Wife For Hire

‘And I’m Nick.’ He grinned to himself, as though at some private joke.

‘Why does Emily not carry your surname?’ Rebecca asked, leading him along corridors, past classrooms and finally into the secluded quarters of the dormitories. With no one around, she was unnervingly aware of his presence.

‘Because by the time Emily was born Veronica and I were so disillusioned with one another that she did precisely what she knew would stick in my throat.’

They had reached her quarters, and she opened the door to the small but comfortable sitting room. There was just enough room for a small flowered sofa, two chairs and a couple of tables, and on either side of the fireplace bookshelves had been mounted which she had crammed with her books. He strolled over to them and began perusing the titles, while she stood and watched him, arms folded.

Did he think that this was some kind of social visit? she wondered.

‘Why did you choose to live in the school?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier for a young woman like yourself to live in the town and travel in?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? Mind if I sit?’ He sat down.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ She had a very small and very basic kitchen. Generally, she ate the school meals, although on her free nights she always went into the town to see her friends. It was one of the good things about working in the place she had grown up in. She had kept in touch with all her own schoolfriends and they met regularly to catch up on gossip. ‘I’m fine.’ His dark eyes raked over her. ‘Why don’t you sit down? You look very awkward towering over there.’

Thanks for the flattering description, she thought sourly. Yes, I do tend to tower, but there’s no need to bring it to my notice.

She removed her jacket and primly sat on the chair facing him. At least she wasn’t hot and stuffy now, but the blouse was still a ridiculous fit. She could feel her breasts pushing against the white material. She was also acutely aware of his eyes on her, and it seemed to her that out of the principal’s office there was something rather more assessing to his gaze.

‘There are a few things I want to make perfectly clear before I take up the position with you,’ she began before he could launch into any more personal asides. ‘Firstly, I want you to know from the start that if I am to tutor your daughter I must be given free rein to do so however I see fit. These are unusual circumstances, and sitting Emily down for formal classes as she would do in a school environment just isn’t going to work.’

‘And what are you suggesting here?’

‘I’m suggesting that she has to feel comfortable with me if I’m to succeed in teaching her anything at all. She will have an awful lot on her mind and she will need fairly gentle handling.’ He looked at her as though he disagreed with every word she had just spoken, but after a while he nodded.

‘Naturally, you will want to be informed of her progress, so I suggest we arrange a time at the beginning of each week, when we can get together for a short meeting, so that I can tell you how Emily is getting along.’

‘And in between these arranged…meetings…? Should we conscientiously ignore one another? Speak, but keep it to the minimum? Pretend that we’re total strangers?’

‘This isn’t a joke, Mr Knight!’

‘Nick.’

Rebecca ignored that. ‘I’m sure Emily will keep you up to date with what we’re doing.’

‘Oh, I doubt that very much. She’s managed to make herself very scarce on the occasion when she’s been forced to be under the same roof as me.’ His voice was bland, but she could sense emotion underlying it, and she felt a pang of sympathy. As a father, it must be difficult to realise that your only offspring would rather ignore you than include you.

‘That must be very difficult for you,’ Rebecca said sympathetically. ‘Being denied contact with your daughter, and then, when she’s a teenager, finding yourself confronted with a young woman you have never really known.’

‘Thanks for the vote of sympathy.’ He gave her a long, cool look and she immediately understood that private utterances along those lines were not welcome. She wondered whether his girlfriend had more access to his emotions, whether he showed her the sides of himself that he kept carefully concealed from the public gaze.

‘Fine,’ she said crisply. ‘Now, shall we discuss the more technical aspects of this…arrangement?’

They became immersed in all the details involved, the nitty-gritty that would make up the contract of employment, which he assured her would be put in writing and sent to her for signature within the next couple of days by his secretary.

When she stood up to indicate that their meeting was now at an end, she was surprised and taken aback to find that he had remained where he was, and was staring at her in a vaguely unsettling manner. Not sexual, but somehow watchful.

‘If that’s all?’ she prompted.

‘I thought that I was the one doing the interviewing,’ he said mildly. ‘There might be one or two things I’d like to say to you.’

‘Are there?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ He linked his hands behind his head and continued to stare at her until, disconcerted, she plonked herself reluctantly back down on the chair.

‘Well, fire away.’

‘Firstly, I shall expect you to have meals with me—expect you both to have meals with me—when I’m around. I don’t intend to slink through my own house like an intruder just to satisfy your bizarre preference for solitude. Admittedly, my work takes me abroad quite a bit, and my social life can be a bit disruptive as well, but there will be times when I’m around, and your presence might pave the way for a slightly smoother relationship with my daughter.’

She caught that slight edge of defensiveness in his voice again and bit down the feeling of sympathy. Emily must be the one crack in his suit of armour which he could not hide. His feelings snaked into his voice, almost of their own accord, and he seemed unaware of it. Probably he was so accustomed to controlling people, situations, events, that he was quite wrong-footed by the one situation, the one person, over whom he had no control.

Rebecca nodded but did not commit herself to agreeing with any such plan.

‘And—’ he stood up, finally, taking his time and slipping on his jacket ‘—just one more thing…’ He gave her a slow smile that made her pulses race. ‘I’d just like to say that you’ve changed.’

Rebecca’s mouth fell open.

‘I know you recognise me.’ He moved over to her and it was all she could do to hold her ground and not scuttle away to the side of the room in alarm. ‘I could see it the minute you set eyes on me. It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it, Rebecca?’

Rebecca could think of nothing to say.

‘Did you think that I didn’t remember you? You did. I can see the answer in your eyes.’ His voice was as soft and smooth as melted chocolate. It made her dizzy, a response which she immediately put down to confusion. ‘You haven’t got the sort of face that’s easily forgotten. You look more or less the same. In fact, you seem to have aged very little over the years, but your manner’s changed. If I remember correctly you were so full of life, so eager to please.’

His voice had sunk to a husky whisper, and she could feel her cheeks aflame with colour as she raised her eyes to his. Did he imagine that his syrupy charm was going to have her wilting obligingly? Or was that syrupy charm all part and parcel of his persona, something that manifested itself in every word he spoke?

‘Our paths crossed years ago for a matter of a couple of weeks.’

‘Why didn’t you acknowledge me?’

‘Why didn’t you?’

He shrugged carelessly. ‘I figured you had your reasons. Anyway, it was incidental to what was being discussed. After a while, I became intrigued to see whether you’d slip up, which you didn’t. You still haven’t lost that urge to say exactly what’s on your mind, though, have you? I could see you bursting to condemn me before I’d even sat down!’

So he had known all along. She felt a complete idiot.

‘Why did you run out on me all those years ago?’ he asked. ‘You never bothered to explain. The last I saw of you at that party was with your back turned, laughing, with a glass of champagne in your hand, and then no more contact after that. Every call I made politely declined.’

‘I can’t think that that’s preyed on your mind all this time,’ Rebecca told him, plucking every ounce of self-control at her disposal and immeasurably grateful for the fact that teaching had given her an invaluable discipline as far as her emotions went.

‘Whoever said that it had?’ His eyes narrowed, and not altogether pleasantly, on her. ‘Although…’

‘Although what?’

‘I saw you there, in that room, and the past crossed my mind; it’s as simple as that. And with the past came a bucketful of questions that you never answered when you decided to do your vanishing act.’

‘And they won’t be answered now!’ she flared back at him. ‘And that’s another condition! I do my job, I do what I shall be paid handsomely to do, but there’s to be nothing personal between us.’