Pride demanded she earn her own money from now on. The only problem with that was that she didn't have a job-and nothing she had seen in the situations vacant column which she was capable of doing was work that she wanted. Added to that, for all her stepfather had apologised for attempting emotional blackmail, Yancie was awash with guilt because she felt she couldn't go back to living in her old home with him. When she added all that guilt to how she had let Greville down after he had obtained that driver's job for her, Yancie's spirits sank even lower.
She owed it to Greville to try to hang onto her job. After his efforts on her behalf he didn't deserve that she should tell him-and soon knew she must-that she had been suspended. Suspended, too, not by her immediate boss but by none other than the top man himself!
She wanted that job, she truly did. Because the hours could be somewhat erratic, the job paid well. Oh, if only she wasn't' suspended! Oh, if only she had some other reason she could give other than she had gone fifty miles out of her way-leaving aside her cutting up the top of the top brass in the process-to-deliver a spare kettle to Wilf Fisher's mother.
At dinner that night Fennia and Astra were interested in hearing about her day. Yancie told them of her visit to her stepfather, and, because Fennia was having difficulties with her mother, made light of the not very good reception she'd had from her own. And swiftly changed the conversation.
'How about your day?' she asked her cousin. `Did all go well at the nursery?'
Fennia's reply was that they'd had a near disaster when one of the toddlers, who was inseparable from her fluffy elephant called Fanta, had mislaid it. `Poor mite, she was inconsolable-she'd never have gone to sleep tonight without it.'
'But you did find it?'
Fennia's smile said it all. `I was nearly in tears myself when Kate decided to inspect the backpack of one of our little trouble-makers.'
'And all was revealed?"
'He'd got his own soft toy-but he wanted Fanta.'
Yancie got up the following morning, said goodbye to her two cousins when they went off to work, and tried not to think of the notion which had come to her and which returned to pick at her again and again. It was unthinkable, she told herself-frequently.
And yet time, which had never previously hung heavily on her hands, was doing so now. Between them the cousins kept the apartment immaculate, so, having done what few chores there were, Yancie had plenty of time in which to wonder, Would it be so very wrong? And, for goodness' sake, who was she hurting?
No one, came the answer. The moment was born out of nowhere and before she knew it she was picking up the phone and dialling the Addison Kirk number.
'Veronica Taylor, please,' she requested firmly, when the phone was answered, and in next to no time she had Thomson Wakefield's PA on the line asking if she might help her. `Oh, hello,' Yancie said cheerfully, while quite well aware that Veronica Taylor must know she'd been suspended, not prepared to flounder before she got started. `My name's Yancie Dawkins; you may remember I saw Mr Wakefield last Friday-I wonder if I could have a word with him?'
'I'm afraid that's impossible.'
Drat! Yancie dug her heels in. Suddenly it was of paramount importance that she speak with the man that day. `If he's in a meeting, perhaps you'd ask him to call me back,' she requested. Silence at the other end, and somehow Yancie gained the impression that men as busy as the boss of Addison Kirk were not noted for ringing the hoi polloi from the lowly transport section. That thought annoyed her who the dickens did he think he was? She wasn't used to such treatment! `Or, failing that, I'm free this afternoon; I could come in to see him,' she offered magnanimously. Since Yancie knew she was going to lie her head off, she would by far prefer to do it over the phone-if he was so busy, why waste his time seeing her personally?
'I'm afraid Mr Wakefield's time is fully booked today. If you'd like to hold on for a moment.' Yancie held on and a minute or so later the PA was back, and it soon transpired she had been to see the man himself when she said, `If you'd care to look in tomorrow, say around midday, Mr Wakefield will try and slot you into his busy schedule.'
'I should be prepared to wait?' Should I bring sandwiches?
'Mr Wakefield is an exceptionally busy man,' Veronica Taylor answered pleasantly.
