The Boss and His Secretary
Jessica Steele

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

TARYN was aware that her concentration had gone to pot and pulled in to the side of the road. Sitting in her parked car, she felt poleaxed by what she had just done—by what Brian Mellor had just done.

She had worked at Mellor Engineering for five years, and had grown to love Brian ever since she had been promoted to his PA two years ago. Brian was head of the prosperous and well-thought-of-company. He was a good employer and they worked well together. He was tall, blond, easygoing, kind—and married!

His wife, Angie, was a lovely person too. Not in features. In actual fact Angie Mellor was rather plain. But what she lacked in beauty she more than made up for in her quiet but warm and giving personality. It was clear that she adored her husband, clear also that their children, seven-year-old Ben and three-year-old Lilian, adored their father too.

That their marriage was blissfully happy was apparent to anyone who saw Brian and Angie Mellor together, which had greatly helped Taryn to keep her love for him hidden.

Disturbingly, though, she had sensed around six months ago that everything was not going so well in the Mellor household. Taryn had not been quite able to put her finger on what was wrong, or to know why she felt that anything was wrong. Just an out-of-kilter word here, a cross look there when Angie came into the office, which she did every Friday when she was in town shopping.

And then, two months ago, Angie had stopped coming in on a Friday. ‘Is Angie all right?’ Taryn had asked Brian on a number of Fridays.

‘Fine,’ he’d replied absently, and straight away plunged on with some work-related issue.

It had worried Taryn. She’d felt she knew Angie well enough to ring her on some pretext. But to do that somehow seemed to be not only prying but, since Brian had said his wife was ‘fine’, slightly underhand.

Matters appeared not to have not improved. And on that very day, Taryn, much to her own astonishment, let alone anyone else’s, had walked out on her job!

Sitting motionless in her car, she could still not quite believe she had done what she had. She loved her job. She was good at it. She loved Brian, was fond of his wife—but having walked out, there was no going back. There could not be; she just knew it, no question.

Feeling shaken, and very much all over the place, Taryn relived how the day had started much the same as any other day. She had parked her car and made her way into the many-storeyed building that housed not only the head office of Mellor Engineering, but other highly successful companies too.

She’d been first in; she sometimes was. With her home life not as harmonious as she would have liked, she often left for work early, and, depending on what particular strife was taking place at home, frequently worked late.

When Brian had arrived that morning, however, he’d seemed a touch distracted. Taryn had made no comment but, having dealt with some of his post, discussed the remainder with him and then returned to her own office.

She’d watched him, though. Throughout that morning, whenever they’d been in contact, she had watched the man she’d only ever known as pleasant as, clearly unhappy about something, he went about his business.

But it had been nearing four that afternoon when she’d had cause to go into his office and, observing his strangely morose expression, had just had to softly ask, ‘What is it, Brian?’ ‘Nothing…’ he began. But then, sort of lunging to his feet, ‘I’ve had enough,’ he said in a strangled kind of way. ‘I can’t take any more!’

‘Oh, Brian love,’ she murmured, the small endearment, often thought but never said, out before she could stop it.

‘Oh, Taryn,’ he cried miserably, and before she had a clue to what he was about to do—almost as if he needed to hear some kind word, some hint of human caring—he took her in his arms.

And she was so shaken by the suddenness of it all that she just stood transfixed. She might, she realised, have instinctively held on to him. Whatever, he must have felt emboldened that she was not moving away, because the next she knew Brian was kissing her.

At first she still stood there, somewhere in her head knowing that he was distressed and in need of solace. But seconds later, as his hold on her tightened and his kiss became seeking and that of a would-be lover, so Taryn knew that it was not just a hug of comfort that this man wanted from her.

Shocked, bewildered, and even a little outraged—while at the same time a small voice within her urged her to give in, to yield to this man she loved—Taryn thought of Angie, the children and, while she still could, she pushed him away from her.

She didn’t wait for what he would do next—apologise or kiss her again—but in blind panic, perhaps afraid of her own instincts, knew only that she must not let him kiss her again. Wildly she charged back to her own office, stayed only long enough to collect her shoulder bag and jacket and, all before Brian Mellor had recovered his breath, she was out of there.

The lift doors were just about to close as she reached it—she had been about to rush down the stairs. Tears were stinging her eyes as she sped into the lift—she was not aware she had company. In fact the lift had begun to descend before she became fully aware that she was not alone. She doubted that, with her head in such a turmoil, she would have noticed that she was not the sole occupant, had not the other person present made some observation.

‘You seem upset?’ An all-male voice interrupted the turbulence of her thoughts.

Her deeply blue eyes shining with unshed tears, she glanced at the tall man who was somewhere in his mid-thirties. He was dark-haired, grey-eyed and, from the cut and quality of his suit, obviously successful.

‘What?’ she questioned, feeling irritated by him. Her glance fell away and she noticed abstractedly the expensive-looking briefcase in his hand. He had clearly been in the building attending some business meeting or other. Perhaps he worked there? Had an office in the building? She had not seen him there before anyhow. She dismissed him from her mind.

‘Is it something I can help you with?’ he persisted.

Give me strength! ‘I very much doubt it!’ she retorted jerkily, and was thankful that just then the lift came to a halt and she was able to end the unwanted conversation.

Taryn bolted from the lift and was in her car heading for home before she realised that she did not want to go home. Her retired scientist father was mainly in a world of his own, and might not think to enquire what she was doing home so early, but her stepmother, who only a few days ago had lost yet another housekeeper, would not only have a string of chores lined up for her—and another string of complaints—but would have a string of questions too. Sometimes—in actual fact quite often—Taryn found her stepmother hard to take.

Taryn suddenly realised she must have been sitting parked in her car for quite some while, as her agitated thoughts jumped around in her head. Gradually, though, she grew calmer, and began to recover from the shock of Brian Mellor kissing her the way he had.

While her thoughts were still in some sense of disarray, she began to ponder on her flight from Brian’s arms. Perhaps it was the total unexpectedness of what had happened that had knocked her sideways? Should she have handled it differently? Could she in fact have handled it differently? Maybe.

Though, on thinking about it—and she had thought of little else since it had happened—what else could she have done but get out of there? Had she not loved Brian there might well have been a chance she could have given him a shove—along with a few choice words—and that would have been that.

But she did love him, and owned with painful honesty that when he had kissed her she had been on the verge of responding. And she, Taryn knew, would have found it impossible to live with that. How would she have been able to live with herself? How would she ever have been able to look Angie Mellor in the face again? Because, no matter what had gone wrong between Brian and Angie, they were still married and, Taryn was certain, still very much in love.

It did not make her feel any better to know that she had done the only thing she could have. But, as Taryn accepted she could not sit there much longer, she still did not want to go home.

She could, she supposed, go and have a cup of tea somewhere. But she did not want tea. She did not know what she wanted. Oh, why had Brian spoilt it all? While nothing especially exciting was happening in her life, she had been enjoying her job.

The word ‘job’ reminded her of her aunt’s temping agency. Taryn and her aunt got on extremely well, and her aunt Hilary, her father’s sister, ran Just Temps, not so very far from where she was.

On impulse Taryn took out her phone. ‘Are you busy?’ she asked. Her aunt had inherited the same workaholic streak that ran all the way through most of the Webster clan. Taryn herself had inherited it from her father.

Hilary Kiteley, as she now was, had been on her own since her husband had died some thirty years previously. Financially she’d had no need to work. But, because she had needed something challenging to fill her days, she had learned all she could about a business she had taken on and expanded, and which was now very well respected.

‘You’re not in your office?’ Hilary asked.

‘Can I come and see you?’

‘My door is always open to you, Taryn, you know that.’

Half an hour later Taryn was sitting in her aunt’s office, having explained that she had just walked out of a job which her aunt knew full well she had thoroughly enjoyed.

‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ she asked gently.

Taryn shook her head. ‘I—can’t,’ she replied, and loved her aunt the more that Hilary Kiteley did not pester to know—as Taryn knew her stepmother was going to—but smiled encouragingly.

