Dating Her Boss

‘Jacobs.’ She smiled as she filled in the missing piece. ‘But, please, just call me Harriet. Everyone does.’

‘Thank you, Harriet.’ But when she got through to Gemma’s office she was told that her cousin was on holiday and wouldn’t be in the office until the end of the month. She sat and stared at the telephone for a moment. Richie was the only other person she knew in London. She hadn’t intended calling him until she was settled, until she could ring him and casually say, ‘Hi, I’m working in London, thought I’d give you a call…’ But this was an emergency and, after all, she was his ‘best girl’. She found the number in her address book and dialled it.

‘Rich Productions.’

‘Can I speak to Richie Blake, please?’

‘Who?’

‘Richie—’ Then she remembered. He was Rich now. Rich Blake, television’s newest and brightest star. ‘Rich Blake,’ she said. ‘This is Jilly Prescott. A friend,’ she added, then wished she hadn’t. It made her sound like some girl he’d met once trying to make it into something more important.

‘Mr Blake is in a meeting.’ The girl’s unhelpful response gave the impression that was exactly what she thought.

‘Then would you give him a message?’ Jilly persisted politely. ‘Will you tell him that Jilly Prescott called?’ She repeated her name carefully. ‘Will you please tell him that I’m in London and that I need to speak to him urgently? Ask him to call me back at this number.’ And she gave the girl Max Fleming’s telephone number. There was no response. ‘Have you got that?’ she asked, rather more sharply than she had meant to.

‘Sure. I’ll tell him.’ And Jilly had a mental image of the girl crumpling up the note and flinging it into the nearest bin. About to say that she really was an old friend, that he would want to know she was in town, she restrained herself. Richie—Rich—was a celebrity these days. Girls probably rang him all the time and Jilly was getting the distinct impression that the bored voice at the other end of the telephone had heard it all before.

Her mother was rather more pleased to hear from her. Too pleased. ‘Jilly! Thank goodness you’ve phoned. I’ve just found out that Gemma’s away.’ It was uncanny the way she did that. Just found out things. Where she’d been, who she’d been with. There had never been any point in telling her mother even the tiniest little white lie. She always found out. ‘Your auntie has just been round showing off a postcard Gemma sent her from Florida. She’s gone there with her boyfriend.’ Disapproval oozed down the telephone line. ‘I just knew it was a mistake for you to go racing off like that. What are you going to do now?’

She was being given a choice? She wasn’t being ordered back on the first train home like a child? No, her mother was cleverer than that. She would rely on the promise given that she would go straight home if anything went wrong—a promise she had given in the certainty that nothing could.

She was twenty years old, for heaven’s sake, nearly twenty-one. Not a child. A twenty-year-old, moreover, who had taken on a job, had people—well, Max Fleming—relying on her. Her mother would understand that, surely? ‘Mum, right now I have half a book of shorthand notes to type up. Until that’s done I can’t think about anything else,’ she said. But she was thinking that it would be nice, just for once, to behave like her madcap cousin, forget promises and do what she wanted.

Gemma was irresponsible, she dyed her hair and lived in London and her mother had always said she would come to a bad end. Maybe she would, but right now Gemma was on holiday in Florida. With a boyfriend. Jilly didn’t have a boyfriend. Not that she hadn’t had offers, but there had only ever been Richie and just lately he seemed to have forgotten she existed…

‘What a disappointment for you,’ her mother said, all sympathy now she was sure Jilly would be home in hours. ‘What’s it like? The job, I mean.’ Certain of Jilly’s obedient response to the jerk of the apron strings, she clearly felt at liberty to allow her curiosity its head.

‘The job?’ Jilly, who wasn’t feeling at all charitable towards her mother, her cousin or anyone else, laid it on with a trowel. ‘The job is wonderful. Mr Fleming was so eager to have me start that Ms Garland sent me here in a taxi. The money is four times what I was earning before and the office cloakroom is marble,’ she added. A marble cloakroom would really impress her mother.

‘Really?’ Her mother’s offhand tone and the little sniff that went with it were a dead giveaway. She was impressed all right. ‘And this Mr Fleming, what’s he like?’

‘Mr Fleming?’ What was Max Fleming like? She remembered the moment when he had turned from the window and stared at her. No man had ever looked at her quite like that before, made her feel quite that…transparent. Not that she was going to tell her mother that. Instead, with a flash of inspiration, she went for her sympathy. ‘He’s been ill, I think. He walks with a stick.’ That made him sound positively geriatric, she realised belatedly.

