Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

by Jessica Hart

  ‘He’ll be too busy with Stephen Hodge to notice me,’ I protested, but Phin refused to listen to any objections.

  ‘If you get the right dress he’ll notice you, all right,’ he said. ‘Besides, I have a cunning plan up my sleeve to relax you.’

  ‘What sort of plan?’ I asked suspiciously. I had tried to loosen up whenever we’d been out together, but it was almost impossible when every cell in my body jolted if Phin so much as grazed me with his touch.

  ‘I’ll explain on Friday,’ he said. ‘The launch is at seven, isn’t it? We might as well go straight from here.’

  Which is how I ended up changing in the directors’ bathroom that Friday evening. I’d brought my dress in on a hanger, and carried shoes and make-up in a separate bag.

  I had put the need to look stunning to Anne, who had borne me off late-night shopping the night before, and bullied me into buying the most expensive dress I’d ever owned. Even though I felt faintly sick whenever I thought about my credit card bill, I couldn’t regret it. It was so beautiful.

  I don’t really know how to begin to describe it. It was red, but not that hard pillarbox red that’s so hard to wear. This was a softer, deeper, warmer red-a simple sleeveless sheath, with a layer of chiffon that floated and swirled as I walked. I wasn’t used to such a plunging neckline, and with bare shoulders and a bare back I felt a lot more exposed than usual, but it was the kind of dress you couldn’t help but feel good in.

  I’d painted my toenails a lovely deep red-Ruby, Ruby-to match my fingers, and slipped my feet into beautiful jewelled sandals. My hair was swept up into a clip, and I thought it looked elegant like that, but I hesitated as I studied my reflection, remembering Phin’s librarian comment. On an impulse I pulled the clip out and shook my hair free, and then I walked back into the office before I could change my mind.

  Phin was there, adjusting his bow tie, but his fingers froze when he saw me. There was a moment of stunned silence. ‘Dear God,’ he said blankly.

  My confidence promptly evaporated. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ I asked, looking down at my lovely dress. I’d been so sure he would like it.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ Phin cleared his throat. ‘Nothing at all. You look…incredible.’

  He sounded a bit odd, I thought, but he had said I looked incredible. ‘Shall I order a taxi?’ I asked after a moment.

  ‘No, it’s all sorted,’ he said, still distracted. ‘A car’s waiting downstairs.’

  ‘Oh. Well, shall we go, then?’

  Phin seemed to pull himself together. ‘Not quite yet, CP,’ he said, making a good recovery. ‘We need to put my cunning plan into action first.’

  ‘CP?’ I echoed blankly.

  ‘Cream…’ He waited expectantly for me to supply the rest.

  Puff, in fact. I sighed.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ I said crossly. ‘Will you stop with the silly names? Now, what is this plan of yours?’

  ‘It’s really quite simple,’ said Phin, coming towards me. ‘I’m going to kiss you.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘KISS me?’ The world titled disconcertingly beneath my feet, and it took me a moment to realise that the air was leaking out of my lungs. I drew in a hissing breath, glad of the steadying effect of the oxygen. We had been through this before, I remembered. ‘What kind of plan is that?’

  ‘A good one,’ said Phin.

  ‘We agreed that you would only kiss me again if it was necessary,’ I reminded him, backing away. My voice was embarrassingly croaky, but under the circumstances-i.e. pounding heart, racing pulse, entrails squeezed with nerves or, more worryingly, anticipation-I didn’t think I did too badly.

  ‘I think it is necessary,’ he said.

  I had ended up against the desk, the wood digging into the back of my thighs. ‘There’s no one else here,’ I pointed out bravely. ‘How can it be necessary?’

  Phin kept coming until he was right in front of me. ‘That’s the whole point,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. If we kiss before we go out every time you’ll get used to it. It’ll just seem part of the evening, like putting on your lipstick-although you might think about doing that after we kiss next time. You’ll look much more relaxed after a kiss,’ he went on. ‘Remember how well it worked before the Glitz interview?’

  ‘We’re not kissing like that again!’ My eyes went involuntarily to the sofas on the other side of the room. If we ended up on one of those we’d never get to the party.

