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‘Well, it’s just that Bella hinted that you might be setting me up on a blind date tonight.’
‘She shouldn’t have told you!’ Phoebe sounded really cross. ‘I only told her because I invited her and Josh as well so it would seem more casual, but she’s met some new man who’s taking her to some swanky club tonight instead. Josh is coming, though,’ she added reassuringly, ‘so it won’t be too much of a set-up.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I wanted you both to be natural, and I knew you wouldn’t be if you were nervous about whether he liked you or not.’
‘Hhmmnn.’ Kate wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘What have you told him about me?’
‘That you’re a high-powered PA—which you could easily be if you put your mind to it!’ said Phoebe. ‘He’s got his own consultancy or something, so I wasn’t sure if he’d be that impressed by you temping, but apart from that we told him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,’ she finished virtuously.
‘Oh, the truth!’ said Kate, her voice heavy with irony. ‘And what’s that, exactly?’
‘That you’re warm and funny and attractive and basically completely wonderful,’ Phoebe said firmly.
Perhaps she should ask Phoebe to put in some PR for her with Finn McBride, Kate thought, and then frowned slightly as she realised that she had been unconsciously doodling in her turn as she listened to Phoebe.
At least she didn’t go in for severe black boxes. She had done her favourite, a tropical sunset complete with leaning palm tree and a couple of wiggly lines to indicate the lagoon rippling gently against the shore. What did that indicate about her?
Probably that she was a hopeless fantasist, in which case she could save herself the cost of a professional analysis. She already knew that she was far too romantic for her own good. People had been telling her for years that she needed to shape up, get real, wake up and smell the coffee, and do all the other things that simply didn’t come naturally to her.
Suppressing a sigh, Kate carefully added a bunch of coconuts to the palm tree. ‘So won’t he wonder why if I’m that perfect I’m reduced to being set up on blind dates by friends? Why aren’t men falling at my feet wherever I go?’
‘I don’t know. Why aren’t they?’
That was one of the things Kate liked about Phoebe. She really believed in her friends.
Kate put down her pen and forced herself to concentrate. Perhaps all this was a sign to stop dreaming about Seb miraculously turning into a different person and to start making an effort to meet someone new. To wake up and smell the coffee, in fact.
‘So what’s he like, this guy?’
‘I’ve never met him,’ Phoebe had to admit. ‘He’s an old friend of Gib’s.’
‘How old, exactly?’
‘In his early forties, I think.’
‘Just coming up for his mid-life crisis then,’ said Kate with an uncharacteristic touch of cynicism.
‘He’s already had more than enough crises,’ said Phoebe soberly. ‘He’s a widower. His wife died when their daughter was just a toddler, and he’s been struggling to bring her up on his own ever since.’
‘Oh, how awful,’ said Kate, her ready sympathy roused and feeling instantly guilty for her flip comment. ‘It must have been terrible for him.’
‘Well, yes, I gather it was. Gib says he absolutely adored his wife, but it’s six years ago now, and he’s thinking that his little girl is getting to the stage when she really needs a woman around. He’s out of the way of dating, though, and since you were complaining about not meeting any men, Gib suggested a casual supper to introduce you. It’s no big deal, but he thought you might get on.’
‘I don’t know that I’m really stepmother material,’ said Kate doubtfully. ‘I don’t know anything about children.’
‘Nonsense!’ Phoebe wasn’t having any of that. ‘Look how good you are with animals, and children are just the same. They need someone to take them under her wing, and you know what a soft heart you’ve got for lame ducks.’
‘Yes, but I don’t want to go out with a lame duck,’ Kate protested. ‘I want someone sexy and exciting and glamorous.’
Like Seb.
The same thought was clearly in Phoebe’s mind. ‘No you don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘You want someone kind.’
Kate sighed. ‘Why can’t I have someone who’s kind and sexy and exciting and glamorous?’
