Secretary on Demand (9 page)

At eight-thirty, she found that she was restlessly looking at her watch and rather than continue to cradle her glass, she drained it, made her excuses and began the journey back to the bedsit.

It was now dark by four in the afternoon and by nine it was dark enough and cold enough for her to think that she was walking down some street in Siberia. A stiff, steady breeze whipped against her, making her ears and face and fingers feel numb.

From the underground to her place was no more than a matter of fifteen minutes' walk. She made it back in under ten, racing along the pavements, her arms tightly drawn around her body to conserve some heat.

It occurred to her that when she had decided to flee Ireland and head for another life in London, she could just have easily have headed abroad. Somewhere hot. She could have got a job doing a spot of nannying somewhere where the sun shone until eight in the evening. Or, frankly, somewhere where the sun shone and didn't pay occasional visits like a guest with better things to do than hang around in one spot for too long. The Italian Riviera might have been nice. She might have had to learn Italian but it would have been a small sacrifice for glorious warm days and glamorous movie-star-style nights, flitting from one venue to another.

The fantasy was enough to sustain her sense of humour until she made it back to her bedsit, clambering up the three flights of stairs to the shabby door to her room. She couldn't wait to feed the meter and get some heat crawling back into her.

What a dump, Shannon thought, looking around her despondently. She was sick and tired of trying to see the
good things about it. The fact that it was fairly central and not too far from the underground. The fact that the fridge and stove and oven actually worked. The fact that, unlike most bedsits, this one had its own bathroom. Was it any wonder, she asked herself fiercely, that she was so willing to work extra hours, babysitting?

It was nine-thirty by the time the room had warmed up sufficiently for her to relax. She'd had a shower and changed into her maiden-aunt night attire of flannel nightdress and fluffy bedroom slippers. She'd had nothing to eat but the thought of doing anything that required more effort than it took to make a mug of hot chocolate wasn't worth thinking about. Another thing, she thought sourly, that she had become accustomed to. Hot food, the shared pleasure of making it with Eleanor.

To begin with, Mrs Porter had left casseroles for them to eat, but after a couple of days they had both found it more fun to try their hand at cooking dinner themselves. There were always masses of fresh vegetables and the freezer was well stocked. Mrs Porter, who did all the shopping, was as expert in her purchasing as she evidently was in her culinary skills.

She switched on the television and was half watching something on the news when there was a knock on the door. Three sharp knocks, actually. Since Shannon couldn't imagine who it could be, and there was no way that she was opening the door to some drunken lout who had come to see someone else in the building and had mistakenly lurched his way to her door instead, she remained where she was, cradling her mug with her hands, her feet curled under her, waiting for whoever it might be to stagger off to their correct destination. When the knocking continued, but more urgently, she finally
stormed to the door and flung it open. Or rather flung it open the few inches that her chain lock permitted.

‘Mind letting me in?' Kane asked.

She didn't. She was too shocked to see him. ‘Who's with Eleanor? What are you doing here?'

‘Mrs Porter. Let me in.'

‘How did you know where I lived?'

‘These and other questions to be answered shortly. Just as soon as you open this door and let me in.'

‘W
AIT
a minute.' Before Kane could say anything, Shannon slammed the door in his face and rushed to get her bathrobe.

She reappeared at the door several seconds later with the bathrobe drawn tightly around her. The bedroom slippers, a previous Christmas present from one of her brothers, would have to stay on.

‘Come in, then,' she said reluctantly, pulling back the chain and allowing him to enter.

‘How,' she asked, leaning against the door with her hands behind her while he took the few steps needed to get to the other side of the room, ‘did you know my address?'

He was so damned big that her bedsit seemed to have shrunk to the size of a matchbox, and his masculine aroma, a fuzzy mixture of clean, cold air and the remnants of aftershave, filled her nostrils like incense.

‘I know everything, reds. Haven't you realised that already?' He grinned. ‘Actually, I had a look in your personnel file. Believe it or not, that's what they're there for. Useful information. And stop standing by that door and shivering. Why don't you offer me something to drink? Like a good hostess would.'

‘It's late. I really am tired.'

‘I thought you said that you could party from dusk till dawn,' he pointed out, using her own frivolous aside to bludgeon through her feeble excuse. ‘Mind if I take my coat off?'

Shannon shrugged in a non-answer and he removed the trench coat, folding it in half and then placing it on one of the two chairs in the room.

‘Ah. Hot chocolate,' he said, spying the half-empty cup on the table. ‘It's been years since I had hot chocolate. I used to love it when I was a kid. A cup would be great.' He gave her a slow, implacable smile and Shannon reluctantly unglued herself from the door and sidled past him, muttering along the way that he might as well sit down and make himself comfortable.

She returned a few minutes later with a mug of hot chocolate to find him browsing unashamedly among the array of family snapshots which had been the first thing to decorate her bedsit when she'd first moved in.

‘Who's this?' he asked, holding up a framed picture in one hand.

