Chapter 11
After being introduced to too many people whose names began to interchange, Marigold was finally ushered into the main ballroom of the convention center. Against the black background, the pristine white-clothed round tables gleamed in the dim lighting. Fortunately, enough space had been left between the seats for invitees to push through to their designated tables.
Hagen’s was in front and to the right of the shoulder-height podium. Following Calli and Kell, Marigold stopped at her place name. The others moved farther along, past the table that would seat Demi and Alex, the governor of the state and his wife, and various other dignitaries, and to the table on the left.
“Everyone at our table is either a major investor or a prospective one,” Hagen said into her ear. “Don’t get drunk and don’t sit on anyone’s lap.”
“I’ll do my best, though a couple of the bellies over there would make the last fairly difficult.”
However, she discovered she wouldn’t be seated beside Hagen but almost directly opposite. Two strangers, who would prefer to have the ear of someone influential would have her attention instead. Anyone married to Hagen would be stuck with this sort of placement forever. Lucky her, that she found a plus in never being his wife.
She made sure of memorizing all the names written on the place cards, and saw that Scarlett Haines would also be at Hagen’s table, though not next to him either. As everyone seated his or herself, she saw his dinner partners for the night were older, respectable looking women who wouldn’t cause Marigold to turn green with jealousy. Unfortunately, Scarlett did. Scarlett effortlessly wore a silver gown with a sequined bodice. She looked like an expensive trophy, in the same way Mercia always had, the perfect corporate wife.
Then Alex Allbrook appeared on the podium and said a few words in his calm way about AA & Co. When he sat again, the meals began to stream out of the kitchens. She liked the man either side of her, but the problem with big dinners was that people couldn’t hear anyone farther away. Before the main course arrived, Hagen also spoke to the gathered guests. She had never been so nervous in her entire life, though she knew he was a good speaker. He’d had plenty of practice at school, and likely at the university too.
Thomas on her left whispered, “You must be very proud of your boss.”
“Sure am,” she whispered back. “This is the best job I’ve ever had.”
After the main course, people began to move around the room to network. Hagen left to speak to his father. She had no networking to do, but remaining seated clearly obligated Thomas to remain, since Bertrand on the other side had left. She wondered if she ought to try a conversation with Scarlett, who apparently had connections useful to Hagen. Plus, her comment about husbands playing around had been rather pointed, and had clearly annoyed Hagen.
She stood, but Scarlett had disappeared. At that moment, Calli touched her shoulder, smiling.
“That gown,” she said in a reverent voice. “Gold. Good as gold, Marigold. You rock that color.”
“I never would have thought of wearing it. I keep to safe colors as you know, but the moment I saw it, I fell in love. If I spend the rest of my life paying Hagen back for this gown, that wouldn’t be too long.”
“I’ve never thought of my brother as a fashionista.” Calli laughed. “He has always made it quite clear that he is not interested in colors or styles. But if he expects you to pay him back, I’ll certainly have something to say. You can’t buy something for someone and then charge them.” After her supportive words, Calli tucked her hand under Marigold’s arm. “It’s noisy in here with all the men gossiping. Come to the loo, and we can gossip in the queue.”
Marigold led the way through all the black suits and into the foyer. From there, Calli led the way to the ladies’ room. “I’ve been in this conference center many times before. Ma and Far do one of these big dinners every year. Kell will be speaking before dessert. He’s half-annoyed and half-pleased, but Far has been impressed with him from the start and thinks he is a great asset. So do I.” Calli deliberately fluttered her eyelashes. “For entirely different reasons.”
When Marigold had finished in the loo, she stepped outside to make room for the lines of women waiting to enter. Calli hadn’t yet left. Like someone about to cross the road, Marigold looked to the left, looked to the right, and spotted Hagen disappearing around the corner in the direction of the atrium. Since the dinner had begun, she hadn’t spoken to him, though she had caught his glance a couple of times. Reining him in now for a comfortable review of the night so far seemed like a good idea.
Clutching her little bag under her arm, she managed a catwalk strut in her heels. Apparently, he hadn’t quite reached the atrium because she heard his voice. “I thought we agreed to keep it quiet.” His voice sounded deep and cool.
A woman answered him. “You said we would. I didn’t necessarily agree.”
