Honeymoon with the Boss
But Julia was thrilled when he told her about Coconut Island. ‘Thank you for choosing somewhere so romantic, honey,’ she enthused. ‘And three weeks alone! I can’t wait! Won’t it be wonderful to spend that time together and get to know each other properly?’
Tom thought they did know each other. Why else would they be getting married?
He had been hoping that Julia would want to cut the honeymoon short. A drive for success was something they had in common—or, at least, it had been until Julia had gone wedding crazy. Now it appeared she would rather loll around on a beach for three weeks than get back to work! Wouldn’t she want to know what was happening in her absence? Wouldn’t she be concerned about deals being made without her, or the challenges and opportunities she would miss while she was sitting under some coconut palm?
This was Imogen’s fault, Tom thought darkly. If she hadn’t booked such a long stay, Julia would have been perfectly happy to return to normal after a week.
When Imogen asked him if he wanted her to rearrange the flights, he snapped at her but had to concede that the dates should stay as she had booked.
‘Leave it as it is,’ he snarled.
‘Oh-kay…good,’ said Imogen, eyeing him warily. Being engaged didn’t seem to be suiting him at all.
Tom’s foul mood continued for the next couple of days. He was so grouchy that Imogen began to wonder if Julia had called the engagement off. If Tom was like this with her, Imogen wouldn’t have blamed her!
Not that she had any intention of asking him if everything was all right. She valued her head too much. The only thing to do when Tom was like this was to keep her head down and be glad that she was only a very temporary secretary.
Think of the money, Imogen told herself. She was earning good money here and her travel fund was looking positively healthy. As soon as Tom got round to appointing a new PA she would be off to Australia and someone else could deal with him. Good luck to her!
It appeared, though, that the engagement was very much still on. Imogen was squinting at her shorthand a couple of days later when the phone rang.
‘Chief Executive’s office.’
‘Hi, is that Imogen?’ The warm American voice spilled out of the phone. ‘This is Julia, Tom’s fiancée, here. Tom said you might be able to help me with a few little things.’
Those ‘few little things’ turned out to be a list of details to check that extended to three pages. Imogen rolled her eyes as she scribbled down notes, but she had to admit that Julia was very friendly and appreciative. Unlike Tom, she was obviously thrilled at the prospect of a wedding.
‘I’m having a dress made here,’ she told Imogen excitedly. ‘It is so-o-o-o beautiful! I knew exactly what I wanted. In fact, I’ll email you the design—you’re being so helpful, I’m thinking of you as a kind of cyber bridesmaid! Would you like to see it?’
Imogen had little choice but to murmur politely that she would love to.
‘Don’t show Tom, though! It’s unlucky for him to see it before the wedding.’
Imogen tried, and failed, to imagine poring girlishly over a dress design with her boss. Tom must be very different with Julia if she thought he’d have the slightest interest in what anyone wore.
‘I won’t.’
‘Now, I’ve booked Stavely Castle for the wedding and reception,’ said Julia. ‘I visited last time I was in England and it was just so romantic. I decided there and then if I ever got married, that’s where I wanted the wedding!’
She rattled on, wanting Imogen to book a string quartet, find a supply of fresh rose petals, put her in touch with a cake designer, draw up a list of hotels in the area…
‘You’re so sweet to help me out like this,’ she told Imogen. ‘It’s difficult to sort out details like this from New York, and I’m just so busy at the moment, what with sorting out everything here before I come over to London. I had no idea how much work organising a wedding would be on top of it all!’
‘It’s a lot to do at such short notice,’ Imogen agreed, reflecting that Julia wasn’t the only busy one. Sadly, they didn’t all have fiancés with assistants they could fob off with all the time-consuming jobs!
‘I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it?’ Julia’s laugh sounded a little wild to Imogen. ‘But Stavely Castle suddenly had a cancellation and it just seemed meant somehow. As I said to Tom, when you know you’ve found the right person, why wait?’
Imogen murmured something noncommittal. It seemed to her that if you wanted a spontaneous wedding, it made sense to keep things simple and let the rose petals and the string quartets go. Still, it wasn’t her wedding, and Julia and Tom had plenty of money to throw at the problem, which always helped.
