At His Service: His 9-5 Secretary

‘And Anna?’

‘She said she loved me with all her heart. Then she got sick. A rare form of cancer. Although, she wasn’t. I only found out she’d lied to me after we’d married. One of her friends told me when she was drunk, she thought it was hilarious. I was a joke, apparently.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She was. His voice was painful to hear.

‘So far from Anna only having a few short months to live, months she’d begged me to spend with her as man and wife, she was as healthy as the next person.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I told her I was leaving. That night she cut her wrists in the bath.’

Unable to believe her ears, Gina could only stare.

‘And so it began. Months of manipulation and tears and threats and rages. Two more supposed suicide attempts when I was going to leave. Damn it, I was young, little more than a kid. I was in way over my head, and I was stupid. I really thought she might kill herself. Eventually it came to the point where I began to fear I was going mad. That was the point I walked out. Went abroad.’

‘What … what did she do?’

He shrugged. ‘Took me for every penny she could get, and made sure my name was mud, then married some other poor sop.’

Appalled, Gina reached out and touched his hand. ‘She must have been sick.’

‘Sick?’ His lips twisted. ‘No, I don’t think Anna was sick. Manipulative, determined, cruel, hard—all under a cloak of fragile femininity, of course—but sick? I could have forgiven sick, but not the sheer resolve to get her own way no matter whom she trampled underfoot.’

And so he had decided never to get caught like that again. She could understand it. But surely he realised all women weren’t like Anna? Quietly, she said, ‘I think she was sick, Harry. I’ve never met anyone like her. All the women I know would be horrified at what she did.’

He didn’t argue the point. Draining his cup of coffee, he shrugged slowly as he replaced the cup on the saucer. ‘You’re probably right, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Like I said, life changes people. She perhaps did me a favour, in the long run. I wouldn’t have ended up in the States, maybe, wouldn’t have decided what I wanted—and more importantly what I didn’t want—so early on in life, but for Anna.’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think she did you a favour,’ Gina said with more honesty than tact. ‘How can living an autonomous life be a favour? You’ll miss out on a wife, children—’

‘I don’t want a wife and children, Gina,’ he said calmly and coolly. ‘I have what I want, and I consider myself most fortunate.’

She could have believed him one hundred per cent, but for the shadow darkening the smoky-grey eyes. And then he blinked and it was gone. Perhaps she’d imagined it in the first place. Gathering all her courage, she said, ‘And what you want is a beautiful empty shell of a house, with no family to make it a home? Not ever? A life of complete independence with no one to grow old with, no one to look back over the years with? No one to cuddle when the night’s dark and morning’s a long way off?’

For several seconds, seconds that shivered with a curious intimacy, he held her gaze. Then the grey eyes closed against her. When he looked up again, he was smiling, his voice holding an amused note when he said, ‘You’re a romantic, Gina Leighton.’

How the knowledge that he wasn’t smiling inside had come, Gina wasn’t sure, but it was there. She didn’t smile back, her face sweetly solemn as her eyes searched the sharply defined planes and angles of the hard male features.

‘I believe in love,’ she said softly. ‘I believe in the sort of love between a man and a woman that has the potential to go on for a lifetime, and nothing else can measure up to the contentment and wonder of it. It has the power to sweep away barriers of culture and religion, heal unhealable hurts, and mend broken hearts. It can change the most dyed-in-the-wool cynic for the better and make the world a place worth living in. Yes, I believe all that, and if that fits your definition of a romantic then I hope up my hands and plead guilty, gladly.’

Harry shook his head slowly. ‘And all this when the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with has let you walk away?’

She blinked. That had been below the belt, and it hurt. Lots.

‘I’m sorry.’ Immediately he reached out and took her hand, holding on to her fingers when she would have pulled away. A thousand nerves responded to the feel of his warm flesh, and as she closed her eyes against the flood of desire his voice came, low and repentant. ‘I’m really sorry, Gina. That was unforgivable. I’m the sort of primeval animal that attacks when it’s threatened.’

Threatened? Bewildered, she met his gaze. For once his face was open, even vulnerable, and it betrayed something: a need, a longing. For what, she didn’t know, but it was there in the smoky depths of the grey eyes. She swallowed hard. ‘You objected to my placing you on a par with an animal earlier,’ she reminded him, managing a fair attempt at a smile.