‘Perhaps, when you’ve had time to think about it, you’ll go back?’ she offered.

‘I won’t,’ Taryn answered, and knew it for a fact. That kiss had changed everything. She loved him, and had been tempted. The risk of giving in was too great. He and Angie must sort out whatever crisis was going on in their marriage. They had to!

‘Well, you’re obviously very upset, whatever it was.’ And, with a far more logical head than Taryn felt she had at the moment, ‘Would you like me to find you something temporary while you sort out something more permanent?’ Hilary Kiteley enquired.

What she would do next had not occurred to Taryn. She would get another job; it was in her nature to work. But she wasn’t ready yet to be PA to someone other than Brian Mellor; she did not know when she would be.

‘I don’t know that I want to be a PA again,’ she confided.

‘You’d be good at anything you tackled.’

‘Oh, Auntie, you always were good for my self-esteem.’

‘With just cause! Remember that spell of waitressing you did for me when you were at college? They would have taken you on permanently, had you wished.’

As perhaps she had hoped, that comment drew forth a smile from her anguished niece. ‘Perhaps I’ll try waitressing again,’ she said with an attempt at lightness. And, realising she had taken up enough of her aunt’s time, ‘I’d better be making tracks for home.’

‘I hear Mrs Jennings left rather abruptly?’ Hilary commented, referring to their last speedily departed housekeeper.

‘You’ve been speaking to my father.’

‘You’re cook tonight, I take it?’

Taryn knew that she would be. Her stepmother was not much interested in food. And, even though she had at one time been their housekeeper, she was even less interested in matters domestic. If Taryn’s father was to eat—and his own culinary skills came in the ‘couldn’t boil an egg’ category—then it went without saying that his daughter had been elected.

‘We’ll get a replacement housekeeper soon,’ Taryn said hopefully, and was grateful that her aunt did not state her opinion that her stepmother would be wasting her time applying to Just Temps for someone to fill in meanwhile.

Instead she asked about the much discussed issue. ‘When are you going to leave home? You’ve been going to for years,’ she reminded her.

‘I know, and I really would like to move out. But every time I mention it something seems to go wrong at home.’

‘Like the time your stepmother had a fall the night before you were due to move out? Like the next time you came home to find her with a bandaged foot and barely able to hobble about? Not forgetting the time she thought she needed an operation—only then discovered the problem had miraculously cured itself?’

‘You’ve got a good memory.’

‘Eva Webster may be your stepmother, but I’ve known her for longer,’ Hilary stated, having known Eva Brown, as she had then been, for years.

She had known her long before Taryn’s mother, a gentle soul, had decided she could no longer put up with her husband’s long term neglect and, the day after Taryn’s fifteenth birthday, had explained to her daughter that she had fallen out of love with Horace Webster and in love with someone else. She had left, and Eva Brown, a widow in reduced circumstances, had moved in—as housekeeper. The day she had married Horace Webster, however, was the day she had determined that her housekeeping days were over.

‘That woman uses you like a skivvy,’ Hilary Kiteley went on. ‘And expects you to be grateful to be living under the same roof.’

Taryn, feeling a touch disloyal to Eva, even if her aunt was only telling the truth, did not answer. ‘How’s my favourite cousin?’ she asked. ‘Have you heard from Matt recently?’

‘He’s busy, but he manages to give me a call now and then.’

‘Give him my love the next time he rings,’ Taryn requested, and getting to her feet, ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time.’

‘Feeling better?’ her aunt asked, going to the door with her.

‘Much,’ Taryn replied, but more from politeness than truth.

‘Give it twenty-four hours and it will all seem so much better,’ Hilary assured her.

Taryn drove home, wishing she could think so, only to garage her car and enter the large but cheerless house, and be greeted by her stepmother’s demand of, ‘What’s going on?’

For a split moment Taryn wondered if her aunt had telephoned her stepmother, before instantly dismissing the notion. Aunt Hilary would not do that. ‘Going on?’ she queried, having arrived home at more or less a normal kind of time.

Somebody had been on the phone, she discovered, but not her aunt. ‘Brian Mellor has rung twice, wanting to speak to you. He’d tried your mobile—you’d got it switched off.’

‘So I had,’ Taryn replied, vaguely remembering she had switched it off after her call to her aunt. She made a mental note to keep it switched off. She did not wish to speak to Brian. What was there to say?

‘You’d better ring him. What does he want you for?’

‘No idea. Have you made a start on dinner?’

‘I had a migraine.’

Away from the subject she did not want to talk about, Taryn, after enquiring if her stepmother felt better, made her way to the kitchen.

Sleep did not come easily to her that night. She had loved that job, was comfortable with engineering and engineering terms, had computer and typing skills and, a quick learner, tackled anything that passed by her desk with enthusiasm. What sort of career did she have now?

Did she even want a career? She felt hurt, wounded, and had not replied to Brian’s phone calls. She relived again the way he had kissed her. As such matters went—and she knew that she was behind the times in that regard—she was not so very experienced. But she knew the difference between a kiss of friendship and even a shade or two warmer type of kiss—but those sorts of kisses had been a mile and a half away from the kind of kiss Brian had given her.

Not that it had been so much ‘given’. It had just sort of happened. She had been standing there, she had been empathetic, and then, wham, he was on his feet, kissing her—a kiss that had been all wanting. And she had panicked and had got out of there.

She’d been in the lift, having terminated her employment with Mellor Engineering without having to think about it, and…She suddenly remembered that man in the lift. Oh, heavens, had she been very rude to him?

Poor man…Oddly, she could see him quite clearly in her mind’s eye. Tall and, if not concerned exactly, there had been something in his grey eyes as he’d asked—she had to think for a few seconds—‘You seem upset?’ and, ‘Is it something I can help you with?’ And she had snootily and quite snappily retorted, ‘I very much doubt it.’ Which, in the circumstance of him only wanting to help, had not been at all gracious of her.

Taryn put the picture of the good-looking, quite obviously top executive from her mind. She didn’t know who he was, and if she ever did—which she wouldn’t, because she was never going to enter that building again—she was unsure that she would want to resurrect what had happened by apologising for her rudeness.

She wondered what to tell her father and stepmother at breakfast the next morning. But was grateful that her father had an experiment going on in one of the workshops belonging to his property, and appeared to have forgotten the need for breakfast. Taryn thought she might take him a tray later. Her stepmother left it until after nine to descend the stairs.

‘You still here?’ she exclaimed, when they bumped into each other in the hall. Taryn was saved a reply when just then the telephone in the hall rang for attention and her stepmother reached for it. ‘Hello?’ she enquired. ‘Brian!’ she exclaimed, and, archly, ‘Didn’t that naughty stepdaughter of mine ring you?’ Taryn made frantic signs that she still did not want to speak to him, and saw Eva hesitate before she declared, ‘I’m sorry, Taryn’s not around at the moment. Can I take a message for you?’

Apparently she could not. But the moment she put the phone down she wanted to know, chapter and verse, why he was ringing her stepdaughter at home when said stepdaughter was supposed to be in his offices.

‘There was…I’ve resigned,’ Taryn stated.

‘A pity you didn’t tell him that!’

‘I’ll drop him a note.’

‘You’ve walked out!’ It sounded like an accusation.

‘I—um—wasn’t sure I wanted to be a PA any more,’ Taryn replied, feeling her colour rise at the blatant lie. Although, since she was not sure what she wanted to do any longer, perhaps it was not so very blatant.

She watched as her stepmother’s need to know every last minute detail rose to a peak. Then all at once it fell away as Eva Webster fitted in her stepdaughter’s lack of employment with a vacancy she had of her own. She seized the opportunity with both hands. ‘Well, isn’t that splendid? You can have Mrs Jennings’ old job!’

‘I’m—er—not sure I want to be housekeeper to you and Dad,’ Taryn tried to protest.

Overruled. ‘You’re surely not thinking of sitting at home idle all day?’ questioned that lady who had made sitting idle an artform.

