A Perfect Proposal. Liz Fielding
Читать онлайн книгу.
hair slithered from the grip of pins unequal to the task. ‘No, Mark. That wasn’t my question.’ He frowned, and she very nearly lost her nerve. It wasn’t too late to bottle out…‘My question was…are you asking me if I’d marry you?’
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