‘How is Tom?’ Julia was asking.
‘Er, he’s fine,’ said Imogen, wondering if she was expected to report that her boss was working himself into a frenzy of excitement about the wedding. ‘Working hard. You know what he’s like.’
Julia laughed. ‘I know. Isn’t he a darling? He’s so British sometimes!’
‘Absolutely,’ Imogen agreed, boggling at the phone. Tom Maddison, a darling? Julia must be in love!
‘Is he there?’
‘Of course. I’ll put you through.’
Putting Julia on hold, Imogen buzzed Tom. ‘I’ve got Julia on the line.’
‘Julia?’ he snapped.
‘Your fiancée,’ she reminded him.
‘What does she want?’
‘She didn’t say. I imagine she wants to talk to you.’
‘I can’t talk now,’ he said irritably. ‘Can’t it wait? Tell her I’m in a meeting.’
‘I’ve already said that I would put her through.’
He made an exasperated sound. ‘Oh, very well.’
Imogen grimaced as she put down the phone. Some darling!
She felt sorry for Julia. There had been a feverishness to the other woman’s voice that boded ill for a measured conversation with her fiancé. A few minutes’ conversation had been enough to show Imogen that Julia was a control freak, and already stressed by having to organise the perfect wedding at long distance. Right now, Julia needed calm reassurance, but Imogen was afraid she was unlikely to get it from Tom in his current mood.
Five minutes later, Tom banged out of his office, his mood clearly even worse than she had feared.
‘This wedding business is getting out of control,’ he snarled. ‘I haven’t got time to talk about invitations and vows and rehearsal dinners! And you’re spending far too much time on it, too,’ he added accusingly.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said quickly. ‘It’ll be easier when Julia is here.’
‘I hope to God you’re right!’
‘You have to make allowances.’ Imogen was beginning to feel like a counsellor. She certainly seemed to spend more time talking to Tom and to Julia than they were talking to each other. ‘A wedding is a big deal for any woman,’ she tried to placate Tom. ‘Julia’s giving up her life in New York to be with you, so it’s going to be an even more emotional time than usual for her. I know it seems like a lot of stress at the moment, but it will be worth it when you’re married, won’t it?’
Tom stopped pacing and imagined a time when he and Julia were safely married. Everything would be calm again, and he would go home every night to a beautiful, accomplished wife who understood what made a successful relationship and who would support him professionally and personally. He could rely on Julia to always say the right thing, and do the right thing. She was neat and orderly and sensible—except when it came to weddings, it seemed.
Perhaps Imogen was right, and it was just the stress of arranging a wedding at short notice that was making Julia so uncharacteristically emotional. Once this damned wedding was over, surely she would go back to the way she had been before?
It had taken Tom a long time to find just the right wife. Julia wouldn’t normally expect him to be all lovey-dovey. They had come to a very clear agreement about what they both wanted from marriage, so if it didn’t work with her, it was never going to work with anyone.
No, Julia was perfect. He didn’t want to lose her now.
He would just have to be more patient, Tom decided. He would try harder to show an interest in the wedding if that was what Julia wanted.
He could feel Imogen’s stern eye on him and remembered her question. It will be worth it, won’t it?
‘Of course it will,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWO
IMOGEN waved at the girls on Reception and pressed the button to call the lift. This was Tom’s last day in the office before the wedding, and the staff had planned a surprise champagne reception later that afternoon to wish him well.
She hoped Tom would appreciate the gesture and manage a smile for them. Most of the staff were terrified of his brusque manner, but they respected him, too. He was tough, but fair, and no one was in any doubt that he had transformed Collocom in the six months he had been there. Their boss’s wedding was an excuse to celebrate a much more secure future for them all.
It had been a busy few weeks. Imogen had spent most of them chasing up string quartets and florists and photographers. She was an expert now on everything from the design of the place settings to special licence arrangements, and she was on first-name terms with the staff at Stavely Castle after ringing on a daily basis to change or check endless details. Perhaps when she got back from her travels she could set up as a wedding planner?