Since Taryn did not want to spend the next week avoiding answering the phone—if that was how long it took for Brian to get the message that she was not going to go back, and assuming that was what his phone call had been about—Taryn that day typed out her formal resignation. She sighted unforeseen circumstances as her excuse to put on file for her departure being immediate.

By return she received a handwritten note from him, apologising profusely for overstepping the line between employer and PA, and stating that he had no excuse to offer other than the fact that he saw her in a more friendly light than someone who just happened to work for him. That, however, did not make his behaviour any the less inexcusable. But, while he could promise that nothing of the sort would ever happen again, if he had to he would accept that she would not be coming back. If at any time she had a change of heart, there would always be a job for her at Mellor Engineering.

Taryn had a hard time holding back tears as she read his letter. She felt she had never loved him more than just then. But she could not return. It hurt her not to see him. It hurt not to be a part of that busy environment. Being her stepmother’s housekeeper just did not compare.

Taryn had been cooking and cleaning and generally putting up with her stepmother’s daily demands for going on two weeks when she began to feel that they would be falling out ‘big-time’ if she had to put up with much more of it.

She was still missing going to work at Mellor Engineering every day—it was taking a little longer than the twenty-four hours her aunt had forecast it would take for it all to seem much better. But Taryn did admit to feeling more on an even keel as she searched through the ‘Situations Vacant’ column for something that might trigger a spark of interest.

‘What dainty sandwiches are you preparing for this afternoon?’ Eva Webster demanded on entering the room.

‘Sandwiches?’

‘My bridge party?’

It was the first Taryn had heard that her stepmother was entertaining her bridge chums.

‘I thought salmon and cucumber, with a few little cakes afterwards,’ Taryn replied off the top of her head—anything for a quiet life.

‘White and brown bread?’ Eva Webster demanded sharply.

‘Naturally,’ Taryn answered, realising she would have to go to the shops. Woe betide her if the bread wasn’t fresh.

Her stepmother looked over Taryn’s shoulder and was soon ready with her next demand. ‘Why are you reading the “Situations Vacant” column?’

Taryn smiled. ‘I’m looking for a job.’ Eva Webster’s lips compressed; she did not like it, but by no chance was Taryn going to allow her to believe she was going to act as housekeeper permanently.

‘You obviously haven’t got enough to do here,’ Eva snapped, referring to the fact that Taryn, who had vacuumed and polished the morning away, was now sitting reading the paper.

Taryn switched from ‘Situations Vacant’ to ‘Accommodation To Let” when she had gone. Perhaps this time she would not tell her stepmother her plans until, cases packed, she was on her way out of the door.

Taryn was returning from the shops when, feeling more than a little down she played with the notion of paying a visit to her mother. Her mother and new husband did voluntary work in Africa. Would she be welcome, or would she be in the way? Her mother’s letters were always warm and loving, but…

She had come to no decision when, her stepmother’s bridge party in full swing, the telephone rang. Taryn answered it in the kitchen, and with a warm feeling heard her aunt’s voice.

‘What are you doing?’ Hilary asked.

‘In between looking in the “Situations Vacant” and “Accommodation To Let” columns, you mean?’

‘As bad as that?’

‘Not really,’ Taryn answered. Her aunt loved her, she did not want her to worry about her. ‘It’s just me—I don’t think I’m suited to this housekeeping lark.’

There was a slight pause, then, ‘That’s a pity,’ her aunt was saying.

‘It is?’ Taryn queried.

And was soon informed, ‘I’ve had a request to find a temporary housekeeper for two weeks. They want someone a little bit special—I thought of you.’

‘Oh, Auntie—I’m flattered. Isn’t that nice?’

‘But you don’t want it?’ Hilary asked, going quickly on before she could reply, ‘It would solve both your job and accommodation hunt for two weeks,’ she reminded her. ‘And you could still look out for a new job, and at the same time it would give you two weeks’ breathing space from the dreaded Eva.’

Taryn had to smile. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she murmured. But she had to admit that the prospect of another two weeks at her stepmother’s beck and call had less appeal than that of taking on a similar job for someone else. There couldn’t be two like Eva, could there? ‘Who’s it for?’ she asked. ‘And where?’

‘It’s for a lovely old gentleman living in the Herefordshire-Wales borders,’ Hilary replied.

‘You’re sure he’s a lovely old gentleman?’

‘Positive. Would I send you anywhere not nice? His present housekeeper, Mrs Ellington, has just been on the phone to me—it appears she was recommended to us by a friend of a friend, isn’t that super? Anyhow, she has worked for Mr Osgood Compton for the last ten years and describes him as “a dear man”, an octogenarian, and a true gentleman, apparently.’

Taryn had to own that she was warming to the idea. ‘His housekeeper—Mrs Ellington—she’s going on holiday?’

‘She has a daughter who is unwell. She wants to go and spend a week or so with her, to gauge for herself if everything is being done that should be. It may be that you’ll not need to stay the whole two weeks there,’ Hilary said, and coaxed, ‘In the circumstance of being so well-recommended, I should like to pull out all the stops.’

‘Can I think about it?’

‘He needs someone straight away.’

Thinking on the spot, it did not take much thinking about. Taryn had arranged to see some of her friends on Friday. They were mainly people she had met at college, with some added and others falling away. But she could easily cancel her side of the arrangement. And, to her mind, just two days away from her stepmother, let alone two weeks, would be a bonus. Taryn did not need to think any longer.

‘You’d better give me his address,’ she accepted.

‘Wonderful!’ Hilary exclaimed. ‘When will you go?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Taryn answered before she should change her mind—but didn’t look forward to telling her stepmother.

Taryn made her way down to the village of Knights Bromley the following morning. As she had anticipated, her stepmother was far from thrilled at the idea of having to do her own housekeeping. But, her word given to her aunt, no amount of pressure would make Taryn go back on her promise.

Mrs Ellington was there at the big old house to meet her when she arrived, and stayed long enough to go through the many notes she had thought to make, and to introduce Taryn to her temporary employer.

And Osgood Compton was, as Mrs Ellington had told her aunt, a true gentleman. Within hours of Mrs Ellington leaving, Taryn was feeling more and more at home.

By the time half a week had gone by she was feeling as relaxed and as if she had known him all her life. At the end of that week she felt it had been the most tranquil week she could ever remember. Osgood Compton was a sprightly gentleman, for all his eighty-two years, and with a lively mind to match.

Her duties for her new and temporary employer did not stop at housekeeping, however. Osgood Compton, albeit with the company of a walking stick, liked to walk. His walking stick was not his only companion on his mile-long expeditions either. And, as one week turned into two, Taryn would often look up from what she was involved with and find him standing in the doorway.

‘Any chance of you dropping what you’re doing?’

And Taryn had no problem at all in dropping what she was doing. So they walked and, since he liked to talk too, they chatted about all sorts of subjects. He had been an engineer of some note before his retirement, and seemed delighted that she knew the names and actions of the various engineering implements he mentioned.

In a very short space of time Taryn began to feel quite an affection for him, and knew she would look back on her time with him with pleasure when her two weeks were up.

But, as matters turned out, Mrs Ellington’s daughter was diagnosed as requiring immediate surgery, and she rang Mr Compton to ask if he would mind if she had another four weeks off. He, of course, being the gentleman he was, told her to take as long as she needed.

‘Dare I ask you to put up with me for another month?’ he asked Taryn.

‘I love it here,’ she told him simply. ‘Another month will be fine.’

‘It will just be for one month, I promise,’ he replied, and, with a beaming smile, ‘Perhaps you’d better ring the agency and let them know?’ he suggested.

Later that night Taryn heard him making his own phone call to his daughter, who was married to an American and lived in the States. He and his daughter were in fact in frequent telephone contact with each other, and Taryn felt it was a very loving relationship.

For a brief sad moment she wished that her father might show her a little more affection than he did. But that was not his way, and she soon brightened when, as she passed the open drawing room door, she heard Mr Compton telling his daughter of his good fortune in exchanging one gem of a housekeeper for an absolutely diamond one.

While Taryn felt that that was quite something of an over-the-top exaggeration, it nevertheless made her feel good to hear him say what he had.

