The Billionaire Boss's Innocent Bride (12 page)

Alex smiled faintly. ‘I made a bit of a hit with Nemo. From then on I was in, but he’s a great little boy.’

Cathy Spencer sipped her coffee, then put her cup down with something like decision. Alex held her breath, expecting to have to somehow fend off Cathy claiming Nicky and taking him away, but she got a surprise.

‘Have you any idea how I got myself into this mess—what is your name?’

‘Alex, but—’

‘Alex, then, I need to talk to someone,’ Cathy said with just a glint of her former fire. ‘I need to try to make someone believe I’m not quite the hard-hearted person I’m painted. I honestly didn’t believe it was Max’s child! Without going into too many details of my love life, I’d gone off the pill, it wasn’t agreeing with me, but I hadn’t told Max.’

She paused and Alex was forcibly reminded of Max’s Scheherazade remark because she sensed she was going to get drawn into this tale whether she liked it or not.

‘We were coming to the bitter end of our relationship,’ Cathy continued. ‘We weren’t communicating other than rowing. He wanted us to get married, he wanted a conventional wife who was like the jewel of his household, who would never embarrass him, who would always be there, who would always do the right thing. I’m not like that. I’m a free spirit at heart and I had no desire to be drawn into the Goodwin machine—and it is a machine. We had one last tempestuous night, then I walked away and fell into the arms of a friend for a couple of weeks.’

She closed her eyes. ‘I wasn’t thinking too straight, but I did have at the back of my mind that it can take some time to conceive after you’ve come off the pill.’ Her dark lashes swept up. ‘Then I realized I had conceived, but whereas with—with my friend, it could have been the right time of the month, with Max it should not have been. I just didn’t,’ Cathy Spencer said sadly, ‘take into consideration that my cycle had gone quite haywire.’

‘Your friend,’ Alex said, and hesitated.

‘He never knew. Oh, he was sweet enough and he helped me to pick up the pieces, but I had no more desire to be tied to him than I’d had to be tied to this empire.’

She looked around, then she grimaced. ‘Funnily enough, given the circumstances, I just couldn’t bring myself to have a termination.’

She looked down and pleated the hem of her jumper. ‘I think,’ she said with a frown,

‘it was because I’m such a believer in life and in creating things rather than destroying them. And it was also a part of me.’ Cathy raised her hands to point inwards to her chest, then she sighed. ‘Of course the irony that Nicky should turn out to be a mini-Max hasn’t failed to strike me.’

‘There’s one area he’s very like you,’ Alex said. ‘He adores drawing and painting. He’s the most artistic six-year-old I’ve ever met.’

For a moment Cathy Spencer’s long-lashed blue eyes glowed.

‘So when did you find out whose baby he was?’

The glow in Cathy’s eyes diminished and she smiled wearily. ‘At first Nicky looked like my father, according to my mother—I didn’t know my father, he died before I was born. Then, if anything, he looked like me, and there was always going to be the possibility he’d be blue-eyed with dark hair so it wasn’t a pointer, necessarily, to Max. But by the time he was walking and talking, he was growing more and more like Max. Now, they even have the same shape feet.’

‘So why didn’t you tell Mr Goodwin then?’

Cathy gripped her hands together. ‘I could not lose the feeling that it would be like handing Max a tool to—to control me, but not only that, I love Nicky and I do want what’s best for him. I did think it would be best to go it alone with him rather than subject him to—’ she closed her eyes ‘—a father and mother who—’ Cathy gestured eloquently and shook her head with a question mark in her eyes. Alex sat back. The house was quiet. Both Nicky and Nemo obviously slept on. What could she say? she wondered. Was she expected to answer that unspoken question? What would she say if she had no trauma to do with Max Goodwin herself?

Her next thought was to take herself to task immediately. She had no place in all this. If Max felt anything for her it was a small spark, that was all. How it had come about, if it really existed, she didn’t know; she could only theorize. He’d been under immense strain; he’d shown concern for her; she had fallen into his lifestyle with Nicky almost as if she’d been made for it.

So alongside that small spark, or perhaps it had grown out of it, there was gratitude on his side and affection—how could it ever be more? Above all, she was only a bit player in this drama, and if she had any sense at all she would cease even to be that.

There was only one way to answer the implied question Cathy Spencer was posing—

the answer she would have given if she’d truly been an unbiased outsider.

