Secretary On Demand

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t know you. You could be anyone. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you’re an axe-wielding maniac, but you could be for all I know.’

‘An axe-wielding maniac?’ he asked, bemused.

‘Or a fugitive from the law. Anyway, my mother told me never to accept lifts from strangers.’

‘I’m not a stranger! You’ve been serving me breakfast every morning just about for months! Nor am I a fugitive from the law. If I were a fugitive from the law, wouldn’t I be hiding out somewhere less conspicuous than a busy Italian restaurant in the middle of crowded Notting Hill? Your imagination is obviously as vivid as your temper, reds.’

‘And stop calling me reds.’ She’d decided she didn’t care for the appellation after all. It was insulting.

‘Then accompany me, please, for a short ride in my car which is just around the corner. I want to talk to you.’

‘Talk about what?’

‘Oh, good grief,’ he groaned. ‘Let me put it this way, it’ll be worth your while.’ He turned on his heel and began walking away, expecting her to follow him, and she did, clutching her coat around her and half running to keep up.

‘I don’t even know your name!’ she panted in his wake. ‘And where are you planning on taking me for this little talk that will be worth my while?’

He stopped abruptly and she cannoned into him. Instinctively he reached out and steadied her. ‘Kane Lindley,’ he said, ‘in answer to your first question. And a little coffee-bar two blocks away in answer to your last. We could walk but my time on the meter is about to run out so it’s as easy for us to take the car and I’ll find somewhere else to park.’

She realised that he was still holding her by her arms, and he must have realised that as well because he politely dropped his hands and waited for her to respond.

‘Kane Lindley…’

‘That’s right. Have you heard of me?’

‘Why should I have heard of you?’ Shannon asked, puzzled.

He said swiftly, ‘Absolutely no reason. I’m not a celebrity but I own Lindley publications and I’m now in charge of a television network.’ He zapped open his car with his remote after a short mental tussle. Shannon hurried over to the passenger side and slipped in, slamming the door against the stiff cold.

‘I haven’t heard of Lindley publications,’ she told him as soon as he was sitting next to her.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ His voice was irritable. ‘I’m not trying to impress you. I’m merely trying to put you at ease in case you think I’m not to be trusted.’

‘Oh. Right. Well…’ She stared out of the window. ‘I’m Shannon McKee. How long were you lurking around, waiting for me to come out, anyway?’

‘I wasn’t lurking around, reds,’ he growled. ‘As a matter of fact, I went to buy some ties at a little shop tucked away around the corner and then dropped back here. Coincidentally, you were leaving.’

The coffee-bar really was only a couple of streets away and they got a parking space instantly. It felt kind of nice to be the one sitting at the table and being waited on for a change. Meals out had been few and far between since she’d moved down to London, where the cost of living had hit her for six and relaxed cups of coffee in trendy coffee-bars, as this one was, had been even more of a rarity.

He ordered a cafetière of coffee for two and a plate of pastries and then proceeded to look at her with dark-eyed speculation. ‘Now, tell me a little about yourself. I know you don’t like football, like the theatre even though you never get there, loathe all exercise except swimming and are self-conscious about your hair, but what are you doing in London?’

Shannon blushed. She never would have guessed that her passing titbits of information had been stored away. She would have assumed that he had more important things to think about than the details of a waitress’s life. ‘I am not self-conscious about my hair!’ she snapped, a little disconcerted by this regurgitation of facts.

‘Then why you do always wear it tied back?’

‘Because it’s convenient. And I’m in London because…because I wanted a change from Ireland. I lived in a little village about twenty miles outside Dublin and I guess I wanted to sample something a little different.’ Now that he had mentioned her wretched hair, she found that she couldn’t stop fiddling with it, tugging the ends of the braids. She had to force herself to fold her hands neatly on her lap.

‘I wish you’d stop looking at me,’ she said after a while. Here they were, one to one, no longer in the roles of waitress serving customer, and their sudden equality made her feel breathless. She felt as though those unreadable, considering eyes could see straight past the dross and into all the secret corners of her mind that she preferred not to share with anyone.

‘Why? Does it make you feel uncomfortable?’ He didn’t labour the point, though. Thankfully. Instead, once their coffee and pastries were in front of them, he began asking her about her work experience and what she had done in Ireland and what she had done since moving to London, tilting his head to one side as she rambled on about her education and her first job and her secretarial qualifications.

