Promoted: to Wife and Mother

CHAPTER THREE

PERDITA’S heart lurched into her throat. The sight of him was a physical shock, a charge of recognition that surged and crackled through her body so powerfully that she felt jarred and jolted. She barely knew the man, after all. He shouldn’t seem so startlingly familiar. Ed was looking tired and more than a little grubby in a T-shirt and jeans but the keen eyes were just the same as she had remembered. He had the same mouth, the same air of cool competence, the same ability to discompose her just by standing there.

‘It’s you,’ she said stupidly.

Ed looked equally surprised to see her, and for one awful moment she thought that she was going to have to remind him who she was, but then his face cleared and he was coming towards her with a smile.

‘Perdita…’ For once Ed seemed to have lost his normal composure. ‘Sorry…you’re the last person I was expecting…’

Ed, in fact, was completely thrown by the sight of Perdita standing in his hall, as slender and as vivid as ever, throwing her surroundings into relief and yet making them seem faintly drab in comparison.

He remembered her so clearly from the course in June, and had been looking forward to seeing her again. He had hoped to bump into her on one of his visits to Bell Browning over the summer, but he hadn’t had so much as a glimpse of her. He had asked, very casually, if she were around one day, but she had been away then for some reason and he hadn’t wanted to push it by asking again.

There would be time to get to know her when he moved permanently, Ed reasoned. People would think that he was interested in her, which he wasn’t, or at least, not in that way. Quite apart from the fact that he was pretty sure someone like her would already be in a relationship, she wasn’t at all his type. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see that she was attractive, in a striking rather than a pretty way, but she was nothing like Sue, for instance, who had been soft and sweet and calm and loving. There was nothing soft or sweet about Perdita. She was edgy and astringent and restless and when she was around, calm was the last thing Ed felt.

Her performance on the last day of that course had exasperated and impressed him in equal measure. In spite of all her complaints and in spite of the rain, she had contributed more than anyone else to the success of the tasks, and Ed was fairly sure that she had enjoyed herself too. Her ability to motivate and defuse tension with humour was extraordinary, he had thought. So he had remembered her, yes, but only because she was such an impossible person to forget. He wasn’t interested.

So he was rather taken aback by the way every sense in his body seemed to leap with pleasure at the sight of her.

Perdita herself seemed less than delighted to see him, and he stopped himself before he found himself greeting her with quite inappropriate warmth.

There was an awkward pause. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ Ed asked after a moment.

It sounded all too much like an accusation to Perdita, who flushed. ‘I…my mother lives next door,’ she said, ridiculously flustered by the situation. ‘We saw the removal vans so guessed you’d just moved in. I just popped over to welcome you and give you this.’ She held up the bottle of wine awkwardly.

‘That’s very kind,’ said Ed as he wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘Sorry, I’m filthy,’ he explained and took the bottle Perdita was holding out to him. His brows shot up as he read the label. ‘This is more than just a bottle of wine! I hope you’re going to stay and share it with me?’

‘Oh, no, I mustn’t,’ Perdita stammered, stepping back, as gauche as a schoolgirl. ‘You must be tired if you’ve been moving all day.’

‘Please,’ said Ed, and unfairly he smiled. ‘I’ve had a long day and you don’t know how much I’ve been wishing that I could just sit down with a glass of wine! I can’t share it with the kids, and I don’t like to drink alone.’

‘Well…’ Now it would seem ungracious if she rushed off, Perdita decided. ‘I mustn’t stay long, though. I’ve left my mother on her own.’

‘Have a glass anyway. Everything’s chaos, but come into the kitchen and I’ll see if I can lay my hands on a corkscrew.’

Ed’s daughter looked from one to the other suspiciously. ‘Do you guys know each other, then?’

‘Your father is my boss,’ Perdita told her.

‘And this is my daughter, Cassie, as you’ve probably gathered,’ Ed put in.

Cassie tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder. ‘God, is he as grumpy at work as he is at home?’

‘You’d probably need to ask his PA,’ said Perdita, amused. ‘I haven’t had much to do with him yet.’

