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Her clothes had to last and look good in the office so she bought inexpensive but well-made skirts and blouses which she could vary daily, and wash again and again. She ate little, bought cheaply in street markets, mostly vegetables and fruit, pasta, some fish now and again, or more rarely, chicken. She only had one electric ring to cook on; she had to choose easily cooked food.
She had never been able to afford to entertain so she didn’t accept invitations from other people, since she couldn’t reciprocate. Once or twice she had had a date with one of the young men in the office, but none of them had attracted her much and the dates had been rather dull.
She felt a little sad, saying goodbye to people she had worked with for four years, though. She was going to miss them. All the same, she was deeply relieved to have another job to go to immediately. She couldn’t imagine how she would have paid the rent otherwise. The life of the street people, homeless and hopeless, gave her nightmares for a while. Being made redundant like that had destabilised her life, made her feel threatened, even after she’d got that new job.
On the following Monday she nervously made her way to the office block where she would be working, was taken up in the lift from the personnel office by one of the girls who worked there.
‘You know who you’ll be working for? Mr Harding, the managing director.’ Her voice had a reverent note. ‘You’re so lucky. He’s gorgeous. And nice. But he’s married, worse luck! His wife is really lovely; she’s a model. You often see her in glossy magazines. They make a stunning couple.’
‘What exactly will my job entail?’ Pippa asked. ‘I was never told.’ That was what interested her, not the sexiness or availability of the boss.
The other girl shrugged. ‘Working on a word processor, sending out letters, sorting mail, taking phone calls—the usual office routine. There are half a dozen girls working in the office and Mr Harding’s PA is a dragon lady. Miss Dalton.’
‘The personnel officer warned me to be very careful with her.’
‘She wasn’t kidding. She bites!’
She hadn’t exaggerated, Pippa discovered a few minutes later, contemplating the tall, cold-eyed woman who ran the office.
Felicity Dalton wasn’t beautiful, but she was striking—very thin and elegant, with long, straight black hair she wore drawn off her face and held with a large black clip. In her beautifully shaped ears she wore diamond studs. Her white blouse was immaculate, her black jersey skirt emphasised the sleek lines of her body. She looked as if she had been sculpted out of ice. A snow queen who clearly did not like people much, especially those of her own sex, whom she treated with hostility and contempt.
She gave Pippa brusque instructions, left her seated at a desk and went back to her own private office.
The other girls all grinned at Pippa once Felicity Dalton had gone. ‘Scary, isn’t she?’ one whispered. ‘I’m Judy, by the way.’
She was the same age as Pippa, and immediately likeable, a short, rather plump girl with curly brown hair and bright brown eyes, the pupils circled by golden rays which made her look like a lion.
‘Hi. I’m Pippa.’
‘Lovely name. Mine’s so ordinary.’ Judy sighed, then went on, ‘If you need any help, just ask. It’s not so long since I was new here; I know how it feels.’
Over that first week Pippa had to go to Judy for help more than once. Some of the letters they had to send were automatic replies to particular types of complaint; she wasn’t always sure which reply to send but Judy knew the office routine by heart.
The managing director himself was away, Pippa discovered, so their workload was not as heavy as it would be when he was working there.
‘What’s he like?’ she asked Judy, whose brown-gold eyes turned dreamy.
‘Very sexy. The Dalton’s crazy about him, but she’ll never get anywhere. He’s married to a really stunning woman; he never notices the Dalton at all. That’s what burns her up, why she’s so frozen and nasty. She’s hurting, so she makes sure we all feel the same.’
‘Poor Miss Dalton,’ Pippa said, with the first real sympathy she had felt for the older woman, who was never pleasant to her.
‘Don’t feel sorry for her! Just because her heart’s breaking is no reason why she should make our lives hell, is it?’ Judy was made of sterner stuff; her brown eyes glinted crossly.
Pippa grinned at her. ‘No reason at all, no! Anyway, you didn’t say what he was like to work for!’
‘He’s quite tough, too, actually, but in a different way. He expects us to work very hard, and he won’t tolerate mistakes, but he isn’t nasty, like Dalton. So long as you work hard he’s decent to you. Half the girls in the office are nuts about him, but he never encourages them. He’s a happily married man.’
‘Has he got children?’
‘One, a boy, around four years old, called Johnny. Randal has a big silver-framed photo of him on his desk. And another photo of his wife in evening dress—she really is fantastic. Wait until you see her!’
She was not to see Mrs Harding for some months, but Randal Harding was back at work the following Monday. Pippa had got in early to give herself a head start; she was only just able to keep up with the work as yet, and Miss Dalton was watching her like a hawk, pouncing on her every mistake. Pippa could not afford to lose this job, so she’d got an earlier bus that morning.