‘So I did.’

She could read the relief in his face. He hated emotional scenes. She knew the reason for that now. ‘Can I have my hand back, please?’ she said with the sort of cheerfulness he expected of her. ‘I want to drink my coffee.’

‘Sure.’ He grinned at her, and her heart writhed. She couldn’t imagine not seeing him every day. She hadn’t tried to, knowing it would weaken her resolve if she did. But now the time was here. In a little while, maybe an hour or two, he would happily drive out of her life without a care in the world. He’d perhaps even sing along to the car radio or one of his CD’s on the way home, feeling he’d done his duty to the stalwart secretary who had babysat him in his first weeks at work.

She wondered what he’d do if she succumbed to the sudden temptation to tell him how she felt. To ask him to kiss her, really kiss her, just once. For old times’ sake, or whatever he wanted to call it.

He’d be horrified. The answer was there with bells on. Horrified, embarrassed, alarmed. And every time he thought of her from now on—if he ever did, of course—it would be with awkwardness and discomfiture. And she didn’t want that. OK, it was probably her pride again, but she would really rather walk through coals of fire than have him mentally squirm if her name came to mind.

‘… your address?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Too late she realised he’d been talking, and she hadn’t heard a word.

He shook his head. ‘You were thinking of him just now, weren’t you?’ he accused. ‘This guy who’s let you down. Are you seeing him again before you leave for London?’

He seemed put out, but she couldn’t think why. It was no skin off Harry’s nose whether she saw her imaginary lover or not. She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said dismissively. She’d discussed this whole thing enough, besides which she was worried she might trip herself up. Lying didn’t come naturally to her, and she knew she was extremely bad at it. ‘And he didn’t let me down, not like you mean. What did you say before?’ she added, before he started to argue the point.

‘I said, you’ll have to remember to give me your address and telephone number tonight,’ he said.

A trifle sullenly, Gina thought. But then Harry never had been able to stand being disagreed with. She nodded. She had no intention of giving Harry her address in London after his comment earlier in the day about dossing down on her sofa if he was in town. She’d make some excuse when he dropped her off, saying she’d post it to him, something like that. And she wasn’t going to delay their goodbye, either. She didn’t want his last sight of her to be one of her howling her head off.

They finished their coffee and mints, and Harry paid the bill. Gina’s heart was beating a tattoo as they walked out to the car, Harry’s hand at her elbow. The night was scented with spring and to Gina’s heightened emotions, unbearably lovely. She didn’t think she had ever felt so miserable in the whole of her life.

Once in the car, Harry didn’t start the engine immediately. Instead he twisted in his seat to look at her, frowning slightly. ‘I’m worried about you, Gina,’ he said quietly.

She became aware her mouth had fallen open, and shut it quickly. If he’d suddenly taken all his clothes off and danced in the moonlight, she couldn’t have been more surprised. More thrilled, certainly, but not more surprised. ‘I don’t follow,’ she hedged warily.

‘This taking off to London to nurse a broken heart. It’s dangerous. You’re leaving yourself wide open for the worse sort of guy to take advantage of you. Away from friends and family, all alone in the bit city, you’ll be incredibly vulnerable.’

He made her sound like Little Orphan Annie. She stared at him for a moment before she said stiffly, ‘I’m thirty-two years old, Harry. Not sweet sixteen.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Everything.’

His mouth set in the stubborn pout he did so well. It made her toes curl, but she wasn’t about to betray that to this big, hard, sexy man. Just occasionally—like now—she caught a glimpse of what the boy Harry must have looked like, and it was intoxicating. But Harry was no callow youth. He was an experienced and ruthlessly intelligent man who would capitalise on any weakness an opponent revealed. She’d seen him too often in action on the business front to be fooled.

‘I don’t think you’ve thought this through,’ he said flatly, after a few tense moments had ticked by.

‘Excuse me?’ She couldn’t believe the cheek of it. She hadn’t thought it through? She’d done nothing else for months. Months when he’d been busy getting up close and personal with some blonde or other. He clearly didn’t only see her as unattractive and sexless, but stupid as well. ‘What on earth would you know about it?’ she said stonily.

