The Best Man for the Job Read online

  She winced. ‘I know the feeling.’

  ‘Not just the ultrasound and those pictures for you, then?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Although that afternoon was the key that unlocked everything, if that makes sense.’

  ‘More than you probably realise.’

  She put down her spoon and fork together on her spotlessly clean plate and bit her lip. ‘For me I think it was a combination of things, really. My friends marrying and starting families. And then that thing my dad said about my age. It got into my head sort of insidiously and then stayed there, niggling away. I mean, I know I still have time, but after we made the decision to go for the abortion, I kept thinking what if this is my only chance? What if I got rid of this baby and I never got pregnant again? Would I regret it? And if I did, would I be able to live with the regret?’ She shrugged and smiled, although there wasn’t any humour in it. ‘Silly, huh?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘So what was it for you? Don’t tell me you were envious of your friends settling down and having kids.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And age wouldn’t be an issue, so what was it?’

  ‘Some stuff going back a while.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  While he’d been absolutely fine with talking about love and marriage, this was veering into territory that would make him sound like a sentimental sap. ‘Just stuff,’ he muttered, hoping she’d leave it but knowing she wouldn’t.

  Celia tilted her head and looked at him. ‘Come on, Marcus, I told you my reasons. You can tell me yours. Come to think of it,’ she added contemplatively, ‘you already know a lot more about me than I do about you, and didn’t you once say you were all for equality?’

  He had, and, after what she’d just told him, maybe he owed her the truth in return. Besides, if he carried on protesting she’d read more into his reluctance than there was to be read.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, sighing and running a hand along his jaw as he wondered where to start. ‘Becoming a father isn’t something I’d ever have chosen to do,’ he said finally. ‘But presented with the possibility, it opened a box for me too. Mainly to do with my father and our relationship.’

  ‘Which was good, right?’

  ‘Very good. I kept thinking about my childhood—which I remember as being improbably idyllic—and was filled with the overwhelming need to recreate it. I guess I’d like to have that father-child bond again, albeit from a different angle.’

  ‘What if it’s a girl?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘And the sacrifices you’ll have to make?’

  ‘Those don’t seem to matter either. My lifestyle’s already changed for one reason or another and I find I don’t mind at all. You know, maybe I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen.’

  Her eyebrows shot up. ‘An accidental pregnancy?’

  ‘Not exactly, but something that makes me evaluate my life.’ Which was something he’d been doing quite a bit of actually. Recently the thing Dan had said about Marcus turning into Jim Forrester had been gnawing away at him. Did he really want to be fifty and chasing every woman he could? No, he didn’t, so maybe once things had settled down he’d look at embarking on a proper relationship. One that might cure him of his inconvenient and impossible attraction to Celia.

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  Marcus shrugged and twirled the stem of his wine glass, watching the dark red wine swirl around. ‘It’s not too bad any more.’

  ‘But you did for a while?’

  ‘Like a missing limb.’

  ‘And that’s why you went off the rails.’

  He nodded. ‘Mainly.’

  ‘And what about your mother? Do you miss her?’

  Something inside him chilled a little and he abandoned his glass to pick up the knife and point it at the tart. ‘More pudding?’

  Celia shook her head. ‘No, thanks. It was delicious, though.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said again, only this time with a tiny frown.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you. Except an answer. That would be nice.’

  It wouldn’t be nice at all, he thought darkly, clearing the table and refusing her offer of help. Which, with hindsight, was probably a mistake because instead of being busy with dishes, she had time to wonder.

  ‘Why are you avoiding the question, Marcus?’ she asked, and he could feel her eyes on him.

  ‘Because it’s a tricky one to answer,’ he muttered.

  ‘Why?’

  With a deep sigh, Marcus abandoned the crockery and turned to lean against the counter. ‘Following my father’s death neither of us were very good at dealing with our grief,’ he said, folding his arms across his chest as if that might somehow suppress the memories. ‘I went wild. She withdrew into herself. Ultimately she’d loved him so much she couldn’t live without him. Literally.’

  She nodded, her eyes filling with sympathy, compassion and pity, and he couldn’t work out whether it pissed him off or made him grateful. ‘I heard. I’m sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing to be sorry about. She just couldn’t go on without him, that was all.’

  ‘She must have been in a very bad way.’

  ‘She was. She was deeply depressed, even though I don’t think she realised it. I certainly didn’t.’

  ‘No, well, how could you have?’

  The guilt struck him square in the chest and his jaw tightened. ‘If I’d been less hell-bent on self-destruction I might have.’

  ‘She’d have found a way whatever you’d done.’

  ‘If I’d at least tried she might have thought I was worth sticking around for.’

  For a moment there was absolute silence and Marcus wished he could take back the words because he’d said too much. Way too much.

  ‘I’m sure that wasn’t it,’ she said softly.

