Secretary on Demand (14 page)

‘My life is none of your business! You had no right—'

‘You don't want to accept help, but accepting help sometimes can show strength of character. If you're nervous about sharing my house…'

‘Nervous? Why on earth should I be nervous?'

‘I don't know. Perhaps you think that things might be different somehow if you moved in. Less of an employer-employee situation…'

‘I don't think anything of the sort,' Shannon told him frigidly, distracted from her argument by his sweeping assumption that his presence might affect her somehow. Did he imagine that at closer quarters she might develop an unlikely crush?

‘Then what's the problem with accepting a helping hand for a month or two until you find somewhere else? Your freedom won't in any way be curtailed. I'm not going to take advantage of your good nature…' He paused and stroked his chin reflectively. ‘Well, perhaps
good nature is a bit strong,' he murmured slyly. ‘Put it this way, you can come and go as you please.'

‘How did you manage to persuade my mother to come here? How did you know where she lived?'

‘Your next of kin on your personnel file in answer to question two. And in answer to question one, I simply appealed to her good sense to come and see how you were.'

‘Ugh. Sickening.' She knew that she would get precisely nowhere if she continued ranting and railing. Her mother had been pathetic enough over Mrs Porter's superbly prepared dinner, treating Kane as though he was the impersonation of everything wonderful and even having the cheek to slide her the odd glance or two indicating how much she approved of him.

Her mother, who had always been a dragon of embarrassing, inquisitive questions when it came to her boyfriends, had melted in the face of Kane's studied thoughtfulness. She had treated Shannon's stuttering, wrath-filled protests over the washing-up with incomprehension, pointing out that she should be grateful to have found such a considerate employer who was responsible enough to take an interest in her well-being. After half an hour of this, Shannon had felt like flinging herself over the edge of the nearest precipice.

‘Your mother didn't seem to think I was sickening.'

Shannon eyed him narrowly. ‘She's probably suffering from undiagnosed senile dementia.'

‘In fact, she thought I was a very responsible, thoughtful kind of guy…as she herself said on several occasions if my memory serves me right…'

Shannon wondered how she was ever going to spend even a week in the company of someone who had a tendency to get under her skin like a worrisome burr
without going mad. But move in she would because she had been left no option.

Her mother had been predictably appalled at the bedsit, peering at everything, checking her fridge, clucking her tongue, shaking her head and generally acting as though the mere fact that her beloved daughter had lived in such a place without informing her constituted a mortal sin. She had implied to her trailing daughter that she had somehow been rescued by her saintly employer from a vicious fate of assault at knifepoint and had then proceeded to deliver a scathing lecture on her poor eating habits. As though the loss of a few pounds were somehow inextricably linked to her living arrangements.

‘Well, if I move in here—'

‘When, you mean.'

‘I intend to lay down a few ground rules,' she continued, ignoring Kane's smug interruption. ‘First of all, I don't work as an out-of-hours secretary if you have anything that needs typing. Secondly, I don't want anyone looking over my shoulder at what I'm doing—'

‘Will you be doing anything that might tempt me to do that?' he asked mildly.

‘And, thirdly, I don't intend to clock in and out and ask permission to breathe. Oh, and, fourthly, I have to give you some rent money.'

‘Absolutely no rent money,' he said forbiddingly.

‘I don't like the idea of accepting favours,' Shannon informed him stiffly.

‘Why ever not? Sometimes it's important to see the big picture or else we end up missing valuable opportunities by getting entangled in the little things. One of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is to have long-term vision.'

‘I didn't realise that I had asked for any important pieces of advice.'

‘I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't accepted a few favours along the way.'

Shannon looked at him suspiciously. ‘I can't imagine
you
accepting favours from anyone,' she muttered.

‘Hmm. For a confirmed non-drinker, I must say you've managed to finish that glass of port in record time. Can I pour you another?' Kane shot her a grin that was wickedly amused. ‘Didn't you drink at all when you lived in Ireland?'