‘Because I married him,’ said Phoebe smugly. ‘Now listen, this guy’s had a hard time, so be nice to him.’
‘Oh, all right,’ grumbled Kate. ‘What’s his name, anyway—’ She broke off as Finn’s door opened. ‘Uh-oh, here comes Mr Grumpy! I’d better go—I’m not supposed to use the phone for personal calls. See you later.’ She put the phone down hastily.
Finn looked at her with a suspicious frown. ‘Who was that?’
Well, she wasn’t going to tell him the truth and, although she could have made up something innocuous, Kate had an irrepressibly inventive streak and as a matter of principle resisted the simple option when she could complicate matters. She embarked instead on a long, involved and utterly untrue story, inventing an accountant who had met Alison skiing but who had subsequently been on a business trip to Singapore and had only just heard about the accident and, remembering that Alison had told him where she worked, now wanted to know where to send a card.
‘I said it would be all right if he sent it here and we would forward it,’ she finished, having embroidered the story with so many details that she almost believed it herself.
Finn’s expression was glazed with irritation by the time she got to the end. ‘I wish I’d never asked,’ he sighed. ‘You’ve just wasted a quarter of an hour of my life!’
‘It’s not as if we do brain surgery here,’ said Kate, a trifle sullenly. ‘I don’t see what difference fifteen minutes here or there makes.’
‘In that case, you won’t mind staying late tonight to make up for the hour you missed this morning,’ Finn said with an unpleasant look. ‘We’ve got an extremely important project coming up and I need to get this done to fax to the States before tomorrow morning.’
‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ she said, not sounding at all regretful. ‘I’m going out.’
Finn frowned. ‘Can’t you ring and say you’ll be a bit late?’
For anyone else, Kate would have offered to do just that, but something about Finn McBride rubbed her up the wrong way. It wasn’t as if he had made the slightest effort to be pleasant to her.
‘Oh, I don’t think my boyfriend would like that very much,’ she said instead, trying for the unconscious smugness that so often seemed to accompany the words ‘my boyfriend’.
‘You’ve got a boyfriend?’ Finn was unflatteringly surprised, and Kate bridled. It was bad enough putting up with his rudeness without knowing that he thought her incapable of attracting a man as well!
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, determined to convince him that while she might not be a perfect PA, somebody wanted her. ‘In fact,’ she went on, leaning forward confidentially, ‘he’s taking me somewhere really special tonight. I think he might be going to pop the question!’
‘Really?’ Finn raised a contemptuous eyebrow, not even bothering to try and hide his disbelief.
How rude, thought Kate indignantly. He clearly didn’t think she was the kind of girl who would get a man at all, let alone one who wanted to marry her.
Her brown eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said on her mettle. ‘Didn’t you know? That’s why I’m temping. Ever since I met—’
She searched wildly for a name before remembering Bella’s current and very glamorous man. Your best friend’s boyfriend was normally out of bounds, but she didn’t think Bella would mind her borrowing him mentally.
‘—Will,’ she carried on after the tiniest beat, ‘we’ve both known that we were meant for each other. He’s a financial analyst,’ she went on breezily, deciding that she might as well take Will’s career as well, ‘so I didn’t want to commit to a permanent job when he might be posted to New York or Tokyo at any minute. Of course, he keeps saying to me, “Darling, there’s no need for you to go out to work every day,” but I feel it’s important to keep some financial independence, don’t you?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought your earnings as a temp would make much difference if you’re living with a financial analyst,’ said Finn with something not a million miles from a sneer.
‘It’s a matter of principle,’ said Kate airily, quite enjoying the thought of herself destined for a life of expatriate luxury.
Finn turned back to his office. ‘Perhaps you could make it a matter of principle to turn up on time tomorrow,’ he said nastily. ‘That would make a nice change.’
