A New Year Marriage Proposal

She used proper tea leaves rather than teabags—so clearly she had an eye for detail and liked things done properly—and her teapot was silver. Quinn had a nasty feeling that it was solid silver rather than silver plate. As was the tea strainer. And the sugar bowl and spoons.

Old money, then? Very different from his own background. Not that it mattered. He’d made his own way in life, and he was comfortable with who he was.

‘Milk?’ she asked.

‘Please.’

And she proceeded to pour him the perfect cup of tea. In what looked like an antique porcelain cup.

It was made even more perfect by the fact that she’d placed more brownies on a matching porcelain plate.

‘Help yourself,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’ He didn’t need a second invitation.

‘So, Mr O’Neill. Quinn.’ She smiled at him. ‘The real-life Q.’

He almost choked on his brownie. Particularly when she added, ‘“Smart Is the New Sexy.”’

He groaned, knowing exactly what she was referring to. ‘Just ignore anything you read in that magazine. Please,’ he added, looking pained. ‘I only did the interview as a favour to a friend, and her boss went a bit mad with it. I didn’t say half of what was reported. And I’m not...’ Time to shut up. Before he dug that hole any deeper.

‘The looks bit I can judge for myself,’ she said, and a prickle of awareness ran up his spine.

He was definitely attracted to her.

Was she saying that she was attracted to him?

She had no husband. He had no wife.

There was no reason why they couldn’t...

Apart from the fact that he didn’t do closeness. And he had a feeling that would be a deal-breaker for her.

‘The rest of it...is it true?’ she asked. ‘You develop gadgets?’

‘A lot of what I do,’ he said carefully, ‘is bound by the Official Secrets Act.’

‘So basically, if you tell me what you really do, you’ll have to kill me.’

She was so irrepressible that he couldn’t help smiling. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. So you can keep things confidential.’

Where was this going? he wondered, but inclined his head.

‘Strong and silent.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘But what I really want to know is if you can build systems.’

‘What kind of systems?’

‘Computer systems. Clever ones.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘At ridiculously short notice.’

Yes, yes and yes. ‘Why?’

‘Because, Mr O’Neill, I have a proposition for you.’

He had a sudden vision of her in a pretty dress with her hair loose, laughing up at him and offering a kiss...

No. If he had any kind of relationship at all with Carissa Wylde, it would be very simple, very defined, and with built-in barriers. Neighbours or strictly business. Nothing closer. ‘A business proposition,’ he clarified.

‘Of course.’

Which should be a relief. But instead it tied him up in knots, which he really hadn’t expected. He didn’t want to get involved with anyone. He liked his life the way it was.

But clearly his mouth wasn’t listening to his head, because he found himself saying, ‘Tell me more.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘I WANT YOU to build me a virtual Santa,’ Carissa said. ‘It’s for the opening of a new children’s ward.’

‘A virtual Santa.’ Now Quinn understood: obviously she worked in PR. That would explain the expensive clothes—and the glasses. To make her look serious rather than fluffy. Image was everything in PR. And the fact that she could even consider commissioning something without having to ask the price first meant that she didn’t have to defer to anyone on her budget; so she was the owner or director of the company and the client trusted her judgement absolutely. ‘Why can’t you have a real Santa?’

‘I intend to,’ she said. ‘But I need the virtual one first.’

‘Why? Surely a real Santa would come with a sack of gifts?’

A tiny pleat appeared between her eyebrows. ‘He will. But the virtual one will chat to them first. A life-sized one—I guess a holographic thing will probably be too difficult to do at short notice, but we could have a life-sized screen. Santa will get them to say what they really want for Christmas. In the meantime, people behind the scenes can buy the gifts, wrap them and label them, and then the real Santa walks in with all the gifts on his sleigh, and he delivers their perfect Christmas present.’

Quinn could see exactly how the system could work. It wouldn’t take very much effort at all to build the system she wanted. And suddenly everything was all right again: he could treat this as a business project.

‘OK. Does it have to be life-sized? Because a screen that big is going to be really costly,’ he warned. She might be able to persuade various businesses to donate or loan some equipment, but not for something as specialised as that.

She thought about it. ‘Some of the children might be too sick to leave their beds. I guess something portable would be better for them—so basically we’re taking Santa to them. And if everyone uses the same system then nobody will feel left out or different.’

