A Daring Proposition

Samantha thought it best not to add anything about the smoking at this moment, knowing Guy himself was probably puffing away like mad at the other end of the line. He always did when he was tense or worried about something.

‘I’ve only just realised I might have to face his dying and, damn it all, Sam, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit!’

He sounded terribly distressed, which made Samantha feel guilty. She’d picked a rotten time to resign on him, but it had to be done, even more so after what had happened earlier today. Out of sight was out of mind, she hoped. And if it was cowardly of her to run away then she was a coward! There was no viable alternative. If there were she would take it.

‘I wish there were something I could do to help,’ she murmured truthfully.

Any normal secretary could have offered to cook him a meal, since his housekeeper was away, but she didn’t dare. Her feelings towards Guy had tipped over a dangerous edge today and it worried her that she wouldn’t always be able to control them. Best she keep well away from him in any social sense. It would be hard enough dampening down these newly wayward desires at work without inviting disaster elsewhere.

‘There’s nothing you can do for me,’ Guy stated, ‘except stay on as my secretary.’

‘Please, Guy, drop it.’

‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘I’ll drop it. For now... See you Monday morning, Sam.’

He hung up.

Monday morning, she mused, replacing the dead receiver. That was three days away. In three days she should have herself firmly under control again.

CHAPTER THREE

AS FATE would have it, Samantha was not to see Guy the following Monday. Or the Tuesday for that matter. His father’s operation had been a technical success, but his recovery less so. He remained in Intensive Care in a coma, with Guy hardly leaving the hospital except to ring the office.

‘You’d think one of those precious ex-wives of his would have shown up to see how he’s faring, wouldn’t you?’ he growled during his second call for Tuesday. It was four-fifteen in the afternoon. ‘I let each one of them know about the operation and they all mouthed meaningless wishes for Dad’s welfare, but not an appearance between the three of them.’

‘You sound tired, Guy,’ Samantha said gently. ‘Why don’t you go home and have a proper night’s sleep?’

‘Can’t.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Dad needs me.’

‘But he’s unconscious,’ she pointed out. ‘You can’t really do anything.’

‘Yes, I can. I can talk to him, let him know it’s important to someone for him to pull through. I’ve read where coma patients can hear more than people realise.’

‘Yes...I’ve read that too.’ Samantha thought it wonderful for a grown man to love his father so much, and would have dearly liked to be by Guy’s side at the hospital, helping him in a more personal way during this time of trial. But a secretary could hardly presume to take such an intimate role and she supposed she was helping by looking after his business in his absence.

‘I’ve lined up the bookings for the tour,’ she said, knowing that talking about work would distract him from his worry for a little while.

‘Already?’

‘Mrs Walton helped me. She came in for a few hours yesterday and today. Of course, I couldn’t get the Entertainment Centre for Sydney. That’s booked out solid for a year. It’ll have to be the racecourse. Open-air stuff. Risky, I know. We’ll have to insure against rain. Oh, and the Midday Show want Frankie for a regular spot. His guest appearance last week was a big hit.’

Frankie Myers was the only comedian Guy handled. Mostly he concentrated on rock singers, musicians and bands. But Frankie was a special case. A Vietnam veteran, he’d initially made a modest living doing a stand-up comedy routine in hotels and clubs. But a growing drinking problem had shown him to be an unreliable gig and, in the end, no one would hire him. He’d been on skid row when Guy had literally tripped over him one night eighteen months ago in the gutter near his home. He’d recognised him, taken him inside, cleaned him up, dried him out and told him he’d make him a success if he gave up drinking for good.

Frankie did just that, and Guy had kept his side of the bargain, helping him update and polish his material and finding him work. But to get a regular spot on the top daytime programme on Australian television would mean unlimited exposure and a guarantee of success.

‘That’s terrific,’ Guy said, his voice smiling. ‘He deserves a break, the poor bastard.’

‘He’d never have done it without your encouragement and help.’

