Secretary on Demand (8 page)

Spend Christmas with them?
He really must feel very sorry for her! Fortunately, she had already planned on heading back to her family for Christmas so she could reject his offer in all truthfulness.

‘I really would have enjoyed that,' she told him, laying it on thick, ‘but I've already told my mum that I'll be back home for Christmas. The family have never spent Christmas apart, not even when Francis was away studying in Paris. I'm sorry. I'll explain it to Eleanor, if you like.'

‘No, I'll do that. She'll be disappointed, of course.'

‘Haven't you got…grandparents? Aunts? Cousins?'

‘We're a small family. Pretty much the opposite of yours. Now. Back to work, I suppose. Although I rather fancy playing truant at the moment.' He chuckled at the thought of it.

She said, startled at the personal aside, ‘I can't imagine you playing truant.'

‘It seems there are quite a number of things you can't imagine me doing,' he said, ticking them off on his fingers. ‘Playing truant, gyrating on a dance floor, eating lunch…would you like me to tell you what I can't imagine
you
doing?'

‘Not really,' Shannon said hurriedly, alarmed at this sudden turn in the conversation, and he laughed as though her response had been exactly as he'd predicted. He was no psychic but he had a knack of seeming to second guess her reactions which she found a little unnerving. Either he was a sharp judge of human character or else her human character was so bland and transparent that he could read her like a book.

‘I just couldn't imagine what,' she informed him coldly, ‘you would do if you did play truant. Go to the park and feed the ducks? Take in a sneaky afternoon movie? Head for the nearest junk-food place and gorge yourself on hamburgers?' There. That sarcasm should put him in his place if nothing else.

‘I like the park option,' Kane said slowly, undeterred by her tone of voice. He stood up, waiting till she clambered to her feet, then they strolled back to the bank of lifts, with Shannon looking shiftily around her just in case someone she knew appeared in front of her like a rabbit from a magician's hat. ‘A leisurely walk in the park…'

‘It's freezing outside,' she pointed out with crushing pragmatism.

‘True. Point taken. Then perhaps in a cabin somewhere in front of a roaring fire.'

The image sent a little shiver down her spine as her imagination took flight once again into the land of no-go.

‘I never thought truants liked skipping work for that kind of thing,' she told him, watching as he punched a button to the side of the lifts and they waited for one to arrive. ‘Anyway, why don't you just take some time off and go away somewhere with Eleanor?'

The lift arrived and they stepped inside. As the door shut, Shannon had a sudden trapped feeling and found herself pressed against the back, staring fixedly ahead of her but very much aware of the man slightly in front.

‘Time is the one thing I never seem to have enough of,' he commented drily.

‘Which would make a depressing epitaph,' she said lightly. ‘Why don't you do something about it? In fact, in a couple of weeks' time Eleanor's class is putting on a play. Nothing formally to do with Christmas…' Shannon smiled as she remembered this particular conversation ‘…since there are several religious denominations to be considered. It's at two in the afternoon, before school finishes. She'd be thrilled if she knew you were going.'

The lift finally arrived at their floor and as the doors opened Kane leant against one so she could slide past. Out of the claustrophobic confines of the lift, she could feel her treacherous breathing return to normal.

‘Were you planning on going to this play?' he asked, and Shannon blushed.

‘I might have the afternoon off,' she admitted. ‘It broke my heart to think of the little mite in a play with
no family or friends to watch. At eight, children get so excited about things like that. It's a shame.'

‘What else does Eleanor get excited about that she fails to mention?'

A good eight inches shorter than him, Shannon had to walk at a brisk pace to keep up with his long, easy strides, and by the time they were back at her office she was slightly out of breath.

She shrugged noncommittally and sat down, putting on her supposedly stern secretarial mask. But instead of going away, he swung her chair round so that she was facing him and placed his hands squarely on either side of her. The jittery claustrophobia she felt now made those few minutes in the lift seem like a run in the open countryside by comparison.

