Her Impossible Boss

by Cathy Williams

  Tess didn’t like this train of thought, but, having started, she was finding it impossible to stop. One thought seemed to generate another. It was as though a locked door had suddenly been flung open and out had spilled all manner of lost, forgotten and deliberately misplaced things from her childhood.

  For the first time she had no inclination to share her thoughts with her sister, indeed, was relieved that Claire had taken herself off for a week’s break with Tom and wouldn’t be returning until the middle of the following week.

  As she was getting ready on Friday morning for their expedition to the zoo, Tess made herself address the other discomforting issue that had been nagging the back of her mind—the other loaded pistol that Matt had pointed at her head and forced her to acknowledge. Why had she suddenly jettisoned her social life? Why? She had arrived in Manhattan a carefree, fun-loving girl, with no thoughts beyond enjoying a lovely break from Ireland and perhaps trying to figure out what job to apply for when she returned. So how had she suddenly found herself in the position of willingly sacrificing her social life for the sake of a job? Why did the thought of going out and having a good time with young people her own age leave her cold? Of course she enjoyed Samantha, and loved the small changes in her personality she could detect as the days passed. It was rewarding to watch the person emerge from the protective, wary shell—like watching a butterfly emerge from its cocoon—but beyond that she just really liked being in Matt’s company because she fancied him.

  Tess hadn’t recognised that for what it was because she didn’t think she had ever truly fancied anyone before. She had never questioned all those stolen glances and the way her body responded when he was around. Even now, as she wriggled into a navy and white striped vest and brushed out her hair before tying it up into a ponytail, she could feel her body tingling at the thought of seeing him. That was why she had thought nothing of putting her social life on hold. That was why she was happy to spend evenings at his apartment, sometimes just sitting cross-legged on the sofa with Samantha, watching something on the telly, while on the chair close by Matt pretended to watch with the newspaper in front of him and a drink at his side.

  Tess felt a little thrill of excitement race through her. She was in lust, and it felt good even if nothing would come of it. Because she certainly hadn’t caught him stealing any glances at her, and she couldn’t imagine him thinking about her in some way—not the way she realised she thought about him.

  Tess could only assume that the very sheltered life she had led was the reason why she was only now feeling things that most women her age would have felt long ago. Where her sisters had flown the nest and pursued university degrees, then moved to new, exciting cities to begin their illustrious careers, she had remained at home, circulating with more or less the same crowd she had grown up with—a protective little circle that had, she could see now, been comforting and restrictive in equal measure. She felt as though she was finally emerging from cold storage. It was exciting. And who knew what lay round the corner? she thought, with the optimism with which she had always greeted most situations.

  The journey to Pelham Parkway was baking hot, but she had dressed for the heat in a pair of cool linen trousers and flip-flops. It was going to be a long day. The zoo was enormous—one of the largest urban zoos. She had agreed with Matt that she would contact him by text as soon as she arrived, so that they could agree a meeting point, but with this new awareness of him burning a hole in her she found herself texting Samantha instead, and then making her way to a convenient spot where she could wait for them to finish their animal sightseeing on the monorail.

  On the way, her stomach rumbling, she bought herself a giant hot dog, and was sinking her teeth gratefully into the eight-inch sausage, onion, ketchup and mustard indulgence when she spotted Samantha running towards her.

  Samantha was no longer the primly dressed ten-year-old of a few weeks ago. She was in a pair of trendy cut-off denims, some flat espadrilles and a tee shirt that advertised a teenage musical.

  ‘Have a bite.’ Tess offered the hot dog to her and stood up. ‘I’m never going to finish this.’ She was driven to search out Matt, but resisted the impulse.

  ‘I thought you were giving up junk food.’ Samantha took the hot dog and smiled up at her. ‘Because you were piling on the pounds.’

  ‘Next Monday. I have it pencilled in my diary.’

  ‘Anyway, they’re waiting for us, so we’d better go.’

  ‘They…?’

  ‘Vicky was tired and had to rest, even though she’s been sitting on the monorail for twenty minutes.’ Samantha made a face while Tess confusedly tried to compute a name that meant nothing to her and had never been mentioned before. Was Vicky a relative?

  She hurried after Samantha, and after a few minutes came to a shuddering halt by a café—one of the many that were dotted around the zoo. It was packed. Kids were eating ice cream, infants with more common sense than the adults were howling in pushchairs because they were hot and sticky and wanted to leave. She could easily have missed the couple sitting at the back, because they were surrounded by families trying to find somewhere to sit and children being called back to tables by anxious parents. But her eyes were automatically drawn to Matt and she grinned, because he looked just as she would have expected him to look away from the comforts to which he was accustomed. He was a man who took for granted the bliss of air-conditioning in summer and the luxury of personal shoppers who did everything for him and spared him the inconvenience of having to do battle with crowds. It was a real indication of how determined he was to involve himself with his daughter that he would ever have suggested a zoo expedition and accepted this less than luxurious experience as a necessary consequence.

