A Daring Proposition
Miranda Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

SAMANTHA stood in front of the large black desk, feeling sick with nerves. Her wide hazel eyes were fixed on the man seated behind the desk, on his darkly elegant head as it bowed to read the letter she had given him only moments before.

Impossible to gauge what his exact reaction to her resignation would be. But Guy Haywood had been her boss for five years and Samantha knew him far too well to hope to get off lightly in this matter.

His right index finger was tapping with apparent nonchalance on the desk as he appeared to re-read the letter. Any second now, she thought with increasing trepidation. Any second...

His chin came up slowly, his tanned and very handsome face dominated by piercing blue eyes. ‘Is this your idea of a joke, Sam?’ His voice was rich and very male, like the rest of him. ‘Might I remind you that April Fool’s Day was last week?’

‘It’s no joke, Guy,’ she said with a composure that belied the butterflies in her stomach.

Again he looked at her with a bemused air. ‘You really want to leave?’ His tone suggested that such an event was impossible.

Oh, God, she thought despairingly. Of course I don’t really want to leave. I love you, you fool. Can’t you see that? Haven’t you ever noticed?

She smothered a sigh. Of course he hadn’t noticed. Why should he? She hadn’t realised it herself till a year after coming to work for him, a wee bit late to start batting her eyelashes and giving him the come-on. Not that such a tack would have worked.

By then Samantha knew exactly what sort of woman her swinging bachelor boss was attracted to. She had to be blonde, preferably petite, definitely slender to the point of anorexic. If she had a brain, he didn’t like it to be too much on display when in his company. Above all, she had to realise that his relationship with her was only semi-permanent and strictly sexual. Marriage and family commitments were not part of Guy Haywood’s life plan.

As a statuesque brunette who couldn’t bear to act dumb and wanted one day to marry and have children, Samantha had to accept she didn’t quite fit the bill.

She should have left straight away once she had realised the awful truth, but love had a way of making one weak, and she’d hung in there, half hoping that during one of Guy’s brief celibate stints between affairs he might notice what was right under his nose, might even change his mind about what he wanted in life.

Four years had gone by. Four years and a good few blondes.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing was ever going to change!

Her spine straightened.

‘Yes,’ she lied determinedly. ‘I really want to leave.’

He leant back in the black leather swivel chair, his elbows on the aluminium arm rests, fingertips meeting at chest level. His eyes never left her. Light blue and clear as a cloudless spring sky, they had a range of expressions from charming to chilling.

Samantha did not feel charmed at that moment.

‘Why?’ he asked in that ultra-reasonable tone he adopted when he was at his most annoyed and trying to control it. Guy valued self-control above all else. It was the reason he had hired her in the first place, claiming that he liked her countrified air of no-nonsense down-to-earth practicality. He had wanted no female hysterics in his office!

Well, this practical, down-to-earth female did a highly emotional thing, she wanted to fling at him. She fell in love with her boss! Don’t you find that hysterical?

‘I’ve decided to go back home to live,’ she stated calmly.

His face showed he didn’t believe her, not for a minute. ‘You want to go back to Paddy’s Plains to live?’ he scoffed. ‘To a bush town with a population of one hundred and thirteen from which you were only too happy to escape?’

For a second Samantha regretted all those coffee breaks they had shared when he had elicited far too much of her background. Paddy’s Plains wasn’t quite as small as he suggested, but it wasn’t much bigger. As a teenager she’d had to travel twenty miles to the next town to go to high school. Naturally, Guy would be suspicious of her wanting to go back to a life she’d admitted finding much too narrow and which offered her no employment opportunity other than serving behind the counter in her parents’ general store. But it was the only excuse she could think of.

She took a deep breath and let it out evenly. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I need a break. I’m tired of the rat race. I’m tired of Sydney.’

‘Then take a week off.’

He wasn’t going to let her quit, she thought with a wild mixture of panic and pleasure.

Don’t you dare weaken, an inner voice berated. You’ll regret it. Remember dear, sweet Debra yesterday? Long blonde hair, eyes like limpid pools, as slender as a willow branch. Guy’s taking her out tonight to dinner and a show. They made plans in this very office, in front of you. Will you be able to stand it when he gives up smoking again tomorrow, as he does every time he starts a new affair? You’ve stood it for far too long, dying inside every time it happens. Soon you’ll be dead!

Her teeth clenched hard in her jaw. ‘A week won’t do it,’ she countered tautly. ‘Besides, I—’

‘If it’s money, you can have a raise,’ he cut in coldly.

‘It’s not money,’ she returned, the beginnings of fluster sending heat into her cheeks. Oh, why couldn’t he let her resign with dignity?

He snapped forward on the chair, the action sending a lock of his dark brown hair on to his high wide forehead. He scooped it back with an angry sweep of his hand and set exasperated eyes upon her. ‘Damn it all, Sam!’ he pronounced, angry now and showing it for once. ‘You and I know that this job is your life almost as much as it’s mine. You don’t want to go back to that tinpot town. You’re a city girl now. A career girl. You’d go mad out there in the bush. You’d be bored to tears within days!’

He stood up then and strode around the desk, putting firm hands on her shoulders and turning her to face him. Her whole insides tightened, as they did whenever he touched her, even accidentally.

‘Sam,’ he said in a voice so unexpectedly tender that it brought a lump to her throat, ‘take some time off, if that’s what you want, but please...’ his lips pulled back in a smile designed to melt any woman’s heart ‘...don’t desert the ship. You’re my first mate, and this captain needs you.’

That almost did it. Telling a woman that you needed her was almost as persuasive as saying you loved her.

But not quite.

‘No, Guy.’ Samantha swallowed down the lump and lifted her chin. ‘I’ve given you two months’ notice, plenty of time to break in someone new so that I can leave without any hitches. If you like I’ll ask Mrs Walton if she’s interested. I know she wants to work somewhere full-time, and she’s already familiar with the layout here.’

