and going in to work for the last two days is hardly hiding away.’
‘It’s possible to hide in a crowd,’ Rhys pointed out.
She had no answer to that and turned away to look out of the window. Rhys, too, was silent, but she was aware that he was watching her, studying her almost, as though he’d never really looked at her before. But he didn’t say anything until they reached the famous fish restaurant and he put a compelling hand under her elbow when she held back. ‘If you want me to treat you like an adult, then stop behaving like a sulky child,’ he said shortly.
Alix glared at him, but let him lead her inside, to a table in a sheltered corner booth where they couldn’t be overheard.
When the waiter came with the menus Rhys ordered aperitifs without consulting her. But he did say, ‘What would you like to eat?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You should be—you’re looking thin,’ Rhys remarked.
‘Well, I’m not.’
‘Is this martyr act supposed to make me feel even sorrier, Alix?’
She turned to face him, her dark-shadowed eyes bitter. ‘It isn’t an act, and I don’t care how you feel.’
His mouth tightened, and for a moment Alix thought she saw angry despair in his eyes. But that couldn’t be right. She turned away again.
The drinks came, and Rhys ordered for them both, telling the waiter to bring a bottle of wine with the meal. Picking up his glass, Rhys said, ‘Where did you disappear to, urchin?’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she said tonelessly.
Rhys’s fingers tightened on the glass. ‘Sorry. Well, where did you go?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Everything you do matters to me,’ he answered evenly.
That made her laugh; a bitter mirthless sound. ‘Since when?’ she said jeeringly.
‘Always. Haven’t I always looked after you, helped you whenever I could? Next to my family, you’ve always been the closest person in the world to me. You know that.’
‘Are you trying to make me feel guilty—saying I ought to be grateful?’
‘No, of course not. I just want you to remember that we go back a long way, Alix. That we’ve always been close.’
She shook her head. ‘No, we were never close. I thought we were, but what I’ve found out about you has made me realise that I never really knew you at all.’ She shrugged. ‘It isn’t your fault. I always hero-worshipped you. I thought that you were—perfect, I suppose. That’s why I wouldn’t believe Lynette when she told me the truth.’
‘She told you that I was marrying you to get Todd’s job, right?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Rhys said forcefully, ‘Do you really think that Todd would allow his father’s old-fashioned ideas to stop him from appointing the man he wanted for the job? Of course he wouldn’t. OK, he does lip service to the old man’s ideals, but Todd is a realist; he doesn’t allow it to interfere with his running of the company. I would have been appointed as his successor in England whether I was married or not. Todd told you that himself.’
‘He told you I’d asked him?’
‘Yes, of course. He apologised to me in case Lynette had upset you. But he also said that he’d reassured you and that you’d been perfectly happy about it. And I think you were happy until the emergency came up in Lithuania and I had to go away. Then your resentment—your justified resentment—brought it into your mind again, and you magnified the whole thing out of proportion.’
‘Is that what you think?’ she said shortly.
‘Yes.’ Rhys’s voice was steady and his eyes intent on her face. ‘That’s what I think.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly. ‘I phoned old Mr Weston’s assistant in Canada and she told me it was company policy only to give preferment to married men.’ She held up a hand as Rhys went to protest. ‘I know you’re going to say that Todd would have ignored it, but she also told me that Mr Weston was having second thoughts about you until you got engaged.’
There was anger in Rhys’s voice as he said, ‘I can’t help what she told you, but I’m telling you that it isn’t so. Would you take the word of a stranger rather than mine?’
‘Yes,’ Alix said without hesitation, ‘I would.’ Rhys gritted his teeth. ‘She has no reason to lie to me,’ Alix added.
‘And why do you think I need to lie to you?’
She smiled faintly at that. ‘You still need a wife.’
Reaching out, Rhys put his hand under her chin, turned her head and made her look at him. ‘I want you. The girl I married, the girl I chose to marry. Not for any job; that was incidental. I would have married you anyway.’
