gr-grandfather… Um, I can’t claim my inheritance from my grandfather until I’m twenty-five. But if I marry I can have ten percent of it,’ she began, her voice growing stronger. ‘And—er—the thing is, I’d quite like to have some money of my own.’
‘You’re thinking of going to university?’ Nathan enquired.
‘No,’ she replied, feeling it would be disloyal to reveal that her father had vehemently vetoed that suggestion long since.
‘You don’t work?’
She blushed again. How could she tell someone who must obviously respect her father that her father was so controlling that anything she suggested, or her mother when she had been alive, had always been very firmly trodden on by Edward Bradbury?
‘No,’ she repeated. And, fed up with herself that she seemed to be totally spiritless, ‘I believe you have financial considerations too, for going through with this?’ she said.
Nathan Mallory looked at her then, taking in her long pulled-back hair that revealed her dainty features, observing her splendid complexion, seeming to drink in her face with his steady grey eyes on her wide green ones. ‘It will be years before I’m financially in a position to marry for real,’ he stated. He was serious still as he dotted the last i and crossed the last t. ‘You understand, Phelix, that our marriage ends at the register office door?’
‘That will suit me perfectly,’ she responded primly. And suddenly he had smiled—and she had fallen a little in love with him.
CHAPTER TWO
A BURST of applause brought Phelix back to the present. ‘That was pretty good, don’t you think?’ Duncan Ward, seated next to her, brought her the rest of the way back to the world of commerce.
‘I’ll say,’ she responded, having not taken in a word.
‘Coming for coffee?’ called a voice from the aisle. It was Ross Dawson who had detached himself from the group he was with.
Phelix turned to her two colleagues. ‘Shall we?’ she asked. Chris Watson adopted a bland expression, knowing full well he had not been included in Ross Dawson’s invitation.
‘I’m so dry I couldn’t lick a stamp,’ he accepted.
A few minutes later Phelix was waiting with Duncan while Chris and Ross went to get them coffee.
‘Are you staying the full week?’ Duncan asked. He and Chris had flown out on an earlier flight, and this was their first chance to catch up.
‘My father thinks it will benefit the company if I stay for the end of speeches get-together on Monday evening.’ She still couldn’t see how. Though her urgent need to bolt of a couple of hours ago did not now seem as urgent as it had. Plainly Nathan, after coming over and asking ‘How are you?’ while being perfectly happy to acknowledge that he knew her, had no intention of telling anybody that he was her husband any more than she had.
She glanced to her left as Ross and Chris joined them—her eyes seemed somehow to be drawn in that direction. Nathan was there in her line of vision, talking to the tall blonde.
With her insides churning, Phelix flicked her glance from him. It seemed to her then that Nathan Mallory had always had some kind of effect on her. Right at this moment she again felt like taking off. But, having discovered over the last eight years that she had far more backbone than she had up to then always supposed, she made herself stay put and smiled, laughed when amused, and generally chatted with her three male companions.
‘Have lunch with me?’ Ross asked as they made their way back to their seats.
‘Sorry. I’ve some work I want to look through.’
‘You can’t work all the time!’ he protested.
Sitting listening to speeches, even if she didn’t take in a word, hardly seemed like work to her. ‘There’s no answer to that,’ she replied, smiling gently at him. It wasn’t his fault that on the man-woman front he did nothing for her.
‘Dinner, then?’ he persisted.
She almost said yes if it included Chris and Duncan. But from their point of view they probably wanted to let their hair down away from the boss’s daughter.
So she smiled. Ross was harmless enough. ‘Provided you don’t ask me to marry you again, I’d love to,’ she agreed.
‘You’re hard-hearted, Phelix. If ever I catch up with that mythical husband of yours, I shall tell him so.’
‘Seven o’clock at your hotel.’ She laughed, and glanced from him straight into the eyes of Nathan Mallory. He was no myth.
She smiled, acknowledging him. For a split second he stared at her solemnly. And then he smiled in return—and her heart went thump!
Phelix was in her seat, determined not to let her mind stray again. The current speaker was a bit dry, but she concentrated on key words—‘state of the market’ and ‘systems and acquisitions’—and still couldn’t see what she was doing there—apart from Ross Dawson, of course, and the idiotic pipedream her father seemed to have that if she and Ross Dawson became one, Edward Bradbury might one day rule a Bradbury, Dawson and Cross empire.
No chance. Ross had spoken of her ‘mythical husband.’ Quite when she had let it generally be known that she was married she wasn’t sure.
Probably around the same time as she had discovered the extent of her father’s unscrupulous behaviour.
Probably around the same time her backbone had started to stiffen. Prior to that, having learned a passive ‘anything for a quiet life’ manner from her mother, she would never have dreamed of going against her father’s wishes. Though, on thinking about it, perhaps Nathan standing up to him had been the wake-up call she had needed.
Realising she was in danger of drifting off again, Phelix renewed her concentration on what the speaker was saying. ‘Face-to-face meetings are better than a video link,’ he was opining. What that had to do with their businesses she hadn’t a clue, and knew she was going to have to pay closer attention. Though in her view it was still farcical that she was there at all.
With quite a long break for lunch, Phelix took herself off back to her hotel. Her father had wanted her to ‘network’ so he said. Tough! That was a lie, anyway.
Up in her room, she went to open her laptop. But, feeling mutinous all of a sudden, she ignored it. She didn’t feel like working. She took some fruit and the cellophane wrapped slice of cake from the platter residing on a low table, added the chocolate that had been placed on her pillow when her bed had been turned down last night, went out to the balcony and stretched out on the sun-lounger.
The scenery was utterly fantastic. In the foreground a church—complete with clockface to remind her that she had to attend the conference centre that afternoon—and behind, towering, majestic mountains. Forests of pine trees right and left. Tall… Somehow she found she was thinking of tall, towering Nathan Mallory—and this time she let her thoughts go where they would.
They had married, she and Nathan, on a warm, humid day. She had worn what she had thought then, but blushed about now, to be a smart blue two piece. She supposed she must have worried a bit, after she had bought it
