Her Impossible Boss (11 page)

It was essential to put her at ease. Talking about nothing in particular as they covered the short distance to the coffee shop was step one in that procedure.

Once there, he installed her at a table away from the window and any possible distractions and ordered them both something to drink and eat—although when he appeared with two lattes and a selection of pastries Tess glanced at him and blushed.

‘To be honest, I’ve gone off coffee,’ she confessed. ‘And food in general. I have morning sickness that lasts all day, pretty much.’

Which made it all so real that his eyes were drawn to her still flat stomach. His baby! Unlike the Matt of ten years ago, this Matt was finding it strangely pleasurable to contemplate impending fatherhood—even with the dilemmas involved. There was much to be said for maturity.

‘I can get you something else. Name it. Whatever you want.’

‘You’re suddenly being nice. Why?’

Matt sat down and helped himself to a cinnamon roll. ‘If you think that I reacted too strongly, then I apologise, but this has come as a shock. I’ve been very careful when it comes to making sure that…accidents never happen.’

Tess hung her head in guilty shame. And, as luck would have it, this ‘accident’ had occurred with a woman who had never been destined to be a permanent fixture in his life. He might not have lasted the course with Vicky, but Tess couldn’t imagine that he would ever have accused
her
of staging a pregnancy for his money.

‘However,’ Matt continued, interrupting her train of thought before it had time to take hold and plunge her into further depths of misery, ‘there’s no point dwelling on that. We’re both facing a problem and there are always solutions to problems. Have you told anyone about…this situation?’

‘I’ve only just found out myself!’ Claire didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. She would be in for a double shock. Tess shuddered just thinking about it. When she paused to consider her parents, her mind went blank. Beyond that, there were so many practical concerns that she hardly knew where to begin—and here
he was, cool as a cucumber, working it out as though it was a maths question with an easy answer.

‘Well, sooner rather than later, that’s going to have to change. Your parents are going to have to know, for a start.’

‘Yes, I
realise
that.’

‘How do you think they’re going to react?’

‘I…I haven’t thought about it. Yet.’

‘And then there’s the question of money.’ He watched her carefully, but she was obviously still mulling over the thought of breaking the news to her parents. He knew that she was very close to them. He could see where her thoughts were going. ‘Fortunately for you, I am prepared to take full responsibility for this. I think you know where this is leading.’

Cinnamon roll finished, Matt looked at her over the rim of his mug and said nothing until he had her full and undivided attention.

‘We will be married. There is no other option.’

He waited for signs of relief and gratitude. Now that his proposal had been made, he decided that things might have been considerably worse. Their relationship might have come to an end, but that end had been prematurely engendered by the fact that she had given him an ultimatum—by the fact that time had not been on their side. Yes, he had certainly concluded that she was not his ideal match, at least on paper, but his thinking had had to change and change it had. Never let it be said that he wasn’t blessed with an ability to get the best out of a thorny situation.

Relief and gratitude were taking their time, and Matt frowned at her. ‘Well? We’re going to have to proceed quickly. I will break it to my parents, and then
arrangements can be made for a wedding. Something small would be appropriate, I think you’ll agree.’

‘Are you
proposing
to me?’

‘Can you think of a better solution?’ Matt was prey to a one-off, very peculiar feeling. He was a knight in shining armour, she the damsel in distress. He had never been given to fanciful notions of this nature, but he was now, and a sensation of general wellbeing spread through him with a warm glow.

Her eyes glistened and he whipped out his handkerchief—pristine white.

‘This is everything I ever dreamed of,’ Tess said bitterly. ‘And I’m not going to embarrass you by bursting into tears in the middle of a coffee shop, so you can have your handkerchief back.’

‘I guess it is,’ Matt concurred.

‘All my life,’ Tess continued in a driven undertone that finally caught his attention, ‘I’ve dreamt of a man proposing to me because he has no choice. What girl wouldn’t want that? To know that a guy who doesn’t love her, and in fact was glad to see the back of her, is big enough to marry her because she’s pregnant!’

For a few seconds Matt was stunned into speechlessness. Twice in one day so far he had been lost for words! Tess wondered whether a world record had been set.

‘Furthermore,’ she carried on, ‘haven’t you learnt
any
lessons from your past?’

