THERE was a moment of perfect stillness while Mark Hilliard tried to decide if Jane was serious.
She was sitting opposite him, the way she did every working day of his life. She looked the same. Alert, a smile hovering behind her eyes and waiting to break out at the slightest provocation, totally in control of everything but her hair. And waiting for an answer to her question.
Was he asking her if she’d marry him?
The answer, of course, was yes. In a purely rhetorical sense. But Jane hadn’t been speaking rhetorically. She was never anything but totally straightforward. She didn’t play games, or tease, or do any of those tiresome female things to get what she wanted. He scarcely thought of her as a woman at all. Which was why she was so easy to work with. To be with.
She’d asked him a serious question and expected him to give her a serious answer. If he said no, she wouldn’t be offended. This wasn’t about feelings or emotions; it was about a practical solution to a problem that was beginning to affect not just his life but the success of his architectural practice.
And the longer he delayed before dismissing the idea out of hand the less inclined he felt to do so. It did, after all, make the most perfect sense.
He knew her so well. There’d be none of that awkwardness inevitable in any new relationship. None of the risk. She was hard-working, kind, loyal and beneath that serious exterior he knew she possessed in full measure that essential GSOH. She knew him, understood him perfectly, wouldn’t expect a thing from him except loyalty and friendship.
She’d be the perfect wife for him in every way. Whether he’d be the husband she was looking for was something else entirely.
‘Would you consider moving in here?’ he countered.
‘Give up my job and look after Shuli for you full-time? As what? I’m sorry, Mark. I can see what you’d get out of such an arrangement, but, much as I love Shuli, I don’t see it as a great career move for me.’ She didn’t wait for him to spell out the financial package he would be offering her as his ‘home’ rather than his ‘office’ secretary. ‘Maybe we’d better stick with the advertisement.’
Shuli, hearing her name, looked up. ‘I’ve nearly finished, Jane.’ And she held up her picture for them to see. Three stick figures beside a house. ‘Daddy, Jane and me,’ she said.
‘It’s lovely, poppet,’ Jane said, amazed that the tremor shaking her from the inside out wasn’t evident in her voice. ‘Are you going to draw some flowers in the garden?’ she asked.
Shuli at least knew what she wanted, and Mark had made an opening offer, although what exactly he was offering he clearly hadn’t thought through.
Now she’d give him time to meet some of the women who’d undoubtedly answer his advertisement by the truckload. She knew that no matter how nice they were he’d recoil from getting sucked into a relationship he couldn’t control, with a woman who’d expect more from him than he felt able to deliver.
When she returned to her seat Mark was flicking through his diary, taking advantage of the interruption to change the subject. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She’d put the idea in his mind. There would be another day, another upset. She knew how to be patient.
‘I’ve rescheduled the site meeting with the surveyors for tomorrow,’ she said, moving briskly on. ‘Nine-thirty. Bring Shuli into the office and I’ll take care of her.’
He made a note and then looked up. ‘Would next Tuesday suit you?’ he asked.
‘Next Tuesday?’
‘I shouldn’t think the registrar will be busy mid-week.’ Then, when she didn’t answer. ‘You don’t want a big wedding, do you?’
‘Wedding?’ She felt the colour drain from her face. From being in control, driving the situation, she was suddenly way behind. She’d offered a solution, but she hadn’t been thinking as far ahead as a wedding.
‘You wanted to know if I was asking you to marry me. If the choice is you or the advertisement, I’ll take you.’ As a proposal it lacked just about everything. Except the man she loved with all her heart. ‘You were serious?’
She tried to say yes, but nothing came out as her voice momentarily stuck in her throat somewhere. She cleared it. ‘Yes. I was serious.’
‘Then I see no point in waiting. I’m free on Tuesday morning, if that suits you?’
Jane had a fleeting vision of candlelight, red roses, a diamond ring. The perfect proposal, followed by the perfect wedding, with the long white dress and orange blossom by the cartload. There’d be a posse of little bridesmaids and her entire family watching in stunned amazement as her father walked her up the aisle to give her away to the man of her dreams. Of any woman’s dreams. And then she let it all go. She’d look dreadful in white and the orange blossom would undoubtedly droop.
Mark had asked her to marry him. Sort of. How much more perfect could it get? And if his proposal lacked romance, well, that was the way she’d planned it. Common sense ruled.
‘Tuesday will be fine,’ she replied, as calmly as if they were discussing a project meeting. ‘Would you like me to handle the details?’ Please say no. That you’ll do it…
‘If you would.’
‘Do you want me to invite anyone? Colleagues? I imagine you’ll want your family—’
‘Is that necessary?’ he asked, a small frown creasing his forehead as he looked up. ‘I’d rather not have any fuss.’
He didn’t want his mother or his sister there? It meant that little to him? She hadn’t expected romance, but a certain amount of ceremony was usual to mark even the most low-key of weddings. She swallowed her hurt, her pride. ‘No, it’s not necessary. We’ll just need a couple of witnesses. I’ll see to it,’ she said quickly, before he could ask her to find two total strangers to perform this service. Their marriage might not be made in heaven—more like the local DIY shop—but it wasn’t going to be some hole-and-corner affair.
He nodded. ‘You’d better find a replacement for yourself at the same time.’ He offered a slightly rueful smile. ‘Pity about that, but no plan is ever perfect.’
‘No.’ It wasn’t perfect by a long way. But it was a work in progress. Having achieved her initial objective, she would have all the time in the world to go back to the drawing board and work on the fine details of how to get him to fall in love with her. ‘There’s Patsy,’ she suggested. He looked blank. ‘The girl in the planning department who covered for me while I was on holiday?’
