Lucy Gordon - A Mistletoe Proposal

I await your further instructions.

Yours sincerely,

Philippa Jenson

She read it through repeatedly, finally losing patience with herself for shilly-shallying and hitting the ‘send’ button violently. Then she threw herself into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Next morning, she checked for a reply. But there was nothing.

Too soon. Think of the time difference. He must be asleep.

At work she accessed her home computer every hour, sure that this time there would be a response. Nothing.

Her email would have gone to his London office, she reasoned, and perhaps he wouldn’t see it until he returned. No way! An efficient man like Roscoe would link up from Los Angeles. He was ignoring her.

Her disappointment was severe-and irrational, she knew. This didn’t fit with her mental picture of him as a better man inside than he was on the outside. She felt personally let down.

She worked late that night, finally reaching home with relief.

Then she stopped, astounded, at the incredible sight that met her eyes. Roscoe was in the hall, seated on an ornate wooden bench. His head leaned back against the wall, his eyes were closed and his breathing suggested that he was asleep. He looked almost at the point of collapse.

PIPPA touched him gently on the shoulder and his eyes opened slowly.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Roscoe, what on earth-? Come upstairs.’

He retrieved the two suitcases near his feet and followed her into the elevator, where he closed his eyes again until they arrived and she led him out, along the corridor and into her apartment.

‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing to a comfortable sofa.

‘You must be thinking-’

‘Tea first, explanations later,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

She was smiling to herself as she filled the kettle. Her email had brought him home. The world was good again.

He drank the tea thankfully, but didn’t seem much more awake.

‘When did you last sleep?’ she asked.

‘I can’t remember. I was unlucky in catching a flight. I reached the airport just in time to miss one plane and I had to grab the next one. Only it went to Paris, so I had to get a connecting flight to London.’

‘You walked out on your conference?’ she breathed.

He shrugged. ‘After your email, what did you expect me to do?’

‘Email me. Text me. Call me.’

‘No, I had to talk to you properly.’

And for that he’d walked out on business.

Of course he’d done it for Charlie and his mother, Pippa reminded herself.

But common sense spoke with a feeble voice, defeated by the surge of awareness of Roscoe as a man. A man who’d tried to escape her and been defeated.

What was happening between them alarmed him because it threatened the life he’d achieved with such a struggle. But he’d seized an excuse to come back to her and now he was here, laying his gesture at her feet, waiting to know what she would do with it.

She was silenced for a moment. She’d misjudged him so badly.

‘The flight to Los Angeles is eleven hours,’ she said at last, ‘and then you came straight back-’

‘And I don’t even like flying,’ he ground out. ‘In fact, I hate it.’

‘I hate it too,’ she admitted. ‘It’s boring, you’re trapped, and I’m always sure we’re going to crash at any moment.’

He gave her a faint grin of understanding.

‘No wonder you’re exhausted,’ she said. ‘But why did you wait downstairs? There’s a sofa in the hall outside my front door where you could have been more comfortable.’

‘Yes, but I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming home alone, and if your companion had seen me lolling by your door…well…’

‘Am I understanding you properly?’ she asked, regarding him with her head on one side.

‘I just didn’t want to embarrass you.’

‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she breathed, feeling a return of the annoyance he could inflame so easily in her.

‘I’m only suggesting that you might have company tonight. What’s wrong with that?’

Pippa drew a deep breath, but instantly checked herself.

‘No-no!’ She held up her hands with the air of someone backing off. ‘Let’s leave it for now. I’ll say it later, when you’re back in the land of the living.’

‘Thank you for that mercy,’ he said. ‘So when “later” comes I can expect to be knocked sideways, beaten to a pulp-’

‘Walked over with hobnailed boots,’ she agreed. ‘But first I’ll make you some supper.’

‘Just a little, thank you. I’ll probably fall asleep over it.’

‘Then I shall wake you and make you eat something anyway.’

Roscoe gave her a look of appreciation. Then he followed her into the kitchen and tried to help, but finished up sitting on a stool, watching her out of bleary eyes.

‘It’s not just tiredness,’ he said. ‘It’s jet lag, which always hits me like a rock. I don’t know why I get it worse than most people. Everyone else seems to brush it off, but not me. And it’s not just the flight home. I’m still lagged from the flight out there, so I’m-’ he made a helpless gesture ‘-not at my best.’

‘That’s what comes of dashing off to conferences at the last minute,’ she suggested gently.

‘Yes, well…things happen. You can’t always plan for…’ again the gesture ‘…well, anyway…’

‘Did you hear anything useful while you were there?’ she asked in a neutral voice.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said with a humorous sigh. ‘I can’t remember a thing.’

‘Is this Roscoe Havering talking?’ she asked lightly. ‘The man who makes the financial world tremble, whose tough decisions can shake the market-?’

‘Oh, shut up!’ he begged.

She laughed. ‘Sorry.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Hey, you’re right. I’m not.’

She made a light meal of scrambled eggs on toast, and he pleased her by eating every last crumb.

‘That was delicious. Do you want some help with the washing up?’

‘No, thank you,’ she said with more haste than politeness. ‘But you’ve made your offer so you can go and sit on the sofa with a clear conscience.’

‘That’s what I like. A woman who understands.’

He wandered away with the air of a man who had arrived in heaven.

When she joined him a few minutes later he said, ‘Do you really think Charlie’s protecting Ginevra?’

‘Oh, yes. But I can’t prove it without his help. I guess I’m just not doing my job properly. I haven’t beguiled him very well if he’s defending her against me.’

‘Charlie’s loyal. If he had feelings for her once, he wouldn’t drop her in it now.’

‘That’s nice of him but don’t you see what it means?’

‘It means my brother’s an idiot, but we knew that.’

‘It means I’ve failed. He was supposed to be so much under my spell that he’d do anything I said. Hah! Some spell! I’m useless.’

‘That’s enough. You’re not useless. It’s only been a few days.’

‘But you thought he’d take one look at me and become my willing slave,’ she said wryly. ‘Or something like that. This isn’t what you expected when you hired me. Perhaps you should get someone else.’

‘Someone else?’ he echoed. ‘Someone else with your eyes, your laughter, your charm? Is there anyone else? Pippa, you knocked Charlie sideways in the first moment.’

‘You’re just being kind.’

‘I’m not known for my kindness,’ he said drily. ‘And once you’d have been the first to say so. I knew from the start that you were exactly what I wanted-for Charlie, I mean. And you’re doing well. Look how you found out about this. I had no idea.’