Memo: Marry Me?

And what game had Zach been playing with her? He was a well-known and, it was assumed, carefree bachelor, and had been sending out ‘attracted to you’ signals since they’d met. Those signals had only grown stronger on both sides, she had thought, even though Zach had been clearly fighting them all the way.

She’d had no intention of acting on them, either, of course. Had intended to put a stop to her side of things just as soon as she worked out how. Hadn’t she?

Of course she had! But what had Zach been thinking?

‘Um, your fath—Mr Swift—is taking a phone call.’ The boy shouldn’t be made uncomfortable because of her surprise and shock. And she was shocked. ‘I’m sure he’ll be finished his call in a moment.’

The boy nodded. ‘I’ll just wait, then.’

‘Yes. Make yourself at home.’ She pretended to go back to work, but all that showed up on her screen as she typed was meaningless gibberish.

At times recently, she had wanted to yield to Zach’s interest, and to her own. To step forward instead of stepping back, just once, and see what happened. She shouldn’t have wanted that. She was living a deception. He wouldn’t want her if he knew her secrets, and she needed to protect herself, too.

But it appeared he also had secrets.

Zach opened his door and came out. He glanced at her, and his eyes flared with familiar heat.

Then he turned and spotted the boy. His face softened in affection and pride. In two strides, he had the young man in a headlock, ruffling his hair as he hugged him close. ‘Dan. Good lad, you’re right on time. You didn’t have any trouble with the buses?’

The boy wrapped wiry arms around the man, pushed his head into his chest and put all his effort into getting loose. He grinned when he broke free. ‘Nope. I’m ready to go. You’re getting weaker, you know. You barely held me that time.’

A bittersweet smile touched Zach’s face. ‘You’re the one getting stronger. You’re growing up too fast.’

Zach made a show of getting his briefcase, but Lily saw the tenderness he tried to hide and, despite her confusion, her heart softened. Zach clearly loved this child.

He rattled off a few instructions to her before he turned back to Daniel. ‘Did you two meet? This is Lily. She’s filling in while Maddie is away. The other secretary…’ he cleared his throat ‘…didn’t work out, so Lily has taken over.’

Lily finished jotting his instructions into her diary. She closed it and looked at the boy. ‘Hello again.’

‘I’m Daniel.’ He shook her hand, mumbled, ‘You’re prettier than the last one,’ and turned a little red in the face. ‘I mean—’

‘Thank you.’ She turned back to her desk to save him from further embarrassment. And to avoid having to look at Zach. ‘I won’t keep you both. You clearly have somewhere you need to be.’

A slight frown between his brows, Zach nodded. Then the boy drew his attention.

‘Mum said you’re invited to dinner again tonight, if you want. She’s running errands this afternoon, but she’ll bring home something nice.’ Daniel gathered his school bag and slipped it over his shoulders. He gave Zach a bit of a glare. ‘I could go to the orthodontist by myself, you know. If I can manage a couple of buses, I can manage—’

‘All the buses. Yes, but I promised when you first got the braces on that I’d take you to every appointment.’ Zach ruffled the dark hair again. ‘And I always—’

‘Keep your promises, I know. But I’m not a baby. You don’t need to mollycoddle me.’ The boy sighed, and made for the door.

Lily watched him, and tried to contain the anger and dismay that had filled her at Daniel’s innocent words. Zach was still involved with the mother of his child! He had been toying with Lily. She felt stupid for not having realised his interest wasn’t sincere. Felt second-rate, as she had when Richard had ended their engagement.

‘I’m not mollycoddling.’ Zach waved Daniel off. ‘Go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you at the elevators.’

As the boy left, Zach turned back into the room. ‘Is everything all right? You seem agitated.’ A rather ferocious expression closed in on his face, and he said without any inflection at all, ‘Don’t you like children?’

‘No, it’s not that. Everything’s fine.’ His protectiveness of the boy made Lily ache for things she didn’t have, for family to stand by her. But it didn’t change the fact that Zach was now clearly and utterly out of bounds to her. And, right now, she really didn’t like him very much. At all!