‘You’re losing me. Correction. You’ve
lost
me.’ Having leant forward, he now flung himself back in the chair and gave her a scorching look from under his lashes. ‘I can’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t be jumping up and down with joy at this juncture! Not
only am I
not
walking away, I’m positively offering a solution. You are having my baby. You will therefore be protected—as will our child. With my ring on your finger you will never need or want for anything in your life again. And what
lessons,’
he added belatedly, ‘are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about your ex-wife, Matt! Catrina?’

‘What about her?’

‘You married her because she fell pregnant. You married her out of a misguided sense of responsibility.’

‘I married her because I was young and foolish. Her pregnancy had very little to do with it.’

‘Look…’ She took a few deep, calming breaths. ‘I understand that you want to do the right thing but the right thing, isn’t for us to get married.’

‘You’re telling me that a stable home life for a child is unimportant?’

‘You
know
that’s not what I’m saying,’ Tess cried in frustration. ‘Of
course
a stable home life is very important for a child! But two people living under the same roof for the wrong reasons doesn’t make for a stable home life. It makes for…for bitterness and resentment. It wouldn’t be right for both of us to sacrifice our lives and a shot at real happiness because I happen to have fallen pregnant.’

Matt was finding it hard to credit that she was turning him down, but turning him down she was. Only days ago she had been desperate to prolong their relationship, and now, when he was offering her the chance to do so, she was throwing it back in his face as though he had insulted her in the worst possible way! On some very basic level, it defied understanding.

‘You’re not being logical.’

‘I’m being incredibly logical. I won’t marry you, Matt. I know I wanted us to carry on seeing one another—I know I would have stayed here a while longer if you had wanted me to—but I’ve had time to think about that, and you were right. It would never have worked out. We just aren’t suited, and we’re not going to become magically suited just because I made a mistake and fell pregnant.’

Matt felt the ground shifting awkwardly under his feet.

‘You won’t be returning to Ireland.’ He delivered this with brutal certainty. ‘If you think that you’re going to make your bid for happiness across the Atlantic, then you’re going to have to think again.’

A shot at real happiness?
He pictured her having her shot at real happiness with one of those sappy guys she claimed to be attracted to and it was a picture that made him see red. He wasn’t going to get embroiled in a long debate about it, however. Reluctantly he admitted that he was in a very vulnerable place. The second he had arrived at his solution to their problem, the very minute he had understood what would have to be done and had reconciled himself to the inevitable with a great deal of largesse, he had expected her to follow suit.

‘Then I guess we’ll have to talk about arrangements,’ she said heavily.

Matt shook his head in the impatient gesture of a man trying to rid himself of something irritating but persistent.

‘I would never deprive you of having a bond with
your child,’ she continued gently. ‘I know what you went through with Samantha.’

‘So what are your suggestions?’ When it came to the art of compromise, his skills were remarkably underdeveloped, but now Matt understood that compromise was precisely what he would have to do. Until he could persuade her round to his point of view. Legitimising their relationship made perfect sense to him, but he knew that he would have a lot of ground to cover. He had sidelined her, and she wasn’t going to let him forget that—even though circumstances had now irrevocably changed.

Like a dog with a bone, he chewed over her assumptions that they were better off apart, that they were ill suited to one another. She seemed to have forgotten very quickly just how compatible they had been—and not just in bed. This about-turn in his thinking was perfectly acceptable to Matt. Things were different now. Instead of trying to spot the possible downsides, she should be trying to see the definite upsides. As he was! He was prepared to make any necessary sacrifices. Why shouldn’t she?

‘I could stay on in Manhattan…’

‘That’s non-negotiable.’

‘Maybe live with Claire until I find myself a flat and a job.’

‘Have you heard a word I said?’ Matt looked at her incredulously. ‘You won’t be working. There will be no need. Nor will you be rooming with your sister.’ His face registered distaste. ‘If you’re hell-bent on not accepting my proposal, then a suitable place will be found. Somewhere close.
Very
close.’ He scowled, still
disgruntled with the way his plans had been derailed. ‘With regards to my work, I know that you want to contribute financially, but there will be no need for you to think that I come as part of the package.’

‘Why are you so determined to put obstacles in my way!’

‘I’m not putting obstacles in your way, Matt. You accused me of having ulterior motives in going to bed with you…’ Tess felt her voice wobble, just thinking back to that hurtful accusation.

‘I apologise,’ he inserted quickly. ‘You have to understand that it’s my nature to be suspicious. I was just taking a step back and voicing possibilities.’

‘There’s no point trying to backtrack now,’ Tess told him stiffly. ‘You said what you said in the heat of the moment but you meant every word. I’m not happy about the thought of living off you, and I won’t do it.’

