Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (62 page)

The room fell silent. She could feel Tom’s eyes on her as she finished making her notes, and slotted her notebook and cassette back into her bag. At the edge of her vision she could see his expensive trouser leg and polished leather shoe. She didn’t know why it should cut her up, but it did, that today he’d remembered his socks.

‘Well,’ she mumbled, rising jerkily to her feet, ‘thanks for the interview. I guess we’re square now.’

He stood up as well. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you on Sunday. You had every reason to be angry.’

‘No doubt you felt driven by the need to protect your business interests.’

The glint in his eyes told her he’d felt the barb. She waited, but he made no answering shot. Why didn’t he defend himself? If he wanted her in the slightest degree, wouldn’t he try to persuade her now with some reason she could graciously accept? She realised with desperation that now the old status quo was the most desirable situation she could ever have offered to her in her life.

She made a reluctant move towards the door. He made no effort to detain her and she felt a surge of panic. This
would be the last time they’d ever meet. Was there nothing worth salvaging?

He walked with her, and as he opened the door she hesitated, then turned to face him. Her heart nearly failed her at the risk she was taking, but, ignoring the warning signs, she screwed up her courage to say haltingly, ‘I had thought, Tom—I’d
hoped,
that is—that you might—that we could—work something out. No—no strings attached, of course.’

As soon as the words were out fear nearly crushed her lungs. Her defenceless heart lay before him, naked and quivering on the chopping block.

His eyes veiled. ‘Something?’

An excruciated blush rose at her ankles and flooded right through to her scalp, then just as quickly drained and left her cold.

As though seeing how mortified she felt, he took her arms in a light, firm grip and said gravely, ‘Sweetheart, I’ve been in the kind of relationship before where we weren’t open and straight with each other. The rot set in so fast then, I’m not sure I’ll ever be up for that again.’

It took a while for the rejection to filter through. Her pain was so severe, she knew her breezy, careless smile must have looked more like the fixed grin of a death’s head, but she kept it nailed in place and gasped in a constricted voice, ‘Oh. Oh, well, then. No worries. So long, then. I—I’d better get back to the newsroom.’

Before he could release her she wrenched herself from his grasp and walked quickly to the lifts, her mind and body numb. Mike was waiting downstairs. She just shoved past him and said, ‘Shut up, Mike,’ then broke into a run. Her agonised grin was still frozen to her face when she arrived back at work.

She sat at her desk and wrote her big scoop like a robot. After she’d filed she took a hard copy into Harry, laid it before him on his desk and in a dull, toneless voice confessed the gory details of her massive conflict of interest. Predictably,
he hit the roof, but when his incredulous stream of curses stopped raining down on her head, she said, ‘All right. I’m sorry. Take it or leave it. It’s your call.’

She knew what they’d do in the end. It was too fabulous a story to kill. It would go to print, but she felt no victory. Instead, her heart was a well of tears.

At Autumn Leaves, there’d been more news. In keeping with the flow of the day so far, her grandmother’s operation had been postponed for another three months due to a shortage in hospital staff. Gran acted as though it were just a minor hitch, and Cate held her weakened hand and tried to think of upbeat things to say.

She stayed with her as long as she possibly could while still able to conceal the massive lump in her throat. Then after they’d said goodnight, she dragged herself home, climbed the stairs to her bed without speaking to anyone, and crawled under the duvet like a bleeding animal.

A
COMMOTION
of voices in the hall outside Cate’s door brought her head up from her pillow. Through the haze of tears she blinked blearily at her clock radio and saw that it was after eight. Strangely, she could hear male voices. She reached for her bedside lamp, then sprang up in alarm. There was one male voice in particular. A voice she knew well. At almost the same instant a knock came on her door. A firm, decisive knock.

Squinting to accustom herself to the lamplight, she sat staring at the door, the duvet bunched to her chest. How could Tom be here?

‘Cate.’ He knocked again. ‘Cate, are you in there?’

Someone must have told him he wasn’t allowed on her floor because she heard him snap, ‘Look, get lost mate.’ Before her mesmerised gaze the door opened a crack, then a few inches further, and Tom put his head around. ‘Can I come in?’