Guy’s hands dropped from her shoulders and he fairly scowled. ‘That stupid woman is hard pushed to answer the phone. She’s a complete ditherbrain!’

‘No, she’s not,’ Samantha defended. ‘She’s very intelligent. Have a heart, Guy. She’s been out of the work-force for years and only had a few weeks retraining before the agency put her on as a temp. I felt very sorry for her getting someone as demanding as you for a boss on her first job. You frightened the life out of her. If I hadn’t had to go home for my brother’s wedding that week I wouldn’t have.’

‘Pity you did!’ he grumbled. ‘The place was a mess by the time you got back. That woman couldn’t possibly do your job on a regular basis. You’re more than a secretary, dammit. You’re my personal assistant, my right-hand man, my... Hell, Sam, I can’t do without you!’ he announced in an aggrieved tone.

‘No one’s indispensable,’ she returned quietly.

He glared at her calm demeanour, then spun away to stalk back to his chair, more agitated than Samantha had ever seen him before.

But there was no real satisfaction in having disturbed his equilibrium for once. He was temporarily put out, that was all. Irritated that his well-run ship was sailing into some rough weather for a while. But in the end he would survive, would go on as though she had never made a single wave in his life.

The pain of it all was a knife twisting in Samantha’s heart. Loving someone who didn’t love you back, who wasn’t even aware of you as a member of the opposite sex, was sheer torture.

‘Well, you’ve certainly picked a fine time to leave me in the lurch,’ he muttered as he glared up at her once more. ‘I’ve just booked the Dambusters for an Australian tour next summer. You know how much organising goes into a tour for a popular rock band like that. They want to make a music video while they’re here as well, something I was going to discuss with you at a later date, but...’

He shrugged, looking oddly lost, and Samantha almost weakened.

But only almost.

‘I’ll still be here for two months,’ she reasoned. ‘Plenty of time to make all the bookings for the tour. And, since you won’t consider Mrs Walton, I’ll let the head-hunters know you’re on the look-out for a new secretary.’

‘I don’t want a new secretary,’ he growled, sounding and looking like a sulky little boy.

Samantha almost laughed as she watched his bottom lip pout slightly, his very sexy bottom lip. It was hard to believe at times that he was thirty-six, he was so young-looking, with very few lines around his eyes and mouth. But then, a man was always a boy, her mother had used to say, till he became a father. Something this particular male would go to great pains to avoid, Samantha thought drily.

Guy spotted her cynical amusement, and immediately any hint of boyishness disappeared, replaced by the implacable face of the man who hadn’t become a highly successful showbiz agent and entrepreneur by being soft.

He picked up her letter of resignation and ripped it asunder, depositing the pieces in the waste-paper basket beside him. ‘Let’s not hear any more of this nonsense, Sam,’ he pronounced belligerently. ‘You’ve made your point. I’ve been working you too hard. Take a fortnight off starting next Monday and there’ll be another five grand a year in your pay-packet as from today.’

Samantha was taken aback for a moment. This type of bullying, high-handed tactic was not one Guy ever used with his business associates. He usually got his way with either cool logic or latherings of charm. He was never aggressive. Aggression, he’d always claimed, bred aggression.

It certainly did in this case.

She drew herself up straight and glared at him. ‘I don’t think I have made my point. You certainly haven’t got it, anyway! Two months, Guy,’ she bit out. ‘Tear up another letter of mine like that and it will be two minutes, tour or no bloody tour!’

She had the satisfaction of seeing Guy literally gape at her. The prim and proper Miss Samantha Peters, swearing? His cool, calm and collected secretary, losing her temper? Unheard of!

If she’d had her hair loose she could have tossed her head as she turned to make a dramatic exit. As it was, with her long brown waves tamed into her usual coiled bun, she had to settle for swinging on her sensible heels and marching out of his office into hers, pulling the intervening door shut with a resounding bang.

Guy made no attempt to follow her or call her back. Running after tantrum-throwing secretaries was not his style.

Samantha was shaking when she finally sat down at her own desk. Literally shaking.

You’ve done the right thing, she kept telling herself. The only thing. You couldn’t have gone on indefinitely, trying to hide your feelings, putting up with the agony of his indifference just to savour the dubious pleasure of his company. It was self-destructive and demeaning. It was...futile.

Yes, she decided with a shuddering sigh. You’ve done the right thing.

Sixty seconds later she was in her private washroom, bawling her eyes out.

* * *

The traffic crawled across the bridge the following morning, bumper to bumper. Samantha checked her watch, accepted she would probably be late, then turned her head to gaze resignedly through the window of the bus down at the harbour below.

Not quite postcard material today, she thought wearily as another squall of rain dumped itself on Sydney. Really, wasn’t it ever going to stop raining?

It was cold too. Far too cold for April. Anyone would think it was the dead of winter, instead of mid-autumn.

She rubbed a circle on the window to clear the mist on the glass, and could just make out the opera house in the distance. It looked uncustomarily dismal and grey, the sails of its roof huddling on Benelong Point like wet droopy birds. Closer in, a ferry chugged to a halt at the quay, spilling darkly raincoated people out on to the wet pier.

Samantha sighed. How depressing it all looked. Which was the last thing she needed this morning. The only consolation to having to face another day with Guy was that it was Friday. She really needed two days away from him.

Yesterday had proved to be a dreadful strain. He had called her back into the office eventually, but he hadn’t tried to talk her out of leaving. Instead he had made a surprising apology, then insisted they go through all the files together, checking on every person, act or group that he managed, seeing what they were doing at that moment and what could be lined up for them in the immediate future. His attitude had been matter-of-fact and businesslike. Clearly he had accepted the situation and wanted to get the ship shipshape before his ‘first mate’ set off for other horizons.

His easy acceptance of her leaving upset Samantha terribly. So did their meticulous going through the files. With each file memories were thrown up to her, memories that held a disturbing amount of recalled pleasure.

