Liz Fielding - A Wife on Paper

‘Have you set a wedding date?’ he asked, evading a direct answer and Steve didn’t push. He clearly didn’t want Francesca to know that he was asking for help with finance. But then why would he push? In the past all he’d had to do was lay out his desires and wait for guilt to do the rest.

‘Wedding? Who said anything about getting married?’

‘Isn’t that the obvious next step?’ He looked at Steve. A youthful marriage was the one mistake he hadn’t been called to bail him out of, but anything was possible. ‘Unless there’s some good reason why you shouldn’t?’ He managed a grin of sorts. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me?’

Steve grinned right back. ‘Relax, Guy. I don’t have a secret wife or three tucked away. Fran’s the only woman I’ve ever wanted to settle down with.’

‘Then what’s your problem?’ If Francesca Lang had been his, nothing on earth would have stopped him from swearing his undying love in front of as many witnesses as he could cram into one room. Making that public vow to love and honour and keep her, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both should live… ‘If you’re setting up home together, having a baby…’

It was like poking a sore tooth. Something he knew he’d regret, but he couldn’t stop himself.

‘For heaven’s sake, listen to yourself. Marriage is meaningless in this day and age. An anachronism. Outdated. Just a way of keeping lawyers fat when it all goes wrong.’

He glanced at Francesca to see how she was taking that ‘when’, but she was looking down at her plate.

With no clue as to her feelings, he shrugged and said, ‘I believe you’ll find that even in the twenty-first century it offers some benefits.’ What they were, beyond the special bond that swearing till-death-us-do-part vows to one another, he couldn’t immediately summon to mind. But then that would be enough for him.

‘The chance to dress up and have a party? I don’t think we need to go to church first, do you?’ Then, ‘Look, you know the kind of nasty divorce Dad went through with my mother. Fran’s been through much the same thing with her parents.’ Steve leaned across and took her hand, grasping it in his, emphasising their relationship. ‘We’re allergic, okay?’

Guy fastened his gaze on some point in the distance. ‘If you believe that not getting married will protect you from the fallout of a disintegrating relationship, think again. Once property and children are involved…’

‘Guy, I hear what you’re saying, but that stuff is just for rich people.’ He didn’t add …like you. He didn’t have to.

‘It’s your decision, of course,’ he said, wondering if Francesca felt quite as strongly on the subject—she’d remained silent—but he didn’t dare look at her again. He didn’t want to see the love shining out of her eyes. Not when she was looking at another man. ‘Just don’t discount it without real thought.’

‘We have thought about it.’ He lifted Francesca’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Then, with a smile, he said, ‘But if you want to play the big brother you can pay for the champagne.’

The message came over loud and clear. Steve was saying, This is nothing to do with you. It’s my baby she’s carrying…

That had been the only thing he’d been able to think about all through that terrible evening. Francesca was pregnant and he’d have given everything he possessed to change places with his brother. His career, the company he’d built up with a group of friends, the fortune that had been left to him by his own mother, just to be sitting on the other side of the table with his arm draped protectively over the back of her chair, knowing that the baby she carried was his.

Total madness. He’d only just met the woman. Had exchanged barely more than a dozen words with her. The briefest touch of her cheek against his lips. The moment she’d realised who he was, the hundred watt smile had been dimmed to something more reserved. Steve had obviously given her chapter and verse on all his grievances. Real and imagined. Told her all about his older, more fortunate half-brother who had everything, including a mother who’d loved him. Especially a mother who’d loved him…

It made no difference. Even the forty-watt version lit up his soul.

‘Are you going to be all right on your own?’

‘I’ve got to get used to it, Matty. Today seems like a good day to start.’

Fran smoothed her collar, regarded her image in the hall mirror. Black suit, perfectly groomed hair. Apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes, she looked every inch the businesswoman. Steven would have approved. He had always said that image was everything. The trick was to ignore the butterflies practising formation-flying in your stomach; if you looked confident, looked as if you knew what you were talking about, people would believe in you. Okay, so it was three years since she’d set foot in an office, but her brain hadn’t atrophied just because she’d had a baby—well, not that much anyway.

Right now a load of people were sitting around in the office waiting for someone to say, It’ll be all right. Let’s get on with it. And there was no one but her.

‘I’ll get the paperwork sorted out with the lawyers first,’ she said. ‘And then I’m going into the office.’

‘What is he doing here?’

Guy had only just arrived when a secretary announced Francesca’s arrival. She came to an abrupt halt in the doorway when she saw him, but there was no stop-the-world moment this time. No out-of-control hairstyle, no clinging dress to ride up and no yard of leg. And she didn’t pause to look up at him with a smile caught on her lips.

He hadn’t realised just how much weight she’d lost. Her hair was paler too. More grown up than the corn gold he remembered. Maybe that hadn’t been her natural colour, either, but he preferred it.

That night she had been all vibrant colour, now she was monochrome, the pallor of her skin emphasised by dark hollows beneath her eyes, at her temples. It made the quick angry flush as she saw him all the more noticeable.

‘Why is he here?’ she said, ignoring him completely and looking directly at Tom Palmer, the family lawyer, who’d come around his desk to welcome her.

‘Guy is your…is Steven’s executor, Fran. It’s his responsibility to see that the will is properly executed.’

Now she turned those lovely grey eyes on him. ‘So that’s why you raced back from the back of beyond,’ she said. ‘To secure your assets.’

‘I have no doubt that Steven left everything he possessed to you and Toby. It’s my sole responsibility to ensure that his wishes are carried out and I will do that, no matter what they are.’

Tom, who had undoubtedly witnessed family discord on such occasions many times over a long career, intervened with a quiet, ‘Please, come and sit down, Fran. Would you care for some coffee…tea, perhaps?’

‘Nothing, thank you. Let’s get this over with. I’ve a full day ahead of me.’

‘Of course. The will itself is a simple enough document.’ He opened a file. ‘First, Guy, Steven left this letter for you.’

He pocketed it without comment.

‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Francesca demanded.

‘Not now,’ he said. If Steve, the least organised person in the world, had chosen to write him a letter when he knew he was dying, he wanted to be alone when he read it. ‘Tom?’

Prompted, Tom Palmer began to read the will.

While he’d been in a position to make conditions, Guy had insisted that Steve make a will in favour of Francesca. It had not been altered, and her relief, though contained, was nevertheless evident for those with eyes to read the small signs. The briefly closed eyes, the slightest slump in her posture as the tension left her.