The Blind-date Proposal

Tired of being treated like a child, she got in sulkily, and he shut it after her with an exasperated click.

The car was immaculate. There were no sweetie wrappers, no empty cans, no forgotten toys or scuffed seats. It was impossible to believe that a child had ever been in it, thought Kate, wondering where poor little Alex fitted into Finn’s efficiently streamlined life.

Still buoyed up by a combination of alcohol and nerves, and anticipating an uncomfortable journey, she leant forward and switched on the radio. Classical, of course. Pressing random buttons, she searched for Capital Radio, until Finn got in to the driver’s seat and switched it off with a frown.

‘Stop fiddling and do up your seatbelt.’

‘Yes, sir!’ muttered Kate.

Finn lay his arm along the back of her seat and swivelled so that that he could see to reverse the car along the narrow street to the turning place at the bottom. Kate was acutely aware of how close his hand was to her hair and she made a big deal of rummaging in her bag at her feet in case he thought that she was leaning invitingly towards him.

It was a relief when they reached the turning place and Finn took his arm away to put the car into gear. At least she could sit back.

Only it wasn’t that much easier then. Finn was a fierce, formidable presence, overwhelming in the dark confines of the car while the rain and the sleet splattered against the windscreen and made the space shrink even further. The light from the dashboard lit his face with a green glow, glancing along his cheekbones and highlighting the severe mouth.

He was concentrating on driving, and Kate watched him under her lashes, daunted more than she wanted to admit by his air of contained competence. It was evident in the calm, decisive way he drove, and when her eyes followed his left hand from the steering wheel to the gear stick, something stirred inside her and she looked quickly away.

Her wine-induced high had shrivelled, leaving her tongue-tied and agonisingly aware of him. It was ridiculous, Kate scolded herself. He was still Finn. He was a disagreeable, if thankfully temporary, boss and an ungracious guest. She didn’t like him at all, so why was she suddenly noticing the line of his mouth and the set of his jaw and the strength of his hands?

‘Where am I going?’

His brusque question broke the silence and startled her. ‘What?’

‘Gib asked me to take you home. Presumably he knows where that is, but I’m not a mind-reader.’

‘Oh…yes.’ Kate huddled in her seat, too appalled by this new awareness of him to rise to his sarcasm the way she would normally have done.

She directed him through the dark streets while the windscreen wipers thwacked rhythmically at the sleety rain and the silence in the car deepened until Kate could bear it no longer.

‘Why didn’t you tell Gib and Phoebe that you recognised me?’

Finn glanced at her. ‘Probably for the same reason that you didn’t,’ he said curtly. ‘I thought it would make the situation even more awkward than it already was.’

His tone was so uninviting, that Kate subsided back into silence. Anyone else giving her a lift home would have made some attempt at conversation, even if only to talk about the evening or the food or even, if things were desperate, the weather, but Finn was evidently in no mood for idle chit-chat. His face was set in grim lines and when he glanced in the rear-view mirror, Kate could see that he was frowning.

‘It’s just along here.’ She pointed out her street in relief. ‘There’s never anywhere to stop, so if you could drop me here, that would be fine, thanks.’

Finn ignored her, turning down the street she had indicated. ‘How far down are you?’

‘About halfway,’ admitted Kate, surrendering to force majeure. She pointed. ‘Just past that streetlight.’

As usual, the street was lined with cars bumper to bumper, so Finn had no choice but to stop in the middle of the road. Kate fumbled for the doorhandle as he put on the handbrake.

‘Thank you for the lift,’ she muttered. ‘I hope I haven’t brought you too much out of your way.’

A gust of sleet hit her full in the face as she opened the door, and instinctively she recoiled. ‘Yuck, what a horrible night!’

‘Wait there.’ Cursing under his breath, Finn reached behind him for an umbrella and got out of the car. He’d managed to get the umbrella up by the time he made it round to the passenger door. ‘I’ll see you to your door.’

‘Honestly, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to—’

‘Just hurry up and get out!’ said Finn through his teeth. It was hard to tell whether they were gritted with temper or with cold. ‘The sooner you do, the sooner I can get home!’

