Playing by the Rules: The feel-good heart-warming and uplifting romance perfect for Valentine’s Day

On closer inspection I saw that her skin was flawless. Her fringe was cut to perfection and her thick-framed glasses gave her a superior air. But one look at her thin lips, pursed as tightly as they were, and I knew I wasn’t going to be her favourite colleague by a long mile.

What was her deal anyway? Had she wanted the job as PA? Who could tell? All I knew was that this woman didn’t like me and 365 days of having to work was going to be even tougher if I had to look at that miserable face for all of them. I felt as if I’d walked into a war zone, ill-equipped and unprepared to do battle with a pro like Cassandra.

‘Should I just go to my office?’ I said, sounding far too wet behind the ears. Cassandra pounced.

‘Well you won’t be much good standing there, will you?’

‘It’s just that Anthony didn’t show me where –’

Cassandra dragged herself out of her seat and brushed past me and out of the door. Again I followed her. She heaved her shoulders up and down with a loud tut that echoed in the wide space of the hallway. I trotted up the stairs behind Cassandra and followed very closely. So close in fact that when she stopped outside the door of an office on the top floor, I bumped into her.

‘Sorry,’ I said. She tutted again, opened the door and stood back to let me in.

The office faced the front of the building. It was fairly large but couldn’t really be considered plush. The chair wasn’t as fancy as the one in Anthony’s office, or in reception come to that, but the desk was large and so highly polished I could see my reflection when I put my bag onto it.

Other than a desk tidy and filing tray (empty) the room was quite bare and screamed out for a revamp. Obviously the last PA had no taste and I’d have to address that as my first task. I made a mental note to order in some plants for the windowsill, perhaps a couple of black and white prints for the wall and the wooden floor could possibly do with a rug of some sort. I was very sure I’d seen just the thing last time I was browsing in John Lewis for a vase. Oh and flowers – the office needed them.

‘Who’s your florist?’ I asked Cassandra. She looked at me blankly and went to leave.

‘Just a minute,’ I called to her. She stopped, not bothering to face me. ‘Have I done something to annoy you?’ I said to the back of her smooth bob.

Cassandra turned around slowly. I expected her face to be bright red and angry but instead she arched an eyebrow above her glasses and stared hard at me.

‘For your information, I did everything for the old Mr Shearman. I worked as his secretary and PA for fifteen years. It was my first job after leaving school at eighteen. I’ve worked all of my adult life – hard. I know what hard work is. I didn’t come here with a silver spoon in my mouth, a rich mummy and daddy and a sister who more or less called in every favour she could to get me here. No. Like I said, I worked hard. Mr Shearman never had a worry or a care and he has no idea what he’s letting himself in for allowing that dolt of a son of his to try to take over. He doesn’t know a leather belt from a briefcase or a sales report from a marketing budget.’

‘But you do, I suppose?’

Immediately Cassandra parroted what I said in a pseudo-posh accent.

‘Is that how I sound to you?’ I said crossing my arms. ‘Well pardon my middle-class upbringing. It doesn’t define me. You don’t know if I’m a hard worker.’ I wasn’t. ‘And you don’t know if I had help getting this job.’ I did. ‘In fact, you know nothing about me so don’t be so quick to judge.’

‘All I know is that someone who comes to work dressed as if she’s just walked out of a designer clothes shop doesn’t need a job as a PA.’

I opened my mouth to respond but Cassandra had walked out and I could hear her stomping her way downstairs followed by a loud bang of something or other landing on her desk. Maybe her boxing gloves. But I wasn’t about to take this lying down, not without a cappuccino anyway, so I stormed down after her. Cassandra whipped her head over to stare at me as soon as my first Jimmy Choo toe touched the reception floor. Her eyes bulged through her glasses at me. I faltered.

‘Um, I wondered where you kept the coffee things,’ I said in a soft voice. She pointed a finger, with a nail that could do with a good manicure, towards a door down the corridor and I followed her glare towards it.

I was seething as I entered what turned out to be a small kitchen. Round one had gone to Cassandra but she wasn’t getting away with treating me like that for the rest of my time here. She was judging me by my cover: posh accent, designer clothes. But I had to show her there was more to me than that. I mean, there was – wasn’t there? So I hadn’t worked my fingers to the bone exactly but then again I’d never had to. Was that my fault?

Carrying a cup of coffee past reception and up to my new office, I decided to keep my head down and keep out of Cassandra’s way for a while. Maybe in time she might come to like me. Maybe she wouldn’t but I had to show her that I wasn’t as bad as she made me out to be.

By ten o’clock I had gone and introduced myself to the other office staff. Taking up two large offices at the back of the building was the finance and wages departments – a total of three other people who double and tripled up on whatever else needed to get done. I gathered that as well as being receptionist, general secretary and the old Mr Shearman’s PA, Cassandra also dealt with human resources and the office supplies.

By ten-thirty I had moved my desk around to be sideways on to the window, straightened out some files on a shelf, opened and closed the drawers of a tall filing cabinet in the corner and painted my fingernails Devil Red. There was no sign of Anthony and I’d been in and out of his office only to find it empty each time. There was a computer on a side table in my room and I’d managed to log into it and get the website for Ikea to see if I could source some reasonably priced office furnishings. I thought Cassandra would baulk at me considering Harrods so I’d already made the company a saving.

