Diana Hamilton - Never A Bride

So no, she wouldn’t recognize her father now if she passed him in the street, but she could remember the build-up of tension as the weekends approached, when her father, a company rep, would be home. Recall how her mother had seemed frightened of him, of his sudden bursts of temper, his long sulks.

Once, long after he’d disappeared, and the eventual divorce, Claire had asked her mother why she had stayed with him as long as she had. Liz had looked blank, as if such a thought had never entered her head, and simply imparted that she’d made her marriage vows in good faith and, having made them, wouldn’t be the one to break them. It was then Claire had realised that her father had taken a naïve, trusting, loving soul and turned her into a doormat, and she had made a private vow never to allow it to happen to her.

When her husband had walked out on them Liz had had to find work to support them. She’d brought a child into the world and loved her devotedly, and no way was that child to be deprived of decent food and respectable clothes. They’d moved to a small flat because Liz couldn’t afford the rent on the house they lived in, but somehow there had always been treats—a coach trip to the coast each summer, a birthday party to which all her friends were invited, a visit to the local theater for the Christmas pantomime.

All at the expense of her health, Claire had realized years later.

Never strong, Liz had taken only part-time menial work because while her daughter was at school she’d insisted on being there when Claire came home. So she had often been exploited, poorly paid, having no qualifications which might have opened more lucrative, less physically grueling doors for her.

After gaining her secretarial qualifications and a year’s practical experience, Claire had joined a top-quality agency because she could earn more that way, insisted that Liz give up all her part-time jobs, and had been filling in for Jake’s personal secretary—the one who went everywhere with him, and who was recovering after an appendectomy—when Liz had had a heart attack.

Claire had been out of her mind with worry. Just as she had begun earning enough to allow her mother to take life more easily, fate had dealt this blow.

Jake had been wonderful, far more sympathetic and supportive than her ephemeral position as a temp could have led her to expect. He had insisted on waiting with her through that dreadful night at the hospital when she hadn’t expected her mother to survive the attack, metaphorically holding her hand and, somehow, drawing her whole life story out of her.

And later, when her mother’s recovery had been assured—this time, so her consultant had warned—Jake had broken the news that his personal secretary had decided to call it a day. Her fiancé apparently took a dim view of the unsocial hours she was often called upon to work, the times—many of them—when she had to be out of the country, dancing attendance on her employer.

‘I’ve a proposition to put to you,’ he had told her. And now, without even having to try, she had total recall of every last inflexion of his voice, the way the pale afternoon winter sunlight had been streaming through the long sash windows of the London apartment, shining his raven-wing hair, highlighting the taut, olive-toned skin on his jutting cheekbones, throwing those enigmatic grey eyes into deepest shadow.

He’d waved aside the bunch of faxed reports she’d just brought through from the study. ‘Sit down, put that sharp brain of yours into receiving mode, and listen.’

She’d sat, the slight smile his choice of words had brought to flickering life quickly fading because she couldn’t put her concern over Liz’s future to the back of her mind as a good secretary should.

The excellent salary she was earning through the agency meant that her mother no longer had any pressing financial worries. On the other hand, working for the agency meant that she often had to travel to distant parts of the country, and that, in turn, meant there was no one to keep an eye on Liz, see that she ate properly, took the regular periods of rest that were so important to her long-term recovery.

And she wouldn’t put it past her, as soon as she was back on her feet, to trundle out to find some kind of job. Liz had her pride, didn’t want to be a burden, was inclined to mutter on about Claire being able to spend some of her hard-earned salary on herself instead of using it to support her parent in idleness.

‘As I’ve told you, Anthea won’t be coming back, which leaves me, again, without a permanent personal secretary,’ Jake growled. ‘They come weighed down with all the right qualifications and good intentions, and before you know it they find some lame excuse or other to quit.’

So a disgruntled fiance, Anthea’s love-life, was considered to be a lame excuse, was it? Controlling the upward twitch of her mouth, Claire pushed her own worries out of her mind and concentrated on his.

While she sat, composed and still, he paced the floor, displaying all that restless energy she had grown to admire, and marvel at. He smacked a fist into the open palm of his other hand and grated, ‘They know what’s required and receive a blinding salary to compensate for any minor inconveniences! And God knows, I’m not a monster to work for, am I, Claire?’ He glared at her, his brows bunched, as if he couldn’t believe anyone fortunate enough to work for him would ever willingly depart—for any reason under the sun—and she clamped her teeth tightly together to control the grin that threatened to break out and gave him back a soothing, if necessarily tight-lipped smile, a confirming shake of her head.

Not a monster, never that. Demanding, brilliant, restless, capable of long, sustained bursts of energy that left lesser mortals feeling drained and giddy, sometimes impossible and sometimes staggeringly, generously thoughtful and kind. But never a monster.

‘Any suggestions?’ He had come to a standstill, hovering over her, his hands now bunched into his trouser pockets.

Disregarding the bluntly aggressive tone, she lifted cool eyes to meet the piercing blaze of his and replied calmly, ‘Hire someone who’s not interested in a love-life. A widow-woman, say, well into her fifties.’ She was trying very hard to keep a straight face. ‘Or, better still, a man. A man with a family to support, who would be grateful for a spectacular salary and the opportunity to escape the kids from time to time.’ A touch of bitterness there? she wondered. Memories of the way her own father had been?

‘Would a man take charge of my laundry, cook the occasional meal, buy my socks?’ he scorned. ‘And would your putative widow-woman have the stamina to keep up with my schedules?’

His smile was tight, almost feral, as he swept her suggestions aside. Then, with one of the mood swings she had come to expect, he dropped on to the opposite sofa, swinging one immaculately trousered leg over the other, tipping his head on one side as he gave her a long, considering look, before saying with languid smoothness, ‘Having wiped out the options, I want you to consider my proposition. Take the job; work for me. Permanently. And, to ensure you don’t dredge up some flimsy excuse to terminate your employment, I will marry you.’

Marriage! Her stomach muscles shivered, then clenched. She had expected him to offer her a permanent position, had been reluctantly prepared to turn it down because if she was on the other side of the globe with him who would keep an eye on Liz—but marriage! That was the last thing she’d expected him to offer! Quite out of the question!

‘And before you verbalize what’s written on your face,’ his voice came through the whirlpool of her thoughts, silky soft yet carrying the core of that iron will of his, ‘listen, absorb and contemplate. Firstly,’ he ticked off on a lean, long forefinger, ‘the marriage will not be consummated. To the outside world it will appear the perfect match, but privately you will function as my personal secretary. No more, no less. Your salary will be paid in the form of an allowance—and you won’t find me ungenerous. Secondly, you will enjoy the financial security, the luxury, my wife would naturally expect. In return, I will have the loyalty and continuity of service I need.’