A Mistletoe Proposal Read online

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ he asked, filling her wine glass. ‘I leave the decision to you because it’s clear you’re several steps ahead of me. All those rabbits you produced out of the hat at the trial. You don’t need me or anyone. You’re queen of all you survey.’

  ‘Hey, stop buttering me up.’

  ‘Just trying to find the way forward, or hoping you can find it for us. There are so many things yet to be decided.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Charlie. His feelings for you. I contrived the situation and, now that he’s fallen for you, how can I just tell him everything has changed and he must forget you?’

  She stroked his face, taking care that he should feel her warmth and tenderness towards him because her words would be a shock.

  ‘You know something?’ she said. ‘Anyone hearing you say that would think you came straight out of the nineteenth century. You’re a real male chauvinist pig.’

  ‘Am I?’ he asked, startled. ‘How?’

  ‘You talk about what you can do, but what about me? Don’t I get a say? You fixed it so that Charlie should come under my influence, like I didn’t have anything to do with it. But maybe I fixed it, oh, powerful one!’

  ‘I guess I deserved that,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Don’t get me started on what you deserve. And there’s one thing you have to understand. Charlie isn’t in love with me. When we met, he took one look at me and thought Wow!, just as we both meant him to. But it was purely physical. He’s up for new experiences and he pursued me when he thought he might get one. But there was no emotion in it. He’s closer to Ginevra than he is to me. About an hour after the trial she texted me saying, We did it!’

  ‘How did she know?’

  ‘Exactly. Charlie must have called her.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Roscoe said at once. ‘I won’t have this.’

  ‘But it’s not up to you. You’ve got to let Charlie be himself, not some creature you’ve created.’

  ‘I only want to keep him out of danger. Is that wrong?’

  She thought it might be impossible if, as she was beginning to suspect, danger was Charlie’s natural medium. But this wasn’t the time to say so. They had more urgent matters to attend to.

  ‘The point is that Charlie’s not in love with me,’ she repeated, ‘and his heart can’t be broken by us. So we’re free.’

  ‘Free,’ he echoed slowly. ‘Free to-?’

  ‘Free to do anything we want. Be anything we want.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas about that?’

  ‘Plenty. Don’t ask me to list them because that would take all night.’

  He became hesitant, almost as though nervous of saying the words.

  ‘About…all night. Does it seem to you…?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘It does.’

  Like everything else in this new relationship, their love-making was tentative, cautious, watching and learning from each other. He was a patient lover, fervent, but with the control to take everything slowly. How softly his fingers caressed her breasts, and how mysterious was his smile as he did so.

  She smiled back, feeling more and deeper mysteries unfold within her. The sweetness at being one with him was greater than anything she had ever known. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to be him. And she wanted it for ever.

  Afterwards, he murmured, ‘Are you really mine?’

  ‘Can you doubt it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes. Nobody has ever been mine before.’

  Before she could reply, he enfolded her in his arms again and in the passion that followed she forgot all else. But after passion came safety and contentment, both as precious as desire.

  ‘Nobody was ever yours before?’ she murmured. ‘Surely that can’t be true?’

  ‘You’d think not, wouldn’t you?’ he agreed. ‘I don’t usually go around telling people that I need them. It’s too dangerous, for one thing.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know. They have to discover it for themselves.’

  ‘Yes. And they don’t. Except you. But before you…’ His voice died away into silence.

  ‘What about your fiancée?’ she asked. ‘You must have been in love with her.’

  ‘Yes, desperately. I thought I’d found the answer-a woman I could love and who’d love me-but it wasn’t right between us. I couldn’t be the man she wanted, giving her all my attention. She resented my other responsibilities.’

  ‘Did she force you to choose between her and them?’

  ‘In a way, yes. I can’t blame her. I put them first, but how could I not? Charlie was still basically a kid and Mother was still stuck in a state of bewilderment. They needed me. In the end, Verity and I agreed to call it a day.’

  But to outsiders it had looked like a cold-hearted parting, she thought. Perhaps Roscoe bore some of the blame for that, hiding his feelings and turning a blank face to the world, but it had left him in terrifying isolation. He’d said that nobody had ever been his before, and it was true. Pippa clasped him more closely, seeking to offer him a warmth and love that would make up for the aching loneliness in which he’d lived, a loneliness that left him always prepared for betrayal, ready to expect it as natural and inevitable.

  Now she recalled the words with which he’d greeted her, a few hours and a lifetime ago.

  ‘Why did you think I wouldn’t come? Surely we’d agreed?’

  ‘Yes, but I thought you’d remember that you were angry with me, and with reason. I behaved badly.’

  ‘When? I don’t remember.’

  ‘When I discovered that you knew something I hadn’t told you, about my father. You’ll despise me, but I couldn’t bear that. It made me feel spied on.’

  ‘You like to control how much people know about you,’ she mused. ‘It’s safer, isn’t it?’

  ‘Much safer. No-’ he checked himself instantly ‘-it feels safer but, if you give into it, it’s actually the way to go mad. Once I knew what you’d discovered, I had to head in the other direction, even though leaving you was the last thing I really wanted. But it was like being driven by demons.’