It was a fresh, blustery day; her curly chestnut hair had got blown about as she’d walked along the road, and her skin was flushed with exercise and cool air.
Nobody else was in her office; she sat down in front of her word processor and switched on, arranged her pens beside a pad next to the phone and was about to start work when the door opened. Looking round with a smile, Pippa was startled to see a man entering the office. She got an immediate impression of height and dark, brooding good looks.
He looked surprised too, staring at her. ‘Who are you?’
She didn’t like his curt tone. Coldly, she answered, ‘I work here. Who are you?’
‘I’m the managing director.’
She gulped. Oh, no! She should have guessed. She had known he would be back at work today.
‘Would you make me some coffee and bring it through to my office?’ he asked. ‘Bring a pad, too. I want you to take dictation.’
The door shut again; he was gone, leaving Pippa breathless. Well, that hadn’t been a good beginning, had it? She wouldn’t have left a very favourable impression on him. And she had been so keen to impress him!
Hurriedly she made him coffee, got a few biscuits from the tin kept in the cupboard where the coffee-making equipment was stored, laid a tray, collected her pad and several pens, and went through to his office.
That first session with Randal was tense and anxious; she was terrified of making a mistake. He was clearly in a temper; she sensed he would have gone into hyper-rage for any reason, however slight. So she concentrated hard, listening intently, her pen moving fast and fluently over the pad while he dictated several memos to staff, letters to clients.
Miss Dalton arrived just as he finished. Pippa incredulously saw that the snow queen looked flustered, her skin flushed, apologising as she hurried into the room, still wearing her smart black raincoat.
‘I am so sorry, Mr Harding; I left early so that I would be here when you arrived, but there was some sort of hold-up on the buses; I had to wait for ages before I could get one.’
He nodded impatiently. ‘Never mind, Miss Dalton. Pippa was here early and has taken dictation.’ He looked at Pippa. ‘Get those ready to sign as soon as possible, would you? Thank you.’
Pippa retreated, still shaky, and felt Miss Dalton’s icy eyes on her all the way.
Judy was just hanging up her coat. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked, and Pippa told her in a whisper. Judy whistled. ‘She won’t forgive you for that for a long time! The boss is her property; she’ll hate you for being here when she wasn’t.’
She was absolutely right. Miss Dalton was on Pippa’s case all day, snapping at her, complaining about her work, criticising her for wearing eye make-up, not to mention vivid red varnish on her fingernails in the office.
‘You look like a tart! Mr Harding doesn’t like his employees to wear that much make-up! Don’t come to work like that again!’
Pippa mumbled an apology; the other girls discreetly averted their heads.
Later that morning Miss Dalton struck again accusing her of gossiping to Judy when she should be working.
‘I’ve finished the work Mr Harding asked me to do—shall I take the letters to him to sign?’
‘No,’ snapped Miss Dalton. ‘I’ll do it!’ She came over to Pippa’s desk, picked up the perfectly typed letters and went out with them.
‘Brrr…icy weather,’ Judy whispered. ‘I told you so. She hates you now. Take another step near Mr Harding and she’ll kill you.’
‘It isn’t fair. He asked me to take dictation, and I did—it wasn’t my fault she wasn’t here.’
Miss Dalton came briskly back and loaded Pippa with more work, telling her to hurry up and finish it.
All that day, Pippa couldn’t do anything right.
It was huge relief when Miss Dalton finally departed, leaving Pippa to finish a new pile of work she had been given to do.
‘I’ll be here for hours—she wants all this done by the morning,’ Pippa moaned once the door had shut on the older woman.’
‘That will teach you,’ Judy teased before she left. ‘In future try not to be seen with the boss! Remember, you are a lowly slave and she is the queen!’
It was another hour before Pippa finally got to the bottom of the pile and could switch off her machine and clear her desk. Everyone else had gone; the offices were empty and silent. As she got up to leave the door opened and to her dismay there was Randal Harding again.
Glancing at him, she felt her heart flip over—he was intensely sexy, in his three-piece dark suit, a smooth-fitting waistcoat over his white shirt. He leaned against the doorframe, re-knotting his maroon silk tie.
‘Still here? You work long hours, very conscientious,’ he said with a faintly teasing smile. ‘Everyone else gone?’
She nodded dumbly, unable to speak because he made her so self-conscious.
‘Come on, then; the cleaners will be here in a minute.’ He switched off the lights, plunging the room into darkness, and she hurried towards the door, stumbling into him and feeling something like an electric shock at the contact.
‘Have you got far to go? Where do you live?’ he asked.
‘West Hackham. Twenty minutes by bus,’ she whispered, keeping her eyes down. She was terrified in case Miss Dalton should still be somewhere around, or heard they had left together. Her life wouldn’t be worth living if that happened.
‘Same direction as me. I’ll give you a lift. My car’s parked just down here; come along.’
