The Accidental Mother (19 page)

“You’ve really helped me out here, you know,” she said.

“I knew I was good for something,” he mother told her. “And you look lovely. I’m sure you could get a boyfriend if you tried.”

“Yes, but do I want one?” Sophie mumbled as her taxi pulled up, thinking of Jake waiting for her aboard the ship.

I
t looks incredible, doesn’t it?” Cal said with quiet pride in the party he had contributed so much to as he leaned next to Sophie looking over the golden balustrade that encircled the ballroom. “Exactly like
Titanic,
the movie.”

Sophie nodded and sipped her martini. “Yes, it does,” she said. “But hopefully without all the sinking and drowning and Celine Dion.”

Cal gave her a disapproving look. “Don’t diss Dion,” he told her. “She gives me hope that somewhere out there I might one day find my very own Leonardo to float about on a piece of wood with and then watch freeze to death.”

Sophie looked surprised. “Really?” she said. “One day you want to get that committed to someone?”

Cal thought about the prospect for a moment and then shrugged. “No,” he said. “Probably not. At least not with any of that lot down there.” He sighed and flicked his imaginary hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know. Why are all the sexy men either married or straight?” he asked woefully.

Sophie looked bemused. “You
are
joking, aren’t you?” she said, looking at the motley crew of suited doppelgängers dancing like their dads below.

“Of
course
I’m joking,” Cal said. “God, considering you’re my boss, you’re pretty dim sometimes.” Sophie watched a parade of waitstaff emerge from the kitchen in perfect unison with tray after tray of canapés and spread out among the ravenous crowd. It was sort of like watching feeding time in an incredibly well-dressed tank of piranhas.

“Actually, Cal, I’ve been thinking about that today,” Sophie began. “You know when you came around this morning, I had this sort of revelation…”

Cal finished his martini and looked at the empty glass regretfully. “Oh, God, not another lipstick lesbian—it’s like a plague!” he said. “Still, I always suspected.”

Sophie ignored him. “I was thinking that you’ve more or less organized this party by yourself and, well, I wondered why it was you never pushed me to promote you. I mean, you’ve been my PA for years—a brilliant one. You’ve never asked to have a shot at organizing your own event when the chance is thrust upon you, and yet, well, Cal, you’re brilliant at it.”

“I know,” he said. Sophie looked at him. “Look, I like working for you, my salary goes up every year and I get a good bonus. My job is seriously easy, and I’m only twenty-five. I like coming into work at nine, swanning around until five, and then going out to blow my wages. It does get to be a bit of a drag when your boss’s dead best friend’s kids turn up and then suddenly that bit in your contract about performing extra hours as and when necessary becomes all too real. But, well, don’t let this go to your head—but you’re a good boss.”

Sophie glowed with pleasure. She’d always
thought
she was.

“Cal, I want to promote you,” she said.

“Oh, God,” he said. It wasn’t quite the grateful reaction that Sophie had been expecting.

“It’s just that I realized today exactly what it is you do. You’re right, you do much, much more than your job description.”

Cal rolled his eyes. “I could have told
you
that,” he said.

“Well,” Sophie persisted, “if you want it, you’ve got it.”

Cal blinked and looked at her. “Got what?” he said, looking bemused.

“The promotion!” Sophie exclaimed. “I’ve talked to Gillian about it already, and she thinks it’s a great idea. We both think that you’d make a fantastic account manager. You are brilliant at your job, Cal—God knows how, considering you spend most of the day surfing the Internet for vintage Galliano—it’s only fair you get recognized for it.” Sophie watched Cal watching the heaving crowd below in unexpected silence. She watched the ever-changing disco colors light and relight the halo of his profile with pink, then blue, and then gold.

A small, sweet smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Really?” he said, his habitual urbane chic guard slipping just a little. And then, “I don’t know, Sophie, it’s hard work, isn’t it? And I’m not keen on change, I’m a Cancer.”

