Marriage Material. Ally Blake

      Two wrong turns sent Sebastian to a crèche and then to some sort of cooking class. If not for the smattering of suited men and women with yellow legal pads under their arms he would not have believed he was in a law firm. But even so, the promising impression of the place was fast overcome by more pressing matters. He knocked on the open door of the conference room and entered.

      Alan stood and rushed over to him. ‘About bloody time, mate.’

      ‘Sorry. Events conspired to keep me anywhere but here.’

      Alan laughed. ‘Sure they did.’

      A tap-tap-tap on a tabletop caught Sebastian’s attention.

      ‘I recognise that sound,’ he said as he spun to face the source. It was Janet. And he also recognised what the tap-tap-tap meant. He walked around the table, took her hands, drew her to her feet and kissed her on the cheek.

      ‘You’re late,’ she said.

      ‘I got caught up with Delilah,’ he told her. ‘ Had to take her to afternoon kindergarten.’ It was almost the truth.

      ‘You and those kids. You spent more time with them than with me. You know that’s why we are here today, don’t you?’

      He knew it to be true and it saddened him it had turned out that way. ‘What can I say? I think I’ve proven I’m not husband material.’

      He said it with a wry smile but the reality of the situation was no laughing matter. That empty feeling he had experienced dropping Delilah off at kindergarten had only grown as the day progressed.

      Janet sighed in resignation. She laid a talon-tipped hand on his cheek. ‘That’s rubbish, darlin’. You’re just not the husband for me.’

      That brought on a smile. Despite the misunderstanding that had led him to believe she was the one for him, she was a good woman and more perceptive than she would have preferred to let on. But it was true, she was not the woman for him, no matter how, for their very different reasons, they had both tried to believe otherwise.

      Janet lightly slapped his face before sitting down beside an intense young woman in head-to-toe black.

      Sebastian had heard on the grapevine that Janet’s lawyer was a ball-breaker, a man-hater, and this one certainly looked to fit that bill. With her dark clothing, her short dark hair waxed into sharp elfin spikes, and her large eyes lathered in lashings of mascara she was almost frightening. Almost.

      The haughty letters he had received through Alan from the office of one Ms Bridgeport had conjured up images of a stuffy old spinster, grey-streaked hair raked back into a bun, navy suit buttoned up to the throat. But the angry-looking pixie before him looked as though she could out-haughty even the dowdiest spinster.

      ‘Sebastian,’ Alan said as though reading his mind, ‘this is Gloria, Ms Bridgeport’s assistant.’

      Well, maybe he would be right yet. Since they were the only ones in the room, the grey-haired spinster was probably in her office, putting in her hourly phone call to her cats, and would be with them soon, smelling of mothballs and secretly imbibed rum. He smiled at the thought.

      Romy reached the doorway and saw Sebastian’s secret smile was now not so secret any more, and she was flummoxed afresh. She would have had to have lived in a cage not to have seen that smile shine from her TV screen numerous times over the last several years. Whether he had been holding up a golfing trophy or acting as spokesman for a children’s charity, that free and easy grin had been enough for her channel-flicking finger to pause over the remote every time.

      Romy watched in silence as Gloria found herself on the receiving end of such a smile.

      ‘Gloria,’ Sebastian said and his voice was deep and tempting and complemented all the other delectable bits of him. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

      But Gloria, bless her little heart, radiated resplendent disapproval. What a trooper. She gave Sebastian’s hand a perfunctory shake before letting go and wringing her hands together, erasing any sign of their contact. Romy had to stifle a laugh.

      Alan caught Romy’s eye and she knew the time had come to meet the enemy. Gloria spied her at the same time and hurried to hand out the order of drinks.

      ‘Romy Bridgeport,’ Alan said, ‘this is my client, Sebastian Fox.’

      She squared her shoulders, smoothed out her dress, and battened down the hatches. He is nothing but a heartless cad, she reminded herself, and you are going to take him down!

      And as the man in question turned to face her a pair of three-foot-high twin boys bundled into the room, screaming, ‘Womy! Womy!’ in falsetto unison.

      They leapt at her legs, clinging tight like limpets. Romy’s smoothed-out dress rode high up her thighs as her legs split shoulder-width apart in order for her to just about keep her balance. It was hardly the stern and intimidating impression she had been hoping to strike!

      Whatever Sebastian had been expecting it had not been her. She was no grey-haired spinster, she was no angry pixie, and she was like no lawyer he had ever seen.

      Romy Bridgeport was tall and slender as a reed in a form-hugging sea-blue dress that at that moment was hiked halfway up her cover-girl thighs. A matching jacket that looked as though it would considerably cover the slip of a garment was currently not earning its keep as it hung casually over the back of her chair.

      But what hit him most was her mane of glowing auburn hair. It was long, lush and healthy and cut with a flirty fringe. With her china-blue eyes and lithe grace she looked more like a mermaid than a lawyer.

      And while she laughed and bashfully enjoyed every second of the young boys’ company, Alan yawned, Gloria was hot on the phone, probably calling for their minders, and Janet was all but crouched on her chair as though the room had been overrun by mice. No surprise there. Not any more. Sebastian had too late discovered Janet was not a kid person on the day she had inadvertently admitted that previously unavowed truth in the same way one would say one was not a cat person.

      ‘Hey, kiddos,’ Romy said, her voice breathy, ‘how did you find me? Where is Samantha?’

      ‘Womy, wead a stowy!’ one of them demanded as only three-year-olds could.

      She shot an apologetic look that encompassed the whole group, her blue eyes glittering in a mixture of delight and mortification. ‘Romy is busy right now. She is reading these fine people a story for the next little while.’

      ‘What stowy?’ the other cherub asked.

      And without missing a beat she said, ‘It’s a story where Rapunzel takes on the mean troll…and wins.’

      Sebastian had to fight back a laugh.

      ‘But we don’t want Rapunzel to win.’

      Hey! Boys after his own heart!

      ‘I figured as much,’ Romy said. ‘So how about you guys head back to Samantha’s room and I will come over later and tell you the story of when the mean troll and his even meaner cousin, the ogre, ate Rapunzel? OK?’

      The boys stopped squirming and through some sort of telepathic twin communication they let go and ran off as fast as they had appeared, their excited squeals echoing down the hall.

      ‘My apologies,’ she said to the group, ‘they belong to one of the partners and have taken quite a fancy to my more gory tales.’

      ‘I don’t blame them,’ Sebastian admitted. ‘The troll and the ogre. Sounds too good to miss.’

      But when her derisive china-blue gaze clashed with his, the smile fast disappeared. An adorable blush lit her pale cheeks as she straightened her dress, and tidied her now magnificently messy hair.

      He reached out to shake her hand across the table, enjoying the way the fabric of her almost dress clung to her thighs as, after a distinct pause, she bent towards him. Her hand was cool and soft and felt small in his own.