LITMIR.BIZ

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knew, than she would be in any other job on the open market It was a blessing and a trap at the same time, because leaving would have meant a huge cut in pay and she had become accustomed to a certain level of comfort over time. She could afford her holidays abroad, the occasional meal out at an expensive restaurant. Could even run to the odd designer outfit, if she chose to; but she never did. Designer clothes, she acknowledged, called for designer-style bodies—on her they would hang sadly around her thin frame, tacitly admitting defeat.

      ‘Well, at least one of us had a relaxing fortnight’ He managed to make this sound as though she had deliberately connived to ensure that his fortnight had been a stressful nightmare.

      ‘Has it been very busy here?’ she asked, abandoning her inspection of the computer screen in front of her and looking up at him. He had perched on the edge of her desk and showed little inclination to move. ‘How did the Finner campaign go? Have they signed up?’

      ‘Just.’ His mouth twisted and he gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘No thanks to that airhead temp you employed to cover you.’

      ‘Rebecca came very highly recommended by the agency,’ Alice protested. ’I wouldn’t have taken her on otherwise!’ She paused and frowned at him, shrewdly working out in her mind what had happened. She had seen it before. Perfectly level-headed girls who somehow became flustered adolescents by the time Victor was through with them. He had the unnerving habit of issuing orders like bullets from a gun, and any signs of inefficiency were treated with scathing contempt. His patience was something he kept on a very short leash.

      ‘What agency? The agency specialising in idiots?’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’d hardly take on someone I thought was incompetent, would I? That would just mean that I’d return from holiday with a two-week backlog of work to be done.’ She glanced at the stack of files on the desk out of the corner of her eye, and thought that they closely resembled a two-week backlog of work.

      Victor followed her gaze and said triumphantly, ‘Point proved. The girl barely knew how to type.’

      ‘Her speeds were well above average.’

      ‘She went to pieces every time I attempted to dictate something to her.’

      Alice looked at him with clear-eyed comprehension, mentally picturing the scene. Victor’s definition, she suspected, of going to pieces no doubt meant that the poor girl had asked questions along the way instead of following what he was saying, which would have been punctuated by frequent telephone interruptions and emerged as the basis of a letter which she would have been expected to translate into lucid, crystal-clear coherence with full background knowledge of the client. Poor girl. Next time, Alice thought, she would make sure that she employed someone older, with enough presence of mind to bounce back after a day of Victor Temple’s demands.

      ‘There’s no need to give me that look,’ Victor said irritably.

      ‘What look?’

      “The look that implies that somehow it’s my fault if I end up with a temporary secretary who apparently hasn’t completed her course. I’m a perfectly reasonable man.’

      Alice nearly laughed out loud at that one. ‘Oh, absolutely,’ she murmured, restraining herself. ‘Could I get you a cup of coffee?’

      ‘Bring it into my office. I want to go through some files with you. We’ve just got a new client on board. Some titled fool who wants us to do a discreet advertising campaign for his stately home. Refuses to let anyone deal with it but me.’

      ‘Stately home?’

      ‘I‘ll discuss it with you in my office.’ He stood up and raked his fingers through his hair. Alice looked at him and it flew through her mind—a thought so brief that it barely left an indentation—that she had yet to come across a man as compellingly attractive as Victor Temple. The angles of his face were hard, bordering on arrogant, but for all that there was a certain underlying sensuality about him. It was there in his mouth, in his dark-fringed eyes, in the supple grace of his body. He never worked out and probably wouldn’t recognise the inside of a gym if he saw it, but his body was sleek and well-toned. A lean, athletic body which was apparent beneath the cut of his suit.

      Was that one of the reasons why they worked so well together? She could acknowledge, in a detached, clinical way, that he was almost frighteningly good-looking, but he did not appeal to her. Tall, dark-haired and handsome all added up to the sort of man she knew, instinctively, was best avoided. She had already made one mistake in that direction and it was a mistake she would never repeat.

      In turn, she was quite simply not his type. He did not sport a line of ever-changing women. She had met them both, and they both slotted into the same category—sexy, blonde and, at least from the outside, highly undemanding on the intellectual front. They had both struck her as the sort of women who accessorised what they wore to match their lipstick and nail varnish, and in high winds would somehow still manage to hold onto an immaculate hairdo and impeccable make-up.

      His last secretary, who had left six months before she had arrived, had been, according to some of the girls in the office, a fifty-something harridan with a penchant for tweed skirts, even in summer, and sensible shoes. Then had come a dizzying and unsatisfactory array of young girls, none of whom had stayed the pace.

      Alice knew that what he appreciated in her were her mind and her lack of obvious sex appeal. It was either a flattering or alternatively depressing comment on her, depending from which side of the fence it was viewed. As for her, she welcomed it with relief.

      When she went into his office, he was on the phone; he leaned back in his chair and motioned to her to sit down, watching her as she did so.

      Alice was suddenly acutely conscious of her appearance. There had been nothing in the slightest way sexual about his look, but there had been a certain unexpected appreciation there—must a flicker, but enough to register in her subconscious. The applications of sun cream had done the trick, eventually. She had not developed a deep tan, but there was a pale bronze glow about her which was quite becoming.

      She sat down now, smoothing her skirt with her fingers, and gazed straight ahead of her, out through the window to the oppressive blue-grey sky outside. Glow or not glow, she didn’t need a mirror to tell her what she lacked. Her straight dark hair, falling to her shoulders, was shiny enough and easy to look after, but, coupled with her fine-boned face, somehow managed to give her a background, girl-next-door look, and she lacked curves. She knew that and it didn’t bother her except, occasionally, when she happened to be in the company of someone blatantly sexy, at which times she would feel the smallest twinge of envy that there was an entire world of clinging, low-cut dresses that would for ever be out of her range.

      ‘Hello?’ She heard the deep timbre of his voice and refocused her attention back to the present.

      ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

      ‘And not a particularly pleasant place, judging from the expression.’

      Alice blushed and looked down at the notepad on her lap. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how shrewd Victor Temple could be when it came to reading other people’s minds. His own, he kept suitably under lock and key.

      ‘Just thinking what needs doing when I get back home,’ she improvised, and he raised his eyebrows with a certain amount of sarcastic amusement

      ‘Well, so sorry to drag you back to mundane office matters.’ He sat back with his arms folded and subjected her to a leisurely stare. ‘I can’t imagine your flat being anything other than scrupulously tidy,’ he drawled, which brought more colour to her cheeks and she returned his look with a Sash of sudden anger.

      ‘It’s a mess,’ she said flatly, defying him to contradict her. ‘Books everywhere, clothes everywhere, dishes not washed.’ She stared down to conceal the rebellious glint in her eyes. Did he think that she was prim and proper and precise? Did he think that, because she was efficient at work and well organised, she was exactly the same out of work? For all he knows, she thought, I could lead a scorching and raunchy life the minute

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