not asking you to seal the deal, Agatha.’
‘I realise that, but I’m not as fast on the computer as, well…’
‘Most people in the building?’ Luc inserted helpfully, fighting to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. ‘You’ve had nearly eight months to get to grips with the work and you apparently did a one-month crash course in IT.’
Agatha tried not to shudder at the memory of that particular course. Having been made redundant from the garden centre, she had spent three months at home with her mother and, sweet-natured though her mother was, she knew that her patience had been tried to the limit.
‘You can’t spend the rest of your days drifting through the house and tinkering in the garden, darling,’ she had said gently. ‘I love having you here, especially since your dad passed on two years ago, but you need a job. If you don’t think that there are any jobs around here, well, why don’t you perhaps think of working further afield? Maybe even London? I’ve had a little word with Danielle, Luc’s mother, and she suggested that Luc might be able to find a spot for you in his company. He’s very successful, you know—does something important in the City. All you’d need to do would be a short little computer course…’
Agatha privately thought that most ten-year-old kids had more computer savvy than her, but then computers had not been much in evidence in the vicarage. By the time she’d emerged into a world reliant on them, she had found herself wildly at sea and woefully ignorant. Computers, for her, were not friends to be played with. They were potential enemies out to get the better of her the second she pressed a wrong key.
‘Yes, I did,’ she said glumly. ‘But I really wasn’t brilliant at it.’
‘You’ll never get anywhere in life if you droop around convinced that failure lies just around the corner. I’m giving you a golden opportunity to take a step up from filing.’
‘I don’t mind filing,’ Agatha said quickly. ‘I mean, I know it’s dull, but I never expected to…’
‘To find working here exciting?’ Luc held on to his patience with difficulty. Agatha, as timid as a mouse, and as background as canned elevator-music, irritated him. He could remember her as a teenager, skulking in corners, too tongue-tied to hold even the most basic of conversations with him. Apparently she was absolutely fine with everyone else, or so his mother had assured him. He had his doubts. Right now, she was trying hard to disappear into the folds of her oversized coat.
‘Well? ‘ he demanded impatiently.
‘I don’t think I’m really cut out for office work,’ honesty compelled her to admit. ‘Not that I’m not incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work here.’ Or at least, she thought realistically, the opportunity to occupy a broom cupboard on the third floor from where she typed the occasional letter and received orders to file the occasional file. Mostly she was at his beck and call to do such things as sort out his dry cleaning, ensure his fridge was well stocked for those fleeting occasions when he was going to be in his apartment in Belgravia and see off his discarded women with appropriate tokens of fond farewell, ranging from lots of flowers to diamonds—a job delegated to her by Helen. In the space of eight months, five exotic supermodels had been given the red card.
‘I realise you probably didn’t have much of a choice.’
‘None at all,’ Luc agreed deflatingly. Nervous though she was, it would have been terrific if he had contradicted her statement, perhaps told her that she was, in her own way, a valued member of staff.
‘Yes, Danielle and Mum can be quite forceful when they put their minds to it.’
‘Agatha, why don’t you sit down for a few minutes? I should have had a little chat with you sooner, but time’s in scarce supply for me.’
‘I know.’ She hovered indecisively for a few seconds, then reluctantly shuffled back to her desk and sat down, watching as Luc perched on the edge and subjected her to one of those blistering looks that promised unwelcome revelations—probably to do with her lack of computer skills, or at the very least at her lack of enthusiasm for developing what precious few computer skills she did have.
Distracted, Luc frowned. ‘What do you mean, you know?’
‘I mean your mum always goes on about how hard you work and how you’re never at home.’
Luc could scarcely credit what he was hearing. ‘You’re telling me that you sit around like the three witches in Macbeth, yakking about me?’
‘No! Of course not.’
‘Don’t you have any kind of life back there? Anything better to do with your time?’
‘Of course I have a life!’ Or at least she had until she’d been made redundant from the garden centre. Or was he talking about her social life? ‘I have lots of friends. You know, not everyone thinks that it’s a top priority to head down to London at the first chance and make a fortune.’
‘It’s just as well I did, though, isn’t it?’ he inserted silkily. ‘In case you’d forgotten, my mother was languishing in a two-bedroom cottage with peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpets. I think you’ll agree that someone had to take charge and restore the family finances.’
‘Yes.’ She stared down at her fingers and then sneaked a look at him, and for a few heart-stopping seconds their eyes clashed, clear blue against deep, mossy green. That crush, which she had done her utmost to kill off, fluttered just below the surface, reminding her that, however hard she looked, Luc Laughton remained in a league of his own. Even when, like now, he was looking at her with the sort of rampant impatience that was even more insulting than open antagonism.
Her ready capitulation made him scowl. ‘This…’ he spread an expressive hand to encompass the office and beyond ‘…is real life, and thanks to it my mother can enjoy the lifestyle to which she has always been accustomed. My father made a lot of mistakes when it came to money, and fortunately I have learnt from all of them. Lesson number one is that nothing is achieved without putting in the hours.’ He stood up and prowled through the tiny office, which was tucked away from the rest of the offices—and just as well, because he figured that she would have been even more lost had she been positioned in the middle of one of the several buzzing, high-energy floors occupied by his various staff.
‘If you’re not enjoying your job as much as you’d like, then you only have yourself to blame. Try looking at it as more than just biding time until some other gardening job comes available.’
‘I’m not on the look out for another gardening job.’ There were none to be had in London. She had looked.
‘Take one step towards really integrating in this environment, Agatha. I don’t want you to be offended by what I’m about to say…’
‘Then don’t say it!’ She looked at him with big, blue pleading eyes. She knew that he was one of the ‘cruel to be kind’ breed of person with almost zero tolerance for anyone who didn’t take the bull by the horns and wrestle life into subservience like him.
‘He can be a little scary,’ Danielle had confessed just before Agatha had moved to London. Just how scary, Agatha hadn’t realised until she had started working for him. There was little direct contact, because most of her work came via Helen, who always wore a smile and pointed to any inaccuracies in her typing with a kindly shrug. On those occasions
