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‘Now you’re letting your copywriting skills run away with you!’ she interrupted drily. ‘Just what are you trying to say to me, Ross? That our working partnership has grown stale? That there’s some hungry new female champing at the bit to replace me, and you do want me to go?’
Ross sighed. ‘No, I don’t want you to go. Right now, all I want is to resist the temptation to make any comments about female logic. Or the lack of it,’ he added in a dark undertone. ‘But I am interested in hearing your sister’s objections to you working for me. Particularly since I’ve met her on very few occasions. She hardly knows me!’ he finished indignantly.
‘Oh,’ she said, with an evasive shrug of her shoulders. ‘You know.’
‘No, Ursula, I don’t.’ He looked at her.
‘She...she...’
‘She...?’ he put in helpfully.
She didn’t dare tell him her sister’s real reason for urging her to leave Sheridan-Blackman. That Amber thought Ursula was being unrealistic. Wasting her life by pining for a man who could never be hers. Except that I’m not pining! Ursula thought defiantly. Or being unrealistic.
Just because she happened to like Ross as a man, and enjoyed working with him—it didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to start ripping his clothes off! ‘She thinks that a change of scene would do me good.’
‘It’s worth thinking about,’ Ross said unexpectedly.
‘It is? Then that does mean—’
‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he put in impatiently. ‘Other than that it might be an idea to consider any other offers which may come your way.’
Other offers? Ursula stared at him in confusion. ‘But they’re not likely to, are they? Not if I’m not actively seeking employment. I’m a personal assistant, not an account executive, and I’m hardly a prime target for head-hunters!’
‘I guess not,’ he answered tersely. ‘Do you have a lot of work to do, Ursula?’
‘Not particularly.’ She tried to answer lightly, but it wasn’t easy now that he had sown seeds of doubt in her mind. Somehow she had gone from complacency to insecurity in the space of about half an hour. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting swopping idle chit-chat with you.’
‘Then maybe you could pop down to the market and buy me some oranges?’
She didn’t miss a beat—but then she was used to bizarre requests by now. ‘How many?’
‘A dozen.’
‘And these oranges—are they for eating, or looking at?’
‘For looking at. I need inspiration! There’s a new juice campaign coming up—and Oliver’s pitching for the account. So we need to compose the perfect catchphrase which will have people ransacking their supermarkets for Jerry’s Juice. So. Any brilliant ideas?’
Ursula knitted her brows together in concentration. What did she like best about orange juice? ‘Everyone always emphasises how sweet it is...’
‘Yeah. And?’
‘Well, why not do the opposite—emphasise how sharp it is?’
‘Any ideas?’
Ursula shrugged. ‘Oh, the possibilities are endless—sharpens the appetite, that kind of thing. You know! You’re the copywriter, Ross!’
‘Mmm, I am,’ murmured Ross slowly. ‘But maybe you should be, too. You’re in the wrong job, you know, Ursula.’
‘No, I’m in the right job!’ Ursula unlocked the petty-cash tin and took a ten-pound note out. ‘Just because I happen to have a fertile imagination and an active mind doesn’t mean I want to be a copywriter!’
He laughed. ‘So you’ll come to Katy’s party on Saturday?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ she promised airily.
CHAPTER TWO (#u81e4ea10-8f31-5636-bcc2-cfc709550ec0)
THERE was a click as the connection was made. ‘Hello?’
Ursula paused before saying, ‘Is that you, Amber?’
‘Of course it’s me! Surely you know the sound of my voice by now! I am your sister!’
‘You just sounded... I don’t know...odd.’
Amber gave a heavy sigh which reverberated down the line. ‘Just fed up. Finn’s overworking. Again. How are things with you?’
‘Er, fine.’ Ursula hesitated. ‘Ross has invited me to a party on Saturday.’
‘Gosh. What does his wife say about that?’
Ursula silently counted to ten. She loved her sister very much, but sometimes, honestly... ‘I have no idea,’ she replied frostily. ‘But I should imagine that he checked with her before he asked me. I do wish you wouldn’t make assumptions, Amber. I’m hardly worthy competition, and anyway—I like Jane.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
It was time, Ursula decided firmly, to put an end to Amber’s totally false speculations about what kind of party Ross had invited her to. ‘I do like her,’ she reaffirmed, though more out of duty than conviction. ‘What little I know of her. And anyway—it’s Katy’s birthday party.’
‘Oh.’
‘Why do you say “oh” in that tone of voice?’
‘Oh, nothing. I suppose I imagined that he was whisking you off to some glamorous advertising-related function.’
‘Well, he’s not. And I never go to those, anyway.’
‘So you’ve been invited to a child’s tea party?’
‘It’s an early evening supper, actually.’
‘Wow!’
‘Don’t be mean, Amber.’
‘I’m not. I’m being objective. And protective.’
‘Protective?’
‘Of course. And it’s slightly worrying that this... party...is your social affair of the month!’
‘It isn’t!’
‘Well, what else have you done this month?’
Ursula even found herself cringing as she answered her sister’s question. ‘I went out for a meal with my French Appreciation class last week—’
‘And were there any men there?’
‘Lots!’ said Ursula brightly, as she recalled the portly doorman from the nearby Granchester Hotel who sat next to her in class. He was planning to visit Marseilles for a holiday to trace some of his forebears and had grown hot and sweaty around the collar before asking Ursula if she wanted to accompany him on the trip! She had politely declined.
Then there was that rather nice young sculptor whose pint she always paid for if the class went to the pub afterwards, because he never had any money. True, he was only twenty—but terribly friendly. And very interesting.
‘Eligible men?’ put in Amber sharply.
‘That’s so subjective I can’t possibly answer it!’ responded Ursula smoothly.
