To Have And To Hold

‘Of course.’

‘OK. Meet me out front.’

He went to let her go but she pulled him closer and stood on tip-toe to murmur in his ear, ‘I’m glad you’re home, Rhys.’

His eyes met hers for a moment, saw the radiance in their depths. ‘Still?’ he asked, only half teasingly.

‘Still,’ she answered with sincerity. ‘Always.’

He brushed her lips with his, then said, ‘See you later,’ and walked out of the office.

‘Well!’ Kathy exclaimed as soon as he’d gone. ‘You’re a dark horse. I thought you said you didn’t know him.’

Alix came back to earth to find everyone staring at her, which made her blush. ‘Oh, no; you never asked me. You just took it that I didn’t.’

Some of the others came to cluster round and Kathy gave her a shrewd look. ‘You could easily have told us. Why didn’t you?’

‘I wanted to surprise him.’

‘Well, you certainly did that. And you obviously know him very well,’ one of the men said.

Alix coloured again at the emphasis that had been put on the last two words. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve known him nearly all my life. We live next door to each other, you see.’

Faces cleared and people went back to their desks, a few picked up phones to pass on the tit-bit of gossip. Kathy looked as if she longed to do the same, but instead pulled her chair closer to Alix’s and said enviously, ‘How fantastic that you know Rhys. God, I’d give anything to live next door to him. But I’d never have been able to keep it secret like that. Do you see much of him when he’s home?’

‘Oh, yes, lots,’ Alix told her, conveniently forgetting the last couple of years. ‘We go out together, too.’

‘Really? Oh, wow! Just wait till Donna Temple finds out.’ And unable to resist any longer, Kathy reached for the phone.

Several curious faces were looking out of windows when Alix was supposed to meet Rhys, but as it happened he was standing in the foyer, talking to another man when she came out of the lift, a man in his forties, not as tall as Rhys but broad and tough-looking. She hesitated but Rhys saw her and beckoned her over. ‘This is the surprise I found waiting for me,’ he said with a grin. ‘Alix, this is Todd Weston. Todd, meet Alix North. I’ve been pulling her out of scrapes since she was shorter than my knee.’

Alix gave him an indignant look, but smiled as she shook the outstretched hand of the head of the company. ‘Hello, Mr Weston.’

‘Hello, Alix,’ he said with a Canadian accent. ‘Isn’t that a boy’s name?’

‘I thought she was a boy the first time I met her,’ Rhys said before she could speak.

Todd Weston looked her over and grinned. ‘Well, she’s certainly changed.’

‘So she has,’ Rhys agreed, and they both laughed as Alix blushed furiously.

A chauffeur came in to say the car was there so Todd bade them goodbye. ‘See you Monday and we’ll talk further, Rhys.’ And he clapped him on the shoulder before walking away.

Alix glanced up as they waited on the pavement for all Rhys’s luggage to be loaded in the car, saw the faces at the windows, and couldn’t help hoping, with great satisfaction, that one of them was that of Donna Temple.

They got in the back of the car, the glass screen dividing them from the chauffeur, and Rhys said, ‘Well, urchin, how did you get the job?’

‘Purely on merit,’ she assured him. ‘Although your father did find out about the vacancy,’ she admitted.

Rhys’s eyebrows flickered and he gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Did he, now?’

Alix chuckled richly. ‘But wasn’t it the most perfect surprise?’

‘It certainly was; in your letters you just said you’d got a job.’

‘Oh, you did read them, then?’

‘Of course.’

‘But you never bothered to answer any of them,’ she pointed out tartly.

‘Yes, I did; I sent you postcards from all over the place.’

‘Postcards!’ Alix exclaimed with such a disgusted expression that he laughed. ‘What good are those to a girl?’

‘You used to collect them,’ Rhys pointed out.

‘I didn’t collect them—I kept yours.’

‘What, all of them?’

‘Of course.’ Alix didn’t say that they were among her most treasured possessions, along with the gifts and Christmas and birthday cards that he had given her over the last sixteen years.

Maybe she didn’t have to, because Rhys ran a finger along her throat and up to her chin, and said, looking into her eyes, ‘You’re a funny one, Alix.’

‘Why—because I’m so single-minded about you?’

He smiled and gave a small shrug. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘I don’t see why. Some children know what they want to be—a doctor or a dancer or something—from a very early age, and usually everyone thinks that’s great and they’re given every help and encouragement. Well, it was more or less the same for me. I saw you and I just knew I wanted to be with you,’ she said simply. ‘I can’t help it—that’s just the way it is.’

Rhys shook his head at her. ‘I was sure you would have grown out of that by now.’

Alix smiled at him, a delightfully mischievous smile that gave her face an elfin quality. ‘And I was sure you would have grown into it by now.’

That made him give a burst of laughter and there was an arrested expression in his eyes as he looked at her. Her hand was still in his, but now he put his other hand over it. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing,’ he commanded, giving her all his attention.

‘I haven’t seen you for more than two years; it would take ages to tell you everything.’

‘Well, we have plenty of time. Tell me about college.’

So Alix told him, leaning against his arm, her voice and face animated as she recounted experiences and anecdotes, gratified to have his interest, inwardly bursting with pleasure to be near him.

‘And did you make lots of friends?’ he asked her.

‘Oh, yes, loads. Some I see quite often because they work in London, too. And we’re all determined to have a big reunion for our whole year in July.’

‘Males as well as females?’