How could she have forgotten that her life over the past five years had been filled with all sorts of exciting and rewarding events? What about the shows she had been to that involved singers and musicians Guy had managed? The premières, the parties afterwards? What of all the interesting, larger-than-life people she had met? The challenges she had had to rise to? The satisfaction she had felt when something she had personally organised had gone off without a hitch?

When she left Haywood Promotions she would leave not just Guy, but a way of life. What would she do? Where would she go?

Oh, she didn’t doubt she could get another job in Sydney, but could she bear to be in the same city as the man she loved and not be a part of his life? Guy was a high-profile personality. He would be on television, in newspapers and magazines, probably with a stunning blonde in tow.

Samantha grimaced, remembering his date with Debra last night. She was a relatively successful singer on the local club circuit who had come to Guy, ostensibly seeking him as a new manager. One hour after walking into his life she had looked like becoming his next lover.

Would she have gone to bed with Guy on their first date? Samantha wondered bitterly.

Nothing surer, came back the cruel answer.

Her heart squeezed tight.

‘Excuse me, but don’t you get out here?’

Samantha jolted out of her mental agony, throwing the woman seated next to her a startled look before recognising her as a regular on this particular bus. Her eyes snapped back to see that they had long left the bridge and were standing at the King Street junction. Luckily the lights were red at that moment so the bus couldn’t move off.

‘Gosh, yes, I do,’ Samantha gasped, snatching up her umbrella and jumping to her feet. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘No trouble. You’d better hurry, though. The lights will change soon.’

They did. Just as Samantha made it to the back platform. The bus lurched forward and she half jumped, half fell off, landing in a gutter that was doing a good imitation of the Grand Canyon rapids in full flood.

It was all she could do to keep her balance as the torrent surged around her ankles, splashing up her legs and under her skirt. She swayed and yelped. People were streaming by along the pavement, shoulders hunched, heads down, umbrellas jammed down low. But no one stopped to help. No one cared.

‘Who could ever want to live in this heartless place?’ she muttered, and stomped out of the raging torrent, unleashing her automatic umbrella with a vicious snap.

You do, came the dampening answer.

Infuriated with herself more than the rain, Samantha joined the trampling herd and eventually made it across George and Pitt Street, up through Martin Place then left down Elizabeth Street to the building that housed Guy’s office. The rain eased off as soon as she pushed through the circular glass doors, making her mutter several reproachful words to higher authorities.

Not that He would take any notice, Samantha thought crossly. Look at all the prayers she had said on a certain other matter! She might as well have been praying to win the lotto, for all the results she’d had.

Soaked and very irritated, Samantha marched across the huge black and white tiled foyer and stuffed herself into one of the crowded lifts, jabbing the floor-fourteen button with the end of her umbrella. Living in the city, she decided, wasn’t conducive to maintaining the sweet, Christian-like nature she’d had as a child.

Well, she rethought more honestly as the lift heaved its cargo upwards, one shuddering floor at a time. Perhaps I never was exactly sweet...

The memory of herself at high school flooded back, bringing with it the remembered agony of her adolescence. On the surface she had maintained the quiet, reserved, ladylike façde that her mother’s strict country upbringing had imparted to her. Underneath she had longed to break out, to scream at her classmates who had cruelly nicknamed her Amazon Sam, to rant and rave against the body Mother Nature had given her. No wonder she and poor skinny, pimply Norman had gravitated towards each other. They had been the misfits in their class. The uglies.

Samantha smiled wryly to herself in the corner of the lift as she thought of her graduation dance. She’d looked as good as she could that night, all done up and dressed in a pretty mauve dress that had minimised her figure faults. Norman had looked surprisingly good as well, his well-tailored suit giving him shoulders, the night-light softening the effect of his bad skin.

Had it been her improved appearance or the promise of imminent freedom from the torture of school that had made her act so recklessly later in the evening?

Samantha sighed as floor nine came and went. Be honest, she told herself. You know precisely why you let Norman go ‘all the way.’ He started telling you you were beautiful and that he loved you.

Now, no other boys had ever said either of those things to Samantha. At five feet ten inches tall and carrying far too many pounds during her teenage years, she had not been the femme fatale of her school.

Norman’s protestations of everlasting love had been very disarming.

Only later had Samantha realised what a crazy thing she had done, giving her virginity so carelessly. She hadn’t even enjoyed it! Could hardly even remember it happening, it had been over so fast. Never again, she had vowed. Never again!

It had been difficult, though, to convince Norman she didn’t love him, and it had been a relief when at the end of summer she had gone to live with her widowed Aunt Vonnie in far-away coastal Newcastle while she did a secretarial course.

Samantha shook her head fondly as she thought of her Aunt Vonnie. It had been her aunt who had directed her towards more sensible eating habits, which had trimmed down her bulk to more graceful proportions, her aunt who had paid for her deportment lessons, her aunt who’d overridden parental objection when she’d wanted to find a career in Sydney.

Samantha had been ever so grateful to her at the time. Now she wasn’t so sure. If she hadn’t come to Sydney, hadn’t answered that newspaper advertisement which had ended up with her sharing a flat with gorgeous blonde Lana, hadn’t met Guy that ghastly night when Lana had been supposed to go to Jesus Christ Superstar with him and stood him up...

‘Don’t you get out here?’ someone said for the second time that day.

Samantha bit her lip and muttered sheepish thanks to the man holding the doors open for her. This would never do, she told herself as she squelched along the green-carpeted corridor. What did it matter what she’d done all those years ago or how she’d come to be in Sydney in the first place? Her problem was getting through today, through having to watch Guy breeze in all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, without a cigarette in sight.

She stopped at the door furthest along on the left and fished around in her handbag for her set of office keys. Finding them, she inserted the heaviest one, turned the lock and extracted the key. She was about to go in when she stopped and stared at the gilt lettering on the door. ‘HAYWOOD PROMOTIONS,’ it said on the top line. ‘GUY HAYWOOD—MANAGING DIRECTOR.’