‘True.’ Modesty was not one of Guy’s virtues. ‘Anything else to report?’

‘No. Nothing I can’t handle.’

‘I don’t know when I’ll be in...’

‘Don’t worry. Mrs Walton and I will keep the home fires burning.’

‘You’re a girl in a million, Sam. See you.’

Samantha’s heart turned over as she heard the line go dead. Oh, Guy... You like me. I know you do. And liking can turn to love, given the chance.

Darn it all, she thought with a surge of irritation. Why couldn’t I have been born tiny and blonde?

When the phone rang again twenty minutes later she was about to pack and go home. She looked at the phone with a measure of distaste. She seemed to have spent the whole day on the thing and had had enough.

‘Hayward Promotions?’ she said somewhat impatiently as she snatched it up.

‘It’s your boss again. Guess what? Dad’s conscious. Sam, I think he’s going to make it!’

She let out a shuddering sigh of relief. ‘That’s wonderful, Guy. I’m so happy for you.’

‘I’ll be in first thing in the morning. Well...not quite first thing. Around elevenish. I have some sleep to catch up on.’

He was gone before she could say another word, leaving her with a ridiculous grin on her face. Guy’s happiness would always be her happiness.

What would there be, she worried later as she stepped outside into a still soggy Sydney, to make her happy when she didn’t see him any more?

There seemed to be no answer for her.

The office got back to relative normality after that—if battling to block out one’s dangerously escalating desire for one’s boss could be considered normal.

Guy’s father made rapid improvement. In fact he was discharged from hospital and sent home within two weeks of his becoming conscious, refusing to go to Guy’s place, hiring a private nurse and housekeeper to look after him in his own penthouse apartment. Martin Haywood was not short of a dollar, having made a fortune as an inventor of an engineering process that had revolutionised high-rise building methods.

But, despite his father’s recovery, Samantha could sense something troubling Guy. If he’d regularly tried to persuade her not to leave she might have thought she was the problem, but he seemed to have almost forgotten that soon she’d be gone. Many a time she would go into his office to find him standing at the window across the room, staring blankly out over the building tops. Then when she spoke to him he would turn round, and it would be several seconds before he’d even focus on her.

Not only that, he seemed to have lost all interest in his business, actually cutting down on the people he looked after, calling them and telling them to find another manager. She began to worry that he might not be feeling well himself, but hesitated to ask. He hated that kind of fussing. Besides, she rather fancied it was an emotional problem, not a physical one.

Unless, of course, it was sex, she decided one afternoon when he was particularly distracted. Or the lack of it. He was smoking more than ever, which meant there was no new blonde in his life. Samantha would have known if there were, anyway. All of Guy’s girlfriends were always so besotted with him that they couldn’t leave him alone. There would be phone calls and drop-in visits; luncheon dates; little presents delivered. Odd, that, she always thought. His women liked to give him things, not the other way around. She’d never known Guy to send flowers to a woman in his life.

No, clearly there wasn’t any new dolly-bird helping him make it through the night.

She herself wasn’t sleeping too well either.

Samantha was to find out exactly what was eating at him one Thursday in May, four weeks to the day after she had handed in her resignation. Mrs Walton had gone home after her weekly four hours of apprenticeship, and Samantha was catching up on some correspondence, mostly written confirmation of bookings.

‘Fancy some coffee?’ Guy asked as he wandered out of his office towards her desk.

‘Yes, thanks,’ she answered, looking up. Then wished she hadn’t. She’d forgotten how gorgeous he looked that day, in a navy suit and pale blue shirt. Blue was definitely his colour, seemingly highlighting his striking blue eyes.

Her gaze followed him as he moved past her desk and into the kitchen. It struck her that she had never seen him dressed in anything but a suit, which was surprisingly conventional in this day and age, particularly with someone of Guy’s background.