‘How gratifying,’ Alix said sarcastically, pushing his hand away. ‘I wonder why it is I don’t believe you.’
‘I’ve never lied to you, urchin,’ Rhys said, with such sincerity in his voice that a great wave of hatred rose in her at his hypocrisy.
Turning to look at him, the hatred blazing in her eyes, she said, ‘Haven’t you? Is that why you never answered my question before—so that you didn’t have to lie to me? Not that you have to,’ she added contemptuously, ‘I already know the answer.’
‘The question being whether I was in love with you when I asked you to marry me, I take it?’ Rhys said grimly. Alix was surprised, she’d thought he’d duck it, and even more surprised when he shook his head and said, ‘No, not the way you mean. I cared about you a great deal—I always have—but I wasn’t in love with you.’
She stared at him, taken aback by his honesty, then blinked and looked away, feeling dead inside. She wouldn’t have believed him if he’d said he was in love with her—but he hadn’t even cared enough to damn well lie!
The waiter came with the food, another with the wine. For a few minutes it was all bustle around her, but Alix sat dumbly through it, not even noticing when they’d gone. Her heart felt as if it had had a bad shock, and she realised that against all the odds she had subconsciously still been hoping that Rhys loved her. Well, now that last hope was gone and there was nothing left. Just this cold, heavy feeling of despair in her heart.
‘Here.’
Rhys was holding out a glass of wine to her. Alix dug her nails into her palm until it hurt, then reached out to take the glass, forcing her hand not to shake. ‘Thanks,’ she managed in a voice that sounded distinctly odd.
‘Eat your food.’
She glanced down, saw that he had ordered soup for her. Because it was something to do, something she could concentrate on, she picked up her spoon and began to eat.
When she’d finished, Rhys said, ‘So aren’t you going to ask me why I proposed to you?’
‘No. I already know.’
‘And, to a large extent, you’re right,’ Rhys admitted, bringing her eyes round to his face again. ‘I began to think it was about time I got married—not for the job, but because I was ready to settle down, I suppose. To have those grandchildren my parents were always on about.’ He paused, then said, ‘I had never really fallen in love—oh, there had been a few adolescent infatuations, certainly—but not the real kind of love that you read about; that knocks you sideways and lasts forever. I hadn’t been lucky enough to find that.’ Alix lowered her eyes, couldn’t look at him. But Rhys went on steadily, ‘So when I thought of marriage, I thought of you. The girl next door. A girl who said she was in love with me, and who had so many qualities that I found—lovable.’
‘Yes, like being malleable, and so besotted that you thought you could put me in a cupboard whenever you didn’t feel like being married and take me out again when you got back from living your own life,’ Alix interjected acidly.
‘Yes, perhaps,’ Rhys acknowledged. ‘But there was also your innocence and your love of life, your courage and your steadfast
ness.’
‘Oh, please,’ Alix said on a mock embarrassed note. ‘Spare my blushes.’
Rhys’s mouth tightened, but he stayed silent as the waiter came up again, cleared the plates and served the next course. He filled their glasses again.
Alix looked down at her plate; it was Dover sole and looked absolutely delicious. She thought that if she tried to eat even a mouthful she would be ill. Sitting back she said, ‘So you decided I would be suitable and you proposed to me just in time to quiet old Mr Weston’s worries. Do go on.’
Rhys took a swallow of wine. ‘I thought you too young to be married. I wanted to give ourselves time to get to know one another better,’ Rhys told her. ‘As adults. As potential lovers.’
‘But, not being in love with me, you couldn’t bring yourself to go to bed with me. Most understandable,’ Alix said, inflicting self-torture. ‘I wonder you didn’t marry Donna Temple; then you wouldn’t have had any trouble.’
‘Donna isn’t the type of girl one marries.’
Her lip curling contemptuously, Alix said, ‘What a male chauvinist remark. What makes men so different? I bet you’ve slept with as many partners as she has. You certainly have that reputation.’