Sophie shook her head. “I just think you can do more in the company,” she said. “I’m offering you a chance. If this was the other way around, you’d tell me to get out of my rut of insecurities and paranoia and start living my life for once, and anyway you’re almost doing all of it already. You’d only notice the change in your pay check.”

Cal glanced at Sophie. “That’s my kind of change,” he said. He looked at her for a moment longer. “All right then. As you’re begging me, I accept.” Sophie offered him her hand, and they shook on it. “I want more money, of course, and I still won’t sleep with you, though you realized that, didn’t you?”

Sophie sighed. “That is definitely not in the job description,” she said emphatically.

Sophie wondered how she could look at her watch without offending Jake, who had found her forty minutes ago and had her pinned in a corner.

“My God,” he’d said, looking her up and down with naked interest the first moment he saw her. “You look stunning.”

And he had stared at her for a moment longer, making Sophie squirm a little.

“Sorry,” Jake had said. “It’s just—Well, you look incredible.” He’d smiled, and it was a sweet, boyish smile. That had made Sophie smile and blush too.

And she had enjoyed standing here in Jake’s company. He’d listened with real interest to her telling him the latest news about the children and her concerns and hopes about finding Louis. He’d laughed at Sophie’s oddly proud tales of Izzy’s antics and looked genuinely touched when she told him about her and Bella’s heart-to-heart.

“You really care about those kids, don’t you?” Jake had said to her a few minutes ago.

“Well,” Sophie had replied, “I suppose I do—in a way.”

Jake had looked at her with a renewed intensity that made her take a step back from him. “You’d make an incredible mother,” he’d said, smoldering at her.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Sophie had said reactively, scared by the comment.

“You would,” Jake had asserted.

“I wouldn’t,” Sophie had insisted, and then she had clamped her mouth shut, realizing that the exchange was sounding dangerously close to a playground spat.

Jake had cast an embarrassed glance at his toes before looking at Sophie again. “I scare you, don’t I?” he’d said.

“You don’t,” Sophie had lied, shaking her head firmly so that her hair flicked over her shoulders.

“Why do I scare you?” Jake had asked himself more than Sophie. “I think it’s because I wear my heart on my sleeve and I show you how much I like you. I’m too straightforward and should be more mysterious and cool, right?” Sophie had shrugged. “I apologize, Sophie,” he’d said, and he had looked so sad that impulsively Sophie had closed the space between them and put her hand on his arm.

“Don’t be sorry,” she’d said. “I’m just a bit rusty, that’s all. I haven’t done this for a while, and I’m English, you know. Reserved and all that.” Jake’s smile had faded as he looked into her eyes, and Sophie had felt sure that at any moment she would be swept away by his sexual magnetism and charisma, because if she wasn’t, then seriously, she had to be clinically dead.

But to her amazement and dissatisfaction, even as Jake’s soft, firm lips had closed in on her in the shadows, she’d discovered she was worried that she should be mingling more. That she should be networking, exchanging business cards and building contacts. She should have checked that the second wave of canapés were ready to go and that the drinks were still flowing, and, most important, that the pyrotechnics people had everything ready for the fake New Year’s countdown that was due to take place at 10:30—well, it was a school night.

Jake’s fingers were entwined in the hair at the nape of her neck and his hand pressed firmly into the small of her back until finally, nudged out of her detached reverie, Sophie returned his kiss. She felt his reaction with a physical jolt. She broke off the kiss and took a step back.

“You’re incredible,” Jake said, his voice dark with longing. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got a room onboard tonight.”

Sophie looked at him uncertainly. In the last few moments of that embrace, she had wanted to kiss him, she had wanted his hands on her, or at least her body had wanted him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean the canapés and the fireworks…”

“Come on,” he said, brushing aside her protest as he took her hand and started to lead her through the crowd and back to the cabins. Sophie let him lead her because part of her wanted to go, part of her wanted to know what it would be like to be undressed by Jake in the state cabin of a luxury cruise liner, but a much bigger part of her knew with some relief that it wasn’t going to happen. Not here, not tonight anyway, and especially not with her brothel pink pants on.

