Christmas Angel for the Billionaire

CHAPTER TEN

ANNIE, weak to her bones, leaned against the sink. What had she done, said, to give herself away?

A tear trickled onto her cheek and as she palmed it away she knew. He’d responded to her not as a national institution but as a woman and she’d wept with the joy of it. Ironic, really, when she’d spent her entire life keeping her emotions under wraps.

Tears were private things.

Before the cameras you kept your dignity, looked the world in the eye.

But with a lover you could be yourself. Utterly, completely…

A long shivering sigh escaped her but the years of training stood her in good stead. She took a deep breath, straightened, told herself that George had every right to be angry.

What man, on discovering that what he’d imagined was a quick tumble in the metaphorical hay had the potential to make him front-page news, wouldn’t be absolutely livid?

She might be inexperienced, but she wasn’t naïve.

Sex exposed two people in a way that nothing else could. It wasn’t the nakedness, but the stripping away of pretence that took it beyond the purely physical. Without total honesty it was a sham, a lie.

She knew how she’d feel if he’d lied to her about his identity. But he’d laid it all out while she hadn’t even been honest about the way her parents had died.

She had abused his trust in the most fundamental way and now she would have to leave. First, though, she carefully turned out the cake and left it to cool. Washed the cake tin. Put away the soup bowls.

Straightened the rag rug.

When all trace of her presence had been erased, she went upstairs and threw everything into her bag. Then, because she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Xandra, she walked along the hall, opening doors, searching for her room, and found herself standing in the doorway of the room in which George Saxon had grown up.

The cashmere sweater he’d been wearing the day before was draped over the wooden chair. She touched it, then picked it up, hugging it to her as she looked around at what had been his boyhood room.

It was sparse by modern standards, with none of the high-tech appliances that were the essential requirements of the average teen’s life. Just a narrow bed with an old-fashioned quilt, a small scarred table he’d used as a desk and a bookcase. She knelt to run her fingers over the spines of the books he’d held, read. Physics, maths, computer languages.

The car maintenance manuals seemed out of place, but keeping ahead of his father must have required more than manual dexterity, although personally she’d have given him a starred A for that.

She stood up, holding the sweater to her face for a moment, yearning to pull it over her head and walk away with it. Instead, she refolded it and laid it back on the chair before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.

Xandra’s room was next door. Large, comfortable, a total contrast to her father’s childhood room, it was obvious that she spent a lot of time with her grandparents.

She had a small colour television, an expensive laptop, although the girlish embroidered bed cover was somewhat at odds with the posters of racing drivers rather than pop stars that decorated the walls.

There was paper and a pen on the writing desk and a note to Mrs Warburton ready for the post.

She picked up the pen, then put it down again. What could she say? She couldn’t tell her the truth and she couldn’t bear to write a lie. Better to leave George to make whatever excuses he thought best.

Downstairs, she’d looked up the number of a taxi firm and made the call. She’d catch a bus or a train; it didn’t matter where to, so long as it was leaving Maybridge.

‘It’s a busy time of the day,’ the dispatcher warned her. ‘It’ll be half an hour before we can pick you up.’

‘That will be fine,’ she said. It wasn’t, but if it was a busy time she’d get the same response from anyone else. As she replaced the receiver, the cat found her legs and she bent to pick it up, ruffling it behind the ear as she carried it into the study to wait in the chair where George had fallen asleep the night before. Self-indulgently resting her head in the place where his had been.

The cat settled on her lap, purring contentedly and she closed her eyes for a moment, letting herself rerun images of George’s body, his face as he’d looked at her, the taste of his skin, his lips, the way he’d touched her. Fixing it like a film in her memory so that she would be able to take it out and run it like a video when she needed to remind herself what it was like to just let go.

‘Annie!’

She woke with a start as the cat dug its claws into her legs before fleeing.

It took her a moment for her head to clear, to focus on George standing in the doorway. ‘Sorry, I must have fallen asleep. Is my taxi here?’

‘Were you going to leave without a word?’ he demanded.

‘What word did you expect? I can’t stay here, George. Not now you know who I am.’

He didn’t bother to deny it. ‘Where are you going?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘You think?’ He moved so swiftly that she didn’t have time to do more than think about moving before his hands were on either side of her, pinning her in the chair. ‘Do you really believe I’m going to let the nation’s sweetheart wander off into the wild blue yonder by herself with a fistful of money stuffed down her bra?’

He was close enough that she could see the vein throbbing at his temple, the tiny sparks of hot anger that were firing the lead grey of his eyes, turning it molten.

‘I don’t think you have a choice.’

‘Think again, Your Ladyship. I’ve got a whole heap of options open to me, while you’ve got just two. One, you stay here where I know you’re safe. Two, I take you home to your grandfather, His Grace the Duke of Oldfield. Take your pick.’

