by Sami Lee
The following morning Meg woke just after dawn and quickly got dressed. She was determined to see Bryce before he left for the office this time. When she got to the kitchen he was there, already dressed in his suit and pouring himself a cup of tea.
Meg froze for a minute, staring at his austere profile as he lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip. He must have sensed her presence because he turned and met her stare. In the grey morning light, his brown irises appeared black, as black as the shadows beneath his eyes. He looked haunted, tired, as though he’d slept as badly as she had.
Her heart did a sickening flip-flop at the sight of him. ‘Bryce…hi.’
‘Good morning, Meg.’ There was no evidence in his brisk tone to support what she saw with her own eyes — that he was miserable and heartsick, like she was. You’re imagining it, Meg. He doesn’t care for you the same way you do for him. ‘Did you sleep well?’
Crikey. What kind of question was that? ‘No. I haven’t been sleeping well at all. I’m a wreck.’
His lips curved, but the smile was sad rather than amused. ‘I can always count on you to tell the truth, Meg. It’s one of the things I admire most about you.’
If he started cataloguing things that he admired about her right now, Meg thought she might be sick. She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Do you have a minute before you leave? I need to talk to you.’
‘And I you,’ he said, surprising Meg. She’d had the distinct impression he was avoiding her. That curve remained on his mouth, still not quite looking like a genuine smile. ‘I have some good news.’
Meg’s heart bounced up and down a few times. Good news? What could it possibly be? The possibilities rushed through her head. I’ve fallen for you. I want us to start dating. I’m in love with you. I need you more than I need my next breath. I want —
‘I’ve found you another job.’
Chapter Eleven
Meg’s racing thoughts screeched to a halt. Bryce’s announcement hung in the air between them, floating there like the aroma of freshly brewed tea. Meg tried to speak, to ask what he meant, but her voice had completely deserted her.
In response to her silence, Bryce went on. ‘It’s with a design firm, small but prestigious. They need an assistant so you’d be doing little more than fetching coffee to begin with. But if you show potential you could be promoted to designer in time.’
‘Uh.’ It was the only syllable that would come out, yet Meg was relieved her mouth produced any sound at all. Bryce had gotten her a position with an interior design firm, the very thing she’d come to Sydney in hope of finding. He was handing over her dream job on a silver platter.
Why didn’t she feel happier?
Swallowing, Meg forced herself to say something. ‘That’s…I don’t know. I’m stunned. How...?’
‘Never mind how it happened,’ Bryce said, swiping his hand through the air as though he could erase her curiosity so easily. ‘This is an opportunity for you, one too good to pass up.’
He was right, of course. A position with a design firm was something she’d wanted for years. Still… ‘You used your contacts, your influence, whatever you call it. You called in a favour to get me a new job.’
Bryce lifted a brow. ‘Do I sense an objection?’
‘I want to be hired on my own merits. I want someone to give me a chance because they see potential in me, not because Bryce Carlton says do it or else.’
He looked at her, his brown eyes as soft as velvet. All too soon, the softness was gone. His jaw set in a hard line and the turn of his lips became cynical. ‘That’s not how the world works, Meg.’
‘Not for you, apparently.’
‘Not for anybody,’ he shot back. ‘Don’t even think of wasting this chance because of your silly pride.’
‘So I’m silly, am I?’ The query came out as a rasp, giving away how close to tears she was. Mortified at her inability to veil her distress, Meg averted her face. She grasped the kitchen counter and fixed her gaze on a spot outside the window.
She heard the soft click of Bryce’s shoes on the tile, felt the electric pull of his body as he moved closer. His voice was a low murmur. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
Meg ignored the instinct that willed her to melt into his arms and seek comfort. It was madness, given that he was the one who was hurting her. She concentrated the remainder of her energy on making her voice clear and composed. ‘If you wanted to get rid of me Bryce, you could have just said so. You didn’t need to strong-arm some poor business associate’s wife into giving me a job.’
‘I didn’t strong-arm anyone. I suggested your name to a few people until someone nibbled, that’s all. That’s how things are done.’
‘So it’s in the how-to guide for getting rid of one’s employee after you’ve inconveniently slept with her?’
Her biting words resounded in the air like the reverberations after a particularly loud thunderclap. Bryce turned away, presenting his back to her. ‘That’s not fair, Meg.’
For the first time since she’d encountered him this morning, there seemed to be real emotion, even desolation, in Bryce’s tone. Meg regretted her harsh words, words she’d flung at him intending to cause the very injury they had. She knew that in his way, Bryce was trying very hard not to hurt her. He was being as kind as he possibly could while he was kicking her out on her butt.
That was in effect what he was doing. He was letting her go — firing her. He’d slept with her two nights ago, showed her a tenderness and passion that had stolen her breath and her heart. And now he was handing over her walking papers. The cold reality of the situation kept Meg from apologising for her nastiness. Her pride might be ‘silly’ to him, but it was one of the few things she had left.
‘There’s no need to go to all this trouble to fire me, Bryce. I already quit.’
