Sally Wentworth - To Have And To Hold

Alix heard the rumours but was too concerned with her own reasons for wanting to see Rhys again to think anything else very important. He was due to fly in on a Friday, and everyone, Alix included, thought that he would go straight to his parents’ home for the weekend. She could hardly contain her excitement, and had asked for the day off so that she could be waiting for him when he arrived, but a draft contract for a power plant in one of the Gulf states had to be finished and she had to work. Frustrated, and longing for the end of the day, Alix had to sit at her desk and wish the hours away.

But in the afternoon the phone on Kathy’s desk rang. She listened then swivelled round towards Alix. ‘Hey! Guess what? That was the girl on Reception. She says Rhys Stirling has come here straight from the airport.’

‘He has?’ Alix’s face lit with excitement she couldn’t hide.

But Kathy thought it was just eager interest and said, ‘Now you’ll be able to see for yourself how gorgeous he is.’

‘You think he’ll come in here?’

‘I should think so; he usually comes to say hello when he gets back.’

‘And goodbye when he goes,’ chimed in another girl.

It was quite a large office with about a dozen girls and young men, all doing more or less equal jobs, situated on the fifth floor of the building. The directors’ offices were on the floor above, so no one saw Rhys as he went up in the lift to see Todd Weston. Alix made for the cloakroom to check her make-up and brush her hair. When she’d last seen Rhys it had still been a mass of short curls, but she wore it longer now, so that it caressed her shoulders in a shining, golden mane. Not having expected to see him, she’d put on normal working clothes: a skirt, and sweater over a shirt, but the skirt was tight enough to outline the slimness of her hips and the sweater a shade of blue that emphasised the sea-blue of her eyes. Anyway, it would have to do.

When Rhys finally came to the office over an hour later, Alix was standing at a filing cabinet over by the wall, and had her back towards him. She heard his voice and began to quiver with excitement so strong she thought her heart would burst, but she didn’t turn round. No one had told Rhys that she was working here and she wanted to take him completely by surprise. He worked his way down the room, greeting everyone he knew by name, came to say hello to Kathy. Then he glanced past her at Alix and said, ‘You’ve got a new girl, I see.’

Alix took a deep breath and swung round, her face radiant. ‘Hello, Rhys.’

Rhys’s eyes widened incredulously. ‘Alix?’

With a laugh of pure delight, she ran to him and threw her arms round his neck in spontaneous joy.

He gave a whoop of astonished laughter, and put his hands on her waist to lift her up and swing her round. ‘Urchin!’ And then he kissed her, right there in front of them all. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he demanded when he straightened up.

‘I work here.’ She still had her arms round his neck and he his hands on her waist, and to Alix it was the best moment, ever. ‘I’ve been here for months.’

‘And no one told me?’

‘We wanted it to be a surprise.’

‘It was certainly that.’ His grey eyes laughed down at her. ‘I shall have words to say when I get home.’

‘Are you going now?’

‘In about half an hour. I’ve got a car laid on. Want a lift?’

‘Of course.’

‘OK. Meet me out front.’

He went to let her go but she pulled him closer and stood on tip-toe to murmur in his ear, ‘I’m glad you’re home, Rhys.’

His eyes met hers for a moment, saw the radiance in their depths. ‘Still?’ he asked, only half teasingly.

‘Still,’ she answered with sincerity. ‘Always.’

He brushed her lips with his, then said, ‘See you later,’ and walked out of the office.

‘Well!’ Kathy exclaimed as soon as he’d gone. ‘You’re a dark horse. I thought you said you didn’t know him.’

Alix came back to earth to find everyone staring at her, which made her blush. ‘Oh, no; you never asked me. You just took it that I didn’t.’

Some of the others came to cluster round and Kathy gave her a shrewd look. ‘You could easily have told us. Why didn’t you?’

‘I wanted to surprise him.’

‘Well, you certainly did that. And you obviously know him very well,’ one of the men said.

Alix coloured again at the emphasis that had been put on the last two words. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve known him nearly all my life. We live next door to each other, you see.’

Faces cleared and people went back to their desks, a few picked up phones to pass on the tit-bit of gossip. Kathy looked as if she longed to do the same, but instead pulled her chair closer to Alix’s and said enviously, ‘How fantastic that you know Rhys. God, I’d give anything to live next door to him. But I’d never have been able to keep it secret like that. Do you see much of him when he’s home?’

‘Oh, yes, lots,’ Alix told her, conveniently forgetting the last couple of years. ‘We go out together, too.’

‘Really? Oh, wow! Just wait till Donna Temple finds out.’ And unable to resist any longer, Kathy reached for the phone.

Several curious faces were looking out of windows when Alix was supposed to meet Rhys, but as it happened he was standing in the foyer, talking to another man when she came out of the lift, a man in his forties, not as tall as Rhys but broad and tough-looking. She hesitated but Rhys saw her and beckoned her over. ‘This is the surprise I found waiting for me,’ he said with a grin. ‘Alix, this is Todd Weston. Todd, meet Alix North. I’ve been pulling her out of scrapes since she was shorter than my knee.’

Alix gave him an indignant look, but smiled as she shook the outstretched hand of the head of the company. ‘Hello, Mr Weston.’

‘Hello, Alix,’ he said with a Canadian accent. ‘Isn’t that a boy’s name?’

‘I thought she was a boy the first time I met her,’ Rhys said before she could speak.

Todd Weston looked her over and grinned. ‘Well, she’s certainly changed.’

‘So she has,’ Rhys agreed, and they both laughed as Alix blushed furiously.

A chauffeur came in to say the car was there so Todd bade them goodbye. ‘See you Monday and we’ll talk further, Rhys.’ And he clapped him on the shoulder before walking away.

Alix glanced up as they waited on the pavement for all Rhys’s luggage to be loaded in the car, saw the faces at the windows, and couldn’t help hoping, with great satisfaction, that one of them was that of Donna Temple.

They got in the back of the car, the glass screen dividing them from the chauffeur, and Rhys said, ‘Well, urchin, how did you get the job?’

‘Purely on merit,’ she assured him. ‘Although your father did find out about the vacancy,’ she admitted.

Rhys’s eyebrows flickered and he gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Did he, now?’

Alix chuckled richly. ‘But wasn’t it the most perfect surprise?’

‘It certainly was; in your letters you just said you’d got a job.’

‘Oh, you did read them, then?’

‘Of course.’

‘But you never bothered to answer any of them,’ she pointed out tartly.

‘Yes, I did; I sent you postcards from all over the place.’

‘Postcards!’ Alix exclaimed with such a disgusted expression that he laughed. ‘What good are those to a girl?’

‘You used to collect them,’ Rhys pointed out.

‘I didn’t collect them—I kept yours.’

‘What, all of them?’

‘Of course.’ Alix didn’t say that they were among her most treasured possessions, along with the gifts and Christmas and birthday cards that he had given her over the last sixteen years.