Secretary on Demand

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Kane that? Instead of having the poor man rush up here, thinking you’d been taken ill?’

  ‘He thought I’d been taken ill?’ Shannon asked anxiously. ‘Did he tell you that? That I was sick?’

  He couldn’t suspect anything, could he? No, she thought, men’s minds didn’t operate like that. And there had been no signs. No sudden bursts of unexplained nausea, no strange food cravings, nothing suspicious. Just as well she’d found out early, before she’d begun to put on weight. Just as well she hadn’t gone on the Pill after all after that first time. Shannon considered the consequences of that and shuddered. She’d accepted the fact of the baby inside her from the very first moment of discovery, and what she felt wasn’t a sense of despondency or of hopes shattered but, strangely, one of rapture that she would now have something to show for her love, a child she could treasure, a lasting memory of the only man she would ever love.

  ‘Not in so many words, but he was obviously concerned.’

  ‘I did contact him after I left,’ Shannon said truthfully. Actually, she’d left a message on his answering machine at home when she’d known he would be at work, telling him that she was very busy but would be in touch as soon as Christmas was out of the way. ‘Did he say when he would be leaving?’

  ‘He didn’t. And I didn’t see fit to ask him. I wouldn’t want him thinking that he was unwelcome here after all that he did for you.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be overnight. He has to get back to Eleanor.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him, then?’

  ‘Ask me what?’

  Typically, Kane had given no advance warning of his reappearance in the kitchen. He hadn’t even knocked! So much for exquisite, gentlemanly good manners. Shannon looked at her mother to see whether she had noticed that oversight, but her mother was smiling. Lord, did this man know how to worm his way under people’s skin!

  ‘Shannon was just wondering how long you were going to be here,’ her mother said guilelessly, ‘because she wanted to take you to a new Italian restaurant that’s opened just outside Dublin. Very near here, in fact. Give you two a chance to talk. There’ll be no opportunity here, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Oh, was she now?’ Kane murmured. He shot her a telling look and smiled. ‘Well, you’re in luck, Shannon, as it happens. I booked to stay overnight in a hotel and it would be my pleasure to be taken out for a meal.’

  ‘Well…I…’ Shannon stalled.

  ‘I know,’ her mother said, reaching over to pat her hand, ‘you’re worried about lack of transport. Well, love, you’re welcome to my car. It’s only an old thing,’ she explained to Kane, ‘but it goes and it’s very reliable. And taxis can be very unreliable at this time of year unless you book one in advance. Of course, you’ll have to change, Shannon. You look a state in those clothes. Whatever possessed you to walk around the house in those faded jeans and great, baggy jumper?’ She clucked her tongue reprovingly.

  ‘Shall I make a reservation? For, let’s say, eight?’

  ‘I’ll just fetch the number for you.’ Her mother inspected various assorted cards attached by magnets to the fridge door and pulled one off. ‘Very handy that I kept this, wouldn’t you agree, Shannon? Hilary went there only last week and was so impressed that she gave me the card. Not that an old woman like me gets to go out to fancy places.’

  Shannon felt like a cornered rabbit.

  ‘In which case, I’m sure Kane wouldn’t mind if you came with us!’ she said, inspired.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Her mother firmly squashed any such hopeful suggestion. ‘I wouldn’t leave these young lads in this house unsupervised if my life depended on it. Don’t know what the state of the place would be when I got back! No, love, you two go and have a good time. Now, you get upstairs and do something with yourself, there’s a good girl.’

  So, left without a choice, Shannon stamped upstairs, pausing en route to look in on Brian who gave her a thumbs-up because evidently the computer had been fixed.

  ‘He’s pretty cool,’ Ronan said, winking conspirationally at her. ‘Better than the last cretin you went out with.’

  ‘Thank you, Ronan,’ Shannon scowled, ‘but when I want the opinions of a minor, I’ll ask.’