‘It’s no use asking his PAs. They always think he’s lovely, but we know better,’ said Cassie with a dark look at her father. ‘At home, he’s a tyrant! He’s so pig-headed and unreasonable!’

‘Really?’

‘I couldn’t bear to work for him,’ Cassie declared. ‘I’d be on strike the whole time!’

Ed seemed quite unfazed by all of this as he led the way into the big kitchen at the back of the house. ‘I’m so unreasonable that after a day moving house with three bone-idle teenagers, I decided that it was more important to sort out some beds so that we could all sleep tonight, rather than dropping everything to set up the computer so that Cassie could instant message her friends right away.’

‘Very tyrannical,’ murmured Perdita.

‘See?’ Cassie shook back her hair and changed tack without warning. ‘Can I have some wine?’

‘No,’ said Ed.

Cassie heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘I’m going to go and ring India and tell her how boring it is here!’ she announced and, when this threat had no visible effect on her father, she flounced out.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Ed, locating the corkscrew at last in one of the boxes piled on the kitchen counters. ‘Cassie is a bit of a drama queen, as you probably gathered.’

‘She’s very pretty.’

‘And knows it,’ he said wryly. ‘When Cassie is in a good mood, there’s no one more delightful-and no one more unpleasant when she’s in a temper! It can be exhausting just keeping up with her moods.’

‘My best friend has two teenage girls,’ said Perdita, who had spent many hours plying Millie with wine and listening to the latest crisis with either Roz or Emily, and occasionally both. ‘I gather they can be hard work. It always seems that boys are easier, but that’s probably because Millie doesn’t have one!’

Ed smiled ruefully. ‘Probably. Tom can be just as difficult in his own way, and so can Lauren. They’re upstairs, but I’ll spare you the introductions for now. It’s been a long day and for now I’d just like to sit down and relax for a few minutes!’

He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. ‘Are you OK here? The sitting room is even more of a mess, I’m afraid.’

‘Here’s fine.’ Perdita watched as Ed poured the wine and then burrowed his nose in the glass reverently. Something about the intentness of his expression, something about his smile, something about the hand curving around the glass made her squirm inside and she wriggled involuntarily in her chair.

Ed lifted his head and smiled at her across the table. ‘This is a wonderful wine. Do you always give away bottles like this to your neighbours?’

‘No, it was just the first one I found in my father’s collection,’ she told him. ‘I don’t know anything about wine, to be honest. I’m sure Dad would be glad to know it had gone to someone who appreciates it, though.’

‘I remember you said your father had died.’ Ed took another appreciative sip and put his wine down. ‘Does your mother live on her own?’

‘For the moment.’ Perdita turned her own glass very carefully by the stem. ‘That’s one of the reasons I came round, actually. I wanted to give her new neighbours my contact numbers in case there was ever any problem. She hasn’t been well recently, and it’s taking her a long time to get over it. I try to come every day, but she’s alone at night and when I’m at work, and that does worry me sometimes. Some days she seems fine, but others she’s not so good.’

‘Couldn’t you get someone to come in and help her?’ said Ed. ‘When my own mother was ill, she had excellent carers. There was someone in the house with her twenty-four hours a day.’

‘I’ve tried suggesting that, but she won’t hear of it.’ Perdita sighed and stopped fiddling with her glass, taking a sip of wine instead. ‘Sometimes I think that the only thing keeping her going is her determination not to lose her privacy. That’s really important to people of her generation. I do understand. It must be awful to feel dependent, but it’s so frustrating too. Her life-and mine!-would be so much easier if she would let someone pop in and cook and clean at least. As it is-’

She broke off, embarrassed suddenly. Too often lately she had found herself going on and on about her mother’s situation, as if it consumed her. It wasn’t a healthy sign.

‘As it is,’ Ed finished for her in a practical voice, ‘you have to do everything. Isn’t there anyone else in the family who could help, or are you an only child?’

‘No, I’ve got two brothers, but one emigrated to New Zealand a couple of years ago, and the other lives in Devon and is married with three small children, so obviously he can’t be expected to help, especially when there’s me with no husband or family to take into account. It goes without saying that I have to be the one to give up my life.’

