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‘Have you any intention of accepting this post should it be offered to you?’
A few minutes ago, perhaps even one minute ago, the honest answer to that question would have been no. Now…she wasn’t sure. Working for someone like Blaise West would undoubtedly be terrifying and exhausting, but did she really want to stagnate in Surrey for the next ten, twenty years? And that was what she had been doing, she thought with a painful dose of self-analysis. She had a degree of independence but she was still in the comfortable cocoon of being close to family with all her friends about her. She had her job down to a fine art, there was no challenge there, and she knew exactly what she was doing from one week to the next. And that had been fine at first, in the initial fallout after David. It had been fine until she had walked into this room, in fact. ‘Yes, Mr. West,’ she said firmly. ‘I’d consider the post, should it be offered.’
He nodded. ‘Good.’ At last his gaze left her and transferred to the papers on the desk. ‘Then let’s get on with it, shall we?’
CHAPTER TWO
BY THE time she got home mid-afternoon, Kim felt like a wet rag. The interview with Blaise West had lasted for well over an hour and it had been gruelling. That was the only word for it. She had all but staggered out of his office, and she must have looked just as she felt because his secretary had quickly pointed out that the firm’s restaurant was already serving early lunch and the food was very nice.
It had been nice, and the two cups of hot, sweet coffee she had swallowed along with roast chicken with all the trimmings had gone some way to reviving her for the journey home. She hadn’t rushed over the meal, watching the other occupants of the sparklingly clean eatery while she tried to make sense of her jumbled recollections of the last hour.
The overall conclusion she came to was that she was stark, staring mad. Mad to think Blaise West might offer her the job. Mad to think she could do it if he did. She was out of her league here; way, way out. Needles of panic were making themselves felt now.
He had finished the meeting by stating he would come to a decision about the applicants within the next twenty-four hours when he had interviewed everyone. By then she had been so frazzled she’d had no idea how she had fared. Certainly hundred-watt smile had only been in with him for ten, fifteen minutes at the most, but there was another person he had to see this afternoon.
When she had finally exited West International the sunshine of early morning had given way to a grey sky that promised rain before nightfall. The train home had been delayed, and when she had eventually boarded it thousands—or so it seemed—of irritable commuters had got on with her. They had only travelled for fifteen minutes when debris on the line had meant another delay.
On reaching her home station, she had seen her little Mini faithfully waiting for her in the car park and had had to bite back tears. That alone told her she was exhausted.
Kim walked into the flat, dropping her handbag on the floor by the sofa as she collapsed into its plump depths. All the excitement and glamour of Blaise West’s fast-moving world was gone. A journey that should have taken less than an hour had taken three times as long. It reminded her of something he’d pointed out during the interview.
‘I’m sure you’re aware of what working as my personal assistant involves, but let me spell it out anyway. I need a PA who thrives on hard work and using their own initiative, Miss Abbott. The more routine secretarial work will be delegated by you to others, but you will be required to take care of the sensitive, confidential side of things. This will involve drafting letters, reports, memos and so on, collecting and collating information for me, taking minutes, greeting and helping to entertain business contacts, organising meetings and conferences, having discussions with other PAs or customers and clients, possibly even supervising other staff on occasion. I expect absolute loyalty as well as discretion. It’s essential you’re capable of adapting to the needs of the job. This will mean late nights and early mornings when necessary. Is this a problem?’
She remembered she had shaken her head, feeling stunned. It was then he had added, ‘I don’t expect my personal assistant to be a yes-man, or -woman. But when you disagree with me you do it in private when it’s just the two of us. Is that clear?’ She’d nodded then, equally stunned.
Kim glanced round her sitting room. Before she had moved in she’d had the flat decorated from top to bottom exactly how she had wanted it. With her savings she had lashed out on ankle-deep carpeting, cream leather sofas and thin, drifty drapes which had been wildly expensive considering there was hardly anything to them. A new bathroom and kitchen had completed her extravagance, and her bedroom was unrepentantly feminine, soft pinks, creams and gentle mauves creating a soothing place which declared quite loudly no man lived here. And she loved it. Every inch of it. Could she continue to live here if—by the remotest chance—Blaise West offered the job to her? If the journey home was a taste of things to come…
Stop it. She was doing the negative thing; she always reacted like this when she was tired. The journey into London had been as smooth as silk, the return was merely bad luck. Besides which, she was getting herself all worked up for nothing. She didn’t even know if she would be offered the job; there must be other applicants far more qualified and experienced than she.