‘Ah, the poor man—’ Mrs Prescott was all concern.

Geriatric was good, Jilly realised. ‘And he’s obviously had a terrible time getting a temp that can take shorthand down here,’ she said, throwing in a sop to her mother’s northern prejudices.

‘Well, he won’t be able to complain about your work.’ Her mother’s smug satisfaction about that irritated her. What was the point of being the very best at your job if you had to live at home and work in some dreary solicitor’s office for a pittance? She wanted a job like Amanda Garland’s secretary; she wanted to dress in a suit that cost a mint of money, have her split ends trimmed by someone who knew the right way to hold the scissors…Heck, why stop at that? She wanted to be Amanda Garland, not her secretary. ‘What does he do?’ her mother asked, cutting in on this wild daydream. Her mother had no objection to chatting long distance on the telephone at someone else’s expense.

‘He’s an economist; he’s working with the World Bank to find money to finance water resources for those poor little children in Africa. You know, the ones you see on the television.’ Tugging shamelessly on her mother’s well-developed sense of sympathy, she sighed dramatically. ‘I don’t know how he’s going to manage…’ Then, ‘I’ll have to go now, Mum, I’ve a pile of work to do—’

But her mother wasn’t finished. ‘Have you spoken to Richie Blake, yet?’ She kept her voice carefully neutral, but even so the distrust seeped around the edges.

‘No, not yet.’ The plain unvarnished truth.

But the day was not yet over.

‘Well, I’d better let you go, Jilly. Ring me and let me know what train you’ll be on.’

Her mother’s complacent belief that she would give up the best job she had ever had and return home without making an effort to find somewhere to stay until Gemma returned was practically an incitement to rebellion.

Promptly at three o’clock she tapped on Max Fleming’s office door, entered and placed the completed report on his desk.

He glanced at the report, then at the clock on the mantelpiece striking the hour, and then sat back in his big leather chair and regarded her with those penetrating grey eyes. ‘Tell me, Jilly, did you wait until you heard the clock begin to chime or was it pure chance that brought you through the door on the stroke of three?’

He knew the answer to that as well as she did, but she refused to be intimidated. ‘Pure chance,’ she replied without hesitation.

‘In a pig’s eye.’

Jilly blinked. Her solicitor would never have dreamed of saying anything like that. But he was right, of course, she’d been finished in plenty of time. She’d used it to try Richie’s office again. He’d gone out. ‘Whatever you say, sir.’

He looked quickly down at the report, but not before she’d seen his mouth twitch in a rather promising way. ‘Max. Call me Max. And sit down while I check this for mistakes.’

‘You won’t find any.’

‘Then it won’t take long, will it?’

She didn’t reply, but flinched as he checked some figures against a computer printout and then crossed through the ones she had typed, replacing them with a new set. He glanced up and this time there was no doubt about the smile. ‘I had second thoughts about those figures. Reprint it, will you? Six copies. And call a courier. I want it biked over to the ODA the minute it’s printed.’ He saw her blank look. ‘The Overseas Development Agency,’ he explained. ‘There’s an address book on your desk. Not that they’ll do anything with it until it’s too late.’

Unable to think of any suitable reply to that, she picked up the report and headed back to her office.

‘Then bring your book in,’ he added before she reached the door. ‘If I clear my in-tray tonight you can start working on it first thing in the morning. I’ll be out until midday—’

She stopped, turned to look at him, her heart in her boots. There was no point in putting it off any longer, she would have to tell him. ‘I’m sorry, but I doubt if I’ll be here in the morning, Mr Fleming.’

He glanced up from the pile of mail in front of him. ‘Not here? Of course you’ll be here. Didn’t Amanda tell you that I needed you for at least two weeks, possibly longer?’

‘Yes, she did. But you were right. My cousin is on holiday—she’s in Florida, so I’ve got nowhere to stay.’

‘But that’s no reason to go rushing back to…’ He paused, clearly trying to remember where it was she had said she came from.

‘North of Watford,’ she reminded him.

‘Somewhere no one has ever heard of,’ he retaliated. Then, ‘She won’t be away for ever.’

She might as well be. ‘Until the end of the month.’

‘Exactly. Two weeks. You can stay in a hotel until then.’

Just like that? ‘I’m sure you mean well, Mr Fleming—’

‘Max,’ he reminded her.

