The Baby Surprise: Juggling Briefcase & Baby

‘What does it matter if Willie thinks we’re a couple?’ Lex, talking himself into the whole idea, made the mistake of looking at Freya, who smiled at him through a mouthful of banana. He averted his eyes quickly. ‘It’ll only be for a night. How hard can that be?’

‘As long as he doesn’t ask too many personal questions.’ Romy thought she should inject a note of caution, but Lex was committed now.

‘We’re going to talk business tonight,’ he said. ‘If Willie is really concerned about getting the best deal for Grant’s Supersavers, he’ll have more important questions to ask.’

How hard could it be? Lex had asked, and at the time it had seemed all quite straightforward. The deal was within his grasp. He and Romy would have dinner with Willie Grant. They would discuss the arrangements and come to a gentleman’s agreement, and the deal would be done. The next day, he and Romy would return to London. Romy would go back to Acquisitions, Freya would go to the crèche that he had had no idea existed, and he could tell his father that he had succeeded where he never could.

Simple.

Only he hadn’t counted on the intimacy of sharing a room with Romy. Lex flipped open his computer to check the markets, while Romy had a bath with Freya, but it was impossible to concentrate with the squeals and splashes and laughter coming out of the bathroom. Romy’s vividly coloured outfit hung on the wardrobe door, and her perfume lingered distractingly in the air, coiling around his mind and making the Dow Jones Index dance in front of his eyes.

Worse was to come. The door opened, and Romy came out, carrying Freya. ‘I found this behind the door,’ she said, gesturing down at the towelling robe. ‘I hope no one will mind if I use it.’

‘I’m sure they won’t.’ Lex’s voice came out as a humiliating rasp, and he cleared his throat and scowled at the screen. Much good it did him. There might as well have been a photo of Romy there instead, her skin glowing, her hair damp to her shoulders, her face alight with joy in her daughter….

Romy threw a towel on the floor and laid Freya on it. ‘There’s not much room in the bathroom,’ she explained over her shoulder, ‘so I thought it would be easier to dry her out here. It’s all yours.’

Of course, what he should have done was get up straight away and have a shower, but instead Lex sat on at the computer, pretending to himself that he was working, forcing his eyes back to the screen whenever they drifted over to where Romy was kissing Freya’s toes and blowing raspberries on her tummy while Freya shrieked with delighted laughter and clutched at her mother’s hair.

Lex knew exactly how silky it would feel in Freya’s fingers. He knew how it felt tickling his skin, and memory hit him like a blow to his diaphragm: the hitch in his chest at Romy’s pliant warmth in his arms, her soft laughter in his ear, her kisses drifting down his throat, down, down, down. All at once he lost track of his breathing. It got all muddled up with the twist of his guts and the vice around his chest and he had to force his lungs back to order.

Inflate, deflate. In, out. In, out. Slow, steady.

No problem. There was no need to panic. There was plenty of oxygen.

Lex switched off the computer. There was little point in sitting there staring at nothing.

‘I’ll go and have a shower then.’ Even to his own ears his voice sounded unfamiliar.

Romy looked up briefly. ‘Good idea. I’m going to take Freya down to the kitchen and warm some milk for her.’

She wasn’t bothered by the intimacy of the situation at all, Lex realised, chagrined. She was too absorbed in her baby to think about him.

To remember Paris.

To wonder about that four poster bed or where he would sleep.

Frankly, it was a relief when Romy and Freya had gone. Lex showered and shaved and reminded himself what they were doing there. This was business. The deal was what mattered, and it was almost within his grasp. This was not the time to get distracted by silky hair or bare feet or joyous laughter.

By the time Romy came back with a sleepy Freya, Lex had himself back under control. He was buttoning a dark blue shirt when she knocked lightly and opened the door.

‘Don’t worry, I’m decent,’ he said with a sardonic look. ‘Although I’m not sure there’d be much point in being shy even if I wasn’t. It’s not as if we haven’t seen each other’s bodies before.’

