must be awful for you,’ said Lou, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
Patrick shot her a look. ‘Why do women do that?’ he complained.
‘Well, you see, we tend to have these awkward things called feelings,’ Lou explained with mock patience. ‘It’s annoying of us, I know, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We will go and fall in love without thinking about how tedious it is for you to have someone who adores you and will do anything for you.’
She shook her head in pretended disbelief. ‘I mean, how selfish is that?’
‘I’m serious,’ said Patrick. ‘I just wish I could find a woman who was happy to take things as they are without always fretting about the future or what it all means or what will happen between us. As it is, we only go out for a few weeks before she starts to get clingy and I start to get claustrophobic.’
He grimaced. ‘The thought of tying myself down for life is too horrible to contemplate. I’d be bored within a month.’
‘You didn’t get bored with Catriona,’ Lou pointed out.
Patrick thought about living with Catriona. They had both been so young and excited to be living together. They had argued a lot, but it hadn’t been boring. He had missed her when she had gone.
‘That was different.’
‘How?’
Patrick wished that Lou would stop asking difficult questions. ‘It just was,’ he said.
‘Nothing to do with the fact that you and Catriona were the same age, and now you’re twice as old as any girl you might contemplate marrying?’
And she could stop putting her finger on the nub of the matter while she was at it.
‘No.’ He scowled at her. ‘It’s just that the older I get, the more I value my freedom. I like my life as it is. I work hard, I play hard and if I find a woman attractive, I can do something about it.’
Although clearly that wasn’t always the case, he added mentally, remembering Lou’s stockings.
Damn. Patrick cursed inwardly. He was supposed to have forgotten about them.
‘That’s not to say it wouldn’t be very handy to have a wife sometimes,’ he said, pushing the stockings to the back of his mind once more. ‘It would be good to have someone who could deal with the domestic and social side of things. I can’t be bothered with all of that, but there are times when I have to entertain and it would all be a lot easier if I were married.’
‘You can always have a housekeeper to take care of the house, and there must be any number of caterers falling over themselves to cook for people like you.’
‘Quite. That’s exactly what I do at the moment. But it’s not quite the same as having a hostess who can welcome people and introduce them to each other and do all the chit-chat.’
‘Have you ever tried any of your girlfriends?’
‘No.’ Patrick looked horrified. ‘It’s bad enough taking them along to receptions and parties. They’re not interested in business. They get bored and end up more of a liability than an asset. I can just imagine what would happen if I asked them to help me entertain business associates to dinner. That would be commitment.’ He sneered the word. ‘They’d be off buying wedding magazines the next day.’
‘I can’t believe that all these girls are really that desperate to marry you,’ said Lou, exasperated by his attitude. ‘It’s not like you’re that big a deal.’
Of course, incredibly wealthy, single, intelligent men in their forties weren’t that easy to come by, she had to admit. And it wasn’t as if Patrick were grotesquely ugly, either. He probably had a pretty fair notion of how attractive he was.
Not her type of course. The cockiness of Tom Cruise and the cool of Clint Eastwood was how she had described him to Marisa. ‘Tell me he’s got the looks of George Clooney and I’ll come and work for him myself!’ Marisa had said.
But Patrick was no George Clooney. He was too cold, his features too austere. He had none of Lawrie’s rakish good looks, or his easy charm, but still…Lou considered him anew. There was something definite about him, she decided, something solid and steady, and when he listened he concentrated completely on what you were saying. He looked at you properly, instead of letting his eyes wander around looking for something or someone more interesting the way Lawrie’s had done.
Funny that she had never noticed that before, thought Lou. Or his mouth, so cool and firm and intriguing. The kind of mouth you couldn’t help wondering about, how it would feel, how it would kiss. Not that she would want to, Lou reminded herself. It was just funny that she hadn’t noticed it until now, that was all.
Funny to realise what a difference a gleam of humour made, too, lightening his expression and warming the cold eyes.
Funny how his smile made her heart jump, just a little.
Must be all that champagne she had drunk.
‘Why don’t you try going out with women who’ve got bigger ambitions?’ she said, forcing her mind back to the subject at issue. ‘Someone who’s got a career of her own and who doesn’t want to settle down any more than you do?’
‘Believe me, I would if I could find a girl like that,’ said Patrick. ‘I might even be prepared to marry her.’
‘What, and give up your precious freedom?’
‘At least it would shut my mother up. She’s constantly going on at me to get married again. She thinks it would be good for me to have someone else to think about. She says it would stop me being so selfish.’
He sounded aggrieved and Lou smothered a smile. She rather liked the idea of him having a mother who was no more impressed with him than his PA.
‘Does she want grandchildren? Is that why she’s keen for you to get married?’
‘I think she’s accepted that she’s not going to get them from me,’ he said, and pointed a finger at Lou’s expression. ‘Don’t you go feeling sorry for her! She can’t complain. She’s already got eleven grandchildren. I’d have thought that was more than enough.’
‘Eleven?’ said Lou, trying to adjust to the idea of Patrick as part of a large family.
‘I’ve got three sisters, all of whom seem to be very fertile, and all of whom also think I should get married. Every time I see them, they ask me what’s the point of having all that money and not enjoying it. Just because they’ve got big families of their own, they think I should have that too,’ he grumbled.
‘I tell them I’m perfectly happy living on my own, and I am, but sometimes when I go home the house does seem a bit empty,’ he admitted, and gave a rather shamefaced smile. ‘There, that’s my embarrassing confession!’
‘That’s a confession, not a fantasy,’ said Lou light-heartedly.
She was feeling extraordinarily mellow. It was oddly comfortable to be sitting here with him, talking to Patrick about things she would never normally dream of discussing with anyone at work, let
