Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

by Jessica Hart

  ‘Next!’ she snarled as we made it to the top of the queue, and then she caught sight of me and smiled-a sight so rare that the executives now helping themselves to sugar stared in disbelief.

  ‘Back again, cara?’ she called, banging out old coffee grounds from the espresso machine. ‘Your usual?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Lucia.’ I smiled back at her, and then glanced at Phin, who was watching me with an oddly arrested expression. ‘And…?’ I prompted him.

  ‘Americano for me,’ he supplied quickly, before Lucia got impatient with him. ‘No milk.’

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ I asked Phin as I slid onto a shiny plastic banquette. Otto’s wasn’t big on style.

  ‘I’m curious,’ he said, transferring the cups to the table and pushing the tray aside.

  ‘Curious?’

  ‘Perhaps intrigued is a better word,’ said Phin. ‘You know, I’ve dodged guerrillas in South America, I’ve been charged at by a rhino and dangled by a rope over a thousand-foot crevasse, but I found Lucia pretty scary. She had every single person in that queue intimidated, but you she calls cara. What’s that about?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ I said, making patterns in the cappuccino froth with my teaspoon. ‘I wrote her a note once, that was all.’

  ‘What sort of note?’

  ‘I noticed that she wasn’t here one day, mainly because the queue doesn’t move nearly as fast when she’s not around. I asked why not, and she told me she’d had to go back to Italy because her father had died. I wrote her a short note, just to say that I was sorry. It wasn’t a big deal,’ I muttered. I was rather embarrassed by the way Lucia had never forgotten it.

  Phin looked at me thoughtfully. ‘That was a kind thing to do.’

  Feeling awkward, I sipped at my coffee. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘Anyone can write a note.’

  ‘But only you did.’

  He picked up his doughnut and took a big bite while I watched enviously. My mouth was watering, and I was feeling quite light-headed with the lack of sugar.

  ‘Want a bit?’ he asked, offering the plate.

  I flushed at the thought that he had noticed me staring. ‘No…thank you,’ I said primly.

  ‘Sure? It’s very good.’

  I knew it was good. That was the trouble. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Phin shrugged, and finished the doughnut with unnecessary relish.

  The more he enjoyed it, the crosser I got. What sort of boss was this, who dragged you out to coffee, tried to force-feed you doughnuts and then tortured you by eating them in front of you?

  Scowling, I buried my face in my cappuccino.

  ‘So, Summer Curtis,’ he said, brushing sugar from his fingers at last. ‘Tell me about yourself.’

  It sounded like an interview question, so I sat up straighter and composed myself. ‘Well, I’ve been working for Gibson & Grieve for five years now, the last three as assistant to the Chief Executive’s PA-’ I began, but Phin held up both hands.

  ‘I don’t need to know how many A levels you’ve got or where you’ve worked,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Lex wouldn’t have appointed you if he didn’t trust you absolutely. I’m more interested in finding out what makes you tick. If you’re going to be my personal assistant I think we should get to know each other personally, and your work experience won’t tell me anything I really need to know.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked, disconcerted.

  Phin sat back against the banquette and eyed me thoughtfully. ‘Like your pet peeves, for instance. What really irritates you?’

  ‘How long have you got?’ I asked. ‘Sniffing. Jiggling. Mess. Smiley faces made out of punctuation marks. Phrases like “Ah…bless…” or “I love her to bits, but…” Men who sit on the tube with their legs wide apart. Unpunctuality. Sloppy spelling and misuse of the apostrophe-that’s a big one for me.’ I paused, aware that I might have been getting a bit carried away. ‘Do you want me to go on?’

  ‘I think I might be getting the picture,’ he said, his mouth twitching.

  ‘I’m a bit of a perfectionist.’

  ‘So I gathered.’ I could tell he was trying not to laugh, and I was beginning to regret being so honest.

  ‘You did ask,’ I pointed out defensively.

  ‘I did. Maybe I should have asked you what you do like.’

  ‘I like my job.’

  ‘Being a secretary?’