  Which resulted in the predictable roaring of four adolescents with nothing, she thought, better to do than make loud, suggestive noises at the slightest opportunity.

  When she reappeared half an hour later it was to find Kane and her mother ensconced in the sitting room, poring over photo albums.

  ‘My fault,’ Kane said, standing up and countering her sour glance with an unrepentant grin. ‘I begged your mother to take a trip down memory lane.’

  ‘Not that I needed much persuasion!’

  ‘What a wonderful way to pass the time,’ Shannon said with a little scowl. She was wearing an old, long-sleeved, black woollen dress, one of the few items in her wardrobe not in need of ironing thanks to Brian’s cavalier treatment of all her clothes which had been bundled up into a trunk in the corner of the bedroom.

  ‘And informative,’ Kane added, walking towards her and helping her on with her coat.

  She muttered cattily under her breath, ‘Especially to nosy people like you.’

  ‘Now, now,’ he whispered silkily into her ear, ‘you won’t get rid of me by being nasty. I’m a persistent guy. I thought you would have known that by now.’

  In retrospect, she thought as they drove through icy weather to the restaurant, his persistence was the one factor she hadn’t reckoned on. She thought that he would have waited for her to contact him, but she should have known that Kane Lindley didn’t wait for people to do things. If it suited him, he would simply intervene and would then proceed to bludgeon through all obstacles until he got what he wanted.

  The drive was completed in silence. She’d demanded silence because she’d said that she would need all her concentration to get them to the restaurant in an unfamiliar car in wintry driving conditions. Obligingly, he said not one word, even though her fertile imagination conducted a conversation of its own, formulating imaginary questions from him and then sifting through the various answers she could give him.

  The restaurant, when they arrived twenty minutes later, was pleasantly crowded. With snow predicted, the weather had kept some people away so that it wasn’t packed to the rafters, and they were shown to a table at the back. It didn’t have the elegance of some of the London restaurants, but there was a pleasing informality about it. In fact, it reminded her of Alfredo’s.

  ‘So, reds,’ Kane said, after he’d ordered some wine and mineral water, ‘have you missed me? You look a bit peaky. Have you been pining?’

  She hadn’t expected that question for an opening gambit. In fact, she thought that he might have gone immediately into accusatory mode, with her mother no longer around to put a brake on his self-control, and had consequently prepared a mental list of all possible answers to deal with accusations.

  ‘I don’t feel peaky,’ she hedged, pretending to give the menu her full attention.

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that you flew to Ireland to find out whether I was missing you or not.’

  ‘Why? Is it that inconceivable?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’ She snapped shut the menu and linked her fingers together on her lap. ‘I’m going to have the soup, followed by the cannelloni. What about you?’

  He ignored her weak attempt to steer the conversation out of choppy waters. ‘Why? Don’t you think that your sudden absence might have left a dent in my life?’

  ‘I think it may have left a dent in your ego,’ Shannon told him. ‘Look, perhaps I shouldn’t have run out like that. I know it was rude but, um, I suddenly got cold feet. Anyway, I did leave a message for you on your answering machine. Didn’t you get it?’

  ‘Oh, I got it all right. I just wasn’t too impressed with it.’

  ‘Why not? I told you I’d be in touch.’ When h
e didn’t say anything, she rushed on, ‘Maybe I should have spoken to you in person, but I didn’t think at the time. I just felt as though I had to get away…’

  ‘In which case, why did you lie and tell Eleanor that your mother had tripped and broken her ankle?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t about to tell her that her father and I had been lovers, was I?’ The words sent a warm flush spreading across her cheeks and she gratefully watched the progress of the waiter towards them. Any distraction to relieve her of her cross-examination.

  They ordered their food and Kane waited in polite silence until wine had been poured and glasses filled with mineral water.

  ‘You’re blushing,’ he commented mildly. ‘Does it still make you go hot under the collar when you think about us making love? Does your skin still tingle when you think about me touching you?’

  ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’ She felt herself go a deeper, brighter shade of red. ‘Why don’t you just get to the point? I know you’re angry with me.’

  ‘Do I look as if I’m angry with you?’

  Shannon sneaked a look at his face. No, he didn’t look angry, but he must be. In fact, she desperately hoped that he was because it would make her life a whole lot easier.

  ‘How do you think I felt when I got back home to find that you’d disappeared? Eleanor was upset. She didn’t understand and she didn’t believe you when you told her that lie about having to rush back to Ireland to see about your mother’s ankle. She may only be eight, but children are very clever when it comes to reading between the lines.’

  ‘Yes, I know, and I’m sorry about that.’ Shannon’s guilt was fast reaching overwhelming proportions. ‘I just couldn’t think of anything else to say.’ She thought of Eleanor’s trusting face and felt a pang of excruciating misery. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight at the time.’

  ‘Why not?’ he moved in swiftly, his eyes narrowing. ‘That’s what I don’t understand. Why you suddenly felt the need to run away. If you wanted to tell me that you weren’t happy with…us, why couldn’t you have waited until the morning instead of rushing out of the house in a panic?’

  ‘Because…because…’ Shannon thought wildly, wondering what she could come up with that would turn desperate, irrational behaviour into something reasonable.

  ‘Take your time. I’m in no hurry.’

  ‘Why can’t you understand that some people act on impulse?’ she cried desperately. She daren’t meet his eyes. She hardly dared look at him, in fact, because there was no part of him that didn’t fill her with memories. ‘Not everyone thinks things through and then behaves in a rational manner! Some of us just do things on the spur of the moment! It’s just another reason why you and I are so ill suited, why we have nothing in common. Nothing!’

  ‘I can think of quite a few things we have in common.’

  ‘And I’m not talking about sex!’ Shannon attacked swiftly.

  ‘Nor am I!’ He leant forward and forced her to look at him, forced her to meet his glittering black eyes. ‘I can’t imagine how little Eleanor and I meant for you to just disappear like a bloody thief in the night, woman!’

  ‘What’s the point trying to defend myself when you won’t even try to understand?’

  ‘I understand that you’re a coward…’

  As she was feverishly trying to come up with an answer to that, the waiter produced their starters and she fell on hers with the enthusiasm of someone saved by the bell.

  ‘So, reds, want to pretend that everything’s all right? Fine. Let’s behave like civilised adults and pretend, shall we? Make polite conversation for a while?’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘How does it feel, being back in Ireland?’ He sighed, as though he couldn’t help himself, and ran his hands wearily over his eyes.

  Shannon didn’t care whether he was humouring her. She grabbed the lifeline with alacrity.

  ‘Weird.’ Her voice was high and unreal. He looked shaken. Was he hurting? She wanted to reach out and stroke his hand, make believe that everything was going to be all right. Instead, she took a few deep breaths and concentrated on her garlic prawns. ‘Also, Brian had taken over my bedroom and he was put out when I turned up because now he’s sharing with Ronan again.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s hard to return to the family nest when you’ve flown it, isn’t it, reds?’ he murmured roughly.

  Shannon relaxed and told herself that perhaps the worst of their confrontation was now over. When she tried to think ahead, she wondered how he would react when he learnt of the pregnancy. If he could follow her to Ireland simply because he wanted one or two questions answered, what would he do when he discovered that he was going to be a father? She would have to delay the revelation, she thought. For his sake.

  ‘And what have you been doing since you got back? Going out much?’ There was a curiously flat inflection to his voice, but his expression remained watchful.

  ‘Now and again,’ Shannon said vaguely. ‘I’ve felt a bit…tired recently, so I’ve been staying put quite a bit.’

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘Just lethargic,’ Shannon said hurriedly, intercepting any possible questions about her health. ‘Must be the weather. Winter is awful for making me want to hibernate. Is Carrie with Eleanor?’