‘Don’t get on your high horse.’ He seemed unaffected by her obvious rage. ‘I’m merely pointing out you’re on the rebound, because anyone who is on the rebound never makes allowance for it.’

Agony aunt as well—there was no limit to his attributes. Gina glared at the man she loved with every fibre of her being. ‘So, you’ve pointed it out,’ she said frostily. ‘Feel better?’

‘If you’ve taken it on board?’

‘Oh, of course I have,’ she said sarcastically. ‘You said it, after all.’

‘Very funny.’ He started the car engine. ‘I’m only trying to look out for a friend. What’s wrong with that?’

A grey bleakness settled on her. ‘Nothing,’ she said flatly. ‘Thanks.’

‘My pleasure.’ He swung the car out of the tiny car park and on to the road, the darkness settling round them as only country darkness can.

Gina sat absolutely still, staring out of the windscreen, but without seeing the road in front of them. She felt shattered, emotionally, mentally and physically. The countless sleepless nights she’d endured over the last months as she’d agonised about Harry, the build up to today which she’d been dreading, the surprise invitation to have dinner with him—and not least their conversation throughout—had all served to bring her to a state of exhaustion. And of course all the wine she’d drunk had added to the overall stupor she was feeling, she thought drily, shutting her eyes and relaxing back against the seat.

She didn’t know if she had actually dropped off or not when she became aware Harry had brought the car to a halt. She opened her eyes to find they were still deep in country and darkness. ‘What is it?’ she asked in some alarm as he began to reverse along the narrow lane they’d been travelling down.

‘I’m not sure.’ He glanced at her. ‘Go back to sleep. This isn’t a “I’ve run out of petrol” scenario.’

No, more’s the pity. ‘I never thought it was,’ she said, her voice holding the ring of truth.

He reversed some hundred yards or so before pulling up. ‘I saw a car start off from this point, and as we passed I saw a cardboard box by the side of the verge. I just want to look in it.’

‘Look in it?’

He nodded, his voice somewhat sheepish as he said, ‘I don’t know why, but I’ve got a funny feeling about it. Stay in the car.’ He opened the driver’s door and climbed out, Gina following a second later. He was already bending over the box, and before he opened it he said, ‘I said stay in the car.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She came round the bonnet. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Hell.’ He’d lifted the lid as she had been speaking, and now as she reached him and looked down she saw several tiny shapes moving and squeaking.

‘Oh, Harry.’ She clutched his sleeve, her eyes wide and horrified. ‘Someone’s dumped some puppies. Out here, in the middle of nowhere. How could they?’

‘Quite easily, it seems,’ he said grimly.

‘Are they all right?’ They were both crouching down by the box now, and could make out four puppies in the moonlight, wriggling about on folded newspaper and smeared with their own excrement. ‘Oh, poor little things.’ Gina was nearly crying. ‘What are we going to do?’

Harry stood up. ‘If I put the car blanket over your knee, could you have the box on your lap?’

‘Of course. Anything, anything.’ She couldn’t believe someone had actually been so heartless as to put the puppies in a box, bring them to a deserted spot and just drive off. Not with all the sanctuaries that took unwanted litters these days.

Once they were back in the car again, the box on her lap, Gina peered in. ‘They’re very small,’ she said shakily. ‘Do you think there’s something the matter with them?’

‘Not with the racket they’re making,’ Harry said drily.

‘Where are we going to take them?’

‘There must be a vet somewhere around here, but I haven’t got a clue where. Look, my cleaner, Mrs Rothman, has dogs. Do you mind if we retrace our footsteps so to speak, and call on her? If nothing else she might be able to point us in the right direction. It’ll mean you’re late back, though. We’re halfway back to your place.’

She hadn’t realised they’d travelled so far. He was right. She had been asleep. ‘It doesn’t matter about being late. I haven’t got to get up for work in the morning, remember? It’ll be a cleaning and sorting day, so please do go and see your Mrs Rothman.’ At least she’d have extra time with him. Not that she would have wished it at the cost of someone dumping the puppies, but still …

The puppies quietened down as the warmth of the car kicked in, but this had the effect of causing Gina to check them every couple of minutes, terrified they’d died. It was a huge relief when eventually they came to the small village, which was a stone’s throw from Harry’s secluded cottage, and drew up outside a neat terraced house.