‘I didn’t notice.’
Of course he hadn’t. She’d worked very hard to make sure her absence didn’t inconvenience him in any way. ‘Then she’s definitely the one. I’ll sort it out tomorrow.’
‘Right.’ His brows came together in a frown and he looked at her sharply, as if he suspected he’d missed something. Then he let it go and said, ‘Is that it? If you’ve finished straightening out my life can we look at that Maybridge contract?’
He didn’t wait for her answer, just crumpled up the advertisement she’d typed out for him, tossed it in the waste-paper basket and reached for a file.
Working around a busy three-year-old was hard work, and Mark, after yet another interruption when Shuli had needed her supper, said, ‘Look, why don’t we take a break? I’ll put her to bed, then we can do a couple of hours in peace.’
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Jane said. ‘Why don’t I look after Shuli and leave you to get on with those figures?’
‘Would you?’ He pushed his fingers through his thick dark hair, leaving it sticking up at the crown. Just as he had the first time she’d seen him. Harassed and struggling to cope with the mess life had tossed in his lap. It had taken all her self-control not to reach out and smooth it for him then.
She still had to fight the impulse.
It was quiet. Blissfully quiet. Uninterrupted, he’d swiftly finished the calculations and now he needed Jane. She’d had more than enough time to bathe one small child and put her to bed. He walked out into the hall and listened. Nothing. About to call her, he realised he might wake Shuli and instead went upstairs.
The door to the nursery was open and Jane was sitting on the bed, gently stroking Shuli’s fair curls. His heart turned over at the sweet intimacy of the scene. Jane was right. This was what his little girl needed more than anything.
Relief at how easy it had been with her here warred with guilt that he found it so difficult to cope with his own child. Relief won hands down. The thought of Jane taking care of things at home far outweighed the inconvenience of losing her in the office, and he suddenly felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
Seeing him in the doorway, she put her finger to her lips, set the listening device and then joined him, pulling the door partly closed behind her.
‘You make it look so easy,’ he said.
‘I’ve had a lot of practise. I’ve got half a dozen nephews and nieces.’ She had a family? He hadn’t thought of that. ‘You must be hungry. Shall we have something to eat now?’ she asked. ‘Or do you want to get straight back to work?’
‘Let’s eat. I’ll get something sent in.’ He headed for the stairs. ‘What do you like?’
‘Why don’t I just make something quick? Some pasta or eggs?’
He glanced at her. ‘You cook, too?’
‘You’re a very lucky man, Mark. I have an old-fashioned mother. She taught us all the basics.’
It occurred to him that he knew nothing of her background, her interests. He hadn’t even asked her where she’d gone on holiday. For the past three years he’d used work to fill the emotional vacuum inside him. He’d cut himself off from everything human, vital. The only time he seemed to speak to his family these days was when he needed help with childcare. But he wasn’t totally beyond redemption. ‘How will she react to this wedding?’
‘My mother? With considerable surprise, I imagine. Having given birth to four swans, she despaired of her little ugly duckling ever finding a mate.’
‘You’re kidding?’
Her eyes sparkled back at him. Of course she was.
‘Why are you doing this, Jane? I can see the advantages from my point of view, but you’re young. You have your life ahead of you. You should be looking for a man who can give you…’ All of himself. That was what he’d been going to say. Her brows quirked up as he faltered. ‘A little bit of romance,’ he finished lamely.
‘The girls in the office live for romance. As far as I can see it involves a great deal of weeping in the cloakroom followed by the consumption of chocolate in industrial quantities. It looks messy. Not to say a dietary nightmare.’
‘Don’t underrate it.’
‘I don’t underrate love,’ she conceded, and a momentary sadness darkened her eyes. Then she shrugged. ‘I just don’t believe it’s something you’re likely to find in a club on a Saturday night.’
That was it, then. Her heart had been broken too. They’d make a perfect match. Even so…‘Will you promise me something?’ She regarded him curiously from a pair of the darkest brown eyes, solemn now as she waited for him to continue. ‘If you ever do fall in love—the real thing, one hundred per cent, no holds barred love—you must tell me. I wouldn’t expect you to stay.’
Jane knew he was talking about the way it had been for him, with Caroline. She’d been treated to all the office gossip when she’d first joined the firm, heard how their marriage had been the perfect once-in-a-lifetime romance. How his wife’s tragic death had nearly destroyed Mark, too.
And, despite her denial of a romantic nature, like the girls in the office she’d done her share of weeping. For him. And for herself. At home, in the privacy of her own bedroom. But this wasn’t the moment to tell him that he was all the romance she’d ever need. Neither was it the moment to tell him that, like her mother, she was an old-fashioned girl who believed in taking her marriage vows seriously. Till death us do part.
‘Jane?’ he prompted, reaching out as if to keep her at his side, his hand beneath her arm, his look deeply intense.
‘I promise,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
And then she saw that in giving this promise she’d in some way absolved him from guilt about marrying her for his own selfish motives. Since her intention was to make his life easier, she tried to disregard the small stab of pain this caused, simply to be grateful that he hadn’t thought to give her a similar promise from himself.
‘Maybe you’d like to look around while you’re up here,’ he suggested brightly, shattering the quiet intimacy of the moment. ‘You might like to have the suite overlooking the garden,’ he added, opening a door and then standing back so that she could pass him and look around. ‘Caroline designed it for guests and it’s got pretty much everything.’
She was about to laugh and say that there was no need to take ‘platonic’ that far, when some inner sense of self-preservation warned her to hold her tongue. She already knew she’d have to wait for his heart. It seemed she’d have to wait for everything else, too.