Reluctant Mistress

‘I’m sorry,’ Robert said.

She glanced up at him. His face was ill at ease, a muscle pulsing at his throat. ‘Sorry for pointing out what was staring me in the face, what I should have seen for myself?’

How stupid she had been. Julia’s supposed dental appointments had coincided with Nigel’s lateness. On Tuesday she had pulled him up on it, obviously to no effect. And he wasn’t reaching his sales targets either. She had meant to deal with it sooner but pressure of other business had pushed it to the back of her mind.

‘Nigel isn’t reaching his targets...’ Robert started to echo her thoughts.

‘OK!’ Liza suddenly stormed, and as quick as her temper flared it cooled, and she slumped down in her chair. ‘I’m sorry; I’m just furious with myself for not seeing what was going on and dealing with it sooner.’ She looked up at Robert standing so powerfully in front of the desk. He seemed to fill the room with his presence. ‘I’ll have a word with the pair of them.’

‘A word isn’t good enough, Liza; fire them before I do.’ His voice was so deadly serious she felt a ping of dangerous apprehension down her spine.

Her lips tightened defiantly. ‘Since when have you told me what to do with my staff?’

‘Since when did you run Magnum?’ he shot back.

Raking a tremulous hand through her hair, she calmed her stretched nerves. ‘You gave me control over my advertising staff, Robert,’ she reasoned coolly. ‘Now you are trying to override me. Everyone deserves a second chance. You hired Nigel in the first place so you must have thought he had some worth, and I can’t fault Julia—she’s a damned good assistant. I don’t like firing people without just cause.’

‘And you think you haven’t just cause?’ He was angry now and Liza hadn’t intended that. ‘I don’t care what my staff get up to outside of office hours, but when they do it in my time I see red—’

‘You don’t know anything for sure,’ Liza argued.

‘I know that I saw them all but having it off in the rest-room earlier this week—’

‘Do you have to be so damned crude?’ Liza interrupted furiously.

‘Do you have to be so blind?’ he raked back, his eyes glittering jets of fury. ‘Because you’re as cold as ice yourself you can’t recognise sexual attraction in other people, even when it’s flashed in front of your eyes in neon!’

Tears of pain stabbed the corners of her eyes. Shooting to her feet, she turned away from him, clutched her arms tightly around her shoulders and stared painfully out at the rain.

‘That was unforgivable,’ she croaked weakly, and then her whole body tensed alarmingly as he came up behind her and eased her clenched fingers from her shoulders. His own hands smoothed over the warm wool of her black sweater.

‘I agree,’ he murmured, so close she felt the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck. She suppressed the shudder his contact spun down her spine. ‘It was unforgivable; nevertheless I apologise.’

Liza nodded her acceptance. ‘If...if you knew what was going on between them,’ she whispered, ‘why didn’t you dismiss them?’

‘Because, as you rightly said, it’s your place to deal with your own staff. I thought you would see it for yourself, but I realise now that I wasn’t being wholly fair on you. A new job, a mountain of other responsibilities—I’ve expected too much of you too soon.’

She was about to protest that she was coping, but her words froze in her throat as the office door opened. Robert’s hands flew from her shoulders as if he’d been stung, and Liza swung round so abruptly she nearly swayed into him.

‘Don’t forget the sales meeting at twelve,’ Robert said curtly as he crossed to the door, where Julia stood blocking his way with a curious expression on her face. She moved aside to let him pass, closed the door after him and turned to Liza.

‘I’m sorry my appointment took longer than expected,’ she said brightly, easing out of her coat. Her tone implied she had seen nothing.

But she had; Liza knew that with a tightening of her stomach muscles. Julia couldn’t have failed to see Robert Buchanan’s hands on his advertising director’s shoulders. Robert was almost all things, but an actor he wasn’t. The curtness of his voice hadn’t shadowed his guilt at all.

With a deep sigh Liza turned back to the mail; now wasn’t the time to dress Julia down for her conduct with Nigel. Julia could easily misinterpret what she had seen. The way her mind worked she wouldn’t see it the way it had been, even if Liza explained that Robert had been simply offering her an apology for his rudeness. And worse, if she did try to talk her way out of it, she would have to explain why she and Robert had argued in the first place.

