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‘My father thinks it will benefit the company if I stay for the end of speeches get-together on Monday evening.’ She still couldn’t see how. Though her urgent need to bolt of a couple of hours ago did not now seem as urgent as it had. Plainly Nathan, after coming over and asking ‘How are you?’ while being perfectly happy to acknowledge that he knew her, had no intention of telling anybody that he was her husband any more than she had.
She glanced to her left as Ross and Chris joined them—her eyes seemed somehow to be drawn in that direction. Nathan was there in her line of vision, talking to the tall blonde.
With her insides churning, Phelix flicked her glance from him. It seemed to her then that Nathan Mallory had always had some kind of effect on her. Right at this moment she again felt like taking off. But, having discovered over the last eight years that she had far more backbone than she had up to then always supposed, she made herself stay put and smiled, laughed when amused, and generally chatted with her three male companions.
‘Have lunch with me?’ Ross asked as they made their way back to their seats.
‘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 to talk about it. Never would she forget the horror of that night. The day had been a day similar to today. Warm, sticky, and with thunder in the air.
‘I’m truly very sorry,’ she said abruptly. ‘I can’t think what’s keeping my father.’ And, feeling sure that Nathan did not want to spend a minute longer with her than he had to, ‘Look, if you’ve somewhere you’ve got to be, I can give you a ring the moment my father comes in.’
Nathan Mallory stared at her long and hard then, and she could not help but wonder if he suspected she was giving him the same run-around that her father seemed to be giving him.
But, deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt, ‘I’ll wait,’ he clipped. ‘That cheque is my last remaining option.’
And Phelix knew then from the set of this man’s jaw that, in order to save his firm for him and his father, Nathan Mallory was having to bite on a very unpleasant bullet. Having completed his side of the bargain, he now had to wait for the man who had offered him the deal to complete his part. Yet Phelix just knew, as she looked numbly into Nathan Mallory’s stern grey eyes, that everything in him was urging him to leave. That if there was any other way he would have taken it. She felt humiliated, but that must be nothing to what this proud man must be feeling. And yet for his business, for his father, it was, as he said, his last remaining option.
‘D-does your father know about today?’ she asked tentatively.
‘I thought I’d prefer to have that cheque in my hand before I told him.’
That made her feel worse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I truly am.’
He looked at her again, and his expression softened slightly. ‘I know,’ he replied.
And the next two hours had ticked by with still no sign of her father.
‘Will you excuse me?’ she said at one point, and went to her father’s study to make a call to her father’s PA. But Anna Fry said she had no idea where he was. ‘Is Mr Scott free?’ Phelix asked. And, when she was put through, ‘Henry? Phelix. Do you know where my father is? I need to contact him rather urgently.’
Henry did not know where he was either. But, alarmed at her anxious tone, he was ready to come over at once to help with her problem, whatever it was. Phelix thanked him, but said it was nothing that important.
So she went back to Nathan, gave him the evening paper to read—and started to grow anxious on another front. The sky had darkened to almost black when she heard the first rumble of thunder. Thunderstorms and their violence terrified her.
She tried to think of something else, but at the first fork of lightning she was again reliving that night—the night her mother had died. There had been one horrendous storm that night. She had been in bed asleep when the first crack of thunder had awakened her. She had sat up in bed, half expecting that her mother would come and keep her company—her mother did not like storms either.
It was with that in mind that as the storm had become more fearsome, Phelix had shot along to her mother’s room to check that she was all right. Only as she had quickly opened the door a fork of lightning, swiftly followed by another, had lit up her mother’s room—and the scene that had met her eyes had sent her reeling. Phelix had plainly seen that her mother was not alone in her bed. Edward Bradbury was there too.
‘What are you doing?’ Phelix had screamed—he was assaulting her mother!
Her father had bellowed at her to leave in very explicit, crude language. But at least her interruption had had the effect of taking his attention briefly away from her mother, and her mother had been able to dive from the bed and pull a robe around her shoulders.
‘Go back to bed, darling,’ she’d urged.
Phelix had not known then which terrified her the more: the violent storm or the dreadful scene she had happened across which was now indelibly imprinted on her mind for evermore.
But there was no way she was going to leave. ‘No, I’ll—’ But she had been urged from the room.
‘We’ll talk about it in the morning,’ her mother had promised, and pushed her to the other side of the door. They had been the last words she had ever said to her. By morning she’d been dead.
A fork of lightning jerked her to awareness that she was in her father’s drawing room with the man she had that day married. It looked as if it was going to be another of those horrendous storms. Rain was furiously lashing at the windows, and as another fork of lightning speared the room Phelix only just managed to hold back from crying out.
‘W-would you mind very much if I left you to wait by yourself?’ she asked, feeling that at any moment now she would disgrace herself by either shouting out in panic or bolting from him.