She hung back, ‘No, really, it doesn’t matter.’
He gave her a wry, amused look. ‘Don’t look so scared. I don’t bite and I won’t make a pass.’
She flushed in horror. ‘No, I didn’t mean…didn’t think…’
He took her elbow and propelled her onwards. ‘Do you live at home, or have you got your own place?’
Why was he asking that? she wondered, still pink and uncertain. The other girls hadn’t said anything about him making passes. Indeed, they’d said he was happily married. Maybe her imagination was working overtime.
They left the building and turned down into the underground car park. Pippa’s eyes widened as they halted beside a long, sleek black Jaguar saloon. She had never driven in a car like that before.
He unlocked the car and put her into the front passenger seat. Pippa stroked the cream leather upholstery, gazed at the polished walnut dashboard, equipped with all sorts of gadgets, including a CD player. It must have cost the earth; he must be very wealthy.
As he started the engine he asked her, ‘Where did you work before you joined us, and why did you leave?’
She told him the name of her old firm. ‘They went into liquidation. We were all made redundant.’
He gave her a sidelong smile of sympathy. ‘Tough luck—were you out of work long before you came to us?’
‘No, I only left them the week before I joined you.’
‘That must have been a relief; no joke being unemployed. I hope you’re going to be happy with us.’
‘I’m sure I will be,’ she said, suppressing all memory of Miss Dalton. ‘I already feel at home in the office.’
He flashed her that warm, sideways smile that changed his face entirely. ‘Good. The work you did for me this morning was excellent. If you keep that standard up, we’ll feel we were lucky to get you.’
Out of the corner of her eye she watched his long-fingered hands on the wheel, his dark jacket sleeves shooting back to show his immaculate white shirt cuffs. She couldn’t blame Miss Dalton for being crazy about him; it would be easy to get that way. His hard profile had a power and masculinity that would have made a strong impact even if he had not been very good-looking, and now that he was no longer in a temper she began to see a charm and warmth that had not been visible when they’d first met.
She hoped he would be like this most of the time, not in that stormy, brooding state. Why had he come to work in that mood today? Had he had a row with his wife?
He drew up outside her address and shot a look up at the shabby Victorian house, the woodwork cracked and peeling, the front door needing new paint. The garden was neglected and overgrown, full of uncut grass and rambling bushes.
‘Is this your family home?’ he asked slowly.
‘No, it’s let out by the room—I rent one room here.’
He grimaced. ‘If I were you, I’d move. It looks as if cockroaches and rats live here, too.’
‘No cockroaches or rats, but there is the odd mouse,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t like to kill the one in my room; like me, it has to live somewhere! But this place is cheap, and the room is quite spacious. I’m used to it.’ And she couldn’t afford anywhere better.
‘Where do your family live?’
She hesitated, hating to talk about her background, then defiantly told him, ‘I haven’t got one.’
He shot her a sharp look. ‘No parents?’ He sounded incredulous, disbelieving.
‘No family at all.’
His grey eyes searched her face; she looked away from their penetrating probe, feeling like someone under searchlights.
‘How long have you been alone?’
‘Always.’ She paused, hesitating about saying any more, then plunged on, ‘I was found as a baby. I’ve no idea who I really am or who my mother was.’
There was a little silence, then he said gently, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t have had a very happy childhood. I’m lucky. I have a sister, although both my parents are dead now. And I’m married, of course, with a child. Having a family roots you in life.’
‘Yes,’ she muttered, because she, of all people, knew that. She dreamt of marrying one day, having children, having a family of her own at last.
She didn’t want to talk to him any more; she hurriedly got out of the car, whispering, ‘Thanks for the lift, Mr Harding. Goodnight.’
He sat watching her as she fled up the path and unlocked the front door. Pippa was aware of his gaze, but didn’t look back. She was a very down-to-earth person; she knew she must not let herself think about him too much. He was her boss; that was all. Just that, nothing else, ever.
Yet whenever she forgot to keep a guard on her mind she thought about him that evening, sitting in her lonely room, listening to her second-hand radio. She couldn’t afford a television but radio was some sort of companion: another voice in her room, music, plays.
She had never been in love, never thought much about other people. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about Randal Harding, remembering his vivid grey eyes, the charm of his smile, the grace and beauty of his male body.
She was filled with curiosity about him. Was his home as beautiful as his car? Elegant, luxurious, comfortable? He wouldn’t be alone tonight, like her—he would have his wife and child for company. Did he know how lucky he was?
That was the beginning. Over the weeks that followed she saw him most days, and each time he gave her that smile, sending her temperature sky-high. Occasionally she had to work for him, and tried hard to stay calm and collected, but it wasn’t easy when it made her heart race dangerously whenever he smiled or his hand brushed hers.
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