Contracted: Corporate Wife. Jessica Hart

family-minded of you,’ said Lou.

      Patrick’s brows drew together at the unconcealed sarcasm in her voice. ‘I haven’t got anything against families,’ he said. ‘It’s up to individuals whether they have a family or not, but I don’t see why I should have to rearrange my life around other people’s children. I had a PA once whose children ended up running the office. We’d just be at a critical point of negotiations, and Carol would be putting on her coat and saying that she had to get to the school.’

      ‘Sometimes you just have to go,’ said Lou, who had somehow managed to get to the bottom of another glass of champagne. ‘Especially when your children are smaller. At least my two are old enough to take themselves to and from school, but if anything happened, or they were ill, then I’m afraid that I would be putting on my coat too.’

      Patrick looked at her as if a dog he had been cajoling had just turned and snapped at him, but he refilled her glass anyway. ‘Am I supposed to find that reassuring?’

      ‘I’m just telling you, that’s all,’ said Lou. She looked at him directly. ‘Is it going to be a problem for you that I have children?’

      ‘Not as long as they don’t interfere with your work,’ said Patrick.

      ‘You know that they don’t, or you would have known about their existence long before now,’ she said in a crisp voice. ‘That doesn’t mean there won’t be times when I will need to be flexible, and, yes, sometimes at short notice.’

      ‘Oh, great.’ Patrick hunched a shoulder and Lou leant forward.

      ‘You’re obviously not aware of the fact that Schola Systems has always had a very good reputation for family-friendly policies,’ she admonished him. ‘I was lucky to get a job there when I had to go back to work and the children were small, and especially to have such an understanding boss. Bill Sheeran was always flexible when people needed time at home for one reason or another.

      ‘It won him a lot of loyalty from the staff,’ she added warningly, ‘so if you were thinking of holding parenthood against your employees, you might find yourself without any staff at all!’

      ‘There’s no question of holding anything against anyone,’ said Patrick irritably.

      He didn’t want to hear any more about how marvellous Bill Sheeran had been. Not marvellous enough to save his own company, though, Patrick thought cynically. It was all very well being friendly and flexible, but if Patrick hadn’t taken over all those admiring employees would have been spending a lot more time at home than they wanted. There was no point in being family friendly if your firm went bust and your staff found themselves out of a job.

      ‘I just wish you’d told me, that’s all,’ he grumbled to Lou.

      Lou didn’t feel like making it easy for him. Honestly, the man never even asked her if she’d had a nice weekend on a Monday morning. ‘If you’d shown any interest in your new PA at all, you would have known.’

      ‘I’m showing an interest now,’ he said grumpily. ‘Is there anything else I need to know?’

      ‘Is there anything else you want to know?’ she countered.

      ‘You don’t wear a wedding ring,’ said Patrick after a moment.

      ‘I’m divorced. Why?’ The champagne was definitely having an effect. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a problem with divorce as well as children?’

      ‘Of course not. I’m divorced myself.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Why the surprise? It’s not exactly uncommon as you’ll know better than anyone.’

      Quite, thought Lou. ‘You’re right. I don’t know why I was surprised, really. I suppose it’s because you don’t seem like the marrying kind,’ she said, thinking of his lifestyle. Playboy or not, he clearly didn’t spend much time at home.

      ‘I’m not,’ said Patrick with a grim smile. ‘That’s why I’m divorced. We were only married a couple of years. We were both very young.’ He shrugged. ‘It was a mistake for both of us. That’ll be a bit of news for the girls in Finance,’ he added, not without a trace of sarcasm.

      ‘I’ll pass it on,’ said Lou, smiling blandly in return.

      Patrick held up the bottle and squinted at the dregs in surprise. ‘We seem to have finished the bottle,’ he said, sharing out the last drops and upending it in the ice bucket. ‘Do you want another? Your toy boy is probably longing for an excuse to come over and see you again!’

      Lou rolled her eyes. ‘I think I’d better eat,’ she said, ignoring the toy-boy crack.

      The champagne had slipped down very nicely. A little too nicely, in fact. She was beginning to feel pleasantly fuzzy. She might even be a bit tipsy, Lou realised, hoping that she would be able to make it to the restaurant without falling over or doing anything embarrassing. They hadn’t had time for a proper lunch and it was all starting to catch up with her.

      She felt better in the restaurant. The waiters fussed around, bringing bread and a jug of water without being asked. Obviously they could see that she needed it.

      Lou took a piece of bread, and spread butter on it. This was no time to worry about her diet. She needed to line her stomach as quickly as possible.

      She tried to focus on the menu, but kept getting distracted by Patrick opposite. He had been easier to talk to than she had expected. Of course, the champagne had probably helped. He certainly wasn’t as brusque and impersonal as usual. She had even found herself warming to him in a funny kind of way. It was as if they had both let down their guards for the evening. It must be something to do with being stranded away from home and tired…and, oh, yes, the champagne.

      She really mustn’t have any more to drink, Lou decided, but somehow a glass of wine appeared in front of her and it seemed rude to ignore it. She would just take the occasional sip.

      ‘So,’ said Patrick when they had ordered. ‘What’s happened to your children tonight? Are they with their father?’

      ‘No, Lawrie lives in Manchester.’ There was a certain restraint in her voice when she mentioned her ex-husband, he noticed. ‘I knew I’d be late back to London even if the trains had been running, so I arranged for them to stay with a friend. They love going to Marisa’s. She lets them watch television all night and doesn’t make them eat vegetables.’

      Which was probably more than Patrick needed or wanted to know. He was only making polite conversation after all. She was getting garrulous, a sure sign that she had had too much to drink. Better have another piece of bread.

      ‘Have you got any children?’ she asked, thinking it might be better to switch the conversation back to Patrick before she started telling him how good at sport Grace was or how adorable Tom had been as a baby.

      ‘No,’ said Patrick, barely restraining a shudder at the very idea. ‘I’ve never wanted them. My ex-wife, Catriona, did. That’s one of the reasons we split up in the end.’ His mouth pulled down at the corners as he contemplated his glass. ‘Apparently I was incredibly selfish for wanting to live my own life.’

      Lou frowned a little owlishly. ‘But isn’t the reason you get married precisely because you want to live your life with another person, that you want to do it together and not on your own?’

      She’d spoken without thinking and for a moment she thought she might have gone a bit far.

      ‘I told Catriona before we got married that I didn’t want children,’ said Patrick, apparently not taking exception at the intrusiveness of her question. ‘And she said that she understood. She said she didn’t want a family either, that she didn’t want to share me with anyone else, not even a baby.’

      He rolled his eyes a little as if inviting her to mock his younger self who had believed his wife, but Lou thought she could still hear the hurt in his voice.