Taryn later rang her home, and heard the joyous news that her stepmother had found a new housekeeper. From that Taryn guessed that there was no need for her to hurry back.

The weather over the following weeks was more often than not glorious, and, her temporary employer decreeing that it would be criminal to spend their days indoors, he urged Taryn to make picnics. She needed little urging—any chores that didn’t get done during the day she could catch up on during the evening.

And so the days passed, which would see her scurrying around in the mornings and then taking leisurely strolls to some picnic spot. Occasionally they stopped to quench their thirst at the village pub and, on one most memorable time, even indulged in a game of darts. All in all, they spent some very pleasurable summer days.

As the end of her six weeks in Knights Bromley came to a close, Taryn was still of the view that she would not be going back to Mellor Engineering. But she now felt more ready to take on work in an office environment. She had needed this break, she realised. Had needed this time away in order to get herself back together again.

She must now think of making a career for herself. She was ready for it. She determined that the first thing she would do on Monday morning would be to get down in earnest to finding that career job. The second, having had a respite from her cold and at times alien home, would be to find herself somewhere else to live.

Her determination to do either had to be put on hold for a while, she discovered, when the very next day Mrs Ellington rang to say that her daughter, although doing well, had taken a step backwards in her recovery and she was reluctant to leave her. ‘Do you think you could stay on for another week or two?’ she asked. ‘I know Mr Compton thinks the world of you.’

What could she say? Taryn thought the world of him too. And Mrs Ellington’s daughter had been having a terrible time of it. ‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ she replied. ‘You’ve spoken to Mr Compton?’

‘He still insists I take as long as I need. But I think he’s feeling a bit awkward about asking you to stay on. Apparently he gave you his word that you would leave at the end of this week.’

‘I’ll go and tell him now that it would suit me better to stay on,’ Taryn assured her, and a much relieved permanent housekeeper—who was, after all, a mother first and foremost—went back to looking after her daughter.

‘You’re sure?’ Osgood Compton asked when she told him, his lovely beaming smile surfacing for all he tried to hold it down.

On Saturday, well aware by then that her employer liked to have a nap at some time during the afternoon, Taryn wondered if he might like to sit outside and have his tea. She had made his favourite cake only that morning.

She was in the act of taking a tray of china out to the garden table when the sound of a car coming up the drive drew her attention. So far as she knew Mr Compton was not expecting visitors. That was not to say, however, that his visitors would not be welcome.

Though as she watched the long sleek, this year’s model car halt outside the main entrance door, Taryn left what she was doing and hurried outside to it, her protective instincts to the fore. There was only one visitor, she saw, but if this person had accidentally called at the wrong address then she did not want him or her disturbing Mr Compton’s nap by ringing the doorbell.

She arrived at the driver’s door just as a tall, dark-haired man, somewhere in his mid-thirties, was getting out. He saw her and stiffened—absolutely thunderstruck.

Taryn stared at him. ‘Who…?’ she began, seeing no reason at all why this man should be staring at her every bit as if he knew her from somewhere.

‘What the blazes are you doing here?’ he demanded, to her utter astonishment.

His attitude had rattled her. ‘Do I know you?’ she snapped hostilely. But straight on the heels of that came a spark of recognition. He was dressed in shirt and trousers now, which was perhaps why it had taken a minute or two to sink in. But she had seen him before, and that time, about two months ago now, he had been immaculately suited and had been carrying an expensive-looking briefcase.

She did know him. Shock washed over her. If she was not very much mistaken he was the man who had been in the lift that day she had reeled out of Brian Mellor’s office! This man was, in fact, the man she had that day been rude to!

He had demanded to know what the blazes she was doing there. But what on earth was he doing here? Taryn thought it was time she found out!

CHAPTER TWO

WHERE it had taken up to a minute for Taryn to recognise the man, and to recall where she had seen him before, he, it seemed, with barely a glance to her face, blonde hair and trim figure, had at once recognised her. Even though she too had been business-clad at that time.

With his, ‘What the blazes are you doing here?’ still ringing in the air, she felt at a distinct disadvantage. It was more than time she asked him the same question. ‘We aren’t expecting visitors,’ she told him pointedly.

‘Aren’t we?’ he rapped, clearly not liking the fact that she had taken upon herself the role of the occupant’s Rottweiler. And, not deigning to wait for her reply, he, without more ado, strode past her, making for the door she had just come from.

Taryn chased after him. ‘Who are you?’ she challenged his back.

She thought he was going to ignore her, but he halted and turned about. ‘Do I take it that you’re the incomparable Taryn the phone lines between here and New York are full of?’

Her eyes widened in amazement. ‘You know—?’ She broke off. Osgood Compton’s daughter lived in New York. ‘You have the advantage,’ she said, getting her breath back.

‘Jake Nash,’ he supplied. ‘You’re my great uncle’s temporary, looking-to-be-permanent housekeeper?’ he questioned toughly.

‘I intend to leave as soon as Mrs Ellington is able to come and take over,’ Taryn replied crisply. And as this Jake Nash, somehow happening to be the antagonistic great-nephew of a true gentleman, again made for the door, ‘Mr Compton will be having a nap,’ she stated quickly, adding reluctantly, ‘If you’d like to come with me to the kitchen I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

He seemed to hesitate, as if about to demand who did she think she was, to be giving orders to a member of her employer’s family. But he stood back after a moment to allow her to go in first. ‘That might be a good idea,’ he conceded.

He seemed to know his way to the kitchen, but no sooner were they there than she was realising why he had thought it might be a good idea. For in no time, ignoring her suggestion that he take a seat at the kitchen table while she set the kettle to boil, Jake Nash, standing and leaning his tall length against one of the kitchen units, was in there straight away, with one question after another.

‘You are my uncle’s housekeeper?’ was the first of many.

‘Temporary—and ready to go as soon as his permanent housekeeper’s daughter is well enough to be left, and her mother returns,’ Taryn answered.

‘That’s a definite?’

‘What does it have to do with you?’ she asked snappily, starting to feel more than a touch niggled at his sauce, and giving up all pretence of making this man a pot of tea. ‘You’re not my employer,’ she stated, when she could see from the raised eyebrows that he was a man who just wasn’t used to being answered back.

‘It seems you’ve been making yourself more than useful in the short time you’ve been here?’ he said curtly.

‘It’s what I’m employed to do!’

‘To the extent of going on long walks with your employer?’

‘Not so very long.’

‘To the extent of taking him to the pub?’

‘He took me!’ she exclaimed, unsure how she suddenly came to be defending herself. ‘Excepting for once, when it was pouring with rain and he was getting a little fed up being stuck indoors. Anyway—’

‘From what I hear, you’ve even introduced him to the iniquities of playing darts?’ he cut in.

Taryn almost laughed at that. In fact, had she not known better, she would have said that there was a twinkle of laughter in Jake Nash’s eyes. But she didn’t believe that for a second. ‘Just what is this—?’ she began. But suddenly, and with shock, what he had said about the phone lines between here and New York being full of her began to take on a startling meaning. ‘His daughter—Beryl—she’s been in touch with you, hasn’t she?’

Jake Nash studied her, and seemed, she thought for one absurd moment, to be a little taken with her dainty features and dark blue eyes. ‘She rang my mother,’ he agreed.

‘She wanted you to come and check me out?’ Taryn couldn’t quite believe what her intelligence had brought her.

‘It’s Taryn this, Taryn that. Can you blame her?’

‘She thinks I’m after his money!’ Taryn exclaimed, aghast. ‘That—that he’s somehow sm-smitten with me!’ Appalled, she could hardly get the words out.

‘Beryl has met Mrs Ellington,’ he responded evenly. ‘She has never met you. You can’t blame her for having a daughter’s natural concern.’

‘So the minute she rang, you hared down here to make sure I—’

‘I had business this way today,’ he cut in. ‘It was no problem to make a detour.