So why didn't he just pick up his phone now? It was ridiculous that she should have to go and sit there and, remembering the last time, wait and wait. He was in his office so why didn't he just pick up his perishing phone and let her get her lies said, done and over with now? But, Yancie reminded herself, she wanted her job back; she truly, truly did. And if this was what she had to do to get it, so be it. 'I'll be in tomorrow-around midday, as you suggest,' she said nicely, adding a polite goodbye-and realised that yet again, without even having spoken with him, Thomson Wakefield had managed to disturb her equilibrium.
When she had calmed down from her niggle of annoyance, Yancie started to feel quite excited about her interview tomorrow. So much depended on its outcome. And truly she was a good driver. She'd made a mistake, but she'd learned from it, and if only Thomson Wakefield would give her another chance… Now, what should she wear?
She had a wardrobe or two full of really wonderful clothes. Somehow, when she had never felt the need of a confidence boost before, Yancie now experienced the oddest desire to want to look her very, very best when she saw Thomson Wakefield tomorrow.
Which, she scoffed a minute or so later, was just so much nonsense-no man had the right to tilt hey confidence a little, or even the merest fraction. She went and checked out a fresh uniform.
At eleven fifty-five the following morning Yancie, suited in her newly dry-cleaned uniform and crisp beige shirt, presented herself at Veronica Taylor's office. Yancie had debated whether or not to wear her name tag, but thought, since Thomson Wakefield knew perfectly well who she was, that she wouldn't bother. She had, in fact, been halfway out the door of the apartment when it had dawned on her that for someone desperate to be reinstated she was risking it.
So now, duly labelled, she sat in Veronica Taylor's office while the PA rang through to the next-door office to inform her boss-their boss, with any luck-that Yancie Dawkins was there.
Anticipating that the great man would squeeze her into his busy schedule about two minutes before he went for his lunch around one, Yancie had barely read five pages of her book before he buzzed through to say he would see her now.
Yancie, wishing she'd spent her waiting time re-rehearsing the tale she was about to tell, quickly put her paperback in her shoulder bag and, feeling oddly nervous-which was totally absurd, she told herself-she went to the other door in the room, knocked briefly, and went in.
Thomson Wakefield was just as she remembered him. Today he wore a dark suit, striped shirt and, as he rose from his chair to indicate she should take the seat she had used a week ago, she saw he was as tall, and as nearly good-looking, as ever.
'Good morning,' she broke the silence that emanated from the non-talkative brute. Br, afternoon,' she corrected, crossing to the chairnot a glimmer of a smile! Here we go-it was like treading through sticky treacle. `Thank you for seeing me at such short notice,' she heard herself say-creepy or what?
Yancie clamped her lips shut, and took the seat he offered; only the ever present knowledge of how much she wanted this job-nay, needed this job-prevented her from getting up and marching out again.
She looked at him. His glance flicked over her. If he observed her name tag neatly in place-and from the little she knew of him she suspected he missed little-he did not comment. In fact he said nothing at all for a good few seconds, but unsmilingly took in her neatly brushed shoulder-length ash-blonde hair and complexion-once rated by some male as exquisite. Wakefield was totally unaffected.
When he did speak, it was to remind her, `You wished to see me?'
So he was throwing the ball into her court. She took a deep breath-bother the man for making her nervous. `I want my job back,' she said bluntly-oh, grief, she hadn't re
hearsed it this way. She saw a trace of ice chill his eyes, and guessed she wasn't going the right way to get it. `Please,' she added, as an afterthought.
Last Friday, in this room, she had thought very briefly-that the man opposite had marginally cracked his face a touch, as if she'd amused him. His mouth tweaked again, but it was so fleeting, she was again certain she was mistaken. In any case, she didn't care to be laughed at.
'So?' he enquired curtly.
So? She stared at him from puzzled and deeply blue eyes. `Oh!' It suddenly clicked.
Though before she could get her wits together and rush into her story Thomson Wakefield, as if thinking her particularly dense, enlightened her. `So why should I give you your job back?'
Yancie didn't care to be thought dense either. `Because I need it,' she answered, which she realised was not the answer he wanted. Therefore, before she started to lie her head off, she managed to find a smile, which had much the same effect on him as any of her other smiles-precisely none-and bucked her ideas up. `Obviously you want to know what I was doing driving where I shouldn't have been a week ago last Thursday,' she said prettily.