Shock outweighed the horror of being caught red-eyed and blotchy. It was just as well, because without waiting for an invitation, Tom walked in and closed the door behind him. He strolled right over to her bed and sat down on it. She could see how abject she must have looked by the dismay and concern he was rapidly trying to conceal from her.

‘Are you all right?’ His voice had deepened further, as if he were severely shaken.

It was too late to dive under the covers or reach for a paper
bag to slip over her head, so she was forced to brazen it out. Whatever he was here for, whether it was to rebuke her, or add something he’d forgotten to his merger story, she was too emotionally drained to protest or even put on a façade. So she just nodded.

His face was strained and taut. ‘How—how is she?’

Cate stared at him, bemusement competing with other powerful emotions. ‘Gran, you mean?’ Her voice sounded as croaky as a hermit’s.

‘Yes, Gran. Look, I wanted to tell you today. There was so much I wanted to say to you, but things got way out of control.’ He gave a painful grimace and her heart panged with the remembrance. He took her hands and held them firmly, compelling her with his urgent gaze. ‘I think we should get her out of that place. I did a fair bit of research into those facilities when Dad was sick, and … Look, sweetheart, I know a good man—a top heart man. He’s prepared to see her just as soon as she gives him the nod. He attends an excellent little private hospital at Rose Bay. I’ll take you down there if you like and you can see what you think of it.’ He spoke persuasively, as if he expected a wall of resistance. ‘It’s not far. And then we can talk about where she’d prefer to recuperate. She might want to live with us.’

‘Oh.’ It was all she could think of to say. What was going on here? Was she still in with a chance with Tom Russell? A stunned, fearful joy bobbed on her sea of despair and lifted its tiny face to the sun. ‘Why—why … I mean … Why do you …? You know I can’t afford …’

Tom Russell put his finger over her lips and shook his head. He said, as if the answer were obvious, ‘She’s your
grandmother.’

His eyes were fierce and tender and sincere, like the night he’d said that he’d adore her for ever. She felt such a burst of love for him. In that moment she knew she could never love anyone as much as she loved him. Not if she lived to be a thousand.

Right on cue, at perhaps the most crucial moment of her life to date, the one where it was most critical for her to be in control of her faculties, hot tears started streaming from her eyes like a lava flow from a subterranean river.

Tom Russell put his arms around her and kissed her face and hair. Sobbing, she clung to him as if she were a drowning woman. He crawled into the narrow bed beside her, lay her down with him and held her against his hard body. He stroked her tenderly and she could feel his big, strong heart pounding against hers through the thin fabrics of her blouse and his tee shirt. It was so comforting. And such a blissful relief. For once she let another human being besides Gran soothe her as if she were a child.

When the worst of the flood had abated he reached over to her bedside table for a handful of tissues so she could mop up. She sat up and did her best to repair the damage.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said when she could, her voice as wobbly as her knees. ‘I don’t usually dissolve like that. I must look awful.’

‘You could never look awful.’ His voice was thick and his eyes shone with an earnest sincerity. ‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.’

What was wrong with him? Was he short-sighted? No other man in the world could look at her as she was now and think she was beautiful.

‘I’m not usually a weeper,’ she persevered explaining, disregarding his strange opinions while she blew her nose. ‘It’s just that Gran’s news hasn’t been very good lately. And I’ve been on my own this week.’ Her voice made another dangerous wobble.

He winced and looked guilt-stricken. ‘I know. That was—bloody criminal. None of it should have happened. It was me. I—’ He shut his eyes for an instant. She could see his Adam’s apple working in his strong bronzed throat. ‘I shouldn’t have followed you, I knew that. You see I felt … When I saw you talking to that guy …’

‘Steve?’

His handsome jaw hardened slightly. ‘Him, yes. I have to admit I was—jealous. I saw how he looked at you that night and I thought—God knows what I thought. And oh, God … I do hope—’ Anxiety clouded his gaze. ‘It’s been worrying me, Cate. Did I—did I put your grandmother’s health in jeopardy when I blundered in there the other day?’