Reluctantly Kate scrambled out of the car and into the shelter of the umbrella. The wind was bitter and the rain ran down her neck, but she was still able to notice how intimate it felt to be standing so close to Finn. He was tall and solid and she had a bizarre impulse to put her arms round him and lean into him, to feel how hard and strong he was.

‘Right, let’s move it before we both freeze to death out here!’ said Finn, fortunately unable to read her mind. Or possibly telepathic and quick to take avoiding action. ‘Which house is it?’

He set off towards the pavement with Kate teetering on her heels in an effort to keep up with his long stride. ‘Why on earth don’t you wear something more sensible on your feet?’ he demanded, holding the umbrella impatiently above her.

‘If I’d known I’d be going on a polar expedition, I might have done!’ said Kate, her teeth chattering so loudly that she could hardly speak, but obscurely grateful to the vile weather for disguising the shakiness that might otherwise be obvious in her legs and her voice. She couldn’t believe what she had been tempted to do just then!

Finn would have had a fit if she had thrown herself at him like that. Or might he, just possibly, have pulled her towards him and kissed her under the umbrella? What would that have been like? Kate swallowed, torn between relief and disappointment that she would never know.

Still blissfully unaware of her wayward thoughts, Finn protected her with the umbrella while she fumbled for her key. Her hands were shaking in time with her teeth by that stage, and she was shivering so much that she couldn’t get the key in the lock.

Unable to bear it any longer, Finn put out his hand for the key, but his fingers brushing hers were enough to make Kate jerk back in alarm, dropping it into a puddle.

Mortified, she crouched down to retrieve it. Finn was holding out his hand with barely restrained impatience and meekly she dropped the wet and dirty key into his outstretched palm.

Without a word, Finn unlocked the door and pushed it open for her. ‘Thank you,’ said Kate awkwardly. ‘And thanks again for the lift.’

That was Finn’s cue to say that it had been a pleasure, an opening he pointedly missed.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said gruffly instead.

Fine, if that’s the way he wanted to be, she wouldn’t invite him in! Kate hugged her coat around her. ‘Are you sure you still want me to come into work?’

‘That’s generally the idea behind paying you,’ said Finn with one of his sardonic looks.

‘But I thought I was a disaster?’

‘You’re not exactly a resounding success as a secretary,’ he agreed, ‘but you’re the best I’ve got at the moment. We’ve got a big contract coming up, as you would know if you’d been paying attention, and I can’t afford to spend the time explaining everything to yet another secretary. I’m better off sticking with you.’

‘Well, thanks for that warm vote of confidence!’

‘You didn’t make many bones about how much you dislike working for me,’ Finn pointed out, ‘so I don’t see why I should dance around saving your feelings! The fact is that you can’t afford to lose this job just yet, and I can’t afford the time to replace you.’

‘You’re saying we’re stuck with each other?’ said Kate, lifting her chin.

‘Precisely, so we might as well make the best of it.’ He looked down into her face from under his umbrella. ‘I suggest you drink a litre of water before you go to bed,’ he said dispassionately as he turned to go. ‘We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, so please don’t be late!’

Groping blearily for the alarm clock, Kate forced open one eye to squint at the time, only to jerk upright with what should have been a cry but which came out more as a groan. The sudden movement was like a cleaver slicing through her aching head and she put up a shaky hand to check that it was still intact.

Unfortunately, yes. Right then death seemed preferable to the pounding in her head and the horrible taste in her mouth.

Not to mention what Finn would say if she was late again.

Kate grimaced as she looked at the clock. If she skipped the shower and was lucky with the trains, she might just make it…

Somehow she got herself out of bed and along to the tube station, but regretted it deeply when she had to stand squashed in with thousands of other commuters, all wet and steaming from the rain above ground. Kate clung to the rail with one hand, swaying nauseously as the train lurched and rattled its way along the tunnels, and tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach.

To make matters worse, her memory of the night before was coming back in fragments of intense clarity separated by the blurry recollection of having generally made a complete fool of herself.

The things she did remember were bad enough. The appalled look on Finn’s face when the terrible truth dawned that his date for the evening was none other than his much-despised temporary secretary. The windscreen wipers thwacking in time to the beat of her heart as she fixated inexplicably on his mouth and his hands. Huddling under the umbrella, wondering what it would be like to touch him.

