‘Is that why you feel you have to prove something with this deal?’
‘Damn right it is.’ Lex turned to face her at last. ‘When I told him about taking over Grant’s, my father said that Grant wouldn’t sell. He said he’d approached him before, and they couldn’t make it work, so I wouldn’t be able to pull it off either. Talking is a big effort for him nowadays, and his speech is slurred, but he made sure I got that message. It won’t work, he said.’
Lex’s jaw was clenched. ‘I’m going to go back and tell him that Grant will sell, that it will work. I want him to know that he was wrong, and that Gibson & Grieve is bigger and better without him.’
CHAPTER FIVE
ROMY bit her lip. ‘Lex, he’s very ill. Making him admit that he was wrong won’t make you feel any better.’
‘It’s not about feeling, said Lex angrily. ‘It’s about doing what’s best for the company. And signing this deal with Grant is the best thing for Gibson & Grieve.’
‘So…?’ Romy’s dark eyes were wary.
‘So let’s not disillusion him.’ Lex made up his mind so abruptly that he couldn’t believe that he had been hesitating. Surely it had been obvious?
He pulled the curtain back across the window and came to join Romy and Freya at the table.
‘You’ve told me it makes a difference to Willie if we’re together or not, and if that’s the case I’m not prepared to risk him changing his mind. If we start bleating on about separate rooms and not really being a couple, it’ll just be embarrassing for everybody.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Romy.
‘What does it matter if Willie thinks we’re a couple?’ Lex, talking himself into the whole idea, made the mistake of looking at Freya, who smiled at him through a mouthful of banana. He averted his eyes quickly. ‘It’ll only be for a night. How hard can that be?’
‘As long as he doesn’t ask too many personal questions.’ Romy thought she should inject a note of caution, but Lex was committed now.
‘We’re going to talk business tonight,’ he said. ‘If Willie is really concerned about getting the best deal for Grant’s Supersavers, he’ll have more important questions to ask.’
How hard could it be? Lex had asked, and at the time it had seemed all quite straightforward. The deal was within his grasp. He and Romy would have dinner with Willie Grant. They would discuss the arrangements and come to a gentleman’s agreement, and the deal would be done. The next day, he and Romy would return to London. Romy would go back to Acquisitions, Freya would go to the crèche that he had had no idea existed, and he could tell his father that he had succeeded where he never could.
Simple.
Only he hadn’t counted on the intimacy of sharing a room with Romy. Lex flipped open his computer to check the markets, while Romy had a bath with Freya, but it was impossible to concentrate with the squeals and splashes and laughter coming out of the bathroom. Romy’s vividly coloured outfit hung on the wardrobe door, and her perfume lingered distractingly in the air, coiling around his mind and making the Dow Jones Index dance in front of his eyes.
Worse was to come. The door opened, and Romy came out, carrying Freya. ‘I found this behind the door,’ she said, gesturing down at the towelling robe. ‘I hope no one will mind if I use it.’
‘I’m sure they won’t.’ Lex’s voice came out as a humiliating rasp, and he cleared his throat and scowled at the screen. Much good it did him. There might as well have been a photo of Romy there instead, her skin glowing, her hair damp to her shoulders, her face alight with joy in her daughter….
Romy threw a towel on the floor and laid Freya on it. ‘There’s not much room in the bathroom,’ she explained over her shoulder, ‘so I thought it would be easier to dry her out here. It’s all yours.’
Of course, what he should have done was get up straight away and have a shower, but instead Lex sat on at the computer, pretending to himself that he was working, forcing his eyes back to the screen whenever they drifted over to where Romy was kissing Freya’s toes and blowing raspberries on her tummy while Freya shrieked with delighted laughter and clutched at her mother’s hair.
Lex knew exactly how silky it would feel in Freya’s fingers. He knew how it felt tickling his skin, and memory hit him like a blow to his diaphragm: the hitch in his chest at Romy’s pliant warmth in his arms, her soft laughter in his ear, her kisses drifting down his throat, down, down, down. All at once he lost track of his breathing. It got all muddled up with the twist of his guts and the vice around his chest and he had to force his lungs back to order.
Inflate, deflate. In, out. In, out. Slow, steady.
No problem. There was no need to panic. There was plenty of oxygen.
Lex switched off the computer. There was little point in sitting there staring at nothing.
‘I’ll go and have a shower then.’ Even to his own ears his voice sounded unfamiliar.
Romy looked up briefly. ‘Good idea. I’m going to take Freya down to the kitchen and warm some milk for her.’
She wasn’t bothered by the intimacy of the situation at all, Lex realised, chagrined. She was too absorbed in her baby to think about him.
To remember Paris.
To wonder about that four poster bed or where he would sleep.
Frankly, it was a relief when Romy and Freya had gone. Lex showered and shaved and reminded himself what they were doing there. This was business. The deal was what mattered, and it was almost within his grasp. This was not the time to get distracted by silky hair or bare feet or joyous laughter.
By the time Romy came back with a sleepy Freya, Lex had himself back under control. He was buttoning a dark blue shirt when she knocked lightly and opened the door.
‘Don’t worry, I’m decent,’ he said with a sardonic look. ‘Although I’m not sure there’d be much point in being shy even if I wasn’t. It’s not as if we haven’t seen each other’s bodies before.’
That was better, Lex told himself. He sounded indifferent, as if he hadn’t even noticed that she had been naked beneath that towelling robe earlier. As if it would never occur to him to think about touching her, tasting her.
Romy had set the cot up in a corner. She laid Freya down and switched off the lamps nearby, glad of the excuse to dim the light and hide the colour staining her cheeks.
‘That was a long time ago,’ she reminded him uncomfortably. ‘We’re different people now.’
She just wished she felt different. It had been bad enough when Lex was sitting there at his computer, but now he was tucking his shirt into his trousers, doing up his cuffs, slinging a tie around his neck, as if they were a real couple getting ready to go out for the evening.
But if they were a real couple, she could go over to Lex and slide her arms around his waist. She could kiss his newly shaved jaw and run her fingers through his damp hair.
She could tug the shirt out of his trousers once more and slide her hands over his bare chest.
Make him smile, feel his arms close around her.
Whisper that there was time before they had to leave. Time to hold each other. Time to touch. Time to make love.
Romy swallowed hard. There was no time now. That time was past.
‘I’d better change.’
Wincing