“Jake,” Sophie said, pulling him to a stop and then letting go of his hand. She lifted her chin and took a step back, conscious of the crowd around them.

“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m at work here! Gillian would kill me.” She laughed awkwardly, but Jake looked disappointed.

He sighed. “
I’m
sorry,” he said. “A little too much good champagne and not enough beautiful you. It’s made me a little crazy. Of course you’re right.”

Sophie smiled at him gratefully. “I have to go,” she said, gesturing at the party that was simmering all around them. “I’ve got to check the last lot of arrangements, and then I’ve got to get back to the girls before they burn the house down or something.”

Jake grinned and shrugged. “One day I’ll get you to myself,” he said.

“You will,” Sophie said, wanting to give him something.

“I could take you home,” he offered hopefully.

“No,” she said. “This is your party! Stay and have a good time.”

She turned on her heel and walked quickly into the crowd without looking back, knowing that Jake would be watching her.

“God, you are shit,” Eve said, appearing at her elbow with barely a rustle of her long, extremely clingy green dress. Sophie thought she looked like the snake in the Garden of Eden.

“Thanks,” Sophie said, drily. “And how are you?”

“I mean with Jake there—the poor bloke’s been trying to shag you all night.” Eve squinted at a shocked looking Sophie. “Can you really not tell, or is it all an elaborate hoax to make you more elusive and alluring?”

Sophie shook her head. “There is nothing going on between me and Jake,” she said firmly. She could trust Cal, but it would be disastrous if any gossip found its way onto the office treadmill. Not that Eve needed any hard facts. In this case, Sophie’s reputation as an oblivious ice queen seemed to be standing her in good stead.

“Good God, woman,” Eve said. “He’s so hot for you they practically had to raise Tower Bridge to accommodate his hard-on!”

Sophie shrugged. “It’s been lovely chatting with you, Eve,” she said. “But I’ve got a few more details to sort out for
my
party.”

“Bitch,” Eve said as Sophie glided off toward the kitchen, and Sophie knew that, even though Eve had had the last word,
she
had won. The event had won for her. It was truly brilliant.

And somewhere out there in the crowd, Gillian would be thinking exactly the same thing.

The tramp sitting on her doorstep took the shine off Sophie’s triumphant glow. When she saw him, she sighed and considered walking past her own home and lurking about around the corner for a bit in the hope that he would get bored and move on. She watched him for a second from behind a plane tree. He was a hulking big man with one of those seriously suspect beards that look as if they might harbor mini-ecosystems all their own. He was leaning back, resting his elbows on the steps, looking for all the world as if he were enjoying the view from his balcony across the Italian Alps.

It wasn’t that Sophie didn’t have sympathy for homeless people, she did. After all, she gave five pounds ninety-nine a month to Shelter and ticked the box about the tax refund bit, so she knew that she cared. She just didn’t care for one of them being on her doorstep. Nevertheless, he looked like he was there indefinitely. There was no way around it, Sophie decided. She’d just have to go over there, ask him very politely to move, and hope he wasn’t the belligerent type. She scooped up the loose change in her pocket and held it in her fist.

“Here’s three twenty-eight,” she said, holding out the change. She was alarmed to see that she made the tramp jump, which she thought could never be a good tactic. “Move on, please, my husband’s a policeman. He’ll be home in a minute.”

The tramp looked her up and down with a distinct air of bewilderment. “Fuck,” he said, half-laughing. “You really startled me. But anyway, you’re here now, thank God. I’m freezing.”

Shit, Sophie thought, he isn’t belligerent but he’s delusional. And he sounded younger than the average tramp, although, to be honest, Sophie had no idea what the average tramp age was.

“Look,” she said, wondering if he looked yellowish because of the streetlight or if he was in fact yellow. “I understand that it must be hard being homeless and everything, but…”

The tramp stood up abruptly, causing her to stumble backward down the step and lose her balance momentarily. She felt the man’s arm encircle her waist and steady her before withdrawing to a respectable distance. It was then that she realized he smelled rather nice for a tramp.