It was a pity she wasn’t as good at real life as she was at inventing it, Kate reflected glumly as the bus inched through the rush hour traffic, vibrating noisily. Wouldn’t it be nice to be going home to a real adoring man with pots of money and to be told that she never had to go and work for the likes of Finn McBride ever again?
Kate sighed and rubbed the condensation from the window with her sleeve and peered down at the crowds hurrying along Piccadilly in the rain. They all seemed to know exactly where they were going. Why was she the only one who drifted along from one muddle to the next?
Look at her. Thirty-two and what did she have to show for it? No career, no home of her own, no relationship. The only thing she had gained over the last few years was twenty pounds. Even the misery diet hadn’t worked for her. When their hearts got broken the weight fell off her friends, but comfort eating had been the only way Kate could deal with losing Seb and her job together before Christmas. A double whammy.
Fortified by Bella and Phoebe and a good deal of champagne, Kate had resolved that things would change in the New Year. She was going to sharpen up her act. She would get another, better job and another, better man, she vowed. She would lose weight and start going to the gym and get her life under control.
It was just that all those things seemed a lot easier to achieve after a bottle or two of champagne. It was February already, and her New Year resolutions were still at the talking stage.
She ought at least to have found herself a proper job by now, but nothing was being advertised—no doubt everyone was staying put while they paid off their Christmas credit card bills—and even temping hadn’t proved to be the guaranteed fall-back position she had assumed. Nobody seemed to be getting flu this year, and Kate had been about to sign on as a waitress at the local wine bar when Alison had broken her leg.
Tomorrow, Kate told herself. She would buy a paper and check out the appointments page, go to the gym on her way home and cook herself something healthy and non-fattening for supper.
Tomorrow would see the start of the new Kate.
Bella was eating toast in the kitchen with her hair in rollers when Kate let herself into the house. Since Phoebe had married and moved in with Gib, the two of them and Kate’s surly cat had had the Tooting house to themselves.
The cat was waiting, a brooding presence by the fridge, and Kate knew better than to try and sit down until he had been fed. He was more than capable of shredding her ankles, so she fished out a packet of the over-priced cat food that was all he would accept and forked it into his bowl before she had even taken off her coat.
‘I thought you were going out?’ she said to Bella, eyeing the toast enviously.
Bella could eat whatever she liked and still not put on weight. ‘Metabolism,’ she said cheerfully whenever she was challenged by her less fortunate friends. She was ridiculously pretty, a blue-eyed blonde with legs that went on forever and a sunny disposition. The worst thing about Bella, Kate and Phoebe had often agreed, was that it was impossible to hate her.
‘I am, but Will’s taking me to some incredibly cool restaurant where the portions are bound to be tiny. I thought I’d have something to eat now so I don’t pig out when I get there. Anyway, I’m hungry,’ Bella added simply.
Lucky Bella, going out with the gorgeous Will while she got some poor old widower who needed someone to be nice to him. Kate sighed to herself. Typical.
Without thinking she dropped a slice of bread into the toaster.
Bella pointed her piece of toast at her. ‘You’ll regret that,’ she warned through a mouthful. ‘Gib always cooks enough for an army. Anyway, I thought you were on a diet?’
‘There’s not much point in starting a diet when I’m going out to dinner,’ said Kate, taking off her coat at last. ‘And we’ve got to eat up all the fattening food before we can restock with the healthy stuff.’
It was a good enough excuse to slather butter on her toast as she told Bella about borrowing Will mentally. ‘I wasn’t going to tell Finn McBride that I was just going on a blind date with a sad widower.’
‘A widower?’
Kate told her the little she had learnt from Phoebe. ‘It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a bundle of laughs, does it?’
‘Come on, he might be gorgeous,’ said Bella.
‘Not with my luck,’ grumbled Kate, but she did her best to talk herself into a more positive frame of mind as she got ready to go out. Perhaps Bella was right. Perhaps a fabulous hunk of manhood was going to walk into her life tonight and sweep her off her feet. It had to be her turn sometime soon, surely?
