His Christmas Acquisition (13 page)

‘I thought you were going to call,’ she said sleepily, shoving herself into an upright position on the sofa. ‘I was worried. How is your mother doing? Is she going to be all right? What is the prognosis?’

Ryan walked towards her and sat on the sofa, depressing it with his weight and bringing her fractionally closer to him in the process.

‘A minor stroke. The consultant says that there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘But you’re still looking worried.’

‘Can you blame me?’ He leant forward and rested his head in his hands for a few moments, letting the silence settle between them. Then he looked at her and her heartbeat quickened because every instinct in her wanted to reach out and draw him to her so that she could smooth away the lines of worry on his face.

‘Anyway, they did a number of tests on her, and they’re going to keep her in for a couple of days so that they can do some more, but it’s all very reassuring.’

‘Did they say what caused it?’

‘One of those things.’ That was what had been said to him. Personally, he put it down to stress, and here things got a little difficult because what was there for his mother to stress about? She lived a relaxed and comfortable life. The only thing she had ever been known to worry about had been her children, and with Claire, Hannah and Susie all settled and happy with their respective broods
he
was the only one left for her to be concerned about.

Over the past few hours, while he had sat on a hard chair in the hospital waiting for doctors to return with results of tests, Ryan had had time to think.

His mother had been worrying more and more over the past couple of years about his singleton status, the women he dated and the hours he worked. Had she been more anxious about it than she had let on? While he had been travelling the world, working all the hours God made and fitting in his no-strings attached relationships with sexy airheads, had she been fretting to the point that her health had suffered? He was assailed by guilt.

‘Have you been in touch with your sisters?’ He didn’t want to talk. His silence was leaden and he was obviously a million miles away in his head. For some reason, that was painfully disappointing. Jamie wanted him to turn to her and she had to mentally slap herself on the wrist for her
foolish weakness. It was as if a door in her mind had been unlocked and flung open and now that it had been she was besieged by frightening and unwelcome revelations about herself and the way she felt about him.

When she was beginning to think that she should go to bed, because she was clearly an inconvenience when he just wanted to be by himself, he looked up at her.

‘I phoned Hannah and explained the situation. Of course she wanted to get straight back on a plane over, but I managed to persuade her that there would be no point. I will stay here until my mother is fit to travel and then I will return to the UK with her.’ He hesitated and for the first time he focused fully on the woman sitting next to him.

‘You’ll have to cancel my trip to Florida. Get in touch with the office. Either Evans or George Law can handle it. Email them whatever information they need.’

Jamie nodded. He was still looking at her as though there was more to be said but he wasn’t quite sure how to say it. Maybe, she thought, he was embarrassed to have her there when this family crisis was happening. Maybe he wanted her to leave immediately but was uncertain how to frame the request, considering it had been his idea to have her tag along with him in the first place.

‘Of-of course,’ she stammered, chewing on her lower lip. ‘And … just to tell you that you shouldn’t be, you know, embarrassed because you want me to leave. I absolutely and fully understand. What’s happened is completely unexpected and the last thing you need is for me to be here. This isn’t a time for your secretary to be hanging around getting in the way.’ She tried a reassuring smile on for size. ‘I’d probably feel exactly the same if the roles were reversed and you were
my
secretary.’

Her attempt to lighten the strained atmosphere fell flatter
than a lead balloon but after a few seconds he did manage to give her a crooked smile.

‘I think you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m not sure how to tell you this …’

‘Tell me what?’ For the first time, Jamie felt a stab of real apprehension. The incident by the pool resurfaced in her mind and she cringed at the memory: that was the reason for his hesitation. He had had the chance to reflect on their inappropriate behaviour and now had come the moment of reckoning. Tears of bitter regret pushed their way to the back of her eyes as she envisaged her wonderful, well paid, satisfying job disappearing like a puff of smoke in the air.

