Business Arrangement Bride

‘Coffee?’ she asked in a bright voice and, reminded of her presence, Tyler stopped smiling abruptly. He flushed slightly, embarrassed at having been caught out playing with the baby.

‘Thank you,’ he said curtly, reverting to type.

Mary went over to fill up the kettle and tried not to feel put out that he would smile at Bea but not at her. She knew that he could do it now, so there was no excuse.

While the kettle boiled, she spread a rug on the floor and retrieved Bea from Tyler at last. The brush of their hands as he passed the baby back made her nerves leap alarmingly and she busied herself settling Bea on the rug and finding some toys for her to play with, and willing the heightened colour in her cheeks to fade.

‘Sit down,’ she said to Tyler, but without meeting his eye. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

Tyler nodded, but chose to walk around the room instead. It was very simply decorated in cream and the furniture she had chosen was simple and unfussy. Clearly a start-up operation, he thought.

He made himself think about the likely overheads of a business this size and not about the warm feeling Bea’s smiles had given him, or the way Mary’s top shifted over her curves as she stretched up to retrieve some coffee filters from the cupboard. Picking up a calendar from her desk, he pretended to study it, but he was very aware of Mary moving around, rinsing mugs, bending to find milk in the little fridge or chatting playfully to the baby, who was banging happily on the floor with a bright plastic ring.

The presence of the baby had thrown him, Tyler decided. He hadn’t been expecting her or how warm and heavy she would feel between his hands. Mary Thomas seemed to have a very odd idea about how to conduct business. He just needed a few minutes while she was making the coffee to collect himself and remember what he was doing here.

Mary studied him out of the corner of her eye as she waited for the coffee to drip through the filters. Tyler was probably used to freshly ground coffee, but that was too bad. He was lucky that he was getting coffee at all after last night!

What was he doing here anyway? She had been dismayed to see him, but what if there was a chance that she could somehow make up for the mistakes of last night? It seemed too good to be true, but why else would he be here?

She mustn’t mess this up if she got another chance, Mary told herself sternly. With her mother so anxious to get back together with Bill, now was not the time to be taking high-minded stands on jobs. If she were to earn enough to get her and Bea somewhere to live, she would need to take anything she could get.

Tyler came back when the coffee was ready and took one of the easy chairs Mary used for interviewing. She would have preferred to sit behind her desk where she would feel more in control, but Bea might protest if she lost sight of her and, anyway, she reminded herself, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of suspecting that he made her feel nervous.

So she sat opposite him and picked up her mug of coffee. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked him.

Tyler was glad that he could get straight to the point. ‘I want to offer you a deal,’ he said.

‘We discussed your idea of a deal last night,’ Mary reminded him, cautious about getting her hopes up yet.

‘I’m making a new offer.’

‘Oh? Some new form of blackmail, perhaps?’ she couldn’t resist saying.

Tyler’s eyes narrowed but he restrained his temper. Only the tic in his jaw indicated how difficult that was.

‘No,’ he said evenly. ‘I’m prepared to offer you the recruitment contract for all junior staff in the York office if you will agree to give me some relationship coaching.’

Mary considered what he’d said. ‘That’s the same blackmail as before,’ she pointed out.

‘No, it isn’t. Last night I said that I wouldn’t give you the contract if you didn’t agree. That was a threat. Now I’m saying that I’ll give it to you if you do. That’s an incentive. It’s quite different.’

He paused. ‘I’ll also give you a lump sum—let’s say ten thousand pounds—when I embark on a successful relationship, and if your advice leads to an engagement soon after that there’ll be a further bonus.’

Mary stared at him, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Ten thousand pounds! Plus the income from that lucrative contract! Moving its headquarters back to York would make Watts Holdings one of the biggest employers in the city. The company was expanding dramatically and most of the new jobs would be at junior level. This would make her agency, she thought excitedly. She might not even have to rent. If she could get Tyler hooked up with someone nice, she could think about buying a small place for her and Bea.