  ‘Mmm, I know about those demons,’ she murmured. ‘They scream, This way lies safety. So you take that path, but you find that it leads to a howling wilderness, then to a cage. And you know you must escape it soon or there’ll never be a way out.’

  ‘You have to decide whether you want to live in that cage for ever, or venture out and take the risks of being human,’ he agreed. ‘But if you don’t take those risks-’ his arms tightened about her ‘-then you stop being human. And perhaps you need to find the one person who can make you want to take them.’

  ‘Then maybe it’s time I took a risk,’ she said.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Asking you about your father. You’ve already told me to back off-’

  ‘I didn’t mean-’

  ‘But I’m not going to do that. I’m going ahead, even if it makes you angry. Perhaps you need to be angry, so tell me what happened when he died. Were you very close to him?’

  ‘Close?’ He seemed to consider the word. ‘I hero-wor-shipped him. I thought he was a great man, starting from nothing and building up a huge business. He had power and that was wonderful. Which just goes to show how naive I was. I was as immature in those days as Charlie is now.

  ‘I was so proud when he took me into the business, told me I had the brains for it. We were a team, working together to conquer the world, so I thought. It was only after he died that I discovered the mountain of debt, the rip-offs, the deceit. He’d lied to everyone; my mother, who never knew he had a succession of mistresses bleeding him dry; virtually everyone he ever worked with, and me, who trusted him totally, was so proud at being close to him, and then discovered that we weren’t close at all.

  ‘I’d been so smug, so self-satisfied, sure of my place inside the loop, and all the time I’d been kept on the outside, like the fool I was.’

  Pippa pulled herself up, turning so that she could look
down at his head on the pillow. ‘Don’t put yourself down,’ she said.

  ‘Why not? A fool is the kindest thing I can call myself. If you knew how ashamed and humiliated I felt at how easily he took me for a ride. He knew he could deceive me more than anyone else.’

  ‘Because you were his son and you loved him,’ she urged. ‘He made use of that. Shame on him, not you.’

  In the dim light she could just make out his wry smile.

  ‘That’s the sensible point of view. Back in those days it didn’t help a distraught boy who’d been conned by a father he damn near worshipped and only found out when it was too late to ask any questions. He was dead. I went to see him lying on a slab-cold, indifferent, safely gone beyond the world, beyond me. I wanted to scream at him-why hadn’t he trusted me? We could have fought for the business together. But he’d chosen to walk away, leaving me behind.’

  ‘He rejected you,’ she said softly, ‘left you stranded without warning. No wonder you’re sensitive about what other people know about you.’

  ‘Stranded without warning,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, that was it. Suddenly I was standing on the edge of a cliff that I hadn’t even known was there. No way forward, no way back, nobody I could talk to.’

  Nobody I could talk to. The words were like an epitaph for his entire life. His bond with his father had been an illusion, his mother took everything and gave little, Charlie took everything and gave nothing. He was like a castaway stranded on a desert island.

  ‘Was anyone with you when you went to see him on the slab? Your mother?’

  ‘No, she couldn’t bear very much. There were so many things she mustn’t be allowed to know.’

  ‘The other women?’

  ‘Yes. She’d heard rumours, I denied them, swore that I’d never heard of his being untrue to her. I was afraid she’d kill herself as well if she knew. It’s ironic. I blame Charlie for telling stupid lies, but I’ve lost count of the really black lies I’ve told, the deceptions I’ve arranged, the people I’ve bribed to stay out of my mother’s way in case they let something slip.’

  ‘That’s different. Sometimes you have to lie to protect people you love. That’s not the same as self-serving lies. I don’t suppose you told her the state the firm was in either.’

  ‘Not completely. I hinted that we weren’t as prosperous as we might be, but I spared her the worst. Sometimes I think stocks and shares are the only part of my life where I’m actually honest.’

  ‘Deception doesn’t make you dishonest,’ she said seriously. ‘It’s the kind of deception that counts. You’re the most honest man I’ve ever met. I know that Roscoe, because I know you.’

  After what he’d told her about how he resisted anyone’s eyes, it was a daring thing to say. Perhaps it was too soon for him to relax under a knowing gaze, even hers. But then she saw his face transfigured by joy and relief.

  ‘You know me,’ he echoed softly. ‘That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Now I’ll never let you go.’

  Heaven must be like this, she thought, nestling against him. If only they could be undisturbed for ever.

  Pippa was to remember that feeling because, looking back, she could see that it was the moment everything began to fall apart. She wondered if it was the Christmas carol that triggered the catastrophe or if it would have happened anyway, for she awoke next morning to find herself in a dark wilderness.

  She tried to shake it off, wondering how she could feel this way after the wonderful events of the night before. But the darkness seemed to be rooted in those very events and her confusion grew.

  Roscoe was still clasping her with loving possessiveness, which should have touched her heart but suddenly seemed like a threat. She began to ease away.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Stay here a little longer.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got work to go to. So have you.’