‘Well, if everything is so marvellous, then why are you ringing me, Ursula?’
‘Because I don’t know what to wear!’ wailed Ursula.
There was a short silence.
‘Oh, I’m not suggesting borrowing something of yours!’ said Ursula hastily, sensing her sister’s embarrassment. ‘I wouldn’t like to try and squeeze myself into one of your size eight Lycra miniskirts!’
‘I’m a size ten now,’ said Amber, the gloom in her voice suggesting a disaster of national proportions.
‘Oh, that’s terrible, sweetie!’ teased Ursula, though she had to bite back her first comment, which was that she would be in seventh heaven if she were anywhere near that size! She had gained extra weight as a teenager, and never really lost it. ‘But it doesn’t help me to decide what to wear!’
She could have asked Amber how she imagined it must feel when your main criterion for buying any outfit was whether or not it made your bottom look fat and wobbly. But of course she couldn’t do that. If Ursula’s bottom was bigger than she would have liked, then it was nobody’s fault but her own. If you ate too much, you got fat. Cause and effect. Simple. And, while she might occasionally justify her plumpness by calling to mind the grim reality of her growing-up years, nothing altered that simple fact.
‘Wear jeans,’ advised Amber succinctly. “They’re always useful around children.’
‘Jeans! If I wore jeans, they’d be digging out their safari clothes—I look like a hippo in jeans!’
‘Well, I’m not going through a whole list of suggestions just so that you can shoot them down in flames! What do you want to wear?’
Ursula’s voice was unusually hesitant, and shy. ‘Do you think the cream trousers and top you helped me choose would be okay? I haven’t worn them yet.’
‘Perfect!’ said Amber immediately. ‘The colour emphasises how dark your hair is, and brings out the roses in your cheeks. Oh, and clip your hair back at the sides with those mother-of-pearl slides I bought you for your twenty-first.’
‘Okay.’
‘Oh. and Ursula?’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Be good!’
Amber’s words echoed around Ursula’s ears on Saturday evening, as she stood opposite Ross’s house, trying to summon up enough courage to go up to the front door and knock. Be good, indeed! She didn’t think she’d have a problem sticking to that advice! She doubted whether there would be any men there whom Amber would consider ‘eligible’, and even if there were they wouldn’t spend a moment looking at her.
She swallowed nervously as she gazed up at the house. How she wished she’d had a drink before she had set out!
She hadn’t even bothered asking Ross how many others were going, or who they were. She just prayed frantically that all the women weren’t in the same kind of league as Jane, his wife.
She stared down at her toes poking through the strappy sandals which were the most summery shoes she had—an absolute necessity on a night like this. It was baking hot, even though the sun was getting low in the sky.
Ross lived in Hampstead, which was miles on the underground from Ursula’s little flat in Clapham Common. It had been far too hot on the train, but not much better once she’d got off and begun to walk up the hill.
The air had a strange, almost suspended sense of stillness about it, with no breeze existing to lift it away. It had made her feel hot and bothered. Still did.
Ursula surreptitiously wiped her brow with the back of her hand, and the little hairs on the back of her neck prickled up, her senses on full alert, as if suddenly aware of someone watching her. She narrowed her eyes as she allowed herself a closer look at the imposing, late-Victorian house.
Someone was!
She glanced up and saw a figure blackly silhouetted against an arched window on the first floor and she could tell, even from this distance, that it was Ross. She studied him dispassionately, cushioned by the safety net of distance, thinking that the pose he struck highlighted the complexity which lay at the heart of the man. He looked both relaxed and yet alert.
Watching.
Waiting...
Well, there was no way she could possibly dawdle any longer, not without looking a complete idiot. Ursula clutched her handbag even tighter and, tucking Katy’s birthday present under her arm, she crossed the road, went up the steps to the front door and banged loudly on the knocker.
It was opened by Katy herself, looking more grown up than her ten years in short blue denim skirt and a sparkly blue tee shirt, which looked expensive. She was a tall girl for her age, and the platform shoes she wore made her even taller.
Katy had her father’s deep brown eyes and even deeper brown hair—but hers curled into wild corkscrews whereas Ross’s just waved gently against the nape of his neck. Her wiry height she owed entirely to her mother, along with a nose which was a cute, freckled snub and rosebud-pretty lips.
‘Happy birthday, Katy!’ beamed Ursula, and held the present out towards her. ‘I love your tee shirt!’
But Katy seemed more interested in a hug, hurling herself into Ursula’s arms with a fervour which was as surprising as it was touching.
‘Ursula!’ she squeaked. ‘You’re the first here! I’m so glad you came! I made Daddy invite you!’
Ursula willed her face not to react, but there was nothing she could do to stop her heart from plummeting like a dropped stone. So it had been Katy’s idea to invite her, had it? Not her father’s at all... She just hoped that she wasn’t going to stand out from the other guests like a sore thumb.
‘I’m so glad I came, too—and I’m flattered to be invited,’ she told Katy truthfully. ‘I don’t get to go to many birthday parties these days.’
‘Why not?’
Ursula shrugged. ‘Because grown-ups only tend to have parties when they’re twenty-one, or forty—’
‘How boring!’
‘Very boring,’ agreed Ursula gravely. ‘Now open your present and tell me whether you like it,’ she added gently. ‘You can always change it if you don’t.’
Katy needed no second bidding, immediately dropping to her knees and ripping the shiny paper off the carefully wrapped parcel with all the energy of a highly excited child.
Inside was a box of water-colour paints, a small packet of oil-pastel crayons, and a thick block of sketching paper. Katy sat back on her heels and stared at it.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Ursula nervously. ‘I thought you were very good at drawing, just like your daddy—’