  ‘Maybe not quite like that,’ Phin agreed. A smile hovered around his mouth. The mouth I was doing my level best not to look at. ‘Not that it wasn’t very nice, but what we want now is for you to feel more comfortable. Once kissing me feels normal, you’ll stop feeling so tense whenever I touch you.’

  ‘It’s not going to feel normal tonight.’

  ‘No, but I can tell you that if you go to the party in that dress, looking thoroughly kissed, it won’t just be Jonathan I’ll be fighting off with a stick,’ Phin promised.

  Jonathan. The thought of him steadied me. Jonathan was the reason I was wearing this dress…wasn’t he?

  ‘Go on, admit it,’ said Phin. ‘It’s a good plan, isn’t it?’

  I eyed him dubiously. I couldn’t help remembering the last time we had kissed. I had got carried away then, and I didn’t want that to happen again. On the other hand, I didn’t want to admit to Phin that I was nervous about losing control. Somehow I had to pretend that it wasn’t that big a deal.

  ‘It might work,’ I conceded, and he grinned.

  ‘Come along, then-pucker up, cream puff,’ he said. ‘The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can get to the party.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ I gave in. ‘If you really think it’ll help.’

  Maybe it would help, I told myself. Instead of constantly wondering what it would be like to touch him again, I would know.

  So I stood very still and lifted my face for Phin’s kiss, pursing my lips and closing my eyes.

  And willing myself not to respond.

  Nothing happened at first, and, feeling foolish, I opened my eyes again in time to see him brush my hair gently back over my shoulders. Then very slowly, almost thoughtfully, he slid his hands up the sides of my throat to cup my face. His eyes never left mine, and I felt as if I were trapped in their blueness. My heart was slamming against my ribs.

  My mouth felt dry, and I had moistened my lips before I realised what an inviting gesture it was.

  Phin smiled. We were so close I could see every eyelash, every one of the tiny creases in his lips, the precise depth of the dent at the corner of his mouth, and I felt dizzy with the nearness of him.

  By the time he lowered his head and touched his mouth to mine my blood was thumping with anticipation, and I couldn’t help the tiny gasp of relief that parted my lips beneath his.

  I willed myself to stay still and unresponsive. All I had to do was stand there for a few seconds and it would be over. How difficult could it be?

  You try it. That’s all I can say. Try not responding when a man with warm, strong hands twines his fingers in your hair and pulls you closer. When a man with warm, sure lips explores your mouth tantalisingly gently at first, then more insistently. When he smells wonderful and tastes better.

  When every kiss pulls at a thread inside you, unravelling you faster and faster, until the world rocks and your bones melt and the only way to stay upright is to clutch at him and kiss him back.

  ‘That’s better,’ murmured Phin when he lifted his head at last.

  I was flushed and trembling, but I was glad to see that his breathing wasn’t quite steady either.

  ‘There-it wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he added, sliding his hands reluctantly from my hair.

  ‘It was fine,’ I managed, hoping my legs were going to hold me up without him to hang on to. I was very glad there was a car waiting downstairs. It was going to take all I had to get to the lift, and I was in no shape to trek to the tube-ev
en if my shoes had been up to it.

  For reasons best known to the television company, the launch party for Hodge Hits was being held in the Orangery at Kew Gardens. I’d never been before, and it looked so beautiful with that row of high arched windows that I actually forgot my throbbing lips and crackling pulse as I looked around me.

  The room was already crowded, but I caught a glimpse of Stephen Hodge, surrounded by groupies as always, wearing his trademark scowl. He had long hair that always looked as if it could do with a good wash, and he was very thin. There’s something unnatural about a thin chef, don’t you think? I suspected that Stephen Hodge never ate his own food and, having seen some of his more innovative recipes, I didn’t blame him.

  ‘Now, be nice,’ said Phin, seeing my lip curl.

  ‘That’s good, coming from you,’ I countered. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right speech with you?’

