Ryan's Rules

Ryan’s gut churned at the unbidden question, but before he could examine where it had sprung from K.C.’s voice distracted him.

‘What?’ he said, trying to refocus his mind. ‘Sorry, I missed what you said.’

‘I know.’ She smiled and lifted her glass. ‘I suggested we drink a toast to Jayne. I think it’s kind of appropriate, don’t you?’

‘Very,’ he agreed, raising his glass. ‘To Jayne. May this be the start of a happier life.’

She touched her glass to his. ‘And may I remember everything she told me about the Talbots’ accounts.’ And she added cheekily, ‘I’m certain you’ll drink to that, Ryan.’

‘K.C., I won’t only drink to it,’ he said, ‘I’ll pray for it.’

The way she sipped her drink then let the tip of her tongue creep across her lips as she savoured the Scotch caused Ryan’s stomach to clench. Desperate to douse the fire erupting there, he tossed his juice back in one swallow.

‘You know, Ryan…’

He told himself that her smile wasn’t intended to be sensual. Nor was the way she hooked a long strand of dark hair behind her ear and exposed the soft young skin of her jaw and neck to him.

‘I might surprise you,’ she continued. ‘But knowing you expect me to stuff up will stop me from feeling guilty if I do.’

Ryan merely grunted. She wouldn’t feel guilt because right now he held the monopoly on it!

When they returned from the airport Ryan dropped Kirrily at the house then went to the office to catch up on some work. He wasn’t back by the time she took herself off to bed at the puritanical hour of eight o’clock and he was gone when she arrived in the kitchen, showered and dressed, at seven-ten on Monday morning.

Which was a good thing, Kirrily decided, picking up the kettle, because even on her best days no one had ever accused her of being a morning person, and after the sleepless night she’d endured she wasn’t in the mood for a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and invariably dry-witted Ryan Talbot She did, unfortunately, find evidence of his regrettable existence in a note shoved under a magnet on the refrigerator.

Expect you on the dot of nine and not a minute later! Try not to dress theatrically—i.e. NO BASKETBALL CAPS! If Jayne’s car needs petrol go to the garage at the intersection—I’ve a company account there.

PS—I’ve already fed Major. But don’t forget to activate the house alarm.

Kirrily screwed up the note and hurled it across the room, her actions sending Jayne’s usually sedate Persian rocketing from the kitchen in a blur of blue fur.

‘Why, you arrogant, patronising, smart-alec jerk!’ Unable to satisfy her pre-caffeine rage with a civil vocabulary, she resorted to a stream of expletives and another shout of frustration. He seemed to delight in treating her like an imbecile!

‘No basketball caps’! Huh! It was bad enough that he considered her brainless, but for him to have the audacity to question her dress sense as well! He whom his mother had practically had to sedate to get him into a dinner jacket so he could escort Kirrily to her debutantes’ ball! He who considered ties as something one put on a garbage bag so stray dogs couldn’t rummage through it!

Why was it that all her life Ryan had felt it necessary to dish out advice to her, to vet her boyfriends, to watch over her like some sort of guardian angel? What did he think she had parents for? A mental picture of her mother asking, ‘Well, what does Ryan think about all this?’ popped into her head and she swore again.

That particular image was only a couple of months old, the comment coming when she’d told her parents that she was donating her acting services to a condom commercial in the interests of safe sex. Kirrily, of course, hadn’t discussed the matter with Ryan, but remaining silent hadn’t protected her from his opinion. Recalling his terse phone call to her after the commercial had been screened was enough to make her cringe…

‘K.C., don’t you make enough on that soap you do without broadcasting your sleeping habits to all and sundry?’

‘I didn’t get paid for doing it,’ she’d hastened to explain. ‘Well, except for the hundred free samples the company sent me!’

Unlike her, Ryan hadn’t seen the funny side of that. She just wished she could have seen his face when the courier had delivered the fifty condoms she’d sent him! She’d included a note stating that she doubted she’d get through all one hundred by the use-by date so she was generously splitting her profits with him! Visualising Ryan’s reaction to that was amusing enough to dampen her anger.