She could vividly recall the day they had moved into this office, the feeling of excited relief at having a real place to work in after many difficult months of trying to help Guy run his expanding business from the front room of his terraced house in Paddington.

He had taken her out to dinner after work as a reward for staying on late. Tired and hungry, she had gone, without thinking of any possible consequences.

Not that Guy hadn’t been a perfect gentleman. He had. But it had been the first time Samantha had been exposed to the relaxed, social animal her boss became during his leisure hours, so different from the demanding, often distracted dynamo she dealt with during the day.

She’d always thought him attractive, admiring his elegant dark looks as well as his tall, athletic build. But she had never before felt the impact of his sex appeal, which had hit her in waves from across the table as he’d automatically slipped into the mode of charming dinner companion. He hadn’t realised what effect he was having on her, she was sure, but by the end of the night her feelings had taken an irreversible change of direction, her respectful admiration being overwhelmed by a love that was to grow deeper and deeper with the passing of time.

Controlling a rush of emotion, Samantha opened the door and went inside, shutting the door quickly behind her. She leant against it for a moment, then looked up at the clock on the far wall. Five past nine. Not too late. Still plenty of time to get herself under control and organised before Guy made his usual appearance somewhere between nine-thirty and ten.

She would have to hurry, though, and dashed a rebel tear from her cheek. She didn’t want to look flustered or upset when Guy arrived. She wanted to be every inch her usual competent self. All she could salvage from this situation was her pride and, by golly, she was going to leave here with it intact.

Taking a deep breath, she walked briskly across the reception area, dumping her handbag on her chair before continuing on into the small room which doubled as a kitchenette-store-room. There, she propped her umbrella in a corner, hung her raincoat on a wall peg, then stripped off her wet tights and shoes, replacing them with spares she kept in an old filing cabinet.

Once the kettle was on the boil for a much needed cup of coffee she went into the adjoining washroom to make repairs to her face and hair.

The reflection that confronted Samantha would not have won cover-girl of the year. But neither would it have got the wooden spoon award for looks. She had good skin and a balanced bone-structure, clear hazel eyes, a straight nose, well-shaped lips and an elegant neck, shown to perfection by the way she always wore her hair up.

Samantha was well aware that she could probably cut a more striking appearance if she let her long, wavy brown hair flow out over her shoulders, if she replaced her light natural make-up with a more dramatic look, then dolled herself up in figure-hugging feminine frippery, rather than the tailored suits and blouses she chose to wear. Even when going out at night she didn’t wear sexy evening gear, opting for trousers—usually black—and silk shirts in neutral colours. But she was comfortable the way she was, and felt foolish and self-conscious whenever she tried a different look.

A sardonic smile crossed her lips as she tried to picture how Guy would react if she came into the office wearing a flashily styled, brightly coloured dress.

Her heart turned over at the thought that he might not notice a single thing.

The sound of a door opening and shutting made her jump. Surely it couldn’t be Guy this early?

She hurried from the washroom and gawped at the sight of her boss leaning against the kitchenette doorway and looking not at all well. Shocked eyes ran over his dishevelled appearance. He hadn’t shaved; no comb had touched his hair. And his charcoal-grey suit looked as if he’d slept in it.

‘My God, Guy, what’s happened to you?’ she blurted out.

CHAPTER TWO

GUY remained grimly silent, levering himself away from the door-jamb and scooping a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. Samantha stared in amazement. Surely he wasn’t going to smoke, was he? He certainly wouldn’t if his date with sexy Debra had reached its logical conclusion. In bed.

Samantha watched with heartbeat suspended as he extracted the last cigarette from the gold box and shoved it in his mouth. He tossed the empty container in the direction of the waste-paper basket in the corner. It fell in, a perfect goal.

Her heart started thudding as he fished his lighter out of his trouser pocket, flicked it to flame and lit the cigarette, snapping the lighter shut afterwards and drawing in deeply.

Her relief was so gut-wrenching that she felt like crying. Oh, God! What had she come to with this man?

‘Dad’s in hospital,’ he said abruptly. ‘Heart attack. He’s in Intensive Care.’

Samantha’s heart twisted with dismay and guilt. There she’d been, consumed with Guy’s sex life, and he had spent the night worrying at his father’s possible deathbed.

‘Oh, how awful for you,’ she cried. She knew how close he and his father were. Mr Haywood senior was always popping in to the office for a chat with his son, and Guy often went fishing with him at weekends. He would be devastated if his dad died. He already looked devastated.

Samantha wanted to hug him, hold him, comfort him. But how could she? All she could do was try to say the right things. ‘I hope he’ll be all right,’ she added gently. ‘What hospital is he in?’

‘St Vincent’s.’

‘Well, that’s the best place he could be,’ she soothed. ‘What do the doctors say? What are his chances?’

Guy heaved a weary sigh. Smoke curled around his head. ‘They’re reservedly hopeful. Apparently if you survive the first few hours after the initial attack you have a good chance of a complete recovery. At least, that’s the theory,’ he added with a caustic edge to his voice. ‘He looks like death warmed up.’

‘You don’t look much better.’ Samantha walked over to the small kitchen counter next to the sink and turned off the boiling kettle. ‘Let me get you some coffee.’

He flashed her a grateful glance. ‘Thanks. It’s been a long night. It was after midnight when the call came from the hospital. Debra and I had just got back to my place after the show. We raced straight to the hospital. I’ve been there ever since. The doctor finally insisted I go home, but I didn’t want to go back to an empty house.’

‘Empty?’ She looked up from where she was spooning instant coffee into two brown stoneware mugs. ‘Why is it empty?’

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.

‘But never you fear,’ he called after her. ‘I’ll work it out. In the end I’ll know just why you’re leaving me. And it’s got nothing to do with needing a break or... Good God!’

