Marion Lennox - Christmas with her Boss

She’d told herself this was better. Working twenty-four seven for short bursts and then staying home.

She’d loved twenty-four seven. She loved working for W S McMaster. But now…

Now she’d seen William clinging to the roof, holding her grandma. Now William had held her at the hospital and she’d needed him to hold her.

Two days ago she’d been able to draw a line-that life, this life.

The lines had blurred and it frightened her.

Decisiveness had always been her strong point. She didn’t have to like it but she knew when a decision had to be made. She made one now. Oh, but it hurt.

She took a deep breath. She glanced once more in the direction William had gone. Before he came back, she had to find some resolution.

She took the polka dots and disappeared into the changing room…to change.

She was wearing polka dots.

He’d left her wearing bloodied overalls and truly disgusting boots. She was now wearing what could only be described as a happy dress, a Christmas dress. Her boots had been replaced with white strappy stilettos and her hair, caught back with an elastic band while she’d done the milking, was now a riot of bouncing curls, caught on the side with a tiny red rosette.

She looked about ten years younger.

She looked breathtakingly lovely.

Meg was gazing into the mirror as if she, too, hardly recognised herself. She met his reflected gaze and turned slowly to face him, and he thought if he hadn’t caught her in this she might have fled and taken it off.

‘It’s…it’s silly,’ she said.

‘It’s lovely,’ the shop assistant said definitely. ‘We’ve found two more that are just as pretty, only she won’t buy three. She’s reluctant to buy even this one, but I persuaded her to try it on again. With shoes.’

‘Well done,’ he said, walking closer. ‘I can see it needs shoes.’

‘It’s silly,’ Meg said again.

‘It’s not,’ William said, somehow managing to smile at the shop assistant without taking his eyes off Meg. ‘You look lovely.’

She flushed. ‘I feel like something out of Hollywood.’

‘Great things come out of Hollywood. We’ll take it.’ He still hadn’t taken his eyes from her. ‘And the other two. Wrap the others. She’ll leave this one on.’

‘William…’

‘Say “Yes, Mr. McMaster”.’

‘No!’

‘You’re intending to go to a classy restaurant wearing overalls?’

‘I’m not going to any classy restaurant.’ Her new resolution hadn’t included socialising. She’d have a sandwich on the run and then go back to the hospital. Then she’d get through Christmas. She’d tell him her decision as she put him on the flight back to New York.

A withered spinster gazing adoringly after her boss… She hauled the conjured vision back into her head and held on to it.

Her decision was right, no matter how much it hurt. She had to move forward.

But he was still thinking restaurants. ‘Of course we need to go to a restaurant,’ he said, sounding wounded. ‘I’ve bought new clothes too, so we’re both dressed up. You like my chinos?’

He was smiling at her. Oh, that smile…

‘They’re fine, but…’

‘Hey, I said you’re lovely.’

‘Okay, you’re lovely too,’ she muttered. ‘But we don’t need to match.’

‘Better that we don’t, I think,’ he said softly. ‘But we’ll buy the dresses anyway.’

MEG walked out of the shop feeling as if she were in a freeze-frame from a fifties movie. William put his hand in the small of her back to guide her through the crush of shoppers and the feeling of unreality deepened.

‘Don’t think about it,’ he said, obviously sensing how self-conscious she felt. ‘The crowds were looking when you were covered in blood. They’re still looking, but now they’re smiling. Let’s concentrate on the important things. Like breakfast.’

She’d given up fighting. A sandwich on the run felt good, but anything would do. She was so hungry she was likely to keel over. If he had to take her to a restaurant, then so be it.

‘Yes, please,’ she said, expecting him to take her into one of the small local restaurants. But instead he ushered her back into the car-how did this man manage to get a park when the whole world was looking for a park today?-and she almost groaned. She wanted to eat now.

But she’d worked for too long for this man to complain when meals took too long coming, so she stifled her groan and folded her hands in her lap and thought she looked ridiculous. She should be smiling and waving. But then they should be driving an expensive sports car instead of Letty’s farm wagon. At least the silencer was fixed, she thought, and then she saw where they were going and she forgot about anything else.

He was driving up to the cliff above the town. He was taking her to the most expensive restaurant in the district.