‘Jake!’ A glad cry from the doorway rent the air. Taryn looked over to where her refreshed temporary employer had just come in, and was grateful in this instance that he was slightly hard of hearing. ‘How good to see you!’ he exclaimed, as the two men met in the middle of the kitchen and shook hands. She did not want him upset by the unpleasantness of Beryl keeping her eye on her. ‘You’ve obviously introduced yourself to Taryn,’ he went on beaming. ‘I just can’t believe that I’ve been so lucky with not one housekeeper but two.’

‘Would you like tea now?’ Taryn asked, feeling Jake Nash’s eyes on her, but deciding to ignore him.

‘Shall we have it out in the garden?’ Osgood Compton asked.

‘Perhaps you’d like to carry this tray out?’ she addressed Jake pleasantly without looking at him, not seeing why he shouldn’t make himself useful. Picking up the tray she had laid earlier, she took it to him, and was glad to have the kitchen to herself when, Mr Compton chatting away, they departed.

Taryn busied herself making a pot of tea, and as she did so began to see that perhaps, in all fairness, Beryl-nee-Compton—she had no idea what her last name was—was only acting as any daughter worthy of the name should. What with her father by the sound of it singing the praises of his temporary housekeeper with every phone call, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising she should want to know that he wasn’t, as it were, being taken for a ride—offensive to her father though that might be.

‘You’ve forgotten the extra cup,’ Mr Compton reminded her when she carried a tray of tea and extra hot water out to them.

That he intended she should join them was kind, and had his great-nephew not been there she would have been pleased to have kept him company. But his nephew was there and, while she didn’t give a button that he might report back on how the housekeeper had joined them for tea, she thought Osgood Compton might enjoy some male company for a change.

‘I’ve got something in the oven I want to keep my eye on,’ she stated, though the casserole in the oven she was making ready for the freezer was able to cook quite well on its own, without her watching it.

‘If you’re sure?’ he answered, and then, as she paused a moment to check cake, cake knives, napkins, and that they had everything they would need, ‘Taryn’s normally in engineering too,’ he informed his nephew. ‘It was my good fortune that she wanted a break from it when Mrs Ellington had to go…’

‘You’re an engineer?’ Jake Nash asked, every bit as if he was interested.

This time she could not avoid meeting his grey eyes. ‘PA,’ she replied briefly, and left it at that.

She was on her way back across the lawn when she heard Osgood Compton informing his great-nephew, ‘Taryn was a PA at Mellor Engineering. You know them, of course?’

He would know from that too, Taryn realised as she sipped her own tea, why she had been in the building that day. It would not explain, though, why she had given him such short shrift in the lift when he had seen that she was upset. But, from his uncle’s comment just now that she had wanted a break from her more normal line of work, it was something of a whopping clue to anyone with a degree of intelligence that the reason she had been upset was because her employment had just been terminated.

It was fairly obvious to her that Jake Nash had much more than a degree of intelligence, but she cared not that he might think she had been dismissed from her post. And she saw no reason whatsoever to tell him that, when it came to terminating her employment, she had been the one to do it.

Taryn all at once realised that she was feeling quite anti. Quite worked up. Quite, quite…Words failed her. She did not like the man. Life here with Mr Compton had been tranquil. This man—Jake Nash—had strode in and shattered that tranquillity—and she did not like that either.

She made herself scarce when from the window she saw that her temporary employer and his nephew, carrying the heaviest tray, were heading for the kitchen. In her view he was Mr Compton’s visitor. There was no need at all for the housekeeper to be there to bid him farewell. She escaped to her room.

She left it a few minutes after she had seen his car go down the drive before she went down the stairs again, and was in the kitchen scraping new potatoes for the evening meal when Osgood Compton came looking for her.

‘Jake’s gone,’ he announced needlessly.

‘It must have been nice to see him,’ she replied. No need for the dear man to know that she knew the true reason for his visit—or for him to know how antagonistic she felt towards the man.

‘It was. Especially when he’s always so busy,’ Osgood agreed.

‘He mentioned he had business this way,’ Taryn commented non-committally.

‘Jake always has business somewhere,’ he answered proudly. And added, with yet more pride, ‘He heads the Nash Corporation. I expect you’ve heard of them?’

Taryn stared at him in amazement. Everybody who knew anything about engineering had heard of the Nash Corporation. Not that they dealt only in engineering. They were well known in the design, development and manufacturing world—a corporation that was involved in electronics, engineering and aviation, to name but a few. And Jake Nash headed that corporation!

‘I didn’t know he was that Nash,’ she answered with a smile. It did not make her like Jake Nash any better, but his uncle need not know that she was a touch anti-nephew just then.

‘He’s done well,’ he commented—a modest understatement, she felt. Mellor Engineering was quite a large outfit, but it was just not in the same league as the Nash Corporation. ‘Jake liked your cake, by the way.’

‘Oh, did he?’ she replied sunnily.

‘He said that if you’re half as good a PA as you are a cook, you’ll be snapped up the moment you put yourself back on the PA market.’

Too kind! She changed the subject. ‘I thought we’d have a chicken salad for dinner.’

‘Are you going to make some of that special potato salad you made the other day?’ he asked appreciatively. He was a joy to spoil.

Over the next few days Taryn felt her equilibrium start to settle down again. She had wanted that tranquillity back, and by about Wednesday morning she reckoned she had found it. It was not to last.

For all she took care of all the chores, Osgood Compton treated her more like a house guest than a housekeeper. They had enjoyed a shared lunch and, having left him to take what he called ‘a little zizz’—his usual afternoon nap—she was in the kitchen preparing vegetables for the evening meal when, to her astonishment, the kitchen door opened and none other than Jake Nash walked in!

Feeling fairly staggered, she asked, ‘Where did you leave your car?’ craning to see the whole semi-circle of the drive. Where had he sprung from? She rinsed her hands and grabbed up a towel and, turning to face him, began drying them.

‘I’ve walked up from the road. I didn’t want to disturb my uncle.’

Didn’t want…? Was she to take it from that that he did not want to disturb his uncle’s nap—or did she gather that Jake Nash was there to see her? Familiar feelings of hostility butted away tranquillity. ‘Come to check I haven’t run off with the family silver?’ she bridled, dark blue eyes flashing violet sparks.

For answer he gave her a smile of such sinking charm that she almost forgot that she didn’t like him. ‘We got off on the wrong foot,’ he suggested pleasantly, and held out his right hand.

Taryn stared at him, refusing to shake hands. ‘You want something?’ she said warily.

‘We both do,’ he acknowledged, his hand dropping back to his side.

‘We—do?’ She was cagey still.

‘Are you going to make me a cup of tea?’ he requested.

Taryn turned away to set the kettle to boil, knowing without having to ask that he had not been referring to a cup of tea when he had said he wanted something.

‘You’ll join me, I hope?’ he invited, when he observed she had taken out only one cup and saucer.

No need to be antagonistic just for the sake of it, she decided, taking out another cup and saucer and, since he was not yet ready to go and see his uncle, inviting him to take a seat at the kitchen table.

‘Cake?’ she offered.

‘You heard?’

Her lips twitched. He knew his uncle had passed on his compliment about her cake. She glanced at Jake Nash and saw he had his eyes on her nearly smiling mouth, perhaps noting he had reached her sense of humour. She sobered straight away, and busied herself taking two cups of tea over to the table. Against her sudden better judgement, she took him a slice of cake too.

Since he had invited her to join him, she sat down at the table with him, this good-looking, steady grey-eyed man. ‘So,’ she challenged, ‘if the phone lines from New York haven’t been buzzing again, what do you want that I might possibly want too? Presumably you believe there’s some sort of connection?’

‘You have a sharp intelligence, Taryn,’ he commented.

She fixed her dark blue glance on him. ‘So I can make a decent cake and I’m not too dim. So?’

‘You’ll be leaving here soon?’

‘Mrs Ellington phoned to say she will definitely be back by the end of next week.’

‘When you’ll be looking for a job?’

Taryn collapsed back in her chair. ‘You’re never offering me the job of your housekeeper!’ she exclaimed, bringing out that which her ‘sharp intelligence’ had brought her.

‘I’m quite adequately catered for in that department,’ he replied smoothly.

‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘Your good lady will see to all your domestic arrangements.’

‘I don’t have a “good lady” in that sense.’

‘You’re not married?’

‘Nor living with anyone,’ he answered coolly. ‘I do have a kind soul who comes in and tidies up and cooks a bit most days.’ He shrugged, and challenged, ‘You like housekeeping so well that you want to continue with it when your stint for my uncle is done?’

She shook her head. ‘I needed a break from PA work—I’m now ready to go back to it.’

‘Back to Mellor Engineering?’

Subtle question. ‘No,’ she replied coldly. ‘And, to answer your next question, no, I was not dismissed on the spot,’ she informed him defensively.

He eyed her silently for long interminable seconds—and she was sure she was not going to say another word to the wretched man. ‘But you did leave—on the spot?’ he enquired, with that sharp intelligence he had. She refused to answer. ‘Care to tell me why?’ he persisted.

‘No!’ she retorted. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘You—had a small breakdown?’ he fished.

‘No, I didn’t!’ she exploded. Honestly, this man! If it was her house she’d chuck him out. She counted to ten, felt calmer and, since he had witnessed for himself that she had been upset that day in the lift, conceded, ‘I was—upset—at the time. But now I’m looking for a job I can well and truly get my teeth into.’

‘You want a career?’ he enquired mildly. But she had a feeling, as steady grey eyes held hers and he took in her every word, look and nuance, that this seemingly mild-at-the-moment man missed not a thing.

‘To have a career is paramount to me,’ she agreed. ‘My first priority.’

‘You have a second priority?’

‘I could do with finding somewhere to live.’

‘Where do you normally live when you’re not here in Knights Bromley?’

‘At home. In London.’

‘With your parents?’

‘My parents are divorced.’

‘You live with your mother?’

‘Honestly!’ she gasped. ‘Is there no end to your questions?’ He smiled, totally unperturbed. And, to her own surprise, she found she was telling him, ‘My mother lives in Africa. I live with my father and stepmother, actually.’

‘Ah!’

‘Ah?’ she queried.

‘I take it your stepmother is of the wicked variety?’

Her lips twitched again. What was it about this man that even when she was annoyed with him he could make her want to laugh? ‘So?’ she queried, determined again not to smile.

‘So,’ he replied, ‘while I’ll leave you to deal with the second of your problems, I might be able to help with your first.’

Keep up, Taryn, she urged, and realised he must be referring to her first and her second priority. Second was fresh accommodation; first was a PA career job.

She looked at him, seeking more of a clue. He looked back, saying nothing. ‘You’re saying you have PA vacancies at the Nash Corporation?’ she asked, bringing out slowly the only thing she could think he must be meaning.

‘From time to time,’ he replied, accepting that his great-uncle had told her of his company. ‘Though as secretaries are upgraded they are more usually filled internally.’

Taryn was not at all certain that she wanted to work for the Nash Corporation. Even if it was true that, as career moves went, she would be hard put to it to do better. ‘But you have one vacancy that you can’t fill internally?’ she guessed, while at the same time she could hardly credit that Jake Nash, the head of the whole shoot, should be talking to her about it—if indeed this was the case—when it went without saying that he must have a very efficient Human Resources department within his organisation who took care of all that.

He did not answer her question but instead asked her, ‘Tell me, Taryn, how long were you working for Mellor Engineering?’

He was interviewing her for a job! She stared at him wide-eyed, and not a little disbelieving. But she saw no harm in answering. ‘Five years.’

‘Has it been your only job?’ he wanted to know.

Apart from her waitressing stint, she had on rare occasions typed out a report or something or other for her aunt or one of her aunt’s clients. But Taryn hardly thought he would be interested in that. ‘I did an extensive business and secretarial course until I was eighteen, and from there went straight to Mellor Engineering.’

‘You were a PA there?’

‘Not straight away. I had all the theory I could possibly want. But after three years’ actual work in that field, I was promoted to PA to Brian Mellor.’ She experienced a moment of surprise that Brian’s name had left her lips without the slightest falter.

But there was no time for her to wonder about that, because Jake Nash was going on, ‘You worked for Brian Mellor himself? Impressive. You must be good.’

It seemed immodest to retort, I am, but Taryn had had enough. ‘Look here,’ she erupted—a touch arrogantly, it had to be said. ‘If you’re interviewing me, and I can’t see what else this is about, then—while I’m not sure I’m applying for the job anyway—I wouldn’t mind hearing what this job actually is. Or even if there is a job.’

He did not care for her uppity tone. She could tell that from the slight narrowing of his eyes. But, whatever he was thinking or feeling, he covered it well to inform her, ‘There is a job…’

‘A PA’s job?’ She might be interested, she might not be. But, since this was her career she was thinking of, it had to be PA or nothing.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, but warned, ‘It may only be temporary.’

‘I’m not interested in temporary,’ she said straight away. ‘I’m not even sure I’m interested anyway.’

‘Of course you are!’ he countered bluntly, causing her to think he needed a slap.

‘Why “of course”?’ Her tone was belligerent—she’d never had a job interview like it!

‘The experience you’d gain alone would stand you in very good stead when you’re ready to move on. As my PA you’d—’

‘Your PA!’ she gasped. Oh, no, not on your life! But her head was instantly abuzz. They didn’t come any higher than Jake Nash—and he was suggesting she might be his PA!

‘The vacancy isn’t common knowledge yet,’ he replied.

‘You’re getting rid of your present PA?’ Taryn exclaimed, her dark blue eyes saucer-wide.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it; she’s far too valuable.’

‘I’ve lost you somewhere,’ Taryn owned, feeling in quite a fog.

He took pity on her. ‘Kate Lambert has worked for me for the last seven years. I confess I’d be totally lost without her.’

‘But you’re thinking of letting her go—temporarily?’ Taryn had stayed with him so far.

He threw some light into her darkness. ‘Kate, in confidence, is newly pregnant.’

‘Ah!’ Taryn breathed. ‘You want maternity cover for her?’

‘A bit more than that. To put it mildly, Kate is having a pretty torrid time of it. And while in normal times she copes excellently with what I appreciate is a very exacting job, her pregnancy seems to be taking a lot out of her. Poor Kate—she is quite drained at times.’

‘She is easily tired?’ Taryn put in.

‘I’m afraid so. And while, in order to have longer with the baby when it arrives, she wants to carry on working as long as she possibly can, I think she is already finding it quite a struggle.’

By the sound of it he wasn’t thinking of taking on someone for cover only while Kate Lambert was away, but someone sooner. ‘It’s temporary, this job?’ Taryn questioned.

‘Kate says she wants to return at the end of her maternity leave. I’d be more than pleased if she does.’

‘But you don’t think she will come back?’

‘Kate’s a perfectionist. She’ll want to do both jobs, being a mother and being a PA, in perfect fashion. I think there’s every chance she’ll want to stay home if she can.’

That seemed natural enough to Taryn. But she was suddenly startled to realise she was starting to be interested—even to the extent that she might end up working for this man she did not like. No, she denied, she definitely did not want to work for him. Hang on a minute, though. As he had suggested, any experience she gained while working for him would be invaluable and, as he’d said, would stand her in very good stead when she went on to her next job. ‘How soon would you want me to start?’ she asked.

‘Not so fast, Taryn,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t offered you the job.’

She flushed red, and had never felt more embarrassed. ‘Forgive me,’ she said coolly. ‘I thought you had—were…’

‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised, his eyes on her flushed skin. He smiled gently. ‘I’m not used to this initial interview practice.’ And, having taken the blame on himself, ‘Human Resources would normally deal with that, but I don’t intend to involve them at the moment. Nor have I told Kate yet that I’m looking for someone to work in tandem with her who would carry on to cover her while she’s on maternity leave,’ he said, going on to explain, ‘Kate’s hopes have been dashed too often in the past, apparently, and she had started to believe she would never have a baby. Because she is having such a tough time—yet still fearful something might go wrong—she has asked me to not tell anyone of her condition.’