‘You’ve been checking up on me?’

‘You’re not the only one with a fancy Internet cellphone.’

Obviously he had. Searched for her on the Net instead of asking. Maybe he thought that was the only way to get straight answers. Her fault.

‘And if I don’t fancy either of those options?’ she asked, refusing to be browbeaten into capitulation. ‘You said you had a whole heap?’

‘I could ring around the tabloids and tell them what you’ve been doing for the last twenty-four hours.’

‘You wouldn’t do that.’ He’d hesitated for a fraction of a second before he’d spoken and instinctively she lifted her hand to his face. His cold cheek warmed to her touch. His eyes darkened. ‘You wouldn’t betray me, George.’

‘Try me,’ he said, abruptly straightening, taking a step back, putting himself out of reach. Pulling the shutters down, just as he had with Xandra. Anything could happen to you out there. Use a little of your famous empathy to consider how I’d feel if anything did.’

‘I’m not your responsibility.’

‘You can’t absolve me of that. I know who you are. That changes everything.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Prove it.’

‘By going home or staying here until the seventeenth?’

‘The seventeenth?’ He looked hunted, as if the prospect of a whole week of her company appalled him, but he said, ‘If that’s your time frame, then yes. Take your pick.’

‘It’s a long time to put up with a stranger.’ And a long time to spend with a man who despised you. ‘If you let me go I’ll be careful,’ she promised.

‘Would that be reversing-into-a-farm-gate-in-the-dark careful?’

‘I’ll use public transport.’

‘That’s supposed to reassure me? You stay here or you go home,’ he said. ‘It’s not open for discussion.’

‘What would you say to your mother if I stayed?’

‘She’s got more important things to worry about. This is just between us,’ he warned. ‘As far as Xandra and my mother are concerned, you’re Annie Rowland. Is that understood?’

‘You guessed who I was,’ she pointed out.

‘I don’t think they’re ever going to see you quite the way I did.’

‘No?’ She felt a tremor deep within her at the memory of just how he’d seen her. Remembered how powerful she’d felt as he’d looked at her, touched her. As she’d touched him. She wanted that again. Wanted him…‘If I stay, George,’ she asked softly, ‘will you finish what you started?’

He opened his mouth, then shut it again sharply. Shook his head.

No. Faced with her image, he was just like everyone else. Being the nation’s virgin was, apparently, the world’s biggest turn-off.

‘It’s just sex, George,’ she said, hoping that she could provoke him, disgust him sufficiently so that he would let her go.

‘If it’s just sex, Annie, I’m sure Rupert Devenish would be happy to do you the favour. Put it on the top of your Christmas wish list. Or does he have to wait until he puts a ring on your finger? Were you simply looking for something a little more earthy than His Lordship before you settle for the coronet?’

If he’d actually hit her the shock couldn’t have been more brutal. It wasn’t the suggestion that she was on the loose looking for a bit of rough. It was the fact that he thought she’d marry for position, the castle, the estates, that drove through her heart like a dagger. And maybe the fear that, in desperation, six months, a year from now she might settle for the chance to be a mother.

Picking up the phone, admitting what she’d done and waiting for a car to take her home would, she knew without doubt, be the first step.

It took her a moment to gather herself, find her voice. ‘I’d better go and pay the taxi.’

‘It’s done.’

‘What?’ Then, realising what he meant, ‘You sent it away without waiting for my answer?’

‘He’s busy. You owe me twenty pounds, by the way.’

‘A little more than that, surely? There’s the call-out charge, towing me back to the garage, the time you spent on the car.’ She looked up enquiringly when he didn’t answer. ‘Or shall I ask Xandra to prepare the invoice for that?’

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘The garage is closed. And forget the taxi fare too.’

‘What about board and lodging? Or do you expect me to work for my keep?’

‘You are my daughter’s guest,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘And right now we have to go and pick her up.’

‘We?’

‘You don’t imagine I’m going to leave you here on your own?’

She thought about arguing with him for all of a second before she said, ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Two minutes later she was wrapped in the soft leather of the sports car that had been parked on the garage forecourt and heading towards Maybridge General.

They exchanged barely two words as the car ate up the miles but, when he pulled into the pick-up bay a couple of minutes before three, Annie said, ‘There’s a parking space over there.’

‘It’s nearly three. Xandra will be here any minute.’

She didn’t say a word.

‘Are you suggesting that she won’t?’

‘I’m suggesting that she’ll make you go and get her, so you might as well make a virtue out of a necessity.’

‘I could send you.’

‘You could. But then you’d have to come and get me too. Always supposing I don’t take the opportunity to leave by another entrance.’

‘Without your bag?’

‘I could replace everything in it in ten minutes.’

‘A thousand pounds won’t go far if you’re travelling by public transport. Staying at hotels.’

Again she said nothing.