She spun round at his shocked tone, only to find herself staring not at his startled expression, but at his completely naked torso. Desperately she lifted her eyes up to his, but the damage had been done, and her peripheral vision was still taking in far too much taut male flesh.

She was panic-stricken at the directions her mind kept taking. Surely her thoughts and feelings must be showing in her face, her eyes?

‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’ he accused.

She was wildly tempted to laugh in his face. Instead she put her energies into trying to get a hold of her thoughts. The exercise was not entirely successful.

‘No, Guy,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m not pregnant.’

He looked relieved, then annoyed with himself. ‘No. Stupid of me. You wouldn’t be. Not you. Sorry.’ He yawned, spreading out the blanket with a flick of his wrists. ‘I guess I’m not thinking straight this morning. I’ll talk to you about it again tomorrow, make you see reason.’

‘Tomorrow’s Saturday,’ she pointed out curtly.

‘Oh...so it is.’ He crawled in under the blanket and laid down his head with a sigh. ‘Monday, then. Wake me around two, will you, Sam, like a good girl?’

She woke him at one because a call had come through from the hospital that his father’s tests had shown massive blockages of the arteries. The doctor needed immediate permission for a triple bypass. Without it, the chance of a second fatal attack was inevitable and imminent.

Samantha offered to accompany Guy to the hospital but he insisted she stay and hold the fort at the office. In truth, she was glad about this decision, for it gave her the opportunity to regather her defences where he was concerned.

Truly, she was getting worse! Never before had her love for him deteriorated into being so openly lustful. Of course, she had fantasised making love to him, but in the privacy of her night-time dreams, not here in the office. Neither had her fantasies been so blatantly sexual before. They’d always been loving and romantic, sweet and tender.

There’d been nothing sweet and tender in what she had wanted this morning on sighting Guy’s bare chest. Her desires had been very basic, to say the least. And they hadn’t completely receded either. The encounter had left her feeling physically restless, definitely agitated, decidedly angry.

She had been up and down ever since Guy had left the office, walking around, making coffee, staring out of windows, watching the rain.

This was sexual arousal such as she had never felt before, she admitted in the end. The sort of sexual arousal one read about but never envisaged feeling oneself. Intense...compelling...oddly without conscience.

It kept urging her not to run away from her job and her feelings, not to take any notice of things like pride and self-respect. You want this man, a wicked little voice whispered in her ear. If you can’t win his love then settle for his lovemaking. And you haven’t got a hope in Hades of getting even that if you leave. He’ll forget you as quickly as he forgot Debra. If you want something in this world, girl, you have to go after it!

For a few seconds she felt high on a surge of positive thinking, but she was quickly dumped down, swamped by reality, rather than daydreams. How could she successfully seduce a man who had never shown any signs of being sexually attracted to her? It seemed an impossible problem.

She sat back down at her desk and thought and thought.

So what if he’s never thought of you in that way before? she finally resolved. You’re a reasonably attractive woman, aren’t you? He’s a highly sexed man, with needs that aren’t being met at this moment. You could meet them, couldn’t you? All you have to do is convince him how convenient it would be for you to be his mistress. Good heavens, men are doing it all the time, sleeping with their secretaries. And love rarely comes into it on their side. It was mostly nothing more than a sexual convenience, from what she had seen and heard.

The word ‘convenience’ stuck out like a sore thumb in Samantha’s mind. That was the hook which would appeal to Guy most of all.

It came to her quite abruptly, the daring proposition.

What, she thought, wide-eyed and heart thudding, would Guy say if I offered to stay on as his secretary, provided he became my lover?

She could see it now. He would be initially surprised, then thoughtful. Finally he would look up and say, ‘Good idea, Sam.’

The phone rang, making her jump as though she had been found with her hand in the biscuit tin. A guilty conscience, she recognised, and snatched up the receiver.

‘Haywood Promotions.’

‘It’s me, Sam.’

She swallowed. Guy... His voice brought home to her that her boss was a flesh and blood man, not a fantasy person who could be made to react as one wanted. This man was one of the most handsome, intelligent, successful, dynamic men in Australia, who could snap his fingers and have just about any woman he wanted. He was not about to be manipulated into an affair by a silly secretary. If she made her ridiculous proposition he would look at her as if she was mad. And probably laugh.

If, by the remotest possibility, he took the proposal seriously he would want to know why. Girls these days could get sex wherever they wanted it. They didn’t have to blackmail their bosses for it.

It wouldn’t take him long to figure out she’d fallen in love with him and, by golly, her exit would come pretty fast after that. Guy Haywood was not in the business of keeping love-struck women in his office, or in his life. She suspected there had been a few ladies in the past who had fancied him as more than a lover and that they had been given short shrift indeed.

The daring proposition went out of the window.

Which was just as well, she thought wretchedly. She wouldn’t have had the guts to do it, anyway.

‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘What do you want?’

‘You sound terrible. Look, Sam, you have to tell me what’s going on with you. It’s bothering me and I can’t wait till Monday. Is it anything I’ve done? For pity’s sake, tell me if it is.’

It’s something you haven’t done, she thought miserably. Why can’t you be a normal boss and make a pass at your secretary? Why can’t you take me out to dinner and then to a motel? I won’t mind. Really I won’t.

‘It’s nothing you’ve done,’ she told him. ‘You’ve been a perfect gentleman to work for.’ Unfortunately...

‘Then what is it, dammit?’

‘It’s exactly as I said, Guy. I want to change the direction of my life. And I want to get out of Sydney.’

‘Aah... Now I get it. It’s a man, isn’t it?’

She hesitated, then decided the truth would do quite well. ‘Yes, Guy. You’re right. It’s a man.’

‘What’s the problem?’ he probed. ‘Is it that he wants you and you don’t want him, or the other way around.’

It perversely amused her that he didn’t use the word ‘love.’ It just wasn’t in his dictionary when it came to man-woman relationships. ‘The other way around,’ she admitted.