  I nodded. ‘Organisations like Gibson & Grieve don’t work unless executives have proper administrative back-up. I like organising things, checking details, pulling everything together. I like making sure everything is in its right place. That’s why I like filing. I find it satisfying.’

  Phin didn’t say anything. He just looked at me across the table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, putting up my chin. ‘I do. Shoot me.’

  He grinned at that. ‘So…an unexpectedly kind, nitpicking perfectionist with an irrational prejudice against poor punctuation and a bizarre attachment to filing. I think we’re getting somewhere. What else do I need to know about you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? There must be more than that.’

  I drank my coffee, unaccountably flustered. I was more thrown than I wanted to admit by the blueness of his eyes, by that lazy smile and the sheer vitality of his presence. There was a whole table between us, but I was finding it hard to breathe.

  ‘I really don’t know what you want me to tell you,’ I said. ‘I’m twenty-six, I share a flat in south London with a friend, and my life is the exact opposite of yours.’

  His eyes gleamed at that, and he leant forward. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you come from a wealthy family whose stores are a household name,’ I pointed out. ‘You make television programmes doing the kind of things the rest of us would never dare to do, and when you’re not skiing down a glacier or hacking through a jungle you’re at all the A-list parties-usually with a beautiful girl on your arm. The closest I get to an A-list party is reading about one in Glitz, and I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than set foot in a rainforest. We don’t have a single thing in common.’

  ‘You can’t say that,’ Phin objected. ‘You don’t really know anything about me.’

  ‘I feel as if I do,’ I told him. ‘My flatmate, Anne, is your biggest fan, and after listening to her talk about you for the past two years I could take a quiz on you myself.’ I pushed my empty cup aside. ‘Go on-ask me. Anything,’ I offered largely, and even gave him an example. ‘What’s your latest girlfriend called?’

  A smile was tugging at the corner of Phin’s mouth. ‘You tell me,’ he said.

  ‘Jewel,’ I said triumphantly. ‘Jewel Stevens. She’s an actress, and when you went to some awards ceremony last week she wore a red dress that had Anne weeping with envy.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘I think it would have looked classier in black,’ I said, and Phin laughed.

  ‘I’m impressed. Clearly I don’t need to tell you anything about myself, as you know it all already. Although I think I should point out that Jewel isn’t, in fact, my girlfriend. We’ve been out a couple of times, but that’s all. There’s no question of a real relationship, whatever the papers say.’

  ‘I’ll tell Anne. She’ll be delighted,’ I said. ‘She’s got a very active fantasy life in which you figure largely, in spite of the fact that she’s very happy with her fiancé, Mark.’

  ‘And what do you fantasise about, Summer?’ asked Phin, his eyes on my face.

  Ah, my fantasies. They were always the same. Jonathan realising that he had made a terrible mistake. Jonathan telling me he loved me. Jonathan asking me to marry him. We’d buy a house together. London prices being what they were, we might have to go out to the suburbs, and even pooling our resources we’d be lucky to get a semi-detached house, but that would be fine by me. I didn’t need anywhere grand. I just wanted Jonathan, and somewhere I could stay.

  I realise a suburban sem
i-detached isn’t the stuff of most wild fantasies, but it was a dream that had kept me going ever since Jonathan had told me before Christmas that he ‘needed some space’. He thought it was better that we didn’t see each other outside the office any more. He knew how sensible I was, and was sure I would understand.

  I sighed. What could I do but agree that, yes, I understood? But I lived for the brief glimpses I had of him now, and the hope that he might change his mind.

  Phin was watching me expectantly, his brows raised, and I had an uneasy sense that those blue eyes could see a lot more than they ought to be able to. He was still waiting for me to answer his question.

  Jonathan had been insistent that we keep our relationship a secret at the office, so I hadn’t told anyone. I certainly wasn’t going to start with Phin Gibson.

  ‘I want a place of my own,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t have to be very big-in fact I’ll be lucky if I can afford a studio-but it has to be mine. It has to be somewhere I could live for ever.’ I glanced at him. ‘I suppose you think that’s very boring?’

