Jane Donnelly - Max's Proposal

She could say that although she hadn’t taken a partner to the ball she did have a lover. Someone to whom she was completely committed. Max Vella’s world must be full of willing women. He wouldn’t bother with the likes of Sara if she played hard to get.

He probably wouldn’t get in touch because he wasn’t that interested, and when she rang him about the interview he would have changed his mind about that. She tossed and turned for a few more minutes, and then fell asleep.

She would have slept longer if she had not been woken by the sound of bells ringing in her head. The sound pierced the cocoon of her slumber, and still with her eyes shut she shook her head until the ringing stopped. When she did open her eyes very slowly daylight was streaming into the room, and she would have liked to pull the sheets over her head and go back to sleep.

Her throat was dry, and she could hear the twins shrieking. She had to have a cup of coffee and a couple of aspirins or she would start the day with a thumping headache. This was a working day. She had to get into the office this morning, but first she had to find the strength to climb out of bed.

Almost at once the bedroom door opened and Beth came in with the twins skipping behind her. ‘Didn’t you hear the doorbell?’ said Beth. ‘This just came for you.’ And Sara struggled to sit up, mumbling.

‘What?’ It was a very large box of chocolates.

‘With a card,’ said Beth. Written on a white card in black ink Sara read, ‘No rum ruffles, try the hard centres. The interview. My office twelve midday.’ And the initials M.V.

‘A chauffeur brought them. Grey uniform, peaked hat, the lot. Who sent them?’ Beth was agog with curiosity as Sara went on staring at the card. Sara would have recognised the writing anywhere. She couldn’t remember seeing any of his writing before, but she knew he would use a thick nib and write without any flourishes. She said, ‘Max Vella. I met him last night. He’s giving me an interview.’

‘You must have made a very good impression on him last night,’ Beth said. ‘I’ve never seen such a big box of chocolates.’ It lay on the bed beside Sara, a box of fine Belgian chocolates the size of a tea tray. Josh reached for the box and his mother said, ‘Don’t even think about it—and how you can after those truffles.’

Sara would have to explain just what had happened before the gossip reached Beth about her sister and Max Vella. Beth would know that it was nonsense. It was quite funny, it should cheer Beth up, but Sara then realised that if she didn’t hurry she’d be late for work. She would have liked to take time and trouble, fixing her hair and her make-up, choosing something smart and efficient-looking for the midday interview. Getting an interview was a fantastic stroke of luck, but she would have been happier if she hadn’t been seeing him again so soon. In about a week’s time would have suited her better.

Beth was still trying to persuade Sara to eat a slice of toast as Sara struggled into her coat and hurried out of the flat. Toast would have stuck in her throat. ‘I don’t have time for breakfast,’ she called, although it was the thought of facing Max Vella again that was playing havoc with her nerves.

The offices of the Chronicle were across the town square from Sara’s first floor flat. That had always been great—from her door to her work in less than five minutes. But it meant that this morning she shot into Reception with her coat unbuttoned, still trying to smooth down her hair.

The girl behind the counter said, ‘Hello, hello, you didn’t waste your time last night, did you?’

‘Oh, heck.’ Sara stood still and breathed deep. ‘Has Carl been talking?’

There had been a Chronicle photographer at the ball. He must have come back with the news about Max Vella and Sara. ‘Believe me,’ said Sara, ‘it was not what it seemed.’

A door from the front office led into the editorial department, and there she faced her colleagues, all of them waiting for her version of last night’s goings-on. Trying to explain at this stage would be hopeless. She said, ‘Sorry, it isn’t that good a story, whatever Carl’s been telling you.’

‘Come off it,’ Carl said huffily. He knew what he’d heard, what he’d seen. ‘You were getting on with Vella like a house on fire, never mind a bonfire. And then you went off upstairs with him, just the two of you.’

‘He was showing me round the house. I’ve never seen round it before.’

Carl hooted. ‘Ha! All those rooms with fourposter beds in them.’ Bedrooms had just been part of the guided tour like other rooms, but everywhere they had gone she had been conscious of the dynamic force of the man beside her.

‘You went up the stairs,’ Carl was declaring as if this was his proof positive. ‘But nobody saw you come down again.’

‘There’s more than one staircase in that house,’ Sara said scathingly.

Carl grinned. ‘A backstairs way out? What time did you leave?’

‘Before you did,’ she said, and she didn’t want any more of this. ‘Get any good pictures?’ she asked.

‘I missed the best,’ Carl had to admit. ‘You barefoot and him carrying you into the courtyard.’

She couldn’t explain that either, and the editor spoke up. ‘Max Vella? We are talking about Vella?’ And Sara nodded. ‘Doesn’t sound like him,’ the editor mused.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Sara said wearily. ‘I’ll ask him when I see him again. He’s giving me an interview at twelve o’clock.’

The next half-hour she spent with the editor, planning the interview. The Chronicle was a longestablished county newspaper that rarely had anything very exciting to publish. Jim Kelly had been in this job for twenty-odd years. He was delighted that one of his staff would be interviewing the local tycoon who had never given an interview before.

‘Get some human interest,’ Sara was instructed. ‘Where he came from, what local plans he’s got.’

Like the dodgy deal I overheard, Sara might have said, when there were no names mentioned and nothing to tie it in with anything. ‘Human interest,’ she repeated, and Jim Kelly chuckled.

‘Some say Vella isn’t human but you seem to have surprised them all last night.’

‘Last night was pretty surprising all round,’ Sara muttered.

Afterwards she wrote captions for the pictures Carl had taken, and an account of the ball, the charity getting the proceeds, and a list of local bigwigs who had attended. She made no mention of course of herself, although she was going to be a main topic in any discussion of last night at the Moated House.

She was beginning to regret all of it. This morning she would have given a lot to put back the clock and keep out of the darkened room so that she never came up against Max Vella or anything that happened afterwards. Watching the office clock edging round to midday, her tension was building up by the minute, and when there was a phone call for her she hoped it was Vella’s office, postponing their meeting.

It was Beth. ‘Are you all right?’ Beth wanted to know. Assured that Sara was fine, she went on apologetically, ‘I’m going to have to talk to Jeremy. He’s at home and I’ve got to find out, well, how bad things are. Well I have, haven’t I?’

Sara was resigned to this; it was the way it always happened. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Get the figure and we’ll talk about it.’

One thing that never surprised Sara was her brother-in-law. Jeremy Bolton was a problem and always had been. Two nights ago Beth had phoned Sara’s flat in tears. ‘It’s happening again, he’s been betting on the horses again. He’s lost, of course, he always loses, but he never seems to learn. He promised me, and now—Oh, I’ve got to get away, I’ve got to get the twins out of here. I can’t think straight; I don’t know what to do. We can’t go to mother’s; you know how she is when she’s upset. She can’t listen, she can’t take it in. Sar, will you fetch us?’