Guy digested that for a few seconds. ‘I see... You never talk about your personal life to me, do you? I just realised I don’t know much about you in that regard. Have you been having a...relationship with this man, a...close relationship?’

She smiled wryly to herself. For all Guy’s wordliness, he couldn’t seem to come out with the bare facts in front of her. Truly, did he think that at twenty-five she was a total innocent? Why not ask her straight out if she was sleeping with the man? Still, it gave her the opportunity to mislead him without actually lying. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Very close.’

‘Goddammit, Sam, you haven’t been having an affair with a married man, have you?’

She was taken aback by his shocked, even judgemental tone. That was certainly the kettle calling the pot black. Though to be honest she had never known him to have an affair with a married woman.

‘No, Guy,’ she denied firmly. ‘He’s not married. And never likely to be.’

‘Aah, so that’s it. The blighter won’t marry you.’

‘Not in a million years!’

‘That’s no reason to quit Sydney and a perfectly good job.’

‘I think it is.’

‘I aim to talk you out of going.’

‘You can try. Meanwhile I’ll ring the head-hunters and line some interviews up for you.’

‘Don’t bother,’ he snarled.

‘Guy...’ There was no mistaking her exasperated tone.

‘If I have to I’ll take Mrs Walton,’ he said with a sigh. ‘At least I know her. The last thing I want is one of those ambitious, vampirish secretaries who try to run the show, their boss included.’

‘She’ll be thrilled,’ Samantha said. ‘I’ll ring her right away.’

‘You do that.’ He let out another sigh. ‘God, Sam, hospitals are depressing places.’

‘How is your father?’ she asked with genuine concern. She didn’t know Martin Haywood very well, but what she had seen she couldn’t help liking. He was a charming rogue, just like his son.

‘Not good. The triple bypass is scheduled for tomorrow morning, most unusual for a Saturday, it seems. They only have theatre during the weekend if it’s a life and death matter, so I’m not getting my hopes up.’

‘He’ll have the best of care,’ she reassured.

‘Maybe so. But I feel very pessimistic about it all.’

‘He’s not old, though. What is he? Late fifties?’

‘Fifty-seven. But he’s abused himself over the years. No proper exercise. Wine...women...’

Samantha thought it best not to add anything about the smoking at this moment, knowing Guy himself was probably puffing away like mad at the other end of the line. He always did when he was tense or worried about something.

‘I’ve only just realised I might have to face his dying and, damn it all, Sam, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit!’

He sounded terribly distressed, which made Samantha feel guilty. She’d picked a rotten time to resign on him, but it had to be done, even more so after what had happened earlier today. Out of sight was out of mind, she hoped. And if it was cowardly of her to run away then she was a coward! There was no viable alternative. If there were she would take it.

‘I wish there were something I could do to help,’ she murmured truthfully.

Any normal secretary could have offered to cook him a meal, since his housekeeper was away, but she didn’t dare. Her feelings towards Guy had tipped over a dangerous edge today and it worried her that she wouldn’t always be able to control them. Best she keep well away from him in any social sense. It would be hard enough dampening down these newly wayward desires at work without inviting disaster elsewhere.

‘There’s nothing you can do for me,’ Guy stated, ‘except stay on as my secretary.’

‘Please, Guy, drop it.’

‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘I’ll drop it. For now... See you Monday morning, Sam.’

He hung up.

Monday morning, she mused, replacing the dead receiver. That was three days away. In three days she should have herself firmly under control again.

CHAPTER THREE

AS FATE would have it, Samantha was not to see Guy the following Monday. Or the Tuesday for that matter. His father’s operation had been a technical success, but his recovery less so. He remained in Intensive Care in a coma, with Guy hardly leaving the hospital except to ring the office.

‘You’d think one of those precious ex-wives of his would have shown up to see how he’s faring, wouldn’t you?’ he growled during his second call for Tuesday. It was four-fifteen in the afternoon. ‘I let each one of them know about the operation and they all mouthed meaningless wishes for Dad’s welfare, but not an appearance between the three of them.’

‘You sound tired, Guy,’ Samantha said gently. ‘Why don’t you go home and have a proper night’s sleep?’

‘Can’t.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Dad needs me.’

‘But he’s unconscious,’ she pointed out. ‘You can’t really do anything.’

‘Yes, I can. I can talk to him, let him know it’s important to someone for him to pull through. I’ve read where coma patients can hear more than people realise.’

‘Yes...I’ve read that too.’ Samantha thought it wonderful for a grown man to love his father so much, and would have dearly liked to be by Guy’s side at the hospital, helping him in a more personal way during this time of trial. But a secretary could hardly presume to take such an intimate role and she supposed she was helping by looking after his business in his absence.

‘I’ve lined up the bookings for the tour,’ she said, knowing that talking about work would distract him from his worry for a little while.

‘Already?’

‘Mrs Walton helped me. She came in for a few hours yesterday and today. Of course, I couldn’t get the Entertainment Centre for Sydney. That’s booked out solid for a year. It’ll have to be the racecourse. Open-air stuff. Risky, I know. We’ll have to insure against rain. Oh, and the Midday Show want Frankie for a regular spot. His guest appearance last week was a big hit.’

Frankie Myers was the only comedian Guy handled. Mostly he concentrated on rock singers, musicians and bands. But Frankie was a special case. A Vietnam veteran, he’d initially made a modest living doing a stand-up comedy routine in hotels and clubs. But a growing drinking problem had shown him to be an unreliable gig and, in the end, no one would hire him. He’d been on skid row when Guy had literally tripped over him one night eighteen months ago in the gutter near his home. He’d recognised him, taken him inside, cleaned him up, dried him out and told him he’d make him a success if he gave up drinking for good.

Frankie did just that, and Guy had kept his side of the bargain, helping him update and polish his material and finding him work. But to get a regular spot on the top daytime programme on Australian television would mean unlimited exposure and a guarantee of success.

