His Secretary Mistress(36)

‘I know—it’s amazing, isn’t it? Alex is such a dark horse. Not even Margaret knew until this morning,’ the junior confided excitedly. ‘Do you think that’s the reason he’s been in such a bad mood recently? Maybe he and Miss Carter-Lloyd had an argument, but they’ve obviously made up now. It’s so romantic. He’s coming along the corridor now. I’m going to congratulate him.’

Jenna took advantage of the younger girl’s excitement to escape to the cloakroom, where she forced herself to comb her hair and check her make-up with fingers that trembled.

Katrin stepped out of one of the cubicles, her face so pale that her scarlet lipstick cut a vivid slash across her face, her eyes hollow with misery. In the midst of her own shock Jenna felt a wave of sympathy for the other woman, and she put a hand on Katrin’s arm.

‘Katrin, I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’ Katrin surveyed her with haughty disdain, her lip curling. ‘Do you think I care? It’s you I feel sorry for. Do you think I hadn’t noticed your pathetic crush on Alex? The way you sit mooning over him like some love-sick teenager? He’s out of your reach now, that’s for sure.’

It was sheer dogged pride that saw Jenna walk into Alex’s office and congratulate him on his engagement in a cool, uninterested tone. But for a man in love he didn’t look very happy, she noted when he turned away from the window to survey her with cold blue eyes, his expression unfathomable.

‘You and Selina must be busy making arrangements,’ she murmured. ‘When is the wedding?’

‘In the spring. We haven’t set a date yet,’ came the brusque reply. ‘We’ve put the planning on hold for a few weeks. As you know, Selina is a sports journalist with a magazine. She’s flying to Durban next week, to cover a series of polo matches, and I want her to honour her commitment. It’ll give her a chance to decide whether marrying me is really what she wants to do.’

He couldn’t admit that he had insisted on Selina going to South Africa, or that he needed the reprieve while he came to terms with an engagement that he had regretted the minute the words had left his mouth. He was thirty-eight, he reminded himself. It was high time he settled down and produced the grandchildren his parents so hoped for. Marriage to Selina was the sensible option. He couldn’t pretend that he was madly in love with her, but he liked her, and a marriage built on a foundation of respect and mutual goals was infinitely more desirable than one that involved messy emotions.

He suspected that Jenna’s marriage was far from happy, yet for reasons he couldn’t fathom she insisted that she had made a lifetime commitment to her husband. In a climate of increasing divorce statistics he supposed he should applaud her loyalty but as he stared at her he recalled the bruise on her face and fought an overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms and tell her that he would take care of her.

She didn’t want his protection, he reminded himself. She desired him—even now she was unable to disguise the flare of hunger in her eyes before her lashes swept down to conceal her emotions—but she didn’t want him with any degree of permanency in her life, and he was past the age of happily settling for a role as her stud.

‘I’m sure Selina is already convinced that she wants to marry you,’ Jenna said quietly, taken aback by the hint of uncertainty in Alex’s voice. ‘But you’re right. Marriage is a huge step.’

‘You’re the expert, so you should know.’

Across the office his eyes burned into hers, and she trembled at the unspoken message in those deep blue depths. He moved to stand in front of her, so close it would take one tiny step to reach the sanctuary of his arms, and she was tempted, so tempted that every fibre of her being yearned to close the gap between them. The air thrummed with tension, the silence so intense she could hear the pounding of her heart.

‘It’s not too late,’ he offered huskily, his eyes never leaving hers, and she bit down hard on her lip, tasted blood as she waged an inner battle.

Go to him, hope he would accept Maisie, and in doing so wreck his engagement to the woman who would make him an ideal wife? Or walk away from what was never going to be anything more than a temporary affair, where she stood to lose her self-respect, her job, and possibly her child?

She loved him, she acknowledged painfully. This wasn’t just about desire or sex. Somewhere along the line she had fallen in love with Alex, with his wit, his charm, his strength, and above all his sense of honour.

But Alex used his formidable skill in the courtroom to champion the underdog. He believed that marriage should be a lifelong commitment, particularly if children were involved, yet if Lee had his way she was going to be embroiled in a bitter custody battle for Maisie. Where would Alex’s sympathies lie? she wondered. Any sort of relationship with her would necessitate a relationship with her daughter, because the two of them came as a package, yet Alex did not even know of Maisie’s existence. It would be better for all of them if he never knew, if he went ahead with his marriage to Selina, whom he presumably loved, and forgot this fierce attraction that burned between them. In a matter of weeks, months at the most, it would have burned itself out; it would be better for all of them if they never lit the fuse.