Dating Her Boss

She’d checked out the quality dailies at her local public library and made a list of secretarial agencies offering temporary work in London, then sent off her CV in the hope that someone would be impressed enough by her qualifications to give her a chance. After all, her qualifications were pretty impressive.

Now she was here, though, she had a sinking feeling that she was way out of her league. Only her stubborn Geordie pride refused to admit to the possibility that she might be second best in anything, stopped her from walking out right now. That, and Richie. The thought of him, of what he had achieved with nothing to commend him but cheek, a hard push and a following wind was more than enough to stiffen her resolve. Anything he could do…

‘Extremely lucky.’ Amanda Garland was beginning to irritate her. Luck, Jilly thought, mentally squaring her shoulders, had nothing to do with it. It had been sheer hard work.

There was nothing like a Royal Society of Arts Grade Three Typewriting Certificate with ‘Distinction’ to make even the Amanda Garlands of this world sit up and take notice, although Jilly knew that it was the infinitely rarer certificate, the one that promised she could effortlessly take down a hundred and sixty words per minute in faultless shorthand and transcribe it with equal ease, that had got her this far.

Of course Ms Garland had insisted on testing her anyway, just in case those desirable pieces of paper might have been the product of a bit of smart work with a home computer. Actually her brothers could probably have done a pretty convincing job if she had needed them to, so she didn’t blame the woman for that. She just wished she wouldn’t keep saying how lucky she was.

‘Well, I won’t keep you. I’ve told Max that you’ll start this morning. Have you got somewhere to stay, Jilly?’ she asked, glancing at the suitcase Jilly had brought with her.

‘I’m staying with my cousin until I can find somewhere of my own. Actually, I need to call her and let her know I’ve arrived—’ She had been about to ask if she could use the telephone, but she was already being ushered towards the door and she let it go.

Amanda Garland paused in the doorway. ‘I’d better warn you, Jilly, that Max is a very demanding employer and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.’ So? The question must have been written all over her face because the woman went on, ‘He’s desperate and he needs someone with really good shorthand, or…’ The doubt was there again.

‘Or?’ Jilly repeated.

The other woman’s brows rose a fraction at her directness. ‘Or frankly I wouldn’t have considered you for the position.’

‘Well, that is frank of you,’ Jilly replied, tired of being looked down on. The woman could keep her job. There were hundreds of other agencies in London and it suddenly occurred to her that, if the Garland Agency was prepared to bring her all the way from Newcastle because of her shorthand speed, she might just be in a buyer’s market. ‘Are my clothes that bad?’ she enquired, with that native pertness for which her part of England was famous. ‘Or is it my accent that’s the problem?’

At home everybody thought she talked ‘posh’, but Jilly knew better. Despite the fact that her mother had insisted on elocution lessons with an actress who had been ‘resting’ ever since the war—which war no one had ever dared enquire—she was well aware that her voice still betrayed its origins.

Ms Garland’s eyes widened slightly and her lips twitched in what might have been amusement. ‘You’re very direct, Jilly.’

‘I find it helps if you want people to know what you think. What do you think, Ms Garland?’

‘I think…I think that perhaps you’ll do, Jilly.’ And finally the creases about her eyes and mouth defined a genuine smile. ‘And don’t worry about your accent—Max won’t. He’ll only notice how well you do your job. I’m afraid my brother can be a bit of a monster to work for and to be honest I’d be happier if you were older. I’m rather tossing you in at the deep end.’

Her brother? Jilly felt her cheeks heat up. Amanda Garland was trusting her to work for her brother? ‘Oh,’ she said. Then, ‘I thought—’ Then with a sudden grin, ‘Don’t worry, Ms Garland, I’m a pretty good swimmer. Gold medal. Life-saving certificate.’ Her smile came easily. ‘And as for my age, well, I’m getting older by the minute.’

Amanda Garland laughed. ‘Just keep that sense of humour and take no nonsense from Max. If he shouts at you…well, just be, um, direct.’

‘Don’t worry, I will. And I find that when men get particularly difficult, imagining them naked helps a lot.’ Amanda’s laughter turned into a fit of coughing. ‘How long is he likely to need me?’ Jilly asked when Amanda had recovered sufficiently to answer.

‘His personal assistant is away looking after her sick mother and frankly we have no idea how long that will be.’ Her face became grave. ‘Several weeks at least, I should think, but don’t worry—if you can work for Max you can work for anyone and with your qualifications I won’t have any trouble placing you.’

‘Oh, right. Well, thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me yet. Just remember what I said about standing up for yourself. And take a taxi. I don’t want you getting lost between here and Kensington.’

‘I’ve got an A to Z—’ she began.

‘I said take a taxi, Jilly. I promised Max you’d get there today, not at the convenience of London Transport. I’ll call him and let him know that you’re on the way.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Go!’ As Jilly still hesitated she said, ‘This is an emergency! Get a receipt and give it to Max—he’ll pay.’

Jilly didn’t stop to argue. No one had ever wanted her badly enough to pay for a taxi before—if this was working in London it was no wonder Gemma was having such a good time. She picked up her suitcase and, holding the agency card with Max Fleming’s address on it, she retreated swiftly to the pavement to hail one of the famous black London taxis.

She’d seen it done on the films and on television a thousand times but could hardly believe she was doing it herself as, clutching her suitcase, she stepped out into the street, stuck her hand in the air and yelled ‘Taxi!’