And all she had to do in return was to teach Tyler a bit about how to keep a woman happy in a relationship. It wasn’t what she had imagined herself doing, but it wasn’t as if he was asking her to do anything immoral or unethical, was it? You could even say that there was something admirable about a man like Tyler putting so much effort into making a relationship a success.

‘You must want this coaching very badly,’ she said slowly, still hardly daring to believe that there wasn’t a catch somewhere.

‘I do.’

‘But why do you want me? You could easily find someone with much better and more appropriate qualifications.’

Why did he want her? Tyler had been asking himself that all night. Because she was there, he had decided in the end. Because she seemed to know about coaching. Julia’s words had been rankling and coming across Mary had seemed like the perfect opportunity to solve a nagging problem. Tyler wasn’t a man who had reached the top by not grasping an opportunity when it came along.

Because he had decided that Mary was the coach he wanted, and he always got what he wanted.

Or it might have been because he hadn’t been able to get her face out of his mind. He had kept hearing the scorn in her voice, remembering the directness of her grey gaze, and the way her eyes had danced when she had had the temerity to laugh at him.

‘Because you’re not afraid of me,’ he told her in the end.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ muttered Mary.

‘And I don’t want to talk about feelings,’ he went on, practically spitting out the word. ‘I just want practical advice and you seem like someone who could give me that. Plus, you’re available and have experience of coaching.’

‘I don’t have experience of the kind of coaching you mean,’ Mary felt she should remind him. ‘Not professional experience, anyway. I think most women my age get pretty expert at helping friends through relationship crises, but we tend to do it over a bottle of wine!’

She spoke lightly, but Tyler pounced on her comment. ‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘And you’re exactly the kind of woman I’m looking for. Well, not you, obviously,’ he said quickly as Mary’s brows shot up. ‘But a woman like you. A bit younger, ideally, but professional and…you know, intelligent…classy,’ he tried to explain.

Mary looked down at her crumpled skirt and top, which still showed traces of where Bea had gugged up some milk that morning, and boggled privately. She had never been called classy before.

‘You said yourself that you talk to your friends about all that emotional stuff, and that means you’d know what women like that want from a man,’ Tyler went on. ‘At the same time, there’s no risk of getting personally involved with you.’

‘Why not?’ asked Mary.

Tyler scowled, thrown by the directness of the question. ‘Well, because you’re not…you’re not…’ Damn it, she knew what he meant!

‘Not attractive enough for you?’ she suggested sweetly.

‘Yes…I mean, no, you’re very…’ He hated being made to stumble and stutter and look a fool like this. ‘Look, you’re just not my type, OK? Just as I’m sure I’m not yours.’

‘Quite,’ said Mary, who was rather enjoying his discomfiture. It made up a little for being told that he found her completely unattractive. Not that she cared, of course, but still, a girl had her feelings.

‘Besides, you’ve got a baby,’ he said, indicating Bea, who was thoughtfully sucking the leg of a stuffed elephant.

‘Does that mean I can never have another relationship?’ she asked innocently. ‘I’m a single mother, yes, but I might be on the lookout for a father figure for Bea.’

She was only teasing, but a wary look sprang into Tyler’s eyes. ‘I’m not looking to take on another man’s child,’ he warned. ‘I want my own family, not someone else’s.’

‘Well, that’s us rejected, Bea.’ Mary heaved a soulful sigh. ‘It looks like it’s going to be just the two of us.’

At the sound of her name, Bea took the elephant out of her mouth and beamed at her mother. Her smile was so sweet that Mary’s throat tightened with such a powerful rush of love that she felt almost giddy. Reaching down, she smoothed the baby’s hair with a tender smile.

When she glanced up once more, she saw Tyler watching them with a strange expression. ‘It’s OK,’ she said patiently. ‘I was just joking!’

‘The condition of the deal is that our relationship is strictly a business one,’ he said gruffly, more disconcerted than he wanted to admit by the sight of Mary leaning down to her baby. For a moment there, she had looked almost beautiful, her face soft and suffused with love and, when she’d looked up, the grey eyes had still been shining.