  ‘It’s not what I was expecting, and it’s not a fantasy I understand, but it’s not boring,’ said Phin. ‘I don’t find much boring, to tell you the truth. People are endlessly interesting, don’t you think? Obviously not!’ he went straight on, seeing my sceptical expression. ‘Well, I find them interesting. Why is it so important for you to have a home of your own?’

  ‘Oh…I moved around a lot as a child. My mother has always been heavily into alternative lifestyles, and she’s prone to sudden intense enthusiasms. One year we’d be in a commune, the next we were living on a houseboat. When my father was alive we had a couple of freezing years in a tumbledown smallholding in Wales.’

  It was odd to find myself telling Phin Gibson, of all people, about my childhood. I didn’t normally talk about it much-not that it had been particularly traumatic, but it was hard for most people I knew to understand what it was like growing up with a mother who was as charming and lovely and flaky as they come-and there was something about the way he was listening, his expression intent and his attention absolutely focused on me, that unlocked my usual reserve.

  ‘Wales was the closest we ever got to settling down,’ I told him. ‘The rest of the time we kept moving. Not because we had to, but because my mother was always looking for something more.

  ‘Basically,’ I said, ‘she’s got the attention span of a gnat. I lost count of the schools I attended, of the weird and wonderful places we lived for a few months before moving on.’

  I turned the cup and saucer between my fingers. ‘I suppose it’s inevitable I grew up craving security the way others crave excitement. My mother can’t understand it, though. She’s living in a tepee in Somerset at the moment, and for her the thought of buying a flat and settling down is incomprehensible. I’m a big disappointment to her,’ I finished wryly.

  ‘There you are-we’ve something in common after all,’ said Phin, sitting back with a smile and stretching his long legs out under the table. ‘I’m a big disappointment to my parents, too.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  I LOOKED at him in surprise. ‘But you’re famous,’ I said. I’d known Lex wasn’t impressed by his younger brother, but had assumed that his parents at least would be pleased by his success. ‘You’ve had a successful television career.’

  ‘My parents aren’t impressed by television.’ Phin smiled wryly. ‘They think the media generally is shallow and frivolous-certainly compared to the serious business of running Gibson & Grieve. Lex and I were brought up to believe that the company was all that mattered, and that it was the only future we could ever have or ever want.’

  ‘When did you change your mind?’

  ‘When I realised that there wasn’t really a place for me here. Lex is older than me, and anyway he had Chief Executive written all over him even as a toddler. Gibson & Grieve was all he ever cared about.’

  It was my turn to study Phin. He was looking quite relaxed, leaning back against the banquette, but I sensed that this wasn’t an easy topic of conversation for him.

  ‘Didn’t you ever want to be part of it, too?’

  ‘As a very small boy I used to love going into the office,’ he admitted. ‘But as I got bigger I didn’t fit. I was always being told to be quiet or sit still, and I didn’t like doing either of those things. I wanted to skid over the shiny floors, or play football, or fiddle with the new computers. After a while I stopped going.’

  Phin’s smile was a little crooked. ‘Of course it’s easy now to see that I was just a spoilt brat looking for attention, but at the time it felt as if I were reacting against all their expectations. Lex was always there, doing what he should, and there never seemed any point in me doing the same. I got into as much trouble as I could instead,’ he said. ‘My parents were beside themselves. They didn’t know what to do with me, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I don’t think they ever thought I would get a degree, and I took off as soon as I’d graduated. I suspect that they were glad to be rid of me! I mean, what would they have done with me at Gibson & Grieve? I didn’t fit with the image at all!’

  No, he wouldn’t have done, I thought. In spite of its commitment to style, Gibson & Grieve was at heart a very solid, traditional company-it was one of the reasons I liked it-and Phin would have been too chaotic, too vibrant, too energetic to ever properly fit in.

  ‘So what did you do?’ I asked, wondering how he was going to fit in now that he was back.