‘There’s more? How much?’

‘You’ll have to search me to discover that,’ she said, glancing at him. ‘I won’t resist.’

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, the knuckles turning white.

‘Go and visit your father. It would make your mother happy, make Xandra happy. And me. It would make me very happy.’

‘And why would I give a damn whether you’re happy or not?’

He was so stubborn. He knew it was the right thing to do, wanted to build bridges with his daughter, but pride kept him from taking that first step. She’d just have to give him a little push.

‘Because, if you don’t, George, I’ll be the one calling the tabloids to tell them that Lady Rose isn’t in Bab el Sama but holed up at Saxon’s Garage. With her lover.’

‘Lover!’

‘Why spoil a good story by telling the truth?’ she said. ‘They certainly won’t.’

‘You wouldn’t do that.’

Exactly what she’d said when he’d threatened her.

‘Within an hour of our return from the hospital there’ll be television crews, photographers and half the press pack on your doorstep.’

‘They wouldn’t believe you. They’ve seen you get on a plane.’

‘So what? You were bluffing?’

‘Of course I was bluffing!’

He cared, she thought. Cared enough.

So did she.

‘Take your pick, George. Visit your father or let me go.’

George dragged both hands through his hair. ‘I can’t. Please, Annie, you must see that. If anything happened to you-’

‘You’d never forgive yourself? Oh, dear. That is unfortunate because, you see, I’m not bluffing. And I know those journalists well enough to convince them I’m not some fantasist sending them on a wild-goose chase.’ She held her breath. Would he believe her? After what seemed like the longest moment in history, he glared at her, then pulled over into the empty space she’d pointed out. Cut the engine.

‘This isn’t going to work,’ he said, releasing his seat belt, climbing out. ‘Whatever it is you think you’re doing.’ She jumped as he vented his frustration on the car door, but made no move to get out, forcing him to walk around to the passenger door and open it for her.

George watched as she swung her long legs over the sill, stood up and, without a word, walked towards the entrance of the hospital.

‘You know that’s a dead giveaway too,’ he said when he caught up with her. ‘Modern independent women can usually manage a car door.’

‘If you insist on acting as my bodyguard, George, I’ll insist on treating you like one.’

‘Remind me why they call you the nation’s sweetheart?’ he said.

‘Sweetheart, angel, virgin.’ She stopped without warning and looked at him, a tiny frown wrinkling her smooth forehead. ‘Am I still the people’s virgin?’ she asked, her clear voice carrying down the corridor. ‘Technically?’

‘Annie!’ He grabbed her elbow in an attempt to hurry her past a couple of nurses who’d turned to stare. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘Behaving badly?’ she offered, staying stubbornly put. ‘It’s a new experience for me and I’m rather enjoying it. But you didn’t answer my question. Am I-’

‘Don’t say another word,’ he snapped. He didn’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. Fat chance. He hadn’t been able to think about anything else all afternoon and while his head was saying no, absolutely no, a thousand times no, his body was refusing to listen. ‘It’s this way.’

But it wasn’t. His father had improved sufficiently to be moved out of the cardiac suite and into a small ward. Xandra was sitting cross-legged on the bed, Santa hat perched on her head, while his father occupied an armchair beside it. He was laughing at something she’d said and it was obvious that they were on the same wavelength, despite the generation gap. That they liked one another. Were friends. Everything that he and his father were not. Everything that he and his daughter were not.

They both froze as they saw him.

‘I was just coming,’ Xandra said, immediately defensive.

‘No problem,’ he lied. ‘We were a bit early.’

‘Is this Annie?’ his father asked, looking beyond him. ‘Xandra’s been telling me all about you.’

‘Oh, dear…’ she stepped forward, hand extended-a scene reminiscent of every news clip he’d ever seen of a royal hospital visit ‘…I don’t like the sound of that!’ Then, ‘How d’you do, Mr Saxon?’

‘I do very well, thank you,’ he said. ‘Certainly well enough to get out of here.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

George wondered how many times she’d done that. Visited a total stranger in hospital, completely at ease, sure of her welcome.

‘Xandra is a tonic,’ he said. Then, finally turning to grudgingly acknowledge him, ‘You’ve managed to drag yourself into the garage, I see.’

‘Mike is picking up the Bentley in an hour.’

The nod his father managed was as close as he’d ever come to a thank you and he thought that was it, but he said, ‘We’ve been looking after his cars ever since he started the business. I’m glad we didn’t let him down.’ And then he looked up. ‘Thanks, son.’

The words were barely audible but he’d said them and it was George’s turn to be lost for words.

It was Annie who broke the silence. ‘Where’s Hetty?’

‘She went to the shop to get Granddad an evening paper,’ Xandra said, watching them both.

‘You could die of boredom in here,’ his father said, with considerably more force in his voice than the day before. ‘I don’t care what that doctor says, I’m going home tomorrow.’