‘So you could use a laptop or tablet, say.’ He thought about it. ‘That’d be very doable. And it would save you money if you could use something you already have.’

‘And I was thinking maybe we could use the barcodes on an appointment letter or the children’s medical notes, so Santa knows the children’s names even as they look at the screen,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘No chance. You’ll fall foul of all the data protection laws. You’d have to get permission from the health authority to use their data—and, believe me, you’d have to jump through hoops to get that permission—and then you’d also need written permission from every single parent or guardian. It’s not going to happen. You need a different way of doing it.’

‘So what would you suggest?’ she asked.

‘Give me until tomorrow to think about it,’ he said, ‘and I’ll come up with a plan. How are you organising the gifts?’

‘Santa will pass the information to a team who’ll source the gifts, buy them, get them wrapped and couriered over to the hospital. Timing’s going to be a bit tight, but it’s doable,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about that bit. I’ve already got an arrangement with a couple of large toy shops and department stores.’

‘They’re donating the gifts?’

‘No. We’re picking up the costs. They’ve just agreed to supply what we want and give us priority treatment.’

Quinn had the distinct feeling that this was personal as well as business. Maybe Carissa knew a child who’d been in hospital at Christmas. Someone who’d been close to her.

‘It’s the virtual Santa that’s important,’ she added.

‘And you have someone lined up to play him?’

‘I do,’ she said. ‘One last thing.’

‘Yes?’

There was a hint of anxiety in her eyes. ‘This has to be totally confidential.’

He didn’t get it. ‘Isn’t the whole point of PR to get media coverage?’

‘For the opening of the children’s ward, yes. For the person behind Santa, no.’

Maybe it wasn’t personal for her, then. Maybe it was personal for her client—and Carissa was the kind of PR professional who’d go the extra mile to make sure that her clients got exactly what they wanted.

‘Got it. OK. Let’s have an update meeting tomorrow at my place,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you timings, costs and a workable solution.’

‘That,’ she said, ‘sounds perfect.’

‘What time do you want to meet?’

‘Seven?’ she suggested. ‘If that works for you.’

‘It works.’ He finished his tea and stood up. ‘Thank you for the tea and brownies, Ms Wylde.’

‘Carissa,’ she corrected. ‘Thank you for taking on the project. I’ll make sure your invoice is processed promptly.’

‘You haven’t asked my hourly rate yet,’ he said.

‘I’m sure it will be in line with the market rate.’

Meaning that she’d make him feel guilty and he’d cut his rate if it was too high. He was about to agree, but his mouth went freelance on him again. ‘Make me some more of that cake and we’ll call tonight’s meeting a freebie.’

‘Deal,’ she said.

And when he shook her hand, his palm actually tingled.

Not good.

This was business. And she was his neighbour. And you most definitely didn’t mix any of those things with anything else, not if you wanted a quiet life where you could just get on with your work without your heart being tied up in knots all the time.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said, and left before he did anything stupid. Like turning her hand over and kissing her wrist. Letting his mouth linger on her pulse point. And asking her for a date.

* * *

What Carissa had learned about Quinn O’Neill: he was bright. He liked chocolate. He had a good heart. And he was definitely smart as well as sexy.

But she’d just involved him in the project she’d been working on for years. Something she couldn’t afford to go wrong, because it was way too important to her. In her experience, getting involved meant getting out of her depth. Getting hurt. She’d only just managed to paper over the cracks post-Justin; the glue still needed time to dry, time to help her form a shell to keep her heart safe. So having any kind of involvement with Quinn other than a business relationship—even if he was smart, sexy and sensitive—would be a very bad idea.

‘He’s off limits,’ she told herself. Out loud, just to make sure she’d got the message.

But she still couldn’t quite get him out of her head.

She worked through her lunch hour the next day so she’d be home in time to make brownies before the meeting. And at precisely seven she rang Quinn’s doorbell.

‘Punctual. Good. Come in.’ He glanced at the cake tin. ‘Last night’s fee?’

‘Last night’s fee,’ she confirmed.

‘Good. Thank you.’ He took the tin from her. ‘Coffee?’

‘Thanks. Milk, no sugar,’ she said.