‘My family,' Shannon said, handing him the mug but keeping her distance.

‘Brothers and sisters?'

‘Yes.'

‘What are their names?'

So she had to take a few steps closer to him to peer at the picture and point to each member of her family, listing them by name from the eldest Shaun down to the youngest Brian. As she spoke, he sipped his hot chocolate and she could feel his breath as he exhaled very gently on the top of her head. When she had finished, he carefully placed the picture on the ledge exactly where he had found it, but continued to scan them all, asking her questions about where they were now and what they were doing.

‘You must be very close to them.'

‘I am.'

‘Which is probably why you're such a natural when
it comes to Eleanor. You've grown accustomed over the years to sharing your time with other people. What about your father?'

‘He died a few years ago.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' Kane said quietly.

He moved back but instead of sitting in the required docile manner on the chair so that she could begin quizzing him on what he was doing in her bedsit at this time of the night, he surveyed the rest of the room, even having the nerve to check the kitchen, before saying with a frown, ‘Where's the bedroom?'

‘Why?' Shannon immediately asked with sudden, mounting panic. ‘Why do you want to know where the bedroom is?'

‘
Bedroom
I said, not
bed
.' He gave the chair in the corner a doubtful look, as if unsure as to whether it would take his weight, and then gingerly sat down.

‘There is no bedroom. The sofa is really a single bed. I just fling the sheet on it when I'm ready to go to bed and use the big, square cushions for pillows. It's very comfy, actually.'

‘You sleep on a chair?'

‘Sofa,' she corrected, bristling at the incredulous contempt in his voice at her living arrangements.

‘Surely we pay you enough to find somewhere a bit…' he looked around him and she could see him searching for the least offensive description to apply ‘…bigger?'

‘Places are very hard to come by in London,' Shannon informed him, following his eyes and looking around the poky room herself. ‘It was a bit of luck getting this in the first place, as a matter of fact.'

‘Yes. A bit of bad luck.' Kane drank some more of the hot chocolate. ‘How was your evening at the pub?'

‘Don't try to distract me with lots of questions. What are you doing here?'

‘I was in the area and…'

‘You thought you'd drop by for a cup of coffee and a chat?'

‘Not exactly, no. I thought I'd take a drive to see how far you have to walk once you get to your underground station here.'

Shannon gave an exasperated sigh.

‘And I wanted to check out the area,' he expanded, making her feel even more cringingly helpless.

‘Is there any chance at all that you might stop acting as though I'm too young or too stupid to take care of myself?' Realising that she was still standing up, Shannon tucked herself back into the sofa and folded her arms imperiously.

‘If that's the impression I've given you, I apologise,' he said in a voice that didn't sound very apologetic, ‘but when I think of Eleanor living in a place like this, my skin crawls. And if, for some reason, she found herself forced to, I'd be bloody glad if there was someone around who took an interest.'

‘You mean someone like you.'

Kane shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

‘In other words, I should be grateful for you nosing around in my private life.'

‘Does your mother know about your living conditions?' he asked shrewdly, and Shannon squirmed a little bit, whilst trying to hang on to the liberated, twenty-first-century veneer she was in the process of creating.

‘Of course she does,' Shannon lied. It was, in fact, such a vast lie, that she amended slightly, ‘Well, she knows I don't live anywhere grand…' She had an uncomfortable feeling that her mum thought she was living
somewhere small but charming, a bit like a smaller version of her own house, in fact. Somewhere with more than two rooms and an atmosphere of cosy homeliness. She would have an instant heart attack were she to know that the small but charming place in her head was in reality a charmless dump in a borderline part of the city.

Shannon could imagine her mother swooping down to London on a bedsit inspection tour and she would probably drag her daughter back off to Ireland the minute she clapped eyes on her rented accommodation.

‘I take it you've been economical with the truth.'

‘I had to,' Shannon grumbled defensively, ‘for her own good.'

He didn't say anything for so long that she finally blurted out, ‘Look, I haven't eaten yet, so would you mind leaving? I'm tired and I'm hungry and I'm not in the mood to argue with you. I'm not your child, you don't have to look after me and when I can afford something better, I shall naturally move out. I don't see why you're complaining. I do a good job for you at work and I don't complain about travelling back here in the evenings.'

‘Why haven't you eaten?'

Oh, Lord, here we go again, she thought. More lectures, this time about the importance of nutrition.

‘Because I was having such a brilliant time at the pub that I just didn't give it a moment's thought!'

‘Well, we'd better rectify the situation.' He stood up and Shannon scrambled to her feet in pursuit.

“‘We'd” better rectify the situation?'

‘That's right.' He began rummaging through her cupboards, then he opened the fridge and scanned the contents with a critical eye.

‘Not much here, is there?'

‘Do you mind?' Shannon spluttered to his back, finally slipping past him and slamming the fridge door shut.

The fridge, as she had known, was virtually bare. No cheese, just some butter and some milk, but whoever heard of spaghetti and milk? Or spaghetti and chocolate mousse? With a few mouldy onions thrown in for good measure?