‘Of course I did! I just didn't…drink in the house.'

‘And what other little secrets have you been keeping from that delightful mother of yours?'

Shannon thought that she might hit him at any moment.

‘I mean, does she know about the wild and irresponsible life you've been leading down here?'

‘I haven't been leading a wild and irresponsible life!' She had nightmarish visions of her mother quizzing her on her after-work activities, making dubious leaps of the imagination and coming to the wrong conclusions. ‘And stop interfering,' she added as an afterthought.

‘You're right.' He stood up and flexed his muscles. ‘I'm nothing but an interfering old busybody.' His smile was a devastating mix of rueful apology and old-fashioned charm.

Did he expect her to buy that nonsense? she wondered. His words implied that he was nothing but a harmless senior citizen whose nosy interference she should indulge, if only to humour him. Ha! His self-effacing description couldn't have been further from the truth, as they both very well knew.

‘True,' Shannon said sweetly in agreement. ‘And I
personally can't think of anything worse than an interfering old busybody.'

Kane didn't care for that. She could tell from his frowning expression, and her saccharine smile grew broader.

‘I suppose,' she mused, ‘when a person gets old there's very little left to amuse them but interfering in other people's lives. They bustle about, poking and prying, and don't even realise how irritating they are.'

‘You have a point,' Kane conceded. But before she could rest on her temporary victory and enjoy the taste of it before it evaporated altogether, he added,
sotto voce
, ‘Next time I see Rose I must ask her whether she ever considered me an interfering old fool with nothing better to do.' He laughed softly to himself, as if remembering a particularly pleasant thought. ‘Perhaps she might see it as her duty to try and patch up my poor, wounded ego.'

While Shannon was trying to find a suitably cutting retort to this, he sauntered towards the kitchen door and paused, to throw over his shoulder, ‘Oh, forgot to mention. I told your mum that you'd take a couple of days off work to move and show her around a bit. And before you thank me, there's absolutely no need.' Then he was gone before she could launch a few well-deserved verbal missiles in his direction.

 

‘I don't know how you could let yourself be conned into believing Kane Lindley,' Shannon grumbled to her mother two days later in the airport lounge, where they were waiting for Rose's flight to be called. Trust him to finish her mother's trip with flourish. First-class air fare back to Ireland. Excessive and flamboyant, she thought to herself, although when she'd tried to share this hum
ble opinion with her mother, she'd immediately found herself in the dubious role of small-minded daughter suffering a bad attack of sour grapes just because she hadn't got her own way.

‘Now, don't be silly, Shannon. I wasn't conned into anything. Kane has chosen to take you under his wing and I must say I have utmost trust in him.'

‘Why?' Shannon cried. ‘Why?'

‘Because he's a dying breed, my girl. A true gentleman.'

‘When it suits him.'

‘And Eleanor is a charming little girl. I can see how fond she is of you.' Her mother smiled warmly at her daughter. ‘You always did have a gift with the little ones. It'll do you the world of good, living there for a little while, give you time to eat properly, get your money together for somewhere better to live.'

‘Just so long as you don't go into a state of shock when I tell you that I'm moving out,' Shannon warned. ‘And you might as well know that I'll never be able to rent anywhere like Kane's house. I'll still only be able to afford somewhere small.'

‘Small doesn't have to be dangerous and dingy.'

Her mother. Brainwashed. It was enough to make a girl ill. But Shannon had to admit, as the days rolled by, that Kane was true to his word. Carrie still collected Eleanor from school, and on the very first evening had asked Shannon to let her know what nights she planned to be away so that she could come over to babysit. There would be no question of her being trapped in a full-time nanny role.

Neither had she found herself obliged to politely accept lifts to work with Kane in the mornings. He left before seven, giving her an hour to get herself together
before having to leave the house. And at the office he was utterly professional. However long the situation lasted, there would be no intrusion into her personal space.

