In Her Boss's Bed

Back in the car at ten to seven in the evening, Morgen swept a shaky hand through her hair and sighed as if she’d been let out of prison. The business of the day taken care of, she was more than a little anxious to get back to her little girl, and then for a hot bath and a stiff drink. Stealing a glance at the man beside her in the driver’s seat, she was amazed that Conall O’Brien was showing no signs of fatigue or jet-lag whatsoever. Instead he was smiling as his big hands curved round the steering wheel, as if all was right with his world and everything in it.

‘I thought that went well. How about you?’

The fact that he’d asked her opinion when it was glaringly obvious that things had gone more than well—he’d practically had them eating sugar out of his hand, for goodness’ sake!—threw Morgen for a moment.

‘I thought it was an exercise in damage limitation par excellence. Remind me to get you on my side when I’m next negotiating my car insurance.’

‘Most people are driven by fear, Morgen. As soon as you come to realise that you’re halfway there. You’ve got to get past your own ego to soothe theirs, and once you can do that—you’re home free. You can get practically anything you want.’

She said nothing. The fact that he was willing to get past his own ego to soothe someone else’s fears was enough food for thought for one day, she decided—even if there was an ulterior motive.

‘I’m not rushing you, Mr O’Brien, but—’

‘Conall.’ There was mischief in his gaze, and it momentarily banished every coherent thought from her head.

‘Fine. I don’t want to rush you, but I’d really like to get home if we’re finished for the day now. If you could drop me off back at the office I’ll pick up my car and go.’

‘Going out somewhere tonight?’ he asked, expertly steering the big car smoothly away from the kerb.

‘No.’ Her answer was accompanied by a loud sigh. ‘Definitely not. All I want to do right now is cuddle up on the sofa with my favourite person and relax in front of the TV.’

Her favourite person? Jealousy sliced through Conall’s gut like a knife heated over a red-hot blaze. So there was a man in her life after all? He’d been stupid to hope there wasn’t.

It was because he hadn’t been in a relationship for a while, he reflected moodily as he drove through London’s crawling traffic. A man had needs, and the delicious Miss McKenzie was a provocative reminder that his weren’t being met. There was something singular about her that completely tantalised him. Hooked him up and reeled him in. Something in that slightly aloof façade of hers which could just as suddenly reveal her anxieties as candidly as a child’s that made him want to get to know her better. Okay, so he badly wanted to get her into bed too. It was just his bad luck that she was already spoken for.

‘What about you?’

‘Excuse me?’ Stealing a glance, he saw that she seemed to be waiting for him to speak.

‘Have you any plans for this evening?’

Yeah. After he’d popped one of his sister Teresa’s home-cooked meals in the microwave to heat he intended pouring himself a large glass of wine, then catching up with everything that had been happening in the New York office in his absence.

Unfortunately he did not have a favourite person to cuddle up to on the couch and watch TV with. It was just a shame that Teresa had been called away on business just before he’d caught his flight to Heathrow and would be gone indefinitely. She’d left her keys with a neighbour for him, but right now he could do with some company. He supposed after his transatlantic phone call he could ring his mother and speak to her, but he really didn’t feel like listening to one of her lectures telling him it was high time he came back home to England for good.

‘I’ll probably be working.’

Shrugging, Conall made the necessary right turn, then reached out to switch on the radio. As a beautifully articulated voice announced the seven o’clock news from the BBC, he couldn’t deny he was suddenly ridiculously glad to be home again—even if he was staying at his sister’s and not a home of his own. There were definitely some things about the mother country that he missed.

‘Mummy, why did Nana make you angry?’ Her brown eyes pensive, the little girl with bobbed dark hair slid into bed and waited anxiously for an answer.

Morgen bitterly regretted that she’d given way to temper where her mother was concerned. But all she’d needed after a day fraught with tension—because of the arrival of Conall O’Brien, the sorry state they’d found her boss in and the anxiety of the site meeting—was for Lorna McKenzie to verbally demolish her as soon as she walked through the door.