R
YAN
continued to look at her. She had obviously fallen asleep on the chair; her cheeks were flushed and her hair was tousled. She looked young and innocent and nothing at all like the businesslike, crisp, efficient secretary he had become accustomed to. But then hadn’t he seen the living, breathing, exciting woman behind the professional persona?

He reined back his imagination which would break free and gallop away. Right now, he needed to focus, because the conversation that lay ahead was probably going to be difficult.

‘I honestly don’t know how to say this …’

‘I can’t imagine you’re ever stuck for words.’ This was sounding worse by the second.

‘My mother saw us. By the pool. Earlier today.’

‘Oh, no.’ Jamie put her hand to her mouth in dismay. Hot colour spread across her cheeks. ‘How do you know? Did she tell you?’

‘Of course she told me. I didn’t use my imagination to work out a possible scenario. She decided to go for a little stroll around the gardens to see if some fresh air would give her more energy and she heard us. She followed the sound of our voices and I think she got a bit more than she bargained for.’

‘I’m sorry. This is all my fault!’ Suddenly there was no
part of her that could keep still and Jamie stood up to wander agitatedly around the room. She had to clasp her hands together to stop them from trembling and the wave of shameful discomfort was like a thousand painful burrs underneath her skin.

‘I’ll leave immediately.’ She went to stand in front of him and drew in her breath to fortify herself against the mortification of meeting his eyes. ‘It’ll take me half an hour to pack.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be absurd!’

‘I can’t stay here. I don’t think I’d be able to look your mother in the face. What we did was terrible. A mistake. She must have been appalled. Is that why …? Did we cause …?’

‘No! Now sit
down
!’ He waited until she was seated, although she still looked as though she would have liked to flee through the open door. ‘What she saw didn’t cause her to go into some kind of meltdown. My mother is pretty liberated when it comes to her children and what they get up to, believe me. In fact …’

‘In fact
what
? I wish you’d just say what you have to say, Ryan. I’m a big girl. I can take bad news.’

‘In fact, my mother was overjoyed at what she witnessed before she walked back to the house, no doubt with a smile on her face.’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘I’m saying, Jamie, that my mother, as I’ve told you, has been, shall we say, anxious about my lifestyle for quite some time. I have no idea why, but there you go. The harridans have assured me that it’s because I’m her only son and the baby of the family. At any rate, she saw us and she’s jumped to certain conclusions.’

‘What conclusions?’ Jamie asked, totally bewildered by this point.

‘That we’re somehow involved.’

‘We are. I work for you.’

‘Strangely, seeing me all over you at the side of the pool didn’t point to that particular conclusion. I’ve always maintained a healthy distance from the women who have worked for me in the past.’

‘Involved?’ Jamie squeaked, horrified.

‘As in, an item. As in, romantically connected. As in …’

‘I get the picture!’

‘I’m not sure that you do, actually. My mother is under the impression that I’ve been too sheepish to say anything because I’ve always made a big deal of keeping my work life separate from my private life. In her wild and inventive imagination, we’ve only managed to keep our hands off one another while my sisters and their brood were around, but the second they all left we just couldn’t help ourselves, it would seem.’

Jamie put her hands to her cheeks, which were burning hot. ‘And did you tell her the truth?’

‘Well, now here comes the tricky part …’

Ryan allowed a few moments of silence, during which he hoped she would join the dots and read what he was trying to say without him having to spell it out in black and white, but for once it seemed like her fine mind had deserted her.

‘I couldn’t,’ he finally said bluntly.

‘What do you mean
you couldn’t
?’

‘My mother has taken a shine to you. She’s met a few of my girlfriends in the past and they haven’t come up to her exacting standards.’

Distracted, Jamie couldn’t resist the temptation to mutter under her breath that some of the girlfriends
she
had met would have fallen short of most mothers’ standards, even if the standards weren’t particularly exacting.

