A Daring Proposition. Miranda Lee

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,