The Shock Engagement

‘Fix it. Now! Or it’ll be your head!’ Raquel snapped the phone shut, slammed the fridge door and only then seemed to notice Emma was there.

‘Ms Radfield. I assume your little cartoon is ready for the final Flirt magazine meeting tomorrow.’

Emma flapped the pink folder at her boss. ‘All ready. No worries.’

‘Because this has to be perfect,’ Raquel insisted. ‘Nothing can go wrong. Nothing.’

Emma noticed a light sheen of sweat had taken up residence on Raquel’s brow. Raquel did mean for a living, but this was different. She was worried.

‘Raquel, it’s perfect,’ Emma promised, her voice soft, calming, sure. ‘Everyone has done a great job on this campaign. Flirt will love it to bits.’

Raquel’s steely glare meant she didn’t believe a word of it, but Emma knew better than to push her luck. She would have the presentation ready in time as she promised and that would have to be enough.

‘Would you like to see a copy?’ Emma asked.

Raquel fluffed a hand in front of her face as though swatting away a persistent fly. ‘No! Too, too busy. Just consider it a priority. You never know, you might need Flirt magazine for a reference. Some day…’ Raquel disappeared out the door, marched down the hallway and was lost within the crowd before Emma could even blink.

What was that all about? A reference? Some day?

Before she had time to absorb Raquel’s odd threat, Emma’s mobile beeped and she flinched.

She clicked the right buttons to bring up the message. It was from Tahlia, her best mate and WWW’s sales guru.

em, is australia’s hunkiest bloke there yet?

Emma’s mouth kicked up at one corner. A right twenty-first century girl, she managed to type a message with one hand, sip her coffee with the other and walk the crowded office hallway towards the stationery room without making one typo or spilling a drop.

not yet T & don’t mention it to him or he’ll get an even bigger head

Within seconds her phone buzzed and beeped.

didn’t know you liked guys with big heads…

Emma shot back a final text message.

watch yourself or i’ll come down there and bop you on the head with that industrial sized stapler you are so in love with

Now, having given in and progressed to whistling the theme to Love Story loud and proud, Emma skipped into the stationery room to find Raquel’s assistant, Penelope, head down, hunched over a photocopier in the far corner.

‘Morning, Penny!’ Emma called out.

Penelope spun around, her hand to her heart, her eyes large and bright. She then grabbed her bunch of papers and ran from the room like a startled rabbit. Emma shook her head. Poor duffer. Working so closely with Raquel would be enough to turn any sane woman into one big raw nerve.

Emma headed for the photocopier Penelope had been using, figuring it would save her time trying to find one that was working and stocked with A4 paper. She lifted the lid to find a sheet face down in place already. She turned back to the door, but Penelope was long gone.

Checking to see if it was anything important or whether she should just toss it away, Emma read the first few lines of the letter in her hand. That was all it took for her to realise just how important the document was.

‘Oh, my.’ Emma’s hand covered her mouth as she devoured the gist of the letter. It was from Raquel’s lawyers. WWW Designs was being sued. For a lot of money. Gossip about trouble had been whispered up and down the corridors for weeks, and now Emma knew why.

Raquel was dedicated and driven but excessively so. She had a thing for ‘special assignments’. She encouraged her worker bees to go out of their way to know all there was to know about prospective clients in order to land said clients. She called it PR, her worker bees called it slave-driving. But it worked. For the most part, it worked. Keely, the other musketeer in Emma’s trio of workmates and the web design genius of the crew, had in fact met her darling fiancé Lachlan, on such a ‘special assignment’.

But since then there had been one infamous time it hadn’t worked. Raquel had lobbied hard for the privilege to design and manage the personal website of a media magnate. She had sent one of her lapdogs to follow the guy around and in the process the lapdog had delved deep enough to discover that the magnate had a mistress. His wife had found out, had filed for divorce and now the magnate was suing, for big bucks, and Raquel was caught in the thick of it.

‘Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my,’ Emma whispered aloud.

The rumours, Raquel’s throwaway line about needing a reference, the niggling bad feeling Tahlia’d had for some time, were all true. No wonder poor Penelope had looked fit to explode on the spot. She knew how bad it all was.

Needing to sit and think, Emma gave up on the idea of photocopying anything. She slipped the offending letter into her pink folder and rushed back towards her office. She threw her half-empty coffee cup into a nearby rubbish bin, tucked her phone back on to her belt, popped a mint into her mouth and rounded the corner towards her office.

‘Emma, wait!’ Chrystal, WWW Designs’ busty receptionist, skipped alongside Emma, her red curls bouncing and red lips shining. ‘You have a visitor. I showed him into your office. Hope you don’t mind. Though you could have done a girl a favour and taken your time in coming back.’ Chrystal kissed her fingers. ‘Magnifico!’

Emma stared back at Chrystal, searching the minefield of scattered thoughts of lawsuits and threats and panic for a way to decipher Chrystal’s words. And then a voice from the past, a voice rich with experience and humour, the voice that had been echoing in her head and keeping her from real work all day, said from deep within her office, ‘That can’t possibly be little Emma Radfield, can it?’

Emma looked up to find six feet of heaven in a battered leather jacket and low-slung jeans leaning against her desk. ‘Harry!’

‘Come here, you luscious length of woman, you.’

She didn’t need to be told twice. She threw her pink folder on to a nearby chair and leapt into Harry’s waiting arms, grabbing fists full of the back of his ancient caramel-coloured jacket, her cheek rubbing against the supple collar, giddily breathing in the familiar scent—fresh air and sunshine mixed with something decidedly male, decidedly Harry.

‘You’re early!’ she noted, but she was so happy to see him she could barely stop grinning.

He held her at arm’s length, his hands keeping a gentle grip on her shoulders. ‘And you’re different,’ he said.

Understatement of the year, Emma thought, but she bit her lip and let him play his game.

He twirled her back and forth, held her wrist to his ear to check her pulse and shook her a little as though trying to place the change. ‘What could it be?’ he asked. ‘I just can’t put my finger on it.’

Hair that has been waist-length for ever now chopped into a slick bob? The last remains of my puppy-fat gone by way of power Pilates? Usual tomboy uniform of jeans and T-shirt replaced with a black suit that looks as though it has been sewn on? All somewhat proving that I am anybody but little Emma Radfield.

‘Nope,’ he finally said. ‘Must have been a trick of the light.’

Oh, he’d noticed, all right. Emma could see it in the barely there furrow of his brow. Though she could tell he didn’t quite know what to make of it yet, he had noticed.

‘So how are you?’ she asked with a bright smile. ‘Mr big time CEO. I didn’t know if you would come this year now that you are such a busy big shot.’

‘Aw, shucks,’ he said. ‘You know me. Gracious. Benevolent. Giving of my precious time.’

‘Not so giving of your precious time that you could make it to my surprise birthday party.’

Harry winced. Bullseye!

‘I tried, babes. Really I did. But…circumstances kept me away. Yet here I am now, as always, choosing to spend all the free time I can wangle with you.’

‘As opposed to…?’

‘Basking on the beaches of Acapulco, getting to know the local girls—’

‘Oh, diddums. Life’s tough.’