There had been no word from Julia for a couple of days now, which was odd. Tom’s fiancée had been backwards and forwards between New York and London for the past few weeks, but ten days ago she had arrived, she said, to stay. Imogen had arranged for her to lease a fabulous flat in Chelsea Harbour so that she could prepare for the wedding, but she had still been on the phone several times a day. Imogen just hoped that—finally!—everything was ready and Julia could stop fretting.
Tom’s fiancée was very lovely, as slender as predicted, and beautifully dressed. There was a glossiness and a sheen to her that made Imogen feel gauche and faintly shabby in comparison. They were probably much the same age, but Julia was so much more sophisticated she seemed to come from a different world, one where first-class travel and designer clothes were the norm, and a million miles from Imogen’s life sharing a chaotic flat in south London.
In spite of the differences between them, Julia was determined to treat Imogen as her new best friend when they’d finally met in the office one day. She was warm and friendly, embarrassingly so at times, but Imogen sensed a tension to her and a frenetic undercurrent to her obsession with wedding arrangements, as if she were wound up like a tightly coiled spring. Imogen hoped she would be able to relax enough to enjoy the wedding.
Julia had brought Imogen a beautiful scarf to thank her for all her work. ‘I do hope you’ll come to the wedding, Imogen,’ she said, kissing her on both cheeks when she first met her. ‘It would mean the world to Tom and me if you were there. Wouldn’t it, Tom?’
It had clearly never crossed Tom’s mind to care one way or another, but he nodded. ‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘I know how hard Imogen has worked to make sure it all happens.’
There was a very faint edge to his voice. Imogen knew just how often he had been exasperated to find her tied up with wedding arrangements when he needed her to do something else, but she had to admit that he’d been making much more of an effort lately. She wondered if Julia realised quite how hard he was trying.
Julia had confided to Imogen in one of her many phone calls that she had wondered at one time if Tom had been having second thoughts about getting married. ‘But he’s been so sweet lately that I can see I was silly to have worried,’ she said. ‘He rings twice a day, and sends me a red rose every morning just so I know he’s thinking about me.’
Julia sighed with satisfaction. As well she might, Imogen reflected. She had arranged the delivery of the single roses herself and knew exactly how much it cost. Her mind boggled at the idea of Tom being sweet. He must really love Julia if he was prepared to change to such an extent, she thought wistfully.
She tried hard to be happy for them. It wasn’t Julia’s fault if she was thin, beautiful, wealthy, glamorous and had a man like Tom Maddison at her feet.
It wasn’t her fault if Imogen couldn’t stick to a diet, devoured a whole packet of chocolate digestives at a sitting and was reduced to dates with men who explained exactly how a mobile phone worked or who actually thought she would be interested in a detailed account of the intergalactic battles in Star Wars.
‘Your trouble is that you’re too picky,’ Amanda was always telling her. ‘You’re looking for a prince, and he’s just not going to turn up. You’ve got to be prepared to compromise a bit.’
‘I don’t want to compromise.’ Imogen could be stubborn too. ‘I want what I had with Andrew.’
Amanda sighed. ‘You’ve got to get over him, Imo.’
‘I am over him.’ She thought she was, anyway. ‘I know he’s happy with Sara. I know he’s not going to come back. But when you’ve had the perfect relationship, it’s hard to settle for anything less.’
‘If it had been the perfect relationship, Andrew wouldn’t have broken it off,’ Amanda invariably pointed out.
It was a good point. Imogen knew her friend was right, and she really was trying to meet someone new. It was just that the men she met seemed lacking in even the hint of a spark.
Still, perhaps she should give them more of a chance, Imogen had decided only the week before. Look at how Tom had changed and was trying hard to please Julia. He must be in love with her if he was prepared to make that kind of effort.
Sick of yearning after the unattainable, as Amanda put it, Imogen had vowed to try harder. There was no reason why she shouldn’t find someone she could have a real relationship with, perhaps even someone who might like to come travelling with her, but it hadn’t been going well. Last night she had let Amanda’s boyfriend set her up on yet another blind date, this time with an engineer who had spent most of his time telling her about his multiple allergies.
