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‘Kate, this is Finn McBride,’ said Gib. ‘We’ve been telling him all about you.’
Great, thought Kate. Now Finn would know just how sad her life was.
She stuck out her hand and Finn didn’t have much choice but to take it. ‘Kate Savage,’ she introduced herself in a brittle voice, trying not to notice the feel of his fingers closed around hers. In spite of his obvious reluctance, his clasp was firm and warm, much warmer than she had expected, and she snatched her hand away, oddly unsettled.
‘You’re being very formal, Kate,’ said Gib amused. ‘At least I don’t need to bother introducing you to Josh.’ He turned to Finn. ‘Josh practically lives with Kate.’
‘Oh?’ said Finn coldly.
‘Kate shares a house with a very good friend of mine,’ Josh explained, and the quick smile he gave Kate was sympathetic. He had obviously been told that he was there to make it less obvious that this was a blind date, although his presence wasn’t fooling Finn one little bit. ‘How are you, Kate? I haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘I’m fine.’ Apart from wanting to die of embarrassment, that was.
Phoebe handed Kate a glass of wine. ‘Finn’s just been telling us about his disastrous experiences with temps in his office,’ she said cheerfully. ‘We thought you could give him a few tips on how to handle them.’
Oh, yes, Gib and Phoebe had built her up into a topflight PA, hadn’t they? As if her humiliation wasn’t complete enough!
‘Really?’ Kate produced an acidic smile. ‘It does seem to be difficult getting good secretarial staff these days! What’s wrong with the temp you’ve got?’
‘She doesn’t seem to have any idea of time-keeping for a start,’ said Finn with a sardonic glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. No doubt he had been here on the stroke of eight, long before Phoebe and Gib would have been ready for him. ‘She’s completely unreliable.’
Unreliable, was she? Kate took a defiant gulp of her wine. ‘It doesn’t sound as if she has much motivation to work for you. Why would that be, do you think?’
Finn shrugged. ‘Sheer laziness?’ he suggested. ‘She seems to have a very vivid fantasy life too,’ he went on and Kate coloured in spite of herself, remembering how she was supposed to be sitting here being proposed to right now by a financial analyst called Will.
No doubt Gib and Phoebe had already filled him in on her disastrous relationship with Seb, and even if they hadn’t he would still know that story wasn’t true either. After all, if she had a financial analyst to go home to, she wouldn’t be the kind of sad person who needed to be set up on blind dates by friends.
Kate suppressed a sigh. Could things get any worse?
‘It can be just as bad on the other side of fence,’ Phoebe was saying loyally. ‘Tell them about your horrible boss, Kate. He sounds ghastly.’
Ah. They could get worse.
‘Oh?’ said Finn, thin-lipped. ‘Why’s that?’
Oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound. She might as well take the opportunity to tell him what she thought, and it wasn’t as if he had spared her feelings!
‘He’s just generally rude and unpleasant,’ she told him. ‘He doesn’t seem to have even the most basic social skills. He can hardly be bothered to say “good morning” and as for “please” and “thank you”…well, I might as well ask him to talk Polish!’
A muscle had begun to beat in Finn’s jaw. ‘Perhaps he’s busy.’
‘Being busy isn’t an excuse for not having any manners,’ said Kate, meeting his gaze levelly.
‘He’s absolute death on personal calls in the office as well,’ Phoebe put in, apparently unaware of the antagonism simmering between Finn and Kate. ‘Kate’s always having to put down the phone in the middle of a conversation when his door opens, and we can be in the middle of a really good chat when she suddenly starts putting on an official voice and telling us she’ll get back to us on that as soon as possible. That’s our cue to call back later when he’s gone! It’s very frustrating.’
She turned politely to Finn. ‘You let people in your office use the phone, don’t you?’
‘I don’t encourage it, no,’ he said with a nasty look at Kate, who was almost beyond caring by now.
She was obviously never going to be able to use the office phone again—not that Kate could imagine going into work again after this. On the scale of embarrassment, being blatantly fixed up with your boss must rank pretty high, she thought. It was certainly one of the most excruciating situations Kate had ever found herself in and, let’s face it, she had plenty to compare it to. Sometimes she seemed to spend her life lurching from one mortifying episode to another.