It got to eleven-thirty and I noticed online that Harvey Nichols were doing Mind Wellness Smoothies in their fifth-floor restaurant and wondered if I could take a long lunch break and meet Anya there. All of a sudden I heard a bit of a commotion on the ground floor. I went over to my door and leaned over the banister to listen. I heard Anthony’s voice. At last. I popped back into the office and got my compact mirror out. I scrunched my waves into life again, flicked up my eyelashes with my finger before rubbing it over my teeth to bring out the shine of the recent whitening job.

Then I began to look into various poses I should assume for when Anthony first saw me at work. I picked up a notepad and pencil and stood in front of my desk ready to take notes. No. I didn’t know shorthand and my spelling was atrocious. I sat at my desk with my chin on my hands, elbows on the table. No. I’d look like I was bored. I went over to the computer to look as if I’d been trying to get to grips with the systems but the computer screen had frozen on the lingerie section of Harvey Nichols website so I quickly hit ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ to leave the program. Next, I ran over to the filing cabinet and started looking through files but I broke a fingernail and slammed the drawer shut.

Maybe I should start by asking Anthony if he wanted coffee or tea. Perfect. You couldn’t get a better icebreaker for starting a strong PA/boss relationship.

I sat on the edge of my seat waiting for Anthony to walk up the stairs and when that didn’t happen I began to panic. Maybe Cassandra was holding him by the lapels and convincing him that I should be fired. No way was I going to let that uptight secretary lose me my job before the day was through.

I went downstairs and as I did I heard laughter. It was a woman’s laugh and I was convinced that Cassandra didn’t know how to laugh. Someone else was downstairs with Anthony so I skipped into reception merrily to find out who.

‘Ah, Magenta,’ Anthony said turning to me with a smile. ‘You’re here.’

I tried not to look puzzled by that comment but I was.

‘You did say Monday didn’t you, Anthony?’ I said with a smile.

All of a sudden my gaze was drawn away from Anthony and fell on the person whose laugh I’d heard from upstairs. I tried not to gasp at her beauty, but the woman who was now gripping Anthony’s arm was truly beautiful. She was tall and had a delicate poise. She was classy but in a down-to-earth sort of way. She wore a long summer dress with a low front and her tanned breasts were perfectly formed – not too big and not too small and needing no support from a bra whatsoever.

A quick glance at Cassandra and I could see she was smirking at my open mouth. Cassandra must have clocked that I had a crush on Anthony and she had obviously been waiting for the day I’d come to find out that Anthony was taken. And not only taken but well and truly so, judging by the enormous stone on the platinum ring on the third finger of the beautiful woman’s left hand. Anthony was engaged.

I tried not to let my shoulders sag. I knew from the off that falling for him would have been a no-no anyway … but still.

‘Yes, I think I did say Monday,’ Anthony said. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot about our weekend in Tuscany.’ As he said this, the woman gripping his arm gripped even tighter and smiled a gooey smile that spoke volumes.

‘Should I not have come today then?’ I asked trying to ignore the evils this woman was giving me and the slimy grin plastered on Cassandra’s face.

‘I’ll be in tomorrow,’ said Anthony with a reassuring nod. ‘And we can officially start then.’

‘Silly, Ant,’ said the beautiful woman as she smooshed her right boob closer to Anthony’s body.

‘Oh, Magenta, may I introduce Inez, my fiancée?’ said Anthony.

I walked over with an extended hand to shake hers. She took an agonisingly long time to detach herself from Anthony before reaching out her hand as I stood there like a prize plum. Her hand was slim and very cool, despite the hot August morning in central London.

‘I hope you can keep Ant organised,’ she said, barely looking at me. ‘He can be a bit of a scatterbrain. But he’s my scatterbrain.’ Emphasis on the ‘my’. She squeezed his cheek between her finger and thumb then tiptoed up to kiss the pink mark she’d left there. ‘But one day this place will be an empire and he’ll be in charge of it all. Won’t you, Ant?’

Anthony nodded, embarrassed, and tried to step away from Inez whose boob closed in even tighter than before.

‘Magenta, you must forgive me for calling you in here a day early,’ said Anthony, red-faced. ‘Yes, as you can tell I am a bit of a scatterbrain but as long as you’re not, we’ll do just fine.’

I noticed Inez look at me from top to toe in a quick sweep. She seemed to decide I was no threat to her Mediterranean beauty and dismissed me by turning her back on me, gathering Anthony by his arm again and walking him out of reception.

‘See you tomorrow,’ Cassandra called as they went to leave.

‘Yes, see you,’ I repeated, waving as if I was seeing them off at a train platform.

Anthony gave us a quick ‘See you’ over his shoulder and Inez whipped him out of the building and away.

I turned to look at Cassandra who was looking down at her desk and shaking her head.

‘What?’ I said. ‘What is it now?’

‘Oh nothing,’ she said, moving papers around on her desk.