She must have been completely blotto.

God, what if she’d made a pass at Finn? Kate thought in panic. Surely she would remember that?

If she had, she would have been firmly repulsed. That was one thing she did remember. Her much loved top and favourite shoes had gone down like a lead balloon with Finn. Kate had always been told that she looked really hot in that top, but he had just looked down his nose and averted his eyes from her cleavage. If any pass had been made, it certainly wouldn’t have come from him!

She got to the office with less than a minute to spare. Finn was already at his desk, of course. He looked up over his glasses as Kate held on to the doorway for support.

‘You look terrible,’ he said.

‘I feel worse,’ she croaked. ‘I’ve got the most monumental hangover.’

Finn grunted. ‘I hope you’re not expecting any sympathy from me!’

‘No, I don’t think I could cope with any miracles today,’ said Kate tartly before remembering a little too late that her job was very much on the line. Finn was obviously thinking much the same thing because his eyes narrowed slightly behind his reading glasses.

‘You’d better be in a fit state to work,’ he warned her. ‘We’ve got a lot to do today.’

‘I’ll just have some coffee and then I’ll be fine,’ Kate promised, holding her head.

‘You can have five minutes,’ said Finn and picked up the report he had been reading once more, effectively dismissing her.

Kate groped her way along to the coffee machine and ordered a double espresso, trying not to wince at the sound of ringing telephones and clattering keyboards. There was a tiny manic blacksmith at work inside her skull, banging and hammering on her nerve endings.

Perhaps Alison would have some paracetamol, she thought, sinking gratefully down at her desk. That might help.

Any normal girl would keep hangover cures handy in her top right-hand drawer, but not Alison. Having rummaged through the desk, Kate was forced to accept that Alison didn’t have hangovers. Alison probably didn’t even know what a hangover was. She probably never got nervous or drank too much or showed off in front of Finn.

The coffee was only making her feel worse. Groaning, Kate collapsed onto the desk and buried her head in her arms. That was it. She was giving up. She was just going to have to die here in Finn’s office. He would just have to decide what to do with her body although, knowing him, he’d get the next temp to deal with it. Just dispose of that corpse, he would say, and then come in and take notes at the speed of light.

‘You didn’t drink any water before you went to bed, did you?’ Finn’s voice spoke above Kate’s prostrate form.

‘No,’ she mumbled, mainly because it was easier than shaking her head.

‘You’re dehydrated.’ Somewhere to the right of her ear, she could hear the sound of a mug being set on the desk. ‘Here. I’ve brought you some sweet tea, and a couple of aspirin.’

The promise of aspirin was enough to make Kate lift her head very cautiously. ‘Thanks,’ she muttered.

She took the pills and screwed up her face at the taste of the tea, but her mouth was so dry that she sipped it anyway. After a few minutes, she even began to feel as if she might live after all.

Finn was leaning against the edge of her desk, frowning down at the file in his hands. He always seemed to be frowning, Kate thought muzzily. Was he like this with everyone, or was it just her? The thought that it might be her was oddly depressing. Granted, turning up for work late or massively hungover probably wasn’t the best way to go about getting him to smile, but still, you’d have thought there’d have been something about her he could like.

CHAPTER THREE

AS IF aware of her gaze, Finn glanced up. ‘Feeling any better?’ he asked, although not with any noticeable degree of sympathy.

‘A bit,’ croaked Kate.

‘Good.’ Closing the file, he dropped it onto her desk with a loud slap that made her wince, and he sighed. ‘Why on earth do you drink so much if you feel this bad the next day?’

‘I don’t usually,’ she said a little sullenly. ‘Last night I was trying to have a good time, since you obviously weren’t going to! Why did you come if you weren’t going to make an effort?’

‘I went because Gib asked me,’ said Finn curtly. ‘He said Phoebe had a friend he thought I might like to meet. I was expecting someone gentle and motherly, not a goer with a plunging cleavage, ridiculous shoes and a determination to drink everyone else under the table!’

Aha, so he had noticed her cleavage, Kate noted with a perverse sense of satisfaction.

‘They’ve obviously got no idea,’ she agreed sweetly, but with an acid undertone. ‘They told me that you were really nice. How wrong can you be? I don’t think I’ll be letting them fix up any more blind dates for me!’