Mrs Rothman proved to be a plump, motherly type who drew them into the warmth of her smart little house and insisted on her husband making them all a cup of tea while she oohed and ahhed over the contents of the box. ‘Jack Russell crosses, by the look of it,’ she announced once she’d inspected the puppies. ‘All females. I bet whoever owned the bitch could get rid of the males but not the females. Happens like that sometimes. Or maybe it was just a huge litter.’

After cleaning the four little scraps up, Mrs Rothman lined the box with fresh newspaper while her husband mushed up some of their dog food. The puppies made short if somewhat messy work of it, after which Mrs Rothman popped them back in the box on top of an old towel. All four promptly went to sleep, clearly worn out by their unwelcome adventure.

‘How old do you think they are?’ Gina asked Mrs Rothman once she and Harry and the older couple were sitting sipping a second cup of tea in front of the blazing coal-fire, the puppies snuggled together in their box to one side of the hearth.

‘Hard to tell, but they managed the food fairly well, so I’d say about six weeks or so, maybe seven or eight. They wouldn’t have lasted long, left where they were. The nights can still be bitter.’ Mrs Rothman turned to Harry. ‘I know of a dog sanctuary not far from here. I’ll give you the telephone number and address. They’ll take them, I’m sure.’

Harry nodded. ‘Thanks.’

One of the puppies began to squeak with little piping sounds, and Gina knelt down and lifted the squirming little body out of the box and onto her lap, stroking the silky fur until it went back to sleep again. Harry looked at her. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘What sort of so-and-so could watch them grow to this stage and then leave them to die?’

It was exactly what she had been thinking, and his understanding brought tears to her eyes. That and the fact that she could see he too was deeply affected by the puppies’ plight. As another one began to scrabble about, he fetched it out of the box and fussed over it until it settled on his lap.

Mrs Rothman plied them with more tea and a slice of her home-made seed cake, the fire crackled and glowed, the puppies slept, and the big grandfather clock in a corner of the room ticked on. It was cosy and warm, and Gina didn’t want the moment ever to end.

And then Harry stood up. ‘Right,’ he said briskly, depositing his puppy back with her sisters. ‘We’ve bothered you long enough. If you could let me have the address of the sanctuary, and a tin of dog food to tide them over until I drop them off, we’ll be on our way.’

The brief interlude was over.

CHAPTER FOUR

HARRY was experiencing a whole host of emotions new to him, and none of them was welcome.

This evening had been a mistake of gigantic proportions from start to finish, he thought grimly as he and Gina made their goodbyes and walked to the car, the box tucked under his arm, and Gina carrying a bag containing several tins of dog food which Mrs Rothman insisted on pressing on them. And finding the puppies had been the icing on the whole damn cake.

Once he’d settled Gina in the car with the box on her lap, he walked round the bonnet to the driver’s side.

Gina Leighton was beautiful, sweet, intelligent and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable, and a woman like that definitely didn’t feature in his life. No way. With someone like Gina came commitment, responsibilities, ties, problems, and he was done with such things for good. He’d rather jump out of a plane without a parachute than ever consider travelling down that road again in a hundred lifetimes.

Once in the car, the puppies were yelping and mewing and scrabbling about in the box like crazy. ‘I think they want their mum,’ Gina said as he pulled on his seat belt. ‘They must wonder what on earth is happening.’

He knew how they felt. Life had seemed so straightforward this morning. He’d thought that if she followed through on actually leaving—which he’d doubted till the last moment—than a warm goodbye, a little word about the watch and all she’d done for him and how grateful he was, and that would be that. Pleasant departure. Smiles all round. Simple. Clean.

So why had he asked her to have dinner with him? He went to start the car, but one of the puppies made a good attempt at using her sisters as a springboard to catapult on to the rim of the box, causing Gina to squeal before she said quickly, ‘Sorry. She made me jump.’

‘Nimble little blighters, aren’t they?’ Harry couldn’t help smiling. Abandoned they might be. Quitters they most certainly were not.