She’d never been here.

‘This place is… Oh, it’s where you go to celebrate wedding anniversaries. When you’re rich. They don’t do breakfast,’ she breathed.

‘They do today. I rang them. I spoke to the chef personally. Bacon and eggs and fried bread and strawberries and fresh juice and sourdough toast and home-made butter… We had a long discussion. Anything we want, we can have.’

‘If we pay.’

‘If I pay,’ he said gently and he was out of the car, striding round to her side and handing her out as if she was one of his dates instead of Miss Jardine, his PA.

He never handed her out of his car. He opened doors for her, the natural courtesy of a polite man, but to walk around and help her out of the car… no. She was his employee and the extra cosseting was reserved for…his women?

She no longer fitted either category, she thought, as she brushed past him and his touch made her feel even more as if this was not real, it was something out of a movie. The lines were blurring.

But if the lines were blurring… The question was huge and for some reason it was drumming in her head-insistent, urgent. There was never going to be a good time to ask-so why not now?

‘Who’s Elinor?’ she asked, and he looked at her for a long moment and then smiled and shrugged and led her inside.

Maybe the lines were blurring for him too, she thought, and then she thought, all the more reason why her decision was the only possible one.

‘I’ll tell you over breakfast,’ he said simply, and she knew she was right.

The restaurant was almost empty. This place started lunch at what it deemed a respectable hour and this didn’t quite qualify. Maybe they wouldn’t have taken his booking if he hadn’t…thrown his credit card around? Thrown his name around?

‘You’ll have the paparazzi in your face before you know it,’ she said darkly and he shook his head.

‘You think the paparazzi has nothing better to do on Christmas Eve than take photos of me? I’m low-key in the celebrity world.’

He was, she thought, but only because he created little stir. He didn’t do the society thing. Even though his name was known worldwide, for the most part he deliberately kept away from cameras. He was seen in the celebrity magazines, stepping back into the shadows as his woman of the moment smiled and posed. If the women he escorted started to like the limelight too much, he moved on. Was this why she hadn’t heard of Elinor until now? Did the woman have sense enough to stay low profile?

She shouldn’t have asked. She had no business asking.

She really wanted to know.

The head waiter was leading them to what must surely be the best table in the house, in an alcove which gave a semblance of privacy but where the view stretched away across the ocean, as far as the eye could see. There were windsurfers on the waves below them. Meg thought suddenly, how long had it been since she’d swum?

Their farm was almost an hour’s drive from the sea. There was never any time to indulge in anything so frivolous. Maybe when she changed jobs…

The thought was inexorably bleak.

‘Eggs and bacon and toast and fruit and juice and coffee,’ William said to the waiter. ‘Any way you want to serve them, as long as it starts coming fast. Is that okay with you, Miss Jardine?’

Miss Jardine. It sounded wrong. Maybe it sounded wrong to William too, because he was frowning.

‘Yes. Wonderful,’ she managed.

The waiter sailed off as if he’d just been given an order which was a triumph of creation all on its own-how much had William paid to get this table, to get a breakfast menu, to simply be here? To take his woman somewhere beautiful.

She was not his woman.

Neither was she Miss Jardine.

Deep breath. Just do it. ‘Mr McMaster, this might not be the time to tell you, but I think I should,’ she said and she faltered. Was she mad? Yes, she was. She knew it, but she still knew that she had no choice. ‘I need to resign.’

William had glanced out to sea as a windsurfer wiped out in spectacular fashion. He turned back to face her and his expression had stilled.

‘Resign?’

‘I’ll train my replacement,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I won’t leave you without anyone. But you’re going back to the States anyway. If you’re gone for a couple for months I’ll have someone sorted before you return. I’ll work side by side with her then for a couple of weeks until I’m sure you’re happy, but…’

‘I hire my own PAs,’ he snapped.

‘So you do. Then, please, you need to find my replacement.’

‘Can I ask why?’

There was the question. A thousand answers crowded in but he was watching her face-and this was William… No, this was W S McMaster…and she knew him and he knew her and only honesty would do.

‘The work we do…we need to travel side by side. We need to be totally dependent on each other but we need to stay detached. Today… Up on the roof I got undetached.’