She busied herself putting a dictation tape into the machine, fiddled with the wishbone earpieces, then placed her hands in readiness against the keyboard. As she did so, she realised the child’s name had slipped from her memory. She sought for it, but didn’t find it. Darn it! ‘It was nice to meet your son, but shouldn’t you be going?’

‘Ah.’ His eyes narrowed as he studied her. ‘I think you’ve just explained the sudden chill in the air. If there’s a child, there’s got to be a mother, and therefore—’

‘You’re having dinner with that mother. You’re clearly very close.’ Oh, couldn’t he just go? She didn’t want to have this discussion. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘Hasn’t it? You and I have been—’

‘Hurry up, old man. We’ll be late!’ The warning floated down the corridor, affection wrapped up in the cheeky words. A moment later, the boy poked his head back into the room. ‘Are we leaving some time this millennium, or what?’

Zach hesitated, gritted his teeth and strode to join the boy. ‘Yes, Daniel. We’re leaving. Let’s go.’

Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. His name is Daniel. Lily pretended not to watch their exit. As soon as they left, she wrote the boy’s name down, although she suspected it would now stick firm for her. Usually, if she could get a piece of information beyond that short-term memory area, it stayed with her for good.

An hour later, after swinging from chagrin to anger and back again, she was doing her best to force Zach Swift out of her mind. She would go on doing that until she crushed every memory of the attraction she had experienced towards him. Utter rejection should have been her response from the start.

As she began to pack up her desk, a middle-aged woman stepped into the room. ‘I hope I didn’t startle you, dear. Are you about to leave?’

‘Hello. Yes, it’s almost closing time, but is there some way I can help you?’ Lily pushed the last of the folders into the drawer and gave the woman her full attention.

‘There is, I hope, but this isn’t really a business matter.’ The lady smiled. ‘Let me introduce myself. I’m Anne Swift, Zach’s mother.’ She stuck out a hand.

Lily snatched up a sticky notepad and scribbled ‘Anne Swift’ onto it, then took the other woman’s hand and looked into kindly yellow-green eyes. She couldn’t help returning the warm smile she found there, even as her picture of Zach shifted for the second time this afternoon.

She had assumed he had no family at all. That he lived for his company, utterly focussed on making money. Lily had even felt a connection, because she didn’t have any significant family ties either. Not any more.

Within the space of an hour, Zach had a son, a mother of that son, and a mother of his own.

‘I’m afraid Zach’s not in. He took Daniel to an orthodontist appointment.’ And, later, he’s going to have dinner with the mother of his child. They’ll probably make love once Daniel’s asleep.

‘Just as I hoped. I timed it so he would be gone when I got here.’ A warm chuckle erupted from the small, well-rounded frame. ‘Now, I know you’re just new, dear, but I need you to join me in a teensy-tiny conspiracy against my darling son.’

Well, that sounded interesting, if rather dangerous! Why would Zach’s mother want to conspire against him? ‘I’m not quite sure I can help you…’

‘You can, and it will be for his own good.’ Anne gave her merry laugh again. ‘I just need to explain. Come to coffee with me?’

The next morning, Zach greeted Lily with a watchful expression. Lily didn’t know what to think. During their stop for coffee, Anne Swift hadn’t mentioned anyone special in Zach’s life. But, then, Zach’s mother had been focussed on other things and perhaps had seen no reason to say anything.

I hope Anne enjoyed her meal, anyway.

The older lady had bought enough take-out containers of food during that jaunt for coffee to supply several hungry eaters. Perhaps she froze portions for herself. Or maybe she had invited guests that night.

‘Re-direct the phones. We’ll go to lunch early.’ Zach spoke in a silken tone from his position in the doorway that connected their two offices. His words made her jump, because for once she’d had no clue of his nearness.

He shifted his stance slightly. ‘There’s a pub not far from here that serves good, fresh battered fish and chips.’

‘I can’t.’ Lily didn’t quite meet his gaze, stared instead at a spot on the wall behind him. I won’t make myself vulnerable to you by getting too close. ‘I’m busy.’

‘Let me make this clearer. It’s not an invitation, Lily.’ He looked down his nose at her, let her see the glitter of anger and frustration for a moment in his eyes before he hooded them. ‘Your presence is required.’