A muscle worked in Finn’s jaw. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more.’

‘Well, there’s a first!’ Kate muttered.

Finn got to his feet. ‘If you’re well enough to argue, you’re well enough to do some work,’ he said callously. ‘I think we can both agree that last night was extremely awkward for both of us. Frankly, I’d rather not know about your personal life, and I don’t believe in mixing mine with business. However, as I said last night—although of course you won’t remember this!—I can’t afford the time to explain everything to someone new at this stage, so I suggest that we pretend that last night never happened and carry on as before. Although it would help if you would turn up on time and in a fit state to work occasionally,’ he added nastily. ‘That could be different!’

Kate held her aching head with her hand. She just wished she was in a position to tell Finn exactly what he could do with his job. She had a hazy recollection of telling everyone last night that she was planning a major career change, which had seemed like a good idea at the time, and still did, frankly.

One of these days she would have to do something about it but, in the meantime, she had to live, and this crummy job was her best hope of paying her bills for the next few weeks. She had never been big on saving, and she had bailed Seb out too many times to have anything left to fall back on. It looked as if she was going to have to stick with Finn for now.

‘Alison should be back in a few weeks,’ he said as if reassuring himself.

‘Meaning you won’t have to put up with me for too long?’ In spite of her own reluctance, Kate was obscurely hurt to realise that Finn couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

‘I was under the impression that the feeling was mutual,’ he said coldly.

‘It is.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you want to leave now?’

‘No,’ said Kate, forced into a corner. ‘No, I want to stay. I haven’t got any choice.’

‘Then we’re both in the same boat,’ said Finn. He turned for his office. ‘And if you do want to carry on working here, I suggest you go and freshen up, and come back ready to start work!’

Three hours later, Kate was reeling after a barrage of complicated instructions and tasks which Finn rapped out, making no allowances for her hangover, before going out to an expensive lunch with a client.

‘Have that draft report on my desk by the time I get back,’ was his parting shot.

Kate pulled a face at his receding back and dumped the armful of files and papers onto her desk. Did she really want to hang onto this job that badly?

Finn’s expression had been as grimly unreadable as ever, but she could have sworn that beneath it all he was enjoying the sight of her struggling to cope with a hangover and an avalanche of work. She was prepared to bet that a lot of this stuff could easily have waited and that he had only pulled it out to punish her. It was hard to believe that for a peculiar moment or two last night she had actually found him attractive!

Running her fingers wearily through her hair, Kate sighed as she contemplated the scattered piles of paper on her desk. She needed another coffee before she could tackle that lot!

In spite of everything Finn had to say about his staff not going in for gossip, Kate had noticed that the coffee machine was a favoured meeting place. Of course it was possible that the two older women from the finance department were talking about work, but somehow she doubted it. They stopped as she approached and moved aside politely to let her through to the machine.

‘Thanks,’ said Kate with a smile. ‘I’m desperate!’

‘Feeling rough?’

‘Awful,’ she admitted, searching her memory for their names. ‘I am never, ever, going to drink again!’

Elaine and Sue, that was it. They had been polite if rather cool with Kate in her few brief dealings with them, but she noticed they thawed slightly at her frank admission of a hangover.

‘So, how are you getting on?’ the older one—Sue?—asked.

‘I don’t think I’m ever going to live up to Alison’s standards,’ Kate sighed as the machine spat out coffee into her cup. ‘What’s she like? Is she as perfect as Finn makes out?’

Sue and Elaine considered. ‘She’s certainly very efficient,’ said Elaine, but she didn’t sound overly enthusiastic. ‘Finn relies on her a lot.’

Kate sipped her coffee, still disgruntled by the amount of work Finn had thrown at her. ‘She must be an absolute saint to put up with him!’

Wrong thing to say! The two women bridled at the implied criticism of Finn. ‘He’s lovely when you get to know him,’ Elaine insisted, and Sue nodded.

‘He’s the best boss I’ve ever had. You want to count how many people have been here years and years. We don’t get the same kind of turnover as in other companies. That’s because everyone here feels involved. Finn expects you to work hard, but he always notices and comments on what you’ve been doing, and that makes all the difference.’