‘Care to answer my question?' he pressed, towering over her, his tie falling forward to brush against her blouse.

‘Oh, just the usual. She's got a starring role in this production. Apparently, it's a great honour not to be sidelined into playing one of the animals. She's thrilled because she has a speaking part and Jodie, the class big-mouth, is playing a camel.' Shannon grinned. ‘She's also excited because she's now in the top group in maths and her poem was read out day before yesterday at assembly in front of the lower years.'

Kane looked bemused by this array of accomplishments.

‘It's not my fault I have to work all the hours God made,' he objected roughly, as if she had criticised his parenting. A bad case of guilty conscience, she decided, and well deserved as well.

‘It
is
your fault, actually. You could make more time
for Eleanor, and don't tell me about your weekends. You constantly get business calls on a Sunday, anyway!'

‘Business calls! On the weekend!' He was virtually spluttering.

‘Yes,' Shannon said smugly. ‘Eleanor told me. Girls' talk.'

‘And what else do you girls talk about when I'm not around?'

‘I can make sure that you're free for the play. Will you be coming? As I said to you, Eleanor
would be thrilled
.'

He pushed himself back from her chair and appraised her with his eyes. ‘I wouldn't dream of missing it, now that it's been brought to my attention. Nor,' he added, shoving his hands into his pockets and smiling with satisfaction, ‘would I dream of letting you miss it. Not after you had planned on going. I think this mighty corporation could do without us for a couple of hours, don't you? We can watch Eleanor in the play and then afterwards we can take her out for something to eat somewhere. Settled?' He flashed her one of those smiles that indicated there was no room for manoeuvre.

One week later, Shannon was feeling even more hopelessly ensnared. Ensnared on a stake of her own making. And helpless to protest because Kane's new-found determination to put her advice into practice and see more of his daughter was all to the good. At least all to the good as far as Eleanor was concerned. She was probably seeing more of her father during the weekdays than she had for her entire life. Shannon left him working at five only to see him again at six-thirty when he strolled through the front door to delighted squeals from his daughter. And more disastrous to her mental health than that, he always insisted that she join them for supper.

‘She's so thrilled at you being here with us,' he'd told her depressingly on the first evening of his run of early homecomings. ‘She really almost considers you to be one of the family.'

‘But I'm
not
one of the family!' Shannon had protested vigorously, her hands on her hips, glaring at him as he'd divested himself of his jacket and moved away, tugging at his tie to remove it and drape it over the banister. ‘I happen to have my
own
family!'

‘But they're not here, are they?' he had countered smugly.

‘I'm not looking for a family substitute!'

‘And I'm not offering you one. I'm merely suggesting that it seems so important to Eleanor, and what's important to Eleanor is important to me.'

Which had silenced her. He'd seemed so sincere, almost vulnerable in the admission, but a healthy sceptical streak in her read that as a cunning move to get what he wanted and there was no denying that it was easier for him when she was around. He could relax, have a drink and whilst he was bombarded with Eleanor's accounts of school and what had happened that day, a fair amount of time was spent comfortably watching his daughter and Shannon play games, cook tea and exchange ideas while he sat at the kitchen table, making the occasional remark and half reading the newspapers.

The domesticity of it frightened her, but when she tried to dig deeper into the reasons for that, she came up against a brick wall.

Now, as she slung on her coat and braced herself to face the brisk walk to the underground and the tube journey back to her bedsit, she couldn't help looking at him accusingly from under her lashes.

‘What?' he asked, walking her to the front door and
muttering that he didn't care for the thought of her journeying back to her bedsit in the dark.

‘I didn't say anything.'

‘You don't have to. You're like an angry little bull terrier waiting for a leg to bite. My leg, I get the feeling.'

‘I'm not
little
,' Shannon told him through gritted teeth. ‘And I'm not a child either.'

‘You look like a child with those pigtails. Why do you tie your hair back all the time?'

