Powerful Boss, Prim Miss Jones
CATHY WILLIAMS
Plain-Jane Secretary…Elizabeth Jones thought she was meeting her father for the first time. But ruthless tycoon Andreas Nicolaides has other plans for this frumpy arrival on his doorstep! Isn’t Elizabeth just another gold-digger, trying to get her hands on his godfather’s inheritance?Irresistibly Undone! Andreas will employ the unworldly beauty to work for him – where he can keep an eye on her! Only Elizabeth’s delectable curves keep getting in the way, and soon Andreas finds he can’t wait to discover whether she’s still as prim and proper after hours…
‘We should…be working…’ she said breathlessly as he strolled towards her, as relaxed and as determined as a tiger moving in on its cornered prey.
‘Yes, I know, but I’m willing to break all my own rules. For you.’ His fabulous dark eyes glittered with intent and heat pooled in the pit of her stomach. She was mesmerised by the flare of passion in his eyes and, like a moth to a flame, she took a couple of steps towards him, reaching out and then stifling a moan of response as he pulled her towards him.
Andreas felt a powerful surge of possession as his mouth descended on hers. She had offered half-hearted protests, and it was to her credit that she hadn’t leapt upon his generous suggestion that she accompany him back to London when the time came for him to take his leave, but her acquiescence now felt good.
He continued to kiss her as he propelled her the short distance to his desk, at which point he effortlessly lifted her so that she was sitting on the desk in front of him.
‘One of my fantasies,’ he said hoarsely, as he unbuttoned her white shirt with unsteady fingers. ‘My desk in London is as big as a bed, but I’ve never wondered what it would be like to see my woman splayed out naked on it.’
Cathy Williams is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!
Powerful Boss, Prim Miss Jones
By
Cathy Williams
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
‘NO, NO and no. I couldn’t have that woman around me. Did you notice that she had a moustache?’ James Greystone, seventy-two years old, and at present sedately ensconced in his wheelchair by the bay window which overlooked some of the sprawling acreage that encompassed his estate, did nothing to conceal his horror at the thought of it. At the mere suggestion of it. ‘The woman would be better suited to boot camp. She had a voice like a foghorn and the body of a sumo wrestler. I’m shocked that you would even entertain the thought of having her anywhere near me!’ Having dismissed this latest casualty, he settled his gaze on his godson, who was leaning against the wall, hands casually in his trouser pockets, feet lightly crossed at the ankle.
Andreas sighed and strolled to join his godfather at the bay window where he looked out in silence at lawns leading down to fields, culminating in a copse which was barely visible in the distance. The late-summer sunshine gave the gently rolling, peaceful landscape a picture-postcard beauty.
He never forgot that all this—the grounds, the magnificent house, every single appendage of a lifestyle his father could never in a million years have afforded—was his thanks to the old man sitting in the wheelchair next to him. James Greystone had employed Andreas’s father as his chauffeur and general odd-job man at a time when finding employment for an immigrant had not been easy. He had accommodated Andreas’s mother when, two years later, she had appeared on the scene and had similarly found suitable work for her to do. In the absence of any of his own children, when Andreas had arrived he had treated him as his own. Had put him through the finest schools, schools that had helped to develop Andreas’s precocious and prodigious talents. Even now Andreas could remember his father sitting in the same room as they were in now, playing the old man at a game of chess with his cup of coffee going cold on the table next to him.
Andreas owed James Greystone pretty much everything, but there was far more to their relationship than duty. Andreas loved his godfather even though he could be grumpy, eccentric and—as he was now—virtually impossible.
‘She’s the twenty-second person we’ve interviewed, James.’
His godfather grunted and maintained a steady silence as Maria, his faithful retainer of well over fifteen years now, brought him the small glass of port which he knew he was technically not really allowed to drink.
‘I know. It’s impossible to get good staff these days.’
Andreas did his best not to indulge his godfather’s sense of humour. With very little encouragement James Greystone would derail the whole interviewing process, because he just didn’t like the fact that he needed a carer, someone to help him with his exercises, handle some of his paperwork and take him out of the house now and again. He didn’t like the wheelchair which he was temporarily obliged to use. He didn’t like having to ask anyone to lend him a hand doing anything. He didn’t want anyone to have the final say over what he could and couldn’t eat and could and couldn’t do. In short, he was finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that he had had a serious heart attack and was now practically on bed-rest, by order of the doctor. He had played merry hell with the nurses at the hospital and was now intent on torpedoing every single candidate for the job of personal assistant. He flatly refused to use the term ‘nursemaid’.
In the meantime, Andreas’s life was temporarily on hold. He commuted to his office by private helicopter when his presence was urgently required, but he had more or less taken up residence in the manor house—importing his work to him, communicating via email and conference call, accessing the world from the confines of his godfather’s mansion when he was accustomed to being in the heart of the city. Somerset was undeniably beautiful. It was also undeniably inconvenient.
‘Getting a little sick of my company, Andreas?’
‘Getting a little sick, James, of running into a brick wall every time we interview someone for the job. So far the complaints have ranged from—let’s see—“looked too feeble to handle a wheelchair”; “not sufficiently switched on”; “too switched on so wouldn’t last”; “seemed shifty”; “personal hygiene problems”; “too overweight”; “didn’t click”. Not forgetting this latest—“had a moustache”.’
‘Excellent recall!’ James shouted triumphantly. ‘Now you’re beginning to see the tricky situation I’m in!’ He took a surreptitious swig of his port and eyed his godson to gauge his next move.
‘The moustached lady seemed all right,’ Andreas observed, ignoring his godfather’s smug look at his minor victory in getting his godson to agree that the fifty-five-year-old Ms Pearson might have been a challenging candidate. ‘Four more to see tomorrow—but she’s on the short list, like it or not.’ End of conversation.
Andreas had no doubt that the extremely efficient agency which was currently supplying them with possibilities would lose patience sooner or later, and when that happened he had no idea what he would do.
As it was, the past two weeks had comprised the longest stint he had ever had out of his office, holidays included. Empires didn’t run themselves, as he had once told his godfather, and his empire had so many tentacles that controlling them all was an art form that required an ability to juggle work above and beyond the average.
Not that Andreas objected. Brains and talent had seen him cruise through his academic career. Rejecting all offers of help from his godfather, he had left university to embark on his fledgling career in the City. He had moved quickly and effortlessly from the risky trade markets with sufficient capital to set up his own company. Within ten short years he had become a force to be reckoned with in the field of mergers and acquisitions, but when Andreas bought he bought shrewdly and he bought for keeps. Now, in addition to a niche and highly profitable publishing-outfit, he owned a string of first-class boutique hotels in far-flung places, three media companies and a computer company that was right up there in pushing the boundaries of the World Wide Web. He had managed thus far to weave a clever path through the recession, which was revealing gaping inadequacies in companies all over the world; he knew that he was regarded as virtually untouchable. It was a reputation he liked.
Importantly, however, he had never forgotten that the privileged lifestyle which had been donated to him courtesy of his godfather had not been his. From a young age he had been determined to create his own privileged lifestyle, and he had succeeded. Everything took second place. Including women—including, in fact, the current one in his life who had recently begun thinking otherwise.
He’d joined his godfather for dinner with his thoughts half on a deal which would net him a very desirable little company in the north which was busy doing some interesting research in the pharmaceutical market. It was one of the few areas in which Andreas had not dabbled, and therefore all the more seductive. But generally his thoughts were on his godfather’s stubborn refusal to bow to the inevitable, and the niggling problem of the woman he was currently seeing, Amanda Fellows, who was beginning to outstay her welcome.