‘Not at all,’ Nathan replied and, realising he would probably quite welcome his own company, she fled.
Hoping she could get into bed, hide her head under the bedclothes and wait for morning, when her father would have paid Nathan the money he’d promised, Phelix quickly undressed. No way, with that storm raging, was she going to take her usual shower.
She got into bed, but left her bedside lamp on. She did not want to lie in the dark, when she would again see that ugly scene in her mother’s bedroom that night. Phelix closed her eyes and tried to get some rest. It was impossible.
She had no idea what time it was when, wide awake, she heard the storm which she had hoped had begun to fade return with even greater ferocity. It seemed to be directly overheard when there was a violent crack of thunder like no other—and then the lights went out.
Only vicious forks of lightning, in which she again saw her father’s evil face, her mother’s pleading, illuminated her bedroom. Striving desperately to banish the images tormenting her mind, Phelix made herself remember that she might still have a guest—a husband she had abandoned to his own devices.
Pinning her thoughts on Nathan, who had already been dealt a raw deal by her father and who might now be sitting in the drawing room in the dark, Phelix left her room and raced down the stairs. ‘Nathan!’ she called, her voice somewhere between a cry and a scream as thunder again cracked viciously directly overhead.
In the light of another fork of lightning she saw he was still there, had heard her, had come from the drawing room and had seen her.
‘You all right?’ he asked gruffly.
Words failed her. The fact that he was still there showed how very badly he needed that money. ‘Oh, Nathan,’ she whispered miserably, and in a couple of strides he was over to her, his hands on her arms.
‘Scared?’ he asked gently.
‘T-terrified.’ She was too upset to dissemble.
Nathan placed a soothing arm about her shoulders. ‘You’re shaking,’ he murmured.
‘It was a night like this when my mother was killed,’ she replied witlessly.
‘Poor love,’ he murmured, and she had never known that a man could be so kind, so gentle. ‘Come on, let’s get you back to bed,’ he said.
And, when she was too frozen by the empathy of the moment to be able to move, he did no more than pick her nightdress-clad body up in his arms and carry her up the winding staircase, his way lit by fork after fork of blinding lightning.
Phelix had left her bedroom door open in her rush, and Nathan carried her in and placed her gently under the covers of her bed.
‘Don’t leave me!’ she pleaded urgently as another cannonshot of thunder rent the air.
She was immediately ashamed, but not sufficiently so to be able to tell him she would be all right alone, and, after a moment of hesitation, Nathan did away with his shoes, shrugged out of his suit jacket and came to lie on top of her bed beside her. It was a three quarter size bed, but for all she was five feet nine tall there was not much of her.
‘Nothing can harm you,’ he told her quietly, and in the darkness reached for her hand.
She had gone down the stairs with some vague notion that he would feel uncomfortable sitting alone in a strange house in the dark. But here he was comforting her!
Again she felt ashamed. Then lightning lit the room, and she was again in that nightmare of unwanted visions of that night in her mother’s bedroom not so long ago. She clutched on to Nathan’s hand.
‘Shh, you’re all right,’ he soothed. ‘It will be over soon.’ And, maybe because her grip was threatening to break his fingers, he let go her hand and to her further comfort placed an arm around her thin shoulders. Instinctively she turned into him, burying her face in his chest.
Quite when, or how, she managed to drop off to sleep, she had no notion. But she was jerked awake when her bedside lamp suddenly came on—power restored.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, sitting up. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed again. Nathan was still on the bed with her. He got to his feet and stood, unspeaking, looking at her. ‘Oh, Nathan, I’m so sorry,’ she apologised. The storm was over; normality was back.
He surveyed her troubled eyes, her blushing complexion—and more shame hit her. This man had married her—for nothing. He had trusted her father’s word—for nothing. She wanted to cry, but managed to hold back her tears. This man, her husband, had suffered enough without him having to put up with her tears too.
‘You didn’t have dinner!’ she gasped, suddenly appalled, although she could not have eaten a thing herself. But just then the headlights of a car coming up the drive flashed across the window. ‘My father’s home,’ she offered jerkily, though was not taken aback when Nathan declined to rush out to meet him.
‘I’m surprised he bothered,’ he answered, bending to put on his shoes. But Phelix did not miss the hard note that had come to his voice.
‘What will you do?’ she asked, feeling crushed, sorrowfully knowing for certain now that her father did not intend to honour the deal he had made.
‘Frankly, I honestly don’t know,’ Nathan answered tautly, and suddenly Phelix could not bear it.
‘You can have my money,’ she offered. ‘I don’t know yet how much it will be, but you can have it all. I’ll—’
Nathan smiled then, a grim kind of a smile. ‘Enough is enough,’ he said.
‘You—don’t want it?’
