Contracted: Corporate Wife

Lou didn’t care. In the three months since Patrick Farr had taken over Schola Systems he had made it obvious that he had no interest whatsoever in his new PA. Not young and pretty enough, clearly, Lou thought dispassionately. She didn’t mind that, but she didn’t see why she should pander to his ego in her free time. She wasn’t actually working this evening, and it wouldn’t do Patrick Farr any harm not to get his own way for once.

The bar was even worse than Patrick had feared. By the time they had realised that there would be no more trains to London that night, and that all road and air traffic was equally disrupted by the weather, all the best hotels had been booked out.

It was a long time since he had stayed anywhere this provincial, he thought, looking around the bar with distaste. It was overflowing with vegetation, and so dark that they practically had to grope their way to a table, which did nothing to improve his temper.

‘What would you like?’ he asked Lou as he snapped his fingers to summon the barman, although whether the man would be able to find them in the gloom was another matter.

‘A glass of champagne would be nice,’ said Lou composedly as she settled herself and smoothed down her skirt.

Patrick was surprised. She hadn’t struck him as a champagne drinker. He would have thought champagne too fizzy and frivolous for someone so efficient. He could imagine her drinking something much more sensible, like a glass of water, or possibly something sharp. A dry martini perhaps. Yes, he could see her with one of those.

Lou lifted her elegant brows at his expression. ‘Is that too extravagant?’ she asked, thinking that a glass of champagne was the least that he owed her after the day she had had. And it wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it. The Patrick Farrs of this world could buy champagne by the truckload and think of it as small change.

‘We did win that contract,’ she reminded him, a subtle edge to her voice. ‘I thought we should celebrate.’

‘Of course.’ Patrick set his teeth, perfectly aware that he should have suggested a celebration given the size of the contract they had just won. ‘I’ll have the same.’

The barman had fought his way through the artificial jungle and was hovering. Opening his mouth to ask for two glasses of champagne, Patrick changed his mind and ordered a bottle instead. He wasn’t going to have Lou Dennison thinking that he was mean.

‘Certainly, sir.’

Sitting relaxed in her chair, she was looking around the gloomy bar, apparently unperturbed by the silence while they waited for the barman to come back. She was quite unlike the women he was usually with in bars, Patrick reflected. He liked girls who were prepared to enjoy themselves a bit.

Take Ariel, for instance. Ariel was always thrilled to be out with him. That was what she told him, anyway. If she were here, she’d be chatting away, entertaining him, exerting herself to captivate him.

Unlike Lou, who was just sitting there with that faintly ironic gleam in her eyes, unimpressed by his company. What would it take to impress a woman like her? Patrick wondered. Someone must have done it once. She was Mrs Dennison, although he noticed that she didn’t wear a wedding ring. Divorced, no doubt. Her husband probably couldn’t live up to her exacting standards.

Uncomfortable with the situation, Patrick leant forward and picked up a drinks mat, tapping it moodily on the low table between them. It took a huge effort not to glance at his watch, but chances were he wouldn’t be able to read it anyway in this light. It looked like being a long evening.

Lou was thinking the same thing. Patrick’s moody tapping was driving her mad. It was just the kind of thing Tom did when he was being at his most annoying. Her fingers twitched with the longing to snatch the mat out of his hand and tell him to stop fiddling at once, the way she would if Tom were sitting there irritating her like this.

But Tom was her son and eleven, while Patrick Farr had to be in his late forties and, more to the point, was her boss. And she couldn’t afford to lose her job. She had better hold back on the ticking-off front, Lou decided reluctantly.

She was gasping for a drink. Where was that champagne? The barman must be treading the grapes out there. It couldn’t take that long to shove a bottle in an ice bucket and find a couple of glasses, could it? If it didn’t arrive soon, she was going to have to take that mat anyway and shove it—

Ah, at last!

Lou smiled up at the barman as he materialised out of the gloom, and Patrick’s hand froze in mid-tap as he felt a jolt of surprise. He hadn’t realised that she could smile like that.