‘Come up.’

The layout of Quinn’s house was very similar to her own; she remembered it from visiting Maddie and Jack. Like her, he had a table in the kitchen where he could eat—or work maybe. He gestured to her to sit down, and switched on the kettle.

Like her, she noticed, he had no clutter on the worktops. But it didn’t feel like a cook’s kitchen. Though maybe she was being unfair. He’d only moved in two days before. He’d barely had time to unpack—and she’d noticed a few cardboard boxes by the door to the living room. It made her flush with guilt; he’d hardly even moved in, and she’d already inveigled him into working extra hours on her project, fitting it around whatever work he already had on, knowing that freelancers rarely said no because they couldn’t afford to pass up a project in case it left them with a gap in their schedule—and their finances.

Before she could apologise for being pushy, Quinn put a mug of coffee in front of her. He opened the lid of the cake tin but didn’t put the brownies on a plate. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘Right. I’ve been thinking about how your system could work.’

Guilt flooded over her. ‘I’m sorry for dumping extra work on you,’ she said in a rush.

He scoffed. ‘What you wanted isn’t rocket science. Well, it might’ve been if you’d insisted on a life-size virtual Santa. This is easy and it took me about five minutes to work it all out. What you need is a simple video link. We’ll avoid microphone noise by getting Santa to wear a wire—and the person at the children’s ward who takes the tablet round to the kids also needs to wear a wire.’

‘That would be me. And they’re going to see if I’m wearing a microphone or headset. I guess you can hide Santa’s in his hat or beard, but...’ She grimaced. ‘I don’t want them to see mine.’

‘They’re not going to see anything,’ he said. ‘When I say wearing a wire, I don’t mean a physical wire—it’s not like the kind of thing you saw on cop shows twenty years ago, where someone had a microphone taped to his chest and attached to a recording device worn round his waist. I mean having an app on the tablet and doing the “wire” through software. The audio quality’s better than an old-fashioned wire or a headset.’

She blinked. ‘You can do that?’

‘It’s not new technology,’ he informed her. ‘And it’s not as if we need to miniaturise anything or hide it in something tiny in a way that means it’ll get past any detection equipment.’

Which sounded as if he did that sort of thing all the time.

‘You’re carrying a tablet so the kids can see Santa and talk to him. The app runs unobtrusively in the background.’

‘I feel a bit stupid,’ she admitted.

‘Unless you work in the area, how are you meant to know the technology exists?’ he asked.

Carissa mentally added ‘kind’ to Quinn’s list of attributes. And tried very hard not to think about ‘Smart Is the New Sexy’. Justin had been sexy, too. Smart. And he’d been the biggest mistake of her life. She couldn’t risk getting things wrong like that again.

‘So. The app broadcasts the audio—not just to Santa, but through headphones to the support team. You tell us the patient’s name just before you take the tablet over to the child, so Santa can get the name right and do the “magic” bit by greeting the kid by name.

‘The team picks up what the child wants as a gift and organises it with your supplier on another line—they’ll be able to hear you clearly, but you won’t be able to hear anyone except Santa on the tablet. And your team will work on collaborative software with a database so they all know who’s ordered what and from where—that way, nothing gets missed or duplicated.’

‘And you have this collaborative software?’ she asked.

‘Yes, and I can tweak it to suit your needs. I can train your team on it so they’ll be perfect within about half an hour.’

She looked at him. ‘I don’t know what to say. Except I’m impressed.’

‘It’s really not rocket science,’ he said again. ‘It’s just putting a couple of systems together.’

‘Have you actually worked in rocket science, then?’ The question came out before she could stop it.

Quinn wrinkled his nose, and Carissa had to tell herself not to notice how cute it made him look. ‘I can’t answer that,’ he said.

She blew out a breath. ‘OK. Timings and costings?’

‘When’s the opening day?’

‘Four weeks tomorrow.’ The anniversary of her parents’ plane crash. So she’d have something good to look forward to on that day, to take the sting out of it. And it had felt fitting to do something in their memory on that day.

‘You can have the software to play with at any time in the next week. And I’ll give you the paperwork tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘Do you need virtual reindeer?’

‘No. I have real ones.’

‘OK. Then we’re done.’ He paused. ‘Unless you want to stay for dinner.’