‘She doesn’t know you’re getting someone to take some of her workload?’ Taryn asked, as that bit jumped out at her. ‘Will she mind?’

‘Hopefully, when she adjusts to the idea, she’ll be all for it. My thoughts were—seeing that you want to get back into PA work—that I’d see how you felt about coming to work for me, then ask you to come into the office at your first opportunity. Kate can then tell you what the job entails, and she can also judge if she thinks you’re capable of doing it.’

‘And you will have the final yea or nay?’

He nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he acknowledged. ‘I know I’ve rather dropped this on you,’ he added. ‘I’ll ring you early next week, when you’ve had chance to consider how you feel.’

With that he got to his feet, just as his great uncle came into the kitchen. ‘Jake!’ he said gladly. ‘I didn’t see or hear your car!’

‘I needed to stretch my legs,’ Jake replied easily. ‘I walked up from the road.’

Taryn got up and refilled the kettle, knowing her present temporary employer would like some tea. But as he smiled at her, and he and his great-nephew ambled out to look at some machine part Osgood Compton had unearthed and they had been discussing last Saturday, she could not help but still feel stunned that it looked as if she might possibly have a new temporary employer within the same family! Did she want to work for Jake Nash, though?

It was a question that would return again and again to plague her over the next few days. But even as the weekend came and went she was still unsure—always supposing the job was offered.

She did not like him. Against that, though, did she have to like him? She had loved her previous employer and ultimately, because of that love, she’d had to leave that job.

By no chance would that happen if she did go to work for Jake Nash. Theirs would be a strictly professional working relationship. Love certainly wouldn’t come into it. No, basically, she did not have to like him.

Mrs Ellington telephoned on Monday and said she would be returning on Thursday morning. And, knowing then that she would be leaving on Thursday afternoon, Taryn acknowledged that, as sweet and lovely as Osgood Compton was, she had had sufficient of keeping house.

What she wanted was a job she could knuckle down to. A career job. One that would take her to the top of the PA tree. She had to smile at that—the top did not come any higher than PA to Jake Nash, albeit temporary, albeit in tandem with his invaluable and present PA.

He, Jake Nash, had left her to consider how she felt. He had told her it was a temporary job and that she would only be assisting Kate Lambert until she went off to have her baby. But when Taryn put her mind to considering the experience she would gain, she knew by Tuesday morning that she wanted the job.

The problem was, would she get it? From what she could remember she had rarely shown Jake Nash anything other than her antagonistic side. And while it was true, as he said, that they had started off ‘on the wrong foot’, it was odd that should be so. She was usually much more amiable with people she came into contact with. Which led her to wonder, given that she had been slightly off with him from the word go, would he want her working with him?

On pondering over it, as she pottered about making everything spick and span so that Mrs Ellington would not have to roll her sleeves up and get into heavy work as soon as she returned, Taryn realised that, while she did not like Jake Nash, he would see no need for him to have to like her either. All he would require from whoever he took on would be someone he could confidently leave to keep his office running smoothly. Someone who would work hard and not put down her pen at the stroke of five.

Well, she could do that, and she never had been a clock-watcher.

Though before she got chance to prove that, there were hurdles to clear. It was plain now why he had not put this temporary vacancy through his Human Resources section. With Kate Lambert not wanting it broadcast that she was pregnant, he had decided that he personally would deal with the issue of getting her some help.

Briefly Taryn wondered why he had not thought of sounding out someone within the company to assist Kate Lambert. But that did not take too much thinking about. Kate’s assistant had to be someone with PA experience. And any experienced PA within the group would already be assigned to someone in management. And, while perhaps they would be happy for the chance to work for the head of the corporation, they might not feel so happy when Kate Lambert’s maternity leave expired and—despite what Jake Nash had said about Kate maybe deciding to stay home with her baby—she wanted to come back and take over again.

But, putting first things first, by the time she was serving dinner that night Taryn had begun to feel quite edgy that Jake Nash had not yet fulfilled his promised to ring her ‘early next week’. If he didn’t ring her soon she wouldn’t be there for him to ring!

Which, with her feeling all on edge, perhaps explained why she was not at her most friendly when the phone rang that evening. Dinner was over and Osgood Compton, having earlier spoken with his daughter and not expecting another call, was in his garage, inspecting his beloved Daimler Double Six car.

‘Hello?’ Taryn queried, picking up the phone and admitting to churning insides.

‘Jake Nash,’ answered a well-remembered voice, to set her antagonistic vibes a-flutter—what was it about this man? ‘You’ve had time to consider our discussion?’ he enquired, getting straight down to business, apparently only needing to hear her say that one word ‘hello’ to know he had got the right person.

Although logically, Taryn supposed, since she was the only female supposed to be there, it would not take an awful lot of guesswork. ‘I’d like to come and see Kate Lambert,’ she replied. Two could play the straight-down-to-business game.

He didn’t say good, but, since neither did he say that he had reconsidered, Taryn took it that, subject to her passing muster with his present PA, she was still in there with a chance. ‘Has my uncle’s housekeeper advised when she’s returning?’

‘Thursday morning,’ Taryn replied. And before she could draw another breath began to understand that Jake Nash had no time to waste.

‘Kate will see you at eleven-thirty Friday,’ he decided—and, take it or leave it, he was gone.

For all of ten seconds, feeling more than a touch put out, Taryn felt like telling him what she could do with his decisiveness. But when she had calmed down she knew that she still very much wanted that job.

Mrs Ellington arrived as promised on Thursday morning. Taryn prepared lunch for both Mrs Ellington and Osgood Compton, and was then happy to relinquish the reins of what had after all only been meant to be a two-week fill-in job. She bade an affectionate farewell to Osgood Compton, and left his tranquil home.

That her own home was far from tranquil was an abrupt reminder to Taryn that she needed to find somewhere else to live.

‘Thank goodness you’re back,’ her stepmother greeted her. From that Taryn knew that the new housekeeper had not stayed the course.

‘What would you like for dinner?’ she asked. She might as well volunteer to cook it as wait to be asked; she knew she would be doing the honours anyway.

Her family’s domestic arrangements were far from her mind the next morning, however. She dressed with care in a fine wool navy suit, the skirt’s length just touching her knees. She wanted to look her best, and was glad she had good legs. They were long, shapely, and she was blessed with trim ankles to go with them.

Taryn owned to butterflies in her tummy as she drove to the offices of the Nash Corporation. She wanted this job, and hoped she would be lucky enough to get it. She reminded herself that she knew PA work, was a speedy typist, had good computer skills and—most important—had been told she had an efficient but natural and warm way of dealing with people.

She left her car hoping that Kate Lambert would like her, and that she would assess her as being up to the job. Only then, Taryn knew, would she get through to be interviewed for real by Jake Nash himself. The final decision would rest with him.

Taryn took to Kate Lambert on sight. Kate was short, dark-haired and somewhere past thirty. ‘Come in,’ she greeted her warmly, shaking her hand as the security man who had shown Taryn up to the top floor went away. ‘Would you like coffee?’ she asked.

‘Please,’ Taryn answered with a smile, thinking that it would set a friendly tone, but wanting to make it herself—Kate Lambert looked more than a shade delicate.

‘Jake—Mr Nash—he explained the—um—confidential circumstances of the vacancy?’ Kate began.

It was a fact that in a few months or so the PA would not be able to hide that she was going to have a baby, but for now Taryn would not have been able to tell. ‘Yes, he did. Congratulations,’ she replied, wanting to say more, but not wanting to appear gushing.

Kate smiled her thanks, and then got down to asking Taryn about her work to date, and to letting her know some of what was involved in being a PA to a high-powered executive. And the more she spoke, the more she whetted Taryn’s appetite for the job. She would ultimately, while Kate was on maternity leave, be running the office of the top executive. She would be dealing with people from all over the world and would be in attendance at ‘top brass’ meetings. The job was no sinecure, and it paid extraordinarily well. But Taryn was under no illusions; from what Kate was saying, she would earn every penny of the fantastic salary.