She never smiled at him like that.

She smiled, of course, but it was only ever a cool, polite smile, the kind of smile that went with her immaculate suit, her perfectly groomed hair and her infallible professional manner. Not the warm, friendly smile she was giving the barman now, lighting her face and making her seem all at once attractive and approachable. The kind of woman you might actually want to share a bottle of champagne with, in fact.

Patrick sat up straighter and studied her with new interest as the barman opened the bottle with an unnecessary flourish and made a big deal of pouring the champagne.

The boy was clearly trying to impress Lou, Patrick thought disapprovingly, watching his attempts at banter. She had only smiled at him, for heaven’s sake. Anyone would think that she was hot, instead of nearly old enough to be his mother. Just what they needed, a barman with a Mrs Robinson fixation.

And now he was tossing his cloth over his shoulder in a ridiculously affected way as he placed the bottle back in the ice bucket, and telling Lou to enjoy her drink. Patrick noticed that he didn’t get so much as a nod, which was a bit much given that he was paying for it all.

‘Thank you,’ Lou was saying, with another quite unnecessary smile.

Patrick glowered at the barman’s departing back. ‘Thank God he’s gone. I was afraid that he was planning on spending the whole evening with us. I’m surprised he didn’t bring himself a glass and pull up a chair.’

‘I thought he was charming,’ said Lou, picking up her glass.

She would.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a taste for toy boys!’

‘No—not that it would be any business of yours if I did.’

Patrick was taken aback by her directness. She was normally so discreet.

‘You don’t think it would be a bit inappropriate?’ he countered.

Lou stared at him for a moment, then sipped at her champagne. ‘That sounds to me like a prime case of pots and kettles,’ she said coolly, putting her glass back down on the table.

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Patrick.

‘I understand that your own girlfriends tend to be on the young side.’

Patrick was momentarily taken aback. ‘How do you know that?’

She shrugged. ‘Your picture is in the gossip pages occasionally. You’ve usually got a blonde on your arm, and I’ve got to say that most of them look a good twenty years younger than you.’

That was true enough. Patrick didn’t see why he should apologise for it. ‘I like beautiful women, and I especially like beautiful women who aren’t old enough to get obsessed with commitment,’ he said.

Ah, commitment-phobic. That figured, thought Lou with a touch of cynicism. She knew the type. And how. Lawrie had never been hot on commitment either, but at least he had warmth and charm. Patrick didn’t even have that to recommend him.

She studied him over the rim of her glass. He was an attractive enough man, she admitted fairly to herself. Mid to late forties, she’d say. Tall, broad-shouldered, well set up. He had good, strong features too, with darkish brown hair and piercing light eyes—grey or green, Lou hadn’t quite worked that one out yet—but there was a coolness and an arrogance to him that left her quite cold. He seemed to go down well with young nubile blondes, but he certainly didn’t ring any of her bells.

Not that that was likely to bother Patrick Farr much. She was a middle-aged woman and it was well known that you became invisible after forty, particularly to men like him. She doubted that he had registered anything about her other than her efficiency.

‘I’d no idea you took such an interest in my personal life,’ Patrick was saying, annoyed for some reason by her dispassionate tone.

‘I don’t. It’s absolutely nothing to do with me.’

‘You seem to know enough about it!’

‘Hardly,’ said Lou. ‘The girls in Finance have taken to passing round any articles about you so that we can get some idea of who’s running the company now. You took us over three months ago, and all we know about you is your reputation.’

‘And what is my reputation, exactly?’ asked Patrick.

Lou smiled faintly. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘I’d be interested to hear it from your point of view.’

‘Well…’ Lou took a sip of her champagne—it was slipping down very nicely, thank you—and considered. ‘I suppose we’d heard that you were pretty ruthless. Very successful. A workaholic, but a bit of a playboy on the side.’ Her mouth turned down as she tried to remember anything else. ‘That’s it, really.’ She glanced at him. ‘Is it fair?’