  He’d tried a scurrilous version on me earlier, which had been very funny but which was unlikely to go down well with either Hodge or Jonathan, who had been instrumental in setting up the sponsorship. I was hoping that he had a suitably bland alternative in his pocket somewhere, but with Phin you never knew.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got the toadying version right here,’ he said, patting his jacket. ‘Besides, you’re not in PA mode tonight. You’re my incredibly sexy girlfriend and don’t you forget it. Talking of which-’ he nudged me ‘-look who’s heading our way. Or rather don’t look. You’re supposed to be absorbed in me.’

  I risked a swift glance anyway, and spotted Jonathan, pushing his way through the crowd towards us. He had Lori with him, looking tiny and delicate in a sophisticated ivory number. I immediately felt crass and garish in comparison, but it was too late to run away.

  ‘Remember-make him jealous,’ Phin murmured in my ear.

  There was no way Jonathan would even notice me next to Lori, I thought, but I turned obediently and slid my arm around Phin’s waist, snuggling closer and smiling up at him as if I hadn’t noticed Jonathan at all.

  Perhaps that kiss had worked after all. It felt oddly comfortable to be leaning against Phin’s hard, solid body-so much so, in fact, that when Jonathan’s voice spoke behind me I was genuinely startled.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here, Phin,’ Jonathan began. ‘I just wanted to check everything’s under control. We want to kick off with your speech, and then Stephen’s going to-’

  He broke off as his gaze fell on me, and I gave him my most dazzling smile. ‘Summer!’

  ‘Hi, Jonathan,’ I said.

  Gratifyingly, he looked pole-axed. ‘I didn’t recognise you,’ he said.

  Beside him, Lori raised elegant brows. ‘Nor did I. That colour really suits you, Summer.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said coolly. ‘You look great, too.’

  Jonathan was still watching me with a stunned expression. Funny, I had dreamt of him looking at me just that way, but now that he was doing it I felt awkward and embarrassed.

  ‘You look amazing tonight,’ he said, and all I could think was that it wasn’t fair of him to be talking to me like that when Lori was standing right beside him.

  ‘Doesn’t she?’ Phin locked gazes with Jonathan in an unspoken challenge, and slid his hand possessively beneath my hair to rest it on the nape of my neck.

  I could feel the warm weight of it-not pressing uncomfortably, but just there, a reassuring connection-and I had one of those weird out of body moments when you can look at yourself as if from the outside. I could see how easy we looked together, how right.

  Jonathan and Lori had no reason not to believe that we were a real couple. They would look at us and assume that we were used to touching intimately, to understanding each other completely. To not knowing precisely where one finished and the other began, so that there was no more me, no more Phin, just an us.

  The thought of an ‘us’ made the world tip a little. Abruptly I was back in my body, and desperately aware of Phin’s solid strength beneath my arm, of the tingling imprint of his palm on my neck.

  There was no us, I had to remind myself. I only just stopped myself shaking my head to clear it. Everything about the party seemed so unreal, but I was bizarrely able to carry on a conversation with Jonathan and Lori while every cell in my body was straining with Phin’s closeness.

  True, it wasn’t much of a conversation. Some small talk about Stephen Hodge and his vile temper. I complimented Lori on her earrings, she mentioned my shoes, but all I could really think about was the way Phin was absently stroking my neck, his thumb caressing my skin.

  Every graze of his fingertips stoked the sizzle deep inside me, and I was alarmingly aware that it could crackle into life at any time. If I wasn’t careful there would be a whoosh and I would spontaneously combust. That would spoil Stephen Hodge’s party all right.

  I had to move away from Phin or it would all get very messy. Straightening, I made a show of pushing my hair behind my ears. ‘Um…isn’t it time for your speech?’ I asked him with an edge of desperation.

  ‘I suppose I’d better throw a few scraps to the monster’s ego,’ sighed Phin. ‘He hasn’t been kow-towed to for all of thirty seconds! Where would you like me to do it, Jonathan?’

  ‘We’ve set up a podium,’ said Jonathan. ‘I’d better go and warn Stephen that we’re ready to go.’

  ‘Lead on,’ said Phin, and held out his hand to me. ‘Are you coming, CP?’

  Jonathan looked puzzled. ‘CP?’