‘You need to lower your expectations,’ Andreas said as dishes were cleared away, and he pushed himself away from the table to look steadily at his godfather, who was beginning to flag. ‘You’re not going to find perfection.’
‘You need to get yourself a good woman,’ James retorted briskly. ‘Now that we’re getting into the arena of giving advice.’
Andreas grinned, because he was used to his godfather’s casual disregard for personal boundaries. ‘I happen to have a very good woman in tow at the moment, as it happens,’ he said, choosing to set aside the debate about the more pressing issue of his godfather’s obstinacy because stress was to be avoided above all else, he had been told.
‘Bimbo?’
Andreas gave all the appearance of taking time out to consider that. He swirled the wine in his glass around, tilted his head to one side then said, still grinning, ‘Who likes brains in a woman? After a hard day’s work, the only word I want to hear from any woman is “yes”…’
His godfather bristled predictably, and was in the middle of one of his versions of a ‘you need to settle down, boy’ rant when the doorbell went.
The doorbell, unlike doorbells on most houses, was the sort of clanging affair that reverberated like church bells inside the house, bouncing off the solid walls and echoing through the multitude of rooms.
Standing outside, Elizabeth decided that it was the sort of doorbell that perfectly suited the house, which didn’t mean that she wasn’t jumping with nerves as it announced her arrival. Her finger, in fact, had hovered above it for several minutes before she had finally summoned the courage to press.
The taxi which she could ill afford had dropped her off, circling the vast courtyard, then unhelpfully disappearing back towards civilization—leaving her completely stranded and without much of a clue as to what she was going to do if no one was in.
That was just one of the many things, she now realised, that she had failed to consider.
Indeed, there were so many stomach-clenching ‘what if?’s banking up inside her that she had to apply her oft-used technique of breathing in and out very slowly to steady her nerves.
She was in the middle of a deep inhalation, eyes firmly shut, when the door opened and she was confronted by a tiny woman in her sixties with dark hair firmly pulled back into a bun and shrewd, darting eyes.
‘Yes?’
Elizabeth swallowed back her trepidation. She had taken ages deciding what to wear. A light flowered dress, her favourite peach cardigan, flat sandals. There wasn’t a great deal she could do with her hair, which was long, auburn and always managed to defy any attempts made to control it, but she had tried, tying it back into a long braid that hung down almost to her waist. She looked presentable but it still wasn’t enough to instil any self-confidence. She was as nervous now as she had been two months ago when she had first decided on her plan of action.
‘Um…I’m here to see Mr Greystone.’
‘Appointment?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. If it’s inconvenient, I could always come back…’ She had noticed a bus stop a couple of miles back. It would be a bit of a hike, but she wasn’t going to throw away any more money on calling a taxi. Her fingers played nervously with the leather strap of the handbag over her shoulder.
‘Did the agency send you?’
Elizabeth looked blankly at the small woman in front of her. Agency? What agency? Send her for what?
The gaps in her knowledge were beginning to suffocate her. The full extent of everything she knew about James Greystone had been gleaned from the Internet, and she had devoured the information with fascinated interest. She knew what he looked like, how old he was and was aware that he was wealthy—although she had been staggered, on approaching his country mansion, to realise just how wealthy he appeared to be. She knew that he had no wife and that he had never had children. She knew that he had retired from the highly profitable construction-business which his grandfather had founded many years previously and was something of a recluse. For someone presumably of some substance, there had been remarkably little about him, and she could only deduce that that was because he had made it his business from early on to keep a low profile.
She knew nothing about any agency. ‘Um…’ she ventured hesitantly, but it must have been the right response, because the door was drawn back and she stepped into a hallway that took her breath away.
For a few minutes she stood in silence and just stared. Imposing flagstones were interrupted only by an expanse of rug that spoke of generations of use, and directly ahead was a regal staircase that marched upwards before branching out in opposite directions. The paintings on the walls, in their heavy, gilded frames, were of traditional country-scenes and looked as old as the house itself. This house didn’t have rooms, it had wings.
Why on earth had she imagined that the best plan of action was direct confrontation? Why hadn’t she just done the sensible thing and written a letter, like any normal person would have done in her position?
She snapped back to the present when she realised that the housekeeper had paused at one of the doors and was looking at her enquiringly.
‘Mr Greystone is just having coffee in the dining room. If you want to wait here, I’ll announce you. Name?’
Elizabeth cleared her throat. ‘Miss Jones. Elizabeth Jones. My friends call me Lizzy.’
She waited precisely three minutes and forty-five seconds. Elizabeth knew that because she consulted her watch every few seconds just to try and stop her nerves from spiralling out of control. Then the housekeeper reappeared to show her towards the dining room.
Elizabeth had no idea what to expect. She lost track of the various rooms they passed. When she was finally shown into the dining room, and the housekeeper tactfully did a disappearing act, she realised that she was facing not just James Greystone but someone else, a man with his back to her who was staring out of one of the enormous sash-windows that overlooked the back garden.
She felt her breath catch in her throat as he turned slowly away from the captivating view to look at her.
For a few mesmerising seconds she completely forgot the purpose of her visit. She forgot that James Greystone was sitting right there, metres away from her. She even managed to forget her nerves.
The rich, mellow light from the sun as it began its descent streamed behind him, silhouetting a body that was long, lean and even, clothed in casual trousers and a short-sleeved, opennecked shirt, and highly toned. The man didn’t look English, and if he was then there was some other exotic gene in the mix, because his skin was bronzed, his eyes were dark and his hair was raven-black. The chiselled bone-structure was at once beautiful, cold and utterly, bewilderingly magnetic. It took her a few seconds to realise that he was watching her as assessingly as she was watching him, and that James Greystone was watching both of them with interest.
Elizabeth dragged her eyes away, feeling like someone who has been whisked up, around and over on a sudden, thirty-second rollercoaster ride and then dumped back down to earth at supersonic speed.
‘Miss Jones…Not sure if you were on the agency’s list. Damn fool agency’s as incompetent as the day is long…wouldn’t be in the least surprised if your name wasn’t on it.’
The disturbing sensation of being tumbled about faded as Elizabeth turned to face the reason for her visit in the first place. James Greystone cut an imposing figure with his shock of iron-grey hair, his blue eyes and the easy disposition of a man born into money. He was in a wheelchair, which came as something of a shock. Yet again, there had been this mention of an agency.
Constricted by the presence of the tall, strikingly dominant man by the window, Elizabeth was finding it difficult to get her thoughts in order, never mind rearranging them into something approaching speech. This was definitely not the first impression she had intended to make, gaping like a stranded goldfish.
‘CV? Where is it?’ Andreas decided to make the first move. This latest offering from the agency seemed to be a nitwit. The girl could barely manage to speak, and she was bright red, clutching her handbag the way a drowning man might clutch at a lifebelt.
‘Give the girl a chance to speak, Andreas! This overbearing fellow, by the way, happens to be my godson. You’re free to ignore him.’
Ignore him? The advice seemed as futile as telling a swimmer with a bleeding leg to ignore a circling shark, but Elizabeth resolutely turned away from the man and walked hesitantly towards the old man in the wheelchair, still clutching her bag for dear life.
‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t brought a CV with me.’ She knelt down by the wheelchair so that she was looking up at the old man’s lined but still autocratic face. ‘You’re in a wheelchair. What happened? Do you mind my asking?’
Stunned silence greeted this question, then James Greystone burst out laughing.
‘Well, at least you’re not afraid of getting to the point! Stand up, girl!’ He looked her up and down the way a horse breeder might assess the qualities of possible stock, while Elizabeth’s generous heart went out to him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You must think me awfully rude. My mother was very poorly for the last two years of her life and she absolutely hated it.’