To her astonishment a cruising cab-driver executed a neat U-turn in the centre of the street, pulled up beside her and opened the door from the inside. It worked! She climbed aboard and sat back, grinning broadly. It had been a shaky start, but she was actually beginning to enjoy herself.

The taxi came to halt outside an elegant house tucked away behind a high wall in a discreet garden square in Kensington. ‘Here we are, miss,’ the driver said, opening the door for her. She paid him what he asked and then boldly added a tip. He grinned at her. ‘Thanks. Do you want a receipt?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes. Thanks for reminding me, I’m not used to this.’ She took the slip of paper he handed her and turned to the black-painted gate set into the wall and pressed the bell.

‘Yes?’ A woman’s voice enquired from a small speaker.

‘Jilly Prescott,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m from the Garland Agency.’

‘Thank goodness. Come in.’

A buzzer sounded and she pushed the gate open. She had no time to stare up at the elegant façade of Max Fleming’s home, or take in more than the briefest impression of his elegantly paved garden, the stone urns planted with evergreens, a small bronze statue of a nymph tucked into a wall niche above a semi-circular pool.

The grey-haired woman who had answered the bell was standing in the open doorway beckoning impatiently. ‘Come along, Miss Prescott, Max is waiting for you.’ She led the way through a spacious hall, passed a curving staircase and paused at a wide panelled door. ‘Go straight in,’ she said.

Jilly found herself on the threshold of a small panelled office. Beyond it an inner door was open and she could hear the low growl of a masculine voice apparently speaking on the telephone since she could hear only one person.

She dropped her suitcase beside the desk, slipped off her gloves and jacket and glanced around her. On the desk were two telephones, an intercom, a partly used shorthand notebook and a pot full of sharpened pencils. Behind it on a custom-built workbench were a state-of-the-art PC and printer. She wondered what software package was installed and, retrieving her spectacles from her handbag, propped them on her nose and leaned forward to switch it on.

‘Harriet!’ The disembodied voice had apparently finished with his telephone call and Jilly abandoned the computer, retrieved the notebook from the desk, grabbed a handful of pencils and, swiftly tucking in a slither of hair that was hell-bent on escape from her French pleat, she pushed open the inner door. Max Fleming was standing at the window looking out over the wintry garden and he didn’t look round. ‘Hasn’t that damned girl arrived yet?’ he demanded.

Jilly’s first impression of Max Fleming was that he was too thin; too thin for his height and too thin for the width of his shoulders. It was an impression that seemed to be confirmed by the way his suit jacket hung loosely about him as if he had lost a considerable amount of weight since it had been made for him. But his hair was dark like his sister’s, and, like hers, wonderfully thick and beautifully cut, the darkness only emphasised by a streak of silver at his temple.

That was all she had time to notice before he banged on the floor irritably with a slender ebony cane upon which he had been leaning. Then he half turned and caught sight of her. For a moment he said nothing, simply stared as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes.

‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded.

It would have been so easy to be intimidated, Jilly thought. His sister had already warned her that he could be a monster and, looking into a pair of eyes that glittered at her darkly out of his thin face, she believed it. And as they swept over her she recognised the moment for what it was. If she showed the slightest hint of nervousness under the challenge in those hard eyes she might as well turn around and walk out right now because he would take advantage of that weakness and run her ragged. What was it his sister had said? If he shouted at her, be direct.

‘I guess I’m your damned girl,’ she said, as directly as she knew how, and stared right back at him. She might be the wrong side of her twenty-first birthday, just, but she had never been scared of playground bullies and she certainly wasn’t going to crumple now. For a moment the room was shockingly silent. Then Jilly, having demonstrated that she wasn’t to be intimidated, pushed her spectacles up her nose and offered a truce. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, but the traffic was terrible. I wanted to come by underground but Ms Garland said I should take a taxi.’

One arched brow rose a fraction. ‘Did she say anything else?’

Plenty, but she wasn’t about to repeat it. ‘That you would pay the fare?’ she offered.

‘Did she, indeed?’ She’d hoped for a laugh, or at least a softening of that hard mouth into something approaching a smile. She didn’t get it. Nor, she discovered, could she reduce this austere man to a mental laughing stock with a picture of him naked. Imagining Max Fleming naked wouldn’t work at all, she decided as her cheeks, and just about everything else, heated up under the continued intensity of his unsparing gaze. It was as if he were looking right through to her bones, assessing what she was made of, and for just a second or two her determination not to be outfaced wavered.

‘Well, someone will have to because I can’t afford to go gallivanting about in taxis,’ she said, determinedly forcing herself back onto the offensive. And she crossed what seemed like an acre of exquisite oriental carpet to place a small slip of paper on his desk. ‘That’s the receipt. I’ll leave you to sort it out between you.’

Max Fleming’s first thought was that she couldn’t possibly be one of Amanda’s sought-after Garland Girls. She lacked any trace of the style and the exquisite grooming for which they were so justly famous. She wasn’t even pretty. Her eyes were hidden behind the owlish glasses, but her nose was too big and so was her mouth. Wide, full and simply bursting to smile given the slightest encouragement. And as for her hair…milk-chocolate brown, it was beginning to slide untidily from the combs doing an inefficient job of anchoring up the strands which refused to comply with her regulation French pleat. Then there were her clothes…

She was dressed in a neat white blouse and a plain grey skirt of undistinguished origin that stopped demurely just above her knee—an ensemble that suggested a school uniform. Then he realised it didn’t remind him of a school uniform, she was far too tidy for that; what she reminded him of was an old-fashioned secretary, right down to the heavy tortoiseshell spectacle frames…

And suddenly it all became clear.