Contracted: Corporate Wife

‘I like the successful bit,’ said Patrick. ‘As for the rest of it…well, I certainly work hard. I know what I want, and I always get what I want. I like winning. I’m not interested in compromising or accepting second best. If people think that’s ruthless, that’s their problem,’ he said. Ruthlessly, in fact.

‘And the playboy side?’

He made a dismissive gesture with his glass. ‘People only say that if you’re rich and don’t tie yourself down with a wife and children. I like the company of beautiful women, sure, and I meet lots of them at the parties and events I’m invited to, but I’d much rather work than swan around on yachts or waste money in casinos or whatever it is playboys do.’

‘I see. I’ll tell the girls in Finance that you’re really quite boring after all, then.’

Patrick looked up sharply from his glass and met Lou’s eyes. They held a distinct gleam of amusement and he realised to his amazement that she was teasing him.

There was a new sassiness to her tonight, he thought, and he wasn’t at all sure how to take her. Lou Dennison had always been the epitome of an efficient PA, quiet, discreet, always demurely dressed in a neat suit, but he had had no sense of her as a woman beyond that.

Now, suddenly, it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. The dark eyes held a challenging spark, and there was a vibrancy and a directness to her that he had never noticed before. Patrick’s interest was piqued. Perhaps there was more to Lou than was obvious at first glance.

He knew nothing about her, he realised. If he’d thought about it at all, he might have imagined her going home to an immaculately organised flat somewhere, but the truth was that he had never really considered the fact that she had any existence at all outside the office. What did she do? Where did she go? What was she really like?

He ought to know, Patrick thought with a twinge of shame. She had been his PA for three months. Of course, they had been incredibly busy trying to turn the failing firm around, and she wasn’t exactly easy to get to know. She never encouraged any form of social contact…or was it just that he had been too intimidated by her composure to make the first move?

Patrick wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably. He should have made more of an effort. She was the closest member of staff to him, after all. The truth was that he was more used to women flirting and fluttering around him. No way would Lou Dennison indulge him like that. She wasn’t the flirting kind.

On the other hand, what did he know? Maybe it was time to find out more about her.

‘So what about you?’ he asked her. ‘Do you live up to your reputation?’

Lou looked surprised. Well, that was better than indifference or irony, anyway.

‘I don’t have a reputation,’ she said.

‘Yes, you do,’ Patrick corrected her. ‘I heard all about you before I got to Schola Systems. I heard that it was you that ran that company, not Bill Sheeran.’

Lou frowned. ‘That’s rubbish!’

‘Don’t worry, I don’t believe it for a minute. If you’d been running the company, you would never have let it go under. You’re too competent to let that happen.’

She grimaced slightly. ‘Competent?’ It didn’t sound very exciting. Not like being a playboy. ‘Is that what people think of me?’

Her glass was empty. Patrick lifted the bottle and held it over the ice bucket to let it drip for a moment. ‘Competent…efficient…practical…yes, all those things.’

‘You don’t have much choice about being practical when you’ve got kids to bring up on your own,’ said Lou with a sigh.

‘It’s easy to be laid-back when you’ve just got yourself to worry about,’ she said, oblivious to the fact that his head had jerked up in surprise. ‘It’s different when the rent is due and there are bills to be paid and every morning you’ve got a major logistical operation just to get the kids up and dressed and fed, and to check that they’ve got everything they need and that all their homework is done and that they’re not going to be late for school.’

Patrick hadn’t got over the first revelation. ‘You’ve got kids?’ he said, ignoring the last part of her speech. He stared at her. Children meant mess and chaos and constant requests for time off, none of which he associated with Lou Dennison.

She had raised her brows at the incredulity in his expression. ‘Just two. Grace is fourteen, and Tom’s eleven.’

‘You never mentioned that you had children,’ said Patrick accusingly.

‘You never asked,’ said Lou, ‘and, to be honest, I didn’t think you’d be the slightest bit interested in my private life.’

He hadn’t been—he wasn’t, Patrick reminded himself—but, still, she might have said something. He felt vaguely aggrieved. Two children, adolescent children at that, were a big thing not to mention.

‘Why have you kept them a secret?’

‘I haven’t,’ said Lou, taken aback. ‘There’s a framed photo of both of them on my desk. If you’re that interested, I’ll show you tomorrow!’

‘There’s no need for that, I believe you,’ said Patrick, recoiling. He had no intention of admiring pictures of grubby brats. ‘I was just surprised. I’ve had secretaries with children before, and they were always having time off for various crises,’ he complained. ‘After the last time, I vowed I’d never have a PA who was a mother again.’

‘Very family-minded of you,’ said Lou.

Patrick’s brows drew together at the unconcealed sarcasm in her voice. ‘I haven’t got anything against families,’ he said. ‘It’s up to individuals whether they have a family or not, but I don’t see why I should have to rearrange my life around other people’s children. I had a PA once whose children ended up running the office. We’d just be at a critical point of negotiations, and Carol would be putting on her coat and saying that she had to get to the school.’

‘Sometimes you just have to go,’ said Lou, who had somehow managed to get to the bottom of another glass of champagne. ‘Especially when your children are smaller. At least my two are old enough to take themselves to and from school, but if anything happened, or they were ill, then I’m afraid that I would be putting on my coat too.’

Patrick looked at her as if a dog he had been cajoling had just turned and snapped at him, but he refilled her glass anyway. ‘Am I supposed to find that reassuring?’

‘I’m just telling you, that’s all,’ said Lou. She looked at him directly. ‘Is it going to be a problem for you that I have children?’

‘Not as long as they don’t interfere with your work,’ said Patrick.

‘You know that they don’t, or you would have known about their existence long before now,’ she said in a crisp voice. ‘That doesn’t mean there won’t be times when I will need to be flexible, and, yes, sometimes at short notice.’

‘Oh, great.’ Patrick hunched a shoulder and Lou leant forward.

‘You’re obviously not aware of the fact that Schola Systems has always had a very good reputation for family-friendly policies,’ she admonished him. ‘I was lucky to get a job there when I had to go back to work and the children were small, and especially to have such an understanding boss. Bill Sheeran was always flexible when people needed time at home for one reason or another.

‘It won him a lot of loyalty from the staff,’ she added warningly, ‘so if you were thinking of holding parenthood against your employees, you might find yourself without any staff at all!’

‘There’s no question of holding anything against anyone,’ said Patrick irritably.

He didn’t want to hear any more about how marvellous Bill Sheeran had been. Not marvellous enough to save his own company, though, Patrick thought cynically. It was all very well being friendly and flexible, but if Patrick hadn’t taken over all those admiring employees would have been spending a lot more time at home than they wanted. There was no point in being family friendly if your firm went bust and your staff found themselves out of a job.

‘I just wish you’d told me, that’s all,’ he grumbled to Lou.

Lou didn’t feel like making it easy for him. Honestly, the man never even asked her if she’d had a nice weekend on a Monday morning. ‘If you’d shown any interest in your new PA at all, you would have known.’

‘I’m showing an interest now,’ he said grumpily. ‘Is there anything else I need to know?’

‘Is there anything else you want to know?’ she countered.

‘You don’t wear a wedding ring,’ said Patrick after a moment.

‘I’m divorced. Why?’ The champagne was definitely having an effect. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a problem with divorce as well as children?’

‘Of course not. I’m divorced myself.’

‘Really?’

‘Why the surprise? It’s not exactly uncommon as you’ll know better than anyone.’