  He grinned. ‘To hell with work. To hell with the markets.’

  Another time she would have teased him fondly for such an attitude, but now she needed to get away from his warmth and gentleness, far, far away from everything that made him lovable. She must think, calm her howling demons, refuse to let them ruin her life.

  She slipped out of bed and went to the window, pushing it open a little way. It was a bright, fresh morning with a little snow in the air and she stood taking deep breaths, trying to make the darkness lift.

  She could do it-just a few minutes more.

  But then Roscoe did the thing that made her efforts collapse. He turned on the radio and the sound of a Christmas carol floated out. As Pippa heard the words she stiffened.

  ‘On this happy morning,

  All is well with all the world.’

  All is well. Once before she’d heard those words, just before the betrayal that had devastated her.

  ‘Don’t catch cold,’ he said, coming up behind her and putting his arms about her. ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said hastily. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re shaking.’ He shut the window and drew her back. ‘Come back into the warm.’

  But she tensed against his embrace, resisting him silently, unable to meet his eyes.

  ‘Now the sun will always shine,

  Joy is here for ever.’

  But joy hadn’t been there for ever. Joy had ended in the next few moments, leaving her unable to hear that carol again without reliving terrible memories.

  Roscoe tightened his embrace, tried to draw her closer, felt her fight against it.

  ‘Pippa, for pity’s sake, what’s the matter? It’s not the cold, is it? There’s something else.’

  ‘No, I…I just have to be getting to work. And so do you.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘We still have to be sensible.’

  ‘Sensible? You dare say that to me after the way we were together last night? Was the woman who lay in my arms and cried out to me to love her being sensible? Was I being sensible when I gave her everything I was and received back everything she had in her soul?’

  Pippa didn’t reply. She couldn’t. There were no words for the terror she was feeling. Roscoe’s face darkened.

  ‘Or didn’t I?’ he said. ‘Was I fooling myself about that, because the woman in my bed would never have wanted to be sensible?’

  ‘Well,’ she said brightly, ‘perhaps that wasn’t me, just someone who looked like me.’

  ‘What’s got into you? If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.’

  The music swelled. Now the carol was being played louder, sung by joyful voices, and her nerves were being torn. She had to get out of this or go mad.

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s just that things look different in the morning.’

  ‘Yes, they can look different,’ he said slowly. ‘Better or worse, depending on what you want to believe.’

  ‘But that’s the problem,’ she said quickly. ‘Wanting to believe is dangerous-talking yourself into things because it would be so nice if…if…’

  Roscoe was still holding her, trying to understand the violent shaking he could feel throughout her body.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘Tell me. Don’t bear it alone.’

  She slumped against him in despair. How could she make him understand what she didn’t understand herself? She only knew that she’d been brought to the edge of a deep pit, a place that many people found joyous but where she’d vowed not to venture. Now she stared down into the depths, appalled at herself for backing away but unable to do anything else.

  Last night they’d talked happily about the risks they would take for their love. Now she knew she hadn’t the courage and nothing mattered but to get away.

  The words of the carol were still pouring from the radio.

  ‘New day, new hope, new life.’

  That was how it should have been and how it never would be again. It was all folly, all illusion, and she must put right the damage now.

  ‘Pippa, my darling-’
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  ‘Don’t-it’s better not to call me that. We had a wonderful time last night, didn’t we?’

  ‘I thought so,’ he said quietly.

  ‘But now it’s time to wake up and return to reality.’

  ‘And what do you call reality?’

  ‘We both know what we mean by it.’ She gave another brittle laugh. ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other again, but nobody can live too long in that fantasy world.’

  At last Roscoe released her. It was what she’d wanted but the feeling of his hands leaving her was achingly wretched because, deep inside, she knew he would never hold her again.

  ‘I see,’ he said. And now his voice was ominous. ‘So that’s how it is. We had a good time, now it’s over and it had nothing to do with the real world. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  Pippa summoned a carefree smile. ‘Why, that’s just it. A good time. And it was great fun, wasn’t it? But now…well, you knew from the start that I was a good time girl. I think you even called me a few worse things in your head.’

  ‘Before I thought I knew you,’ he corrected harshly.

  ‘Well, maybe first impressions are the most reliable. Floozie, tart, heartless piece-’

  ‘Stop it!’ he shouted, seizing her again. ‘I won’t listen to this. I never thought that of you-or if I ever wondered for a moment you showed me how wrong I was-’

  ‘Did I? Or did I show you what you wanted to see? You were a real challenge, you know. Anyone can lure a man into her bed, but luring his heart-that’s another matter.’

  Pippa felt dizzy as she said these terrible words. In her desperation to escape she had gone much further than she’d meant to and for a moment she hesitated on the edge of recalling them, hurling herself into Roscoe’s arms and swearing she meant none of it.

  ‘Do you mean that?’ he whispered.

  She had one last chance to deny her words, reclaim all the joy life could offer her.

  ‘Do you mean it?’ he repeated. ‘Is that all there’s been between us? You trying to bring me down, to punish me for my attitude in the first few days? Is that the truth?’