And if she was successful? A curl of something potent stirred in the pit of her stomach. She stood up, walking into the kitchen and switching on the coffee machine. She would cross that bridge in the unlikely event she came to it.
Kim went to bed early and slept badly in spite of having tossed and turned the night before. At six in the morning she abandoned any thought of sleep, padding through into the tiny kitchen and making a mug of coffee which she drank curled up on one of the two sofas in the sitting room. She had opened the windows to the warm summer morning and shafts of sunlight and birdsong filtered into the room.
It was peaceful and cosy…but suddenly not enough. Kim sat up straighter, startled at the way her mind had gone. But it was true. Something had changed yesterday; she wasn’t quite sure what or how, but the interview with Blaise West had brought to the surface a whole host of things she had been avoiding for some time.
She was only twenty-five, for goodness’ sake, twenty-six in October, and she wanted to do something with her life. The last couple of years had been a period of licking her wounds and that was fine, but she didn’t want to carry on as she had been doing. Getting the interview against all the odds had restored a smidgen of the self-confidence that had been so badly knocked when David had left her. And now the whole marriage and kids and roses round the door scenario wasn’t on the agenda, she could concentrate on something she’d never envisaged having—a career.
OK, she acknowledged in the next moment, it wasn’t actually the path she’d have chosen but it would have compensations. She nodded to the thought, her eyes contemplative. Broadening her horizons, travelling, meeting new people.
Like Blaise West? a separate part of her mind asked.
As though someone else had asked the question she spoke out loud, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She hadn’t been thinking of him specifically, she hadn’t.
But he was the most fascinating man she had ever metin her life. This time she didn’t bother to deny it; she couldn’t. It was true. She sprang up and marched into the kitchen for a second mug of coffee.
Once again established on the sofa, she took stock. Yes, Blaise West was something else but it wasn’t only she who thought that. When she had gone for the interview she had already been aware of his reputation and history, both of which spoke for themselves. He was one of those rare men who had something akin to a magnetic field around them to which other people would be irresistibly drawn, whether they liked him or not.
Did she like him?
She considered the question. She wasn’t sure. He would certainly be interesting to work for, she thought wryly. If she survived the first day, that was. But she was unlikely to get the chance. And that didn’t matter, it didn’t, because if nothing else the last twenty-four hours had told her that the next stage of her life was due to begin and it would be one in which she made changes. Changes she controlled. There had been enough of the other kind.
She inhaled the fragrant scent of coffee beans as she let her mind meander back into the past. She had been so gullible when she’d met David, so thrilled that someone like him—handsome, self-assured, popular—had singled her out. Her childhood had been happy enough on the whole, but her teenage years had been made miserable by her height. Or rather her sensitivity about it. She had always been the wallflower at school discos; the girl most boys avoided because she tended to tower over them. Some wit had dubbed her the beanpole when she was thirteen and the nickname had stuck for a long time, even when she had filled out in all the right places.
And then at eighteen she’d met David Stewart. Six feet three in his bare feet, blond and beautiful. An Adonis. They had been together all through university and he had proposed to her on graduation day. Her cup had been full. They’d decided while he continued to study law—his father had his own law firm which one day David would take over—she would get a nine-to-five job with no commitments so she could fit in with him and see him when he had any free time between studying at law college. He had sailed through the solicitors’ final examination at the end of twelve months, and joined his father’s firm to serve articles, at which time they had set the wedding date.
Every weekend she had travelled from her parents’ home in Surrey to Oxford, where David lived in his family’s massive seven-bedroomed house complete with swimming pool and tennis courts. His parents and younger sister adored her, and she them. Everything in the garden was rosy. And then, six weeks before the wedding, he had turned up on her doorstep one night and taken her out for a meal so they could ‘talk’.
