Secretary On Demand

‘Then why did you leave?’ He looked at her evenly. ‘I’m not asking out of morbid curiosity, but as your potential employer I have to establish whether your abrupt departure might influence my decision. I mean, did you leave for the pay?’

‘I left…for personal reasons,’ she said, flushing. Passing conversations with him had not prepared her for his tenacity.

‘Which might be…what?’

‘I don’t see that that’s relevant.’

‘Of course it’s relevant.’ He drained his cup of coffee. ‘What if you left for the personal reason of, let’s say, theft?’

‘Theft!’

‘Or…flamboyant insubordination. Or immoral conduct…’

Shannon burst out laughing. ‘Immoral conduct? Oh, please! What kind of immoral conduct?’

‘Stripping at the office party? Smoking on the premises? Sex in the boss’s office when there was no one around?’ His voice was mild, so why did she suddenly feel her skin begin to prickle? She imagined herself lying on a desk in his office, with those long fingers touching every part of her body, and she shrank back in shaken horror from the image. It had been as forceful as it had been unexpected.

‘I have all my references back at my bedsit,’ she told him primly.

‘At your bedsit?’

‘Correct.’

‘You live in a bedsit?’

‘It’s all I could afford. Anyway…’ she paused and reluctantly flashed him a wry smile ‘…a bedsit is the height of luxury after you’ve grown up in a house with seven siblings.’

‘You have…’ He looked green at the thought of it. Hates children, she thought smugly, perversely pleased that she had managed to shake some of that formidable self-control. Probably an only child. She and Sandy had never actually speculated on his family background but she would have bet money that he was the cosseted son of doting parents who had given in to his every whim, hence his unspoken assumption that he could get whatever he wanted at the click of a finger.

‘I know. That’s how most English people react when I tell them that. My mother maintains that she wanted each and every one of us, but I think she just got a bit carried away after she was married. I suppose you’re an only child? Only children are particularly appalled at the thought of sharing a house with lots of other brothers and sisters.’

‘I’m…well, we’re not really here to discuss my background, Miss McKee…’

It didn’t escape her notice that he had reverted to a formal appellation now that he was no longer manipulating their conversation. ‘Oh, it was merely a question. Are you an only child?’

‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am.’

‘I thought so. Poor you. My mum always said that an only child is a lonely child. Were you lonely as a child?’

‘This is a ridiculous digression,’ Kane muttered darkly. ‘We were talking about your living arrangements.’

‘So we were,’ Shannon agreed readily. She took a small sip from her coffee, enjoying the sensation of sitting and having someone else do the waiting for a change. Their cups had been refilled without her even noticing the intrusion.

‘And your decision to leave Ireland and come down here?’

‘I thought we’d already talked about that. I told you that I had references and that you could see them. My last company was very pleased with my performance, actually,’ she continued.

‘Did you leave because of Eric Gallway?’

The luminous green eyes cooled and she said steadily, ‘That really is none of your business, Mr Lindley.’

‘No, it isn’t, is it?’ he said softly, but his eyes implied otherwise. ‘Now, there are one or two other minor considerations that come with this job,’ he said slowly, resting both his elbows on the table and leaning towards her. He had rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt so that she had an ample view of strong forearms, liberally sprinkled with fine, dark hair.

‘Minor considerations?’ Shannon met his thoughtful, speculative look with a stirring of unease. What minor considerations? She didn’t care for the word ‘minor’. Somehow it brought to mind the word ‘major’.

‘There are a few duties connected with this job that will require some overtime…’

She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t afraid of hard work and clock-watching had never been one of her problems. If anything, she’d often found herself staying on to work when she could have been going home.

‘I’m fine with overtime, Mr Lindley,’ she said quickly. ‘Alfredo will vouch for that.’

‘Good, good.’ He paused and his dark eyes flitted across her face. ‘These duties, however, are possibly not quite what you have in mind.’

‘What do they involve, Mr Lindley?’ Shannon asked faintly, for once lost for words in the face of the myriad possibilities filling her imaginative mind. She hoped that he wasn’t about to spring some illegal suggestion on her because she’d just become accustomed to thinking that gainful employment was within her reach and to have it summarily snatched away would be almost more of a blow than the original loss of her job.

‘I have a child, Miss McKee…’

‘You have a child?’

‘These things do happen as an outcome of sexual intercourse when no contraception has been used,’ Kane said with overdone patience. ‘As,’ he added mildly, ‘you are probably aware.’

Shannon failed to take offence at his tone. ‘I—simply never associated you with a child,’ she stammered, realising belatedly that her admission might give him the idea that she had been speculating wildly about him behind his back.

‘And may I ask why?’

‘You just don’t look…the fatherly sort…’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘I mean,’ she said hurriedly, as his eyebrows slanted upwards, ‘you were always at the restaurant so early… I just assumed that you weren’t much of a family man… How old is your child?’

‘Eight and it’s a she. Her name’s Eleanor.’

‘Oh, right.’ Shannon paused long enough to digest this piece of information. ‘And if you don’t mind me asking, what does all this have to do with me?’

‘At the moment I have a nanny in place to—’

‘You have a nanny in place?’ She gave a snort of derisory laughter.

‘Would you do me the favour of not interrupting me every five seconds?’

‘Sorry. It’s just the expression you used.’

‘I have a nanny in place who takes Eleanor to school in the mornings and brings her back home. Under normal circumstances, I would have a live-in nanny but Carrie has always insisted on having the evenings to herself and I’ve been loath to replace her because she’s been there since Eleanor was a baby.’

‘What about your wife? Does she work long hours as well?’ Shannon’s voice was laced with curiosity.

‘My wife is dead.’ He glanced down and she felt a rush of compassion for him and for his child. She tried to imagine a life with no siblings, no mother, an absent father and a nanny—and failed.

‘I’m sorry.’ She paused and then asked curiously, ‘When did she die?’

‘When Eleanor was born, actually.’ There was a dead flatness in his voice which she recognised. She’d heard her mother use that tone whenever someone asked her about her husband. She’d used detachment to forestall questions she didn’t want to answer. ‘The pregnancy was fraught, although the birth was relatively simple. Three hours after Eleanor was born, my wife haemorrhaged to death.’