‘It's practical,' Shannon said uncomfortably. She self-consciously took one of her ridiculous braids in one hand and played with it. Lots of women wore their hair tied back! ‘And I can't wear it tied back in a bun because it's not long enough. Not that I have to explain my hair-styles to you.'

She thought of one of the company lawyers who made a habit of popping in unannounced and insisting on seeing Kane with important business. A tall, glamorous blonde with fashionably short hair. She doubted whether Kane had ever mentioned to her that she looked like a tomboy with such short hair!

‘I suppose I could have it all chopped off, like Sonya Crew,' she added waspishly. ‘Would that be mature enough for your liking?'

He gave her a long, leisurely and very thorough look which sent shivers down her spine, and she edged back against the front door. ‘Anyway, I've got to go,' she said in confusion. ‘I don't want to be getting back too late.'

‘Which has been my point all along,' he said mildly, still looking at her with that shuttered expression that sent her nervous system into panicky overdrive. ‘How long will it take you to get back?'

‘Oh, about half an hour, I guess. Maybe a little more.' If she pushed any harder against the wooden door she
would go right through it, but for some reason she felt threatened by Kane's proximity and, worse, excited by the thought of it.

He stepped back. ‘Right. I'll see you tomorrow, if you're sure you don't want to be driven back.'

Shannon heard herself squeak out a stuttering refusal.

‘And tomorrow there's no need for you to come after work,' he continued. ‘I'm going to be back late so Carrie's staying on for the night. You can catch up on your social life which must have gone into a bit of decline with the hours you've been putting in here.'

‘Oh, no. As I said, I leave here early enough to go out afterwards!'

She felt disproportionately disappointed to be missing that little illicit taste of domesticity which she now found she had become pleasurably accustomed to. Reactions like that wouldn't do and she immediately decided that she would go to the pub after work with some of the girls from the office. She couldn't afford to pander to her instincts to behave like the homebody she naturally was. She would just find herself slipping into another rut, this time involving a family that wasn't hers.

She was young and living in the Big City! It was crucial that she remind herself of the fact, and of the fact that she should be out there enjoying all the wonderfully exciting things that London had to offer after dark. One brief foray into a second-rate nightclub didn't really qualify her to join the ranks of the young and free, did it? And cosy meals with Sandy didn't count either. Starting from next week, she would dictate the days she babysat for him and start concentrating on herself.

‘In fact,' she said boldly, pleased with the various options she had now opened for herself, ‘tomorrow suits
me. I'll go to the pub with some girls from work, maybe head for a club after—'

‘Head for a club? On a Tuesday?'

‘That's right!' Shannon snapped. ‘I can party till dawn and not feel the effects!'

She gave him a challenging look and then considered that she had scored a point when he was the first to look away, opening the door for her with his usual gentlemanly politeness. She'd discovered that he belonged to that old-fashioned and sadly fast-disappearing breed of men who still believed in treating women like ladies.

The opposite of Eric Gallway, in fact, who had once remarked, sniggering at his own sense of dubious humour, that women shouldn't expect to be treated any differently from men since they all seemed to make such a fuss about being equal, and since when did he ever open doors for men? It hadn't occurred to her at the time to counter that by asking him why, then, he bought her chocolates and flowers.

But maybe, in the throes of her infatuation, she might not have cared for the obvious answer, which would have been that chocolates and flowers were groundwork for getting a woman into bed.

‘Lucky to be so young and carefree,' he murmured blandly, giving her one of those smiles that suggested the opposite of what he was actually saying but left no room to argue the toss.

‘I think so!' she threw back carelessly. ‘Now, if you don't mind…?'

But the following day, Shannon couldn't help but wonder whether she'd had a victory over him at all. She also found that going to the pub wasn't the attractive option she had banked on. In fact, a malicious inner voice told her, it was decidedly inferior to babysitting
Eleanor and waiting in tense expectation of Kane's arrival.