  ‘It was,’ he said bluntly. ‘She left a note. Basically saying that she loved me and that she realised she’d be leaving me behind but that it wasn’t enough to stop her.’

  Celia looked stricken and a dozen different emotions flickered across her face. ‘Oh, God,’ she murmured.

  He arched an eyebrow. ‘You did ask.’

  ‘I know I did.’

  ‘Regretting it?’

  ‘Not for a second.’

  He gave her a dry smile. ‘Hardly the best of gene pools, is it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, running her gaze over him and, whether she knew it or not, making him forget that horrible couple of years and return his focus to her.

  He watched her eyes darken, heard her breath catch, and desire hit him like a blow to the chest. His hands itched. His mouth went dry and he was a second away from hauling her up from the chair and into his arms when she blinked, snapping the connection and making him recoil.

  ‘So how did you get from hurtling off the rails to where you are now?’ she said a little hoarsely, sounding as shaken as he was.

  Marcus gathered his wits and thanked God Celia had had the sense to pull them back from the edge. ‘Just after my mother died and I was spinning really out of control, a friend of my father’s basically took me in hand. He put me to work in one of his companies, a brokerage. It turned out I had an affinity for stock picking and I moved up until I set up my own business. The rest you know.’

  ‘Didn’t any of your own friends try to help?’

  ‘Dan did a bit. But we were eighteen, nineteen. I was determined to raise as much hell as I could and I was very good at it. There was nothing he could have done.’

  ‘Is that why you’re setting up this scheme to help people like you once were?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Paying i
t forward.’

  ‘In a small way.’

  ‘And what about the business mentoring and the angel investing?’

  ‘I had no idea you were listening so closely.’

  ‘I was listening.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, wondering why the thought of her listening would make his heart beat this hard and this fast. ‘Well, that’s because I enjoy taking risks and making money.’

  Celia gave him a smile that was hot and wicked and threatened to blow his noble intentions to keep his hands off her to smithereens. ‘I’m glad to hear you’re not all good.’

  There was a crackling silence, and as they looked at each other, with heat and tension filling the space between them, all Marcus could think about was how much he wanted her. How much he always had. To hell with what was right or wrong. Screw the consequences. He wanted her, and she wanted him, and he, for one, was going to go mad if they didn’t do something about it.

  ‘Are you?’ he said softly, taking a step towards her and seeing her eyes widen with alarm.

  She stood up, nearly knocking her chair over in her haste, and grabbed her bag. ‘Of course,’ she said way too brightly, edging back and keeping the distance. ‘Just think of your reputation.’

  He was having trouble thinking about anything but her and what he wanted them to do together. ‘I know it comes fifteen years too late,’ he said, keeping his eyes on hers, ‘but I’m sorry about making up the bet.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said quickly. ‘And I’m sorry about what I said about using you.’

  ‘Were you? Using me, I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why did you say you were?’

  ‘I was confused. Overwhelmed.’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘By you and the effect you have on me,’ she said breathlessly.

  His pulse spiked and a bolt of desire thumped him again. ‘And what effect is that?’

  ‘You know perfectly well.’

  ‘It’s entirely mutual, you know.’

  She swallowed hard and took a breath, as if struggling for control. ‘It’s also utterly irrelevant.’

  ‘Remind me why,’ he murmured because for the life of him he couldn’t remember.

  ‘Sex would only make a complicated situation even more complicated.’

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘And the awkwardness when it fizzles out would be hideous.’

  There was that, he thought with the one brain cell that was still functioning, but this tension, frustration, was pretty hideous too. ‘Nevertheless, I have a suggestion.’

  A tiny flicker of alarm leapt in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘You don’t know what it is yet.’

  ‘It’s something along the lines of getting it out of our systems so we can move on, isn’t it?’

  He gave her the glimmer of a smile. ‘The idea has merit, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s insane.’

  ‘We could try it and see. It worked before, didn’t it?’

  ‘I should go,’ she said, shaking her head as if to clear it.

  ‘Should you?’

  She nodded hard. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘This isn’t going to go away, Celia, even if you do.’

  ‘No, but if we’re sensible, it’ll be manageable.’

  Sensible? Manageable? ‘How?’

  ‘We ignore it.’

  ‘Not sure that’s an option.’

  ‘No...’ she agreed a little desperately. ‘OK, then, how about from now on we stick to meeting up in public?’

  TWELVE

  Over the course of the next few weeks that was what they did.

  They met in restaurants, bars and various parks. Despite having known each other for nearly twenty years, so much of that time had been clouded with animosity that they’d never really talked.

  Now, though, they did nothing but.

  They discovered that, while they disagreed about many things, about the big things, the important things, they were more or less on the same wavelength. They also found they had plenty in common. An interest in obscure French cinema. A deep dislike of cats. A love of chilli and being terrible patients, amongst many other things.

  And, of course, the still-scorching chemistry.