“What’s this really about? Your visit to my office last week?”
“You’re not the only man in the world. If you’ve found someone else, good luck to you. I can find someone else, too.” The voice moved closer and then suddenly, Scarlett marched around the corner, her face tight and hard. “Muriel,” she said in precise voice. “You’re welcome to him.”
Hagen, a bare two steps behind, stopped, his face set. He stared after Scarlett and then back at Marigold. After visibly collecting himself, he eked out a smile. “There you are. I was looking for you.”
Marigold stood, welded to the spot. ‘If you have found someone else…’ She hoped she was smiling, though she couldn’t be sure. “If you want to find women at large functions, most of us are lined up outside the loo.” Her voice sounded steady, though the pulse in her neck thrummed with the beat of her heart. “The men’s loos don’t get the same amount of traffic. I’ve always thought a good designer of venues used for large functions should take a more considered approach to that sort of thing.”
He hadn’t explained what had happened between him and Scarlett in the office last week. Scarlett had looked smug and he had been flustered.
At the time, Marigold hadn’t been overly concerned. Her employer didn’t need to answer to her. Now in a relationship with him, she recognized the expression on the face of the other woman was one of humiliation. She had been supplanted. Apparently, as Sandra had originally hinted, the two had enjoyed a relationship. Marigold hadn’t suspected that. Hagen had let her think he had been, until her, a bereaved widower. Apparently, she was as blind as her mother. Hardening inside, she stood straighter, chin higher.
“You’re a very astute woman.” He sounded a little more relaxed, though he kept his eyes on Scarlett’s retreating back.
Marigold fixed her smile. “Scarlett is everywhere these days. How did she get a date with a married man from interstate?”
“I suppose she knows someone who knows someone. Isn’t that the way this sort of thing usually happens?”
“Not in my world. I’ve never had anyone ask me to go out with a stranger. She wouldn’t be working for an escort service, would she?”
He laughed, as if his dates witnessed scenes between him and his ex-lovers all the time. “I doubt it. Her divorce settlement was very generous. I think she is the sort of woman who wants to attend every function possible, and she asks around until she finds out how to wrangle an invitation.”
“Do people really live like that?”
“They do in her circles. Not in mine.”
Not his? Which were his circles and which were Scarlett’s? In the foyer, Scarlett had said something about husbands playing around with wives’ best friends. Had she been referring to herself? Sandra had said Scarlett was Mercia’s friend. This would explain Hagen’s caginess. Marigold should have suspected that he had been playing around outside of his marriage when she recalled his comment about having himself tested for a sexually transmitted disease.
For a man to have an STD check, he must have had some reason. He said he had been tested recently. Before or after Scarlett?
Marigold’s head ached. According to Scarlett, Marigold was welcome to Hagen.
She tucked a wandering lock of her hair behind her ear, desperate to put aside thoughts about his former or current relationship with Scarlett. Having tonight ruined by the other woman was unbearable. Unable to look him in the eye, she said, “I shouldn’t have chased you down, but I wanted a review of my performance tonight.”
“Gold. Twenty-four carat.” He fingered the top button on his jacket, as if needing something to do with his hand. “Thomas and Bertrand enjoyed themselves. You don’t have the opportunity to sit beside a beautiful and intelligent woman at every corporate dinner.”
“That’s good to know,” she said drily.
“As you can see by my partners tonight, I rarely have a chance myself.” He sounded wry.
“That’s even better to know.” She silently added, for the time being. While she had Hagen, she would enjoy him without worrying about where he had been before and with whom. For tonight, at least, he was hers.
After they sat down again for a chocolate dessert that Marigold found she couldn’t swallow, Kell gave an amusing talk about being the company’s project manager, which raised a cheer. Calli had done well for her family in marrying him. Hagen had done well for his family in marrying Mercia. Tiggy wouldn’t let team Allbrook down, either. Marigold had no one who would be proud or ashamed of her. Her behavior would only ever reflect on her upbringing.
If the Allbrooks knew she was currently cohabiting with Hagen they would never see her the same way. Awkward wouldn’t even begin to explain how that would color her relationship with them, which was why she had never even hinted to Hagen’s sisters that she had a crush on him. As long as they never knew she had let them down by succumbing to her desperate feelings for him, she would be safe from losing their respect.
