Seduced By The Boss

The patronising term annoyed her, but she didn’t show it. Reminding herself that the salary Softshare paid her was worth withstanding the occasional moody outburst, Megan gritted her teeth behind her most patient smile. ‘Certainly. There were two messages on your voice mail from Japan. Oh, and another call from the Czech Republic. Someone in the government there needs to talk to you and wondered if you could get back to them as soon as possible?’

‘Yep. Sure.’ He wandered over to the window and looked down onto the car park where a dozen powerful cars, including his own, glittered in the morning sunshine. ‘What else?’

‘You’re meeting Sam Tenbury to discuss the possibility of Softshare sponsoring a tennis tournament. You’re having lunch together—’

‘Where?’

Megan smiled confidently. She had asked one of the executive assistants for the name of the best local restaurant. And even the pernickety Dan McKnight surely couldn’t find fault with her choice. ‘I’ve booked that riverside restaurant—’

‘Change it.’

‘But—’

‘Change it,’ he repeated on a growl, meeting the be-mused question in her eyes. ‘I’m much too busy to have my time wasted by waiters who think that offering me an oversized pepper pot should be greeted with laughter and loud applause!’

Megan frowned. She had briefly gone out with a waiter while she was still at secretarial college and knew what long hours they put in for what amounted to little more than a meagre pittance. ‘But they’re only doing their job, Dan—’

‘Yes, I know they are,’ he said, with a quick, impatient smile. ‘I just don’t want it to interfere with mine! And it’s the kind of restaurant where men take their mistresses—’

Megan looked up quickly. It was a very old-fashioned word for him to have used, she thought. And not a particularly flattering one. ‘How do you work that one out—is there a sign on the door or something?’

‘You’ve obviously never been there.’

‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t admit to it now—even if I had! What’s wrong with it?’

‘I just don’t think it deserves its reputation as being the best place to eat locally. It’s badly lit with corny music—the food is mediocre and it’s overpriced. I don’t want to browse through a menu of encyclopaedic length or have my wineglass filled every other second so that by the end of the meal I’m on my knees. I’m not planning a long, slow seduction—’

‘Gosh! Sam Tenbury will be relieved!’ she joked.

Dan sent her a glimmer of disapproval as he bit his words out. ‘I just want to eat and then talk business.’

‘Right.’ Megan stared at him—all health and vitality in that grey suit which made his eyes look like glittering slate in comparison. ‘Well, I really don’t know any other restaurants in the area. Any suggestions? “

Dan plugged in his laptop. ‘Why don’t we eat here?’

Megan conjured up a vision of herself flitting in and out, carrying plates of sandwiches. Did he expect her to make them as well? ‘What—in the office?’

He gave her the type of look he reserved for people who were being especially dense. ‘No, Megan, not here in the office,’ he answered sarcastically. ‘I don’t want crumbs in my keyboard! I meant the staff canteen.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

He heard the doubt in her voice. ‘The food is good—and there’s no chance of alcohol clouding our judgement, since the strongest liquid on sale is root beer!’

Poor old Sam Tenbury, thought Megan. If he thought he was about to have an extravagant time with one of the dynamic directors of Softshare he was about to be very disappointed! ‘Right,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll cancel the table. Let’s hope Sam wasn’t expecting you to push the boat out!’

Dan looked at her with a faint air of disapproval. ‘Why should he? You must know the company philosophy by now, Megan—how long have you been here? A month, is it?’

‘Nearly three months actually,’ she corrected pithily, wondering if he had deliberately cultivated the knack of making a woman feel completely invisible.

‘And…’ He sat down behind his desk and stretched his long legs out in front of him. ‘What have you learned so far?’

Megan felt like a child asked to recite their times-tables in front of the teacher! ‘That frugality is the name of the game,’ she told him earnestly. ‘That Softshare directors fly economy class. That you don’t make your offices into palaces.’

‘And why not?’ he asked softly.

‘Because you plough all the profits back into keeping ahead of your competitors,’ she answered obediently.

‘Mmm. Very good, Megan,’ he said, looking closely at the screen in front of him.

‘Do I go to the top of the class?’ she wondered aloud.

But Dan wasn’t listening; he was staring at the figures on his screen with the kind of rapt fascination which most men reserved for beautiful women.

The office was large and spacious and had been designed with the full cooperation of a design consultant. Two desks sat facing one another, which was not really Megan’s idea of fun. Those cool grey eyes didn’t exactly make you feel relaxed. And you certainly couldn’t varnish your nails or telephone a girlfriend—even in your lunch hour—not when your boss was sitting only feet away!

The only respite she got was when Dan had to go away on business, which wasn’t as often as she would have liked. Because, like most assistants, she found the office ran much better when her boss wasn’t around!

In one corner of the room was a seating area which had made a couple of concessions towards comfort. It contained a sofa and two soft chairs, with a low table in between. Fresh flowers were sent each week by a florist and were subtle and scented. Clutter in the room had been kept to a minimum and Megan was trying to enter into the spirit of this new working environment. She had already ‘streamlined’ her desk, and eagerly studied the section of the Softshare manual which included guidelines on how to make your life less stressful. Though so far, at least, she wasn’t sure if it was working.

They worked non-stop until Megan’s stomach began to rumble. When Dan was working, he seemed to forget about such mundane matters as food and drink.

‘Would you like some peppermint tea?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Or maybe you’d prefer camomile?’

Dan winced. ‘No, I wouldn’t! I’ll have that coffee now—strong and black, the same as always.’

‘But too much caffeine can make you irritable, Dan—’

‘Yes, and you seem to be doing a pretty good job of that, too! Why on earth would I need coffee, Megan?’ he snapped sarcastically as he checked his e-mail.

Megan went out to fetch him coffee served just the way he liked it—which was ebony-black without any sugar—and was presumably what kept him so alert. And so lean. She set it down on his desk in front of him, then ate a large green apple while Dan spoke at great length to someone in Tokyo, frowning at her every time she crunched.

After that he took a conference call. At noon Reception buzzed to say that Sam Tenbury was waiting downstairs, and Dan stretched his arms high above his head and gave a lazy yawn.

Megan found herself wondering who he had taken to the theatre with him and how late a night it had been afterwards. And also wondered if the lucky woman was the same woman who had penned the letter which still lay unopened in his in-tray. Megan gazed down at it, but Dan was already by the door and didn’t appear to have noticed her pointed stare.

Anyway, it was none of her business.

‘Okay, Megan. You know where I’ll be. See you in about an hour,’ he promised, and closed the office door quietly behind him.

The room felt a bit empty after he’d gone and Megan threw herself into organising an off-site meeting for the following month, where Softshare employees would congregate for one of the team-building programmes which the company promoted so fiercely.

She was just thinking about eating her own sandwich—which she always made up for herself at home before she drove her scooter into work—when the telephone rang and she picked it up.

‘Hello, Dan McKnight’s office, Megan speaking. How may I help?’

There was a breathy pause. And then a young woman’s voice—asking a studiedly casual question which came out sounding as if it had been rehearsed over and over. ‘Is he there, please? D-Dan, I mean.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Megan. ‘He’s out at a meeting.’