‘I think you’ll find Mr Goodwin also has Nicky’s best interests at heart and very much so,’ she said quietly. She drew a deep breath and went on, ‘And, forgive me, but to be honest, if two people can’t find some road to travel that gives the child they’ve created an even, loving passage, they would not only be foolish, they’d be, to my mind, incredibly self-centred.’

MONTHS later, Alex could remember word for word what she’d said to Cathy Spencer, her stunned reaction to it, and how the rest of that fateful morning had panned out.

Cathy had still been staring at her, wide-eyed and with an expression of growing guilt, when Mrs Mills had come in with a remote phone…

‘Mr Goodwin would like to speak to you, Miss Spencer,’ she said, and handed the phone to her.

Alex got up. ‘We’ll leave you alone,’ she murmured.

‘Thanks.’ Cathy stared at the phone for a moment as if she were afraid it was going to bite her, then she put it to her ear. ‘Max?’

‘Where was he?’ Alex asked Mrs Mills as they retreated to the kitchen.

‘Out jogging, apparently. He hadn’t told anyone and he hadn’t taken his phone. Does she want to take Nicky?’

Alex hesitated. ‘I don’t think so. I think she seriously wants to do what’s best for Nicky. She’s also just lost her mother so she’s pretty fragile.’

Mrs Mills heaved a heartfelt sigh. ‘They were good together, you know. Maybe they hid their warring side from the staff—’ she made a small moue ‘—which is not to say they didn’t have the odd disagreement, but if they both want what’s best for Nicky now, perhaps they’ll tie the knot, who knows? It’s what they should do.’

If I hear that once more, Alex thought with a feeling of suppressed savagery that took her completely by surprise, I’ll scream. If they were so good together how did it all descend into this and how on earth could a marriage survive all this?

But she immediately took herself to task again. It was what they should do. Surely it wasn’t too much to ask that they reshape their relationship for Nicky’s sake? Not only that, they were different now, they had to be. Cathy was alone and bereft—

‘Alex?’

She looked over her shoulder to see that Cathy had come into the kitchen and was holding the phone out to her.

‘Max wants to talk to you.’

And if that isn’t just the last straw, I don’t know what is, was Alex’s next thought as she took the phone with a completely deadpan expression. ‘Hello.’

‘Alex…’ he paused ‘…how are you?’

‘Fine. Thank you.’

‘Alex, Cathy is going to stay for a few days while we sort things out. I’ll be down this afternoon and—’

‘Mr Goodwin,’ she broke in, ‘in that case may I go home? You won’t need me and I’d really like to—to have a bit of time to myself.’

He hesitated, then he said abruptly, ‘All right. Put me on to Mrs Mills and I’ll organize it. I’ll keep in touch—and, Alex?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thanks for everything.’

‘That’s—that’s OK,’ she said awkwardly, and handed the phone to Mrs Mills.

‘Nicky,’ Alex said half an hour later, just after she’d heard the boy stirring in the next room, ‘how do you feel?’

‘Good.’ He sat up. ‘What are we going to do today?’

‘Well, I’m going home for—’

‘Why? Please don’t, Alex! Pretty please! Nemo doesn’t want you to go either.’

Alex smiled through the lump in her throat as she watched the boy and dog. ‘Nicky, I would love to stay,’ she said honestly, ‘but I have to go. And, anyway, I have a surprise for you, it’s someone you really, really—’

‘My dad’s home! Yippee!’ He and Nemo jumped up and down on the bed. Alex flinched inwardly as she wondered what Cathy Spencer, standing just beyond the inter-leading door, would make of this—she’d agreed to Alex’s request that she say goodbye to Nicky first.

‘He will be later, Nicky,’ she said. ‘Actually, it’s your mum—see?’ She turned to the doorway and Cathy came through. There was utter silence, then, like a whirlwind, Nicky flew into his mother’s arms.

It wasn’t Stan who drove her home—was Max concerned that Cathy might succumb to an urge to flee with Nicky so Stan needed to stay on at the Tuscan villa just in case? she wondered.

Whatever, a Goodwin Minerals’ driver picked her up not much later, and, after exchanging pleasantries, once again she was left to her thoughts as she travelled the Pacific Motorway north to Brisbane on another grey day with dark, swollen clouds above.

But her thoughts were curiously paralysed, she found. She could think of Nicky and his mother, she could think of the breakfast they’d eaten together, she could picture them waving goodbye to her as she’d been driven away. She could think of Mrs Mills’ surprisingly emotional farewell…You’re a dear, dear girl, Alex…

What she couldn’t direct her thoughts towards was what she was going to do now—

not, that was, without her mind turning in circles so much so that she didn’t immediately realize she was home.