He’d been a rocker in his younger days, a drummer in a band. Much to his father’s disgust at the time. Apparently Guy had formed the band while doing an engineering degree at university, having so much success with it that the degree had never been finished. When the band had finally broken up a decade later he’d directed his talents and natural intelligence into the managerial side of showbiz, thereby regaining parental approval.

Samantha wondered if his conventional dressing was his way of impressing on his business contacts that his wild old rocker days were a thing of the past. Whatever the reason, he always looked great to Samantha.

Guy wandered back in with the two coffees, placed hers carefully beside her computer, then perched on the far corner of her desk while he sipped his.

‘Thanks again,’ she said, feeling not a hint of premonition. Making her coffee and stopping for a brief chat was something Guy did quite often. The only feeling Samantha was enduring was the hot prickle of sexual awareness that plagued her now whenever he was so physically close. One more month, she thought ruefully as she sipped the coffee, and this type of torture would be over.

‘You know what, Sam?’ he sighed. ‘Life’s a bitch.’

‘Oh?’ She was startled by this remark. It was not like Guy to be negative or pessimistic in anything. Most of the time he exuded a confidence bordering on arrogance. But then, he hadn’t been himself lately, had he? Not since his father’s heart trouble. ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked.

He left his coffee and slid off the end of the desk, strolling across to stand in his now familiar pose at the nearest window, his back to her. ‘I have this problem,’ he said in a low, almost reluctant voice. ‘A damned impossible problem.’

He turned then and walked back towards her with a self-mocking expression on his face. ‘God knows why I’m telling you. You can’t help me. No one can really. I can see it’s a crazy problem, totally illogical, with no workable solution. The trouble is I can’t put it out of my mind.’ He stood in front of her desk, picked up his coffee and drank deeply.

‘Why don’t you just tell me what this crazy, illogical and unworkable problem is?’ she suggested. ‘At least you’ll have it off your chest then. Don’t you think I’ve noticed something’s been bothering you?’

He frowned at her. ‘You didn’t say anything.’

She shrugged. ‘I thought it might be because of my leaving.’ Or something else she couldn’t exactly mention, like sexual frustration.

He rubbed his forehead with an agitated finger. ‘No...that’s not it. If you’re going to go then you’re going to go. I hate the idea, but I’m not going to beat my head up against a brick wall, and I can see when you make up your mind about something, Samantha Peters, you’re a brick wall.’

She wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or not. ‘Then what is it?’ she persisted.

He swallowed the final slurp of coffee, then exhaled a ragged breath. ‘You’ll think I’m off my tree, but the simple truth is...I want a child.’

Samantha was very grateful that she was sitting down. And that she didn’t have the hot coffee to her mouth. As it was she almost dropped the damned mug. Just in time she tightened her fingers, then lowered it carefully to the desk-top. ‘You want a child,’ she repeated, trying not to look as stunned as she felt.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A child. A son or a daughter. When Dad nearly died I realised how God-awful empty my life would be without him. Yet I will be without him one day. After he’s gone there’ll be no one in this world who cares if I live or die. Not for the right reason, anyway.’

He was looking right at her and she was sure he would have to see how her eyes started shining, see the burning love she carried in her heart for him written all over her face.

Apparently, he didn’t, his unseeing gaze turned inward on to his own troubled soul. ‘I know it’s a mad idea,’ he said impatiently. ‘You don’t have to tell me how mad! But still...’ His eyes took on that far-away look, as though he was imagining what it would be like to be a father and was entranced by the idea.

Surreptitiously Samantha put the phone on hold. She didn’t want a single thing interrupting this conversation.

His eyes snapped back to the present and he glared at her. ‘Do you think I’m mad?’ he demanded.

‘Not at all,’ she said as composedly as she could manage. ‘It’s a basic human drive to reproduce. Perfectly normal.’

Surprise lit his face. ‘Yes, yes, it is, isn’t it?’ he enthused, clearly excited by her words. ‘As basic as food, and sex.’ He laughed. ‘Well, of course that was the original idea behind sex, wasn’t it? Reproducing. It took human ingenuity to separate the two.’