Just in case, she dressed carefully in a flounced dress whose plunging neckline showed off her best assets. At least there were some advantages to having a figure like hers. It was just a shame that a curvaceous bust came with equally curvy hips and thighs and tummy.
Wriggling her feet into high heels, she felt instantly taller and therefore better. Kate had often thought that life would be so much easier if only she had slightly longer legs. An extra couple of inches wouldn’t have been asking too much now, would it? And a couple less around her hips, which would have balanced her out nicely.
She studied her reflection in the mirror. Amazing what a bit of make-up could do. In a dim light she might even pass for exotic. The warm red in her dress gave her a vaguely gipsyish look that went quite well with her tumbling brown curls and vibrant lipstick. Would the widower be into gipsies? Somehow Kate felt not. Perhaps she should have gone for a rather more demure look?
Could she carry off demure? Kate wondered, unaware that she had lost track of time. It was only when Will arrived to pick up Bella that she thought to look at her watch, and gave a yelp of fright. How could it be eight o’clock already?
It was little comfort to know that Bella wasn’t ready either. Will was reading the paper resignedly in the kitchen, and he raised a laconic hand in greeting as Kate teetered down in her heels to ring for a minicab.
‘It’ll be another twenty minutes,’ said the bored voice at the other end of the phone.
Oh, God, now she would be really late. Punctuality was another of Kate’s New Year resolutions that didn’t seem to be working out as planned.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ Kate gabbled when she finally arrived at almost quarter to nine, practically falling in the door when Phoebe opened it. ‘I know I’m late, but I really didn’t mean to be. Please don’t be cross with me! It’s just been one of those days.’
‘It’s always one of those days with you, Kate,’ said Phoebe, trying to sound severe as she gave her friend an affectionate hug.
Kate hung her head. ‘I know, I know, but I am trying to get better.’ She lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘Is he here? What’s he like?’
‘A bit stiff—no, reserved would be a better word,’ Phoebe corrected herself. ‘But he’s very nice when you get to know him, and he’s got a lovely smile. I think he’s quite attractive, too.’
‘Really?’ A hot widower after all! Kate perked up. Things were sounding promising. ‘No beard?’
‘No.’
‘Beer belly? Wet lips?’
‘No!’ Phoebe was laughing now. ‘Come and see for yourself.’
Maybe her luck had changed. Smoothing down her top, Kate took a deep breath and followed Phoebe into the sitting room.
‘Here’s Kate,’ she heard her say, but Kate had already stopped dead as she saw who was standing by the mantelpiece with Gib and Josh. He had turned at Phoebe’s words, and she had a nasty feeling that his expression of horror only mirrored her own.
It was Finn McBride.
Then he was blocked from her view temporarily as Gib came towards her, grinning. ‘Kate!’ he cried, sweeping her up into a warm hug. ‘Late as usual!’
‘I’ve already grovelled to Phoebe,’ Kate said returning his hug and hoping against hope that she had been mistaken and that when Gib moved she would see that the stranger wasn’t Finn at all, but just someone who looked like him and either didn’t care for the gipsy look or disapproved of unpunctuality. Or both.
But no. Gib was turning with his arm still around her to face the others and there was no doubt about it. There stood Finn, looking as if he had been turned to stone to match the granite of his expression.
Clearly not enjoying discovering that he had been set up on a blind date with his own secretary.
Mortified beyond belief, Kate considered her options. Wishing that she had never been born came top of her list, closely followed by that old cliché, a bit tired but effective nonetheless, of wanting the ground to open up and swallow her.
Could she get away with pretending to faint? Probably not, she decided regretfully. She wasn’t the fainting type.
Which just left brazening it out.
CHAPTER TWO
‘HELLO.’ Plastering on an artificially bright smile, she stared Finn straight in the eyes, daring him to acknowledge her. Finn looked back at her with a glacial grey gaze.