She broke off abruptly. ‘Sorry, I should have a paper bag to put over my head when I start going on like this!’ she apologised. ‘It’s just that I get so resentful sometimes, and then I feel guilty. The fact is that I don’t want to give up my job to look after my mother. I don’t know how I would manage financially, but perhaps that’s just an excuse? My mother spent enough years of her life looking after me, after all. Am I just being selfish in not selling my flat and moving in as a full-time carer?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Ed frowned as he considered her situation. He could quite see how frustrating she found it. ‘It does seem hard that all the responsibility falls on you. Couldn’t your brothers at least help persuade your mother that she needs some practical care?’

‘Mum doesn’t believe in worrying men about domestic details,’ she said wryly. ‘She’s always so thrilled to hear from them that, of course, she tells them everything is fine-and then tells me at length how good it was of them to have called her when they have such busy lives!’

Hearing the bitterness in her voice, she flushed. Ed was a sympathetic listener. Too sympathetic, perhaps. He didn’t gush, or exclaim, or tell her how awful it was for her. He just sat there and listened with a thoughtful expression that made her want to blurt out all the worry and grief and frustration and resentment bottled up inside.

But he had problems enough of his own and, anyway, he was her boss. Remember that, Perdita?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said wearily. ‘I shouldn’t be like this. I love my mother. I should be grateful that I’ve still got her, not moaning about what a worry she is.’

‘It’s normal to feel resentment,’ said Ed. ‘When you love someone, it’s hard to cope with the fact that they can’t be what you need them to be any more. I loved Sue very much,’ he told Perdita, ‘and I miss her still, but there were times when I was angry with her for getting ill, for dying, for leaving me to cope on my own, for leaving the kids without a mother…I had to try and be strong for her and for the kids, and yes, I resented the fact that there seemed to be no one to help me be strong.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I hated myself for how I felt,’ he said honestly. ‘And I felt guilty about it, the way you do. If I’d been able to stand back and analyse the situation dispassionately, I’d have been less hard on myself. I’d have been able to see that anger can sometimes be a mechanism for dealing with fear.’

‘Did your wife know how you felt?’

‘I think so. I tried so hard not to take it out on her, but she knew me very well. And, of course, she was afraid too. Things were better when we both just admitted it, and then we could help each other.

Perdita swallowed. ‘I feel terrible going on about my mother when you’ve been through so much worse,’ she confessed, but Ed shook his head.

‘It’s not a matter of “worse” or “better”. You can’t compare how it feels to lose someone you love. You can’t say it’s better to lose a partner through death rather than through divorce, or that it’s easier to lose someone in spirit than physically, that you don’t grieve as much for a mother as for a wife…However it happens,’ he said, ‘you have to deal with the pain of not having the person you love any more.’

‘Still…’ said Perdita, not entirely convinced. She thought Ed was probably just trying to make her feel better. ‘How did you manage?’ she asked tentatively after a moment.

‘After Sue died?’

‘Yes. It must have been so…’ Perdita struggled to find the right word to express how she imagined he’d felt, but ‘terrible’, ‘awful’, ‘sad’ just sounded like trite clichés. ‘So lonely,’ she said after a pause. ‘So desolate.’

Desolate was a good word, Ed thought. ‘Yes, it was a terrible time,’ he said slowly, remembering Sue’s hand, so painfully thin in his, the deafening, unbelievable silence when she’d stopped breathing at last. The expression in Tom’s eyes when he’d told him that his mother was dead. Holding Lauren and feeling how her small body was racked by sobs. The fury in Cassie’s face. She hadn’t really believed until then that her mother would actually leave her. The tearing grief that had clawed at him when he’d tried to imagine the utter emptiness of a future without Sue by his side.

Ed shook the painful memories aside. ‘For a while, you just have to go through the motions,’ he told Perdita. ‘Nothing seems to make any sense. But I couldn’t fall apart. I had to keep the kids going somehow, and it wasn’t easy.’

‘They were terribly young to lose their mother,’ said Perdita quietly.

‘Lauren was only eight.’

Eight. She was forty, and the thought of losing her own mother filled her with dread. Perdita felt very ashamed of the fuss she had been making about caring for her mother earlier.