He was unimpressed, but his glance to his watch, as if to say if she didn't soon spit it out he'd be making that suspension permanent, prodded her to get on with it. `It might be an idea,' he suggested, and Yancie was certain she heard sarcasm there.
It was the annoyance she felt with him, his sarcasm, and his barely concealed impatience that he could look at his watch, which gave her the kick start she needed. `I really can't think why I didn't tell you the truth before,' she lied. `Other than, of course, I knew I was in the wrong, and…' she tried another smilezilch! '…nobody likes to be in the wrong.' Silence. `But, the plain truth of the matter is, I went to see my sister.'
'Your sister?'
She might well have said `cousin' since she did have those, but had no sister. But Yancie was ever conscious of her connection with her board member half-cousin, Greville, and, fearing she might trip herself up if she started talking `cousins', she'd thought it better to invent a sister. In her view if she was going to have to tell a lie anyway she might as well make it a good one.
'My sister had been to stay with me for a few days, with her toddler daughterer Miranda. Anyhow,' Yancie rushed on, suddenly starting to feel extremely uncomfortable at lying-though still feeling unable to tell the truth and bring Wilf into it. `Anyhow, my nniece has this soft toy, a lion, called Leo. She's devoted to Leo, but no sooner had they arrived back at their home, early, very early on Thursday morning, than my sister was ringing me to say they'd just discovered Miranda had left Leo behind, and was inconsolable without him.' Yancie, most of her lying out of the way, looked directly at Thomson Wakefield. She smiled; he didn't. `You know how children are.'
He surveyed her coolly. `I don't have any.'
'Well-er-I' in sure your wife would know…'
'Had I a wife, Miss Dawkins, I'm sure she would, but I am not married.'
'Oh!' Yancie looked at him with fresh eyes. Given that his smiles were non-existent, to anybody who didn't dislike him as much as she did, she supposed he was good-lookingin fact, quite dishy.
'Oh?' he queried when she had added nothing.
Yancie quickly got herself back together again. Dishy? Was she crazy? `Oh, anyway, the child-er-Miranda wouldn't have slept a wink that Thursday night if I hadn't been able to get Fanta-I mean Leo-to her. As I mentioned, she was already fretting dreadfully. I promised my sister I'd get the-er-lion to her that day. But-how?'
His grey eyes were cool. In fact, as he looked steadily at her, the whole of the man seemed cool; while suddenly she was boiling hot-well, who wouldn't be after trotting out that load of balderdash? But, balderdash or not, had he believed it?
Yancie waited, barely breathing, and was so relieved she didn't have a chance to feel guilty when it seemed he had, indeed, believed her, when he stated, `You decided to deliver the lion personally.'
'I know I shouldn't have, and I wouldn't do such a thing again,' she promised. `But it was an emergency, and little Cassandra's M-Miranda-she's sometimes called Cassandra…' clown, concentrate `…stopped crying the moment she saw her adored lion.'
'For which we must all be truly grateful,' Thomson Wakefield commented dryly. Sarcastic devil. Yancie waited, wondering if she had said too little, but afraid to say more. This lie-telling wasn't as easy as she'd imagined. She waited, stumped to know anyhow what more she could say. Then the head man was leaning back in his chair. `So you think, on the strength of what you've just told me, I should consider cancelling your suspension?"
'If you wouldn't mind,' she requested quietly.
And had to bear his long scrutiny before Thomson Wakefield said, `Very well.' Hope rose-but she'd thought she'd still got her job last Friday-until he'd added that `but'.
'You mean, I'm reinstated?' she checked carefully.
'As of now,' he confirmed. `Though, after you've been to see Kevin Veasey, I suggest you go home.'
Yancie stared at him, her confusion showing. 'I'm reinstated, but I'm to go home? I don't understand.'
'You're driving tomorrow,' he enlightened her. `Any problem with that?'
Tomorrow was Saturday, but… `Not one,' she quickly assured him.