Samantha swallowed. She wasn’t sure where all this was leading, but she was on the edge of her seat with breathless anticipation.

Guy paced back over to the window, and stood there, astride and arrogant, for a few seconds. But then he whirled to face her, his expression frustrated. ‘But surely you can see my problem? You know what I’m like, Sam. Marriage is not for me and never will be. I wasn’t meant to sleep with the same woman for the rest of my life. Hell, I’m hard pushed to make it to six months before I’m bored out of my mind. I won’t marry a woman just to have a child when I know it will end in divorce.’

Samantha accepted this quite easily. It was the pattern of his life so far. If only he could see that sex without love had to be boring in the end. Not that she said as much. She was too enthralled in hearing what he was going to come out with next.

‘The same goes for these so-called love-children,’ he went on with a derisive wave of his hand. ‘What happens when the parents fall out of love? Just as devastating a situation for the child as divorce. Besides,’ he added scathingly, ‘I’ve never been in love in my life and, quite frankly, I’m thankful I haven’t. Makes idiots of the most sensible sane men!’

And women, Samantha added to herself with a silent groan.

‘No,’ he pronounced. ‘I discarded both of those ideas weeks ago, which left me with two remaining possible courses of action,’ he stated, walking slowly back to her desk. ‘Firstly, I thought of paying a surrogate mother to have the child by artificial insemination and hand it over after it was born. But that’s awfully risky. She could change her mind and take me to court later and get the child back. I would never let a child of mine be an emotional football!’

The vehemence behind these last words gave Samantha another glimpse of a man harbouring a lot of pain. Since Guy loved his father without reservation, she could only imagine that his mother had to be the responsible one.

‘Not only that,’ he growled, ‘but I find the concept of artificial insemination distasteful. Maybe I’m a closet romantic, but I prefer to conceive my child the normal way, not with me as a mere extension of a test-tube. If I’m going to embrace the most important commitment a man can make—that of fatherhood—I want to be involved in a personal way right from the start. Damn it, I need to be involved. It’ll be my child!’

Samantha could only stare at Guy, so astounded was she to even hear the word ‘commitment’ come out of his mouth, let alone in such a passionate and caring way. It came to her quite forcibly that any future child of his would be a very lucky boy or girl indeed. For Guy would undoubtedly love it with all the love he’d never before bestowed on another human being, except perhaps his own father.

For a moment her mind drifted to the most impossible fantasy—of this unexpectedly emotional Guy somehow finding out he’d loved her all along, of his proposing marriage, of their having this much longed-for child together. She suppressed a sigh and gave her full attention back to her darkly frowning boss.

‘Which brings me to the second, final and ultimate solution to my problem,’ Guy went on, a dry sarcasm creeping into his voice. ‘I find some nice single co-operative lady who wants to have my child, will agree to let me share its upbringing, but who won’t make any demands on me other than financial ones. Now isn’t that the best fairy-story of a female you ever heard?’ He threw his hands up in the air in exasperated defeat. ‘Find me such a woman, Sam, and I’ll give you every cent I have!’

Samantha’s heart went into total seizure.

Not so her mind!

My God, it virtually exploded. Did you hear what he just said, what he wants? This is your chance, your wildest dream come true.

Well, not quite, harsh reality answered. He’s not offering love and marriage. But he is offering his body and his child! A life-long bond that would tie him to you forever!

That’s more than you ever hoped for. More than your other proposition would have given you. Much more. For this leaves you with your pride and self-respect.

All you have to do is dare...

But to succeed with such a daring proposition she would have to be very calm. Super-calm. One whiff of emotional involvement and Guy would cut her dead.

‘This nice single co-operative lady,’ she drawled, her heart pounding so loudly in her chest that she was certain he must hear it, ‘would she have to be a blonde?’

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