Juggling Briefcase & Baby. Jessica Hart
‘So now that we’ve agreed that, we can draw a line underneath the whole episode.’
‘Precisely,’ she said. ‘From now on, our relationship can be purely professional.’
‘In that case,’ said Lex, opening his computer once more, ‘let’s go over the main points of the agreement we’re offering Willie Grant.’
It was snowing when they landed in Inverness, dry, sleety flakes that spun in the air and did no more than dust the surface of the tarmac. Still, Romy was glad that Summer had arranged for them to hire a solid four wheel drive to take them the rest of the way.
She shivered as she carried Freya down the steps. She’d been living in the tropics for so long that a London winter was shock enough for her system, and she was unprepared for how much colder it would be up here in the north of Scotland. She wished she’d brought a warmer coat.
The vehicle was waiting as arranged just outside the terminal. It was black and substantial and equipped with all the latest technology.
Except a baby seat.
Lex was all ready to get in and drive away until Romy pointed out that Freya would have to travel in the seat, and that it would have to be installed properly.
‘It doesn’t take long. If you’ll just hold her a minute, I’ll do it.’
You would think she had asked him to hold a bucket of cold sick.
‘I’ll install the seat,’ he said.
So Romy had to stand there in the cold, while he grew crosser and crosser as he tried to work out how to do it. She tried offering instructions, but Lex ignored her, cursing and muttering under his breath as he searched around for the belt, and then managed to clip it into the wrong buckle, so that he had to start all over again.
He was in a thoroughly bad mood by the time Romy was finally able to buckle Freya in and climb into the passenger seat beside Lex, and matters were not improved when Freya, who had woken as she was laid in the seat, started to grizzle fretfully when they had barely left Inverness.
‘What’s the matter now?’ Lex demanded, glowering in the rear view mirror.
Romy looked over her shoulder at her unhappy daughter, then at her watch.
‘She’s hungry. I am too. Is there any chance we could stop for lunch?’
He sighed impatiently. ‘We’ll never get there at this rate,’ he grumbled, but, according to the sat nav, it would be another two and a half hours before they got to Duncardie, and Lex wasn’t sure he could stand the crying another two minutes, let alone two hours.
By the time he saw a hotel up ahead, he was only too happy to pull in. ‘But for God’s sake, let’s be quick about it,’ he said as they got out of the car.
To Lex, used to the most exclusive restaurants and the gleaming, high-tech efficiency of Gibson & Grieve’s head office, it was something of a surprise to realise that hotels like this still existed. There was a swirly carpet patterned in rich reds and blues, stippled walls painted an unappealing beige and sturdy wooden tables, their legs chipped and worn by generations of feet. Sepia prints were interspersed with the occasional horse brass or jokey tea towel about the joys of golf, and the faint but unmistakable smell of battered fish hung in the air.
On the plus side, it was warm and quiet. Lights flashed on the jukebox in the corner, but it was mercifully silent, and the only other guests were an elderly couple enjoying lunch in the corner. It had a welcoming fire and a friendly landlady who was unfazed by a request for a high chair and was soon deep in discussion with Romy about what Freya would like for her lunch.
Having taken a cursory glance at the menu, Lex ordered a steak and kidney pie and retired to a table by the fire while Romy bore a still-grizzling Freya off to change her nappy. Turning his back on the jolly décor on the wall beside him (“Why is a ship a she?”), Lex rang the office. He got twitchy if he was out of contact and it had been impossible to carry on a conversation on the car phone with Freya bawling in the background.
Not that it was much easier once Romy emerged from the Ladies. Seeing that he was talking to Summer, she carried Freya around the room, jiggling her up and down in her arms and showing her the pictures to distract her from her hunger. The trouble was, she was distracting Lex too. Every time she lifted a hand to point at a picture, her breasts lifted slightly, her back straightened and he seemed ever more unable to block out her shape from the edge of his vision.
It was as if all his senses were on high alert. Romy was wearing loose black trousers and a top in a peacock blue so vibrant that it lit up the entire room, and whenever she turned he was sure he could hear the whisper of the silky material sliding over her skin.
He was sure he could smell her perfume.
Romy was absorbed in her daughter, her face vivid as she chatted away, quite unaware of the fact that whenever she smiled Lex lost track of what Summer was saying.
‘Sorry…run that past me again,’ he had to ask, not for the first time.
There was a tiny pause. Lex could feel Summer’s surprise bouncing up to a satellite and down again. He was famous for the fact that he was always focused and alert. Now Summer would tell Phin that he wasn’t concentrating, and Phin would grin and come up with all sorts of ridiculous suggestions as to what might be distracting him.
None of which would be right.
Hunching an irritable shoulder, Lex turned in his chair so that he had his back to Romy.
‘I was just wondering how you were getting on with the baby,’ Summer said, her voice carefully incurious.
‘Fine,’ he said shortly. ‘Did you warn Grant’s people about that?’
‘I did. There’s absolutely no problem as far as they’re concerned.’
‘That’s something,’ he grunted.
The landlady appeared with their lunch at that point, and Romy came back to settle Freya into the high chair, where she started squealing with excitement at the sight of food and banging both her hands on the tray as she bounced up and down. Lex could only imagine how it sounded to Summer in her quiet, calm office as he rang off.
Romy tied a bib on Freya, no easy task when she wouldn’t keep still. ‘Everything OK at the office?’ she asked, mindful of the need to stick to business.
‘Yes. Summer has got everything under control.’
‘I imagine Summer always does. She’s terribly efficient, isn’t she?’
‘I wouldn’t keep her as my PA if she wasn’t.’
‘Isn’t it awkward having your sister-in-law as a PA?’ Romy couldn’t resist asking as she sat down opposite him and blew on Freya’s plate to cool it.
‘I’m just glad she wanted to keep on working,’ said Lex. ‘I don’t know how long it’ll last. No doubt it’ll be a baby next,’ he said morosely. ‘Then I’ll have to train yet another new PA. The wedding was disruptive enough.
‘That was my fault for sending her to work for Phin in the first place,’ he remembered, reaching for the mustard. ‘She was supposed to stop him doing anything stupid, and look what happened! God knows what she sees in him. They couldn’t be more different.’
Romy had been surprised when she had met Summer, too. Phin’s wife was as crisp as he was laid-back and charming.
‘It must be a case of opposites attract,’ she said, then wished she hadn’t. What else had it been between her and Lex? ‘They seem very happy together, anyway,’ she added quickly.
‘Yes.’
Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with Summer? Lex wondered. She was exactly what he needed. She was cool and capable, and hated mess and clutter as much as he did. God only knew how she coped with Phin’s