by Liz Fielding
‘We’re not having an affair! I’ve only met the man once.’ Several people turned around to look at her. ‘Well twice I suppose, but I can promise you we’re never going to have an affair,’ she hissed. ‘Can we please stop talking about him?’
Richard took no notice. ‘He’s way off the scale dangerous for an innocent like you.’
‘Well, I thought you prescribed dangerous,’ she said, crossly.
‘There’s danger. And then there’s Jack Wolfe.’
‘Well you can rest assured, Richard. I have no intention of getting involved with the man. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again.’ She paused and Richard instantly picked up on her uncertainty.
‘Except?’
‘Well, I have to return some clothes I borrowed. Something got spilled on mine.’
‘And you had to take them off? You have been having an interesting time.’
‘You wouldn’t believe how interesting.’
‘Well, have a care it doesn’t get too entertaining. Richard leaned forward and stroked one finger down the length of her throat. ‘I’d really hate to see a tender little lamb like you served up with a sprig of mint for Mr Wolfe’s Sunday lunch.’
Melanie grasped his hand and removed it from her neck. ‘You’re just trying to frighten me off, Richard. You’re scared you’re going to lose your bet.’
*****
Melanie presented herself at the offices of the Busy Bees Domestic Agency promptly at seven on Monday morning.
‘I’ve changed my mind. If you still want me.’
Apparently, having admitted she wanted the job, Janet Graham no longer felt obliged to be unnecessarily polite. She did not invite Mel to sit and wasted no time in getting to the point.
‘I’m taking a chance on you, Melanie. Don’t let me down. Auditions are strictly on your own time and if you leave a job unfinished you will not be paid for it.’ Janet Graham had the manner of a headmistress lecturing a tiresome pupil; from her own experience of such occasions Melanie knew the woman would not expect an answer. ‘And you’ll have to take whatever comes along, the bad jobs along with the good.’ Good jobs? What could possibly be good about cleaning? ‘Is that quite clear?’
‘Quite clear.’ And it was clear that Mrs Graham didn’t know who she was. She would have been nicer. She wouldn’t have been able to help herself. Melanie was learning quickly about how things were out in the big wide world. ‘I don’t expect any special favours, Miss Graham.’
‘Then you won’t be disappointed. Sit down.’ The lecture was over. ‘Now tell me how you got on with Mr Wolfe?’
‘Mr Wolfe appeared satisfied.’ Well he had appreciated her work, if nothing else. He’d telephoned and said so, hadn’t he?
‘Young men left on their own are a menace, but extremely good for business,’ Mrs Graham said, with a glint of satisfaction. ‘Was it a terrible mess?’
Young men? She had all but forgotten Tom Wolfe, but of course he was the Mr Wolfe referred to. ‘I’ve seen worse, although I don’t think I’d have managed by myself in the time available,’ Mel admitted. ‘But after I’d made him one of my hangover cures Tom - Mr Wolfe - recovered sufficiently to give me a hand.’
Janet Graham’s shocked expression told its own story. She really would have to keep a rein on her tongue.
‘I trust you won’t expect the rest of my clients to pitch in and give you a hand?’
‘Of course not. But he wanted the job done by the time his brother got home. I simply used my initiative.’
‘I discourage initiative, Melanie. In my experience it causes nothing but trouble. Remember that.’ She’d try. But she wasn’t making any promises. ‘In this instance, however,’ Mrs Graham continued, ‘your quick thinking has had the most satisfactory results.’ She picked up a work sheet from the desk. ‘As I told you, I had a call from Mr Jack Wolfe, the owner of the apartment. He requested that you be assigned to clean his apartment three times a week until further notice.’
‘Oh!’ She sat back in her chair. ‘How - unexpected.’ But it made Mrs Graham’s eagerness to employ her rather more understandable.
Mrs Graham looked at her sharply. ‘Is it? Why?’