‘Dad…’ he protested.

‘Your mother will take care of me,’ he said stubbornly, the brief moment of rapport already history.

Annie’s hand grabbed his before he let slip his first response, which was to tell him not to be so selfish.

‘We’ll all take care of you,’ Xandra said quickly, looking at him, her eyes pleading with him to say that it would be all right. As if what he said actually mattered.

They were all taking tiny steps here and for a moment he clung to Annie’s hand as if to a lifeline. She squeezed his fingers, encouraging him to take the risk, throw his heart into the ring.

‘If that’s what you want,’ he said, ‘I’m sure we’ll manage. Especially since Annie is staying on for a while to help out.’

‘Really?’ Xandra grinned. ‘Great. You can help me put up the decorations.’

‘Thank you,’ Annie said, but she was looking at him. ‘I’d like that.’ Then, turning to his father, ‘But you really must listen to the doctor, Mr Saxon. If you come home too soon, you’ll be back in here for Christmas.’

His father regarded her thoughtfully. Then, taking note of the way their hands were interlinked and apparently putting one and one together and making a pair, he smiled with satisfaction. ‘Maybe you’re right, Annie. I don’t suppose another day or two will kill me.’

Setting himself up for yet another disappointment that he’d get the blame for, George thought, and removing his hand from hers, he said, ‘We’d better go, Xandra. Mike is coming for the car at four.’

She bounced off the bed, gave her granddad a hug. Then, transferring the Santa hat from her own head to his, she said, ‘Behave yourself. And don’t let Gran stay so late tonight. She was too tired to eat last night.’

‘Really?’ He shook his head. ‘Silly woman. I’ll make sure she leaves early.’

‘Thanks for thinking about your gran,’ he said as they headed for the car.

‘She can’t bear to leave him there on his own.’ She turned to Annie. ‘They absolutely dote on one another, you know. It’s really sweet.’ Then, taking advantage of his approval, she said, ‘Can you drop me off in town? I’ll catch the bus home.’

‘I thought we’d decided that you’re grounded.’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ she said. ‘But this isn’t for me. We’ve only got indoor lights. I’ll have to get some new ones for the outside tree.’ Then, ‘Annie could come with me if you like. Just to make sure I don’t have any fun.’

‘Actually, I could do with a run at the shops,’ Annie said before he could voice his objection to the idea of Lady Roseanne Napier, her underwear stuffed with cash and about as street-smart as a newborn lamb, let loose in the Christmas crowds with only a teenager for protection. ‘I came away with the bare minimum.’

Oh, no…

The look in her eye told him she knew exactly what he was thinking.

‘I’ll do my absolute best to make sure that neither of us have any fun,’ she assured him. ‘Although I can’t positively guarantee it.’

Xandra’s face lit up. Annie did that to people, he thought. Lit them up. His mother, his father, his daughter. They all responded to that effortless charm, the natural warmth she exuded, but he’d done a lot more than just light up.

He’d lit up, overloaded, blown every fuse in his brain as he’d surrendered, had let down a barrier he’d been building against the world ever since the day when, years younger than Xandra, he’d understood that he was on his own.

Only now, when he knew that any kind of relationship between them was impossible, did he understand just how exposed he’d left himself.

Keeping his distance emotionally from this woman who was so far out of his orbit that he might as well be on Mars was now an absolute necessity. As was keeping her safe. But forbidding her to leave the house wasn’t an option either.

‘It’s Friday so the shops will be open late, won’t they?’ he asked.

‘I suppose.’

‘In that case, if you’re prepared to wait until after Mike’s collected the Bentley, I’ll take you both into town. We could pick up the takeaway on the way home.’

It sounded reasonable but he wasn’t looking at Annie, knowing that she’d have raised that eyebrow a fraction, telling him that she was winning this stand-off hands down, instead concentrating on his daughter, willing her to say yes.

‘You want to come shopping with us?’ She sounded doubtful.

‘Same deal as always,’ he replied. ‘I drive, you do the hard work.’

‘That means you’re going to have to carry your own bags to the car,’ Annie said. ‘Obviously, as a lady of rather more advanced years, I will expect him to carry mine.’ She laid the lightest emphasis on the word ‘lady’. She tilted an eyebrow at him. Taunting him. No, teasing him. ‘Do you have a problem with that, George?’

‘I can live with it,’ he said, refusing to meet her gaze, afraid he might just break down and laugh. He was too angry with her to laugh. Too angry with himself for wanting to wrap his arms around her, hold her, kiss her, beg her never to leave because most of all he wanted her.

‘What a hero,’ she said gently. ‘And the three of us could put up those trees while we’re waiting.’

And right there and then, knowing that Christmas brought her a world of pain, he thought his heart might break that she would do that for his daughter. For him.