‘Excuse me for breaking up the party…’
From behind her, Andreas’s voice was cool and smooth and demanded her attention, even though he had certainly not raised his voice. He walked round to stand behind his godfather and proceeded to give Elizabeth a long, thorough look.
‘But,’ he said bluntly, ‘no CV. Complete mystification at my godfather being in a wheelchair. What exactly did the agency tell you, Miss…’
‘Jones…Elizabeth.’ Mild mannered as she normally was, Elizabeth felt herself get a little hot under the collar, because she just knew that he was fully aware of her name. He obviously was extremely protective about his godfather, didn’t like what he saw in her and was arrogant enough to make his feelings known. ‘I…I didn’t come through the agency.’
‘Right. So, let me get this straight. You heard of the job through a friend of a friend of a friend, and decided that you would just pop in and see whether you couldn’t get an interview without bothering to go through the hassle of actually making an appointment—am I right?’
He subjected her to the full force of his disapproval and watched, fascinated as she went from shell-pink to white to pink again. She gave every semblance of the innocent girlnext-door, that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, the ‘I only care about helping the needy’ type. But Andreas wasn’t about to take chances. James was a rich man and rich men attracted gold-diggers; it was as simple as that. At least, with the girls submitted by the agency, stringent background-checks had been made; Andreas had personally made sure to impress the necessity of that upon them. So he wasn’t going to be taken in by a chit of a girl who just happened to be passing by and thought she might drop in, on the off chance. No way.
Elizabeth remained silent, her green eyes huge as she worried her lower lip with her teeth.
‘Andreas! Stop bullying the poor child.’
Andreas stifled a groan of despair. Trust James to have had something negative to say about every single candidate and then be taken in by the one who had just showed up out of nowhere. ‘I’m not bullying her,’ he said, keeping his impatience in check, ‘I’m trying to establish her credentials.’
‘Credentials, predentials! At least this one doesn’t come complete with a moustache.’
Elizabeth giggled and then hung her head when Andreas shot her a look of withering disapproval.
‘And she seems to have a sense of humour. You, on the other hand, appear to be losing yours. I like this one. I didn’t like any of the others.’
‘Be sensible, James.’
‘I’m beginning to feel a bit faint, Andreas.’ He looked at Elizabeth and spun round his wheelchair so that he was facing her directly. ‘You’re hired. When can you start?’
‘James!’
‘Andreas, don’t forget what the doctor said about stress; right now, I’m beginning to feel very stressed at your unhelpful attitude. I really think that it’s time for me to head to bed. My dear, I would be delighted if you would accept the offer of this job.’ He gave her a pitiful smile. ‘It’s been a dreadful time for me recently. I have been felled by a heart attack and have gone through hell trying to find myself a suitable personal assistant so that I can relieve my godson of the burden of looking after me.’
Elizabeth was amused to see how adroitly he had managed to portray his godson in the least favourable light.
‘Of course I’ll, er, accept the job offer,’ she said shyly, and was thrilled to read genuine relief on the old man’s face.
‘Right. Andreas will sort out the boring details and I will see you very soon. You’ve made a feeble old man very happy, my dear.’
He wheeled himself efficiently out of the room; Elizabeth heard him bellowing for Maria and then the sound of scurrying steps. She slowly and reluctantly turned to Andreas. She had contrived to ignore him completely while she had been talking to James Greystone, even though she had been well aware of him, frowning, on the very edges of her perception. Now she was forced to look directly at him, and his impact on her senses was no less now than it had been from the very moment she had first clapped eyes on him.
‘So, congrats. You got the job.’
Elizabeth was horribly disconcerted when Andreas slowly circled her in much the same manner as a predator might circle prey before it moves in for the kill.
He moved with the stealthy, economical grace of a tiger, and she very nearly squeaked with dismay when he finally paused to stand directly in front of her.
‘Now the interview begins. My godfather might be a pushover, but believe me when I tell you that I’m not. Follow me.’ He walked away, taking it as a given that she would instantly fall in line, which she did.
‘Right.’ He turned to face her when they eventually made it to the sitting room, another impressive room with floor-to-ceiling drapes on one wall and on the other a massive fireplace. ‘Sit.’
‘I wish you’d stop giving orders, Mr…Mr…?’
‘Andreas. Keep it firmly planted at the back of your mind.’
‘I’m happy to answer your questions.’ Within reason, Elizabeth thought with a guilty twinge. ‘I haven’t come here to cause any trouble.’
‘Good. Then we should get along just swimmingly. If, however, I discover that you’re not what you make yourself out to be, then let me give you every assurance that I will personally see to it that you’re strung up and left to dry.’
‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’
‘Consider me a horrible person.’
‘Is that how you’ve dealt with all the people who have applied for this job? By threatening them?’
‘All the people who have applied for this job have come down the normal route. They’ve been vetted to within an inch of their lives by the agency, and they’ve all had a bucket load of credentials and references to their name. You, on the other hand, swan in here via a friend of a friend of a friend, I’m led to believe. You have no CV, and I’m betting that you’re pretty low on the credential-and-reference front as well, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.’
Elizabeth had never met a man like this before. To look at, he was spectacular. Everything about him demanded attention, from the physical perfection of his body to the beautiful contours of his harsh face. He was someone who would be noticed in any crowd, anywhere, and she wondered if that was the source of his arrogance. A man like him, accustomed to snapping his fingers and giving orders, would have no time for common courtesy. Right now he was watching her narrowly and she decided that she really, really disliked him.
But he wasn’t going to scare her away. It had taken a lot to bring her to this house in the first place; now that she had unexpectedly been offered an opening, she wasn’t going to let herself be cowed into leaving.
‘Well?’ Andreas studied her down-bent head. ‘Let’s talk about the credentials. Any?’ He strode forward, casting a shadow as he towered over her before sitting down on the sofa next to her.
‘I’m a qualified secretary,’ Elizabeth began, clearing her throat. She’d almost preferred it when he was looming. ‘And my boss, Mr Riggs, would provide a very good reference for me.’
‘And your job is where, exactly?’
‘In West London.’
‘Name of company?’
Elizabeth nervously began telling him about what she did at Riggs and Son, which was a small solicitor’s office close to the airport, and Andreas held up an imperious hand to halt her in mid-sentence.
‘I don’t need a complete run-down on the history of the company, and I care even less about Mr Riggs senior retiring. Why would you leave an office job to come and work as a nursemaid to an elderly man?’
It was a very good question and one which Elizabeth was not prepared to answer. However, stuck in the position of having to say something, she mumbled indistinctly about wanting a change.
‘Speak up,’ Andreas demanded. ‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying.’
‘That’s because you’re making me nervous!’
‘Good. Being nervous around me works. Now, enunciate carefully and tell me what’s in it for you, taking this post.’
‘I…I’m good at looking after people.’ She raised her eyes hesitantly to Andreas; he frowned and pushed aside the distracting notion that they were the purest, clearest green he had ever seen. ‘I looked after my mum for two years before she died, and I guess some people would find that a chore, but it never bothered me. I liked looking after her. It only seems fair that old people should be taken good care of when they’re poorly, and I’m happy doing that.’
‘Which beggars the question—why didn’t you become a nurse if your Florence Nightingale instincts are so highly developed?’
Andreas’s brilliant dark eyes were making her feel disoriented. She knew that, whatever impression she was managing to give, it was the wrong one. She could barely keep still and her face was burning.