‘How are you going to travel all the way back from my place without them escaping in the car?’ Gina tilted her head at him. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to take them to your house first and settle them somewhere, in the kitchen maybe, before you take me home? Or I could call a taxi. Or, failing that, I’ll have them and take them to the sanctuary in the morning.’

He stared at her. None of the women he’d seen over the last few years would have been bothered about him in this situation—or the puppies come to that. Their prime concern would have been their clothes, hair, nails—in that order.

Then he shook himself mentally. He was probably being grossly unfair to the odd one or two. But only the odd one or two. ‘It might be a good idea to nip home and put them in the utility room before I take you back,’ he admitted. ‘The boiler’s in there, so it’s always warm, and I’ve got some bits of wood in the garage I can use to pen them in and contain them. It’ll give them room to be comfortable.’

She nodded. ‘Do that, then.’ She gave a weak giggle. ‘But quickly. This big one is determined to make a break for it. She’s obviously got leadership qualities.’

He smiled back at her. ‘There’s always one …’

As he started the car, Gina said, ‘They’re very sweet, aren’t they? And that puppy smell. It’s gorgeous.’

‘It wasn’t so gorgeous before Mrs Rothman cleaned them up,’ Harry said practically.

She giggled again. He wondered why such a simple, innocent sound should make him so sexually excited. But then, if he was truthful, he’d been fighting the attraction this woman held for him since day one. Her soft, generous curves, the pale, ginger-speckled skin, that mass of silky hair that shone with myriad shades of red and copper when a shaft of sunshine touched it …

He swung the car on to the road, driving automatically, taken up with his thoughts. Sometimes he’d only had to walk into the office and see Gina sitting demurely at her desk to become as hard as a rock. If she knew the sexual fantasies he’d indulged in … The situation had annoyed him, irritated him on occasion, and certainly disturbed him not a little. It had also frightened the dickens out of him, he realised with a little shock of self-awareness.

If she’d been some brassy, hard-boiled piece it would all have been different. They could have enjoyed each other’s bodies for as long as it had taken for the attraction to burn itself out. If she was attracted to him, that was. He frowned to himself. He’d thought there was a spark between them, but he might be fooling himself here. She’d always been the model of decorum. Damn it, it was an impossible situation. Which was why he had to admit to an initial feeling of relief when she’d said she was leaving.

Did he still feel relief? The car headlights caught a fox crossing the road in front of them, the animal’s red fur and thick bushy tail disappearing into the shadows in the next instant.

He wasn’t sure what he felt any more. He wanted to take her to bed, no question of that. He did not want a woman in his life permanently, set in concrete. And now she had revealed she was leaving because of a man which, he was forced to acknowledge, had thrown him somewhat. It had been a long time since he’d felt the nasty little gremlin of jealousy jabbing at him, but it had been there tonight. Their whole conversation had made him realise he didn’t know Gina as well as he’d thought he did.

She’d said the man wasn’t married, and he believed her. Gina wouldn’t lie. But selfish he most certainly was. She had clearly been seeing him for a long time, and to let her walk away the way he had … A muscle contracted in his jaw. He’d love five minutes alone with the swine.

Another little squeal from Gina brought his eyes to her as she carefully pushed the biggest puppy down in the box again. ‘We’re nearly home,’ he said, just as he swung the car off the road and on to his drive.

‘Not before time.’ She glanced at him as he drew up outside the cottage. ‘How are you going to get them to the sanctuary in the morning? This box won’t be any good.’

‘I’ll find something else. Failing that, a generous contribution to the place might persuade someone to come out and fetch them.’

Once in the cottage, he left Gina in the utility room with the puppies while he went to the garage and sorted out a couple of pieces of wood. When he returned, it was to find her kneeling on the tiles with the puppies scampering about her.

‘They’re so cute.’ She glanced up at him, her eyes alight, and his stomach muscles registered her tousled softness. ‘I thought they were all the same at first, but one’s bigger than the others, and that one—’ she pointed ‘—is smaller, and the other two are the same size.’

He nodded. ‘There are two puddles on the floor,’ he said.

She grimaced. ‘They can’t help that, they’re only babies. Aren’t you?’ she added, lifting the smallest puppy into her arms and stroking the small, downy head. ‘You’re just little babies without your mum. Take no notice of moany old Harry.’