‘Oh, well.’ She floundered momentarily. ‘I assumed I would be cleaning offices, that sort of thing. A friend of mine works for you and that’s what he does. At night.’
‘Who?’
‘Richard Latham.’
‘Richard?’ She gave Melanie a hard look. ‘Well I hope you don’t expect to work nights, too.’
‘Oh, no. No. Really.’
Mrs Graham stared at her for a moment longer before returning to her schedule. ‘You’ll be part of a team for most of the time, cleaning empty houses after lettings. But since Mr Wolfe has asked for you personally I’m happy to concede to his wishes. Unless you have any particular reason to refuse?’
For a moment Melanie dwelt on the pleasure it would give her to blacken Jack Wolfe’s character so thoroughly that for the rest of his life he would have to make his own bed and wash his own dishes. It would serve him right.
Mel, however, was bright enough to realize that Jack Wolfe wouldn’t take that sort of nonsense lying down. And she’d made a bet with Richard; more importantly, she’d promised herself that whatever happened she’d stick it out, just to prove to herself that she wasn’t the dizzy creature everyone seemed to think she was. So it was time to stop fooling around and start taking it seriously.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘No reason.’
‘Good. This is your schedule for the week. I’ve given you to Mr Wolfe for two hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between two and four o’clock in the afternoon. Starting Wednesday.’ Given you to. Mel didn’t much care for the expression. ‘He wants you to call in this afternoon so that he can explain more fully what he requires.’ She indicated that the interview was at an end. ‘You’d better go and get kitted up now. The girls will be waiting for you.’
‘Kitted up?’
Janet Graham regarded the t-shirt Mel was wearing with disapproval. The black outfit had still smelt strongly of curry even after a second wash and had been consigned to the bin. This morning she was wearing a very old sweat shirt that bore the logo of a famous fashion house and a pair of jeans. Standard, classless wear.
‘The only advertising my girls carry is the agency name. A uniform is provided, but you are responsible for keeping it clean. Oh, and you’d better let accounts have your tax form and an address when you have a moment.’
‘Yes, Mrs Graham.’
She considered asking about the procedure if another client tipped curry all over her. But she had been dismissed. It was exactly like being back at school, Mel thought and tried not to dwell on just how much she had loathed school.
Ten minutes later she was heading for her first job in a bright yellow mini van, attired in the agency’s distinctive yellow and black striped sweatshirt, black polyester trousers and a snappy yellow and black quartered baseball cap that bore the legend “Happy to Help”. Last night she had dreamed about making an impression on Jack Wolfe. Dressed like a worker bee she couldn’t fail to.
Paddy and Sharon were bright, lively and inquisitive.
‘Why are you working as a cleaner?’ Paddy asked her, realising immediately that she wasn’t the usual run of cleaning staff taken on by Mrs Graham. She told them that she was an actress. Resting. They weren’t particularly impressed.
‘What’ve you been in then?’
At something of a loss Mel invited them to guess. Before they arrived at their destination she had been placed in minor roles in two long running soaps, one of which she had actually starred in for years but not as Melanie Devlin, and as the tiresome teenage daughter in an advertisement for frozen food.
This humbling assessment of her likely talent was far from flattering and she found herself wondering whether Jack Wolfe had been kinder.
She stopped the thought.
Mr Jack Wolfe undoubtedly had more important things to do
than think about the girl he employed as a cleaner. And she had more important things to think about than him.
But to divert attention from herself she asked Paddy and Sharon about their families.
Mel rang the bell promptly at two that afternoon, her heart giving an odd erratic little beat as she waited, remembering the steel grey eyes, the jolt of something indescribable that had seemed to arc right through her when he had touched her.
Then she gave herself a good mental shaking.
His eyes were nothing to do with her. He had called the agency because, looking around his flat after she had gone, he had been impressed with her work. It was a compliment to her professionalism, she thought. To how well she’d played her role. The perfect detached, professional domestic.