‘That’s terrific,’ Guy said, his voice smiling. ‘He deserves a break, the poor bastard.’

‘He’d never have done it without your encouragement and help.’

‘True.’ Modesty was not one of Guy’s virtues. ‘Anything else to report?’

‘No. Nothing I can’t handle.’

‘I don’t know when I’ll be in...’

‘Don’t worry. Mrs Walton and I will keep the home fires burning.’

‘You’re a girl in a million, Sam. See you.’

Samantha’s heart turned over as she heard the line go dead. Oh, Guy... You like me. I know you do. And liking can turn to love, given the chance.

Darn it all, she thought with a surge of irritation. Why couldn’t I have been born tiny and blonde?

When the phone rang again twenty minutes later she was about to pack and go home. She looked at the phone with a measure of distaste. She seemed to have spent the whole day on the thing and had had enough.

‘Hayward Promotions?’ she said somewhat impatiently as she snatched it up.

‘It’s your boss again. Guess what? Dad’s conscious. Sam, I think he’s going to make it!’

She let out a shuddering sigh of relief. ‘That’s wonderful, Guy. I’m so happy for you.’

‘I’ll be in first thing in the morning. Well...not quite first thing. Around elevenish. I have some sleep to catch up on.’

He was gone before she could say another word, leaving her with a ridiculous grin on her face. Guy’s happiness would always be her happiness.

What would there be, she worried later as she stepped outside into a still soggy Sydney, to make her happy when she didn’t see him any more?

There seemed to be no answer for her.

The office got back to relative normality after that—if battling to block out one’s dangerously escalating desire for one’s boss could be considered normal.

Guy’s father made rapid improvement. In fact he was discharged from hospital and sent home within two weeks of his becoming conscious, refusing to go to Guy’s place, hiring a private nurse and housekeeper to look after him in his own penthouse apartment. Martin Haywood was not short of a dollar, having made a fortune as an inventor of an engineering process that had revolutionised high-rise building methods.

But, despite his father’s recovery, Samantha could sense something troubling Guy. If he’d regularly tried to persuade her not to leave she might have thought she was the problem, but he seemed to have almost forgotten that soon she’d be gone. Many a time she would go into his office to find him standing at the window across the room, staring blankly out over the building tops. Then when she spoke to him he would turn round, and it would be several seconds before he’d even focus on her.

Not only that, he seemed to have lost all interest in his business, actually cutting down on the people he looked after, calling them and telling them to find another manager. She began to worry that he might not be feeling well himself, but hesitated to ask. He hated that kind of fussing. Besides, she rather fancied it was an emotional problem, not a physical one.

Unless, of course, it was sex, she decided one afternoon when he was particularly distracted. Or the lack of it. He was smoking more than ever, which meant there was no new blonde in his life. Samantha would have known if there were, anyway. All of Guy’s girlfriends were always so besotted with him that they couldn’t leave him alone. There would be phone calls and drop-in visits; luncheon dates; little presents delivered. Odd, that, she always thought. His women liked to give him things, not the other way around. She’d never known Guy to send flowers to a woman in his life.

No, clearly there wasn’t any new dolly-bird helping him make it through the night.

She herself wasn’t sleeping too well either.

Samantha was to find out exactly what was eating at him one Thursday in May, four weeks to the day after she had handed in her resignation. Mrs Walton had gone home after her weekly four hours of apprenticeship, and Samantha was catching up on some correspondence, mostly written confirmation of bookings.

‘Fancy some coffee?’ Guy asked as he wandered out of his office towards her desk.

‘Yes, thanks,’ she answered, looking up. Then wished she hadn’t. She’d forgotten how gorgeous he looked that day, in a navy suit and pale blue shirt. Blue was definitely his colour, seemingly highlighting his striking blue eyes.

Her gaze followed him as he moved past her desk and into the kitchen. It struck her that she had never seen him dressed in anything but a suit, which was surprisingly conventional in this day and age, particularly with someone of Guy’s background.

He’d been a rocker in his younger days, a drummer in a band. Much to his father’s disgust at the time. Apparently Guy had formed the band while doing an engineering degree at university, having so much success with it that the degree had never been finished. When the band had finally broken up a decade later he’d directed his talents and natural intelligence into the managerial side of showbiz, thereby regaining parental approval.

Samantha wondered if his conventional dressing was his way of impressing on his business contacts that his wild old rocker days were a thing of the past. Whatever the reason, he always looked great to Samantha.

Guy wandered back in with the two coffees, placed hers carefully beside her computer, then perched on the far corner of her desk while he sipped his.

‘Thanks again,’ she said, feeling not a hint of premonition. Making her coffee and stopping for a brief chat was something Guy did quite often. The only feeling Samantha was enduring was the hot prickle of sexual awareness that plagued her now whenever he was so physically close. One more month, she thought ruefully as she sipped the coffee, and this type of torture would be over.

‘You know what, Sam?’ he sighed. ‘Life’s a bitch.’

‘Oh?’ She was startled by this remark. It was not like Guy to be negative or pessimistic in anything. Most of the time he exuded a confidence bordering on arrogance. But then, he hadn’t been himself lately, had he? Not since his father’s heart trouble. ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked.

He left his coffee and slid off the end of the desk, strolling across to stand in his now familiar pose at the nearest window, his back to her. ‘I have this problem,’ he said in a low, almost reluctant voice. ‘A damned impossible problem.’

He turned then and walked back towards her with a self-mocking expression on his face. ‘God knows why I’m telling you. You can’t help me. No one can really. I can see it’s a crazy problem, totally illogical, with no workable solution. The trouble is I can’t put it out of my mind.’ He stood in front of her desk, picked up his coffee and drank deeply.

‘Why don’t you just tell me what this crazy, illogical and unworkable problem is?’ she suggested. ‘At least you’ll have it off your chest then. Don’t you think I’ve noticed something’s been bothering you?’