'Good.'
'I expect Kevin will tell me who I'm driving, and where,' she remarked, relief starting to enter her soul-she had her job back, she did, she did! The interview was over-and she'd been reinstated!
But before she could politely thank Thomson Wakefield for allowing her to continue to work for the firm, prior to getting to her feet and getting out of there, he was knocking them straight from under her by saying smoothly, `Oh, I can tell you that.' And with something near to a smile on his face he announced, 'You'll be driving me.'
Yancie stared at him, and blushed, though she had not the smallest notion why she should blush-something emotional, she supposed. `You!' she said faintly-this the man last seen driving himself in an Aston Martin!
'Strange though it seems to you,' he replied, a man who apparently was able to add mindreader to the rest of his accomplishments, `I quite often require to be driven to some meeting or other.'
He had meetings, on a Saturday! On reflection, Yancie supposed that he would. Thinking about it, she realised that no business was likely to so much as get off the ground, much less be the giant concern Addison Kirk was, if those at the top, the decision-makers, shut up shop on the dot of five every Friday evening.
'Yes, of course,' she agreed-well, she wasn't likely to start disagreeing with him, not now-not now she had her lovely job back. 'If-er-you can give me some loose idea of the time your meeting is scheduled to finish,' she went on agreeably, adding hurriedly, `I know, of course, that meetings very often overrun-which, naturally, isn't a problem; I'll still be in ample time to attend Gr…the party I'm going to tomorrow night.' Yancie started to feel hot all over again because she had almost slipped up there and mentioned Greville's name, even though she knew there was more than one male with the name Greville out there.
But Thomson Wakefield was nearly smiling again, and didn't look in the least tiny bit sorry when he went on to let her know that her surmise that his meeting was a morning one was totally erroneous. `I'm afraid you'll be missing your party tomorrow evening,' he informed her smoothly.
Her blue eyes widened. `I will?"
'Weren't you advised at your job interview that, as well as the work sometimes involving erratic hours, there would occasionally be times when you'd be required to stay away from home overnight?'
Yancie stared blankly at him. She was going to have to go away with her least favourite person, and stay away overnight!
'Y-yes,' she stammered, pulling herself together.
'You do still want the job?'
Yancie started to hate him-and his threats. `Of course.' The actress awoke in her, and she smiled. `Not a problem. May I ask where we're going? I'd like to look at a road map.'
He stood up, the in
terview over. `Mrs Taylor will give you all the details.'
Yancie stood up too. `Do I need to… T She broke off as it came to her that he would not countenance having a PA who was anything other than par excellence. `I expect Mrs Taylor will attend to my overnight accommodation.'
He walked with her to the interconnecting door. `You catch on fast,' he said.
Very fast, she would have said. She had been going to thank him for reinstating her. But all at once she was on to realising that, as he wouldn't suffer a PA who wasn't par excellence, neither would he suffer having someone drive him who wasn't of the same quality.
And Yancie knew then-forget his magnanimity in reinstating her. What tomorrow was about was Thomson Wakefield checking at first hand the quality of her driving skills. If she didn't measure up, he would no doubt be telling her, within a very few miles, Reinstatement? Forget it; you're out.
To think she had been going to thank him! He could forget that, for a start!
CHAPTER THREE
YANCIE was up extra early the next morning. She was due to pick up her passenger at eight sharp. There was absolutely no way she was going to be late. Thomson Wakefield wanted to judge how good she was-she intended to show him, in all respects. She was going to be on time, smart and courteous and, above all, ensure that he would find no fault with her driving.
Fortunately, her cousins were early risers too, and Astra, scheduled to meet a client later, volunteered to give her a lift to Addison Kirk where Yancie would pick up the Jaguar prior to collecting her boss. Then she would head up the motorway with Thomson Wakefield to a conference on the other side of Leeds.
'A pity you'll miss Greville's party tonight,' Astra commented as they drove, knowing Yancie had telephoned him last night to say she wouldn't be able to make it because she was driving Thomson Wakefield north.
The Feisty Fiancée Page 4