wasn’t as though he couldn’t control his mild attraction to her. How ridiculous would that be?
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU’RE quite sure you’re okay, Aunt Edie?’ Lally had her mobile phone jammed between her shoulder and her ear. It felt right there, and so it should. Usually she spent a lot of her day with a phone in that exact position, talking with one relative or another while she went about her work and various family members checked in with her.
Today she’d had to phone Auntie herself; she had only received a couple of text messages all morning, mostly from two of her teenage cousins who’d recently got their first-ever mobile phones.
Of course, she’d been kept busy with calls and a few text messages coming in to Cam’s mobile. It felt a little intimate to take all his calls and messages. What if a woman phoned?
And what if the phone he gave her was purely for business and he had another one for his social life? Lots of people did that.
Right. Why was Lally fixating on Cam’s social life, anyway? She should be fixating on her family’s silence. Lally had kept so close to all her family in the past. It felt unsettling now not to hear from them much.
‘You’re working an outside job,’ she muttered. ‘They probably don’t want to call and disturb that.’
‘Beg pardon, dear?’
‘Oh, sorry, Auntie. It was nothing; I was just talking to myself.’ She was talking to Auntie, who seemed quite happy to talk, so what was Lally worrying about anyway?
Lally whisked eggs in a bowl and quickly poured the results over a selection of cooked vegetables in a heated pan on the stove. ‘Promise me you’re well, Auntie. You’re taking all your meds? You’ve got Nova coming over to sort them out for you for the start of each day? Because I could drive over at night during my time off.’
‘I’m fine, Lally. Nova comes every day, but even if she didn’t I could cope. You just enjoy your work out there in the world where you might meet—’ Her aunt coughed. ‘We all think you’ll do a very good job, just as you always do, dear.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’ And Lally did. She was being quite silly to feel displaced. For heaven’s sake, she’d only been at the new job for half a day. By the end of the week she might be getting so many calls and messages from her family that her new boss would be quite angry with her, if he didn’t see that she always kept working throughout those calls and messages, hard and at speed.
And, of course, she would put answering his mobile first.
Lally had learned a long time ago to multitask. Cameron seemed to live that way too. It was something they had in common.
What you have in common is that he’s the boss and you’re the employee, Lally. Try to remember that!
‘Shouldn’t you be focusing on your new job this morning, Lally?’ Auntie asked the words into the silence, almost as though she’d read Lally’s mind.
‘I am.’ Lally glanced around the kitchen. Cam had left no mess, so it had been easy to give the whole area a deep clean. Now Lally sprinkled fresh, chopped herbs into the frittata and turned it down to heat through.
With a light salad, that would take care of their lunch, and this afternoon she’d see about their dinner. So far she’d cleaned most of the rooms, settled her things into the room across the small hall from Cameron’s bedroom, looked over the pantry supplies, made a list of things she would need to buy soon and organised this meal.
And had taken Cameron’s messages. None of them had sounded unbearably urgent, though the content of many of them from his Sydney office had brought it home to Lally that Cameron truly dealt in big dollars.
Lally prepared the salad with cherry tomatoes, lettuce, mushroom slices and slivers of avocado mixed with a tangy dressing; that job was done. She checked on the frittata; it was almost cooked.
Sam had liked tangy dressing on his salad.
The thought slid sideways into Lally’s mind; it wasn’t welcome. She so rarely thought about Sam. If getting out and working with a man would make that a common occurrence, Lally was not going to be pleased. ‘I’m working and talking at once, Auntie. I can talk. Tell everyone else they can call me too. Even if just early in the mornings, or in the evenings, if they’re worried that much about my job. I’m sure I can fit in some calls—’
But her aunt had already rushed out a, ‘Love you,’ and disconnected the call at her end.
Well!
Lally drew a deep breath. ‘It might have been nice to get to say “I love you” back—’
‘Whatever that is, it smells wonderful.’ The deep words sounded over the top of hers and cut them off abruptly. ‘Sorry, were you on the phone?’
‘Oh. I didn’t realise you were there.’ She’d been talking out loud like a loon. ‘Um, no, I’m all finished with my phone call. It was my phone that time, but I have a heap of messages from yours.’
‘On the phone to the boyfriend?’ Cam’s words were unruffled, and yet something in his tone made Lally seek his gaze.
His eyes were shielded by those long, silky lashes.
‘I should have brought this up at our interview. I apologise that I didn’t, but I’ll cover it now.’ She did feel guilty, even though there was no need. ‘I like to speak with family members when I have a moment. I’ll do it discreetly, I won’t disrupt you in any way, and I always keep working. I can assure you I don’t lose any work time or concentration over the calls I make, and of course I’ll always use my own phone.’
‘Family.’ Cameron’s expression was complex. He ran his fingers through his short hair. ‘Of course that’s not a problem. You’re welcome to keep whatever contact you need.’
‘Thank you.’ Lally considered telling him there was no boyfriend, but he’d probably figured that out anyway. In any case, it wasn’t important. ‘I appreciate you being understanding about my need for contact with my family.’
Now, if Lally could just get her family to come back on board with that contact.
‘I can see you’ve been busy.’ Cameron’s glance roved the kitchen, dining room and lounge areas, before it came back to rest on her, and his expression softened. ‘Thank you for what you’ve done already to help make me comfortable.’
‘That’s what I’m here for.’ But his praise and appreciation wrapped around her just the same.
Being needed: it was an issue for Lally. She knew it; she would even admit it. Until now she’d thought it was all just about family relationships for her.
And it was. This just felt sort of similar because she was helping him, too, and that was what she did for them. Her happiness certainly had nothing to do with that softening of his expression when his gaze rested on her. She wasn’t looking for tenderness from him, for goodness’ sake; that would be ridiculous.
Lally was too wary to consider something like that with a man again