She closed the fridge door and faced him with quiet dignity.

‘I may have forgotten do go shopping recently,' she agreed loftily, catching his amused eye for a few seconds then looking away. ‘As a matter of fact, I've never been one of these people who is obsessed with food.'

‘I wouldn't call having more than three items in a fridge being
obsessed with food
,' he murmured. ‘Go and get changed, reds, and we'll go out and have a quick meal. ‘I'll turn my back while you get dressed, if you like,' he added gallantly, and she snorted with laughter.

‘OK, then, I won't.' He looked at her slowly, from her feet upwards, taking his time, arms folded, until every nerve in her body was vibrating with tension.

‘I don't suppose you'll just go away?'

‘Now, why would I do that when I can stand here and watch you change?' He smiled at her blushing outrage as she pulled open the door to the small wardrobe, wretchedly conscious of the man peering curiously over her shoulder. She extracted the first things that came to hand and stormed into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

‘No need to lock the door, you know,' his voice came from very close to the door indeed. ‘Don't you trust me?'

‘You're a man, aren't you?' Shannon retorted, strug
gling out of one set of clothes and into another—this time jeans, a long-sleeved green jumper and a pair of thick socks.

‘Now, why do I get the feeling that underneath that liberated, feminist remark is an incurable romantic?'

‘Because,' she said, yanking the door open and, as she'd expected, finding him standing two inches away from it, ‘you don't know me?'

Instead of answering, Kane located her coat hanging from a hook behind the door and held it out for her. The brief contact of his fingers brushing against her arms felt strangely like an invasion of her privacy and she stepped away, fumbling with the buttons, aware that in her haste to get dressed she had omitted a bra, so that now her breasts felt heavy and her nipples tingled against the rough grain of the jumper. She had a fleeting reckless thought that he might very well be aware of her bra-less state, and hot on the heels of that came the even more reckless thought of his hands caressing her bare breasts under the jumper, seeking out her sensitive nipples, playing with them with his fingers. Just imagining it, it made her body feel hot and feverish.

‘I hope I'm well dressed enough for this little meal you've insisted on taking me for.' She had thought that a sparky comment from her might re-create some vital distance between them but, instead of rising to her bait, he smiled and raised his eyebrows in an unnervingly knowing way.

‘It makes a delightful change to see you out of work clothes,' he said, opening her door and then politely stepping back so that she could fiddle with her key.

‘
Delightful?
Isn't that taking courtesy a bit far?' she asked feverishly.

‘Don't you like being described as delightful?' His
eyes were shuttered. ‘What adjective would you rather I used? How about sexy? Mmm. Yes, sexy might be more apt. Those freckles, that ivory white skin and flaming hair. Not obviously sexy, but discreetly so. Like a woman in jeans and a man's shirt, not thinking she's flaunting anything but arousing all sorts of illicit thoughts anyway.'

His words made her feel limp.

‘I don't arouse illicit thoughts,' she squeaked.

‘How do you know?'

‘Because…' she spluttered helplessly.

‘Would it turn you on if you thought you did?'

‘No!'

‘So…should I keep my illicit thoughts to myself, then?' He dropped his eyes so that she couldn't see whether he was being serious or not. No, of course he wasn't being serious, she thought hotly.

‘You haven't got any illicit thoughts, so you can stop playing games!'

‘You're very suspicious of the opposite sex, aren't you?' he said, letting her off the hook and allowing her to lead the way down the narrow flight of stairs to the front door, but stepping forward once they were in the hall to open the door for her. ‘Not really surprising, I suppose. One sour relationship can have a knock-on effect that lasts much longer than we expect.'

‘Oh, you speak from experience, do you?' Shannon asked sarcastically, stepping past him, her head held high just in case he got the notion that anything he said might actually be absorbed and stored for inspection at a later date.

‘Not really, no,' he admitted, walking towards the high street, his hands in his pockets and his coat flapping around him, brushing against her legs. They walked with
their heads down, instinctively pushing against the bracing wind that had sent the temperatures dropping.

‘Was that what Gallway asked you to do? Trust him?' he quizzed her shrewdly, and Shannon could have kicked herself for her momentary slip of the tongue.

‘Isn't that what
all
men say when they're intent on getting a woman into bed?' Shannon retorted heatedly.

‘No, actually.'

‘
You're
different, I suppose?'

‘Very different,' he murmured. ‘Look. There. A Chinese restaurant. Shall we try it?'

‘OK,' she said grudgingly. ‘I never noticed before, not that I spend much time on the high street.'

‘Too dull?'

‘Way too dull for someone as sizzling as I am,' she answered brashly. ‘Not enough…pubs and wine bars and swinging clubs.'

At which Kane had the insufferable temerity to burst out laughing, and she felt a smile reluctantly tug the corners of her mouth. Like it or not, she was enjoying his company, even though he had dragged her out of the warmth of her room at an ungodly hour, kicking and screaming, more or less.