Contracted: Corporate Wife

Funny to realise what a difference a gleam of humour made, too, lightening his expression and warming the cold eyes.

Funny how his smile made her heart jump, just a little.

Must be all that champagne she had drunk.

‘Why don’t you try going out with women who’ve got bigger ambitions?’ she said, forcing her mind back to the subject at issue. ‘Someone who’s got a career of her own and who doesn’t want to settle down any more than you do?’

‘Believe me, I would if I could find a girl like that,’ said Patrick. ‘I might even be prepared to marry her.’

‘What, and give up your precious freedom?’

‘At least it would shut my mother up. She’s constantly going on at me to get married again. She thinks it would be good for me to have someone else to think about. She says it would stop me being so selfish.’

He sounded aggrieved and Lou smothered a smile. She rather liked the idea of him having a mother who was no more impressed with him than his PA.

‘Does she want grandchildren? Is that why she’s keen for you to get married?’

‘I think she’s accepted that she’s not going to get them from me,’ he said, and pointed a finger at Lou’s expression. ‘Don’t you go feeling sorry for her! She can’t complain. She’s already got eleven grandchildren. I’d have thought that was more than enough.’

‘Eleven?’ said Lou, trying to adjust to the idea of Patrick as part of a large family.

‘I’ve got three sisters, all of whom seem to be very fertile, and all of whom also think I should get married. Every time I see them, they ask me what’s the point of having all that money and not enjoying it. Just because they’ve got big families of their own, they think I should have that too,’ he grumbled.

‘I tell them I’m perfectly happy living on my own, and I am, but sometimes when I go home the house does seem a bit empty,’ he admitted, and gave a rather shamefaced smile. ‘There, that’s my embarrassing confession!’

‘That’s a confession, not a fantasy,’ said Lou light-heartedly.

She was feeling extraordinarily mellow. It was oddly comfortable to be sitting here with him, talking to Patrick about things she would never normally dream of discussing with anyone at work, let alone her boss, talking to him as if he were a friend.

It was strange now to think that she had been perfectly happy to have a cool working relationship with him. For a fleeting moment, Lou wondered whether she would regret her confidences in the morning, but she pushed the thought aside. She would just blame it on the champagne.

Not to mention the wine. They seemed to have made major inroads into that bottle in spite of her plans to stick to the occasional sip.

She wasn’t going to worry about it now, anyway. She was here, away from home, away from the children. It was like being in a bubble, time out from the day-to-day reality of commuting and cooking and preparing lunchboxes. Everything felt different.

Patrick even looked different. Warmer somehow, more human, more approachable. Much more attractive than he should for a man who wasn’t her type, anyway.

‘Go on,’ she told him. ‘You said it was confession time, and that we’d forget it all tomorrow. I told you my fantasy, so I think you should tell me yours.’

Patrick thought about leaning over the table and whispering that she should forget pudding, that he wanted to take her upstairs and press her against the bedroom door, that he wanted to explore the back of her knee while he kissed her, to let his hand smooth insistently up her thigh, pushing up that prim little skirt until his fingers found the top of her stocking, and then—

‘One of them anyway,’ said Lou, unnerved by the way his eyes had darkened. She didn’t know what he was thinking about just then, but she was pretty sure it would leave her blushing.

And more than a little jealous. There had been something in his expression that had made her pulse kick in a way it hadn’t for a very long time. Now was not the time for it to start doing that, and her boss was not the man to set it off either. Whatever he had been fantasising about doing with one of those blonde stick insects he liked so much, she didn’t want to hear it.

‘A fantasy that will embarrass you, not me,’ she specified firmly.

It was just as well she had said that, thought Patrick, a mixture of amusement and horror at the narrowness of his escape tugging at the corner of his mouth. For a minute there he had got a bit carried away. Fortunately, her intervention had given him time to unscramble his brains. Reality had slotted back into place and all the disadvantages of explaining to your PA that you were fantasising about her and her choice of lingerie had presented themselves starkly.

Not a good idea, in fact.

‘OK…’ he said, drawing out the syllables. He drank some wine while he tried to focus. Surely he could think of something to tell her? A fantasy…a fantasy…and keep right away from stockings…

‘Right,’ he said after a moment. ‘Well, how about this one? It’s not that different from yours, actually. What I’d really like is all the advantages of marriage without any of the drawbacks. So in my fantasy, I would have a wife who was there when I needed her. She would be the perfect hostess, remember all my sisters’ birthdays, and mysteriously vanish whenever I met a new and beautiful girl so that I could continue to have guilt-free affairs.’

Lou rolled her eyes, unimpressed. ‘Oh, the old fantastic-sex-without-a-relationship chestnut! I don’t think that’s like my fantasy at all,’ she objected. ‘But I can see why it appeals to you.’

Patrick wasn’t quite sure how to take that. ‘Well, since it’s likely to remain a fantasy, I’ll reconcile myself to an empty house, to hiring caterers and disappointing my mother.’

Thinking about it, Lou absently held out her glass for another refill.

‘What you really need,’ she said, ‘is someone who’s prepared to marry you for your money, and treat marriage like a job.’

‘That’s not very romantic!’

‘You don’t need romance,’ she told him sternly. ‘You need someone to run your house, to be your social secretary, to be pleasant and interested when you go out as a couple but turn a blind eye to your affairs and generally expect absolutely nothing from you other than access to your bank account.’

Patrick was impressed by her assessment and said so as he topped up her glass. ‘That’s exactly what I need.’

‘In fact,’ said Lou, ‘you need to marry me.’

CHAPTER THREE

PATRICK’S hand jerked and he missed her glass, spilling wine on the tablecloth. ‘Sorry,’ he said as he mopped it up with his napkin. ‘I thought you said that I should marry you there!’

‘I did.’ Lou accepted her glass back with a smile of thanks, quite unfazed. ‘Someone like me, anyway. But actually, now I come to think of it, I’d be the perfect wife for you.’

‘You would?’ Patrick wasn’t sure whether to be amused or appalled.

‘Of course.’ Lou gestured grandly with her glass. ‘I know your business, and I could do all that social stuff easily. I know who you need to charm and who to impress, and I’m under absolutely no illusions as to what you’re like!’

‘Right,’ said Patrick, fascinated.

‘You’d be much better off with someone sensible like me who wouldn’t make a fuss about your girlfriends, or expect you to pay me any attention,’ she pointed out. ‘You wouldn’t need to email me every day or buy me flowers or surprise me with mini-breaks to Paris.’

‘O…K,’ he said slowly, buying time until he worked out whether she was joking or not. ‘But why would you want to marry me?’

‘Oh, I’d be marrying you for your money, of course,’ said Lou cheerfully.

‘I thought you didn’t want a man?’

‘I don’t, but I do want financial security. Do you have any idea how tough it is to be a single parent living on a limited income in a city like London?’

Patrick raised his brows. ‘Is this a very roundabout way of complaining about your salary?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘My salary is fair. More than fair, in fact. If it wasn’t, I would have got another job. It just doesn’t go very far when you have to pay an extortionate rent and feed and support two growing children into the bargain.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that children are expensive nowadays,’ said Patrick, thinking of his sisters’ complaints.