‘Most women would kill for what you’re being offered,’ Matt intoned with intense irritation.

‘I’m not
most women,
so don’t you go bundling me up in the same parcel as everyone else!’

‘What job are you going to get?’

‘I want to go into teaching. I told you. I’ll investigate the process.’

Matt instantly determined that, whatever the process was, he would make sure that he decided it. He would not envisage a life with his child being raised separately while Tess vanished off to teach other people’s children. She should be with her own, keeping the home fires burning for him, looking after Samantha.

It was a comfortable image. Seductive even.

‘Now—’ Tess stood up ‘—I feel really drained. It’s
been stressful for me too, believe it or not, and I have a lot of things to be thinking about. So if you don’t mind I’m going to head back to the apartment. I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow.’

He was being dismissed! Control had been completely wrested from his possession, and for once he was in the position of having to grit his teeth and take it.

‘What time? I could send Stanton for you. We can have lunch. Dinner, if you prefer. There’s still a lot to discuss.’

‘I’ll…I’ll let you know…’ Tess said vaguely. She had so much to think about. Was she doing the right thing? He had offered marriage. Was it fair to the baby growing inside her that she turned him down? Her head felt as though it would burst.

They both needed space to think, and she wouldn’t let him call the shots. That was a dangerous road which she had already travelled. Matt Strickland didn’t love her. He never had and he never would, and the arrival of a baby wouldn’t change that. And without love how could she marry him? That thought infused her with strength.

‘Perhaps the day after tomorrow,’ she amended. ‘And then we can meet up and talk this over like two adults. Once we’ve done that, we can start sorting out the practicalities. This sort of thing happens to loads of people. We’re not unique. We can both deal with it and move on.’

T
ESS
returned to her sister’s apartment to find that nothing in life ever went according to plan. The answer-machine was blinking furiously and there were five messages. Four were from her sister and one was from her mum. Her mother’s message, delivered in an awkward, stilted voice—her
I’m-leaving-a-message
voice—informed her that her father had been rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack. ‘Everything will be fine, we’re sure,’ her mother had added as an afterthought. ‘No need for you to come back home early. Our Mary is on top of things. It’s wonderful to have a doctor in the family.’

The remaining messages were from Claire, repeating what their mother had communicated and adding that she was at the airport and would be in the air by the time Tess got the message. Then she demanded, ‘Don’t you ever answer your cell phone?’

There were eight missed calls and several text messages. Her cell phone had been innocently forgotten and was still in the kitchen, on charge.

The thoughts that had been driving her crazy on the trip back to the apartment now flew out of her head, replaced by panic. Her father was
never
ill. In fact, Tess
didn’t think that he had ever registered with a doctor—or if he had he had been a once-in-a-lifetime patient. If her mother had seen fit to call, then it must be serious. That was the path her logic took. It also advised her to get on the next flight out.

She flung some things in a hand luggage bag, and on the way to the airport reflected that getting out of the country for a while was probably the best thing that could have happened. Away from Manhattan, she would have time to think in peace. She would phone Matt in a few days and arrange to meet with him just as soon as she judged that her father was fit and fine.

Not seeing him would be the biggest act of kindness she could give herself, because seeing him earlier on had just reconfirmed what she had already known. He wreaked havoc with her peace of mind. The second she laid eyes on him it was as if an electric charge had been plunged into her, and it didn’t matter how much she tried to think herself out of feeling that way, she was helpless against his impact.

Some time away from him—even a few days—would allow her to build up some defences. She would have to face the unappealing reality that her life was going to change for ever. Not only would she have a permanent tie with Matt, but she would be condemned to follow the outcome of his choices through the years. She would have to watch from the outside as he became involved with other women, shared his life with them, introduced them to Samantha and to their own child. However much he wanted to take on responsibility, she’d had to release him from a sacrifice that would have destroyed them
both, and it wouldn’t be long before his relationship with her became purely functional.

She would have to learn to deal with that. She would get a job when the baby was born. Not immediately. First she would check out colleges and see what might be required of her. Those weeks of teaching Samantha had bolstered her confidence. She would start her academic climb with a positive outcome in sight. In time, she would get a job and meet someone else. Someone more suitable.

When she began to think about this mystery man, waiting just around a mythical corner, her thoughts became vague, and she had to stop herself from making the sweeping assumption that no one could ever possibly compete with Matt.