‘Max,’ she repeated awkwardly. She’d never called anyone she worked for by their first name before. ‘I’ve been temping since November and in case you hadn’t noticed we’ve just had Christmas. I had to pay for my train fare down here on my credit card—’

‘In other words, don’t be such an idiot?’

‘I didn’t say that—’

‘You were thinking it, and you were right. But you’re not going anywhere, Jilly Prescott. You’re the first girl I’ve had in this office in the last two weeks who even comes close to Laura…’ he saw her frown ‘…my secretary. She’s away looking after her mother.’

‘Yes, Ms Garland told me.’

He regarded her closely. ‘There must be somewhere you can stay?’

Must there? ‘Any number of park benches,’ she offered. ‘And there’s Waterloo Bridge if I provide my own cardboard box—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he said angrily. The very thought of her sleeping rough sent a shiver up his spine. But there had to be some solution. He’d call Amanda; having found the perfect secretary for him, she would surely do anything to help him to keep her, if only to keep him off her back. ‘Sit down.’

‘What about this report?’

He didn’t answer, simply fixed her with his eyes and waited for her to obey him. She returned to the chair in front of his desk and sat down without another word. Only then did he reach for the telephone. ‘Amanda? I need another favour.’

‘Please tell me that you haven’t given that poor girl such a hard time that she’s left already? I did warn you—’

‘That “poor girl” needs none of your sympathy. What she needs is a roof over her head for the next two weeks.’

‘So?’

‘Can you find her somewhere?’

‘I run an employment agency, darling, not an accommodation bureau.’ He waited. ‘I don’t understand why you need my help,’ she added unhelpfully.

‘Who else would I ask?’

‘Darling, look around you. You’ve got enough room in that barn of a house for twenty secretaries. Put her in one of them. She’ll be handy when you get some brilliant idea in the middle of night.’

‘I can’t do that—’

‘Why not? Really, Max, if you’re worried that she’ll think you’re lusting after her luscious young body tell her that you’re gay.’

‘Mandy!’

‘No? Macho pride couldn’t stand it? Well, in that case you’ll just have to convince her that Harriet will make a perfectly adequate chaperon, won’t you?’ And with that she hung up.

CHAPTER THREE

MAX replaced the receiver and looked at the girl sitting opposite him. Amanda’s solution to the problem was so obvious that he should have thought of it himself. He just wished she hadn’t put ideas into his head. It reminded him of his mistaken belief that Jilly had been a kissogram, that she had the kind of figure that would have made a nineteen-forties pin-up envious.

Jilly was looking at him expectantly and he swallowed hard. ‘My sister always sees thing so clearly,’ he said. ‘The answer is obvious. You must stay here.’

‘Here!’ The blood rushed to Jilly’s cheeks. ‘In your house?’ she added, eyes wide. ‘But that’s—’

It hadn’t occurred to Max to take his sister seriously, but his offer appeared to confirm everything Jilly’s mother had ever warned her about London in general and men in particular and he rapidly revised his plan to install her in the guest suite. ‘There’s a self-contained flat above the garage block,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s not fancy, but it’s a lot better than a cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge.’

Jilly couldn’t believe it. How dared his sister call him a monster? Max Fleming was an absolute darling and she wanted to leap out of her chair and fling her arms around him and tell him that he was her knight in shining armour. His expression, however, and the stiffness with which he held himself, suggested that he would not welcome that kind of response.

‘Well?’ he said as she hesitated, dithering awkwardly in front of his desk. ‘What are you waiting for? I want that report on the Minister’s desk today.’

‘I’ll go and sort out that courier,’ she said. Then, at the door, she looked back. ‘Thank you, Max.’

He waved her away impatiently, head already bent over a column of figures.

The flat was small but, as promised, self-contained. There was a stone staircase leading up the side of the garage block to a door that opened into a tiny vestibule and then directly into the living room.

‘This is lovely,’ Jilly said when, at last, Max had cleared his in-tray and Harriet was able to take her across to show her around. Max Fleming was right, it wasn’t fancy, but it was comfortable and it had to be worth ten times anything she could afford. ‘Why is it empty?’

‘It was the chauffeur’s flat in the old days. Max’s father refused to learn to drive. Amanda and Laura wanted Max to take someone on after his accident but he wouldn’t, said he’d rather hire a car and driver when he needed one—not that he goes out much these days.’ Jilly would have liked to ask Harriet why, but she wasn’t given the chance as the woman went on, ‘I’ve brought across some basic necessities for you—tea, milk, that sort of thing—and the telephone is connected. Max said to tell you that phoning home is one of the perks of the job.’