‘There were practical problems to be dealt with too,’ Ed was saying. ‘My sister came for a while when Sue was dying, but she has her own life and she couldn’t stay for ever. I wanted to find a nice, comfortable housekeeper, but they’re not easy to come by and the kids wouldn’t accept anyone else living in the house for a while-a bit like your mother, in fact! So we moved to a place where there was a flat over the garage where an au pair could live. None of them were very successful, though. It was really just someone to be in the house when the kids got home from school, but once Lauren got to secondary school, they said they didn’t want anyone any more.

‘They’re used to getting themselves around London, but it’s one of the reasons I wanted to move to a smaller place, where I’m hoping they’ll make a network of friends who live nearby instead of the other side of London. And somewhere I can get home more easily, and have a less pressurised job. Although they’re all old enough to look after themselves in lots of ways, in others they need just as much attention now as when they were toddlers.’

He looked around the kitchen. ‘So here we are! I’m hoping I’ve done the right thing, but it’s always difficult to be certain. The girls are moaning about having to leave their friends in London and everything’s a mess…It’ll take us all a little time to settle down, I think.’

‘And the last thing you need is me burdening you with my problems,’ said Perdita guiltily. ‘It sounds as if you’ve got more than enough of your own.’

‘That doesn’t make yours any less important,’ said Ed, thinking how surprisingly easy it was to talk to Perdita. He didn’t usually tell virtual strangers about Sue. She had been so effervescent and lively on the course that he would never have been able to imagine talking to her like this then, but she seemed oddly right sitting at his kitchen table now. She was no less vivid but her dark brown eyes were warm and sympathetic, and looking into them Ed felt the tight feeling in his chest loosen for the first time in years.

He made himself look away. ‘My own mother died a couple of years ago, so I know what it’s like,’ he said gruffly.

A silence fell. It wasn’t that uncomfortable at first but, as it lengthened, it began to tighten and tighten until it seemed to stretch and twang and, the longer it went on, the more impossible it seemed to break it.

Perdita was drinking her wine with a kind of desperation. Her father would have been appalled to know that she might as well have been drinking pop for all she could taste. She was too aware of Ed across the table from her, of the planes of his face, the angle of his jaw, the line of his mouth…Her blood thrummed and her mouth was so dry, she had to moisten her lips. Was it just her, or was there a dangerous charge in the atmosphere?

She made herself look around the kitchen as if fascinated by its design, but her gaze kept drifting back to Ed and, every time it did, their eyes would catch and snare and the air evaporated from the room, leaving her with a rushing in her ears and a scary sensation pulsing beneath her skin.

Perdita fought to get a grip. This wouldn’t do. This was Edward Merrick. Her boss, remember?

‘More wine?’ he said, lifting the bottle, and his voice seemed to jar in the silence.

‘No…thanks…’ For heaven’s sake! She was blushing and stammering as she drained her glass, squirming with embarrassment in case Ed somehow guessed the physical attraction-oh, why be mealy mouthed? Perdita asked herself impatiently-the sheer lust that had her in its grip. ‘I should probably be getting back,’ she said, horrified to hear the words come out as a croak.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ Pushing back her chair, she got abruptly to her feet. ‘My mother will be expecting me.’

It wasn’t true, but Ed wasn’t to know that and Perdita was suddenly desperate to get away before she made a complete fool of herself. Perhaps she could blame it on the wine, she thought wildly. If it were as good as Ed said, there was no knowing what effect it might be having.

Ed escorted her to the door. ‘Did you want to leave those numbers?’

‘Numbers?’

‘In case we need to get hold of you about your mother,’ he prompted. ‘I’ve got your work number, of course, but presumably your mobile would be better.’

‘Oh…yes…of course.’ Feeling foolish, Perdita dug in her pocket for the business card she had brought with her. ‘I’ve written my personal numbers on the back.’

He took it from her. Was it her imagination, or was he being just as careful as she was to make sure that their fingers didn’t touch? ‘I’ll put it up in kitchen and make sure the kids know about it.’