‘He treats you like a human being,’ Elaine added her bit.

It was news to Kate, thinking about that morning.

‘Of course, Alison’s absolutely devoted to Finn,’ Sue said. She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘Between you and me, I think she might be hoping to become more than a PA one day.’

‘Oh?’ Kate was conscious of a sudden tightening of her muscles. ‘Do you think that’s likely?’

‘No.’ Elaine shook her head definitely. ‘He’s never got over losing his wife, and I don’t think he ever will.’

‘Isabel was a lovely person,’ Sue agreed. ‘She used to come in to the office sometimes, and we all loved her. She was so beautiful and sweet and interested in what everyone did. There was just something about her. She made you feel special somehow, didn’t she, Elaine?’

Elaine nodded sadly. ‘Finn was different then. He absolutely adored her, and she was the same. She used to light up whenever he came into the room. Oh, it was such a tragedy when she died!’

‘What happened?’ asked Kate, hoping she didn’t sound too ghoulish.

‘Someone got into a car having had too much to drink, and poor Isabel was coming the other way…’ They shook their heads at the memory of it. ‘She never came out of the coma. Finn had to make the decision to switch off her life-support machine.’

Sue sighed. ‘You can only imagine what it was like for him. He had Alex to worry about too. She was in the car as well, so she was in hospital too, although not so seriously hurt.’

‘She wasn’t much more than a baby,’ Elaine added. ‘Just old enough to cry for her mummy.’

Kate’s hand had crept to her mouth as she listened to their story. ‘That’s…terrible,’ she said, feeling hopelessly inadequate.

‘Terrible,’ Elaine agreed. ‘Finn’s never been the same since. He closed in on himself after Isabel died. Alex is his life now, and he won’t let anyone else close. He kept the company going, but I’ve always felt that was more for all the staff here than for his own sake.’

‘We all hope he’ll remarry one day,’ Sue said. ‘He deserves to be happy again and Alex needs a mum. Maybe he’ll miss Alison while she’s away,’ she added hopefully. ‘I know she can be a bit cool, but that’s just her manner, and she’s very attractive, isn’t she?’ she demanded of Elaine, who nodded a bit reluctantly.

‘She’s always beautifully groomed.’

‘And she must know him pretty well after working for him for so long. I think she’d be a good wife for him.’

It didn’t sound to Kate as if Alison was at all the right kind of wife for Finn. He was quite cool and efficient enough by himself. What he needed was warmth and tenderness and laughter, not practicality and good grooming.

Not that it was anything to do with her, of course.

Still, she couldn’t get Finn’s tragic story out of her mind all afternoon. She kept imagining him by his wife’s side, with the life-support machines beeping in the background, willing her to open her eyes, or trying to explain to his baby daughter why her mother couldn’t come.

‘No wonder he didn’t approve of me drinking last night,’ she said to Bella that evening, having told her about the disaster of her blind date and what she had learnt from Elaine and Sue. ‘I feel terrible now. I’ve been so nasty about him, and all the time he’s had to cope with all of that.’

‘Don’t do it,’ said Bella, handing Kate a drink.

‘Don’t do what?’

‘Don’t get involved.’

‘I’m not involved,’ said Kate a little defensively. ‘I just feel desperately sorry for him.’

Bella sighed as she contemplated her friend. ‘You know what you’re like, Kate,’ she warned. ‘One tiny tug at your heartstrings, and you’re turning your world upside down to try and make things better, and sometimes you just can’t. You were desperately sorry for Seb, too, and look where that got you!’

‘This is entirely different,’ Kate protested. ‘Finn’s not trying to get anything from me. He hasn’t even told me about Isabel himself. I’m not sure he’d even want me to know.’

‘I just don’t want you jumping from feeling sorry for him to wanting to help him to falling in love with him,’ said Bella with a warning look. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s a bit of a pattern with you, and this time you really could get hurt. It would be much worse than Seb. You’d never be able to live up to a perfect wife like that, Kate. You’d only ever be second-best.’

‘Honestly, Bella!’ said Kate crossly. ‘Anyone would think I was planning to marry him! All I’m saying is that maybe I should be more understanding when he’s grumpy with me.’