As soon as she landed in Ireland she phoned her mother who, like her, had a habit of forgetting her mobile phone—leaving it on counters, in the bedroom, sometimes on top of the television. Because, ‘If it’s important, whoever it is will call the proper phone.’ There was no reply.

Exhausted after her long flight over, and greeted with a damp, unappealing Ireland which seemed so much quieter and so much less vibrant after the excitement of New York, Tess took a cab back to her home.

The buzz of the city was well and truly left behind as the taxi meandered along the highway and then trundled along narrow streets surrounded by great stretches of countryside, as though the cab driver had all the time in the world.

He talked incessantly, and Tess made a few agreeable
noises while allowing her thoughts to wander like flotsam and jetsam on an ocean current. She pictured her father lying grey-faced and vulnerable on a hospital bed. Mary would know exactly what was going on, and would give her a more realistic assessment than either her mother or Claire. When she thought of her father being seriously ill she began to perspire, and switched her thoughts to her own problem. Although she would be seeing her entire family, she would not be able to breathe a word about her condition. She would have to wait until things calmed down a bit—then she would break the news. The very last thing either of her parents needed was yet more stress. Maybe she would wait until she returned to Manhattan. She hoped her mother wouldn’t expect her to stay on.

It was yet another possible complication that she once again shied away from facing. Life as she once knew it now seemed simple in comparison, but looking around her as the taxi drew into the small village where she had, until recently, lived with her parents, Tess wondered how she hadn’t itched to fly the coop long ago. Everything was so
small
and so
static.
They drove past the village hall, the shops, the cinema. Several miles away there was a bigger town, where she had always gone with her friends, but even that seemed rural and placid in comparison to the vigour of Manhattan.

The house was empty when she arrived, but signs of occupation were everywhere to be seen. Mary’s jacket hung on the banister. Claire’s bag had been dumped in the hall and lay half open, with items of clothing spilling out.

The immediacy of the situation grabbed Tess by
the throat, and all thoughts of Matt were temporarily jettisoned.

The next few hours were a blur of activity. She was deeply, deeply exhausted, but her body continued operating on autopilot. She contacted Claire, then drove her mother’s car to the hospital—and that felt very strange after a diet of public transport, taxis and Matt’s private chauffeur.

‘He just complained of feeling a bit out of breath,’ her mother whispered, drawing her to one to whisper. ‘The old fool.’ Her eyes had begun watering but she soldiered on and blinked her tears away. ‘Never had a day’s illness in his life, so he didn’t want me to call the doctor. Thank the Lord I did! They say it’s just a scare. He’s going to be fine. But he’ll have to give up some of his favourite foods. He’s not going to like that. You know your dad.’

It was late by the time Tess’s body finally caught up with. One minute she was chatting with her sisters and her mother in the kitchen, then she was having her shower, slipping into a nightie, and then her head hit the pillow and she disappeared into sleep as though tranquillised.

And that continued to be the case for the next three days. She settled into a routine of sorts—back in her old bedroom, sharing the bathroom with Mary and Claire and bickering with them about the length of time they took whenever they ran a bath. Her father was improving steadily and had begun to complain about the hospital food, which seemed a good sign.

Lurking at the back of the gentle chaos and the cosiness of the familiar was Matt’s dark, brooding presence,
and the pressing situation with which they had yet to deal. But every time Tess reached for the phone to call him her hand faltered and she began sweating, and then she’d postpone the conversation which she knew would inevitably have to be made. After the second day he began to leave messages on her mobile, and missed calls were registered. Tess decided to give it until the weekend to get in touch. The weekend would mark five days out of contact.

Mary would be returning to London and Claire would be going with her, taking a few days off to remain in the country and using the opportunity to import Tom, so that they could do some shopping and also meet the parents if she deemed that her father was up to it. She had already e-mailed her resignation and seemed to have no regrets about losing her high-flying job in Manhattan because Tom would be transferring to London. Between her father’s improving health and Claire’s exciting news Tess was happy to sideline herself in the background, where she could nurse her own worries in peace.

Which was precisely what she was doing in her room, with her tiny, very old television turned on very low, telling her about unexpected flooding in Cornwall, when her mobile went and an unknown number was displayed.

At the very height of his frustration Matt had invested in a new phone, with a new number, because after days of trying without success he could think of no other way of getting in contact with her.

