LITMIR.BIZ

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wants to work?’ the other girl laughed; she was secretary to one of the department managers.

      Laura blushed. ‘Mr Maitland works very hard,’ she defended, and gulped down her coffee, anxious to leave.

      ‘He plays very hard too,’ Susan grinned. ‘There’s a photograph of him in my magazine this week,’ she bent to take it out of her handbag. ‘He’s with Petra Wilde.’ She found the appropriate page and spread the magazine out in front of Laura.

      Laura didn’t want to look, hadn’t wanted to see how well Gideon and the beautiful actress looked together. And they did look good, as she had known they would. Petra Wilde was almost as tall as her escort, her flaming red dress daring in the extreme as the two of them attended the premiere of the actress’s latest film. Gideon Maitland was laughing down at the other woman, looking happy and relaxed, completely unlike the harsh man he was during working hours. He looked so tall and distinguished, the photograph showing the wings of grey at his temples, his magnificent physique shown to full advantage in the black evening suit and snowy white shirt.

      No wonder Petra Wilde gazed up at him so adoringly, her blue eyes sparkling with some secret message. The couple’s whole relationship looked intimate, Gideon’s arm firmly about the actress’s waist as he held her at his side.

      ‘Very nice,’ Laura pushed the magazine back across the table to Susan. ‘It’s a very good photograph,’ she added as she saw the other girl’s disappointed expression at her reaction.

      ‘You don’t seem very interested, I must say,’ Susan said in a disgruntled voice.

      If the other girl knew what a wrench the photograph gave to her heart she wouldn’t say that. Laura had expected to have her romantic illusions about Gideon destroyed once she began working for him, had thought the familiarity would show her how silly her infatuation was, but if anything she had fallen more under his spell, gazing at him longingly when he wasn’t looking at her.

      ‘I have to get back.’ She stood up, knowing that she still had twenty minutes of her lunch-break left, but not prepared to sit and answer questions about Gideon for all that time.

      As she had thought, her new boss was still out at lunch when she got back, but she could use this time to finish her typing.

      ‘That’s what I like to see.’

      She looked up to see Nigel Jennings, the Personnel Manager for the company, standing in the open doorway. She returned his smile as he came over to her desk. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

      ‘Well, I must have made the right decision when I employed you,’ he grinned, sitting on the edge of her desk. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be working for Gideon.’

      ‘It’s only temporary.’

      He nodded; he was a man of about thirty, with boyishly blond good looks. He looked too young to carry the responsibilities he did, and yet Laura knew James Courtney valued his work, that he trusted his judgement implicitly. The only time he seemed to have doubted his judgement had been in Nigel’s employment of her!

      ‘Diane’s off with ‘flu.’ He picked up the paperweight from the desk. ‘But then so is almost everyone else.’ He grimaced. ‘That’s why I’m here to see Gideon, actually. It’s the firm’s annual dinner-dance next week, and if half the company isn’t going to be able to go it might be better if we just cancelled it.’

      ‘I suppose so.’ Laura had forgotten all about the dinner-dance, and in any case had not intended going even if she did manage to evade catching this ‘flu bug that was running rife in the company.

      Nigel quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘I suppose you’re bringing your boy-friend along?’

      ‘Well, actually—–’

      ‘You aren’t?’ he cut in eagerly.

      Laura viewed him with something like dismay, guessing that his reaction when she told him she wasn’t thinking of going would be to invite her to go with him. Not that she didn’t like him, on the few occasions when they had spoken together she had found him a very agreeable companion. But she knew from experience what these company dinners were like, knew the romantic speculation that would go on for days afterwards if two employees spent any time together at all.

      ‘I’m not going. You see,’ she added firmly as he made to protest, ‘I don’t like to leave my mother alone in the evenings. She’s a widow, and—–’

      ‘Surely one night isn’t going to hurt,’ Nigel protested, his open features clearly showing his disappointment. ‘It isn’t as if it happens every night of the week. And I’d like you to come. Laura—–’

      ‘Hello, Nigel.’ Gideon Maitland had miraculously appeared in the office, not that he could possibly know the embarrassment he was saving her if she had had to turn down Nigel’s invitation. Grey eyes flickered coldly, over them both, and Nigel slowly stood up. ‘Anything I can do for you?’ Gideon asked politely enough. ‘Or did you just come to see my secretary?’ His voice hardened perceptively.

      The other man flushed, obviously as unnerved by this tall imposing man as everyone else seemed to be. ‘I came to see you, actually, Gideon.’ He had obviously recovered his composure. ‘But—–’

      ‘But while you were here you thought you’d chat up my secretary,’ Gideon drawled.

      ‘I—Well—–’

      ‘Come through to my office,’ Gideon instructed briskly. ‘Are you back from lunch, Laura?’

      ‘Er—yes, sir.’

      He nodded, his face darkening at her formal way of addressing him. Laura waited until the two men had gone through to the other office before restarting her typing. It felt strange to hear Gideon keep referring to her as ‘his secretary’ when all she was doing was filling in for a few days. As soon as Diane was back she would return to James Courtney’s tyranny.

      Gideon had been angry about her talking to Nigel, and he had every right to be. She might still have been on her lunch-break at the time, but the conversation had taken place in the office, a social conversation that he had every right to object to.

      Nigel came out of the office about ten minutes later. ‘About next week, Laura—–’

      ‘Laura, could you come in here, please,’ Gideon requested curtly from behind him. ‘Was there anything else, Nigel?’ he looked calmly at the other man.

      Nigel shrugged his defeat in the face of a determination stronger than his own. ‘No, nothing. Perhaps I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow, Laura?’

      ‘I—Perhaps.’ She was already gathering up her short-hand pad and pencil, one look at Gideon’s face telling her that he wasn’t in a mood to be kept waiting.

      She walked proudly past Gideon as he pointedly held the door open to his office, and sat down in the chair opposite his, her pencil poised expectantly, looking up uncertainly as he seemed in no hurry to begin dictation.

      ‘Are you in the habit of spending time with Nigel Jennings?’ he asked suddenly.

      Laura blinked dazedly at the unexpectedness of such a question, her notepad slowly lowering to her knees. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she frowned.

      ‘Out of working hours you’re free to see who you want,’ he continued harshly. ‘But while you’re working for me I would prefer it if you saw your boy-friend away from my office.’

      ‘Nigel—I mean, Mr Jennings isn’t my boy-friend!’ she gasped indignantly.

      Gideon raised dark eyebrows. ‘He isn’t?’

      ‘No. He came up here to see you, not me.’

      ‘I see. Do you have a boy-friend?’

      ‘Why?’ she asked the question without thinking, blushing at the look of irritation that passed across his handsome

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