‘Is this it, ma’am?’ the driver enquired.

‘Oh! Yes. Thanks very much!’

‘Do you need me to carry your luggage in for you, ma’am?’ he asked as he opened the car door for her.

‘No, just up to the front door will be fine. I can manage from there.’

‘If you’re sure, ma’am?’

‘Quite sure, thank you, there’s not so much of it.’

But ten minutes later, after he’d driven away, Alex was sitting on the garden bench beside the front door with the contents of her purse spread out on the seat but no sign of her front-door key. All her pot plants looked as if they’d been moved, which they had, but none had yielded a key underneath them and Patti, who had a spare key, was out.

The only small consolation was that it wasn’t raining, although it was still threatening to do so.

So it was that when a familiar navy-blue Bentley nosed into the kerb in front of the house, an accumulation of frustration and over-taxed emotions saw Alex Hill sitting upright on her garden bench with tears running down her cheeks she was in no way attempting to staunch.

In fact she didn’t even notice the Bentley and it was only when Max Goodwin stood in front of her that she suddenly realized she was not alone.

She looked up with a gasp, grabbed for a hanky from her pocket and launched into speech. ‘Mr Goodwin! What are you doing here?’ She stopped and blew her nose, then jumped up. ‘I was going to say you’re not going to believe this but you probably will—I can’t find my key! And my neighbour, who has a spare, is out.’

Max Goodwin reached into the pocket of the same navy-blue suit he’d been wearing when she’d first met him and produced his mobile phone. He flicked a few buttons, then said, ‘Margaret, I need a locksmith on the double.’ And he gave the Spring Hill address, then he added his thanks, folded the phone and put it away.

‘Th-thank you,’ Alex stammered, ‘but I still don’t understand why you’re here.’

‘Don’t you?’ He looked her up and down, her jeans, her caramel velour jacket and the pretty paisley scarf she’d wound round her neck. She wore no make-up but her hair was loose and riotous enough to drive any man to want to run his hands through it, he thought with some irony. ‘We need to talk, Alex.’

‘I don’t think we need to talk at all. I mean—’ she attempted a smile, but it came off as a sketchy affair at best ‘—I have nothing against talking to you—’ She stopped and her eyes widened as a smart little yellow van with ‘The Travelling Locksmith’

stencilled in red letters on it pulled in behind the Bentley.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I know you only have to snap your fingers for people to come running, but this is—amazing!’

He turned and raised his eyebrows at the van. ‘It’s not a case of snapping my fingers, it’s all Margaret’s wizardry, but—’ he smiled wryly ‘—that’s fast, even for her.’

In the event, as the locksmith explained, he’d just finished a job a block away when the call had come through. And it didn’t take him long at all to unlock Alex’s front door.

‘I—’ she began as the locksmith left. ‘Shouldn’t you be on your way to the Coast?

They’re expecting you.’

‘I will be. After you, Alex.’ He picked up her two bags. She’d shovelled her possessions into her purse in the meantime.

She hesitated, then preceded him into her flat—just as the heavens opened. He put her bags down inside the front door and closed it. ‘It’s been threatening to do that all morning.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed as she switched some lamps on, making the room come invitingly alive against the cacophony of the rain outside.

He looked around at the rug on the wall, the songket cushions, the mementoes and the pot plants, and he reached out to smooth his fingers along the back of a Verdite elephant on the bookcase. ‘Very you, Alex,’ he said as he studied a lovely little watercolour of Table Mountain, Cape Town.

‘Thank you.’ She put her purse down on the settee and shrugged. ‘I’m not sure what that means, but it sounded like a compliment so I’ll take it as one.’

‘It was a compliment—to a special girl. But…’ He paused.

Alex squared her shoulders. ‘It’s not going to work, is it? I mean, if you marry her, you won’t need me and—’

‘Who said I was going to marry her?’

‘Just about everyone I’ve spoken to in the last—’ she gestured ‘—forty-eight hours.’

‘Who?’ he insisted.

Alex heaved a sigh, ‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but your sister, your cousin, your housekeeper.’

He grimaced. ‘I’m sure my secretary put in her vote too.’

Alex thought for a moment with a slight frown in her eyes. ‘Funnily enough, she didn’t.’ She put her hands on the back of the settee and studied them for a moment, then looked up to see him watching her narrowly. ‘Are you?’

