A Daring Proposition

A couple of years ago Guy had sold his terraced house in Paddington and bought a harbour-side mansion, more suited to entertaining on a large scale. At the same time he had hired a childless couple to live in to be cook-housekeeper and handyman-gardener. In their fifties, Leon and Barbara Parker were devoted to both their generous employer and his beautiful home. ‘Where are Barbara and Leon?’

‘Gone interstate for a nephew’s wedding.’ A scowl crossed his handsomely ravaged face. ‘The bane of the human race, weddings! Look what happened to this office when you went to one. Not only do they put people out by having to go to them, but in a couple of years it’s all down the drain anyway when the besotted fools become unbesotted and get divorced!’

Samantha shook her head. She could never agree with Guy’s cynical attitude to marriage. The divorce rate in Australia wasn’t that bad. OK, so his father had married and divorced three times over the past twenty-five years, but his first marriage—to Guy’s mother—had not ended that way. Guy had told her that the first Mrs Haywood had died of kidney failure when he was ten years old.

‘Not all marriages end in divorce,’ she pointed out sensibly. ‘And not all people marry just for sex.’

‘Most men do,’ he scorned. ‘And what happens? Six to eighteen months later the passion dies, and so does the marriage. If they stay together longer than that it’s probably only for the sake of the children. Believe me, I know.’

It crossed her mind that his father and mother might not have been too happy in their marriage. Not that she thought this an excuse for Guy’s cynicism. Nor for the callous way he treated the women in his life. Two wrongs did not make a right, she always believed. But it did make her understand him better.

‘Some men might marry just for sex,’ she argued calmly. ‘But some men don’t. Look, this is hardly the time for a deep and meaningful discussion on marriage. You’re dead on your feet. Why don’t you have a nap on the chesterfield in your office?’ she suggested as she added the boiling water to the coffee. ‘I’ve a pillow and blanket in the bottom of the old filing cabinet here.’

His laugh was dry. ‘What don’t you have in the bottom of that thing?’

‘Never you mind,’ she chided. ‘It’s my personal emergency store.’

‘Well, this is certainly an emergency.’ He scooped up his coffee, which he took black and unsweetened, and turned to leave. ‘Drag them out and bring them in in ten minutes, will you? I’ve got a few phone calls to make first.’

He began to walk away, then turned and gave her a look that was dangerously close to admiration. Samantha felt it jolt her all the way down to her toes.

‘I’ll bet the smell of hospitals doesn’t make you feel like fainting,’ he said.

She frowned. ‘No. Why?’

‘Darling Debra couldn’t stay with me at St Vincent’s for more than five minutes. Said she was going to pass out.’ His tone was definitely derisive. ‘Truly, Sam, some women are really pathetic when it comes to the realities of life. Thank God my secretary isn’t one of them!’

He smiled at her then, an exhausted but wickedly sexy smile. ‘Though she could do with some straightening out on the motives of the male race. Perhaps when I feel more on top of things I’ll give you the benefit of my wisdom and experience and save you future heartache. Tell you all you should know about us bad boys.’

Suddenly a black cloud passed over his face. ‘Oh, I forgot. You’re leaving...’

She swallowed. ‘Not for two months.’ Did her voice sound funny to him? It did to her. God, why did he have to smile at her like that, and why did it have to reduce her insides to jelly?

His eyes narrowed in black puzzlement. ‘I thought you’d change your mind, you know. I was sure you would.’

‘My resignation stands,’ she reaffirmed, a little too fiercely.

His face turned stubborn, his strong jaw squaring. ‘We’ll see about that, Samantha Peters. We’ll see!’ And he stalked off into his own office, leaving her feeling both annoyed and unnerved.

If he thinks he can talk me out of leaving he’s sorely mistaken, she thought irritably. He doesn’t really care about me personally. All he cares about is having his own way, having his damned ship run like clockwork.

It worried her momentarily that on the whole he tended to get his way in most things.

Well, not this time, she decided. Definitely not!

Ten minutes later she steeled her agitated nerves and took the pillow and blanket in, finding Guy still on the phone.

‘Yes, I’m sorry too, Debra,’ he was saying in a distinctly bored voice.

Samantha’s spirits soared, despite everything. Clearly dear Debra’s desertion in the line of fire last night had not been a big hit. Once a person blotted their copybook with Guy, that was usually the end of them. A typical Scorpio, he was not at his best when it came to forgiving and forgetting.