No wonder she was feeling depressed this morning.
It was nothing to do with the fact that Tom Maddison was getting married in a couple of days.
The lights were on in both offices when she went in. That meant Tom was here already. He had probably been here since at least seven, in fact, the way he usually was. He wasn’t the kind of man who would take it easy just because he was getting married.
Imogen tested a smile in the mirror as she hung up her coat. It didn’t look very convincing. She tried again, adding a little sparkle to her eyes. Better. She could almost pass for a girl who was genuinely pleased for her boss.
She wanted to be. Tom might be grouchy at times, but she admired his self-discipline and integrity. He wasn’t the friendliest of bosses, but you always knew where you were with him.
And he never mentioned an allergy or gave the slightest indication he had even seen Star Wars. He deserved a beautiful wife like Julia.
‘Good morning,’ she said brightly, as she knocked and went into his office. ‘Your last day before the wedding! Where would you like me to start?’
Tom looked up from the papers on his desk, and Imogen’s heart plummeted as she saw that his face looked as if it were carved out of stone.
‘You can start by cancelling the wedding,’ he said.
There was a catastrophic silence.
‘Cancel it?’ said Imogen, aghast, hoping against hope that she had misheard.
Tom nodded curtly. ‘Pull the plug on everything.’
‘But…what on earth has happened? Where’s Julia?’
‘On her way back to New York.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Probably taking off right now.’
‘She’ll come back,’ said Imogen, thinking that Julia would have to turn round as soon as she landed to get back in time for the wedding. ‘It must just be last-minute nerves.’
‘She doesn’t want to get married,’ said Tom flatly. ‘No, that’s not quite right,’ he corrected himself. ‘She does want to get married, just not to me.’
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.
Imogen had been standing as if rooted to the spot, but at that she turned to close the door and, without waiting to be invited, sat down across the desk.
‘Are you sure there hasn’t been some kind of mistake?’ she asked carefully. ‘Is it possible you’ve misunderstood what the problem is?’
Tom gave a harsh, mirthless laugh. ‘Oh, no, she was crystal clear. I misunderstood the whole situation, it turns out, but not what she wants to do now.’
He couldn’t bear to be pitied. Swinging his chair round so that he wouldn’t have to look at the sympathy in Imogen’s face, he stared out of the window at the bleak February morning. It suited his mood exactly.
‘All of Julia’s family and friends are over for the wedding, and she’d arranged to spend the evening with them, so I wasn’t expecting to see her. But she turned up at my door at ten o’clock and said that we had to talk,’ he told Imogen. ‘It wasn’t the easiest of scenes. She said that she was sorry, but she couldn’t marry me because she was going to marry Patrick.’
‘Patrick?’ Imogen felt completely lost. This was all so unexpected it was difficult to grasp what he was telling her. ‘Who’s Patrick?’
‘Patrick is Julia’s best friend, always has been, ever since they were at college together. I met him in New York, and knew they spent lots of time together, but Julia always said that they had decided long ago not to spoil their friendship by sleeping together. It was always a platonic relationship, and they both dated other people, like me. That was one of the reasons she was always so happy with a long-distance relationship,’ Tom remembered. ‘When I wasn’t there, she had plenty of time to spend with Patrick, just “goofing around”, as she called it.’
Imogen could practically hear the quotation marks around the phrase, and she could understand his baffled distaste. Tom probably didn’t even know what goofing around was.
‘It turns out that Julia was in love with Patrick all along,’ he went on. ‘She didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to lose him as a friend, but she wasn’t getting any younger and she decided that if she wanted to get married and have a family, as she does, she would have to make a decision to commit to someone else. That’s when Muggins here came along.’
Tom couldn’t look at Imogen. He was burning with humiliation, furious with himself for not realising the truth, furious with Julia for making a fool of him. She had made such a fuss about the wedding, and invited half the world, so everyone would know that he was the man too stupid to realise his fiancée was in love with someone else, too weak to convince her to stay, too inept to build a successful relationship.
Now they would all know he was a failure.
They would know he hadn’t been able to control his own life.