With this in mind, she didn’t cling to him on the way out the door that night. Though he would fade out of her life too soon, she had him for tonight. Even the world’s greatest cad wouldn’t invite one woman to dress in his house, and wear a gown he bought, and leave a function with another.
His car slid into his garage and stopped after one last powerful sigh. He walked around and handed her out. With a careful expression on his face, he took her into his arms, and rested his face on her hair. “Watching you from the other side of the table was torture.”
“Did you think I would say something tactless to embarrass you?” she asked in a dead voice.
“What brought that on? You’re the one person I trust never to embarrass me. Good as gold, Marigold. Your behavior is as perfect as the way you looked tonight. If only I could sing, I would sing that to you,” he added softly.
“It would echo quite bit in the garage.”
He laughed and then his face turned serious. “I don’t know what you heard between Scarlett and me, but sometimes she gossips too much. I would prefer her to keep private matters private.”
“Nobody wants to hear gossip, unless it’s about someone else. Take it that I heard nothing worthwhile.” She smoothed his pale gold hair back from his face and rose to her toes to press a soft kiss on his mouth. “I felt like a princess tonight. I wouldn’t have missed the function for the world. Property developing is much more interesting than I would have previously thought.”
“The scale of what you previously thought being nil?”
She shook her head. “Two or three. I’ve given it a ranking of eight now. That’s out of ten, in case you were wondering.”
“What would I have to do for you to give a ranking of ten to my family’s company?”
“Promote me to social director.” She turned and led the way into the house.
He followed her. “We don’t have one. But I’ll see if I can find a place.”
“When I go back to my old job, I’m going to feel hard done by—no dinners, no company perks at all.” She continued through the kitchen to the upstairs, her every step forced, her every thought blotted out.
Hagen kept close behind her, saying nothing. She entered the bedroom, about to head into her dressing room, but he stopped her by the bed, loosening the knot of his tie. Then he took her little bag from her and tossed it to the side of the room. “And after all the time you took to slip into the gown, I am going to take it off you inch-by-inch.” His voice sounded low and husky.
Her gaze met his, and she saw on his face an expression of tenderness that she hadn’t seen before. Her breath eased out in a slow sigh of helpless yearning. “I could do with a little help.” Her voice trembled, and she so much wanted to be the sophisticate he would prefer—but she could be no one other than herself, a woman who had only ever loved one man, this man.
He stepped closer and held her against his big warm body while he eased down the zip of her gown. “I like your style. I always have.”
“It’s your style.” She nuzzled her face into his neck. His golden skin tasted like salty shaving cream, which she suddenly decided she craved. “You bought this gown for me.”
“Anyone could have bought the gown.” His lips touched her forehead, his voice so low that he barely whispered. “Not everyone can have the woman underneath, and I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
“I don’t know how I did, either.” She lifted to her toes, her arms around his neck, while his mouth began a slow exploration of hers. At the same time, he slid her gown off her shoulders.
The weight sent the fabric to the floor in thick folds. She eased her body away from his, stepping out of the gown, keeping the gentle pressure of his lips against hers. At the same time, she began to unbutton his shirt. He had no problem whatsoever unhooking her bra, and he tossed aside the lacy scrap. For a moment, he stopped kissing her and leaned back to help her to wrestle his shirt buttons undone. Then he dragged her into the circle of his arms again, his palms settling onto the sides of her breasts.
Her nipples, squashed against the skin of his chest, began to swell and ache. He lifted her hair and kissed her neck, her shoulders, beneath her chin, and down to the tops of her breasts. At the same time, he dragged a thumb across each nipple. Sensitized, she made a sound of yearning. She stood, her hands on his broad shoulders, barely breathing, her gaze on his perfect face. His expression said he loved her, and for a moment she believed that they belonged together. She couldn’t speak if she tried. Instead, she kicked off her shoes.
She wore cheap thin pantyhose, and she didn’t mind a bit when he slid the fabric down with her undies. Lifting each foot out, she stood naked in his arms, warmed by his athletic body close against her. Clearly, he would remove his own trousers, but first he edged out of his shoes. He toed off his socks. She had never seen anyone do that before, and she smiled, but just once in her life she wanted to undo a man’s zipper. She pushed his ready hands out of the way and did so.