‘Going to marry Cathy?’ He paused and she thought she’d never seen his features so finely sculpted, his mouth so chiselled—or his emotions so firmly locked down. ‘I don’t know yet, but you can rest assured I fully intend to create a road of some kind that’s an even, loving passage for Nicky.’

Alex felt her cheeks grow warm. ‘She—she told you?’

He nodded.

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have said it.’ Her voice was barely audible as she put her hands to her hot cheeks.

This time he shook his head. ‘Someone needed to say it. And, for what it’s worth, I’ve been as self-centred as—anyone.’

Alex cleared her throat. ‘Well, good luck. I—I really wish you all the best. But…’ she hesitated ‘…the job as your personal interpreter is not going to work, either, is it?’

She glanced briefly at him, then glanced away.

‘Alex, look at me,’ he said quietly.

Do I have to? something cried in her head. Please don’t make this any worse than it is already!

But she did raise her eyes to his.

‘No, it’s not going to work,’ he said evenly. ‘In fact it was a bit thoughtless of me in the first place, but I have an alternative suggestion.’

Her eyebrows rose unwittingly.

‘The Chinese Consul in Brisbane is looking for an Australian citizen and resident who is fluent in Mandarin. Mr Li has connections with the consulate and he was most impressed with you. It sounds like an interesting job, much more hands-on than what you did for Wellford’s, much more people orientated. And, of course, all grist for the mill of someone with the Diplomatic Corps in mind.’

Alex opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, then said something quite inane. ‘How on earth have you had time to work all that out?’

He smiled rather dryly. ‘I had a brainstorming session early yesterday morning and I happened to be with Mr Li later.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve had a day and a half to get it all together.’

‘So it was before Cathy came that you decided…?’ She stopped with the question left up in the air, and she couldn’t hide the torture in her eyes.

‘Yes, before Cathy,’ he said. ‘Alex, it would never work for us.’ Although his words were level and quiet, they were quite definite even though the look in his eyes told her he hated to say them.

Because he felt sorry for her? she wondered, and flinched visibly.

‘Alex?’ This time his voice was a little harsh. ‘Would you be interested?’

She turned away and forced herself to breathe deeply and to choke the tears back. She swallowed several times, then she turned back, came round the settee and sat down.

‘It does sound interesting. I—I—could I think about it?’ she said a little unsteadily. He didn’t answer directly. ‘Did you have anything else in mind?’

She rubbed her face. ‘I suppose I could always go back to Simon.’

‘Simon Wellford will be doing a lot of work for us.’

His words seemed to drop like pebbles into a pool, creating ever-widening ripples, and it didn’t take long for her to grasp the implications of those ripples—too close to him for comfort for her, in other words.

‘I see,’ she said carefully. ‘Well, I’m glad he hasn’t lost out because of me, although he’s probably tearing his hair out trying to find another Mandarin speaker. Uh—no, I haven’t got anything else in mind at the moment, so, thank you very much, I will consider it.’

He drew an envelope out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the bookcase. ‘All the details are in there.’ He tapped the envelope. ‘There’s something else, arriving shortly.’ He looked at his watch.

Her eyes widened. ‘You don’t need to do any more for me. I’d rather you didn’t, actually.’

‘Wait and see,’ he advised.

She tried to say it firmly but her lips quivered so she stammered slightly. ‘N-no.’

She clasped her hands and went on all the same. ‘I need to handle this on my own,’

she added barely audibly. ‘It’s also a matter of pride. Don’t ask me why, but it is.’

She gestured, then was struck by a horrifying possibility. ‘Not—not Paul,’ she stammered. ‘I couldn’t—I couldn’t…’

He moved abruptly and for one electrifying moment Alex thought he was going to fold her into his arms, to comfort her if nothing else, to stave off a panic attack, perhaps, but he stilled almost immediately.

‘No, not Paul,’ he said. ‘Actually Paul has left me. He was due to go to America—

Harvard—for a semester anyway to further his business studies. He—’ he paused and searched her face ‘—he’s brought it forward a bit, that’s all.’

Alex released a long quivering sigh.

‘But it is a companion, Alex,’ he went on. ‘And—’

‘No,’ she repeated as someone knocked on the door.

Max swore beneath his breath, then he opened the door to reveal the driver who’d brought Alex up from the Coast.

‘Sorry, sir,’ the driver said, ‘but the rain held up the traffic a bit. Here she is.’ And he put a bundle of curly white fur down on the floor. ‘Lady McPherson said to say many, many thanks, her name is Josie and—’ he looked down at a bag he held in his other hand ‘—this is all her gear.’