A Daring Proposition

It was all she could do to keep her balance as the torrent surged around her ankles, splashing up her legs and under her skirt. She swayed and yelped. People were streaming by along the pavement, shoulders hunched, heads down, umbrellas jammed down low. But no one stopped to help. No one cared.

‘Who could ever want to live in this heartless place?’ she muttered, and stomped out of the raging torrent, unleashing her automatic umbrella with a vicious snap.

You do, came the dampening answer.

Infuriated with herself more than the rain, Samantha joined the trampling herd and eventually made it across George and Pitt Street, up through Martin Place then left down Elizabeth Street to the building that housed Guy’s office. The rain eased off as soon as she pushed through the circular glass doors, making her mutter several reproachful words to higher authorities.

Not that He would take any notice, Samantha thought crossly. Look at all the prayers she had said on a certain other matter! She might as well have been praying to win the lotto, for all the results she’d had.

Soaked and very irritated, Samantha marched across the huge black and white tiled foyer and stuffed herself into one of the crowded lifts, jabbing the floor-fourteen button with the end of her umbrella. Living in the city, she decided, wasn’t conducive to maintaining the sweet, Christian-like nature she’d had as a child.

Well, she rethought more honestly as the lift heaved its cargo upwards, one shuddering floor at a time. Perhaps I never was exactly sweet...

The memory of herself at high school flooded back, bringing with it the remembered agony of her adolescence. On the surface she had maintained the quiet, reserved, ladylike façde that her mother’s strict country upbringing had imparted to her. Underneath she had longed to break out, to scream at her classmates who had cruelly nicknamed her Amazon Sam, to rant and rave against the body Mother Nature had given her. No wonder she and poor skinny, pimply Norman had gravitated towards each other. They had been the misfits in their class. The uglies.

Samantha smiled wryly to herself in the corner of the lift as she thought of her graduation dance. She’d looked as good as she could that night, all done up and dressed in a pretty mauve dress that had minimised her figure faults. Norman had looked surprisingly good as well, his well-tailored suit giving him shoulders, the night-light softening the effect of his bad skin.

Had it been her improved appearance or the promise of imminent freedom from the torture of school that had made her act so recklessly later in the evening?

Samantha sighed as floor nine came and went. Be honest, she told herself. You know precisely why you let Norman go ‘all the way.’ He started telling you you were beautiful and that he loved you.

Now, no other boys had ever said either of those things to Samantha. At five feet ten inches tall and carrying far too many pounds during her teenage years, she had not been the femme fatale of her school.

Norman’s protestations of everlasting love had been very disarming.

Only later had Samantha realised what a crazy thing she had done, giving her virginity so carelessly. She hadn’t even enjoyed it! Could hardly even remember it happening, it had been over so fast. Never again, she had vowed. Never again!

It had been difficult, though, to convince Norman she didn’t love him, and it had been a relief when at the end of summer she had gone to live with her widowed Aunt Vonnie in far-away coastal Newcastle while she did a secretarial course.

Samantha shook her head fondly as she thought of her Aunt Vonnie. It had been her aunt who had directed her towards more sensible eating habits, which had trimmed down her bulk to more graceful proportions, her aunt who had paid for her deportment lessons, her aunt who’d overridden parental objection when she’d wanted to find a career in Sydney.

Samantha had been ever so grateful to her at the time. Now she wasn’t so sure. If she hadn’t come to Sydney, hadn’t answered that newspaper advertisement which had ended up with her sharing a flat with gorgeous blonde Lana, hadn’t met Guy that ghastly night when Lana had been supposed to go to Jesus Christ Superstar with him and stood him up...

‘Don’t you get out here?’ someone said for the second time that day.

Samantha bit her lip and muttered sheepish thanks to the man holding the doors open for her. This would never do, she told herself as she squelched along the green-carpeted corridor. What did it matter what she’d done all those years ago or how she’d come to be in Sydney in the first place? Her problem was getting through today, through having to watch Guy breeze in all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, without a cigarette in sight.

She stopped at the door furthest along on the left and fished around in her handbag for her set of office keys. Finding them, she inserted the heaviest one, turned the lock and extracted the key. She was about to go in when she stopped and stared at the gilt lettering on the door. ‘HAYWOOD PROMOTIONS,’ it said on the top line. ‘GUY HAYWOOD—MANAGING DIRECTOR.’

She could vividly recall the day they had moved into this office, the feeling of excited relief at having a real place to work in after many difficult months of trying to help Guy run his expanding business from the front room of his terraced house in Paddington.

He had taken her out to dinner after work as a reward for staying on late. Tired and hungry, she had gone, without thinking of any possible consequences.

Not that Guy hadn’t been a perfect gentleman. He had. But it had been the first time Samantha had been exposed to the relaxed, social animal her boss became during his leisure hours, so different from the demanding, often distracted dynamo she dealt with during the day.