It was such a great line when people said it in the movies, but Meg took no enjoyment out of delivering it. Neither did Bryce seem surprised by her words. He turned once more so she saw his face. It had been arranged into an impassive expression that hurt her more than anything else he’d said or done this morning. ‘If that’s how you’d like it to be.’
He wasn’t going to even try to stop her. Why would he, when he already had the front door wedged open? He reached into the inside pocket of his suit and withdrew a slim blue business card. ‘Her name is Raelene Leonard. She’s expecting a call from you today.’
Meg eyed the card in his outstretched hand without taking it, until eventually Bryce placed it on the counter in front of her. ‘Don’t mess this up because you’re mad at me. I want all your dreams to come true, Meg. I really do.’
All the dreams he could make come true, anyway, which apparently didn’t include any kind of happy ever after involving the two of them. She couldn’t blame him for her disappointment, really. Those dreams had been hers alone, kept secret in her heart. They’d never been his.
You can’t will someone to love you.
‘What about, Phillipa?’ Meg at last thought to ask.
‘I’m going to the office today but I’ll work from home the rest of the week. I’ll sort out something.’
‘Of course. You’re good at sorting out problems.’
He must have heard the heavy irony in her words, because he said, ‘Meg, you’re not a problem I’m trying to solve.’
‘Yes. I am.’ Meg took Raelene Leonard’s card from the counter and slipped it into the pocket of her skirt, although she doubted she’d call the woman. She wasn’t sure if she could stand benefitting from Bryce’s connections when it was all he was willing to give her. It would always cause a pang, knowing how much more she’d wanted, how much more she’d been denied simply because Bryce didn’t return her feelings.
Meg looked at him, this man she’d fallen in love with. This man who didn’t love her back. ‘Was there ever even a moment when you wanted…’
She forced herself to silence the question. Was there any moment when you wanted to love me? It w
ould only make her look pathetic. She shook her head, holding her tears in by setting her jaw tight and reining in her emotions. ‘Never mind. I’ll talk to Phillipa when she wakes up. I’ll move my things out while she’s at school.’
‘You don’t have to rush.’
Meg sent him a fierce look, which quelled any further words he might have spoken. ‘The sooner the better,’ she said.
She turned away, not allowing her eyes to linger on him even though she sensed this could be the last time she ever saw him — other than in the financial section of the newspaper, should she choose to look.
As she hastened from the room, she really hoped she would have the strength not to look.
***
The house wasn’t the same, and it had nothing to do with the redecoration of the dining room. Meg was gone, and the sense that something vital was missing was like a glaring neon sign that flashed garishly in every room, brutally reminding Bryce of his mistake on a daily basis.
He’d slept with her. He’d weakened, given in to his base urges and taken what he wanted. It was his fault she’d had to leave — and she’d had to go, there’d been no choice. He couldn’t live with her under the same roof and not want to touch her again. The yearning was so strong Bryce had known without doubt he would have given in to it eventually, which would have compounded his initial misdeed and made everything even worse. The way she looked at him, with her heart in her eyes, made it clear he was hurting her with the emotional distance he had forced between them, but sleeping with her again would only lead her on and he couldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t.
He’d done what he had to do, but no matter how many times he told himself so, it failed to bring Bryce comfort. His house was now empty of laughter, of the energy and life Meg had brought to it. His daughter had withdrawn into a sullen shell that she refused to let him into. Perhaps she sensed that Meg’s leaving was his doing and her surliness was her way of punishing him. Bryce didn’t have the heart to reprimand Phillipa for her petulance, because she was right. Meg’s leaving was his fault. He deserved his daughter’s scorn. He understood it.
What could not be comprehended so easily was his housekeeper’s disapproval, which she somehow telegraphed clearly without ever saying a word. Valerie Dunkirk shot daggers at him with her eyes whenever he asked her to do something, she dumped his mail on his desk with more vigour than necessary and one night, a week after Meg had gone, she burned his favourite casserole, coq au vin.
Mrs Dunkirk never burned anything, and Bryce had the distinct impression she’d given him a dish with a horrible aftertaste to reflect her inner displeasure at him. When she walked in to start work the following morning, giving him the stink-eye as she encountered him in the kitchen, he blustered, ‘But you didn’t even like her. Why are you giving me a hard time?’
‘She wasn’t like the others,’ Mrs Dunkirk answered, her gaze meeting his steadily. ‘She wasn’t out to hook you. But she did anyway, didn’t she?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bryce denied, heat flushing into his cheeks. He was hardly going to confess his deepest feelings to his surly housekeeper.
‘Fine. Be a fool if that’s what you want,’ the woman huffed. ‘But that girl made Phillipa happy. She made you happy, something I haven’t seen you be in a long time. You’d rather be miserable, that’s your business.’
Mrs Dunkirk turned her back on him, closing the conversation with her body language. Bryce knew she wouldn’t bring the subject up again, that she wouldn’t give a satisfactory response if he asked her what she meant by saying he’d rather be miserable.
But you don’t need her to explain it, do you? You chose this emptiness, this half-life. You chose it after you divorced Isabelle and you’re too chicken to change your ways now.
‘Change my ways,’ Bryce muttered to himself as he paced the length of his den later that day. Dropping Phillipa at school had been another exercise in recrimination that pointed the blame for Meg’s leaving squarely at him. ‘What would they have me do?’
