‘Are you being fair, do you think, little Emily?’ he enquired charmingly.
She blinked. ‘Fair?’ She owned she wasn’t quite with him.
‘I don’t—scold—you over your affairs,’ he drawled, and she looked at him, momentarily made speechless. ‘But then,’ he went on coolly, ‘you’ve never had an affair, have you?’
She hadn’t. But pride, some kind of inverted honour, was at stake here. ‘I’ve…’ she began, ready to lie and tell him she’d had dozens of affairs—only she faltered. Given that it seemed it was she who had instigated this conversation, was she really discussing her love-life—or his view that she didn’t have a love life—with her employer? ‘How many affairs I’ve had, or not had, is entirely nothing to do with you,’ she jumped back up on her high horse, and told him loftily.
‘Typical!’ he rapped, soon back to snarling, she noted. ‘You think you can pass judgement on my out-of-work activities, but the moment I enquire into yours, it’s none of my business!’
‘Out-of-work activities’. That was a new name for it! But she’d had enough, and grabbed up her notepad. ‘Do you want this work back today or don’t you?’ she challenged hotly—and too late saw the glint in his eyes that clearly said he didn’t take very kindly to attitude.
Oddly again, though—when some part of her already wanted to apologise, while another part wouldn’t let her—instead of laying into her, as she’d fully expected, Barden Cunningham took a moment out to look down at her. She knew from her burning skin that she must have flares of pink in her cheeks. She was, however, already regretting her spurt of temper, and on the way to vowing never to get angry again, when still looking down at her, that glint of anger in those no-nonsense grey eyes suddenly became a mocking glint as he derided, ‘And there was I, putting you down as a mouse.’
That did it! Mouse! Apologise? She’d see him hang first! Mouse! What self-respecting twenty-two-year-old would put up with that? ‘Better a mouse than a rat!’ she hissed—and was on her way.
She went storming through the connecting door, not bothering to close it—she wasn’t stopping—and straight to her coat peg on the far wall. Even as she reached for her coat, though, and started shrugging into it, she was regretting having lost her temper. What the dickens was the matter with her? She couldn’t afford a temper!
Emmie dipped in the bottom drawer of her desk to retrieve her bag, knowing full well that even if she didn’t want to go there was no way now, after calling Barden Cunningham a rat, that he was going to let her stay.
Or so she’d thought. She had just straightened, her shoulder bag in hand, when his voice enquired coolly, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
She looked over to the doorway and saw he had come to lean nonchalantly against the doorframe. She hesitated, common practical sense intruding on what pride decreed. Oh, she did so like the work, and didn’t want to leave. Her breath caught. Was he saying that, despite her poking her nose into his private life and making judgements on his morals, he wasn’t telling her to go?
‘Aren’t I—dismissed?’ she managed to query.
For answer Barden Cunningham stood away from the door. ‘I’ll let you know when,’ he drawled—and added, with insincere charm, ‘You’ll be working late tonight.’
With that he went into his office, and, obviously utterly confident that she would do exactly as he said, and not bothering to wait to see if she took her coat off, closed the connecting door.
Emmie slowly put down her bag, relief rushing in because she still had this well-paid and, it had to be said, enjoyable job—while another part of her, the proud part, she rather suspected, made her wish she was in a position to walk and keep on walking.
A cold war ensued for the remainder of the day.
Working late was of no concern to Emmie, and she arrived at her flat around eight that evening, starting to feel quite astonished that, though her security was so vital to her, she had today, because she had been unable to control a suddenly erratic temper, put both her security and Aunt Hannah’s future tranquillity at risk!
Emmie got up the following morning, still wondering what in creation had got into her. She was aware that she had been tremendously shaken when her stepfather Alec had died. Her emotions had received a terrible blow. Her redundancy from Usher Trading around about the same time hadn’t helped. The worrying time she’d had of it when each of her successive jobs had folded had been a strain too. Had she perhaps grown too used to heading for the door when something went wrong, and had it become a habit with her?
But, not without cause, she mused as she drove to the offices of Progress Engineering. She remembered Clive Norris’s attempt to kiss her. The way he’d hemmed her in between the filing cabinet and the wall—was she supposed to put up with that sort of nonsense? No, certainly not!
So what had Cunningham done that had made her so angry? So angry that for emotional seconds at a time she had been ready to forget her oh, so important security and walk out of there. Made him so angry she had thought herself about to be dismissed at any second—thought she had really blown it when she’d more or less called him a rat.
So he was, too. But was it any of her business? She hadn’t liked it when he’d said he thought of her as a mouse. Nor had she liked it when he’d referred to her non-existent love-life. But, and Emmie had to face it, she was employed by Barden Cunningham to work, and only work. She had been the one to bring the personal element into it. True, the whole sorry business could have been avoided if he hadn’t enquired so sharply—in such a direct contrast to his tone when talking to his lady-love, Roberta Short—’ Now what did I do?’
Or could it have been avoided? He’d caught her on the raw with his tone, and negated any chance of her making use of the skills of diplomacy she’d assured him at her interview she possessed, without those sharp words telling her he’d just about had it with her and her arrogance. And, if that hadn’t been enough, he’d insisted on knowing why she was being ‘arrogant’ this time.
Emmie went to her desk, aware by then that she was at fault. Anything that happened in the office that wasn’t business was nothing to do with her. Unless the womanising hound made a pass at her—and she could be part of the furniture for all the notice he took of her; not that she wanted him taking notice of her, thank you very much—perish the thought. But she had no call to be remotely interested in anything else that went on which was unconnected with business.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked Dawn after their initial greeting.
‘As it should be.’ Dawn smiled.
‘How are you feeling today?’
‘Touch wood, so far, and in comparison to Tuesday, quite good.’
Emmie got on with some work, but the row she’d had with Barden Cunningham the previous afternoon came back again and again to haunt her. Somehow, when at around eleven he called her into his office, she knew that she was not going to forget it, or indeed feel any better about it, until she’d apologised.
But he was cool, aloof, as he stated, ‘I have to go to Stratford—be ready at twelve.’
She felt niggled; no please, no thank you, no Could you be ready at twelve; I’d like you to accompany me? The cold war was still on, then? He was charm personified with