‘No, I can’t see any night of mine free for quite a while,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ll be visiting Dad in the hospital each evening and I’ve got a hitch or two at work...’ This with a baleful glare at Samantha. She returned it with a sanguine smile.

‘What was that? Oh...well, the doctor was quite pleased with him when I rang just now. He’s conscious and they’re going to do some test or other on him this morning to see what the main trouble is... Yes, I’ll give you a call some time. As far as that other matter is concerned, I don’t think there’s any point in your changing managers at this stage. Alex is looking after you quite well from what I can see and, to be frank, I’m not taking any more clients at the moment... Yes, you do that. Bye.’

By the time the receiver was placed in its cradle Samantha could see that Debra had already been forgotten. C’est la vie, she thought, not without a certain malicious pleasure. She herself might be making an exit from Guy’s life but it didn’t stop her feeling female satisfaction over another woman’s failure.

The object of all these thoughts reached for another cigarette and lit up. There were already several butts in the ashtray beside him, and Samantha felt compelled to speak up.

‘Your father was a smoker,’ she warned carefully. ‘I’m sure you already know smoking is one of the major factors contributing to heart trouble.’

He leant back in the chair and dragged deeply. Icy blue eyes lanced her face. ‘The one thing I don’t need from women,’ he said coldly, ‘is mothering.’

Another day she would have ignored his rudeness. But not today. ‘Good,’ she retorted, and dumped the pillow and blanket on the leather sofa. ‘Make up your own bed, then!’

She was about to add that in future he could make his own damned coffee too, but, in truth, he often made his own, never having been one of those bosses who got his secretary to do personal tasks. He looked after himself very well.

‘For pity’s sake, Sam, don’t go getting touchy on me,’ he snapped, jerking forward in the chair. ‘I’m not in the mood.’ But he did stub out the cigarette. ‘Besides, why should you care what I do? In sixty days you won’t have to watch me commit slow suicide any more.’

He rose from behind the desk and began walking around towards where she was standing near the sofa. It crossed her mind that he had no right to look so disgustingly attractive when he was such a mess.

‘You know what, Sam?’ he said as he drew near. ‘I don’t think you’ll go through with it in the end. I don’t think you’ll be able to actually leave when it comes to the crunch.’

‘Really?’ She folded her arms in a defensive gesture. ‘And what makes you think that?’ For all her outward composure, inside she felt rattled. There was still a small part of her that agreed with him.

‘Because, my dear Sam...’ he stopped barely an arm’s length from her, giving her the full blast of his most confident face ‘...I saw the way you looked when we were going through the files yesterday, and later, when we were discussing plans for that tour. This job is the staff of your life. It’s your bread and butter. Your soul. Now don’t deny it. You’ve been with me since shortly after the start. You’re as much an integral part of Haywood Promotions as I am. We’re a team, you and I. An inseparable team!’

Those beautiful blue eyes bored into hers and she wanted to run as fast as she could, away from his intuition, away from his knowledge, away from him!

‘What would you say,’ he asked in his most persuasive voice, ‘if I offered you something very different from being just my secretary?’

Her heart jumped into her throat and stopped there. Good God! Surely he couldn’t possibly mean what she hoped he meant?

‘Such as what?’ she managed to get out.

‘Such as a minor partnership, a share in the company.’

Samantha’s heart dropped back into place. Oh, what an idiot she was to even dream for a minute that he could mean anything else. Where were her brains?

I’ll tell you where, a cruel voice lambasted. In your stupid damned female hormones, that’s where! Once this man gets within three feet of you, off goes your head and on goes a pumpkin!

‘I...’ She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I’d still have to say no.’

‘Have to?’ he repeated, taken aback. He stared at her for several seconds, but she volunteered no further information. Finally he shook his head in exasperation. ‘Something’s going on here that I don’t quite understand.’

Making a disgruntled sound, he turned away and stripped off his crumpled jacket, throwing it over the back of a chair. The tie followed. In seconds the buttons were released on his cuffs and he was starting to flip open the ones on his shirt front.

Samantha was glued to the spot, her heartbeat taking up the tango as more and more bare male chest was revealed. First there was just a V of tanned flesh, but then there was a sprinkling of dark curly hair and the light and shade of various muscles, honed to perfection by the many hours he spent in the gym. As the last button gave way she forced herself to turn and walk towards the door.