Dinner with Quinn O’Neill.

Of course he didn’t mean candlelight, roses and vintage champagne. Or somewhere under the stars on a roof garden. Particularly in November. Just why were these ridiculous ideas seeping into her head? The man was a neighbour. A work colleague, of sorts. Not a potential date. And she didn’t do dates anyway. This was a business meeting and it was about the time that most people ate in the evening. They both had to eat, so they might as well eat together. It didn’t mean anything deeper than that.

He was waving a piece of paper at her. A menu.

‘Takeaway pizza?’ she asked.

‘Works for me.’

Now she had a better idea why his kitchen hadn’t had a cook’s vibe about it. She’d just bet his fridge was bare, too, except for milk and maybe some cheese. She had a feeling that Quinn O’Neill was the kind of man who forgot to eat when he was busy, or lived on takeaway food and didn’t notice what he was eating—it was fuel, and nothing more than that.

‘Pizza,’ she said.

He gave her a pointed look. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t eat carbs. Not when you make brownies as good as those.’

‘No. Of course I eat carbs. But...takeaway pizza. The stuff with a thick crust. Ick.’ She liked the thin, crispy type. She grimaced and shook her head. ‘Look, I have fresh tuna and some stir-fry veg in my fridge. Why don’t we have dinner at mine?’

‘Healthy food. Fish and vegetables.’ He looked slightly disgusted.

She hid a smile. Just as she’d thought: he lived on junk. She could offer a compromise there. ‘And polenta fries.’

He looked thoughtful. ‘Are they as good as your brownies?’

‘According to my best friend, yes.’

‘Done,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring wine.’

‘Are you quite sure you don’t want a wheatgrass shot?’

‘I’m going to pretend,’ he said, ‘that you’re teasing, because I have a nasty feeling you might actually be serious—and there’s no way I’m drinking a glass of green gloop.’

‘I was teasing. Though I could source it.’

He grimaced and shook his head. ‘No need. How long does it take to make polenta fries?’

‘About forty minutes.’

‘Which gives me time to go and find some wine.’

Of course he wouldn’t have wine, especially if his fridge was practically bare. Plus he’d only just moved in. ‘You really don’t have to bring wine,’ she said.

‘I do. And pudding,’ he said. ‘Because you’re not getting these brownies back. This is business, so we’ll both bring something to the table.’

Business. She was glad he’d said that. Because it stopped her fantasising about something truly stupid. Such as what it would be like to have a proper date with Quinn O’Neill. She wasn’t ready for dating again. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be ready. But business she could do.

‘OK. Deal. See you in thirty minutes or so,’ she said.

* * *

Quinn hit pure gold in the wine shop: they had a deli section, with a display of French macarons in pretty colours.

Pistachio, vanilla, coffee. And then some more unusual flavours: violet and blueberry, white chocolate and pomegranate, crème brûlée, salted caramel. The perfect gift for a foodie like Carissa, he thought.

He bought a boxful, plus a bottle of flinty Chablis.

Back at the mews, he rang Carissa’s doorbell.

She answered the door wearing a cotton apron covered in hearts over her skirt and shirt; it made her look younger and much more approachable than she’d seemed the first time he’d met her.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Dinner’s almost ready.’

He handed her the bottle and the box. ‘The box needs to go in the fridge,’ he said. ‘The wine’s already chilled.’

‘Thank you—though you really didn’t need to bring anything. Come up.’

He closed the door behind them and followed her up the stairs to her kitchen. She’d laid her kitchen table, he noticed, with a white damask tablecloth, solid silver cutlery, very elegant fine glassware and a white porcelain vase containing deep purple spray carnations.

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked.

‘Given that you waved a pizza menu at me, can you actually cook?’ she teased.

‘I make great toasted sandwiches, I’ll have you know,’ he protested.

She just laughed, and again he had a vision of the way she’d laughed on his doorstep, tipping her head back.

Down, boy, he told his libido sharply.

All the same, he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she stood by the hob, stirring vegetables in a wok. Did she have the faintest clue how gorgeous she was?