  That hadn’t gone away, thought Celia, blotting her lipstick and trying not to think about the evening she and Marcus had had fish and chips and he’d reached out to rub away a blob of ketchup at the corner of her mouth.

  If anything it was getting worse, because mature and sensible and not at the mercy of her hormones? Who the hell had she been kidding? Her hormones were going so mental that she couldn’t believe that at one point she’d seriously thought that ignoring what was going on between her and Marcus was an option.

  It had taken all her strength to walk away that night she’d gone for supper at his house. She’d been so very tempted to simply fall into his arms and yield to the need that had been clawing away at her, especially when he’d so clearly been up for it. But some sixth sense had warned her against it, and thank God she’d got out of there before she’d given in to temptation.

  Their conversation that night had been unsettling. Not the subject matter—although that had revealed more about him than she ever could have imagined—but the way she’d responded to it.

  When he’d asked what her family thought about the pregnancy it had occurred to her that he didn’t have anyone to tell, and her heart had wrenched. When he’d told her he had no intention of falling in love or ever marrying because of his experience, it had wrenched a little more. And when he’d been talking about his mother’s suicide and the note she’d left, well, that had just about torn her apart because it clearly affected him, making him think that somehow he wasn’t good enough when he was. He so was.

  It had been disconcerting, because Marcus wasn’t supposed to tug at her heartstrings. He wasn’t supposed to have as much depth as he did, although quite why he wasn’t when he’d been through such a tough time she didn’t have a clue.

  She wasn’t supposed to like him so much either, but there was another anomaly, because she did. A lot. He made her laugh. Entertained her. Challenged her and made her think and question and argue. So much so that the days they were meeting up she woke up on a high and then spent the rest of the day fizzing with excitement and counting down the hours until she could leave to go and see him. Sometimes she even left work early, which, given that she was meant to be doing everything she could to win the partnership, was madness.

  She ought to be wary of seeing him, not excited. Because every time they met up the occasions were underscored with such a strong current of tension that she’d started to think that perhaps they should have gone to bed that night. Perhaps Marcus had been right and it would have got things out of their system. Maybe the fact that they hadn’t was what was making the idea of it so compelling.

  Frankly, it was hard to see how sex would have made things any worse because the tension between them was sky-high. Every date that wasn’t a date was filled with fleeting touches. Laden looks. Conversation that tailed off. Sizzling, thundering silences and a hundred electrically charged moments before they said an awkward goodbye and each headed home separately.

  Not that it ended there, for her at least. Marcus was in her head pretty much constantly. Her dreams were full of him, and during the day she frequently found herself storing tiny things away to tell him later.

  She didn’t know how he was dealing with it all, but for all her fine words about sense and manageability her resistance was rapidly weakening. She couldn’t remember why sex with him had seemed like such a bad idea. She’d been thinking it might be a very good idea indeed for a while now. Now she was thinking that tonight, finally, she’d like to do something about it.
r />   It might be reckless and it might be rash, but she’d had enough of the excoriating frustration and the agonising tension. She’d had enough of the sleepless nights and the feverish dreams that assailed her when she did eventually manage to drop off. It wasn’t doing her nervous system any good at all and, heaven knew, she didn’t want her palpitations to reappear.

  So today she had a plan. This afternoon she’d find out whether she’d got the partnership, then later she and Marcus were going out for dinner at a three-Michelin-starred restaurant. And whether they were celebrating or commiserating, one thing was for certain: they were going to end the night together, in bed and having fabulous, hot, sweaty sex.

  * * *

  Tonight Marcus was going to end this ‘getting to know you’ crap.

  He stood at the basin in his bathroom, leaned forwards and wiped away enough condensation from the mirror to be able to see his reflection, which was actually pretty grim. No surprise there, he thought darkly as he picked up a can and squirted a ball of foam into his hand. He’d been feeling grim for days. Tense and grumpy and frustrated as hell.

  With hindsight, agreeing to her plan to get to know each other had been nuts. Going along with it had been even more insane. Where the hell had the intention to make that night she’d come for supper a one-off gone? When she’d suggested they stick to meeting up in public and he’d said fine without a moment’s consideration, what on earth had he been thinking?

  Shaking his head in disbelief and wondering when exactly he’d lost his mind, Marcus began lathering up his face.

  As if simply meeting up in public was the way to handle the scorching attraction that sizzled between them. Hah. They might not be able to act on their feelings in public but that didn’t make them go away, did it? No. It was simply making them worse. For him, at least.

  He had no idea how Celia was dealing with it but he was handling it badly, because over the past three weeks or so that they’d been seeing each other he’d been finding it increasingly hard to resist her.

  At first it had been fine. Well, not exactly fine, but he’d told himself that he could keep his impulses under control, and he’d more or less succeeded knowing it was a bad idea and, more importantly, why. Lately, though, they met up and it was all he could do not to grab her arm, hail a taxi and take her home. He was in a permanent state of confusion and arousal, and it was driving him crazy.