‘She seems to think that we’re involved in a serious relationship. I couldn’t disillusion her because she’s just had
a stroke, albeit a mild one, and the last thing I want is for her to be subjected to any unnecessary stress. Not to put too fine a point on it, her last words before they wheeled her off for the first series of tests were that she was overjoyed that I had finally come to my senses and found myself a woman who could keep up with me.’

‘This is awful!’ Suddenly Jamie was really, really angry. Not only had she made a horrendous mistake—thrown away her precious privacy, engaged in wildly inappropriate behaviour and, worse, allowed herself feelings for a man who had no feelings for her—but now she was effectively being told that she wouldn’t be able to put the whole sorry episode behind her because his mother had jumped to all the wrong conclusions and Ryan had made no effort to enlighten her.

‘I appreciate that your mother doesn’t need additional stress, Ryan, but it’s going to be even more stressful for her if you deceive her over this and then have to tell her the truth when she’s back on her feet. She’ll never trust you again!’

‘So you think that I should take the risk of damaging her health to be honest, do you? Do you imagine that you’re the only person with a sense of family responsibility? My father died and my mother became the lynchpin of the family. She’s been through a hell of a lot! She’s had to cope with the shock of realising that the family finances had become a joke. She’s had to suffer through tough times when so-called friends dropped by the wayside because she was no longer living in a big house and driving a big car.’

‘And you had to witness all of that. How awful for you. I’m so sorry, Ryan. Truly I am.’

‘We all have our stories to tell. Jamie! I was there to pick up the pieces, and when it comes to my mother’s health and her peace of mind I’m not going anywhere. I’m still going to be here to pick up the pieces.’

It was shocking to see the lines of pain and worry etched
on his face. The Ryan who could take on the world and win was letting down his guard. Behind the dominant, powerful male, she had a glimpse of the confused boy who was forced to grow up fast. As she had.

‘So I let my mother have the luxury of believing what she wanted to believe.’

‘I …’

‘You know what, Jamie? Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it would be better for you to leave. I’m sure I’ll be able to explain your absence to my mother.’

In possession of what she thought she had wanted, Jamie found that she was now reluctant to leave. Ryan adored his family; he didn’t have to verbalise it. Right now, he looked drained and so unlike the vibrant man she knew that her heart felt as though it was tearing in two. She knew that he wouldn’t try to stop her if she decided to take him up on his offer and walk away, but their relationship would be irrevocably changed for ever. Would she even be able to continue working for him?

And why was she so angry at the thought of giving in to what he wanted? His mother was ill, and if a piece of harmless fiction would allow her to recover more quickly then where was the crime in that? They would return to London and in due course Ryan would gently break the news that they had broken up, amicably of course, and his mother would probably be sorry to hear it but her health certainly wouldn’t suffer. Whereas now, still vulnerable, what if she
did
react badly? She was old and old people could be strangely fragile when it came to certain things, when it came to the well-being of their loved ones.

With a sickening jolt of self-awareness, Jamie knew why she was angry. Her anger stemmed from fear, whatever excuse she chose to hide behind, and her fear stemmed from the fact that Ryan had become far more than a boss to her.
She had feelings for him, and she might just as well have dug a hole for herself, jumped in and begun shovelling the earth over her head. She didn’t want the pretence of being involved with Ryan because she was scared that the lines between fact and fiction might become blurred, scared that she would be left damaged, that the fiction would not be harmless after all, at least not to her.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Jamie navigated her way through a series of grim scenarios and, like a drowning person finally breaking the surface of the water, found the one and only way she could justify going along with his crazy idea and breathed a sigh of heady relief. She would treat it as a business proposition. He wanted her to play a pretend game, having no idea how dangerous for her the game could be, and she would box the pretence into a neat, controllable package and coolly look at it as just another part of her job.

‘What exactly would this pretence entail?’

‘Are you saying that you’re willing to go along with me? It’s a big ask, Jamie. I know that and, believe me, I would be very grateful indeed. But if you decide to jump in feet first then you can’t decide halfway through that you’d really prefer the moral high-ground.’