He frowned at her. ‘You didn’t say anything.’

She shrugged. ‘I thought it might be because of my leaving.’ Or something else she couldn’t exactly mention, like sexual frustration.

He rubbed his forehead with an agitated finger. ‘No...that’s not it. If you’re going to go then you’re going to go. I hate the idea, but I’m not going to beat my head up against a brick wall, and I can see when you make up your mind about something, Samantha Peters, you’re a brick wall.’

She wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or not. ‘Then what is it?’ she persisted.

He swallowed the final slurp of coffee, then exhaled a ragged breath. ‘You’ll think I’m off my tree, but the simple truth is...I want a child.’

Samantha was very grateful that she was sitting down. And that she didn’t have the hot coffee to her mouth. As it was she almost dropped the damned mug. Just in time she tightened her fingers, then lowered it carefully to the desk-top. ‘You want a child,’ she repeated, trying not to look as stunned as she felt.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A child. A son or a daughter. When Dad nearly died I realised how God-awful empty my life would be without him. Yet I will be without him one day. After he’s gone there’ll be no one in this world who cares if I live or die. Not for the right reason, anyway.’

He was looking right at her and she was sure he would have to see how her eyes started shining, see the burning love she carried in her heart for him written all over her face.

Apparently, he didn’t, his unseeing gaze turned inward on to his own troubled soul. ‘I know it’s a mad idea,’ he said impatiently. ‘You don’t have to tell me how mad! But still...’ His eyes took on that far-away look, as though he was imagining what it would be like to be a father and was entranced by the idea.

Surreptitiously Samantha put the phone on hold. She didn’t want a single thing interrupting this conversation.

His eyes snapped back to the present and he glared at her. ‘Do you think I’m mad?’ he demanded.

‘Not at all,’ she said as composedly as she could manage. ‘It’s a basic human drive to reproduce. Perfectly normal.’

Surprise lit his face. ‘Yes, yes, it is, isn’t it?’ he enthused, clearly excited by her words. ‘As basic as food, and sex.’ He laughed. ‘Well, of course that was the original idea behind sex, wasn’t it? Reproducing. It took human ingenuity to separate the two.’

Samantha swallowed. She wasn’t sure where all this was leading, but she was on the edge of her seat with breathless anticipation.

Guy paced back over to the window, and stood there, astride and arrogant, for a few seconds. But then he whirled to face her, his expression frustrated. ‘But surely you can see my problem? You know what I’m like, Sam. Marriage is not for me and never will be. I wasn’t meant to sleep with the same woman for the rest of my life. Hell, I’m hard pushed to make it to six months before I’m bored out of my mind. I won’t marry a woman just to have a child when I know it will end in divorce.’

Samantha accepted this quite easily. It was the pattern of his life so far. If only he could see that sex without love had to be boring in the end. Not that she said as much. She was too enthralled in hearing what he was going to come out with next.

‘The same goes for these so-called love-children,’ he went on with a derisive wave of his hand. ‘What happens when the parents fall out of love? Just as devastating a situation for the child as divorce. Besides,’ he added scathingly, ‘I’ve never been in love in my life and, quite frankly, I’m thankful I haven’t. Makes idiots of the most sensible sane men!’

And women, Samantha added to herself with a silent groan.

‘No,’ he pronounced. ‘I discarded both of those ideas weeks ago, which left me with two remaining possible courses of action,’ he stated, walking slowly back to her desk. ‘Firstly, I thought of paying a surrogate mother to have the child by artificial insemination and hand it over after it was born. But that’s awfully risky. She could change her mind and take me to court later and get the child back. I would never let a child of mine be an emotional football!’

The vehemence behind these last words gave Samantha another glimpse of a man harbouring a lot of pain. Since Guy loved his father without reservation, she could only imagine that his mother had to be the responsible one.

‘Not only that,’ he growled, ‘but I find the concept of artificial insemination distasteful. Maybe I’m a closet romantic, but I prefer to conceive my child the normal way, not with me as a mere extension of a test-tube. If I’m going to embrace the most important commitment a man can make—that of fatherhood—I want to be involved in a personal way right from the start. Damn it, I need to be involved. It’ll be my child!’

Samantha could only stare at Guy, so astounded was she to even hear the word ‘commitment’ come out of his mouth, let alone in such a passionate and caring way. It came to her quite forcibly that any future child of his would be a very lucky boy or girl indeed. For Guy would undoubtedly love it with all the love he’d never before bestowed on another human being, except perhaps his own father.

For a moment her mind drifted to the most impossible fantasy—of this unexpectedly emotional Guy somehow finding out he’d loved her all along, of his proposing marriage, of their having this much longed-for child together. She suppressed a sigh and gave her full attention back to her darkly frowning boss.

‘Which brings me to the second, final and ultimate solution to my problem,’ Guy went on, a dry sarcasm creeping into his voice. ‘I find some nice single co-operative lady who wants to have my child, will agree to let me share its upbringing, but who won’t make any demands on me other than financial ones. Now isn’t that the best fairy-story of a female you ever heard?’ He threw his hands up in the air in exasperated defeat. ‘Find me such a woman, Sam, and I’ll give you every cent I have!’

Samantha’s heart went into total seizure.

Not so her mind!

My God, it virtually exploded. Did you hear what he just said, what he wants? This is your chance, your wildest dream come true.

Well, not quite, harsh reality answered. He’s not offering love and marriage. But he is offering his body and his child! A life-long bond that would tie him to you forever!

That’s more than you ever hoped for. More than your other proposition would have given you. Much more. For this leaves you with your pride and self-respect.

All you have to do is dare...

But to succeed with such a daring proposition she would have to be very calm. Super-calm. One whiff of emotional involvement and Guy would cut her dead.

‘This nice single co-operative lady,’ she drawled, her heart pounding so loudly in her chest that she was certain he must hear it, ‘would she have to be a blonde?’

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