Liza silently cursed her assistant’s lack of discretion. She had enough to cope with without this!

She did tackle Nigel later, though; called him into her office when Julia wasn’t around.

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Nigel, but the other sales staff are way ahead of you. You’ve only managed to sell two half-pages this week and that’s not good enough.’

He blushed deeply, flicked his fair hair back from his forehead. ‘Yes, well, I haven’t settled yet. The place I worked before wasn’t so fast—’

‘I’m not concerned with your past,’ she interrupted softly. She understood why Julia was attracted to him. He was good-looking in the young Robert Redford mould and had a soft, persuasive voice that was ideally suited to telephone sales. She’d looked up his CV before tackling him and he had glowing references from his last job; nevertheless...

‘I regret bringing this up, but is your relationship with Julia affecting your work?’

He smiled without looking at her, which slightly annoyed Liza. ‘You don’t miss much, do you?’

If only he knew, Liza thought dismally, that someone else had had to spell it out to her.

‘I don’t want to pry into your private life, but if it overlaps into your working hours and loses money for the company I’ll have to let you go; it’s as simple as that.’ She hoped she didn’t sound too brutal, but Robert had made himself quite clear on how he felt and she certainly wasn’t going to jeopardise her position for Nigel’s sake.

‘So you’re telling me to stop seeing Julia, or else?’ His blue eyes widened appealingly. Liza held them with the cool green of hers. He might have swept Julia off her feet with that look, but she was immune to tricks like that.

‘I said nothing of the sort. I’m not concerned with your love-life but your sales target: you’re not hitting it.’ She took a sheet of paper from a file on her desk. ‘Look, here’s a list of advertisers that might help you. I’ve dealt with them in the past, though you’ll have to do some hard selling—they aren’t easy. See what you can do. I’ll give you another week, and be sensible, Nigel. You’ve been late twice this week and you’re not thinking wisely. This is a top organisation and you have a bright future with us if you knuckle down. Believe me, I don’t want to lose you but I will if I must.’

She left it at that, hoped it would be enough, prayed it wouldn’t come back on her. It did. Immediately after lunch.

‘Nigel tells me you’re not happy about our relationship,’ Julia snapped at Liza as she swept back into the office. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

Liza aborted the phone call she was about to make, sat back, and gazed at her assistant. ‘Would you like to enlarge on that?’

‘It’s all right for you to carry on with the boss—’

‘I’m doing nothing of the sort!’ Liza responded quickly, trying to keep her cool.

‘So what I saw this morning was a figment of my imagination? You weren’t in each other’s arms?’ She raised her eyebrows, daring Liza to deny it.

For the first time Liza doubted her judgement in bringing Julia to Magnum. She sensed she was going to give her trouble, take advantage of their past easy relationship.

She explained as best she could, without giving too much of her personal life away, how Robert Buchanan had come to have his hands on her. ‘So in a way it was all your fault,’ Liza finished with a touch of humour to lighten the atmosphere.

To her relief Julia gave her a wide grin and her hazel eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Just give me a nod and a wink if you need any more help in that direction.’

Liza held her hands up in mock defence. ‘Forget it. I’ve no interest in our esteemed employer other than work-wise, thank you.’

‘Says you,’ laughed Julia, swinging into her own office off Liza’s. She turned at the door. ‘Thanks for sticking up for us, Liza. I was at the dentist, by the way. I’ve a crown to prove it. I can’t account for Nigel’s lateness, but I am seeing him and I promise not to let our affair show in office hours. I like working here and I don’t want to lose my job.’

As Liza picked up the phone she wondered why she should feel so oddly apprehensive. It was the ‘says you’ comment from Julia that had unsettled her. She tapped out a code on the phone. She definitely hadn’t got a personal interest in Robert Buchanan, but how easily that sort of gossip could rear its ugly head!

* * *

‘You look worn out,’ Robert told her, striding into her office after everyone had left at the end of the day.

‘I feel it.’ She stretched wearily like a lazy cat, not at all offended by his comment on her appearance. ‘It’s the take-away again tonight; I haven’t the energy to boil an egg.’