She had known even before he told her that something was dreadfully wrong but nothing could have prepared her for what she was about to hear. There was someone else. They’d only known each other a short time but it was the real thing.
Reeling from shock, she had asked who it was. Miranda, the girl next door who had been mad about him for ever, according to what his sister had whispered? Someone at his father’s work? A mutual friend?
No, he’d replied. She didn’t know Francis; neither did his family.
Frances? she’d repeated shakily. Where had he met her?
It was then he had looked at her steadily and told her that the ‘her’ was a ‘him’. It was Francis with an I. And he’d met him at one of the bars they both frequented. He had thought he could do the marriage and children bit to keep his family happy but he couldn’t. He liked her, he assured her. Loved her even, but not in that way.
She had been so dumbfounded she hadn’t been able to speak for some moments. And then she had got up and walked out into the pub car park, where she’d phoned for a taxi. She might have been able to follow through on the dignified and calm bit if he hadn’t made the mistake of following her and trying to justify the lies and deceit of four and a half years, at which point she had shouted and screamed and finally walked across to the sports car his father had bought him for the first he’d got at university and kicked it so hard she’d dented the door. Fortunately the taxi had arrived then.
The next few weeks had been the worst of her life. Both sets of parents had been beside themselves, the bridesmaids had been heartbroken they weren’t going to get to wear the fairy-tale dresses which had cost a small fortune, all the wedding presents had had to be returned and the reception and all the other paraphernalia connected with a huge wedding cancelled.
In the midst of it all she had talked to David several times. Although she felt he was sorry that he had hurt her, she sensed a great feeling of relief and even joy that everything was out in the open. And of course he had his Francis, with whom he had promptly set up a home in the flat they should have been renting together. He had admitted he’d cheated on her numerous times before but they had just been ‘little flings’.
Kim had hardly been able to believe what she was hearing. The man she had thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, whom she’d known and trusted implicitly for over four years, didn’t exist. She had been absolutely faithful to him, refusing even a Christmas kiss at work because she felt it took something away from David, and all the time…
A hundred and one things suddenly fell into place the more she thought about it, the chief one being the reason David had never tried to get her into bed. He had talked a lot about honouring her, that he wanted his wife and the mother of his children to be different from all the rest, that, although it was terribly hard to stop at just a kiss and a cuddle, it was the right thing to do. And she had believed him! Respected him for it.
The feeling of rejection and betrayal had cut deep, and the humiliation that had gone hand in hand with it all had caused her to lose over a stone in the first few weeks. She would have followed him to the ends of the earth and she had loved him utterly but everything had been a lie. And she hadn’t sensed it, hadn’t known anything was wrong. That had terrified her.
The beanpole of teenage years had reared her head again and every time she looked in the mirror she had cringed at what she saw. She had felt she was nothing, less than nothing. But eventually, with the help of family and friends, she had started to eat properly and sleep soundly and get back on an even keel. She wasn’t the same, she knew she wasn’t the same, and she felt sad about that, mourning the loss of the trusting, happy girl she’d once been, but she was older and wiser and she would never allow herself to love anyone again the way she had loved David.
Kim came back to herself with the realisation that the coffee was quite cold. She went into the kitchen and tipped it away, standing and looking out of the window into the street below.
It was going to be a beautiful day, she thought. And life was for living. She’d done her period of mourning for what might have been if things had been different. Now she had to get on with life.
CHAPTER THREE
KIM felt on tenterhooks all day, so much adrenaline flooding her body that she fairly ate up the work. By five o’clock her desk was clear in spite of the backlog from the day before.
Her boss walked out to the car park with her. He had asked her that morning how she had got on; now he said ruefully, ‘I’d be surprised if you don’t get the job, Kim. Blaise West has a reputation for knowing a diamond when he sees one.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him. Alan Goode was a dyed-in-the-wool family man who was devoted to his wife and three boys and they’d always had an excellent working relationship. ‘But you didn’t see the competition. Anyway, I’m not bothered either way.’ This wasn’t quite true but she’d rather walk barefoot on hot coals than admit it to anyone. She knew Kate and her cronies were taking an avid interest in events.