‘I’m taking it that this charade would only be appropriate while we’re out here with your mother?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Which would be how long, exactly?’

‘At least another week. I’m pretty confident that she will be able to travel back to the UK by then. She might even be able to travel back before, but I’m not into taking risks when it comes to my family.’ He gave her a crooked smile, and Jamie tried to maintain a professional distance by not smiling back at him, although she could feel the hairs on
the back of her neck stand on end. ‘I’ve always saved my risk taking for the work arena.’

‘Another week.’ Jamie stared off into the distance and tried to break down the week into smaller, more manageable segments. Seven days during which there would be long periods of time in which there would be no need to pretend anything because his mother would probably be asleep or resting. ‘Right,’ she said crisply. ‘I’ll agree, on the condition that we get one thing perfectly straight.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘What happened out there by the pool was a terrible mistake.’ Jamie looked at him squarely and directly. ‘The sun, these exotic surroundings … Well, it was a moment of madness in unfamiliar surroundings and, yes, of course you’re an attractive man. Things happened that shouldn’t have happened. But I need your word that, if we’re to pretend to be something we aren’t for the sake of your mother, nothing physical must happen again. In other words, there must be very clear boundaries between us.’

A lull of silence greeted this remark, as thick and as heavy as treacle. Ryan’s dark, inscrutable eyes resting lazily on her face made it difficult to hold on to her composure and she could feel tension coiling inside her, trickling through every part of her nerve-wracked body. Only a lifetime’s habit of keeping her emotions to herself allowed her to maintain his gaze without flinching.

‘Is that speech directed at yourself as well?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not some kind of arch seducer, lurking behind walls, waiting to pounce on an innocent victim. Sexual attraction is a funny thing in my experience. It hardly ever responds to the calm voice of reason.’

‘Perhaps in your case, but certainly not in mine.’

‘Maybe,’ Ryan murmured, ‘if you had ditched the virtue
and flung yourself at the vet he might have married a different sister.’

And just like that, he had changed the tenor of the conversation. With a single flick of the finger, he had overturned the pedestal on which she had valiantly sought to place herself, safely out of reach. Jamie’s skin burned as she contemplated the awkward question that he had dragged out into the open.

How was it that she had never, not once, been really tempted to put her attraction to Greg to the test? How had it been so easy to restrain herself around him when with Ryan, a far more unsuitable and inappropriate candidate for her affections, she had gone up in flames, had found it impossible to rein back her frantic, screaming urge to touch him and to let him touch her? Was he now wondering the same thing? Would she be condemned now to always play the role of the woman who couldn’t resist him? When they returned to England, and he resumed his life with the blonde bimbos and the airhead catwalk queens, would he still be smirking to himself that his quiet little secretary was lusting after him as she ducked behind her computer? Galling thought!

‘Maybe I respond to you,’ Jamie returned sharply. ‘But I was thinking of Greg! Maybe it was all just a piece of weird, delayed emotional transference.’

‘You used me as a substitute, in other words? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I’m saying that there’s no point analysing anything. What happened happened, but it’s not going to happen again, and I need your word on that or else I won’t agree to any charade. You needn’t worry about me and those ideas you have about sexual attraction. I can handle myself.’

So, Ryan thought with slow-building murderous rage the likes of which he had never felt before, when she had
arched back and succumbed to the sensation of his tongue gently caressing her nipple while the water lapped warmly around them had she actually been seeing the vet’s face in her mind’s eye? Ryan had never had much time for psychobabble but he could grudgingly see that the sudden appearance of the vet might have kick started something in her that had culminated in the temporary breaking down of her inhibitions with him. And he didn’t like it.

‘You have my word.’ He smiled grimly and stood up. ‘We should both get some sleep now. It’s late. I’ll be leaving for the hospital first thing in the morning.’