‘Access to phones and email for personal business is good for staff morale,’ she pointed out. ‘If you treated your staff like human beings who have a life outside work, I think you’d see productivity shoot up.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with our productivity,’ snapped Finn, and this time his irritability did catch the others’ attention. They looked at him a little curiously and he controlled his temper with an effort.
‘There’s a difference between dealing with a crisis, in which case of course staff can use the phones, and spending hours gossiping on my time,’ he said in a more reasonable voice.
‘Doesn’t your temp get the job done?’ Kate asked sweetly.
‘In a fashion,’ he admitted grudgingly.
‘Perhaps you should go and work for Finn,’ said Gib in such a blatant attempt to push them together that he might as well have shown them to the spare room and tucked them in to bed together. ‘You might get on better with him than with the boss you’ve got at the moment.’
‘Now, there’s an idea!’ said Kate as if much struck by the thought. ‘Have you got any jobs going at the moment?’
‘It’s very possible that there might be a vacancy for a temp in my office coming up,’ Finn said with something of a snap, ‘but that wouldn’t interest you, of course, you being such a high-flyer! Gib and Phoebe here were telling me that you practically run the company where you are at the moment. I’m not sure I could offer you anything that challenging.’
A hint of colour touched Kate’s cheekbones at his sarcasm. ‘No, well, I’m thinking of changing career anyway,’ she told him loftily.
‘Really?’ the other three all said together.
‘Yes,’ she said, thinking that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, come to that. It didn’t look as if she had much future in the secretarial world, anyway. ‘I’m sick of being treated like a lower life form, so I’ve been thinking that I might…what’s the word?…downscale.’
‘Downscale?’ Josh echoed doubtfully, clearly wondering how it was possible for her to downscale from her current position. Being a temp was hardly the giddy heights of a career, was it?
‘Or do I mean diversify?’ said Kate. ‘Do something different anyway. Think out of the box. Use my talents.’
‘What exactly are your talents?’ Finn asked, the sardonic lift of his brows belying the apparent interest in his voice.
Yes, what were her talents? Kate’s normally fertile imagination went inconveniently blank at the very moment she needed it most.
‘She’s a great cook,’ Phoebe prompted, evidently still under the impression that Kate might make a suitable wife for Finn.
For some reason it was only at this point that Kate made the connection and remembered that his presence here meant that Finn was a widower. She had been so shocked to see him that she hadn’t thought beyond the awkwardness and antagonism, and now she felt suddenly contrite. That beautiful, glowing girl in that photo on his desk was dead. No wonder he seemed so grim.
Kate was conscious of a twinge of guilt about all the times she had thought Finn abrupt and rude, but then, how was she to know that his brusqueness hid a broken heart?
The others were still madly promoting her. ‘Kate’s a communicator,’ she heard Gib say. It was the kind of thing that made you realise just how long he’d spent in the States. ‘She’s got wonderful people skills.’
‘Not just people,’ said Josh dryly. ‘She’s pretty good when it comes to animals too. Remember that dog in the pub, Phoebe?’
‘God, yes.’ Phoebe gave an exaggerated shudder, and Josh grinned.
‘I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes thinking about it,’ he told Finn. ‘Kate confronted a skinhead with huge hands and no neck. He was covered in tattoos and snarling and swearing at his dog. Kate told him he wasn’t fit to own an animal and took the dog away from him while the rest of us were dancing around in the background being mealy-mouthed and saying I’m not sure this is a good idea, Kate, why don’t you let the RSPCA deal with it? Meanwhile Kate was about half the size of this guy, and giving him a piece of her mind, and the rest of the pub was squaring up for a good fight.’
There was a flicker of interest in Finn’s eyes. ‘What happened to the dog?’
‘Oh, Kate got it,’ said Josh. ‘We knew she would. It was a savage Alsatian cross, and I wouldn’t have wanted to go near it myself, but Kate had it eating out of her hand in no time.’ He turned to Kate. ‘What did happen to that dog?’
‘I took him down to my parents,’ she said, uncomfortable with all this blatant promotion. ‘He’s spoiled to death now, of course, and getting much too fat.’
Finn glanced at Kate. ‘Do you think the dog really cared one way or another?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. Why did people like Finn always have to make you feel so stupid and sentimental when it came to animals? ‘But someone had to.’