‘Now, that might be your trump card,’ Alan said musingly. ‘I’ve only met Blaise once or twice but that was enough to know he’s a man who plays by his own rules. He’s never conformed and he doesn’t ask for conformity in others. He’s an…extraordinary individual, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, yes.’
They smiled at each other, linked by the knowledge of what was unsaid rather than what was spoken.
‘He caught his toe with his wife though—ex-wife,’ Alan continued. ‘She was a free spirit in every sense of the word. Any man, any time, if rumours are to be believed. She took the child when the divorce happened but then a year later she was killed in a head-on crash. Had the kid with her at the time.’
‘That’s awful.’ Kim hadn’t known about these details.
Alan shrugged. ‘The child wasn’t hurt too bad from what I can remember and the accident enabled Blaise to get his daughter back. I doubt he cried any crocodile tears.’
‘How long ago did that happen?’
‘The accident? About four years ago, I think, maybe five. The girl’s ten or thereabouts now.’
Kim nodded. For a second she had a mental picture of the hard, rugged face of the man she had met yesterday. It was a face that had seen life, but it was also a face that revealed nothing of the man behind the mask. But he must have suffered. She felt a dart of sympathy even as she acknowledged it was the last emotion a man like Blaise West would ask for or want. Curiously, for no logical reason she could think of, she felt it was somehow disloyal to be talking about him. Quietly, she said, ‘Goodnight, then, Alan. Give my regards to Janice.’
‘I will.’
Once in the car and driving home, Kim found herself going over and over the conversation with Alan. She was still thinking about Blaise when she entered the flat, walking immediately into the bathroom and beginning to run a warm, bubbly bath. She needed a long, hot soak. Muscles she hadn’t been aware of since her teens when she had been the captain of the school’s netball team—being over half a foot taller than the other girls had meant she excelled in the sport—were making themselves known. She hadn’t realised how tense she had been every time the phone had rung until she’d left the building.
Had she seriously thought she might be in with a chance? She shook her head at her foolishness.
And then the phone rang.
Telling herself it was almost certainly her mother or one of her friends ringing to see if she had heard anything, she nevertheless found her heart was thudding hard enough to exit her chest as she picked up the phone. ‘Hello,’ she said cautiously.
‘Miss Abbott?’
She’d recognise the deep, distinctly smoky voice anywhere. ‘Yes?’ Now her heart had jumped up into her throat.
‘This is Blaise West. I’d like to offer you the job as personal assistant if you’re still interested after that somewhat intensive interview yesterday.’
‘You would?’ The note of surprise wasn’t the way hundred-watt smile would have responded. Telling herself to be more professional, Kim said quickly, ‘Thank you, Mr West. I would love to accept.’
‘Good. I shall be in touch with Mr Goode tomorrow.’
She knew he had heard the amazement in her voice and was amused by it. Swallowing hard, she had to sit down before she could say, ‘When would you like me to start?’
‘You’re under a month’s notice, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’m sure Mr Goode will have no objection if we do away with that,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’d like you to have some time with Pat before she leaves and because she’s expecting twins that could be sooner rather than later.’
So that was why his secretary was so huge. She thought he’d left it a bit late to advertise for a new one.
As though he’d read her mind, he continued, ‘It’s caught us on the hop. Twins were only confirmed a few weeks ago, and it seems they’re both big babies. She seems to be growing in front of my eyes every day.’
She smiled. He couldn’t quite hide the irritation this unforeseen event in his no doubt orderly and controlled life had caused. ‘I see,’ she said carefully.
‘Her doctor has already expressed an opinion that she should be prepared to rest more than is normal, and her husband is anxious that she leaves work within the next month or so. That doesn’t leave much time for her to show you the ropes.’
In other words he wasn’t prepared to do so, or put up with any inconvenience. Still, she supposed that was fair. He did own the company after all. But poor Alan was going to be left in the lurch. It was with this in mind she said, ‘If I could have a few days showing a temp the necessary, I think—’
‘It’s Friday tomorrow. I would like to see you at the office on Monday and I shall make this clear to Mr Goode. I’m sure he will be happy with that.’
