certainly been eventful having you here.’
She couldn’t help but return his grin, despite the feeling that she was somehow losing control of herself.
‘Stay. Please.’
Her heart turned over at the expression on his face. It was something she’d never seen before. Against all the odds, he looked hopeful.
Despite a warning voice in the back of her head, she knew there was no way she could walk out of the door now that he’d laid himself bare. She could see that the extreme mood swings were coming from a place of deep pain and the very last thing he needed was to be left alone with just his tormenting memories for company in this big empty house.
It appeared as though they needed each other.
The levelling of the emotional stakes galvanised her.
‘Okay,’ she said, giving him a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll stay. On one condition.’
‘And that is?’
‘That you talk to me when you feel the gloom descending—like a person, not just an employee. And let me help if I can.’ She crossed her arms and raised a challenging eyebrow.
He huffed out a laugh. ‘And how do you propose to help?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps I can jolly you out of your moods, if you give me the chance.’
‘Jolly. That’s a fitting word for you.’
‘Yeah, well, someone has to raise the positivity levels in this house of doom.’ She stilled, wondering whether she’d gone a step too far, but when she dared to peek at him he was smiling, albeit in a rather bemused way.
A sense of relief washed over her. The last thing she wanted to do was read the situation wrong now they’d had a breakthrough. In fact, she really ought to push for a treaty to make things crystal clear between them.
‘Look, at the risk of micromanaging the situation, can we agree that from this point on you’ll be totally straight with me, and in return I promise to be totally straight with you?’
He gave her a puzzled look. ‘Why? Is there something you need to tell me?’
She considered admitting she’d lied about why she’d left her last job and dismissed it immediately. There was no point going over that right now; it had no relevance to this and it would make her sound totally pathetic compared to what he’d been through.
‘No, no! Nothing! It was just a turn of phrase.’
He snorted gently, rolling his eyes upward, his mouth lifting at the corner. ‘Okay then, Miss Fix-it, total honesty it is. You’ve got yourself a deal.’
JUST AS MAX thought he’d had enough drama to last him a lifetime, things took another alarming turn, only this time it was the business that threatened to walk away from him.
Opening his email first thing on Monday morning, he found a missive from his longest standing and most profitable client, letting him know that they were considering taking their business elsewhere.
Cara walked in with their coffee just as he’d finished reading it and the concern on her face made it clear how rattled he must look.
‘Max? What’s wrong?’
‘Our biggest client is threatening to terminate our contract with them.’
Her eyes grew larger. ‘Why?’
‘I’m guessing one of our competitors has been sniffing around, making eyes at them and I’ve been putting off going to the meetings they’ve been trying to arrange for a while now. I haven’t had the time to give them the same level of attention as before, so their head’s been turned.’
‘Is it salvageable?’
‘Yes. If I go up there today and show them exactly why they should stay with me.’
‘Okay.’ She moved swiftly over to her desk and opened up her internet browser, her nails rattling against her keyboard as she typed in an enquiry. ‘There’s a train to Manchester in forty minutes. You go and pack some stuff; I’ll call a cab and book you a seat. You can speak to me from the train about anything that needs handling today.’
He sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair, feeling the tension mounting in his scalp. ‘It’s going to take more than an afternoon to get this sorted. I’ll probably need to be up there for most of the week.’
‘Then stay as long as you need.’
Shaking his head, he batted a hand towards his computer. ‘I have that proposal to finish for the end of Thursday, not to mention the monstrous list of things to tackle for all the other clients this week.’
‘Leave it with me. If you set me up with a folder of your previous proposals and give me the questions you need answering, I’ll put some sections together for you, so you’ll only need to check and edit them as we go. And don’t worry about the other clients; I can handle the majority of enquiries and rearrange anything that isn’t urgent for next week. I’ll only contact you with the really important stuff.’
‘Are you sure you can handle that? It’s a lot to leave you with at such short notice.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She seemed so eager he didn’t have the heart to argue.
In all honesty, it was going to be tough for him to let go of his tight grip on the business and trust that this would work out, but he knew he didn’t have a choice—there was no way he was letting this contract slip through his fingers. He really couldn’t afford to lose this firm’s loyalty at this point in his business’s infancy; it would make him look weak to competitors as well as potential new clients, and presenting a confident front was everything in this game.
‘Okay.’ He stood up and gathered his laptop and charger together before making for the door. ‘Thanks, Cara. I’ll get my stuff together and call you from the train.’
Turning back, he saw she was standing stiffly with her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed.
Pausing for a moment, he wondered whether he was asking too much of her, but quickly dismissed it. She’d chosen to stay and she knew what she was getting herself into.
They were in it together now.
* * *
To his relief, Cara successfully held the fort back in London whilst he was away, routinely emailing him sections of completed work to be used in the business proposal that he wrote in the evenings in time to make the deadline. She seemed to have a real flair for picking out relevant information and had made an excellent job of copying his language style.
She also saved his hide by sending flowers and a card in his name to his mother for her birthday, which he was ashamed to discover he’d forgotten all about in his panic about losing the client.
Damaging