‘Thanks.’ There was a pause. Empty-handed now, Perdita lifted her arms from her sides and then let them drop again uselessly. ‘Well…thanks.’

‘Thank you for the wine.’

Another moment of awkwardness, then Ed forced a smile. ‘I’ll see you at work, then,’ he said, horribly conscious of the constraint in the atmosphere. ‘I’ve got tomorrow and the weekend to sort things out here, then I’m starting full-time on Monday.’

Work. Yes, remember that, Perdita told herself sternly. That place where he was Chief Executive and she was Operations Manager and there was no time for mooning around over grieving widowers with three children to look after.

‘Of course,’ she said brightly.

‘We’ll need to set up a meeting then.’

‘Right,’ she said. This was terrible. It was obvious that he couldn’t wait for her to go any more than she could wait to be gone, but somehow neither of them seemed to be able to make it happen. ‘Well, I’d better go,’ she said, turning determinedly for the door. ‘Bye.’

Her dignified exit was spoiled when she tripped over the step as she left, but by then Perdita was feeling so awkward she was beyond embarrassment. Maybe it was the wine, she thought as she made her way back to her mother’s house on legs that didn’t seem to be working properly.

Definitely the wine, Perdita decided that weekend. By Monday she had herself well under control and had put the entire silly incident down to a mixture of tiredness and Cabernet Sauvignon, and if she had the odd, shameful frisson whenever she thought about seeing Ed again, she put it down to erratic air-conditioning.

A meeting of all the staff was called for the Monday afternoon so that Ed could address the entire company. He was an engaging speaker, and it was clear that he had made a good impression on everyone from the board members to the cleaners who were included in the meeting. Only Perdita left feeling distinctly aggrieved.

She had assumed that when Ed had talked about setting up a meeting he had meant on Monday, but she had just been part of a crowd, never a feeling that she liked. Perhaps he would try and see her on Tuesday?

But Tuesday came and went, as did Wednesday, and Perdita began to get cross. Didn’t he care about Operations?

In the end, it was Friday before Perdita’s secretary came into her office, bursting with news, and told her that Ed wanted to see her as soon as convenient. ‘Shall I tell his PA you can go now?’

‘No!’ said Perdita instinctively, with just a hint of panic. Having sulked because he didn’t appear to want to see her, she was abruptly flustered at the prospect.

Typical! She had dressed so carefully the last four days in the expectation that she would have a meeting with him, and now, just when she had given up expecting the summons, he had sprung it on her the day she was wearing her old-fashioned hound’s-tooth suit instead of her fabulous cherry-pink jacket with the shawl collar and the flattering cut. She had been so determined to make a good impression.

For professional reasons, of course.

‘You haven’t got any meetings until twelve o’clock,’ Valerie pointed out.

‘Well, no…but I want to get this budget done first,’ said Perdita, with a very fair assumption of casualness.

Why should she jump up and run along to his office the moment Ed snapped his fingers, after all? He had waited this long to see her. Let him wait a bit longer. The last thing she wanted was to look too keen. ‘Ask his PA if she can fit me in some time this afternoon.’

It was all very well not wanting to appear keen, but Perdita hadn’t reckoned with the fact that she would then waste the rest of morning feeling ridiculously nervous at the prospect of seeing Ed again. She did her best to concentrate on her budget-and it did need to be done-but the columns of figures kept wavering in front of her eyes and she would find her mind drifting back to his kitchen and how it had felt to sit opposite him, how he had smiled, how the air had leaked out of her lungs whenever she looked into his eyes or thought about his mouth.

And now she was going to see him again. Perdita’s heart slowed to an uncomfortable thud, which was stupid. She was forty, much too old to be getting into a tizzy about a man. This wasn’t some date. She was meeting her boss this afternoon, that was all. Anyone would think that she was excited, which clearly she wasn’t.

One, because she didn’t believe in mixing personal and professional relationships, and this one was clearly only ever going to be professional anyway.

Two, because he had three children and she was never, ever going to get involved with a single father again.

And three, because she wasn’t particularly attracted to him anyway. He was just a not particularly good-looking, middle-aged man, as she had told Millie. He wasn’t even her type. That strange surge of desire she had felt the other evening was down to the wine and nothing else.