  Kane nodded and sat back to allow his main course to be placed in front of him. Roast cod, surrounded by vegetables. He almost always ate fish when out. It was an unimportant titbit of information that made her feel suddenly nostalgic. How much else had she stored away in her memory about him that would jump out and surprise her over the years to come?

  ‘So you’ll be heading back…in the morning?’

  ‘Around lunchtime, actually.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘Me? What about me?’

  ‘When do you intend to head back to London? Or do you intend to head back at all?’

  Shannon tried to feel infuriated that he was pinning her down when she should have the freedom to make her own choices, but she couldn’t. She just thought about him leaving and her having to cope on her own without his sense of humour and intelligence and conversation to carry her along.

  ‘I don’t know if…’ she said weakly.

  ‘I hope you wouldn’t let me put you off coming back, because it was well within your right to kill our affair.’

  ‘I didn’t want to kill anything,’ Shannon blurted out, reddening as he digested her outburst without saying anything.

  ‘No,’ he agreed softly, ‘you didn’t, did you?’

  Shannon shook her head and gave a long, resigned sigh. Well, it had worked. She had fallen straight into his ambush and it had worked a treat. He had been so nice, so understanding to have stopped quizzing her about her abrupt departure that she had dropped her guard, and it was only been a matter of time before he got the truth out of her. She knew him but, conversely, he knew her, too. He knew her well enough to realise that arguing would have put her back up so he hadn’t argued. She was overcome by a feeling that none of it mattered any more anyway.

  ‘So tell me why you concocted that story about getting cold feet. You don’t have to have any secrets from me. You can share what’s really on your mind. I’m not going to punish you so there’s no need to feel as though you have to run away. Problems don’t evaporate because you choose to run away from them. In fact, it’s been my experience that the faster you run from a problem the larger it looms on the horizon.’

  ‘I did get cold feet, Kane.’ She knew that every word he was saying was true, he didn’t know how true, but she just couldn’t face him with the full truth. ‘I didn’t want to end it, but I…’ She placed her knife and fork very precisely together and then rested her elbows on the table and stared down disconsolately at the uneaten food on her plate.

  ‘I realised that I’m not cut out for an affair after all. I thought that I would be able to handle it, but I can’t. When I went down to London, I was determined to grow up, I guess. I mean, I’m hardly a teen
ager any more, am I? That’s what happens, I think, when you grow up in a family as large as mine. You’re so cushioned against everything that you just don’t have to mature as quickly as other people the same age as you.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s just easier to go with the flow. You don’t have to make decisions if there are other people around who will make them for you. London must have been a shock for you, Shannon.’

  She shrugged. ‘At any rate, I thought I could behave like the sophisticated woman I never will be so, yes, I ran away.’

  ‘So if you don’t want an affair, what do you want?’

  ‘Some coffee?’ She laughed nervously.

  He allowed the flippancy to pass and ordered two cups of cappuccino which arrived with a little plate of interestingly shaped chocolates and biscuits.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Yes, I have!’ Shannon squirmed in the chair and then spooned some of the milky froth into her mouth. ‘I told you why I ran away like I did. I wanted to be one kind of person but I’m not.’

  ‘But I know all that,’ Kane said gently. His gentleness was unnerving. He should be hurling criticism at her, not sitting there making her believe that he understood.

  ‘What do you mean, you know all that? You don’t know me at all!’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do. I know you better than you know yourself.’

  ‘Trust you to say something like that.’

  ‘You mean I’m predictable?’ He laughed softly. ‘We’ll have to do something about that, then, won’t we?’

  Shannon’s heart gave an unhealthy flutter of excitement. He reached out and lightly covered her hand with his, stroking it with his thumb.

  ‘We will?’ she found herself weakly compelled to ask.

  ‘Oh, yes. Why do you think I travelled all this way?’ He sipped his coffee and looked at her narrowly over the rim of the cup. When Shannon took her own cup in her hands, she could feel her fingers trembling.

  ‘Because you were annoyed that I left without any explanation?’