Law Of Attraction

She must be going crazy, she decided lightheadedly. It must be the lack of air in the room, the shock of her near-accident. She swayed slightly on her feet and heard Daniel asking her again, ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

She parted her lips to speak and then froze as he made a small, almost inaudible sound. When she looked at him his eyes were a dark glittering grey. He must have some special mesmeric powers, she thought dizzily as she tried to look away and could not. No wonder he was the darling of the media. He probably mesmerised his TV audiences in the same way that he was mesmerising her.

Angry with herself for her weakness, she closed her eyes and turned her head away, taking a deep calming breath.

When she opened her eyes again she felt no better, but at least she was no longer looking directly at him.

‘I’m fine,’ she told him shortly, and then, as she headed for the door, she found the will-power to say grittily, ‘What a pity you managed to catch me. If you hadn’t done and I’d fallen on you, injuring you, you could have sued me.’

To her surprise he laughed, and then surprised her even further by telling her, ‘Lydia would have loved you.’

She had her hand on the door-handle when he stopped her, taking hold of her so gently but so powerfully that she could only stare up at him. She gave him a suspicious angry look, her muscles resisting him as she glared at him.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing.’

He was still smiling at her, but now his smile chilled a little and his voice was crisply cool as he told her, ‘I think you might want to—er—adjust your skirt before you leave.’

With that he stepped past her and opened the door, firmly closing it and leaving her shut in the small room, her face on fire as she glanced down and saw the ruched, untidy state of her skirt, and the length of thigh it exposed.

She was perilously close to angry tears as she dragged the fabric back down, and then set about tidying up the mess on the floor.

Damn him. Damn him. It was all his fault…if he hadn’t startled her…

It was a further half an hour or so before she had collected the rest of the files. When she went back to her office her heart sank as she saw that the communicating door to Daniel’s office was open.

He was on the telephone when she went in, and as she walked to her own desk she saw a packet of sandwiches open on his.

He had finished his call and replaced the receiver, turning towards her as he asked, ‘You got the rest of the files without any problems, then?’

Her stiff, ‘Yes, thank you,’ should have made it plain that any kind of conversation with him was the last thing she wanted, but he seemed unaware of her coldness, adding,

‘I’m just trying to snatch some lunch. I didn’t get time for anything to eat earlier.’

As Charlotte turned her back on him her face burned with indignation. Did he really think she was remotely interested in the way he and his…his client had spent their lunch-hour? She was tempted to make some derisory comment, but she reminded herself just in time that she was a mere employee, and one whose grip on her job was tenuous in the extreme.

She spent the rest of the afternoon reading through the first of the files and she was relieved when at half-past three Daniel closed the door between them, saying that he had a client interview.

‘Later, once you’ve acquainted yourself with the contents of the files, I shall of course expect you to sit in on any relevant interviews.’

To sit in on his interviews, but not to conduct any of her own, Charlotte thought balefully once the door was closed. Another indication of how little he trusted her professional judgement.

At four o’clock her office door opened and Richard Horwich came in.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you this morning,’ he told her with a fatherly smile. ‘Unfortunately I was in court. I’m sure you’re settling in very well, though.’

‘Yes…Yes, thank you. I…I didn’t realise I would be working solely for Mr Jefferson.’

Richard raised his eyebrows a little at her formal ‘Mr’ but Charlotte noticed that he looked a little uncomfortable as he told her, ‘Yes, well…I…that is…With his increased work-load, we both felt that Daniel needed his own qualified assistant.’

It was just as she had suspected, Charlotte decided. The decision to make her Daniel Jefferson’s assistant had only been taken once Daniel had seen her CV and decided that she was not to be trusted to work on her own.

She wanted to protest that she was a qualified solicitor, not a child needing constant supervision, but she struggled to suppress the bitterness and resentment churning inside her, reminding herself of how much she needed to keep this job.

Richard had barely been gone for ten minutes when someone else knocked on Charlotte’s door.

The girl who came in was pretty and very pregnant. She smiled at Charlotte and introduced herself.

‘I’m Anne, Daniel’s secretary, and yours of course. I had a clinic appointment this morning.’ She patted her stomach and grimaced. ‘I’ll be glad when he or she eventually decides to arrive, I can tell you.’