‘Come on, now, Miss Jones!’ Andreas delivered impatiently. ‘Get with the program. You’re being interviewed, but you can barely string a few sentences together. How am I to think that you’re going to be able to handle working alongside my godfather? He might be in a wheelchair, but his intellect is in full, working order. Can you convince me that you’ll be able to hold your own when you can barely manage to answer a few simple questions? His food needs to be carefully supervised, he needs exercise on a regular, daily basis. He enjoys neither of those restraints and is very happy to dig his heels in and refuse to cooperate. Don’t you think that he’ll be able to run rings around a timid little mouse like yourself? In fact, isn’t it all too likely that that’s the very reason he’s so keen on getting you on board?’
Elizabeth felt her temper rise at his flagrant insult. Timid little mouse? How dared he just sit there and say whatever he wanted in that lazy, derisive voice of his when he didn’t know her?
‘Furthermore, you might have won James over by batting those eyelashes of yours and playing the sweet little innocent, but none of that washes with me. As far as I am concerned, you’re starting at the baseline point of potential gold-digger.’
‘You have no right to accuse me of—’
‘I have every right. I’m looking out for my godfather’s interests, and from where I’m sitting they don’t lie with someone who’s walked off the streets with nothing more to her name than a sympathetic expression and a convincing line in blushing.’
Elizabeth summoned up every ounce of courage she possessed and stood up, wishing she had a more commanding height instead of being a mere five-foot three-inches. ‘I…I don’t have to listen to you. I’m not after your godfather’s money. I know you’ve probably seen loads of really qualified people, but, if Mr Greystone is willing to give me a chance, then I think you should be too.’
‘Or else what?’
Elizabeth had no comeback to that sharply spoken question. Her mother had died only recently and she had been allowed extended compassionate-leave from her company, time she had planned to use by venturing down to Somerset so that she could get to meet James Greystone. She had not expected to find him in need of a carer but, now that she had, now that she had been given the chance of actually working for him, the thought of seeing the opportunity snatched out of her hands by the man in front of her filled her with dismay.
‘I don’t know. Nothing.’ Her shoulders drooped in defeat and she stared down at her sandals, wondering whether he had already mentally added ‘drab, boring dresser’ to his ‘timid, little mouse’ description of her.
‘How did your mother die? She must have been relatively young.’
The change of subject startled her, and Elizabeth looked at him in confusion.
‘It’s not a trick question, Elizabeth,’ Andreas said drily. ‘So you don’t have to stand there weighing up an appropriate response. Just try and answer the question without looking as though you’re being made to walk on a bed of nails.’
Feeling like a parasite spread out on a petrie dish for inspection, Elizabeth stammered into speech. Her mother had battled cancer for two years. She had ignored symptoms for many months because of a fear of doctors and had paid the ultimate price. By the time she had trailed off, Elizabeth’s eyes were wet and she rummaged in her bag for a handkerchief, only to find one pressed into her trembling hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I was very close to my mum and she’s…Well, I have no brothers or sisters, and my mum was an only child. In fact, she was adopted, so…’
Andreas swung away from her to walk towards the window. Halfway across the room, Elizabeth was still gulping back her tears while wondering whether to return the soaked hanky to her torturer or tactfully dispose of it in her bag to be laundered and returned at a later date. He had made absolutely no comment on anything she had said, which was not surprising, but what did surprise her was that she was grateful for his silence. She had become weary of facing other people’s discomfort and pity.
‘Okay,’ Andreas said crisply, ‘Here’s the deal. You get the job, but you’re on probation, and don’t even think of letting it slip your mind that I’ll be keeping an eye on you. You’ll report to me twice weekly, at the very least, and I will want to see positive progress with my godfather in terms of his exercise routine. James has been writing his memoirs for years. Your secretarial skills will prove useful, so be prepared to use them.’
Elizabeth nodded gratefully, mesmerised, against her will, by the sheer power of his presence. He might be cold, condescending, witheringly derisive and downright insulting, but there was still something impossibly magnetic about him. Once her eyes were on him, it was seductively easy to let them stay there.
The sight of Andreas walking towards her and snapping his fingers yanked her back to reality. ‘Hello? Is anybody there? Are you reading me?’
‘I’m reading you loud and clear. Sir!’
‘Good. Then we’re on the same page. My people will be in touch with you tomorrow morning with the contract. Built in will be a one-month probation clause—and that’s my probationary period, not my godfather’s. At the end of that time, you’ll either be hired full-time or you’ll leave, no questions asked. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘When are you free to start?’
‘Immediately,’ Elizabeth said, just in case he changed his mind. ‘I mean, most of my stuff is still in my bedsit in London.’
‘Bedsit? You live in a bedsit? I had no idea that such things still existed.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Well, they do, and I live in one of them. I could arrange to get back…let’s see…’
‘Give me your address. I can have all your possessions brought to the house by lunchtime tomorrow, and I’ll take care of any penalty you incur at your…place of accommodation.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Never ask me that question,’ Andreas said smoothly. ‘I am always sure. Where are you staying tonight?’
‘A bed and breakfast. It’s not fancy, but I couldn’t af—’
‘No need to elaborate. Be here at ten, sharp, tomorrow morning and bring whatever you have with you. Any questions? No? Good. In that case—’ He spun round on his heels and headed to the door ‘—I’ll get Maria to call a cab for you and show you out.’
The door closed quietly behind him and Elizabeth was left feeling wrung out. In fact, she had to sit down, because her legs were threatening to collapse. In none of her wildest daydreams could she have envisaged this scenario but it was all to the good. She closed her eyes and breathed evenly for the first time since she had set foot in the house.
It was a cruel shame that Andreas was to be a fixture on the scene, but that fly in the ointment faded into insignificance next to the impossible slice of good fortune that she was, at long last, going to get to know the father she’d never known about before.
CHAPTER TWO
ELIZABETH had grown up knowing precious little about her father. In fact, practically zero, and she had worked out from an early age that questions on the subject were a no-go area. The ‘do not trespass’ sign would go up faster than the speed of light. As she had got older, when the other kids at school pressed her for details, asked her whether her parents were divorced, she had shrugged and changed the subject. Divorced parents would have been easy to deal with. Most of her friends had come from divorced backgrounds. Some had had so many marriages and remarriages within the family, and had collected so many half-siblings and step-siblings on the way, that you would have needed a degree in advanced calculus to work it all out.
The only thing she knew for certain about him was that she must have inherited his colouring because her mother had been very blond. Her auburn hair must have come from somewhere.
Then Phyllis had died and every question Elizabeth had mentally asked herself over the years had been answered, thanks to a cardboard box which she had discovered in the attic of her mother’s house under the piles of stuff, largely rubbish, which she had had to wade through. There had been letters, some faded pictures and, significantly, a name.
With the help of the Internet, it had taken her under half an hour to learn that her father was alive and kicking and living in Somerset, a widower whose wife had died many years previously.
Putting two and two together, Elizabeth had worked out that Phyllis, at the age of thirty-two, had become the most ordinary of statistics—namely someone who had dated a man and discovered she was pregnant with his child. Had she become the butt of her friends’ jokes? Had she had to endure the whispers and sniggers of people who might have been happy to see the blond bombshell brought back down to earth with a bump? People who had gossiped about the woman from the wrong side of the tracks reaching above her station? At any rate, her father had been exorcised from both their lives for ever.
Which didn’t mean that Elizabeth still hadn’t been curious. Which didn’t mean that she didn’t want to slot together some of the jigsaw pieces for herself. Armed with concrete information, she had thought long and hard, taken a few deep breaths and made the momentous decision to meet the man she had never known.
She hadn’t been entirely sure how exactly she would handle this all-important meeting, but just getting away from west London had seemed a good idea. The time spent caring for her ill parent, whilst working flat out in a frantic effort to keep a rein on the household finances, had drained her of all energy. When Phyllis had eventually passed away, Elizabeth had been a walking zombie. The thought of leaving London and the bedsit into which she had been obliged to move had dangled in front of her like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The one thing she had known for sure was that she wouldn’t barge into her father’s house and announce herself as his daughter. Being in the situation in which she now found herself, that had become even more of a certainty for Elizabeth. Her father was a sick man. The shock of discovering who she was could have untold, dire consequences.