  ‘I messed around for a few years,’ he said. ‘I worked my way around the world. I didn’t care what I did as long as I was somewhere I could keep my adrenalin pumping-skiing, sailing, white-water rafting, climbing, sky-diving…I tried them all. I spent some time in the Amazon and learnt jungle survival skills, and then I got a job leading a charity expedition, and that led onto behind the scenes advice on a reality TV programme.’

  He shrugged. ‘It seems I came across well on camera, and the next thing I knew they’d offered me my own programme, taking ill-assorted groups into challenging situations.’

  And I knew what had happened after that. It had taken no time at all for Phin Gibson to become a celebrity, almost as famous as Gibson & Grieve itself.

  ‘And now you’ve joined the company,’ I said.

  ‘I have.’ Phin was silent for a moment, looking down at his hands, which lay lightly clasped on the table, and then he looked up at me and the blueness of his eyes was so intense that I actually drew a sharp breath.

  ‘Last year I took a group of young offenders on a gruelling trek through Peru,’ he said.

  I remembered the programme. I had watched it with Anne, and even I had had to admit that the change in those boys by the end of the trek was extraordinary.

  ‘I recognised myself in them,’ Phin said. ‘It made me think about how difficult it must have been for my parents. I guess I’d grown up in spite of myself.’

  His mouth quirked in a self-deprecating grin, then he sobered. ‘My father had a stroke last year as well. That put a new perspective on everything. It seemed to me that it was time to try and make some amends. My mother has got it into her mind that all Dad wants is for me to settle down and take up my inheritance at Gibson & Grieve.’

  He sighed a little. ‘To be honest, it’s a little hard to know exactly what Dad wants now, but he did manage to squeeze my hand when my mother told him what she had in mind. Basically, a certain amount of emotional blackmail is being applied! In lots of ways it’s worse for Lex,’ Phin went on thoughtfully. ‘He stepped into my father’s shoes as Chief Executive, and he’s been doing a good job. Profits are up. Everyone’s happy. The last thing he wants is me muddying the waters. In the end he suggested that we capitalise on my “celebrity”, for want of better word, and make me the new face of Gibson & Grieve. You know we’ve just acquired Gregson’s?’

  He cocked an eyebrow at me and I nodded. The acquisition had made the headlines a few months ago when it happened.

  ‘Super
markets are a change of direction for us,’ Phin went on. ‘Our brand has always been up-market, even exclusive, and we need more of a popular, family-friendly image now. Lex seems to think I can help with that, and I agreed to see how it went for a year initially, on condition that I could finish a couple of filming commitments.’

  I smoothed my skirt over my knees. I was feeling a bit bad, if you want the truth. I’d dismissed Phin as a spoilt celebrity and assumed that he was choosing to dabble in the family business for a while. I hadn’t realised that he was under some pressure.

  ‘It makes sense for you to be Director of Media Relations,’ I offered.

  ‘I think we all know how little that means,’ said Phin, leaning across the table, and I found myself leaning back as if pushed there by the sheer force of his personality. ‘Lex’s idea is to shunt me off and just wheel me out to be photographed every now and then. As far as he’s concerned all the media relations will be done by his PR guy…what’s his name? John?’

  ‘Jonathan Pugh.’

  Just saying his name was enough to bump my heart into my throat, and my tongue felt thick and unwieldy in my mouth. I wondered if Phin would notice how husky I sounded, but he didn’t seem to.

  ‘Yep, that’s him,’ was all he said, sitting back again. ‘A born suit.’

  I bridled at the dismissive note in his voice. I’d been quite liking Phin until then, but I was very sensitive to any criticism of Jonathan. At least Jonathan dressed professionally, unlike some people I could mention, I thought, eyeing Phin’s T-shirt disapprovingly.

  ‘Jonathan’s very good at his job,’ I said stiffly.

  ‘Lex wouldn’t employ him unless he was,’ said Phin. ‘But if he’s that good there won’t be much left for me to do, will there? I’m not going to spend a year opening stores and saving Lex the trouble of turning up at charity bashes.’