Nick looked at her, aghast.
Love? Marriage? He couldn’t contemplate it. Freedom of movement was so deeply ingrained in him that the thought of relinquishing it was unthinkable.
And, anyway, since when did women do the proposing?
He felt a surge of anger that she just hadn’t been able to accept his already extreme sacrifice of moving in with him.
‘Don’t worry answering,’ Rose said neutrally. She stood up and walked towards the door. ‘Your answer’s written on your face.’ Now, she couldn’t look at him, so instead she stared out into the hallway, hearing him get dressed and then feeling him move towards her.
‘I’m not the marrying type of man. You always knew that, Rose. Why couldn’t you have just accepted the parameters and appreciated the fact that I asked you to live with me? It’s as good as…’
Rose took a deep breath and looked at him. She had her arms folded and she could feel her fingernails pressing painfully into her forearms. If they weren’t she was sure that she would be shaking like a leaf. ‘Because,’ she said calmly, and where that dreadful calm came from she had no idea, ‘marriage is all about commitment. Real commitment. Not just the “yes, let’s stay together while the going’s good” variety.’
‘My commitment’s always been to my work,’ Nick told her baldly. ‘You’re the closest I have ever come to sharing myself with another human being, but marriage…’
‘Just one step too far?’ Rose laughed mirthlessly and walked towards the front door.
There was a flat, cold feeling inside her, but, strangely, she was still glad that she had said what she had said, given it her best shot, so to speak. She didn’t think he would be back now. In his mind, he would have opened a Pandora’s box and, having slammed the lid back shut, he would never make the mistake of reopening it.
‘We could have had fun.’ His voice was cold and accusatory.
Rose shrugged and opened the door. ‘Have a good life, Nick.’
She didn’t watch him leave. Instead she closed the door quietly and leaned against it. She could hear the deep revving of his car as he pulled away from the kerb and then the sound of the engine was replaced by silence and she made her way up the stairs, into the bathroom, so that she could have a shower.
When she lay in bed, she replayed in her head this last night spent together. Before, even in the aftermath of Borneo and thinking that things were finally over for good, there had been, she realised now, an element of hope and a certain restless dissatisfaction. Now, there was closure. It made her neither happy nor unhappy. She just felt dead inside.
Life would carry on and it did. On the surface, Rose functioned as she always had. Competent and reliable at work, sociable enough with her circle of friends.
Breaking out of the mould was well and truly abandoned. The only surprise was her sister’s reaction. Lily was disproportionately upset at the turn of events and that touched Rose.
‘You’ll get over it, Lily,’ she laughed wryly down the phone. ‘And so will I. In a year’s time, we’ll both see this as just another experience in the great adventure that is life.’ She couldn’t stand the thought that the damage done was irreparable. Surely not. Broken hearts mended, didn’t they? Every magazine assured her of that.
But six weeks down the road, and Rose still found it hard to find a way through the dense fog of misery. She felt like a robot, going through the motions while underneath everything wilted and shrivelled away and died.
She had no idea what Nick was doing and she avoided buying any tabloids just in case she was tempted to open up those scurrilous gossip pages where she might see a picture of him cavorting with another redhead, mark two. Mark one might have been a distraction, but mark two would certainly have been the truly-narrow-escape replacement.
In the midst of this never-ending battle with her torn emotions and the sheer effort needed to carry on going to work, socialising with friends and pretending that all was well in the world of Rose Taylor, the dawning realisation that something else was very wrong took a little while to filter through.
When it did, the fragile glue that was binding her daily life together dissolved like wax in a flame and the truly sickening question reared its ugly head.
What on earth was she to do now?
ROSE was on her way up to see him. Right now. At three in the afternoon. Right here. In his office.
Nick had no idea what she wanted. It had been nearly two months since he had set eyes on her and he had daily told himself that her disappearance from his life was the best thing that could have happened. He told himself that he had offered her the unthinkable and she had turned him down, proving his theory that women, each and every one of them, were out to change the men they purported to care about.
He had replayed countless times in his head that moment when she had told him that she was in love with him. If she were in love with him, he thought, why couldn’t she have accepted what he had offered?
Because her aim had been to turn him into the domesticated animal that he was not and never would be.
It was a source of constant and relentless frustration that he still couldn’t dismiss her from his head, where she had taken up residence and refused to budge.
He knew that his work was being affected. Not his ability to work, which was part and parcel of the essence of him, but his demeanour at work.
More than once he had been tempted to call her, but he hadn’t and he never would. Pride would never allow him to pick up that phone and dial her number.
But, and this was the thought that haunted him late at night when there was nothing to distract him, he longed for her. He wanted her loving him. He missed her. And he didn’t know why.
Now his secretary had buzzed up that there was a certain Rose Taylor in reception, asking if she could come up and see him, and for the first time in weeks Nick felt a curious sense of peace. He immediately told his secretary that he was busy, that she might have to wait for half an hour while he wrapped up his conference call, but that he could squeeze her in after that.
Okay, it was childish of him, but she had always managed to turn him into a kid.
Then he sat back in his massive black leather chair, swivelled it to face the floor-to-ceiling plates of glass that overlooked the city of London, and turned his mind to what she wanted.
It could only be one thing. She had had ample time to think about his proposal and she had come to her senses. Nick contemplated the idea with intense satisfaction. He would even be tempted to say that he felt elated. He would have her back in his life, would have her sharp wit and clever mind and sexy body, and there would be no more talk about trying to infiltrate his life by putting a ring on his finger.
She loved him. Of course she would return. It was to be expected and Nick felt warm with the anticipation of having her back. Course, he would have to make it clear that his views hadn’t changed. That a mistress was a far cry from a wife and matrimony was not on the agenda, but he didn’t anticipate a problem.
After forty minutes, he buzzed through to his secretary to tell her that she could send Rose up now, and then he relaxed back, facing