HELEN BROOKS - The Price Of A Wife

As Mike and Andy’s heads moved in unison Josie wondered, for a split second, exactly what Luke Hawkton was thinking as he watched them all. He was powerful, hard, ruthless, wealthy; he had just given their company an enormous shot in the arm and he must be aware of the fact, and of the exalted position that put him in in her two bosses’ eyes. Did he expect obsequiousness, servility from his employees? She had dealt with enough egomaniacs in her time to know that some men looked on such things as their right.

‘Today is the second of June.’ The deep voice brought her fully alert. ‘That means you have almost five months to pull this off. Can you do it?’

He was looking directly at her again, and she nodded tightly without a shred of hesitation. Either that or die in the attempt!

‘Good. And can I also take it that you will obey any instruction I give you regarding the project without question?’

This time her hesitation was marked, and she nipped at her lower lip for a moment before finding the nerve to speak the truth. ‘No, not if it isn’t in the best interests of the launch or if I think you’re wrong,’ she said honestly. ‘In those circumstances I would want to discuss things with you and see if we could arrive at a mutually agreeable solution.’

She saw Mike and Andy, who were standing just behind Luke now, close their eyes for a split second, but in spite of their horrified faces she continued to stare into the silver-grey gaze without flinching. She had never toadied to anyone, man or woman, and she was blowed if she was going to tell Luke Hawkton a pack of lies. She wasn’t a boot-licker or a bosses’ lackey; she had a mind of her own and knew how to use it, so he might as well know now.

‘Daunting...’ The word was breathed on the air but she read his lips, and the memory of her rebuff the day before brought vivid scarlet into her cheeks. ‘I would like you at my office on Monday morning with some relevant facts and figures,’ he continued immediately, his voice cool, as though his reference to her gaffe had been incidental. ‘If you have any other projects under way you delegate them to one of these gentlemen. You can agree with that, Miss Owens?’ he added with heavy mockery.

It clearly didn’t make any difference whether she was happy with his orders or not, but she nodded anyway, her large honey-gold eyes still faintly dazed by the suddenness of it all. ‘Thank you.’ She hadn’t meant the words to sound so small or so breathless, but somehow the sheer presence of this man had drained all her normal vivacity into a small, trembling lump in the middle of her chest, although there was no reason for it, or for the hostility that flared into life every time she so much as laid eyes on him. And she was grateful for this wonderful opportunity. ‘Thank you, Mr Hawkton.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He walked back to shake her hand, and as he did so he spoke swiftly and softly in her ear, his voice inaudible to the others. ‘And you’ve managed it without having to use that couch at all. Unfortunately.’

He had turned and left before she could pull herself together sufficiently to think, and then, as the door closed behind him with Mike and Andy glued to his heels, her colleagues were congratulating her somewhat grudgingly and the remark had to be put on the back-burner of her mind.

‘So Mike was at uni with the esteemed Luke Hawkton, was he?’ Mitchell was obviously put out that his ideas hadn’t had a mention. ‘Think that’s why he’s going with Top Promotions?’

‘I think Josie’s proposal had something to do with it,’ one of the other men remarked drily. ‘Don’t be a sore loser, Mitch; it doesn’t suit you.’

But Mitchell’s comment, along with Luke’s parting shot, were in the forefront of her mind that afternoon as she sat in her comfortable, bright lounge with the full-length windows to the balcony wide open and Mog lying in purring ecstasy in a spot of blazing sunlight with a whole celebratory tin of red salmon in his stomach.

It was Luke’s ‘unfortunately’ that bothered her, more than the fact that he had referred to her stupid gibe to Charlotte. He surely hadn’t taken her seriously, had he? She bit on her lower lip anxiously as she went over and over the intonation of his voice in her mind. But so what if he had? She could handle that sort of hassle; she’d been doing it for ten years or more, since she’d first stepped out into the big bad world. But she wouldn’t like to think she’d got the job because Luke happened to know her boss.

She frowned into the thick warm air. He either genuinely liked her ideas or he didn’t. And if he didn’t... She shook her head slowly. How did you know with a man like him? He wasn’t like any other man she had ever met in the whole of her life... except one. The thought jumped in from nowhere but once in her mind it stuck.

Yes, there was something about him that reminded her of Peter Staples, something...something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and it had caused an instant and probably unfair antagonism that was as fierce as it was illogical. She thought back to her behaviour of the evening before and winced at her barely concealed hostility to the man who was now, in effect, her bread and butter.

‘Oh, Mog...’ She sighed as she spoke but Mog was too full of salmon and too comfortable to respond to the naked appeal in her voice. He cast her a long, considering glance from large, slanted green eyes before the express train in his chest resumed its rumbling journey, the sunlight turning his brindled fur into a mass of shimmering colour.

This was the chance of a lifetime, an opportunity to nail her colours well and truly to the career mast and cement her credibility into place with unshakeable firmness, and she wasn’t going to let Mitch’s spitefulness or Luke Hawkton’s innuendoes spoil things. She narrowed her eyes determinedly, pushing back the riot of tiny auburn curls that fell about her shoulders. She could do it. She knew she could pull this off; that wasn’t in question. The only thing was...

Her mouth hardened. Could she tolerate Luke Hawkton in her life for any amount of time? The thought was stupid and she knew it. Of course she could; she would have to. And he wasn’t Peter Staples; he wasn’t even remotely like him.

Peter had been wild and dark and fascinatingly handsome to the young fifteen-year-old Josie Owens, with his long jet-black hair and slanted ebony eyes that danced wickedly as they promised the moon. He had been ten years older than she and quite out of her orbit, with his flashy red sports car and his succession of tall, model-type girlfriends that he seemed to change with each passing month.

Their parents had been friends, but then everyone was friends with everyone else in the tiny Sussex village where she had grown up. And so she had loved him from afar, utterly tongue-tied if they ever happened to meet at one of the numerous social gatherings the middle-aged community loved so much and which the younger folks tended to endure, watching him with huge doe eyes and hanging on his every word.

Quite when he had started to flirt with her she wasn’t sure. She had heard rumours that his last girlfriend, a sophisticated, leggy blonde with the face of an angel and the figure of a goddess, had thrown him over—an unprecedented occurrence—and that he was upset about it, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to believe the hearsay. Who in their right mind would reject Peter Staples? He was... just perfect. And so when he’d told her to keep their dates secret she hadn’t asked him why. One didn’t question a god.

They had seen each other three times before he had made the pass at her which had ended in an undignified fight for her virginity. She could still hear the caustic, ugly words he had shouted at her in the heat of his temper when he’d realised his crude seduction attempt had failed, the foul language as he had pulled her back into the car, furious that she had refused him and was demanding to go home.