There was a tiny silence.
‘A word of warning,’ Gib confided to Finn. ‘Kate might look sweet and cuddly, but don’t ever try mistreating an animal when she’s around, or you’ll find yourself in big trouble! She’s got a hell of a temper when roused.’
Finn’s cold grey gaze flicked to Kate, whose cheeks were burning by this stage, and then away. ‘I’ll remember,’ he said.
‘What Kate really needs,’ said Phoebe as she ushered them all through to the dining room, ‘is a house in the country where she can make chutney and keep chickens and dogs and all the other stray people and animals that cross her path.’
‘No, I don’t,’ objected Kate. A big house in the country sounded perfect, but also a bit too much like she was hanging out to get married. She wasn’t having Finn thinking that she was desperate for a husband, certainly not desperate enough to consider him!
‘I’m a metropolitan chick, really,’ she said loftily. ‘I don’t think I’m ready to make jam yet. I was thinking more along the lines of PR—’ She broke off as Phoebe, Gib and Josh burst out laughing, and even Finn managed a sardonic smile. ‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded, offended.
‘Kate, darling, you’re not nearly tough enough for PR! You’d always side with the underdog regardless of what your client wanted. You might as well decide to be a brain surgeon!’
With that they were off, vying with each other to think up more unlikely careers that Kate could try. Josh’s suggestion—pest controller—was voted the best.
‘Kate would take all the rats home and make up little beds for them!’
Kate gritted her teeth. She could feel Finn watching her with a curling lip. He was probably one of those people who thought that a soft heart equalled a soft head.
She wouldn’t have minded so much if the other three hadn’t been so determined to push her as a homemaker. Couldn’t they see that Finn wasn’t the least bit impressed? Things got even worse over dinner when Phoebe manoeuvred the conversation, none too subtly, round to Finn and his daughter.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Alex,’ said Finn almost reluctantly.
Kate didn’t blame him. He could obviously see the subtext—how much he needed to get married again to provide his daughter with a stepmother—as clearly as she could, and she was conscious of a treacherous twinge of fellow feeling. He couldn’t be enjoying this any more than she was.
‘She’s nine,’ he added, evidently recognising that the information was going to be dragged out of him somehow, so he might as well get it over and done with.
‘It must have been very hard, bringing her up on your own,’ said Phoebe.
Finn shrugged. ‘Alex was only two when Isabel died, so I had various nannies to help. She never really took to any of them, though, and since she’s been at school full time we’ve managed with a housekeeper who comes in every day. She picks Alex up from school and cooks an evening meal, and she’ll stay with her if I’m late back from work.’
His voice was emotionless, as if his small daughter was just another logistical problem he had had to solve. It was Alex Kate felt sorry for, poor motherless child. Kate had never taken a phone call from her, or seen her at the office, so she clearly wasn’t encouraged to disturb Finn there. Having grown up with four brothers, Kate thought Alex’s life sounded very lonely. It couldn’t be much fun growing up with just a housekeeper and Finn for company.
Certainly not if Finn was always as boring as he was tonight. He was driving, so he drank very little, and although Kate couldn’t object to that, she did feel that he could at least look as if was enjoying himself.
He was obviously terrified that she was going to throw herself at him and force him to marry her. It was understandable, Kate supposed, after the way the others had built her up as a domestic goddess, but he needn’t worry. Getting together with him was the last thing on her mind. She wasn’t that desperate for a relationship!
Finn sat beside her at dinner, radiating disapproval as Kate laughed and drank rather too much wine and talked about clubbing and parties and generally made it clear that she was absolutely not in the market for uptight widowers, no matter how sorry she felt for his poor daughter. Of course, the more poker-faced and buttoned up he was, the more she she had to compensate for Phoebe and Gib’s sake. They had gone to so much effort, she felt that the least she could do was try and make it a successful evening.
Defiantly ignoring the way Finn was looking down his nose, Kate held out her glass for more wine. Anyone with a sense of occasion would relax and have a drink as well. They would agree to call a taxi and come and pick up the car in the morning, but the Finns of this world evidently didn’t do relaxing or having fun.