Maybe this wasn’t personal. Maybe she had done something, made some mistake here in the office?

Her mind raced with possibilities. She’d been skirting around him since she got here this morning. Had that made her lax in her duties somehow? Or had her shortcomings found her out?

Zach hustled her out of the office while she was still worrying. He rattled off their order to the bistro lady at the pub without consulting Lily for her choice, then led Lily to their allocated table and proceeded to drum his fingers on the polished surface.

‘What if I hadn’t wanted whiting fillets?’ She took the paper serviette from around her cutlery, and set everything just so in front of her. It might not be smart to goad him, yet she couldn’t help herself. ‘I might have preferred the roast pork, or the chicken pot-pie.’

His fingers came to an abrupt stop. He said, apparently out of nowhere, ‘Did you know that Daniel loves fish and chips?’

‘Does he?’ She kept her voice neutral, but wondered about that smooth-as-glass tone of his. ‘That’s nice.’

Their meals and drinks arrived. He held her gaze over the rim of his beer glass until they were alone again. ‘Daniel and I live just around the corner from each other. He stays overnight with me often, drops in evenings and weekends during the day. It’s pretty much open house to him any time I’m home.’

What about Zach staying the night with Daniel’s mother, or vice versa? Not that Lily cared about his bed partners, she told herself fiercely. And he was baiting her right now. She was sure of it. She glared at him, and took a defiant sip of her lemon squash.

Not another word would pass her lips on the topic. If he had something to say, then let him say it.

After eating most of the meal in loaded silence, she began to toy with her half-empty sachet of tartare sauce. Anything to keep her gaze from his, really, but in the end she couldn’t help it. Her resolve teetered, and fell. ‘You mentioned Daniel. What about his mother? What’s her name?’

‘His mother is the same one I have, actually. I wondered how long it would take you to ask.’ He speared a chip with his fork, seemed to take delight in the aggressive movement. ‘Our mother is Anne. Anne Swift.’

While he ate the chip, Lily drew a deep breath of pub-laden air and tried to assimilate this news. Zach and Daniel were brothers. There was no woman with a long history of involvement with Zach. Lily had jumped to a massive conclusion.

Her heart began to beat out an uneasy, rapid rhythm. ‘But that’s not, that can’t be—’

‘Daniel was a change-of-life baby, conceived three months before our father died.’ He laid down his cutlery, drew two well-thumbed photos from his wallet and flipped them one after the other across the table to her.

‘The first is of me and my parents the year before Dad died. It was an aneurysm.’ He spoke without particular inflection, but his fingers clenched. ‘He didn’t suffer. It was very fast.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ She suppressed the urge to touch his hand, and repeated the information over in her head because she couldn’t bear it if she were to forget this later. At times like this she hated her impediment!

‘I miss him.’ The understatement somehow made Zach’s loss all the more real to her. His gaze dropped to the other photo. ‘The second is Mum, Daniel and me. It was taken last year when we visited the Imax theatre here in Sydney for a treat for Dan’s birthday.’

‘In the first, you look about eighteen.’ He looked young and happy, as Lily had felt before her accident. She was still happy, she told herself, but for ever changed, just as Zach must have been by his father’s death.

But Zach hadn’t started this conversation to elicit sympathy. He had wanted to confront her mistake, to make a point about her jumping to conclusions. That was clear to her, and not entirely fair. ‘Why didn’t you say something when I—?’

‘Drew that conclusion with no help from me? By the time I realised what you thought, Dan had interrupted and I had to go.’ He reached for the photos. Their fingers touched, and he kept his grip on hers. ‘And then I wondered if it might be best to let you believe it.’

Anger gave way to something different. Something deeper. She sought the answer in his eyes, and found a wary, reluctant awareness that echoed deep inside her.

‘Yet you’ve told me. What changed your mind?’ She pulled her hand free, and hoped he couldn’t see how much she had wanted to leave it in his grasp.

‘Honesty.’ His gaze remained steadfastly on hers. ‘I don’t like deceptions.’

Deceptions such as secretaries not confessing their limitations to their boss, and planning to get out of working for him, even though he’d insisted on it? But her situation was different.

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