‘Oh, that’s kind.’

Harriet gave her a sideways look and said, ‘I’m sure you’ll earn it. He works day and night and he’ll have you doing the same if you let him.’ She handed her a keyring. ‘Here’s the door key. The other key opens the side gate. Settle in and then come across to the house. Dinner is at eight.’ Dinner? The flash of panic must have been visible on her face, because Harriet smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry. Max won’t expect you to dress up, just don’t wear jeans—the dining room chairs are antique and denim is murder on the fabric.’

‘Actually—’ Harriet waited. ‘Do you think Mr Fleming would mind if I skipped dinner? I didn’t get much sleep last night and I’m fit to drop.’

‘And he kept you working until nearly seven.’ Harriet was sympathetic. ‘You’ll have to be tough with him, Jilly.’

‘He said I could start late in the morning to make up for it. He’ll be out until lunchtime.’

‘Make sure you do that. And don’t worry about dinner, he always works through it so I doubt if he’ll even notice you’re missing. Can I bring you something to eat here? You won’t feel like cooking.’

‘I’ll just make myself a cup of tea and a slice of toast and fall into bed, thanks all the same.’

‘Well, come across in the morning and I’ll cook you some breakfast—you’ll be hungry by then.’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but said goodnight and left.

Jilly closed the door and leaned on it, looking around her, scarcely able to believe her luck. Then a huge yawn caught her by surprise. It was, she decided, quite possible that she wouldn’t get as far as making toast. But she had to have a bath. And phone her mother. That would take careful handling. What was she going to say?

I’m such a great secretary that Max has given me the flat above his garage rather than lose me? She could just imagine her mother’s reaction to that news. She’d struggled to bring up three young children on her own and her opinion of men was not good at the best of times.

It was utterly ridiculous, of course—a man like Max Fleming wouldn’t look twice at a girl like her. But perhaps it would be a good idea if she continued to refer to him as Mr Fleming…The geriatric Mr Fleming. The thought provoked a giggle as she rang home.

‘Jilly! What on earth is happening? I’ve been sitting here all afternoon waiting, worrying—’

Jilly brought the giggle under control and quickly said, ‘Everything’s fine, Mum. Mr Fleming has offered me the use of the chauffeur’s flat until Gemma gets back. If you’ve got a pen there, I’ll give you the telephone number.’

‘Where’s the chauffeur?’ her mother demanded suspiciously.

‘He hasn’t got one. The place was empty. I’ll give you the phone number now, if you’re ready.’

‘Oh. Right. Just a minute, I’ll have to find something to write with.’ Disappointment oozed down the line and Jilly suddenly realised that her mother must have thought it was her lucky day when she’d discovered Gemma was away. Well, she wasn’t about to give her time to think of some other reason why she simply had to come straight home.

She read the number off the dial. Then, before her mother asked any awkward questions—like, What kind of office block has a chauffeur’s flat?—she said, ‘Look, I’ll have to go, Mum. This is long distance.’ And she didn’t feel in the least bit wicked for using her mother’s excuses for her own ends. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow evening. Don’t worry, now. Bye.’ She put the phone down quickly. That had been easier than she’d thought.

It rang again almost immediately, making her jump, and she smiled a little grimly. She’d congratulated herself a fraction too soon. She picked up the receiver somewhat gingerly.

‘Jilly Prescott.’

‘I was just checking that I’d got the number right,’ her mother said.

Just checking up on her, more like. ‘Good idea, Mum.’

‘And what’s the address?’

She told her and then quickly said goodbye and hung up before her mother thought of any more questions.

She glanced at the telephone, wondering if she should try Richie’s office again. She checked her watch and realised that it was nearly seven-thirty. Far too late.

She unpacked, hanging her clothes neatly in the closet. The bed had been made, presumably by Harriet; it took a real effort of will to drag herself away from the temptation of the turned-back cover and white linen sheets and to go and run a bath.

The bathroom wasn’t up to the marble magnificence of the cloakroom in the house, but the water was hot and there were expensive bath salts and a pile of fresh towels just like the ones in the cloakroom. Too much of this, she thought as she sank beneath the water, and she’d be spoilt rotten.

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