Amidst the general upheaval, she had almost forgotten about the Christmas play until Eleanor reminded her one morning before she was about to leave for school.

‘I hope you haven't forgotten about this afternoon' were her opening words as she went into the office to find Kane sitting at her desk and riffling through her in tray.

‘Have you seen that Jones file? I'm sure I had it on my desk before I left work yesterday.'

‘Have you checked your briefcase?'

‘Good point.' He abandoned the abortive search and focused on her. ‘What about this afternoon?'

‘Eleanor's play?'

‘Damn. Damn, damn, damn.'

‘I'm afraid she'll be terribly disappointed if you don't turn up,' Shannon told him quietly. ‘I specifically arranged no meetings for you this afternoon after one-thirty and that meeting shouldn't overrun. I have to tell you that I'm really disappointed. I just can't believe that you could have forgotten about it. She's shown us her routine often enough, for Pete's sake!' As soon as the words were out she realised how cosily domesticated they made them both seem. Like a traditional couple playing at happy families instead of a boss and his secretary who had found herself in the unnatural situation of living under his roof.

To hide her burning cheeks, she began flapping around the coat rail, then spent a few seconds busying herself by dusting down her coat, as though it had some
how accumulated grit on the journey to work. When she turned to face him, she was less flushed.

‘Joke,' Kane said, standing up and spinning her chair round to face her but keeping both his hands on the back of it.

‘What?'

‘Joke. Of course I remembered about the play. A few months ago I may have forgotten about it, but I've come a long way since those days of absentee father.' He waited until she had primly positioned herself on the chair before swivelling it round to face him and leaning over her with his hands on either side of the chair. ‘Now I find our domestic little routines quite appealing, just as you seem to.'

Shannon was beginning to feel faint at his closeness. ‘We don't have a
domestic little routine
,' she denied, shakily, which made her sound as though she was guiltily denying some earth-shattering, self-evident truth.

‘Of course we do! You and Eleanor do homework and chat, and then you both prepare some food and I get home in time to catch up on the last half-hour of family chat…'

‘Family chat! Don't be ridiculous!'

Kane raised his eyebrows expressively before pushing himself away. ‘We'll leave at three. Will that give you enough time to change before we go to the school?' Having wreaked havoc with her nervous system, he had now resumed his role of thoughtful employer and was looking at her with his head inclined to one side, patiently waiting for her to answer.

Shannon could barely stammer out an affirmative and even the demands of the job, which were usually constant enough to take her mind off everything but literally what was in front of her and needed attention, failed to
deliver. Her mind refused to keep to the rails and insisted on breaking its restraints and merrily galloping down Avenue Wild Imagination.

The drive back to the house seemed unnatural at three in the afternoon, when they should both have been at work.

‘I feel like a truant,' Kane said, reading her thoughts, and Shannon relaxed enough to smile.

‘So do I,' she admitted.

‘Do you think we'll get found out and the boss will have us for dinner?'

Shannon laughed at that. Wasn't this what she found most disconcerting? His amazing ability to make her laugh when it was usually his fault that she was in a grumpy mood in the first place? However huge his personal assets were, literally and metaphorically, he still retained a sense of self-irony that could reach out and find the humour behind most things.

‘We might,' she said, playing along with the game. ‘What do you think we should do if it happens?'

‘Throw ourselves at his mercy and beg for forgiveness?'

‘Or maybe pretend that our watches were both showing the wrong time and really we thought that it was five-thirty?'

‘Ah, we'll be all right.' He gave her a sidelong, teasing look. ‘After all, our boss is known to be the fairest, most generous man in London. A paragon amongst the male sex, in fact.'

‘Funny. I thought you might reach that conclusion.' She laughed again, and the remainder of the trip back to the house passed by in pleasant silence, broken only by quiet, easygoing conversation that skirted from topic to
topic, never resting long enough on any one for it to meander down dangerous byways.