Trying to be objective, she looked at what she was wearing. OK, so her black ankle-length skirt and boots were this winter’s latest fashion, but surely even the most conservative of dressers wouldn’t find them theatrical? And as for the polo-necked bodysuit she’d teamed them with…Well, admittedly it was a vibrant red, but she intended wearing a black blazer, so she needed a bright contrast to stop her from looking too severe.

‘Stop it, Kirrily!’ she ordered. She knew she was more than acceptably attired for work in an office, but as usual Ryan’s habit of expecting the worst from her had caused her momentarily to question her own judgement. She really hated it when she did that—hated him for having such influence over her! A desire for retaliation tempted her to march back to her room and don the shortest, skimpiest dress she’d brought with her! Thinking of the emerald Lycra number hanging in her wardrobe, she giggled.

‘Now, that, Major,’ she said as the cat waddled back into the room, ‘has what I’d call an Academy-award shock rating.’ The animal turned its squashed-in face towards her and miaowed. ‘You’re right,’ she said, proceeding to organise some breakfast for herself. ‘Much too obvious a response. Not to mention childish. I’m staying as I am. But boy,’ she vowed, ‘am I going to rattle his cage when he least expects it!

* * *

‘Kirrily, this is Ron Flemming. He’s our senior sales rep and my second in charge. Ron—Kirrily Cosgrove, Jack’s daughter, she’s covering for Jayne while she’s away.’

As Ryan introduced her to the last of Talbot’s Building Supplies’ thirteen full-time employees Kirrily smiled and extended her hand.

‘My wife and kids aren’t going to believe me when I tell them the star of Hot Heaven is working with me,’ Ron said, a friendly smile and a slight flush spreading over his chubby thirty-something face.

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ Kirrily said, ‘but I wasn’t the star.’

‘You were as far as my mates are concerned!’ Ron countered. “Specially after the episode with you and what’s-his-name in the bath.’

Kirrily rolled her eyes at Ron’s teasingly lecherous grin. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to live that down! People are still asking me if I was really nude or wearing cover in strategic places.’

‘Were you?’

‘Ron,’ Ryan interrupted, ‘aren’t you due out at the Perrelli site?’

‘Yeah, but not for—’

‘Then I suggest you get out there.’

Sympathetic to anyone on the receiving end of one of Ryan’s glares, Kirrily produced her brightest smile. ‘We’ll have heaps of time to talk, Ron. I’ll be working here for at least three weeks.’

‘The operative word being working,’ Ryan muttered, guiding her away from the salesman’s desk. ‘I’m not running a Kirrily Cosgrove fan club here.’

‘I’m sure there’s some union rule which stipulates employees must be allowed to talk to each other in their lunch hours,’ she retorted.

‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not up on union rules; round here I make the rules, and number one is, Don’t go flirting ing with my male employees! Especially the married ones.’

Kirrily was genuinely shocked. Oh, sure, the general public tended to perceive the acting fraternity as being morally corrupt, but in reality she’d not found actors any worse or better than people outside the industry. That someone who’d known her as long as Ryan had would make such a comment, even light-heartedly, irked her.

‘For your information, Mr Morality, I would never hit on a married man!’

His mouth twitched. ‘Good. Then we won’t have a problem with rule number one, will we?’

‘No, but, knowing you, there are probably another hundred or so I’m expected to keep.’

‘Hard to say,’ he said, looking pensive. ‘It’s an openended sort of thing. But don’t worry—as they occur to me I’ll give them the next sequential number and pass them on to you.’

‘Gee, thanks! You know it was lucky for Moses that it was God and not you handing out the commandments, otherwise he’d still be carting them down the mountain.’

‘I know,’ Ryan said, holding open the door of Jayne’s office and motioning her through. ‘God and I considered that at the time.’

Annoyed because she couldn’t keep her face straight, she punched his arm as she walked past him into what would be her office for the next month.

The first thing she noticed was that the desk, which had earlier been clear except for a telephone, blotter and calculator, now had three stacks of paper on it, one of which was a very large stack. At a glance she identified it as invoices and statements; the other two were letters and promotional catalogues. Obviously Julie, the firm’s receptionist, had distributed the mail while Ryan had been introducing her around. Now it was time for Kirrily to ‘get down and dirty’, so to speak.