‘Sorry. I’ve some work I want to look through.’
‘You can’t work all the time!’ he protested.
Sitting listening to speeches, even if she didn’t take in a word, hardly seemed like work to her. ‘There’s no answer to that,’ she replied, smiling gently at him. It wasn’t his fault that on the man-woman front he did nothing for her.
‘Dinner, then?’ he persisted.
She almost said yes if it included Chris and Duncan. But from their point of view they probably wanted to let their hair down away from the boss’s daughter.
So she smiled. Ross was harmless enough. ‘Provided you don’t ask me to marry you again, I’d love to,’ she agreed.
‘You’re hard-hearted, Phelix. If ever I catch up with that mythical husband of yours, I shall tell him so.’
‘Seven o’clock at your hotel.’ She laughed, and glanced from him straight into the eyes of Nathan Mallory. He was no myth.
She smiled, acknowledging him. For a split second he stared at her solemnly. And then he smiled in return—and her heart went thump!
Phelix was in her seat, determined not to let her mind stray again. The current speaker was a bit dry, but she concentrated on key words—‘state of the market’ and ‘systems and acquisitions’—and still couldn’t see what she was doing there—apart from Ross Dawson, of course, and the idiotic pipedream her father seemed to have that if she and Ross Dawson became one, Edward Bradbury might one day rule a Bradbury, Dawson and Cross empire.
No chance. Ross had spoken of her ‘mythical husband.’ Quite when she had let it generally be known that she was married she wasn’t sure.
Probably around the same time as she had discovered the extent of her father’s unscrupulous behaviour.
Probably around the same time her backbone had started to stiffen. Prior to that, having learned a passive ‘anything for a quiet life’ manner from her mother, she would never have dreamed of going against her father’s wishes. Though, on thinking about it, perhaps Nathan standing up to him had been the wake-up call she had needed.
Realising she was in danger of drifting off again, Phelix renewed her concentration on what the speaker was saying. ‘Face-to-face meetings are better than a video link,’ he was opining. What that had to do with their businesses she hadn’t a clue, and knew she was going to have to pay closer attention. Though in her view it was still farcical that she was there at all.
With quite a long break for lunch, Phelix took herself off back to her hotel. Her father had wanted her to ‘network’ so he said. Tough! That was a lie, anyway.
Up in her room, she went to open her laptop. But, feeling mutinous all of a sudden, she ignored it. She didn’t feel like working. She took some fruit and the cellophane wrapped slice of cake from the platter residing on a low table, added the chocolate that had been placed on her pillow when her bed had been turned down last night, went out to the balcony and stretched out on the sun-lounger.
The scenery was utterly fantastic. In the foreground a church—complete with clockface to remind her that she had to attend the conference centre that afternoon—and behind, towering, majestic mountains. Forests of pine trees right and left. Tall… Somehow she found she was thinking of tall, towering Nathan Mallory—and this time she let her thoughts go where they would.
They had married, she and Nathan, on a warm, humid day. She had worn what she had thought then, but blushed about now, to be a smart blue two piece. She supposed she must have worried a bit, after she had bought it because it had fitted her then. But on her wedding day, it had literally hung on her. Nathan—a stern-faced Nathan—had worn a smart suit for the occasion.
Because he’d been waiting for an extremely important business telephone call her father had been unable to attend, but had said he would be home when they got there. And that had annoyed Nathan because it had meant he would have to go back with her to her home to exchange their marriage certificate for the cheque that would save Mallory and Mallory from losing everything.
‘I’m s-sorry,’ she’d stammered, half believing from Nathan’s tough look that he would change his mind about going through with it.
But apart from muttering, ‘What sort of a father is he?’ Nathan had kept to his part of the bargain—even to the extent of holding her hand as they came away from the register office.
‘Is that it?’ she’d asked nervously.
‘That’s it,’ he had confirmed. ‘I expect there’ll be a few more formalities to deal with to undo the knot…’
But the knot had never been undone. It should have been. They had originally planned it should be so. But, as matters had turned out, their marriage had never been annulled.
‘Where did you leave your car?’ Nathan had asked.
‘I—um—don’t drive,’ she’d answered, newly married and starting to dislike the wimp of a creature she, through force of circumstance, had become. As soon as she had that ten percent she was going to have driving lessons, despite what her father said. She would buy a car…
‘We’ll go in mine,’ Nathan had clipped, and had escorted her to the car park.
Her home was large, imposing and, despite Grace Roberts’ attempts to brighten it up with a few flowers, cheerless. Grace had had no idea that the daughter of the house had that day married the handsome man by her side, and had been her usual pleasant self to Phelix.
‘Your father had to go out urgently,’ she said. ‘But he left a message for you to leave the document in his study and said he’ll attend to it.’
Hot, embarrassed colour flared to Phelix’s face, a horrible dread starting to take her that her father might be intending to renege on the part of the deal he had made with Nathan Mallory. That Nathan, his competitor, having kept his part of the bargain, had been hung out to dry!
‘Thank you, Grace,’ she managed. ‘Er—this is Mr Mallory…er…’
‘Shall I get you some tea?’ Grace asked, seeming to realise she was struggling.
‘That would be nice,’ Phelix answered and, as Grace went kitchenwards, ‘My father must have left an envelope for you in his study,’ Phelix suggested. Hoping against hope that her fears were groundless, and that there would be an envelope on the desk with Nathan’s name on it, she led the way to the study.
But there was no envelope. Scarlet colour scorched her cheeks again, and she felt she would die of the humiliation of it. ‘I’m s-sorry,’ she whispered to the suddenly cold-eyed man by her side. ‘I’m sure my father will be home soon,’ she went on, more in hope than belief. ‘Shall we have tea while we wait?’
Apart from Henry Scott, who had occasionally in the past called at the house with important papers for her father to sign, Phelix was unused to entertaining anyone. If her father had been delayed, her mother had always offered Henry refreshment of some kind.
So copying her mother’s graceful ways, even if she was feeling awkward, Phelix gave her new and promised to be temporary husband tea.
It was Grace Roberts’ evening off—she was going to the theatre and would be staying with a friend overnight. ‘You’ve everything you need?’ she enquired, with a professional look around.
‘Everything’s fine, thank you, Grace. Enjoy the theatre,’ Phelix bade her.
‘Grace has been with you for some while?’ Nathan, with better manners than her father, stayed civilly polite to ask a question he could have no particular interest in knowing the answer to.
‘About six years—she adored my mother.’
‘Your mother died recently in a road accident, I believe?’
Phelix did not want