The radio was playing a song he really loathed: ‘Santa, Bring My Baby Home for Christmas.’ A super-sweet Christmas song that always meant the festive season was on its way. Quinn’s least favourite time of year. Funny, he’d expected Carissa to listen to opera or highbrow stuff, not a singalong pop station. Which just went to show that you shouldn’t assume things about people.

‘That song’s so terrible,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Talk about cheesy. And sugary.’

‘Rather a mix of metaphors,’ she said drily.

‘You know what I mean.’ He sang along with the chorus. ‘“I wish, my baby, you were home tonight; I wish, my baby, I could hold you tight. Santa, bring my baby home for Christmas; Santa, bring my baby home to me.”’ He grimaced. ‘It’s terrible!’

‘Well, hey.’ She spread her hands. ‘Meet the original baby.’

‘What?’ He wasn’t following this conversation. At all. Or was she teasing him, the way she had about the wheatgrass shot? Did she just have a weird sense of humour?

‘My dad wrote that song,’ she said. ‘About me.’

He blinked. ‘Your dad?’

‘Uh-huh. Pete Wylde. The Wylde Boys,’ she expanded.

He was silenced momentarily. Carissa Wylde was the daughter of the late musician Pete Wylde. And Quinn hadn’t made the connection. At all.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I...um...’

‘You hate Dad’s music.’ She shrugged. ‘Each to their own taste.’

‘No, I do like some of his stuff. Just not the Christmas song. And I’m digging myself a deeper hole here.’ He blew out a breath. ‘I really don’t mean to insult you, Carissa.’

‘It’s OK. I won’t hold it against you.’

Her voice was neutral and her face was impassive, and he didn’t have a clue what she was thinking. ‘So your father actually wrote the song for you?’

‘My first Christmas,’ she said. ‘I was only a few weeks old. I was in hospital for a week with a virus that meant I couldn’t breathe very easily, and I had to be fed by a tube until I was better. The only way Dad coped with it was to bring his guitar to the hospital, sit by my bed and play me songs. That’s why he wrote “Santa, Bring My Baby Home for Christmas”.’

And now Quinn understood for the first time what the song was actually saying. Pete Wylde had wanted his tiny baby daughter home for her first Christmas, safe and well and in his arms. It wasn’t a cheesy love song at all. It had come straight from the heart.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. And not just because he’d insulted her. Because he was envious. What would it be liked to be loved and wanted so much by your family? It was something he’d never had. His mother had been quick enough to dump him on his aunt and uncle, and he’d always felt a bit like a spare part in their home. Which was probably why he was antsy about getting attached to anyone now: it was something he’d never really done.

‘You don’t need to like the song,’ she said with a smile. ‘Though plenty of people do. It makes shedloads of royalties every Christmas.’

But Quinn was pretty sure that money wasn’t what motivated Carissa Wylde. ‘And?’

‘Dad arranged to put half the royalties from the song in a trust,’ she said. ‘Which has been enough to fund the building and equipping of a new children’s ward, including an intensive care unit. All state-of-the-art equipment—and we’ll be able to keep it that way in the future.’

‘The ward that needs a virtual Santa.’ It dawned on him now. ‘You’re the client.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘So do you do PR for anyone else?’

She frowned. ‘PR?’

‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? PR?’

‘No. I’m a lawyer,’ she said.

So he’d been right first time round. ‘Oh.’

‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘or if you want you can grab the corkscrew from the drawer and open that lovely wine you brought. Third drawer on the right.’

She was letting him off the hook. And he was grateful. ‘Thank you.’ He opened the wine while she served up the tuna and the vegetables. Porcelain flatware, he noticed, and she served the vegetables in dishes rather than just sharing them out onto their plates. Carissa Wylde did things formally. Completely the opposite of how he did things, outside work. He was quite happy to eat pizza straight out of the box or Chinese food straight from the carton.

‘Well.’ She stripped off the apron, folded it and placed it on the worktop, no doubt ready to be transferred to the washing machine. Then she sat down opposite him and lifted her glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to the opening of the Wylde Ward and our virtual Santa.’

‘The opening of the Wylde Ward and the virtual Santa,’ he echoed, and smiled at her. ‘It’s nice that it’s named after your dad.’

‘And my mum,’ she pointed out.

‘That’s nice,’ he said again, feeling horrendously awkward and not quite sure how to deal with this. Things had suddenly become a lot more complicated.