It would be a wonderful challenge, Taryn felt, experiencing a buzz in her very bones. She had known before she had come to the Nash Corporation building today that she wanted the job. But the more Kate explained the work she would be doing, the more eager Taryn felt to take it on.

‘How do you feel?’ Kate asked. ‘Have I put you off?’

‘Not at all!’ Taryn exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘It sounds very much the kind of work I would love to be involved with.’

‘You’re aware the job will only last a year tops?’

Taryn agreed that she was. ‘Just until you return from having your baby.’

‘Good,’ Kate commented. And, causing Taryn’s hopes that Kate was ready to recommend her to rise, ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we didn’t find a way of keeping you on in one of the other offices in a year’s time.’ Then, confirming Taryn’s hopes, ‘I’ll just check if Mr Nash is free to see you now.’

From that Taryn realised that, had Kate Lambert thought her unsuitable, she would have said something to the effect that they would write to her, and would then have bidden her goodbye. But the fact that Kate was phoning through to ask Jake Nash if he was free indicated to Taryn that things had gone well. What she had to do now was hope that her interview with Jake Nash went equally well.

‘Mr Nash says to give him five minutes,’ Kate reported, coming off the phone. ‘Now, is there anything you would like to ask me?’

To Taryn’s mind they had discussed everything pretty thoroughly. And just then Kate had to take a call, so Taryn was left starting to feel the nip of nerves. Very shortly she would be seeing a man who always before had seemed to bring out the worst in her. Only today, if she was to have any chance of this job she was now realising she wanted so badly, she must hold down those impulses to spark up at him.

It was most unfortunate in her view that, when she had worked for a whole two years for Brain Mellor without once feeling the need to fire up at him, Jake Nash had barely to say more than a few sentences and she was straight in there. But there was no comparing the two—one ex-employer and one new one, hopefully. Brian for the main part had been placid and easygoing. Jake Nash just had the knack…

The door opened. And there, business-suited, tall, dark-haired and just as she remembered him, stood Jake Nash. ‘Sorry to have kept you,’ he offered urbanely. ‘Come in, Taryn.’

Taryn got to her feet, her heart giving a funny little skip. She preceded him into his office—a large, light and airy affair, with a couple of other doors leading from it, one to the outside corridor, she guessed, the other probably a cloakroom of some sort.

There was a three-piece suite—a three-seater sofa and two matching armchairs—at the far end of the room. But it was to an upright chair by the side of his desk that Jake Nash indicated when he invited, ‘Take a seat.’ As she did so, he went round to his chair behind the desk. ‘Kate has filled you in on what is expected?’ he enquired.

‘It all sounds very interesting,’ Taryn agreed. Actually, he had rather nice eyes—and, her eyes strayed, his mouth wasn’t all that bad either. Good heavens! Taryn brought herself up short—what on earth was she thinking of?

‘And how do you feel about it?’

She started to feel scratchy with him again. The very fact that she was still there should have told him that she was interested. ‘I believe I can do the work,’ she replied.

He took that in, and enquired bluntly, ‘You appreciate that some of the work in this office is highly confidential?’

‘Confidentiality, is all part of a PA’s remit in my view,’ she replied.

Jake Nash did not appear too impressed—she would have given anything to know what went on behind that cool exterior. ‘You’ll be able to supply references, of course?’

‘I…’ She hesitated.

‘You seem unsure?’ He was straight in, and again Taryn felt her antagonism fairy give her a poke.

‘It isn’t…’ she began. Somehow she felt awkward about Brian Mellor being approached for a reference, even though she did not doubt he would give her a good one. ‘I’ve only ever had the one permanent employer,’ she stated, as calmly as she could in the circumstances.

‘And you left him in rather a hurry,’ Jake Nash said, not a smile or anything the least encouraging about him. ‘Why was that?’ he demanded sharply.

With difficulty Taryn reined in the spurt of aggravation his sharp tone aroused. He wanted confidentiality, she’d give him confidential! ‘That’s confidential,’ she stated, making no apology.

‘I’ll accept confidentiality in business,’ her would-be employer retorted. ‘But your reason for leaving was personal.’

‘How do you make that out?’ she flared.

‘That it was personal? I’d have thought that was obvious!’ he rapped, and was unrelenting when he demanded, ‘Why did you and Brian Mellor fall out?’

‘We didn’t fall out!’ she denied, aware that this job she had coveted was getting away from her, but feeling powerless to do anything to stop it.

‘Oh, come on,’ Jake Nash grated impatiently. ‘You stayed with the man for two whole years and then walked out at a moment’s notice? According to you, Brian Mellor didn’t dismiss you—so it had to be personal.’

‘He didn’t dismiss me!’ she said forcefully, twin spots of angry colour appearing in her cheeks.

‘So why leave without first giving him the courtesy of at least a month’s warning that you were resigning?’

He had a point, she supposed. From his point of view he would not want her trained in the smooth running of his office only for her to up and leave on the spot over some whim of the moment.

He was still waiting for an answer, she could tell that, but no way was she going to tell him that Brian Mellor had kissed her. Not only did that seem to her to be disloyal to Brian, and to his marriage, but in this day and age this sophisticated man with his now icy grey eyes concentrated on her would probably laugh his socks off.

‘If you must know…’ she began, floundering—and all at once she’d had it with this man. It was touch and go whether she still had a chance of this job anyway. She decided to give him the truth and to the devil with him. ‘If you must know,’ she said again, heatedly this time, ‘I fell in love with him!’ There—it was out. She was blushing furiously, but there—pick the bones out of that.

‘Oh, my…’ Jake Nash leant back in his chair. ‘His wife didn’t care for it?’

‘His wife didn’t know.’ Honestly! This man! ‘Neither did he,’ she charged on, before he could ask—which she full well knew he would.

Jake Nash surveyed her for long unspeaking seconds. Then casually, while still surveying her, ‘I’m damned sure that there’s more to it than that,’ he drawled. ‘Tell me, Miss Webster, do you make a habit of falling in love with every man who employs you?’

And that did it! Sarcastic pig! He had obviously noted the affection she felt for his great-uncle. And now this—her owning up to loving the employer before him. Taryn got to her feet. She knew then without a shadow of a doubt that she had not got the job. ‘Every time,’ she answered, as he too got to his feet. ‘Though in your case it would have been extremely easy to make an exception!’

As an exit line, she felt it was rather good. But before she could take so much as one step towards the door Jake Nash, to her utter amazement, burst out laughing. It was so unexpected that she just stood there and stared at him—stared at his firm mouth, now uplifted at the corners, his white even teeth revealed.

‘Oh, Taryn Webster,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Let us be thankful for small mercies.’ And while she was still standing there, staring at him, his right hand suddenly shot out. ‘Be here at nine o’ clock sharp on Monday,’ he instructed.

Taryn was so stunned her own right hand came out, and this time, having once before refused to do so, she did shake hands with him, the warmth of his skin as his larger hand covered her dainty one giving her something of a tingle.

‘You’re saying—I’ve got the job?’ she asked, hardly believing her cross-tempered interview was ending like this.

‘You’ve got the job,’ he confirmed. ‘Let’s hope neither of us lives to regret it.’

CHAPTER THREE

TARYN had been working for Jake Nash for a month when it suddenly struck her that she had not thought of Brian Mellor in a long, long while. She found that realisation more than a little startling. But more startling still was the unbelievable truth that not once in the month she had been working for Jake had she wished that she was back working for Brian! Taryn almost gasped out loud in shock when, following on from that she had to consider—did she still love Brian?

It came as a bolt from the blue when a second or two later she recognised that—neither missing working for him and seeing him daily, nor even so much as thinking of him recently—love him she did not.

Two years and more she had spent loving him. Yet in the space of a few months she was on the way to forgetting him completely. Not that there was time to think about anything but work when she was in the office. But…

She was on her way there now, and had space that morning to dwell on something other than helping Kate run a streamlined unit. Taryn saw then that she had really needed to get out of an office environment for those two months she had worked for Jake’s great-uncle. She had needed to take a step back. But, oh, how glad she was to be back in the swing of it.

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