The little batch of incriminating letters lay like an unexploded bomb beneath her underwear in the ornate chest-of-drawers in her bedroom.
The past few weeks had been an exercise in getting to know her father. Despite their wildly different temperaments, they had bonded on a level that was proving to be deeply rewarding. His irascible personality was soothed by her much more even-tempered one, and years of caring for her mother had inured her to the cantankerous demands of the invalid who doesn’t want to be the invalid, the only difference being that James was recovering well, whilst her mother had become progressively worse.
It also helped that she was avid in her curiosity about his life, which thrilled him no end, and super-human in her ability to overlook all his faults, so great was her desire to get to know him. Which, likewise, thrilled him to bits.
When to tell him who she really was? No time seemed like a good time. How would he react? Would the shock kill him? She had tried to talk to his consultant about what could happen should something unexpected happen to James, but the conversation had been so convoluted, and the poor man had looked so bemused that she had given up in the end.
If the shock didn’t kill him, then would he still want her around? Would he still like her? She was tormented by the notion that he might feel as though she had somehow deceived him, and when she tried to think of how she could explain her decision to him her brain became scrambled and she felt sick.
So Elizabeth dealt with the whole sorry situation by largely pretending that it didn’t exist. One day, she vaguely decided, the time would be right, and when that day came she would recognise it and find the courage to do what she was resolutely putting off doing.
With her unease firmly boxed and shoved away for the moment, she walked across to her bedroom window and stared down at a vista of lawns and fields that was breathtaking. For someone who had grown up in the cluttered confines of a neighbourhood where the houses were packed together like sardines in a can, this was a slice of sheer paradise.
Unfortunately, it was a paradise marred by more than just a guilty secret. In fact, she sometimes thought that the guilty secret was nothing compared to Andreas, who was capable of having the most appalling effect on her even when he was in London hundreds of miles away.
She was expected to report to him by email on a daily basis, which was fine, but in addition to the emails there were the phone calls, during which he would cross examine her like a chief inquisitor on the hunt for blood. He asked her questions that were loaded with hidden traps, into which she could inadvertently fall without warning, and made passing remarks that she interpreted as thinly veiled insults. He never forgot to let her know, directly or indirectly, that he was still suspicious of her motives, even if he had trusted her sufficiently to return to his hectic schedule in London.
Elizabeth frowned and walked towards her bathroom. James would be having his siesta, and this was her down time, during which she would have a long, lazy bath and maybe stroll in the garden, read her book or even catch up with some emails; one of the first things presented to her had been a laptop computer.
‘It’s the fastest method of communication,’ Andreas had informed her in his usual scarily cool way. ‘I’ll expect you to fill me in on my godfather’s progress every day. With your own personal laptop, there’ll be no room for excuses about forgetting.’
She hadn’t cared to think what would happen if she skipped a day, if she forgot. ‘Off with her head’ sprang to mind.
And then there were his visits.
These were frequent and often unannounced and they always, but always, left her a dithering wreck. Andreas was an expert in making his presence felt in a way that was subtle and invasive at the same time. How on earth did he always manage to find just the question that could stick a pin in her conscience and leave her flustered and hunted? She didn’t know, but he excelled at it. Those spectacular dark eyes would lock onto her, she would feel dizzy and faint and then she would babble.
Consequently, she had become adept at avoidance tactics. She would disappear to the town for a spot of shopping, which was something that didn’t interest her in the slightest, and reappear just in time to vanish for a bath. She would join them for dinner and would endeavour to keep as low a profile as possible, cringing when James sang her praises, and breathing a sigh of heartfelt relief when she could reasonably excuse herself for bed.
Once the thought of Andreas got into her head, it lodged there like a burr, and not even the luxury of her deep bath could sweep the disturbing images from her mind. Nor was there any image she could super-impose over his. It was as if her disobedient mind had wilfully decided to commit to memory that striking, dark face, those cool, assessing eyes, that wide, sensuous mouth and, once committed, was determined to hold on to the image with ruthless tenacity.
She emerged, warm and flushed, from the bathroom with just her bathrobe around her—and ran slap-bang into the alarming sight of Andreas lounging indolently in her doorway.
It was such an unexpected sight that she had to blink a couple of times because she was convinced that what she was seeing was just a continuation of what she had been thinking only moments before.
The illusion was well and truly shattered when he spoke.
‘I knocked.’
Elizabeth went bright red and stared at him until he shook his head impatiently. He walked forward into her room, half-closing the bedroom door behind him, which sent her nerves rocketing into even deeper, helter-skelter frenzy.
‘What are you doing here?’ she squeaked, following his every movement with trepidation. He was the last person she had expected to see. In fact, he wasn’t due a visit until the weekend, two days hence.
Andreas wasn’t sure whether to be amused or thoroughly irritated by her obvious dismay. No one could ever accuse the woman of enjoying his company, he thought. In fact, give her a magic wand and he was pretty sure that her first wish would be to make him disappear. But he had knocked, which as far as he was concerned gave him every right to enter when his knock hadn’t been answered.
Anyway, this wasn’t a social call, and he wasn’t about to let her scuttle into hiding until it was safe to emerge, which would be when his godfather came down later for his cup of afternoon tea.
‘I’ve come to see you,’ Andreas said smoothly. ‘I wanted to get hold of you without James, so I timed my visit to coincide with his siesta. Aren’t you flattered?’ He looked round the room curiously. ‘Would you believe, this is the first time I’ve been in this particular bedroom? Nice, if a bit heavy on the pastel shades and chintzy fabric. The four-poster bed has Portia’s touch written all over it. She had a flair for the showy.’ Inspection over, he turned to Elizabeth, devoting every ounce of his attention to her wary, flustered face.
‘What do you want?’ Elizabeth cleared her throat and tried very hard to disengage from the reality of her naked body under the bathrobe.
‘How are you finding it here?’ He walked across to the imposing bay-window and perched on the ledge, his long legs stretched out and loosely crossed at the ankles. ‘I mean, we’ve had innumerable conversations about James and his progress, but surprisingly few about you.’
‘You’ve barged into my bedroom to talk about how I’m enjoying the job?’ Elizabeth felt a rare surge of anger, because this was really too much. Did he imagine that she was undeserving of even a modicum of privacy? Did he think that because he had set himself up as her taskmaster that he could do whatever he wanted?
‘I didn’t barge into your bedroom. I very politely knocked and, when there was no answer, I entered. If you’re that obsessive about your privacy, then I suggest you lock your bedroom door as a matter of course.’
‘I would have, if I’d known you might have been prowling around,’ Elizabeth muttered to the ground.
‘But, as a matter of fact, your job satisfaction is only one of a few things I want to talk to you about.’
‘The others being…?’ She momentarily forgot her embarrassing state of undress, because she couldn’t think of anything Andreas might want to chat to her about that was going to be to her benefit. The fact that he had travelled down especially to catch her when James wasn’t around sent a shiver of apprehension racing up and down her spine.
‘I’m more than happy to have this conversation here,’ he drawled by way of response. ‘But you might want to get changed and join me in James’s office downstairs.’
Which brought Elizabeth right back down to earth at lightning speed. Her fingers tightened on the cord around her waist, threatening to cut off circulation, and she nodded at him tightly.
‘And don’t even consider stretching it out until James wakes up in two hours’ time. Or even gate-crashing his siesta so that he can chaperone you.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. Don’t you think I know how important it is that James has his rest during the day so that he can build his energy back up?’