  I smiled uncomfortably as I took Phin’s hand. ‘Private joke,’ I said.

  After that, we had to kiss every time we got ready to go out. ‘Come here and be kissed,’ Phin would say, holding out his arms. ‘This is the best part of the day.’

  I was very careful to keep reminding myself that those kisses didn’t mean a thing, but secretly I found myself looking forward to them. I always tried to make a joke of it, of course.

  ‘Oh, let’s get it over with, then,’ I’d say, putting my arms briskly around his neck, but there was always a moment when our determined jokiness faded into something else entirely, something warm and yearning-the moment when I succumbed to the honeyed pleasure spilling along my veins, to the tug of longing and the wicked crackle of excitement between us.

  I would like to say that it was me who put an end to the kiss every time, but I’d be lying. It was almost always Phin who lifted his head before I remembered that it was only supposed to be a quick kiss and thought about pulling away.

  ‘We’re getting good at this now,’ Phin would say. I noticed, though, that the famous smile looked a little forced, and he was often distracted afterwards.

  The theory had been that the more we kissed, the easier it would get. But it didn’t work like that. It got more and more difficult to disentangle those kisses from reality, harder and harder to remember that I wanted Jonathan, that Phin was just amusing himself.

  To remember why we had to stop at a kiss.

  And the worst thing was that there was a bit of me that didn’t want to.

  Whenever I realised that I’d give myself a stern ticking off. This would involve a rigorous reminder of all the reasons why it would be stupid to fall for someone like Phin. He wasn’t serious. He wasn’t steady. He didn’t want to settle down. I’d end up hurt and humiliated and I’d have no one to blame but myself.

  Much-much-more sensible to remember why I had loved Jonathan. Why I still loved him, I’d have to correct myself an alarming number of times.

  Jonathan was everything Phin wasn’t. He was everything I needed.

  I just couldn’t always remember why.

  Ironically, the harder I tried to remind myself of how much I wanted Jonathan, the more often Jonathan found excuses to drop into the office.

  ‘You can’t tell me our plan’s not working now,’ Phin said to me one evening as we sipped champagne at some gallery opening. ‘Jonathan’s always sniffing around nowadays. I trip over him every time I come into office. I notice he was there again this afternoon.’r />
  He sounded uncharacteristically morose, and I shot him a curious look.

  ‘He just came to see what I knew about the Cameroon trip,’ I said uncomfortably, although I had no idea why I felt suddenly guilty.

  ‘Ha!’ said Phin mirthlessly. ‘Was that all he could think of as an excuse?’

  ‘It wasn’t an excuse,’ I said.

  I had the feeling Jonathan was looking forward to going to Africa about as much as I was. I’d tried everything I could to get out of the trip, but Phin was adamant. The flights were booked for the end of March, and I was dreading it.

  It was so not my kind of travelling. I like city breaks-Paris or Rome or New York-and hotels with hairdryers and mini bars, all of which were obviously going to be in short supply on the Cameroon trip. We’d had to be vaccinated against all sorts of horrible tropical diseases, and Phin had presented us all with a kit list so that we’d know what to take with us. Hairdryers didn’t appear on it. I would be taking a rucksack instead of a pull-along case, walking boots in place of smart city shoes.

  ‘And don’t bother with any make-up,’ Phin had told me. ‘Sunblock is all you’ll need.’

  I was taking some anyway.

  I don’t suppose Jonathan was bothered about the make-up issue, but he was clearly anxious about the whole experience. Phin had presented the trip as a staff development exercise, and I suspected Jonathan didn’t want to be developed any more than I did.

  ‘I’m really glad you’re going to be in same group when we go to Africa,’ he had said to me, only that afternoon.

  Phin was eyeing me moodily over the rim of his champagne glass. ‘Nobody could be that worried about going to Africa. He just wants to hang around and talk to you.’ He scowled at me. ‘I hope you’re not going to give in too easily. Make him work to get you back!’

  ‘Look, what’s the problem?’ I demanded. ‘Isn’t the whole idea that Jonathan starts to find me interesting again? Or did you want to spend the rest of your life stuck in this pretence?’