His jaw was clenched, but he couldn’t stop the betraying muscle jumping frantically in his cheek. He wanted to bellow with rage, to punch his fist into a wall, but he couldn’t do that. Imogen would think he was upset and feel even sorrier for him.
‘When I asked her to marry me, she thought it was a good chance to get away from New York and Patrick, and start afresh,’ he went on after a moment. ‘She liked me, she said, and she liked sleeping with me. She thought we had a lot in common and would make a good team. I did, too,’ he remembered with bitterness. ‘Once she’d made that decision, she threw herself into the whole idea of getting married.’
‘To compensate for the fact that she really wanted to be marrying someone else?’ Imogen said numbly. The feverish edge to Julia’s planning was beginning to make more sense now. She must have been desperate to get married while she could still convince herself that she was making the right decision. No wonder she had been keen to have the wedding in England and so soon.
‘She certainly fooled me.’ Tom’s mouth twisted as he swung round to face Imogen once more. He would show her that he was in control. ‘I had no idea I wasn’t the one she really wanted to marry.’
‘So what changed?’
‘Apparently the prospect of losing her was too much for Patrick and he came to his senses. He realised that he was in love with her, too, and probably always had been. It’s quite a touching story, when you think about it.’
Tom smiled without humour. ‘Patrick came over for the wedding, but when he saw Julia he told her how he felt, and then of course she realised she couldn’t go through with marrying me. She said she was sorry,’ he added expressionlessly.
The look in his eyes made Imogen want to cry. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry,’ she said helplessly.
‘It’s probably all for the best,’ said Tom briskly. ‘Better for Julia to realise that she was making a mistake now than after the wedding. At least it’s saved us the hassle—and cost!—of a divorce.’
That would have been an admission of failure too. Either way, Julia would have made him look a loser.
And Tom was a winner. He didn’t like losing. He never had.
He picked up his pen, almost as if he intended to get on with some work, but put it down again after a moment. The truth was, he didn’t know how to deal with this. He was too angry and humiliated to work, but what else could he do?
Imogen swallowed. Tom wasn’t the kind of man who went in for emotional displays but she knew how hard he must be hurting. He had tried so hard to be what Julia wanted.
‘What can I do?’ she asked.
‘I’d be grateful if you would deal with telling everyone who needs to know.’ The curtness in Tom’s voice didn’t quite disguise his gratitude that she was going to stick to practicalities.
‘Of course.’
‘Here’s the key to Julia’s apartment. She left it with me last night.’
He pushed a key across the desk. Imogen recognised it from when she had arranged the short-term lease of the flat. Julia had wanted somewhere to stay where she could keep her wedding dress secret from Tom.
At the time, Imogen had rolled her eyes at the extravagance, which seemed to be taking tradition to extremes, but now she marvelled that she hadn’t seen the separate apartment as a warning sign. If Julia had been really in love with Tom, she wouldn’t have been able to wait to move in with him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the space. Imogen had been to his penthouse flat in the Docklands to collect some papers once, and there had been more than enough room to hide a dozen wedding dresses if necessary.
‘The flat is full of presents that will need to be returned. Presumably you’ve got a list of guests?’
Imogen nodded. ‘I’ll make sure they all know the wedding has been cancelled.’
‘You’d better deal with Stavely Castle first.’
‘I’ll do that.’ She got to her feet and hesitated, looking at him with concern. With anyone else, she would have offered the comfort of a hug, but she didn’t think Tom would welcome a gesture like that. He wasn’t a tactile man.
Still, this would be a devastating blow for a man of his pride. Imogen wished she could do something to help him, but she sensed the best thing she could do was deal with the practicalities and make as little fuss as possible.
She couldn’t go without saying something, though. ‘Will you be all right?’ she asked after a moment.
‘Of course,’ he said, as brusque as ever. ‘I’ve got plenty to do.’
‘You’re not really going to work, are you?’
‘What else is there to do?’ he said and even he could hear the bleakness in his voice.
Imogen came back a little while later with coffee and a couple of biscuits.
‘I never eat biscuits,’ said Tom, glancing up from his computer screen as she set them solicitously at his elbow.
‘You should have something to eat.’