“Done,” she said in a strange whispery voice she hardly recognized. “My dream come true.”
“Which part of this was your dream? Getting me naked? You’ve done that before a couple of times. It’s not so hard.”
“At the risk of falling into a linguistic trap, it’s hard enough.”
He gave a long slow smile. “Hard enough for a condom.”
“Do you have one in your pocket?”
“In my back pocket.” His eyebrows lifted with a clear challenge. “If you put it on me, that will be my dream come true.”
She scrabbled behind him and found a line of condoms. After tearing one off, she carefully took out the fragile protection while he stepped out of his trousers and his knit boxers.
His smooth, hard penis stood erect and he breathed carefully as she rolled on the condom. Then he moved right up against her, hitching her leg over his hip, his erection hard and thick and eager. Without noticeable effort, he lifted her by the waist and landed her onto the middle of the bed, his body right on top of her with her leg still curled over his thighs.
Then he began kissing her, from her mouth to her neck, to her breasts and back again to her mouth. She squirmed with pleasure, guiding his penis into her slick folds. Instantly, her need grew desperate, and she clutched at his muscular, tight buttocks, urging him on with the pressure of her fingers. He took her lips again and slowly edged inside her, not as easily as she might have expected. Nevertheless, she arched with an almost painful pleasure, noting that her body seemed only too willing to moisten and accommodate him. Raising her pelvis, she wound her legs around his hips and took him deeper. Her fingers clenched in his hair while her body took control of her emotions, lifting and moving in counterpoint to his rhythm.
Her skin prickled with damp heat. As he began to thrust harder and faster, almost shifting her up the bed with the force, she lost control of her breathing. Gasping, she tightened around him, experiencing a peak she would rather hold back. Although she did her best to prolong the moment, her body acted independently, and she began to climax. A sound like a wail came from the back of her throat.
Hagen was still hard when she flopped, her body sated. He rose on one elbow and examined her face. “I think you could probably do that again,” he said in a smoky tone.
“I couldn’t. My heart would stop beating. But if you have to…” She muffled her laugh into the skin of his shoulder.
He moved her hair back off her face and gazed into her eyes. “I don’t have to,” he said in an uncharacteristically gruff tone. “Not if you’ve had enough, but I think I can make you want me again.”
He slid down the bed and took her with his mouth. Her body didn’t consider resisting and she climaxed again. The next time she climaxed, he came with her, inside her. Although she fell asleep almost instantly, she awoke in the middle of the night, still in his arms, a disturbing dream running through the tunnels of her mind.
In the dream, she knew where she lived but couldn’t remember how to get there. She followed twisted stairs, entered various strange doorways, but whichever way she tried, she ended up in an elevator that wouldn’t work without a code she didn’t have. The other passengers smiled but couldn’t help. Every analysis of the dream made less sense than the last. Her eyes opened to in a room full of light. And still she tried to make sense of her dream. That she needed to go home was the clearest message but why she couldn’t was a mystery. Soon she would lose all these sleep memories but she stayed awake, lying on her side, watching Hagen sleeping.
He breathed deeply and regularly. She noted the thickness of his light eyelashes, the strength of his facial bones, and how his hair stayed perfectly in place. Not only was he handsome, but he was beautiful. One day he would make beautiful babies with some lucky woman who would be as golden and as gorgeous as he. He had lost that chance with Mercia’s death, but his chance would come again.
Her chance with him had never been a reality. She wanted to stay with him for the rest of her life, but when she had rolled on his condom, the act had reminded her once again about the life he had led before she had begun to work for him. He had worked and played like any other man, and he’d had a wife he mourned. But he’d recently been tested for STDs. What did ‘recently’ mean?
At the time he told her, she had accepted his words as throwaways, proof that he was willing to make sure he wouldn’t pass on any accidentally acquired disease. But he would only have had himself tested if he thought he had been at risk. In what sort of world would a happily married man be at risk? Extramarital activity would require a condom, but a married woman would more than likely be taking the contraceptive pill, and he wouldn’t see the need. Would he?
Of course, this could always have been Scarlett’s husband and she had been the wife who had found out, but in that case why would Hagen want her to keep the matter quiet? In conversation before the dinner, Scarlett had referred to husbands sleeping with friends of wives. Not widowers or divorcees, but husbands and wives.