Happy wasn’t the word she would have chosen. But, as he paid Alan’s salary too… ‘Monday morning, then,’ she said politely, wondering what she’d let herself in for. She knew from the interview that the staff at the head office started work at nine-thirty, half an hour later than in the Surrey branch, but Blaise West expected his personal assistant-cum-secretary to be at her desk an hour earlier. It meant she was going to be rising at the crack of dawn for the journey into the city, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘Excellent.’ There was a brief pause. ‘I don’t stand on formality, by the way. It will be Blaise and Kim unless there are clients or other personnel present.’
She didn’t think she would ever be able to call him Blaise.
‘The person or persons who prompted you to apply for the job…I trust they’ll be hearing the good news tomorrow?’ he continued.
‘What? Oh, yes,’ she said quickly, surprised he’d remembered.
‘Then savour the moment, Kim,’ he said softly. ‘There won’t be too many of them in life, which makes the ones that come along all the sweeter. Goodnight.’
She heard the phone click even as she murmured, ‘Goodnight, Mr West,’ back.
She thought of Blaise the next day. As luck would have it, she arrived at the office building just as Kate and one of her entourage walked in and they followed her into the lift. She nodded at them but said nothing, but after a moment the girl with Kate glanced at her leader before saying to Kim, ‘You won’t get it, you know.’
Kim had heard her quite clearly but raised her eyebrows, her tone cool as she said, ‘I’m sorry? Are you talking to me?’
‘The job as Blaise West’s personal assistant. You haven’t got a hope. Kate knows someone at Head Office and they said all the other applicants had qualifications coming out of their ears. It was a fluke you got an interview in the first place if you ask me.’
‘I didn’t.’ Kim smiled sweetly. ‘But thanks for the concern.’
‘No, well, just don’t get your hopes up, that’s all.’
Her manner had clearly deflated the other girl. She again glanced at Kate, who, just as the lift came to a halt, said coldly, ‘Personally I’d prefer to avoid the humiliation of an interview where I was clearly out of my depth.’
‘Then it’s fortunate you didn’t get that far when you applied, isn’t it?’ Kim’s heart was pounding like a sledgehammer at the overt aggressiveness but it didn’t show. As the lift doors opened she turned to Kate’s crony, keeping her voice pleasant as she said, ‘Anyway, don’t worry about me. Mr West phoned last night and offered me the job, so all’s well that ends well.’
She sailed out of the lift, knowing she would remember their expressions for the rest of her life. Blaise West was right. Such moments were sweet.
Kim had to keep reminding herself of that over the weekend as she oscillated between moments of euphoria and blind, unadulterated panic. She hadn’t hyped anything up, she told herself umpteen times an hour. Blaise West knew exactly what he was getting. She definitely didn’t have qualifications coming out of her ears, just a fairly respectable 2:1 degree in business studies and some years of experience. She had been honest and straightforward, even to the point of telling him she had taken business studies at university because at the time she hadn’t had a clue what she wanted to so with her life and it seemed a safe option.
‘Safe option?’ he’d drawled. ‘I don’t see you as someone who would settle for the safe option.’
She had thought about that for some moments before she’d said, ‘That was seven years ago.’
‘Ah…’ Just one syllable but she’d had the feeling he’d understood more than she would have liked.
Her mother had been cautiously enthusiastic when she’d told her parents the news over Sunday lunch. ‘That’s nice, dear, but don’t let the job become the be-all and end-all,’ she’d said carefully. Kim knew exactly what she meant. You came so close to being a normal woman and having a husband and family; don’t let it all be for nothing.
Her father was great. ‘Well done, sweetheart,’ he’d said bracingly. ‘I knew you’d get it and this’ll be the start of something good, you mark my words. I feel it in my bones.’
Whether her father was right or not, on Sunday night—when her bed was piled high with clothes and she still couldn’t come to a decision as to what to wear the next day—she told herself enough was enough. No more panicking, no more dissecting, no more thinking.
She hung the clothes away, tidied her shoes and bags and climbed into bed. She would pick the first clothes that came to hand in the morning and be done with it.
She was free of Kate Campion and her waspish companions; life could only get better.
