Juggling Briefcase & Baby. Jessica Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ in the base of her throat. That stubborn tilt of her jaw. That smile, the way she had pulled him down to her and made the world go away.

      And then Phin was there, clapping him on the shoulder, telling him, almost as an aside, that he had offered Romy a job in Acquisitions.

      ‘What? Why?’

      ‘Because she needs a job,’ his brother told him. ‘She’s got a baby to support, and she’s having trouble finding work. She’s been working overseas and it’s hard to get a job when you’ve got a CV that’s quite as varied as hers.’

      Lex managed to part his lips and form a sentence. ‘She should have thought about that before she drifted around the world.’

      ‘You put me in charge of staff development,’ Phin reminded him unfairly. ‘I think Gibson & Grieve needs people with Romy’s kind of experience. She was telling me about a diving centre she’s been running in Indonesia: she’s got all sorts of skills that we can use.’

      ‘Phin, are you sure this is a good idea?’

      ‘Look, it’s just a temporary job, replacing Tim Banks’s assistant while she’s on maternity leave. I think Romy will be good at it, and it’ll give her the experience she needs to find a permanent job. It’s a win-win situation.’

      Lex hadn’t been able to object any further, or Phin would have wondered why he was so reluctant to have Romy working for Gibson & Grieve. His brother might seem the most easygoing of men, but Lex was discovering that he was far more perceptive than he seemed.

      ‘Fine,’ he had said with shrug, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. ‘It’s your call.’

      But Phin wasn’t the one who braced himself every day in case he saw her. Who looked up every time the door opened in case it was her. Who had to walk around with a fist squeezed around his heart, just knowing that she was near.

      Everything had felt tight for six months now. His head, his eyes, his heart, his chest. Usually, work was a refuge, but not now, not when Romy could appear at any moment.

      So he had seized on the chance of two days away in the Highlands, finalising the deal that would garner Gibson & Grieve a foothold in Scotland at long last. It was something his father had long tried to set up, and Lex, who had spent his life trying to prove that he could run Gibson & Grieve even better than his father, was determined to seal this one and take the company in a new direction that was all his own.

      Lex had planned it to be just him and Tim. No entourage, no fuss. Willie Grant, of Grant’s Supersavers, was by all accounts a recluse and an eccentric. The last thing Lex wanted was to alienate him by arriving with a lot of unnecessary people. Tim had warned him that Willie was a straight talker, and he wanted to do this face to face. Lex was fine with that. He was a straight talker too.

      But now Romy was sitting opposite him instead.

      With her baby.

      At the front of the cabin, Nicola was hurriedly stowing away the extraordinary amount of equipment Romy had seen fit to bring with her. The door had closed after the driver, who had escaped gratefully down the steps, and the pilot was already taxiing, anxious to make up for lost time.

      Lex wrenched his mind back from the past and looked at his watch. Two and a half hours behind schedule, and they still had a fair drive after they got to Inverness. Willie Grant lived in a castle in the wilds of Sutherland, in the far north west of Scotland, and God only knew how long it would take to get there. Summer, his PA, would ring and explain the delay, but Lex hated being late.

      He hated it when events were out of his control, like this morning. The way they always seemed to be whenever Romy was around.

      His life was spent keeping a close guard on himself and his surroundings. Only once had he let it drop, in Paris twelve years ago, when he had lost his head and begged Romy to marry him. Lex had never made that mistake again.

      The plane was turning at the end of the runway, and the engines revved until they were screaming with frustration. Then the pilot set them hurtling down the runway.

      Lex resisted the temptation to close his eyes and grip the seat arms. He knew his fear was irrational, but he hated being dependent on a pilot. It wasn’t the speed that bothered him, or even the thought of crashing. It was putting himself completely in someone else’s control.

      Romy loved take-off. He remembered how her eyes had shone as the seats pushed into their backs and the power and the speed lifted the plane into the air. Lex hadn’t said anything, but she had taken his hand and held it all the way to Paris.

      Did she remember?

      Lex’s face was set with the effort of keeping his gaze on the window, but it was as if his eyes had a will of their own. Like a compass needle being dragged to true north, they kept turning to Romy in spite of the stern message his brain was sending.

      The baby, he saw, was looking as doubtful about the whole business as he felt. When the plane lifted off the tarmac and Lex’s stomach dropped, she opened her mouth to wail, but Romy bounced her on her lap, distracting her from the pressure in her ears until she was gurgling with laughter.

      ‘You’re a born traveller,’ Romy told her. ‘Just like your old mum.’

      She smiled at her daughter and Lex could see the crooked tooth that was so typical of the way Romy just missed being perfect. It was only a tiny kink, only just noticeable, but the faint quirkiness of it gave her face character. He had always thought it made her more beautiful.

      Then her eyes met Lex’s over the baby’s head, and the smile faded.

      She was remembering that flight to Paris, too. He could see it in her eyes. The memory was so vivid that they might as well have been back on that plane, side by side, shoulders touching, their hands entwined, her perfume filling his senses as she leaned into him, distracting him with her smile, until it had felt to Lex as if he had left his real self behind and was soaring up with the plane into a different reality where he was a man who didn’t care about control or responsibility or being sensible, and could open himself to every pleasure that came his way.

      And look where that had got him.

      Obviously he might as well have spared himself the effort of looking unconcerned, though. Romy didn’t quite roll her eyes at his clenched jaw, but she might as well have done.

      ‘Why didn’t you take the train?’ she asked.

      ‘It’s too far,’ said Lex shortly. He hated her thinking that he might be afraid. He wasn’t afraid, and if he was, he would never admit it.

      ‘It’s going to take most of the day to get there as it is. I can’t afford to waste all that time sitting on a train. There’s too much else to do. I was hoping Grant would be prepared to come to London to discuss the deal.’

      Romy shook her head. ‘Willie never leaves Duncardie now,’ she said. ‘His wife died five years ago, and since then he’s been a virtual recluse.’

      ‘So Tim explained. He told me that if I wanted to persuade Willie Grant to agree to the sale, I would have to go there myself.’

      ‘You must want it badly if you’re prepared to fly,’ said Romy with a faint smile.

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