That was better, Lex told himself. He sounded indifferent, as if he hadn’t even noticed that she had been naked beneath that towelling robe earlier. As if it would never occur to him to think about touching her, tasting her.

Romy had set the cot up in a corner. She laid Freya down and switched off the lamps nearby, glad of the excuse to dim the light and hide the colour staining her cheeks.

‘That was a long time ago,’ she reminded him uncomfortably. ‘We’re different people now.’

She just wished she felt different. It had been bad enough when Lex was sitting there at his computer, but now he was tucking his shirt into his trousers, doing up his cuffs, slinging a tie around his neck, as if they were a real couple getting ready to go out for the evening.

But if they were a real couple, she could go over to Lex and slide her arms around his waist. She could kiss his newly shaved jaw and run her fingers through his damp hair.

She could tug the shirt out of his trousers once more and slide her hands over his bare chest.

Make him smile, feel his arms close around her.

Whisper that there was time before they had to leave. Time to hold each other. Time to touch. Time to make love.

Romy swallowed hard. There was no time now. That time was past.

‘I’d better change.’

Wincing at the huskiness in her voice, she took her outfit into the bathroom. She saw immediately that Lex had tidied up. The bath mat had been hung up, the towels neatly folded and drying on the rail. The top was back on the shampoo and the toothbrushes were standing to attention in a glass.

Romy sighed. She would have tidied the bathroom herself if he had left it. Growing up, she had often heard Phin mock Lex for his nit-picking ways, and the chief executive’s insistence on precision and neatness was something of a joke in the office, but it didn’t seem quite so funny now. It just underlined the fact that a man with Lex’s obsessive need for order would never be able to cope with the chaos of living with children.

And why would that be a problem? Romy asked her reflection.

It wouldn’t, because Lex would never have to live with a child. He would never want to. Tonight was the closest he would get to family life, and Romy was quite sure it would be enough for him.

And that wasn’t a problem for her, either.

Was it?

* * *

Freya was asleep. Romy left one of the bedside lamps on and closed the door softly behind her. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

They made their way back to the library together. ‘This place is enormous,’ said Lex as they turned the corner to find themselves in yet another picture-lined corridor. ‘Why does Willie stay here on his own?’

‘Duncardie reminds him of his wife. She loved it here, apparently, so don’t go telling him he’d be better off back in the city.’

‘I’m not completely insensitive,’ Lex said huffily.

He was hummingly aware of Romy next to him. She had emerged from the bathroom wearing silk trousers and a camisole, with some kind of loose silk jacket. Lex wasn’t very good on fashion, but the colours and the print made him think of heat and spices and coconut palms swaying in the breeze.

He could hear the faint swish of the slippery fabric as she walked, could picture it slithering over her skin, and he swallowed painfully. Her hair was piled up in a way that managed to look elegant and messy at the same time, and, with her bracelets and dangly earrings, she came across as vivid, interesting, and all too touchable. Next to her, Lex knew, he seemed stiff and conventional in his suit.

Willie was waiting for them in the library. He was standing in front of the fire, Magnus at his feet, and in an expansive mood. ‘We’ll talk details over dinner,’ he said when he had welcomed them in and complimented Romy on her outfit, ‘but I’m happy to agree in principle to a merger of Grant’s Supersavers with Gibson & Grieve.’

‘Oh, that’s wonderful news!’ Getting into her role, Romy smiled and hugged Lex, whose arm went round her quite instinctively.

She was warm and soft and slender, and his hand rested on the curve of her hip. He breathed in the scent of her hair and felt silk slip a little under his palm, a sharp, erotic shock that made his heart clench.

Head reeling, incapable of saying anything, Lex gave himself up to the pleasure of holding her for the first time in twelve years, until Romy widened her eyes meaningfully at him. ‘Isn’t it, darling?’ she prompted him as she disengaged herself.

‘Wonderful,’ he managed.