‘Of course you do,’ Andreas said in a honeyed voice. ‘Although I can’t help but notice how much more visible you are when James is around. Almost as though you don’t like being in my company. But then that’s probably me just being cynical.’
‘You are a very cynical person,’ Elizabeth agreed on a sigh, and Andreas shot her a look of open disbelief.
‘I don’t suppose anyone ever tells you anything like that, because everyone is so desperate to please you, but you are cynical. It’s not a very nice trait.’ Over the course of time, James had told her about Andreas’s girlfriends, or ‘blasted airheads’, as he liked to describe them. Whilst Elizabeth knew that she shouldn’t really indulge in gossip about him behind his back, curiosity had driven her to listen, and what she had learnt had pointed to a guy who played the field with the same ruthless determination as he played the stock markets, always making sure never to stay with one woman long enough for her to get any silly ideas. If that wasn’t cynicism, then what was? Even though she had been deprived of the whole two-parent business, and even though she had seen lots of marriages first hand that had ended in tears, Elizabeth still firmly believed in love.
‘Not a very nice trait?’ Andreas paused on his way out to repeat her frankly spoken remark with incredulity. He had long decided that diplomacy was not one of her more prominent characteristics, but the softly spoken put-down still managed to get under his skin.
‘Some people may think it’s okay,’ Elizabeth told him hurriedly and he raised his eyes skywards with a long-suffering expression.
‘I’ll expect you in the office in fifteen minutes,’ he told her abruptly, not giving her any ghost of an opportunity to latch onto some other random topic which might ambush him into one of those dizzying side roads that her brain seemed to love. He had never met a woman like her. Not only was ‘coy’ an alien word to her vocabulary, but she could divert him from whatever he happened to be saying with an ease that would have had members of his board gasping with envy.
The last time he had come home, he had casually mentioned over dinner that a dog had almost ended up under the wheels of his Ferrari, only to find himself treated to a disingenuous diatribe on fast cars—which were a threat to other road users, and totally unnecessary, given that a much slower car could easily get a person from A to B without running over poor, innocent animals en route. All counter arguments had fallen on deaf ears, and much to his godfather’s vast amusement, he had found himself back on the road, doing thirty miles per hour, searching the roadside to make sure that the dog had in fact escaped an early death.
On certain issues, the shy, blushing maiden was not at all backward in coming forward, he had found.
And yet she continued to be patently awkward in his presence. It was a conundrum which played on his mind a lot more than he cared for.
He would not have been struck dumb with surprise if she had dawdled in her room, against his express instructions, but in fact he heard her timid knock on the door precisely fifteen minutes after he had poured himself a cup of coffee and settled behind the desk in James’s grand office.
She had changed into one of her seemingly never-ending supply of nondescript flowered dresses, which were perfect for the long, warm summer days but incredibly unflattering. This one was shapeless, and over it she wore a very thin cardigan that reached practically down to the tops of her thighs.
‘I’ve printed off your report,’ she said, walking hesitantly towards the desk and proferring him two sheets of paper.
‘Why would I want to read what you’re perfectly capable of telling me yourself face to face?’ He gestured to the chair in front of him and then folded his hands lightly on the desk.
‘Right. Okay; yesterday James and I went into town. I thought it’d be nice for him. There’s a lovely tea shop down one of the side roads, although naturally I made sure that he didn’t stray from his diet.’ She waited for some interruption from him, perhaps reiterating the importance of obeying doctor’s orders when it came to James’s food intake, but he carried on watching her in complete silence—which was really, really offputting. ‘He…he’s thinking of joining a bridge club, in fact. One of his friends, a lovely gentleman by the name of—’
‘We were going to talk about you,’ Andreas smoothly cut in. ‘How you’re enjoying working for my godfather. You two seem to have clicked. In fact, I hear from him regularly, and it seems that you can’t put a foot wrong.’
Elizabeth smiled with real pleasure, and for a few seconds Andreas was distracted into thinking how much that smile lit up her face and transformed her from average to…He frowned and focused.
‘It’s been absolutely, well, brilliant meeting Mr Greystone—James. He’s an incredible man. So, if you’re asking me how I’m enjoying working here, then I can tell you with my hand on my heart that I’m loving it.’
Andreas held up one imperious hand. ‘I get the picture.’ He steepled his fingers together and looked at her thoughtfully, his expression shuttered. ‘I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t think you’d last the month. James is ferociously intelligent and he can be very wilful if he puts his mind to it. He has almost no tolerance for anyone who can’t keep up with him, and the fact that he’s physically constrained now against his will, the fact that he’s in a position of dependency, has made him unbearably short-tempered. I thought you would have been screaming and waving the white flag before you had time to fully unpack.’
‘It’s worked out very well.’ Something about this conversation was making her feel a bit uneasy. He had barely listened to what she had to say about James’s recent progress, and yet she found it difficult to imagine that he had made this trip especially to enquire about her. He had had plenty of opportunities to enquire about her, so why start asking probing questions now?
‘Yes, I’m very pleased for you. As is Donald Riggs. Remember him? The teddy-bear guy you used to work for once upon a time in west London?’ Andreas sat back and watched her carefully, noting the way her eyes flickered past him, then lowered to gaze in apparent fascination at her hands.
‘Of course I remember him. I don’t understand, though. Why would you have spoken to Mr Riggs? You asked me to provide you with a reference and I made absolutely sure that one was written and posted to you.’
‘Yes, and it was all above board. Positively glowing. In fact, I’m surprised they’re managing to survive without your fantastic interpersonal skills and great sense of initiative.’ He picked up a piece of paper from the desk, which Elizabeth now realised was the requested reference, and read a few sentences that did indeed make her sound like a paragon of efficiency, and all in all an indispensable member of their team.
‘Funny thing is, I barely glanced at this reference when it arrived on my desk a month ago. You had already settled in, James liked you; the reference to all intents and purposes was a formality.’ He picked it up and scanned it then handed it to her in silence.
‘Go on. Read it and then tell me what you think.’
‘I’m very grateful to Mr Riggs for being so kind about me,’ she said eventually, having dutifully read and re-read it three times, frowning as she tried to work out what the undercurrent between them was all about.
‘Is that all?’
‘What else do you want me to say?’ Elizabeth asked in confusion. ‘Why do you have to play cat-and-mouse games like this? Why can’t you just come right out and tell me what you want to say? I know you don’t like me, but there’s no need to behave like a bully.’
Several things in that statement threatened to send Andreas’s blood pressure into orbit, but he wasn’t about to be distracted either by what she said or by her enormous, accusing green eyes.
‘Reading this,’ he said instead, ‘Several times over, I got the distinct impression that teddy-bear Riggs assumed you were seeking employment with me. Typing speeds, willingness to assume responsibility with important case files, liaising with clients—etc, etc, etc. See where I’m going?’
‘Those are the things I used to do in the company. What would you have had him say?’
‘Less about the typing speeds, for starters, and a little bit more on the interpersonal skills. In fact, I was surprised typing speeds were mentioned at all, considering you would have asked him for a reference in connection with working for James in the capacity of carer. Hmm. Almost as though teddy-bear Riggs had no real idea about the position for which you were applying. Odd, don’t you agree?’
‘I’m reliable and efficient. Aren’t those the sort of skills you were looking for?’
Andreas ignored that minor interruption. His question had been more of a rhetorical one in nature, not requiring a response. ‘Anyway, I thought it might be an idea to get on the phone and have a little chat with the Riggs character.’
Elizabeth didn’t say anything. As always with Andreas, what had commenced as a seemingly straightforward question-and-answer session was usually unveiled as a conversational road rife with hidden agendas and cunning traps.