Still, she found herself in the Ladies just before the meeting Valerie had arranged for two o’clock, carefully applying a fresh coat of lipstick. When she had finished, Perdita inspected her reflection carefully. With her dark eyes, bold mouth and hair that swung in a glossy bob to her jaw line, she could take bright colours and dramatic outfits, but this suit was a classic. It had a pencil skirt and a chic jacket over a neat silky top, and Perdita decided on balance that it was probably a better look than the pink jacket currently languishing in the dry cleaners. This outfit might not be as striking, but it made her look cool, businesslike and thoroughly professional.

And not as if her heart were fluttering in her throat, which was all that mattered.

Perdita picked up her file, gave her jacket a final tug into place, took a deep breath and headed along to the Chief Executive’s office.

Ed got to his feet when she went in and at the sight of him the breath promptly whooshed out of Perdita’s lungs, just as it had done when he had appeared at the bottom of the stairs in his hallway. Today, he was wearing a shirt and tie and the formal wear made him seem older and more distant than the work-stained T-shirt and faded jeans.

Perdita was conscious of a rush of quite unfamiliar shyness. At least she thought it was shyness. Whatever it was, it left her with rubbery bones and a strange, quivering feeling beneath her skin.

Ridiculous.

She was Operations Manager of a successful company, Perdita reminded herself sternly. She was an intelligent, confident, capable forty-year-old woman, and she did not do shy or fluttery.

Tilting her chin, she smiled brightly and disguised her weird reaction with a show of briskness. She might feel strange, but she had no intention of letting Ed Merrick guess that it was related to him in any way.

‘Thanks for taking the time to see me,’ she said coolly as he waved her to the comfortable chairs in the corner of his office.

‘Not at all,’ said Ed. ‘I’m glad you could fit me in.’ Was there just the slightest suspicion of sarcasm in his voice? Perdita wondered suspiciously and she fought down a faint flush.

‘It’s a busy time in Operations.’

‘So I gather,’ Ed agreed smoothly. ‘That’s why I left you to last. I’ve seen all the other managers, but I knew that you could be counted on to carry on doing a good job without any interference from me.’

‘Oh.’ Perdita realised that she was sitting nervously on the edge of her chair and tried to relax. Leaning back a little, she crossed her legs, but that made her skirt ride up, exposing rather too much of her legs, so she uncrossed them again. She wished she was wearing trousers, as she would have done with her pink jacket.

Now what was she going to with her legs? Perhaps she could try crossing her ankles like royalty? But when she tried it, that felt all wrong too.

If Ed was irritated by her fidgeting, he didn’t show it. ‘Thank you again for the wine you brought the other day,’ he said formally. ‘It was a very nice thought.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Perdita with a rather off-putting brightness. ‘It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s wine cellar!’

There was a short pause while Ed wondered how to begin. There had been an inexplicably disturbing awareness between them that night in his kitchen, and he was sure she must have felt it too. It made things a bit awkward now, though. He didn’t want to refer to it, but neither could he pretend that she had never come round.

It was the reason he had put off seeing Perdita until now, although it was also true that she ran an efficient and effective department. Ed had been hoping that either the memory of that awareness would fade-no luck there-or that seeing her at work would change things once more.

Looking at her now, he was only partly reassured. The quiet empathy he had felt sitting at the kitchen table had vanished, and Perdita was back to her peppy, punchy form. On the other hand, now that he had seen her in his home and knew that beneath the pizzazz she could be warm and sympathetic and honest, and had cares and concerns and stresses of her own, it was much harder to think of her as just another business colleague.

Although it was clear that was all she wanted to be. The more vulnerable side of Perdita was tucked firmly away behind a brisk façade of professionalism that Ed was fairly sure was designed to keep him at a distance and demonstrate that if she had been conscious of that unlikely awareness last week, she most certainly didn’t want to be reminded of it.

Which was fair enough, Ed had to admit to himself. It wasn’t likely that Perdita herself would ever be interested in a dull, middle-aged widower with three teenagers in tow.

Was it?