Rhys looked momentarily startled. ‘Do I? It isn’t true.’ He shook his head as if putting Donna and his past out of his mind. ‘You were special, Alix. Maybe that was something I told myself, but it’s what I felt. I wanted everything to be right for you, for a white wedding to have the meaning it should have. Not just be an ancient rite gone through for form’s sake to legalise a relationship that had been going on for months. You were the girl I’d been protecting for the last eighteen years, and I suppose I couldn’t break the habit.’ He noticed she hadn’t even picked up her knife and fork and said, ‘Eat your food.’
‘No.’
He glanced at her set face and didn’t push it, went on, ‘I don’t know why I kept putting off the wedding. Perhaps because I was subconsciously hoping that the love of my life might still come along; that the all-consuming love I’d always heard so much about would hit me, too.’
‘But it didn’t, so you married good old stand-by Alix,’ she said in a dead voice.
‘No, it didn’t—not then,’ Rhys stressed.
Her eyes widened as the implication sank in. Alix felt that she’d taken a great many blows tonight but this was, surely, to be the most devastating. Gripping her hands tightly together under the table, she somehow turned to look at him. For a minute her voice didn’t seem to work, but then she said, ‘Do you—do you mean that you’ve fallen in love with someone after all?’
‘Yes,’ he said softly, his eyes holding hers. ‘With you. On the night you walked out on me. Seeing you then, so proud and defiant, it hit me like a kick in the stomach—I’d fallen in love with my own wife!’
She stared at him, saw the look of confident expectation in his eyes. More angry than she’d ever felt in her life, Alix stood up, picked up her glass of wine and threw it in his face. ‘You liar!’ she yelled at him. ‘You dirty, lying swine!’ With a violent shove she pushed the table out of the way and rushed out of the restaurant.
‘Alix, can you come in here, please?’ Todd’s voice echoed over the intercom and she immediately took up her notepad and went into his office.
He was alone, sitting in the big leather swivel chair, drumming his fingers on the desk. It was Monday of the following week. Todd had got back from Canada on the Friday, so Alix guessed that he would have a lot of work for her. She seemed to do most of his work now, Brenda taking a back seat and content to do so. Usually he clipped out instructions, letters, memos, getting through the pile of papers on his desk fast, but this morning he seemed to be abstracted, and it was several minutes before his fingers became still and he raised his head to look at her.
‘Alix, I have something to tell you. Lynette and I are splitting up, getting a divorce. She’s met someone else, an Englishman, and wants to marry him, stay in England.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Alix sympathised.
‘Sorry—but not surprised,’ Todd remarked, looking at her face.
Alix shook her head. ‘No, there have been—rumours.’
Todd rubbed a hand across his face. ‘I guessed as much.’ He paused, then said heavily, ‘You know, Alix, the failure of a marriage, breaking up with someone you love—that’s the hardest thing a person can ever go through.’
Quickly she looked down at the notepad in her hands. ‘Yes, I suppose it must be,’ she answered, trying to keep her voice level.
Todd sighed, lost in his own thoughts for a minute, then said, ‘I’ve only been staying on in England in the hope of getting Lynette to change her mind, getting her to come back to me, but as there’s no longer any hope of that there’s nothing to keep me here.’
‘Your sons?’ Alix ventured.
‘We’ve come to an agreement about them. They’re to go to school here and spend their holidays in Canada until they are old enough to choose for themselves. Lynette may have more children; she’s still young enough. I really don’t know what the hell’s going to happen.’ He fell into a moment of despondency, then shook himself and said more briskly, ‘So, I’m going to Canada and Rhys will, of course, be taking over from me here.’
‘When will you be leaving?’
‘Within the next few weeks. I have to close up the house, that kind of thing.’
‘Then I’ll make sure that I’m ready to leave at the same time.’
Todd’s bushy eyebrows drew into a frown. ‘That isn’t what I meant.’
She gave a tight smile. ‘I’m your PA; of course I’m coming with you.’