She’d always thought him attractive, admiring his elegant dark looks as well as his tall, athletic build. But she had never before felt the impact of his sex appeal, which had hit her in waves from across the table as he’d automatically slipped into the mode of charming dinner companion. He hadn’t realised what effect he was having on her, she was sure, but by the end of the night her feelings had taken an irreversible change of direction, her respectful admiration being overwhelmed by a love that was to grow deeper and deeper with the passing of time.

Controlling a rush of emotion, Samantha opened the door and went inside, shutting the door quickly behind her. She leant against it for a moment, then looked up at the clock on the far wall. Five past nine. Not too late. Still plenty of time to get herself under control and organised before Guy made his usual appearance somewhere between nine-thirty and ten.

She would have to hurry, though, and dashed a rebel tear from her cheek. She didn’t want to look flustered or upset when Guy arrived. She wanted to be every inch her usual competent self. All she could salvage from this situation was her pride and, by golly, she was going to leave here with it intact.

Taking a deep breath, she walked briskly across the reception area, dumping her handbag on her chair before continuing on into the small room which doubled as a kitchenette-store-room. There, she propped her umbrella in a corner, hung her raincoat on a wall peg, then stripped off her wet tights and shoes, replacing them with spares she kept in an old filing cabinet.

Once the kettle was on the boil for a much needed cup of coffee she went into the adjoining washroom to make repairs to her face and hair.

The reflection that confronted Samantha would not have won cover-girl of the year. But neither would it have got the wooden spoon award for looks. She had good skin and a balanced bone-structure, clear hazel eyes, a straight nose, well-shaped lips and an elegant neck, shown to perfection by the way she always wore her hair up.

Samantha was well aware that she could probably cut a more striking appearance if she let her long, wavy brown hair flow out over her shoulders, if she replaced her light natural make-up with a more dramatic look, then dolled herself up in figure-hugging feminine frippery, rather than the tailored suits and blouses she chose to wear. Even when going out at night she didn’t wear sexy evening gear, opting for trousers—usually black—and silk shirts in neutral colours. But she was comfortable the way she was, and felt foolish and self-conscious whenever she tried a different look.

A sardonic smile crossed her lips as she tried to picture how Guy would react if she came into the office wearing a flashily styled, brightly coloured dress.

Her heart turned over at the thought that he might not notice a single thing.

The sound of a door opening and shutting made her jump. Surely it couldn’t be Guy this early?

She hurried from the washroom and gawped at the sight of her boss leaning against the kitchenette doorway and looking not at all well. Shocked eyes ran over his dishevelled appearance. He hadn’t shaved; no comb had touched his hair. And his charcoal-grey suit looked as if he’d slept in it.

‘My God, Guy, what’s happened to you?’ she blurted out.

CHAPTER TWO

GUY remained grimly silent, levering himself away from the door-jamb and scooping a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. Samantha stared in amazement. Surely he wasn’t going to smoke, was he? He certainly wouldn’t if his date with sexy Debra had reached its logical conclusion. In bed.

Samantha watched with heartbeat suspended as he extracted the last cigarette from the gold box and shoved it in his mouth. He tossed the empty container in the direction of the waste-paper basket in the corner. It fell in, a perfect goal.

Her heart started thudding as he fished his lighter out of his trouser pocket, flicked it to flame and lit the cigarette, snapping the lighter shut afterwards and drawing in deeply.

Her relief was so gut-wrenching that she felt like crying. Oh, God! What had she come to with this man?

‘Dad’s in hospital,’ he said abruptly. ‘Heart attack. He’s in Intensive Care.’

Samantha’s heart twisted with dismay and guilt. There she’d been, consumed with Guy’s sex life, and he had spent the night worrying at his father’s possible deathbed.

‘Oh, how awful for you,’ she cried. She knew how close he and his father were. Mr Haywood senior was always popping in to the office for a chat with his son, and Guy often went fishing with him at weekends. He would be devastated if his dad died. He already looked devastated.

Samantha wanted to hug him, hold him, comfort him. But how could she? All she could do was try to say the right things. ‘I hope he’ll be all right,’ she added gently. ‘What hospital is he in?’

‘St Vincent’s.’

‘Well, that’s the best place he could be,’ she soothed. ‘What do the doctors say? What are his chances?’

Guy heaved a weary sigh. Smoke curled around his head. ‘They’re reservedly hopeful. Apparently if you survive the first few hours after the initial attack you have a good chance of a complete recovery. At least, that’s the theory,’ he added with a caustic edge to his voice. ‘He looks like death warmed up.’

‘You don’t look much better.’ Samantha walked over to the small kitchen counter next to the sink and turned off the boiling kettle. ‘Let me get you some coffee.’

He flashed her a grateful glance. ‘Thanks. It’s been a long night. It was after midnight when the call came from the hospital. Debra and I had just got back to my place after the show. We raced straight to the hospital. I’ve been there ever since. The doctor finally insisted I go home, but I didn’t want to go back to an empty house.’

‘Empty?’ She looked up from where she was spooning instant coffee into two brown stoneware mugs. ‘Why is it empty?’