Right…
Jack Wolfe opened the door wearing nothing but a short towelling robe tied carelessly around his waist, his well-groomed hair now dishevelled from the shower. For a moment Mel felt anything but detached as her eyes fastened on the sprinkling of dark hair across his tanned chest where the robe hung loose. And she had stopped thinking anything coherent.
Her appearance seemed to leave him equally bereft of speech. But not for long.
‘You’d better come in, Melanie.’ Then, ‘I’m glad to see you’re more suitably costumed for the part today.’
Having to wear the wretched clothes was bad enough, but to be the butt of his mordant humour was the pits.
‘The only thing this costume is suitable for is playing a bee in Babes in the Wood,’ she said, with feeling, immediately forgetting her determination to be the perfect professional.
‘Well, maybe you’ll get lucky this Christmas.’
She smiled through gritted teeth, curling her toes in her DM’s to stop herself from slapping him with a cloth, still damp from her last job, as apparently unaware of Mel’s irritation he stepped aside to let her into his apartment.
So much for detached.
‘I’ve brought back your clothes,’ she said. She’d taken them with her that morning assuming that someone else would drop them off, either at his home or office.
He glanced at the bag she was carrying, then at her face. ‘I do still wear them occasionally,’ he assured her.
‘Do you, Mr Wolfe?’ she enquired, not bothering to disguise her disbelief.
His sharp look suggested that he was unused to having his word challenged, least of all by his cleaner. But if he chose to make personal comments about her clothes, she felt quite at liberty to return the compliment.
Ditching her role as the detached professional, she rewrote her part as saucy, disrespectful, a “treasure” who should be humoured. Or, more likely, sacked. Please.
‘When?’ she asked.
‘I’m renovating a cottage near Henley.’
‘Personally?’ But she didn’t have to ask. The mingled scent of sweat and pine, the straining muscles, hair feathered by the wind…
‘Who is it, Jack?’
A woman’s voice drifted from the interior of the apartment and Mel, instead of relief at this distraction, felt something else, some feeling that until then had been entirely alien to her. She could scarcely believe it. It was jealousy, bile green and just as nasty.
Oh, good grief.
Until that moment she had simply flirted with a minor need to dress up in her best frock when she returned his laundry so that he would acknowledge his mistake, realize that he had been wrong about her, had been too damned condescending with his ten pound note.
She hadn’t thought beyond that.
Richard had seen it, but she had dismissed his concern. Used to flirting with amusing young men who treated her with a great deal of respect, she hadn’t seriously considered what a risk this man might pose.
As she felt the heat crawl along her cheekbones, she finally understood what had kept her mind fixated on the man, drawn her thoughts back to him as she had drifted into sleep. His contained masculinity and dangerous edge to his intellectual muscle was an invitation to the unwary.
She had wanted him at her feet she realized.
She had wanted him at her feet so that she could walk away the winner.
Winner? Was she mad? This man had never been at any woman’s feet. Yet the challenge was almost irresistible.
Resist, her subconscious intervened with a hurried warning. Don’t get involved. You’ll regret it.
But he had already turned away from her.
‘It’s just the new cleaner,’ he said and Mel’s sharp intake of breath went unnoticed as he headed towards the spiral staircase.
Just the new cleaner?
Well, Melanie Beaumont, she thought. That puts you very firmly in your place. And another black mark firmly against Mr Wolfe’s name.
Resist? What was there to resist? He had to be the most resistible man she had ever met. Probably.
‘The cleaner?’ A woman appeared in her line of vision. She, too, was a head-turner. Built like a crane, tall and angular with too much bone for real beauty, Mel knew instinctively that the camera would love her. But she wasn’t an actress or she would have recognised her, so she had to be a model.
She glanced at Mel, not seeing beyond the hideous black and yellow uniform and not bothering to hide her disdain for anyone who earned her living in such a fashion. Mel, not in the least bothered on her own part, nevertheless fumed on behalf of her new colleagues who didn’t have any choice in the matter.