‘You’re not saying anything. Aren’t you interested to hear what he had to say?’
‘I know you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘True,’ Andreas admitted without a hint of apology. ‘Now, here’s the thing. Your ex-boss had no idea that you were job hunting in beautiful Somerset. You took some leave following your mother’s death because you needed to get out of London and there was something you had to do in Somerset. He didn’t quite specify what this something was, but he certainly wasn’t under the impression that it involved work. In fact, he was under the impression that it involved someone, as opposed to a something.’
Now was the time to spill the beans. Now was the time to come clean, to tell Andreas that, yes, she had come to find her father, that she had found him, that the opportunity to get to know him as herself rather than as an estranged daughter had been irresistible. It would be good, wouldn’t it, to confess everything?
In her mind’s eye, she pictured Andreas and his reaction. He was not a man given to half measures nor, for that matter, seeing things in shades of grey. Life was a black-and-white business for him. Avoidance of truth would not be construed as a sensitive approach to a delicate situation; it would be seen as an ungovernable lie fit for the most severe of punishments. And would he see fit to tell James the truth? Or would he, like her, not want to risk his health by being the harbinger of such shocking news? Would he just chuck her out? Maybe tell her to wait until James was fully recovered? If he did, then how long would she have to wait?
Elizabeth would never have thought it possible that she could build such a strong connection with the man whose presence in her life had always been in her imagination. She could never have hoped that their personalities would have clicked so smoothly. Having found that they did, her desperation to hang on was overwhelming.
Into the breach of her silence, as she wrestled with the sudden onslaught of conflicting consequences, Andreas said in a deadly smooth voice, ‘How on earth would you have heard about this placement in London—and, if you had, then why the secrecy? Why not just tell teddy-bear Riggs that you needed a change of scenery, that you wanted to pursue a different career?’
‘I…You’re confusing me.’
‘Then spill the beans. Tell me what you’re doing here. Really.’
‘I…I…’ Elizabeth pressed the palms of her hands against her face and took a deep breath. ‘I did want a change of scenery—from everything—and, yes, I came here on the off chance of meeting your godfather because…Because you’re wrong—I had heard of him.’ Strictly speaking, none of that was untrue, but still she felt horrible at having to fiddle with the truth and pull it to bits and pieces so that she could pick and choose which bits she wanted and which bits she didn’t.
‘I didn’t want to tell Donald, Mr Riggs, anything because I wasn’t sure whether I would need to go back to my old job or not. I had to keep my options open. When I asked him to supply a reference, I guess I didn’t mention details of the job. In fact, I didn’t actually speak to Donald at all. He was in a meeting, and I spoke to Caroline. I don’t know her very well, because she joined a month before I left, so I just told her the basics—that I had found employment down here. I gave the address you gave me and asked her to pass the message on that you needed a reference from Donald.’
‘Why do I get the feeling that there’s something important missing from this narrative?’
‘Because you’re suspicious by nature. Because you’re never, ever willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.’ Her heart was beating so hard that she wanted to put her hand to her chest to steady it. Instead, she clasped her fingers together on her lap and waited for the axe to fall. The prospect of being flung out on her ear without explanation—or the chance to explain everything to James and then being prepared to take the consequences, whatever they might be—was just too much. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and chewed on her lip, willing herself not to be a weakling and cry. Andreas would detest weaklings. He would probably chuck her out just for showing emotion.
Unfortunately, her head was in no mood to listen to reason, and the trickle of tears felt cool against her hot, flushed skin.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled thickly.
Andreas watched this display of emotion with a censorious frown, at a loss as to what to make of it. On the one hand, he was a gut believer in his own instincts, which were positively screaming that something in the picture wasn’t right. On the other hand, he was capable of recognising genuine feeling when he saw it, and there was nothing staged about this bout of waterworks—and he had seen a fair amount of female waterworks in his time. The tap, he had long recognised, could be switched off at the drop of a hat. This tap, however, looked as though it might continue leaking indefinitely. He stood up and circled the desk so that he could hand her his handkerchief, which she took without looking at him, although he thought he heard a muffled, ‘Sorry.’ He perched on the desk, staring at her down-bent head with a perplexed frown, until she had gathered herself.
‘I’m not a monster. I do sometimes give people the benefit of the doubt.’ He tried to think of the last time he had done so and couldn’t.
Elizabeth raised hopeful eyes to his and said, with earnest urgency, ‘I would never do anything to hurt James. I’m not here to take advantage of an old man. I know that’s what’s going through your head.’
‘You have no idea what’s going through my head.’
‘I know it won’t be good.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘I’m just asking you to trust me when I tell you that I’m not a gold-digger. I don’t care about money.’
‘Even though you’ve never had any?’
‘I know it’s a cliché, but money doesn’t buy happiness.’
‘I have no idea how we managed to get into this conversation.’ Andreas stood up abruptly because those wide, green eyes were threatening to do something to his legendary cool. ‘I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt in this instance because dispatching you might do more damage to my godfather than keeping you on. He’s taken to you, and this is a challenging time in his life. I don’t know what might happen if we have to go through the nuisance of trying to find a substitute, especially if no real explanation’s given for the vanishing act.’
Elizabeth smiled tremulously and reached out to take hold of his hand, releasing it when he glanced down with a look of mingled surprise and displeasure. ‘You won’t regret it.’
‘You bet I won’t, and here’s why.’ He had given this a great deal of thought. Had she confessed to some sinister, ulterior motives, he would have had no option but to sack her on the spot, but he knew that that had been an unlikely possibility. In which case, hustling her through the back door and then trying to fabricate a plausible explanation for his godfather would be nigh on impossible. Which left him no option but to be in a position from which he could seriously keep an eye on her. Emails and phone calls, whilst helpful, could not even be loosely categorised as seriously keeping an eye on her. She could be using her free time to rummage through bankaccount details, for all he knew!
He very firmly neutered the little voice in his head telling him that that was a preposterous suggestion. Since when was he the sort of guy who fell for a woman’s tricks? Or anyone else’s, for that matter? Life at the very summit of the food chain had opened his eyes to the folly of taking people at face value.
He circled her and then paused to look down at her very carefully, taking in the anxious, heart-shaped face, the softly parted lips, the big, innocent eyes still glistening from her crying jag.
‘I’m coming back home.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘COMING back home?’ Elizabeth was utterly bewildered. Didn’t he live in London? ‘Don’t you live in London?’
‘Keep up here, Elizabeth. I’m moving back down to Somerset.’ He had resumed his seat at the desk and was tilting back in it, hands folded behind his head, his dark eyes gleaming with satisfaction. The whole upheaval should have been a major source of dissatisfaction for him. His office was the throbbing soul of his operations, and the thought of being plucked out of it for reasons not of his choosing should have set his teeth on edge, but he felt strangely content with the decision.
‘You’re moving back down to Somerset.’ She could scarcely believe her ears.
‘You seem to be in a state of shock.’
‘You’re moving back down to Somerset so that you can watch my every move. You said that you were going to give me the benefit of the doubt.’
‘And I have. Which is why you’re still in gainful employment!’
Elizabeth looked at him reprovingly and fumbled with the handkerchief which she was still clutching. ‘You would jeopardise your whole working life just because you think that I’m here to do I don’t know what?’
‘I’m not jeopardising anything,’ Andreas refuted smoothly. ‘I worked here perfectly fine when James returned from hospital. It’s a big house and, convenient though it is to be in an office environment where everyone is on hand, keeping in touch is really only the press of a button. The joys of the World Wide Web! Some of my employees actually design their own working hours to incorporate working from home. I’m a very progressive employer.’