Marigold had to face facts. Everything she had heard from Hagen or Scarlett pointed to them having an affair while married to other partners. Unable to shut off her thoughts, she stared at the dark ceiling. Her own father had also been a cheater. Julian had been playing around with Jane while he was married to Marigold’s mother.
Marigold had always loved Hagen, but she realized she was now in love with him, too, which was a different matter entirely. In love meant consumed with love, achingly in love, besotted, and needy. However, she couldn’t give so much of herself to a man like her father, who took commitment lightly, who saw his marriage vows as unimportant. Hoping not to wake him, she reached over to switch off the bedside lamp.
The first time she had broken up with Hagen had been bad enough. She couldn’t go through those empty hours again, the crying jags, the sense of loss, almost of mourning. The second time would be worse because she now knew the depth of her love for him.
To go back to her lonely bed in her lonely house would be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Her mother had not fought Julian leaving her. She had let him go after barely uttering a word. Marigold wasn’t her mother. She wouldn’t let a man make a fool of her for years and then watch him leave anyway. Marigold would do the leaving before she had too much to lose.
Shifting away from him, she turned her back, determined not to weaken. He would survive without her, and she would survive without him. She had previously. As soon as Tiggy arrived home, Marigold would go back to her old job in property staging for someone else. She didn’t have Tiggy’s talent for property design.
She opened her eyes to the early morning light streaming in through the window. The bathroom door clicked open and Hagen walked out, so handsome, so tall, and so unreachable. Her heart cracked.
He gave her a long, slow, lazy smile. Dressed in a towel, his immediate thought on seeing her awake was obvious. “It’s seven. We slept in.”
“I can get dressed in an instant.” Closing off her expression, she sat up immediately and swung her feet over the side of the bed so fast that she almost overbalanced.
He looked resigned. “I’ll make breakfast while you’re in the shower.”
“Good idea.” She found fresh underwear and her work clothes in the dressing room and transported them to the bathroom, showered, and dressed. Then she took a few minutes to pack her bag. She carried it down the stairs to the kitchen, wondering if it was ethical to let him give her breakfast when she was leaving him.
He eyed her bag. “Is bacon and eggs overkill after last night?”
“It’s always overkill, but not something I have often enough to complain about.” She put her bag by the garage doorway. “I’ll set the table.”
He turned his back and cracked the eggs into the pan. His system was messy with another pan used to fry the bacon but who was she to complain when she didn’t have to clean up? While he started the bread toasting, she set the breakfast room table. The silence seemed overloaded, but perhaps because she didn’t know what to say to him. On a normal morning, she would talk about the projected day. “I think we’ll make it to work on time.” She glanced at him.
“It doesn’t matter for me, because I set my own working hours, but if you’re late you’ll be docked.”
Her mouth twisted into a smile. “Even if I’m sleeping with the boss?”
He looked inscrutable. “If you tell everyone you’re sleeping with me, that would be a different matter. Will you?”
“Of course not.”
“Sit, and I’ll bring over the plates.” He placed her breakfast in front of her and her throat felt as if she had swallowed a tennis ball.
Her appetite deserted her. Willing herself, she loaded her fork and then she ate as fast as she could. Prolonging her time with him was too hard. “Do you want orange juice?”
“Thank you.”
She scraped out her chair and left for the kitchen where she poured two glasses. He followed with the two used plates. They each drank a glass of juice while leaning against the countertop, facing but not speaking.
“What?” he finally said.
She placed her glass in the sink. “I’m leaving.” She kept her back turned.
“So I imagined when I saw your bag. Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of sleeping with the boss’s son for a promotion.”
“Is that what you were doing?”
She slowly turned and met his gaze. “Not initially, no, but last night you said you would find a better job for me. Would you have said that if I wasn’t about to leap into bed with you?”
He stared into her eyes, his expression a mask. “I wasn’t serious.”
She hardened her heart. “You were using your position for your own purposes.”
His voice deepened. “Tell me the truth.”
“Maybe I was simply reliving the past, seeing if I made a mistake the first time around,” she said, wearily. “But I didn’t. We don’t share the same values. Aside from that, this was a fling. You’re a good-looking man, and I was lonely.”