Jack, his back to the girl, didn’t notice.
‘Make some coffee will you Caro, and look after Mel while I get some clothes on?’
He didn’t wait for Caro’s reply, but disappeared up the circular staircase, giving them both a clear view of a pair of large feet, strong calves, a flash of well-muscled thighs.
Mel looked hurriedly away. ‘I’ll make the coffee,’ she offered.
Caro, aware of Mel’s reaction, smiled with the supreme confidence of a woman who is in possession of what every other woman wants.
‘The kitchen is through there,’ she said, with a gesture so practised that Mel knew she had been right. The woman was a catwalk model, “super” class. And as if to confirm the fact, she folded herself in a soft leather armchair with the sinuous grace of a cat. ‘I’m sure you’re far more at home there than I am.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Mel said, but under her breath. Cooking was, for her, a pleasure. Caro, all skin and bone, probably lived on lemon juice and raw vegetables. Ready washed and shredded from some exclusive Food Hall, she thought, irritably.
Jack Wolfe wasted no time dressing, and was still fastening the links into his cuffs as he came back down the stairs. Caro, curled up in an armchair didn’t bother to look up from the magazine she was reading. Melanie was in the kitchen making coffee.
Caro, he decided, was getting just a bit above herself, a little too confident. A bad sign.
‘I see you’ve already made a start,’ he said, automatically smiling at Mel as he walked into the kitchen. ‘I had intended to sit down with you and discuss what needs to be done, but you obviously don’t need telling.’
‘No, I don’t. The coffee is made. And since you’re paying for my time, I thought I might as well make myself useful.’ She was making a performance of wiping down the already immaculate work surfaces so she didn’t have to look at him. He noticed that in the same way detached way that he noticed everything. Body language told the truth even when people were lying. ‘Unless there’s anything special you want me to do?’ she added, when he didn’t speak.
‘Special?’ he prompted, willing her to turn around. He wanted to see her face. No, not her face, her eyes.
They were grey, but there was nothing ordinary about them. They shimmered like watered silk and he had the oddest feeling that he’d seen them somewhere before. On television perhaps? He didn’t have a set at the flat, but there was one at the cottage he’d bought for Lisette.
Perhaps Tom would like it, he thought. Or then again, perhaps Tom had enough distractions already.
<
br /> ‘Shopping, that sort of thing,’ she said, still keeping her back turned towards him.
‘Oh. I see. Well, yes. I suppose you could keep the fridge stocked for me, pick up my dry cleaning, that sort of thing. I’ll organise a float for you. Other than that just keep the place looking like you left it the other day. It looked like...’ Like home. That’s what he had been going to say. ‘Can you cook?’ he said, abruptly changing the subject.
‘Of course I can cook.’ She spun round but on the point of declaring precisely how talented she was in the kitchen, Melanie realized what was behind the question and assailed by an unpleasant vision of herself rustling up romantic little dinners for him to share with the pared to the bone, uncluttered beauty of Caro she rapidly changed her mind.
‘Beef burgers. Fish fingers. Pizza.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Anything you like,’ she declared.
‘I assume that is frozen pizza?’
‘Well, yes.’ She looked surprised, as if unaware that there was any other kind. He wasn’t convinced. ‘But I always put on a few extra olives. It makes such a difference, don’t you think?’
‘How very adventurous of you. I would never have thought of that.’
‘Will you be here on Wednesday? I mean, how will I get in?’
‘I will give you a key, Melanie.’ And fitting the word to the deed he took a key from his pocket. About to put it on the countertop beside him he changed his mind.
Without quite knowing why, he reached out and took her hand in his. It was small and unexpectedly white. She couldn’t have been doing this job for long. Was that why she was nervous? Because now he was touching her he could tell that she was quite noticeably shaking.
All that cheek was an act, he realized with something of a shock. She wasn’t nearly as tough as she would have him believe. And placing the key in her palm he wrapped her fingers about it, holding it there with both of his hands.