  For a few seconds she found it hard to tear her eyes away from him. In a pair of light tan trousers and a navy blue polo shirt, he looked dark and sexy and dangerous. He was wearing dark sunglasses, which he proceeded to remove, and the thought of his eyes on her as she tried to manoeuvre a path through the crowds sent a little shiver down her spine.

  She could fully understand how he had managed to turn her notion of sexual attraction on its head. She had foolishly assumed that because he represented the sort of man she didn’t find attractive personality wise her body would just fall in line and likewise fail to respond. She hadn’t bargained on the fact that her body would have a will of its own and would go haring off in the opposite direction.

  Samantha had made it to him, and it was only when they were both looking at her that Tess took in the woman sitting next to him at the small, circular metal table. For a few seconds her steps faltered, because if this was a relative then she certainly wasn’t a relative of the comfortable variety.

  Holding a cup primly between her fingers, and with dark shades concealing all expression, was a strikingly attractive woman with an expertly tailored bob that was sharply cut to chin level. A pale lemon silk cardigan was casually draped over her shoulders.

  Matt half stood as she reached the table but his companion remained seated, although she pushed the shades onto her head revealing cool brown eyes.

  ‘Tess…I’d like you to meet Vicky.’

  The expected return of his common sense was failing to materialise. It had been a trying morning. Samantha had been disappointed that their cosy party of three had expanded to include Vicky, and although Matt told himself that it was healthy for her to deal with the fact that Tess was not a member of the family he had still felt as though some of the progress he had made with his daughter had been somehow undermined by the inclusion of Vicky in their day out.

  And then had come his disappointing reaction to seeing Vicky. His interest had not been re-ignited, and indeed he had been irritated by her.

  She had had precious little contact with Samantha before her three week visit to Hong Kong, but had immediately seen fit to try and establish a relationship. He had been all too aware that his daughter had retreated into herself and had blamed him for this unwelcome
development.

  All in all, a bit of a nightmare, and now, seeing Tess next to Vicky, he was already beginning to draw unwelcome comparisons.

  ‘You’re the nanny!’ Vicky offered a cool smile. ‘Matt’s told me about you in his e-mails. What a blessing that you turned up when you did! This little thing has been super-naughty with her nannies—haven’t you, sweetie? You’re very young, aren’t you?’

  E-mails? Tess didn’t like the thought of being discussed behind her back, and it was dawning on her that this was Matt’s girlfriend. The fact that he even had one came as a shock, but as the reality of it began to sink in she wondered how on earth she could ever have expected otherwise. Men like Matt Stickland were never short of women throwing themselves at him. He was as rich as Croesus and sinfully good-looking. Now, in light of this, her silly infatuation with him—if it could even be called that—struck her as tellingly naïve.

  This woman was far more the type he would go for, even if his body language was saying otherwise. She was clever and accomplished, and, as the day progressed, Tess was left in very little doubt that there was absolutely nothing the woman hadn’t already achieved or else was about to.

  Vicky talked non-stop. She tried to make jokes with Matt, who smiled stiffly and contributed very little to the conversation. She gave long, educational lectures to Samantha about every animal they passed and was undeterred by the silent, faintly hostile response. She confided in Tess every qualification she had ever gained and her progress in her career step by step, starting with when she was a lowly junior manager and culminating in her exalted position now, as CEO of one of the largest listed companies in America. She was smart and she was self-confident, and she had scaled heights in her career that most women might only ever dream of.

  Matt wouldn’t raise his eyebrows and make some dry, amused remark about her taste in television programmes. He would have informed discussions with her and talk about everything from the state of the economy to world politics.

  Tess waited two and a half hours before she felt it polite to tell them that she would be on her way. Samantha, like her, was drooping, and had been for a while. A small, quiet bundle, shorn of the tentative beginnings of exuberance that had marked the past week or so.

  What a hellish disaster, Matt thought in raging frustration. What the hell was Vicky’s agenda? She had monopolised the conversation, glorified herself, done her level best to ingratiate herself with Samantha.

  ‘You’ve hardly been here two minutes.’ He frowned at Tess, who was fidgeting apologetically, playing with the clasp on the leather satchel slung over her shoulder. ‘What do you mean you’re going?’

  ‘I have some stuff to do.’

  ‘Your working day hasn’t come to an end. It’s not yet five-thirty.’

  He felt, with considerable irritation, Vicky’s arm link through his and the weight of her as she leant against him.

  ‘We could go off and do something,’ Samantha interjected in a cool, childish voice. ‘Tess could drop me home. Couldn’t you, Tess? We could even stop off and have something to eat on the way. Burgers and fries,’ she added, because somewhere along the line there had been a long lecture from Vicky on the dangers of the wrong diet. At the time she had been focusing on the last of the hot dog disappearing into Samantha’s mouth.

  ‘You’ll leave with us,’ Matt rasped, sliding his eyes down to where his daughter was staring at him, sullen and tight-lipped. ‘And I don’t want any arguments, Samantha. I’m your father and you’ll do as I say.’