‘So,’ he said finally, ‘you did secretarial work, but really you’d call yourself quite adaptable.’

‘I can turn my hand to most things.’

‘I’ll get to the point, reds. Sorry, Miss McKee. I feel very badly about what happened today. I’ve been coming to Alfredo’s for months and I know that you’re good at what you do. I suspect you enjoyed working there and the fact is that if I hadn’t chosen to go there at lunchtime with that particular person, you would not now be out of a job.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

Kane relaxed back and folded his arms. ‘That’s as maybe, but the fact remains that I would like to make amends by offering you a job…working for…me.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU want me to work for you?’ Shannon asked incredulously. ‘But you don’t know me! Not really! You don’t even have any references! You’ve seen me wait tables at Alfredo’s for a few months, and we’ve chatted off and now, and now you’re offering me a job as your secretary because you feel obligated?’ Her eyes dropped from Kane’s face to his big hands, cradling the sides of his mug. Somehow the thought of working for this man frankly terrified her.

‘And are you qualified to throw job offers around willy-nilly?’ she pressed on, frowning. ‘What will your boss say?’

‘I am the boss. I own the company, lock, stock and barrel. I told you that already. Everyone in the company reports to me, reds.’

‘I told you to stop calling me by that name,’ Shannon said absent-mindedly. ‘Anyway, aren’t there more suitable candidates lining up for the job? And how come you’ve coincidentally got a position vacant?’ She chewed her lip, mulling over this wildly improbable development and trying to read between the lines to the hidden agenda. Because there must be a hidden agenda. Job offers involved interviews and references and procedures. They didn’t land like ripe plums into your lap without there being one or two glaring catches.

‘I mean, top executives are never without a secretary. Someone is always available to handle things like that, to make sure that vacant positions get filled.’ If he owned the company, he need only snap fingers and there would be someone on the scene, saluting and racing off to make sure that a suitable secretary was located pronto. He wouldn’t be lounging around, making do on the offchance that someone might show up at some point in time.

‘Oh, dear. In that case, perhaps I’m lying. Perhaps I don’t own Lindley publications after all.’ He laughed with genuine amusement and gave her a long, leisurely and far too all-encompassing a look for her liking. ‘Don’t worry, reds, you’re asking all the right questions. The job exists because my old secretary retired to live in Dorset with her widowed sister two months ago and since then I’ve been using a selection of secretaries, none of whom has been particularly suitable. My only alternative at the moment is to usurp one of my director’s personal assistants who would be able to cope with the workload, but it’s not an ideal choice because it would entail leaving someone else facing the same problem. Aside from that obvious problem, there are one or two other considerations that need to be met, and I assure you, not that I need to, that the lady in question would be unable to meet them.’

As far as Shannon was concerned, the situation was getting more and more bizarre by the moment. ‘What other considerations?’ she asked slowly. She nibbled one of the pastries and looked at him steadily as she did so.

‘Before we get to those, just tell me whether or not you’re interested in the job.’

‘Naturally, I’m interested in getting a job. Having just been forced into early retirement from the last one.’

‘Well, shall we skip the arguments for the moment so that I can try and establish what sort of secretarial experience you possess? Obviously, if your experience is insufficient, you can be slotted in somewhere a bit lower down the scale, although working for me is more than a matter of relevant secretarial experience. I’m looking for an attitude and I think you’ve got it.’

‘Because I’ve been so successful as a waitress? Except for today when I flung a plate of hot food over a customer?’

‘I particularly liked the way you pointed out the stray mange-tout he had missed on his shoe.’ He gave her a crooked smile, then before she could respond he leaned forward and casually brushed the side of her mouth with his finger. ‘Pastry crumbs,’ he murmured. ‘So, run your background by me.’

‘All right. What do you want to know?’ She had to clasp her hands very tightly together to stop herself from touching the spot where his finger had been.

‘A brief job history would be nice. Details of what your actual jobs involved.’

‘School, secretarial college, several temporary positions and then, for the past three years, a permanent job working for a radio station just outside Dublin. A local radio station that focused on good music and gossip. Generally speaking, I did all the office work and also updated their computer programs to accommodate their growth. They were in a bit of an administrative mess when I arrived, actually, so it was a challenge to get things straight. It was a fantastic job,’ she added wistfully. ‘Never a dull moment and the people there were great fun.’

‘So, bored with the personal satisfaction of it all, you decided to leave…’

‘Not quite.’