‘I appreciate it, Alix, but your place is here with Rhys.’
‘He has his own secretary.’
‘Yeah, but you’re his wife and he’ll want you at home here in London.’
Alix hesitated, looking down at her pad again, then licked lips gone dry and said, ‘Todd, there’s something I have to tell you, too. You see——’
But he said, ‘First, maybe I should tell you that Rhys decided at the last minute to come to Canada with me last week.’
Her head came up at that and Alix said, ‘Oh, I see,’ on a note of understanding. She’d wondered why Rhys hadn’t followed her to her flat that night, hadn’t been waiting for her when she’d finished work since. She’d hoped that he’d given up on her and been glad of it, told herself firmly that she was glad. Now she said angrily, ‘And just what did he say?’
‘We talked on the plane,’ Todd admitted. ‘Rhys said that you and he were having a few problems settling down.’
‘Really?’ Alix said, at her most frigid.
‘Now don’t go all English on me. I’m very fond of both of you and I don’t want to see you unhappy.’
‘I’m not unhappy.’
He gave a snort of disbelief at that one. ‘Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? For a new bride just back from her honeymoon—well, you just don’t look the part!’
‘Is that why you’ve decided to go back to Canada now?’ she demanded. ‘Did Rhys persuade you to?’ Then answered her own question by exclaiming, ‘I might have known! That’s just typical of him.’
‘I don’t think you’re being fair, Alix. I——’
‘Why the hell should I be fair?’ she interrupted fiercely. ‘He’s used me again—to gain your sympathy. And taken advantage of your splitting up with Lynette to persuade you to go to Canada immediately, just so he can take over your job!’
‘The job was already promised to him months ago,’ Todd pointed out. He frowned at her. ‘What the hell’s gotten into you, Alix? Anyone would think you hated the guy!’
‘Anyone might be right.’ She bit her inner lip, then tried to say steadily, ‘Todd, I want to go to Canada with you. You know Brenda won’t go. And you’ve licked me into shape by now; what’s the point of training someone new?’
He shook his head decisively. ‘No. I’m not going to be responsible for breaking
up someone else’s marriage. I know what it’s like.’
‘You wouldn’t be. Our—our marriage never really got started. I’m seeing a lawyer; I’m getting a divorce.’ That was an exaggeration because she hadn’t brought herself to see a solicitor yet, but it sounded irrevocable.
Todd stared at her. ‘You’ve done that?’ His voice grew angry. ‘You’ve only been married for a month or so; what the hell kind of chance have you given Rhys? Does he know about this?’
‘Not yet,’ she admitted.
Getting to his feet angrily, Todd said, ‘Then I suggest you both get together and sort this out before you do something stupid.’ He rounded on her. ‘Is all this because Lynette shot her mouth off? Because you think that Rhys needed to be married? Because if it is, I can tell you here and now, Alix, that it wasn’t true. I’ll choose whoever I damn well want for this job: married or single, male or female. Do you understand?’
‘It isn’t because of that,’ Alix said shortly. ‘It’s—it’s much more basic than that.’ She hesitated, then said pleadingly, ‘Please take me with you to Canada, Todd. Nothing on earth will get Rhys and me together again. I’m quite certain of that. And to go to Canada, to get right away from Rhys and our parents, would be exactly what I need. Please, Todd.’
He stood looking down at her for a moment, but she could see from the anger in his face that he wasn’t going to do as she asked. ‘No. You’ll stay here where you belong.’
‘Then I’ll resign,’ she threatened.
‘OK, go ahead. But you signed a contract to give three months’ notice—and I’m going to hold you to that.’
She looked at him coldly. ‘What are you trying to do?’
‘I don’t know. But Rhys is my friend, and I’m sure as hell not going to give him reason to say that I helped to break up his marriage.’
‘I told you; it’s already over! I don’t——’
But Todd rounded on her angrily. ‘Get out of here, Alix, before I damn well lose my temper.’
To Have And To Hold (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) Page 14