  In the sweltering heat, tempers were frayed. Tess miserably wondered whether Matt would rather have stayed at home with his girlfriend. Did his foul mood stem from the fact that he could think of better things to be doing with his time? Didn’t he know that his relationship with Samantha was still so fragile that coming down heavy on her now was going to jeopardise everything they had begun building together?

  She felt as though she had failed them both. She told herself stoutly that their relationship wasn’t her concern, that she was just a ship in the night, passing through their lives, but right here, with people bustling around them and Samantha looking to be on the verge of tears, Tess suddenly felt miserable and depressed.

  ‘I’ll be at work bright and early on Monday morning,’ Tess said brightly. ‘Or we could even do something tomorrow, if you like…?’ This was to Samantha, but Vicky was quick to step in, smiling and giving Matt’s arm a gentle squeeze.

  ‘We’ll be fine.’ Her voice was hard as nails. ‘I just got back from the Far East. I’d quite like to have my little unit to myself over the weekend. Besides, don’t you have anything better to do than spend your Saturday with a ten-year-old child?’

  Those ringing words were a timely reminder to Tess that she needed to get her act together. Hadn’t Matt mentioned something along those lines to her himself? Had he and his girlfriend been exchanging jokey e-mails about her? The sad little nanny with no life to speak of in one of the most exciting cities in the world?

  The journey back to her sister’s apartment was long and hot and tedious. The upside was that there would be no one around to question her tearful mood. The downside was that she did, actually, feel as though she needed a sympathetic shoulder to cry on.

  Nothing could distract her from the sobering realisation that she had made a complete fool of herself by lusting after a man who wasn’t interested in her. It was a sign of her own vanity—which was something she had never even known she possessed—that she hadn’t once stopped to ask herself whether he was involved with a woman. There had seemed to be none on the scene, and he had mentioned no names, and so she had made her own incorrect conclusions.

  It was a little after eight when the buzzer sounded. Claire had an intercom system in her flat. It was an excellent way of avoiding unwanted visitors. You could see them on the little television-style screen and then just duck low until they got the message and disappeared.

  Her heart flipped when she made out Matt’s face. He looked impatient and at the end of his tether, and she was determined to ignore him, but instead found herself picking up the phone to ask him what he wanted.

  ‘You. I need to talk to you.’

  ‘What about? I thought you were going to be spending the weekend playing house with your girlfriend.’ She clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry I said that. I’m tired. Can it wait until Monday?’ ‘No. It can’t. Buzz me up.’

  ‘What’s so important?’ Tess persisted. ‘I’m about ready to go to bed.’

  ‘It’s not even nine. It’s a Friday evening. You’re not ready to go to bed. Buzz me up.’

  ‘What do you want!’ was the first thing she asked when he was standing in the doorway, filling it out and sending her nervous system into frantic disarray. He was still in the clothes he had worn to the zoo. She, however, had changed, and was now wearing a pair of black pyjama bottoms and a small vest. No bra. She folded her arms and backed away, following him with her eyes as he strode into the apartment and headed directly to the kitchen.

  ‘I think,’ he said, opening the fridge and extracting a bottle of beer, which he proceeded to flick open after he had hunted down a bottle opener in one of the drawers, ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘Look, you can’t just barge in here—’

  ‘Your sister’s away, isn’t she? Visiting the boyfriend’s parents, if I remember correctly?’

  ‘Who is with Samantha? Is…is your girlfriend with her?’

  Matt drained a quarter of the bottle in one long, thirsty gulp while looking at her as she hovered to the side, ill at ease and wary. Tension was climbing its way up her spine. What did he want? When she thought about the excitement that had infused her at the start of the day, when she had dressed with thoughts of him in her head, she felt humiliation washing over her all over again.

  ‘Today didn’t go as planned.’ Matt finished the beer, wondered whether to have another. But he had already drunk too much for his own good—had had to get his driver to fer
ry him across to Tess’s apartment. Hell, what else was alcohol for, if not to smooth away the rough edges of uncomfortable situations? He had made an appalling mistake in asking Vicky to accompany them. It had been a massive error of judgement. And for a man who could count his errors of judgement on the fingers of one hand, it tasted like poison. He helped himself to another beer and angled her a challenging look as she mutely stared at him, her mouth half open in surprise.

  ‘No,’ Tess agreed stiffly. Now that she was looking at the detail, she could see that his hair was rumpled and he looked a bit askew—a bit like a guy who wasn’t completely in control of everything around him. Vulnerable, it struck her. ‘If you’d wanted to spend time with your girlfriend, then a group outing might not have been the best idea. Or did you think that I would be a good buffer between your girlfriend and your daughter?’

  Matt tilted his head back to swallow some beer and continued to stare at her.

  Held reluctant captive by those dark, brooding eyes, Tess felt her skin begin to tingle—and she hated the feeling. It reminded her of how weak she had been to allow this man to climb under her skin. She hated the intensity of his silence. It felt as if he was sifting through her thoughts, turning her inside out and exposing all her doubts and weaknesses. He already seemed too capable of forcing her to face up to failings she hadn’t known existed.