She flushed. ‘No. No, you didn’t at all, in fact. I overreacted. I got such a shock, seeing you there. You see, a similar thing happened—well, not similar, not at all … in
no way
the same—once before. When I was engaged to Steve.’ She cast him an apologetic glance. ‘Gran’s heart condition had just been diagnosed and she was in hospital for tests. I think Steve felt resentful for all the time I was spending with her, because he said something pretty hurtful while we were visiting Gran. And you know me. I flared up like a firecracker, and
I
said things, and
he
said things … then poor Gran just—just …’

She choked up and the tears started again. Would there ever be any end to them?

But far from being disgusted or impatient, Tom Russell wound his arms around her and rocked her, murmuring soothing things like, ‘Shh, shh’ and, ‘There, there, my darling, it wasn’t your fault’ until the floodgates clanged shut once more. Being called ‘my darling’ helped a lot, to tell the truth.

When she’d recovered a bit of composure, Tom leaned back against the headboard and said, ‘Was that why your engagement broke?’

She shrugged. ‘Oh, that was the deciding moment. But there were other things, too. You know, we didn’t have much in common. You know how I feel about football, and poor Steve wouldn’t know what a symphony orchestra was if it ambushed him. And he didn’t think I could ever be a good reporter.’ She gazed mistily at him. ‘I can’t believe that you of all people would think you had any reason to be jealous. Of
anyone
.’

He looked embarrassed, then lowered his gaze in shame.
‘I was such an idiot to be suspicious of you. You’ve been nothing but honest. You’re truly the most sincere and beautiful girl I ever knew. You don’t know—you’ll never know how you—light up my soul.’

She blushed at the compliment. It was true her passion for him was sincere, but she was beginning to think he had an inflated idea of her. Still, she didn’t want to stop him from saying more fantastic things she could store up for future reference to dwell on in bed on some rainy afternoon. He was gazing at her in a way that made her insides flutter with a tremulous, joyful hope, and she held her breath, on a tingling edge for what he might say next.

His stunning grey eyes bathed her in their warm, earnest glow. ‘I’ll try to explain. Before I met you I might have been going through some sort of a—a negative period. I think perhaps it affected my judgement about—you know, trusting people. Then when I found you, right from that first night …’

‘That fabulous night,’ she whispered.

‘That fabulous night,’ he echoed, giving her a swift, fierce kiss, ‘Since that night, my precious girl, everything in my life feels—different. The last thing I intended was to mess it all up. I was such a dim-witted fool. And then today didn’t go as planned.’

‘No. But at least we’re talking again,’ she said hopefully.

‘Exactly.’ He heaved a long sigh. ‘Thank God. What we said today—you know, about no strings attached … What I wanted to tell you, and made a bloody mess of …’ He broke off to drag a hand though his hair. ‘Well, I’m not really the no-strings-attached kind of guy.’

Her heart skidded to a crazy halt. ‘Aren’t you?’ she breathed.

‘No.’ He gazed silently at her for such a long time, she began to think he’d said all he was going to say. Then he added quietly, ‘Well, you know, Cate, I’m in love with you.’

She knew she should say something, but the power of speech was thrilled out of her.

He looked searchingly at her, and his deep voice grew gruff and gravelly with emotion. ‘I love you so—
intensely,
I was hoping you felt the same way.
It feels
as if you must.’ He was breathing jerkily, as if the words were being wrenched from a place deeper than the place where the Ferrari dwelled. ‘And if you could … if you
do
—if we love each other, I think we should agree to some strings.’ For an instant uncertainty clouded his eyes. ‘That’s if you want that. I know it’s sudden. But it’s right. For me, anyway. What do you think? Do you …?’

She stared at him. Tears sprang into her eyes while her heart sang like a joyous choir of magpies. Then she put her arms around Tom Russell and kissed him with all the tenderness and passionate joy in her heart. ‘Yes, yes, Tom, I do love you. I love you extremely.’

He wiped his brow and grinned. ‘Whew. Thank God for that. Then do you think you could risk marrying me?’

She laughed with the overflow of emotion. ‘You bet I’ll risk it, lover. I will. Oh, I certainly will.’

There wasn’t much room in the single bed. Tom Russell stretched out beside her, grazing her temple with his bristly jaw while they planned the ring, a whole programme of wedding music and—provided Gran was safely out of the woods—a honeymoon in Tuscany.