was telling Romy about his marriage.
‘Moira and I were together forty-seven years. She was a wonderful woman. Not everyone gets as lucky as you and I, Lex,’ he added with a twinkling look. ‘You’re clearly a man who was prepared to do whatever it took to hang onto a good woman when you found her.’
And that was when Lex realised that he couldn’t go through with it.
‘Willie,’ he said. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Oh?’ Willie’s smile faded and he put down his glass. ‘That sounds serious.’
‘It is.’ Lex swallowed. ‘I’ve brought you here under false pretences.’
Romy drew a startled breath and he held up a hand to stop her protest, keeping his eyes steadily on Willie.
‘Romy and I aren’t a couple, Willie, and we don’t normally live together. This is nothing to do with Romy,’ he added. ‘When we realised that you thought we were a couple, it seemed important to you, and I saw a chance to persuade you to sign.’
‘Actually, it was my idea,’ Romy tried to put in, but Lex overrode her.
‘It was my responsibility,’ he said firmly. ‘I told Romy I’d do anything to make this deal, but I should have drawn the line at lying.’
After the first moment of surprise, Willie’s eyes had narrowed, but he said nothing, just watched Lex, who found himself trying to loosen his tie that all at once felt too tight.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have confessed all this before, and given you the chance to change your mind about the deal. You still can, of course.’
There was dead silence round the table. Willie looked from Lex to Romy and then back to Lex.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ he asked at last.
Lex, who had braced himself for anger or disgust or disappointment, was thrown by the mildness of Willie’s tone.
‘I think the deal will be a good one for both our companies,’ he said carefully after a moment. ‘It’s one I’ve wanted for a long time, and I thought I would do anything to make it happen, but…’
He stopped, tried to gather his thoughts. ‘Before, you were just the owner of a chain of stores. I had respect for your business acumen, but I didn’t know you. Now I do, and I’ve realised that your opinion matters to me.’ Lex sounded almost surprised. ‘Now I respect you as a person, and going ahead with this deal while effectively lying to you isn’t respecting you. I don’t want to do it.’
‘I see,’ said Willie thoughtfully. ‘So you’re telling me you don’t love Romy?’
Lex hesitated. ‘I’m telling you we’re not a couple.’
Willie turned to Romy. ‘And you don’t love Lex?’ he asked, sounding genuinely interested, and she bit her lip.
‘I’m so sorry, Willie. We’ve just been pretending all this while.’
‘Well.’ Willie sat back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You’re not a real couple?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
There was a short silence. ‘I’m sorry?’ said Lex.
‘Why
Romy glanced at Lex. ‘Love isn’t the problem,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Then what is?’
She couldn’t tell Willie how her father had swept her up into his arms and called her his best girl, and abandoned her the next day. How could she explain how hard it was to trust when the man you loved most in the world, the man you trusted above all others, let you down? How could she tell him about Lex, who strove for his father’s approval and kept his world under tight control?
‘It’s…complicated,’ she said.
‘What’s complicated about loving each other?’
‘I think Romy’s trying to explain that we’re incompatible,’ Lex tried. This was the most bizarre business conversation he had ever had, but he supposed it was his fault for raising the matter in the first place.
Willie raised a sceptical brow. ‘Is that right? I seem to remember seeing you two walking in the snow at Duncardie and you looked pretty compatible then.’
The colour rose in Romy’s cheeks and Lex set his teeth. ‘We just…want different things.’
‘Haven’t either of you heard of compromise? A fine pair of cowards you both are!’
Willie shook his head and pushed back his chair. ‘I can’t say I’m not disappointed,’ he said, ‘but it’s not the first disappointment of my life and I dare say it won’t be the last. Ah, well.’ He hoisted himself upright. ‘That was still a delicious dinner, Romy, so thank you for that-and for an interesting evening all round.’
Lex and Romy exchanged a glance, and Lex got to his feet. A limousine would be waiting below to take Willie back to his hotel. ‘I’ll see you to the car.’
‘I didn’t have you down for a fool, Alexander Gibson,’ said Willie in the lift down to the basement garage, ‘but I’ve changed my mind!’
‘I can only apologise again,’ Lex said stiffly. ‘I wanted to make the deal so much, I let it override my judgement. I accept that it was a mistake.’
‘Well, I’ve made some mistakes in my own time,’ Willie allowed. ‘I’ve tried to learn from them, and I hope you will too. What you learn, of course, is up to you.’ He clapped Lex on the shoulder as they stepped out of the lift to see the limousine waiting. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘You mean you’ll still sign?’ Lex hardly dared believe that it would be all right.
‘Oh, yes. You’re right about it being a good thing for both companies.’ His shrewd blue eyes rested on Lex’s face. ‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said, ‘how you can feel disappointed in someone and yet proud of them at the same time. I’ve been watching what you’ve done for Gibson & Grieve, laddie. You’ve moved into a whole new league, and you’ve got yourself a fine reputation. If you hadn’t, I would never have agreed to sell, no matter how married you were.
‘And knowing how much this deal matters to you means I can appreciate what it took for you to tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘It was the right thing to do, and I’m glad you did it. So I’m proud of you, and I’ll be happy to sign that contract tomorrow.’
He smiled at Lex as they shook hands. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t still think you’re a fool when it comes to Romy!’
Romy was clearing the table when Lex let himself back into the flat. She looked up, her hands full of plates, but put them back on the table when she saw his face.
‘So, no more pretending,’ she said.
‘No.’ Lex dropped his keys onto the side table.
‘Why did you tell him, Lex?’
‘I had to.’
Loosening his tie, he went over to the window and stood looking down at the river. The lights along the Embankment were blurry in the drizzle, and he thought about Willie, driving back alone to his hotel.
He turned to look at Romy, who was wiping her hands on a tea towel and watching him with dark, wary eyes.
‘He’s going to sign anyway.’
Romy’s shoulders slumped with relief. ‘I thought he’d be furious that we’d been lying to him.’
‘He told me I was a fool,’ said Lex. ‘But he also understood what I’ve been trying to do with Gibson & Grieve. He said he was proud of me.’ Ashamed of the strain in his voice, he looked back at the view. ‘Do you know how long I’ve waited for my own father to say that?’
Dropping the tea towel over the back of a chair, Romy went over to stand beside him. ‘Just because he hasn’t said it, doesn’t mean he doesn’t think it, Lex. If Willie can appreciate what you’ve done for Gibson & Grieve, then your father must be able to as well. It’s just more difficult for him to accept that he wasn’t indispensable, and that the company is moving on without him. You know that,’ she said gently.
‘Yes, I know that.’ Lex’s expression was bleak. For a while they stood side by side, looking out across the lights of London. Then he let out a long breath, letting the old frustration go.
