She thought suddenly of Paul O’Hara, the intern, who had looked rather nice and had displayed consternation in his expression at the thought of her with Max Goodwin. Why? she wondered.
She closed her eyes and wondered what was happening to her lift. It was definitely time for her to go home.
Perhaps it was the champagne she’d drunk so quickly on an empty stomach—she hadn’t partaken of any of the delicious canapés—on top of two hours on her feet, two hours of severe mental concentration. Whatever, she fell asleep.
When she woke, after some moments of utter confusion, her watch told her she’d slept for a couple of hours. She was also stretched out on the settee with a pillow under her head, a light but warm cashmere rug over her, and one soft lamp was on revealing the “green” room of Max Goodwin’s penthouse.
She sat up with a gasp of horror. Who’d covered her up and brought her a pillow? Who’d decided to let her sleep rather than go home?
She ran her hands through her hair and felt around for her purse as she decided her next course of action. She opened her purse for her mobile phone—she’d ring for a taxi and steal away quietly.
She got up and, with her shoes in her hand, left the green room quietly. The foyer was dimly lit and there were no sounds coming from the rest of the apartment, no other lights she could see as she approached the lift with her phone in hand.
She pushed the lift button, and started to dial for a taxi, but nothing happened.
She cancelled the call and pushed the lift button again. Again nothing happened and she realized the lift was locked—you needed some kind of master key or key card to operate it.
She took a frustrated little breath. What to do now? If Max Goodwin had gone to bed the last thing she wanted to do was find him and wake him. What about
Jake?
Then she remembered Max saying something about both Jake and Margaret Winston staying the night downstairs—were there two floors to the penthouse? Maybe the sleeping quarters or the staff quarters were downstairs, but how was she to get to them? Was there an internal staircase? Or a service elevator?
There
were no more doors in the foyer.
She tiptoed into the main lounge, but it was in darkness. She hesitated, then turned back to the foyer as it slowly dawned on her that she might have to spend the rest of the night in the green room.
Ten minutes later she was back on the settee, her head resting on the pillow and the cashmere rug over her. But now she was wide awake.
She tossed the rug aside and got up to turn the lamp off, thinking darkness might help her to sleep in this ridiculous situation.
It didn’t, and she’d almost convinced herself she would have to find some way to end her imprisonment in Max Goodwin’s penthouse when she heard what sounded like the lift open, and voices.
She froze. She’d left the door slightly ajar and she could hear every word of what Max Goodwin was saying …
‘Listen, Cathy—’ his voice was harsh ‘—a month ago you chose to inform me I had a six-year-old son I knew nothing about—’
‘Max, look,’ a woman’s voice broke in, ‘I tried to explain at the time how that came about.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said sardonically. ‘You couldn’t be sure whose son he was to start with.’ He paused briefly. ‘But then, when you began to suspect he was mine, you made the absolutely arbitrary decision that, since we wouldn’t suit, you’d bring him up on your own and not even tell me.’
The woman he’d called Cathy raised her voice in emotional frustration. ‘Max, you know as well as I do, if there’s anything we like to do better than love each other, it’s hate each other.’
‘That didn’t alter my right to know,’ he said savagely. ‘And now you want to leave him with me, a complete stranger! How’s that going to affect him? Surely you must have some other back-up!’
‘My mother’s always been my back-up, she’s been wonderful, but she’s going into hospital so I need to be with her and my nanny’s walked out on me. But, Max—’ Cathy’s voice changed again, to husky with strain ‘—somehow—somehow—we had to break the ice, you had to meet him. And Nicky’s, well, he’s a very well-adjusted child and I’ve always told him his father is a wonderful person. Anyway, he’s got Nemo.’
Alex shook her head as she absorbed all this and the words started to make sense. Then she flew up as she heard Max Goodwin swear graphically, and, without bothering about her shoes, ran out of the green room to make her presence known.
The effect was electric. The two people in the foyer moved convulsively.
‘I—I’m so s-sorry,’ she started to stammer.
But Max Goodwin said murderously, ‘What the hell are you still doing here?’
And Cathy, probably one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful women Alex had ever seen, murmured, ‘Without her shoes? I wonder. But you always did have good taste in women, Max.’