He’d hesitated to telephone her sister. What excuse could he possibly give? Tess had been adamant that she would break the news to her family in her own time.
Already dealing with having his perfectly formulated plan to marry her turned on its head, the last thing he needed would be to arm her with more grounds for grievance.

Over a period of three days his mood had travelled on a one-way road from poor to appalling. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Then he’d begun to worry. What if she had been taken ill? Been in an accident? Was lying somewhere in a hospital, unable to get in touch? The surge of sickening emotion that had filled him at the thought of that had been shocking—although, as he had shakily reminded himself, perfectly understandable given her condition. He was a man of honour. He
would
be shaken to the core at the thought of the mother of his child falling ill and being unable to get in touch with him.

But before he began ringing round the hospitals in the area he’d had the last-minute brainwave of buying a new phone—one with a new and unrecognisable number—just in case she simply wasn’t answering his calls.

The second he heard her voice at the other end of the line he felt a spasm of red-hot anger envelop him like a mist. He realised that he had been
worried sick
about her.

‘So you
are
alive,’ were his opening words.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Tess sat up in bed. The sound of his voice was like a shot of adrenaline, delivered intravenously.

‘Matt…I’ve been meaning to give you a call.’

‘Really? When?’ It was just as well that she wasn’t within strangling distance, he thought with barely suppressed fury. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve made
several hundred calls to you over the past few days.
Where the hell are you?
I’ve been to the apartment four times and no one has been there!’

‘I needed to have a little time to myself.’ She glanced around her furtively, half expecting to see him materialise out of thin air, so forceful was his personality even over a telephone thousands of miles away.

‘I’m sick to death of hearing what
you
need!’ He had to stop himself from roaring down the line. There was no place for anything less than civilised behaviour in their situation, but the woman brought out a side to him that he hadn’t known existed and one which he found difficult to control. Not even with Catrina, at the very height of their dysfunctional marriage, when revelations had been pouring out from the woodwork like termites, had he felt so uncontrollably responsive. Where with Catrina he had taken refuge from his problems by burying himself in his work, with Tess that was no solution. However hard he tried, it was impossible to focus. ‘Running away isn’t the solution! Where
are
you?’

‘I’m…’ Two things stopped her from telling him the truth. The first was the knowledge that to confess that she was on the other side of the Atlantic, having taken off without bothering to let him know, would make him even angrier than he already sounded. The second was the fact that she
couldn’t
let him know where she was. He was her problem in America, and with her father still recuperating there was no way that she wanted him to intrude and possibly risk jeopardising her father’s recovery. How would her parents react if he phoned the house and gave the game away? Let slip that she was pregnant? Single and pregnant by a man who wasn’t
going to be her husband? Her parents would have to be gently eased into that, and this was not the right time.

‘I’m out of New York. Just for…for a few days. I know we have stuff to talk about, and I’ll give you a call just as soon as I return.’

‘Where. Are. You?’

‘I’m…’

‘If you don’t tell me where you are,’ he said in a calmer voice, ‘then I’ll do some investigative work and find out for myself. You would be surprised how fast I can get information when I want it.’

‘I told you—’

‘Yes, I know what you told me, and I’m choosing to ignore it.’

‘I’m back home,’ Tess confessed, ‘in Ireland. My dad got rushed into hospital and I just had to get to the airport and fly over.’

Matt paused. ‘Rushed into hospital with what?’

‘A heart attack scare. Look, I’m sorry—’

‘And is he all right?’ Matt interrupted tersely.

‘On the mend. We’re all very relieved.’

‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place? No. Better question. Why didn’t you answer one of my five hundred calls and
tell
me that?’

‘I had a lot on my mind…and I wanted to have some space to think…’

Across the water, alarm bells started ringing.

Matt was in no doubt that her initial reaction to hearing about her father would have been to hop on the first flight out. Although he was close enough to his parents, they had always been highly social and very much involved in their own lives. Tess, on the other hand, was
fiercely attached to her parents and her sisters. He assumed that she would not have broken the news about her pregnancy to them—not given the circumstances.

But
why
hadn’t she picked up any of his phone calls? Or returned any of them?

Space to think amongst her tightly knit family unit, back on her home turf, allied itself, in his head, with her desire to find happiness with someone else. It was not a happy alliance. With the comforting familiarity of her village around her, how long before she started contemplating the prospect of foregoing the stress of the unknown in New York? He was certain that her parents would react kindly to her pregnancy. Perhaps a small moral lecture, but they would weather the news and immediately provide support.