Fingering the vee of her blouse, Morgen reached out to drop a tender kiss on Neesha’s pink cheek, happy beyond measure that the child appeared to be so much better than she had been for the past few days.

‘Nana and me just had a little difference of opinion, sweetheart. Sometimes it’s hard for her to understand that I need to go out to work to support us both. But if there was any other way I could arrange things differently, believe me, I would.’

‘Nana thinks you drove Daddy away because you were too stubborn. She thinks if you were nicer to him he would have stayed.’ Neesha was biting her lip, and her expression was all eyes.

Feeling as if she had a lead weight in her stomach, Morgen clasped her daughter’s small plump hand in her own and forced a smile.

‘Nana had no right saying such a thing to you, honey. She doesn’t want to accept that your daddy was scared about being a father. She thinks there must have been something I could have done to make him stay.’

No matter how ‘nice’ she might have been to Simon, he wouldn’t have stayed. She knew that for a fact. Now there was a lump in her throat too. Not because she pined for him, but because she could see the confusion on her child’s face. Why had her daddy abandoned her? How was a child supposed to understand that? Oh, how could her mother have been so selfish and stupid to say such things to her?

‘Some people just aren’t cut out to be parents, darling. It’s a hard fact of life, but true, I’m afraid.’

‘Then why did you and Daddy have me?’

‘We made you because we wanted a baby—even if Daddy got scared later on and couldn’t stay. And when I held you in my arms that very first time I thought you were the most beautiful, most perfect, most amazing little person that I’d ever seen in all my life, and I loved you with all my heart and always will.’

Clutching the child to her breast, Morgen breathed in the fresh clean smell of her hair, the impossibly soft black silky strands tickling her nose while the heat and softness of the sweet little body pressed fiercely against her own.

‘I love you too, Mummy. You’re the best mummy in the whole world and the prettiest. When I grow up I want to look just like you!’

Gently tucking her back down into her bed, with its quilted pink counterpane, Morgen smiled. ‘You’re good for my morale, you know that?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Morale means your confidence—the way you think about yourself. You make me feel good when you say such sweet things to me. That’s what I mean.’

‘Good. I want you to feel good. I hate it when Nana makes you sad. I’ll say goodnight now, Mummy, I’m feeling rather tired.’

‘Okay, gorgeous. You snuggle down now, in your cosy bed, and I’ll see you in the morning. You don’t mind going back to school tomorrow?’

‘I’m looking forward to it. I miss my friends.’

‘I’m sure they’ve missed you too, poppet. Goodnight, angel, God bless.’

Back in the living room, Morgen stooped to pick up a purple stuffed elephant and an anatomically unlikely Barbie doll from the carpet, along with two dog-eared storybooks that were Neesha’s favourites. Straightening the soft velvet cushions on the couch, she flopped down wearily, at the same time reaching for the remote and flicking on the television.

The choice of viewing was pretty dismal. Between a documentary on car crime, an awful soap whose soundtrack instantly depressed, football and one of those mindless reality TV programmes where members of the public were only too eager to humiliate themselves in front of the viewing masses, there was nothing to remotely tempt her. Pushing herself to her feet again, Morgen rifled through the bottom drawer beneath the television for a video.

When her hand settled on a much-loved romantic comedy, she knew that if the trials and tribulations of the perfect couple onscreen couldn’t capture her attention then nothing would. Slipping the film into the VCR, then making a quick detour into the kitchen for a bag of crisps and some cheese, Morgen tucked her feet beneath her on the couch and settled back to enjoy the film.

When ten minutes had passed, and she realised she’d barely registered any of the action unfolding before her because her mind was unwittingly preoccupied with Conall O’Brien, she frowned deeply, then turned up the volume on the film to drive any further troublesome thoughts away. There was nothing about him she liked, she decided. Just because he was too handsome for his own good and was impressive under fire didn’t mean that she was going to join his fan club. Along with his assets he was autocratic and domineering, and clearly possessed of a heart made of stone or something equally unbreakable. Thank God he was in the UK on a purely temporary basis, as far as she knew, and as soon as either Derek was back or they found a suitable replacement, Conall O’Brien would be back on a plane to America.