Elizabeth was lost in her own tangled thoughts. How on earth was she going to avoid him when he planned on being around all the time, watching her every move? Would he follow her into town when she went to do the shopping? Lurk outside her bedroom with his ear pressed to a glass against the door to find out what she was up to? She imagined bumping into him at unexpected moments, or turning corners to find him lying in wait like a big-game hunter waiting to pounce. She shuddered and realised that he had been saying something.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That’s going to have to change, for a start.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about your habit of not listening to me when I speak to you.’ Or else responding with the briefest of answers and with the general demeanour of someone who would prefer to be anywhere in the universe except in his company. Both traits irritated the hell out of him.
Elizabeth blinked, but, really, how surprised should she be? Andreas resided in a different hemisphere from most other people. In his rarefied world, he snapped his fingers and everyone saluted and jumped to immediate attention.
‘I do listen,’ she told him. ‘I was just thinking about how awkward it’s going to be if you’re following me around every second of the day…’
‘Why would I be following you around every second of the day?’ Andreas asked, his darkly handsome face incredulous at the suggestion. ‘I may be prepared to transfer operations down here for the foreseeable future, but I don’t intend to abandon work completely so that I can stalk your every movement.’
Foreseeable future?
‘You can’t migrate here for the foreseeable future,’ she said in a staggered voice. ‘Don’t you have to run your empire?’
‘We’re not talking about a pirate ship here,’ Andreas told her drily. ‘There won’t be mutiny if I’m not clocking in on a daily basis.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Apologies for pointing out the obvious, but that look of horror on your face isn’t doing your “give me the benefit of the doubt” cause any good.’
‘I’m horrified at the thought of you being around all the time!’ Elizabeth blurted out with brutal truthfulness. ‘I don’t like you. You make me nervous. Of course I’m not going to look forward to you moving in.’
Andreas gritted his teeth in the face of this level of blunt honesty. ‘Liking me isn’t a requirement,’ he imparted grimly. ‘In fact, not liking me would work very well for the situation I have in mind. However, reacting like a cat on a hot tin roof every time I talk to you isn’t going to do.’
Elizabeth couldn’t really imagine why someone would not want to be liked; it seemed the most basic and natural of human desires. But then Andreas wasn’t like everyone else, was he? ‘For the situation you have in mind?’ She looked at him blankly and waited for whatever new and disturbing revelation he had to relay.
‘I wondered when you would clock on to what I just said.’ He sighed elaborately, picked up James’s fountain pen which was lying on the desk and twirled it ruminatively between his fingers before transferring his gaze to her expectant face.
‘The wonders of Internet access only really go so far,’ he explained ruefully. ‘Nothing really replaces the good, old-fashioned secretary. Someone to file reports, fend unwanted phone calls, take notes, bring those essential cups of coffee…’ He paused, allowing that lazy observation to sink in and take root. ‘Which is where you come in.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, but yes.’ He dropped the pen and angled her a brooding, speculative look. There was so much that had his antennae on red alert, from that phone call to her ex-boss, to her evident alarm at the thought of him being around. Yet, if she did have something to hide, wouldn’t she be acting a little less distracted? If, as he had gleaned from reading between the lines, she had headed to Somerset with the express intention of meeting James, of edging her foot through the door and then hunting down the family jewels, wouldn’t she be playing it cool?
Gold-diggers came in all shapes and sizes, admittedly, but they were universally manipulative, cunning and opportunistic. They didn’t spend hours browsing through junk shops with a cantankerous seventy-something, as he had gathered she had been doing from the various communications with his godfather over the weeks. They didn’t reject their host’s offers of having every meal catered to the highest standard in favour of trying out home-cooked food from the antiquated recipebooks James had stored in various cupboards in the kitchen. Nor did they spend their leisure time with the head gardener chatting about plants or else sitting in the walled garden with a book. That took cunning to an altogether new level, and one that Andreas had difficulty getting his head around.
Which was not to say that he didn’t feel compelled to oversee the situation. It never paid to take anything in life for granted, and that included the rest of the human race.
‘I can’t work for you. I work for Mr Greystone. I know you insisted that I answer to you, but at the end of the day…’
‘Let’s think out of the box for a minute. Yes, you do work for James, and from what I gather you’re the perfect companion—by which, I take it, you have inordinate reserves of patience. Apparently there was a fracas at the tea shop because the scones advertised had sold out?’
Elizabeth momentarily forgot her stress and gave him one of those radiant, transforming smiles. ‘Oh, did he mention that to you?’
‘Apparently he spent so long arguing with the manager about their policy of leaving the board up when the scones were no longer available that he’s been given a voucher for free teas there for the next fortnight.’
‘He did huff and puff about never darkening their doors again, but of course he will. He says they do the best creamteas in the county—even if he can’t have the cream—and, besides, I think he likes Dot Evans. She told him to stop spluttering because it wasn’t good for his blood pressure, and that if he kicked up a scene in her shop again she would drag him out to the kitchen and force him to do the dishes.’
Andreas was temporarily derailed by the first part of her remark. ‘Likes Dot Evans? Don’t be ridiculous. He’s known the woman for the past ten years! Don’t you think I would have known about it by now?’
‘I guess so,’ Elizabeth backtracked vaguely, shifting her gaze away and waiting in silence for him to return to the thorny subject of her impending doom.
‘Not so fast.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Don’t you think I’ve noticed that tendency you have to fall silent the minute a conversation gets a little awkward?’ Yes, spot on. He had read her correctly, judging from the sudden bloom of colour on her cheeks. Well, at least his ability to read women hadn’t been completely turned on its head in her case.
‘I don’t like talking about things James might have said. Or not said. Okay—said. When he’s not here to…um…say it himself.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What did my godfather say? You’re kidding about Dot Evans, right?’ His ebony brows knitted into a perplexed frown. He knew Dot Evans, of course. She had been a fixture of sorts on the scene for the past ten years, when James had loaned her money to set up the tea shop in the village. In actual fact she and James had been classmates at school a hundred years ago. He couldn’t remember her visiting the house, though. Or had she? Andreas had tried over time to visit his godfather as much as humanly possible, but the frantic pace of work had often waylaid the best thought-out plans. It was easy for things to be left unsaid when visits were snatched.
‘It’s just a feeling I get.’
‘And how is that I’ve been kept in the dark about this? You’re not breaking some secret code by telling me, so you might as well come clean.’
Elizabeth hesitated. Nothing said to her had ever been said in confidence. Although James could be belligerent, forthright and opinionated, he could also be endearingly diplomatic. Diplomacy had prevented him from telling his godson about Dot because when it came to the opposite sex he and Andreas were miles apart. He might have had an affair with her mother, but from what she had gathered about his ex-wife it had been a response to a loveless marriage. Of course, he had never mentioned a word about ever having had a mistress, but the more she knew him the more she realised that he was, essentially, a man of honour.
Would he have ended his marriage for Phyllis? She didn’t think so, but it was a question that could never be answered, because her mother had scarpered the second she had discovered he was married, taking the secret of her pregnancy with her. It was tempting to play with the fantasy of wondering what her life might have been like if James had been a free man, had been able to pursue her mother and marry her.
Lost in her day dreams, she started when Andreas snapped his fingers and delivered her a censorious frown.
‘You’ll be astounded to hear this, but most women don’t drift off into never-never land when I’m trying to have a conversation with them!’
‘Sorry.’
‘He must be ashamed of her,’ Andreas mused. ‘Can’t understand why, unless it’s a money thing, although James has never been a snob.’
‘Of course he’s not ashamed of Dot Evans. She’s a lovely lady. He just doesn’t think that you…’ The words were halfway out of her mouth before she realised that she had uttered them, and she was mortified when Andreas fixed her with his brilliant dark, questioning eyes.
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