Of course, it was a bit tricky trying to impress her complete lack of concern on Finn and ignore him at the same time, especially when she was so aware of his austere presence beside her. It wasn’t that he didn’t contribute to the conversation, but he made it very clear that he thought Kate was too silly for words, which just made her nervous, and nervousness made her drink more until she was trapped in a vicious circle. As the evening wore on, she could hear herself getting louder and more outrageous, and had reached the owlish stage when Finn, obviously unable to bear any more, looked at his watch.
‘I must go,’ he said, pushing back his chair to forestall any objections.
‘I think you should go too,’ said Gib to Kate with a grin, ‘or you’ll never get to work tomorrow.’
Kate didn’t want to think about going into work. ‘Don’t talk about it,’ she groaned, closing her eyes, but that was a mistake. The room started to spin and she opened them again hastily, clutching her tousled curls instead.
‘I don’t suppose you could give her a lift home, could you?’ Gib asked Finn. ‘She can’t be trusted to get home alone in this state!’
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ Kate protested instantly, lifting her head and trying not to sway at the sudden movement. ‘I’m great!’
‘You’re fab,’ agreed Phoebe soothingly, helping her to her feet, ‘but it’s time to go. Finn’s going to take you home.’
‘Why can’t Josh take me?’
‘Because I haven’t got my car with me and I live in completely the opposite direction,’ said Josh ungallantly.
‘I’m very happy to give you a lift,’ said Finn with a certain grittiness, clearly feeling far from happy but unable to think of a good excuse.
Outside, it was raining and making a determined effort to sleet, if not actually to snow. Finn watched, resigned, as Gib and Phoebe helped Kate into her coat like a little girl for the short walk to the car, buttoning her up and kissing her goodnight before consigning her into his charge.
Kate thanked them both graciously for supper, although she had a sinking feeling that the words might have come out a bit slurred, and set off down the path, very much on her dignity. Unfortunately, the effect was spoilt by stumbling on her heels, and only Finn’s hand which shot out and gripped her arm stopped her landing smack on her bottom.
‘Careful!’ he said sharply.
‘Sorry, the path’s a bit slippy…slippery,’ Kate managed, wincing at the iron grip of his fingers. She tried to pull her arm away, but Finn kept a good hold of her as he marched her along to his car.
‘You’re the one that’s a bit slippy,’ he said acidly and opened the door with what Kate felt was unnecessarily ironic courtesy.
Tired of being treated like a child, she got in sulkily, and he shut it after her with an exasperated click.
The car was immaculate. There were no sweetie wrappers, no empty cans, no forgotten toys or scuffed seats. It was impossible to believe that a child had ever been in it, thought Kate, wondering where poor little Alex fitted into Finn’s efficiently streamlined life.
Still buoyed up by a combination of alcohol and nerves, and anticipating an uncomfortable journey, she leant forward and switched on the radio. Classical, of course. Pressing random buttons, she searched for Capital Radio, until Finn got in to the driver’s seat and switched it off with a frown.
‘Stop fiddling and do up your seatbelt.’
‘Yes, sir!’ muttered Kate.
Finn lay his arm along the back of her seat and swivelled so that that he could see to reverse the car along the narrow street to the turning place at the bottom. Kate was acutely aware of how close his hand was to her hair and she made a big deal of rummaging in her bag at her feet in case he thought that she was leaning invitingly towards him.
It was a relief when they reached the turning place and Finn took his arm away to put the car into gear. At least she could sit back.
Only it wasn’t that much easier then. Finn was a fierce, formidable presence, overwhelming in the dark confines of the car while the rain and the sleet splattered against the windscreen and made the space shrink even further. The light from the dashboard lit his face with a green glow, glancing along his cheekbones and highlighting the severe mouth.
He was concentrating on driving, and Kate watched him under her lashes, daunted more than she wanted to admit by his air of contained competence. It was evident in the calm, decisive way he drove, and when her eyes followed his left hand from the steering wheel to the gear stick, something stirred inside her and she looked quickly away.
Her wine-induced high had shrivelled, leaving her tongue-tied and agonisingly aware of him. It was ridiculous, Kate scolded herself. He was still Finn. He was a disagreeable, if thankfully temporary, boss and an ungracious guest. She didn’t like him at all, so why was she suddenly noticing the line of his mouth and the set of his jaw and the strength of his hands?
