“Happy now, Mum?” Tessa couldn’t resist asking as she kissed her mother’s cheek.
“For goodness sake, Tessa,” her mother whispered urgently. “We can’t talk about that now. Keep being a good girl. At least until the wedding.”
Tessa was happy to see her father looking very content as she and Blaize drove off together. Her mother’s approval, unfortunately, had sunk into anxiety again. Tessa could read her expression loud and clear. “Don’t stuff up.” Except her mother would never say such words. They weren’t at all proper.
The Lamborghini began eating up the expressway to Sydney.
“Nice parents,” Blaize remarked smugly.
Tessa shook her head. She couldn’t imagine any parents in the world looking down their noses at Blaize Callagan. Apart from his natural qualities and his obvious wealth, his performance could not have been faulted. Courtesy, sensitivity, consideration, generosity—and very loving.
She, however, had a little problem. “What about your parents?” she asked, quailing at the thought. Would they accept her as easily as her parents had accepted Blaize?
“I’ll take you to meet them tomorrow night,” he said, shooting her an appealing look. “Best if it’s done before the announcement’s printed in the Herald.”
“You’re going to put an announcement in the newspaper?”
He looked sternly at her. “I’m very old-fashioned, and I have old-fashioned values.”
Liar, Tessa thought. But he looked so smug and self-satisfied that she didn’t argue with him at all. It really was amazing he had taken everything she had said to heart. Mind like a computer, she reminded herself.
“What should I wear to meet your parents?” she asked, hoping they wouldn’t compare her too badly against whatever standard Candice had set as a daughter-in-law. Tessa had a sinking feeling that it was an awfully high standard.
Blaize’s mouth quirked into that knowing little curve. “I thought that black suit you wore last Monday was very fetching.” The dark eyes gleamed briefly at her. “But I prefer your hair down.”
“Okay,” she agreed. He ought to know best, she thought. Her hair wasn’t red-gold, but it did have nice honey tones through the brown. Maybe his parents might like someone quieter looking than the flamboyant Candice.
“You will need a change in status, Tessa,” he said thoughtfully. “You can’t stay on as Jerry Fraine’s secretary.”
Good, she thought. She could keep a better eye on Blaize if she was his secretary. Make sure his eyes didn’t drift anywhere they shouldn’t. “What do you suggest?” she asked lightly.
“Oh... give up working.’’
And lose her independence? Tessa brooded on the implications of that for several moments. She didn’t like the idea at all. It made her feel too vulnerable.
“Are you going to give up working?” she asked.
“No.”
“Neither am I,” she said firmly.
Blaize frowned at her. “I certainly don’t want you working for Jerry Fraine. The status is all wrong, Tessa.”
“I could work for you,” she suggested.
“No. Definitely not.”
“You need looking after,” she argued.
He slid her a mocking look. “We wouldn’t get any business done.”
“I’ll wear my glasses.”
“No. No. No. Not those rotten ghastly glasses.”
“And I’ll put my hair up.”
“No.” He groaned. “Not that either.”
“I’m a good secretary.”
“The best I’ve ever had.” He smiled.
“Then why don’t you want me?” Tessa demanded.
“I do,” he said feelingly. “That’s the problem.”
“Then I’ll get a job with some other firm,” Tessa declared determinedly. He wasn’t going to dominate her life if she couldn’t dominate his!
“I’ll think of a way,” he said grimly. “But in the meantime, you finish with Jerry Fraine tomorrow.”
“Sounds like being fired,” she said resentfully.
“Something like that,” he agreed, refusing to give an inch on that issue.
Tessa sighed in resignation. He did have a point. Big companies like CMA had clearly defined status levels... even to the point of who got into which helicopter. Although Jerry Fraine was a top-level executive, it wouldn’t be right for Blaize Callagan’s fiancée to be working for him.
In fact, she could see that Blaize would not like to have his wife working in any lowly position. Candice, of course, had run her own business—a very successful high-status one at that—which had been perfectly acceptable. This thought made Tessa feel miserable.
But she was a good secretary.
Tessa was not given to putting herself down, and stubbornly fought the sense of inferiority that Can-dice’s image kept pressing onto her. The only solution that Tessa could see to the dilemma was to be Blaize’s secretary. Or personal assistant. That sounded even better. She decided to work that angle when a suitable time came up. Which was not right now.
They arrived at her apartment block and Blaize escorted Tessa up to her door. She wasn’t sure, at this point, if she was supposed to ask him in or whether that might contravene the white decision. Her mother had advised being a good girl. But when she opened her door and turned to kiss Blaize good night, he decided the matter for her.
“You know I’m going to marry you, Tessa,” he said, taking her into his arms and pressing her body to his with deliberate suggestiveness. “Very soon,” he added persuasively.
Don’t hold him back?
Tessa struggled with the quandary.
“Are you frightened?” he asked softly, the dark eyes instantly picking up the confused vulnerability in hers.
“A bit,” she admitted.
“I’m not.”
“You’re a man,” she said. Nothing much changed for a man with marriage. His life went on along the same course. It was the woman who got forced into giving up things.
“Is there a difference?” he asked.
“Haven’t you noticed?” A thread of hard cynicism there.
He sighed. “Do you want me to hold back?”
“Maybe a little bit. Until we’re married.”
“Okay,” he said, then scooped her up in his arms, strode into her apartment, kicked the door shut behind them and found his way to her bedroom as though he had a homing device.