“You’re a good-looking woman, and I was lonely, too. I thought we had something going for us.”
“I’m really not your type. I’m not sophisticated enough.”
His mouth formed a grim line and his eyes turned a hard shade of blue. “I’ll see you at work then.” Losing her gaze, he moved across her to rinse his glass.
“I hope this won’t—”
“No, it won’t. We need you until Tiggy gets back.”
She swallowed and grabbed up her bag on the way to her car in the garage, glad he hadn’t extended the moment. Now she only had to face him at work but she suspected he could evade her easily enough. They’d already had to try to find moments together at AA & Co.
She arrived before he did, of course. He would give her a head start so that she could be out of his way when he set foot into his office.
“Morning,” Sandra said, lifting her head and smiling. “How was last night?”
“The dinner? Elegant. Enlightening.” Marigold’s voice came out husky.
A crease formed between Sandra’s eyebrows. “How is Hagen this morning?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Oh. Right.” Sandra went back to her typing.
Sitting at her desk, Marigold tried to concentrate on her next design for the school gymnasium. AA wanted four single-bedroom units, but she had the idea that the other occupants of the development wouldn’t like student accommodation so close by. She had meant to discuss this with Hagen. Now she couldn’t. She also couldn’t concentrate. She kept imagining him with Scarlett. The other woman was sophisticated, beautifully dressed, and would match his lifestyle the way Mercia had.
Marigold’s eyes hurt. She heard his voice in the vestibule. His door clicked shut. Safe to leave, she moved swiftly past Sandra, who said, “Hagen said he enjoyed last night, too. Then he slammed into his office. Maybe the drinks were spiked.”
Marigold frowned at Sandra. “The drinks were elegant.”
“So, the guests were enlightening?”
“Some were, yes.” Marigold stalked off to the staff room. Coffee would help her concentration. She switched on the machine and waited.
Demi walked into the room, carrying a cardboard tray of sweet things. “Morning, darling. Did you have a good time last night?”
“Sure did,” Marigold said with faked enthusiasm. “You must have sprung out of bed before daylight to have made all those.”
“The pastries? I buy them from a nice little Greek bakery.”
“Why did I have the idea that you did all this yourself?”
“I used to, but Mercia, my darling ex-daughter-in-law said it was mumsy when I could buy pastries every bit as good and save myself the time.”
“Mumsy? And you accepted that?” Marigold frowned. She couldn’t imagine perfect Mercia saying anything quite so crass.
“In a way, she made sense.” Demi sighed. “I still make everything for my family, but it was time consuming to keep the office supplied as well. Not all her ideas were bad, though. To change a subject I shouldn’t be discussing, you and Hagen looked perfect together last night, Marigold. Your bright hair and his light hair, well, you make the perfect golden couple. Hagen had a hard time trying not to look besotted.”
Marigold cleared her throat. “I’m sure he didn’t. Looks are deceiving. I think you might have the wrong idea about us. We have a working relationship. It would be poor form to mix work with pleasure.”
“I know, darling, but sometimes these things can’t be helped. He has watched you with hungry eyes since he was eighteen. That’s more than ten years.”
“He hasn’t seen me for six of them.” Marigold crossed her arms.
“That’s his pride.”
“He married Mercia.”
Demi sighed. “There’s no denying he made a mistake or two. But I mustn’t interfere. He has made a mess of his life, and I thought…”
“He made a mess of his life?” Marigold blinked in amazement.
Demi lifted her shoulders. “I will say no more on the subject. Not that I actually know a lot more. Hagen has been a mystery to me since he was born. He’s the strong and silent type like his father. Though, I always did like a good mystery,” she ended in a vague voice. “Oh, I’ve forgotten the pods for the coffee machine. I must go out to the car to get them.”
Rubbing her forehead, Marigold watched her leave. Hagen’s mother thought he had made a mess of his life? Perfect, golden boy Hagen? As far as Marigold could see, Hagen had had his golden life blessed since the minute of his birth—except for the loss of Mercia.
She wandered back to Tiggy’s office, her coffee in her hand, deciding to forget Sandra asking her how Hagen was this morning. His assistant had made a silly slip of the tongue. She couldn’t possibly suspect that good-as-gold Marigold was sleeping with her boss.