As a suitable nanny was proving more difficult to find than ever he’d decided to work from home for another week. He knew the board members were beginning to frown behind his back, but he didn’t give a toss. What good was being the CEO of a company if he couldn’t access flexible working arrangements? But introducing initiatives like that for his workers had proven frustrating to say the least. The board didn’t care about keeping the staff happy, and admittedly Bryce’s father hadn’t put that high on his priority list either. When Bryce had taken over the company he’d made some changes, but after the merger with Drake International the headway he’d made in creating the kind of company he envisaged had been erased.
His work life wasn’t going the way he wanted it to, his personal life was a mess. How had things come to this?
It is your fault, you imbecile, Bryce accused his reflection, which he could see in the den window’s glass. You made all the decisions that led to this.
It was raining outside. Bryce couldn’t help but cast his mind back to that first day he’d met Meg. Something about her had bewitched him from the first moment he’d seen her sitting across from him in that taxi. Nothing seemed as important in that moment as listening to her every word, and when the taxi ride had ended he’d been possessed by a fervent belief that he couldn’t let her drive out of his life forever. He’d brought her inside to protect her, to help her — or so he’d thought. Now when he examined that impulsive decision, Bryce admitted that he’d brought her into his house simply because he couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again.
How had he not realised the truth right away? He’d begun to fall in love with her on day one. A normal man in touch with his feelings would have simply asked her on a date to see where it led. But not him. He’d been too scared to acknowledge he felt anything, so the only way he could keep her in his life was to hire her as Phillipa’s nanny.
It had been the right decision, as it turned out. Meg had turned out to be good for Phillipa. She’d been a passionate champion for his daughter’s needs even when it caused her to fall out of favour with the boss. She’d forced Bryce to face his failings as a father, and since he’d decided to spend more time with Phillipa he’d seen a light go on behind his daughter’s eyes. That light had dimmed since Meg had left, and the truth of that pained Bryce. He was failing his daughter again and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.
Be a fool if that’s what you want… You’d rather be miserable, that’s your business. Mrs Dunkirk’s words seemed to indicate that he had a choice in how things turned out, but he didn’t.
Did he?
Bryce’s heart skipped a beat, making him catch his breath. He’d had no choice but to fall for Meg, that was true. She was a force of nature, a light like fireworks in his previously dull life. Who didn’t love fireworks? He’d lost his heart and his head, and the whole time it had felt like control had been wrested from him by some unseen, powerful force.
But that wasn’t the case. His feelings may have arisen without his bidding, but everything else that had occurred had been due to some decision of his. He’d hired her. He’d let her start changing his house, let her show him how mired in the past he’d become. He’d allowed her to become a crucial part of his daughter’s life. He’d made love to her, and it had been…his breath caught again as he remembered the feel of her beneath him, the warmth of her touch, of her open, loving gaze. He’d known then she loved him because she was completely artless, and because everything he saw in her eyes was exactly what he felt in his own heart.
And instead of embracing that, he’d withdrawn. Then, ultimately, he’d fired her. He’d given Meg — the woman he couldn’t help but love, the woman who everybody, even Mrs Dunkirk, loved — her marching orders. That was his decision and his alone.
‘Good Lord,’ Bryce whispered, his voice made weak by the constriction in his chest. ‘What have I done?’
The heavy weight of
remorse crushed his chest and Bryce leaned on the window pane for support. His breaths came out fast and shallow as the truth of it all hit him. Rejecting Meg’s love had been his choice — the wrong choice. He’d made some bad decisions in his life, but the worst thing he’d ever done was force Meg to leave this house. She belonged here. She belonged with him. He’d convinced himself she could do better when all he needed to do was be better. He needed to be the kind of man she deserved. He needed to change for her.
Galvanised by the epiphanies tumbling through him, Bryce marched to his desk and pulled open the drawer. Lying on a manila folder inside the drawer was the blue business card he’d kept, the twin to the card he’d handed Meg on that last morning. He dialled the number with impatient jabs of his finger, ready now, more than ready, to fix all that he’d done wrong. Somehow he had to win Meg back.
Raelene Leonard herself answered the call, and what she told Bryce when he asked for Meg made his hopes crumble.
‘She’s not working here.’
‘What do you mean she’s not working there?’ Bryce demanded to know when he caught his breath again. ‘I can’t believe she wasn’t suitable. She’s one of the hardest, most enthusiastic workers I’ve ever known.’
‘I wish I’d had the chance to find out. But the thing is, she never came in for her interview,’ Raelene explained. ‘She called me as planned, she thanked me for the opportunity but she said she couldn’t take the job.’
‘Why?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
Even though he’d been the one to ask the question, Bryce already figured he knew the answer. Pride. Meg’s aggravating tendency to put personal pride ahead of common sense had reared its head again. I’d rather get a job on my own merits, not because you strong-armed someone into it. She’d refused to take up the employment offer simply because he’d arranged it.
‘Damned frustrating woman,’ Bryce muttered, even as he couldn’t help but admire Meg’s integrity. It was one of the things he loved most about her.