her desk, beavering away.
‘Nope. It was there when I got in. I imagine Kane dropped it off for you to have a look at.’
Jessie recalled he’d said something about a book.
She picked it up and turned it over, blinking at the sight of Kane’s photo on the back.
‘Good lord!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s the author!’
Michele glanced up with a surprised look on her attractive face. ‘You mean you didn’t know the man who drove you home yesterday was the Kane Marshall, management guru and motivator extraordinaire?’
‘No! I’ve never heard of the Kane Marshall.’ Other than his being the twin brother of Curtis Marshall, possible philanderer.
‘Something tells me that’s about to change,’ Michele muttered under her breath.
‘He actually wrote this?’ Jessie said, still stunned.
‘Sure did. I gather it’s been a runaway best-seller in the USA. It hasn’t come out here yet. We Aussies aren’t into self-help books as much as the Americans. But we’re getting there.’
‘Have you read it?’
‘Nope.’
Jessie stared at the bio inside the front cover. Kane had a list of professional credits a mile long. Degrees in business and marketing. And a degree in psychology. This was his first book, but he was apparently well-known in the business world for his weekend seminars called ‘Solving Work Problems’. He was described as a gifted after-dinner speaker, with his services being highly sought after by companies as a consultant and an educator.
Jessie sighed. Any secret hope she’d been harbouring that Kane Marshall might change his mind about what kind of woman he was looking to have that real relationship with just went out the window. He was a workaholic!
‘You sound tired,’ Michele said. ‘Late night?’
‘No. Just not enough sleep.’
‘Aah. Man trouble.’
‘What?’
‘When a mother can’t sleep it has to be man trouble. And it doesn’t take much to guess which man. Although I’m not sure what the problem is. Do you already have a boyfriend? Is that it?’
‘Goodness, no, I haven’t had a boyfriend since Emily’s father.’ She and Michele had chatted a bit about their backgrounds over coffee yesterday, so Michele knew about Lyall.
‘Aah…’ Michele nodded. ‘The once-bitten, twice-shy syndrome.’
‘Can you blame me? After Lyall died, I found out he wasn’t just two-timing me. He was triple-timing me.’
‘Not nice,’ Michele agreed. ‘But that was Lyall, not Kane.’
‘Maybe, but in some ways they’re alike. Both tall, dark and handsome, with great smiles and the gift of the gab. Those sort of guys are hard to trust.’
‘So you didn’t say yes when he asked you out?’ Michele ventured.
Jessie sighed. ‘Yes. I did. We’re on for Friday night,’ she confessed.
‘Playing hard to get, I see. Smart girl.’
‘You call that playing hard to get?’ Jessie put Kane’s book down on her part of the work station and pulled out her chair.
‘Sure. That’s five whole days since you met him.’
Jessie sank down into her chair. ‘Actually, it will be a week since I met him.’
Michele’s eyes widened. ‘Really? You’d met him before the interview on Monday?’
‘Yes. In a bar in town last Friday night. But we didn’t exchange names. I—er—drank with him and danced with him, but I did a flit when he wanted more than dancing. He was as shocked as I was when I showed up here yesterday.’
‘Shocked, but still pleased. He’s obviously very taken with you, Jessie.’
‘You think so? It’s hard to tell with men. It could just be sex, you know.’
‘Nothing wrong with that. Lots of relationships start with sex. Don’t fall into the trap of being too cynical about men, Jessie. There are some genuinely good ones out there. I don’t know Kane all that well, but what I know I like. Everyone here thinks he’s great. So give him a chance. Oh, and don’t forget to go thank him for the book. He’ll be dying to know what you think, I’ll bet. Lunch-time would be a good time, when Karen’s out. She and Margaret have lunch together at a café up the road every day at one. Kane has his lunch delivered, Margaret tells me. He’s an obsessive reader and usually stays at his desk. You could pop along any time after one and he’d be all alone.’
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘Why not? What do you think he’s going to do? Ravish you on his desk?’
Jessie didn’t like to admit that that was exactly what she thought he might do. Worse was the reality that she wouldn’t mind one bit.
She’d already come into work wearing a skirt, instead of jeans. And no stockings.
The clear blue sky this morning had promised a hot summer’s day, so her selection of a pink and white floral wrap-around skirt, a simple pink T-shirt and slip-on white sandals was really quite an appropriate outfit for work. No one could have guessed by just looking at her that whilst she’d dressed she’d secretly thrilled to the thought of how accessible she was, if by some chance Kane found the time and the place to seduce her at work.
Stupid fantasy, really. But darned exciting to think about.
By lunch-time, every nerve-ending in Jessie’s body was tap-dancing. She was grateful when Michele left to do some shopping. A trip to the ladies’ room assured her that her make-up was still in place. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it had melted all over her face. But she looked OK. Her hair was up, secured by a long pink clip. She toyed with taking it down, then decided that would be on the obvious side. The last thing she wanted was to be obvious.
Thankfully she had a good excuse for going to his office. She didn’t want to show up looking like a desperate. Even if she was fast becoming one.
Another attack of nerves sent her bolting into a toilet cubicle. Five minutes later, she was back at her desk, where she skip-read a few chapters of the book to get the gist of it whilst she stuffed down one of the two sandwiches she’d brought from home. That done, she made her way to Kane’s office. It was one-twenty.
Karen’s desk was blessedly empty. Fate hadn’t made her stay back for some reason. Jessie’s heart sank, however, when she saw the door to the inner office was half open and a woman’s voice was emerging.
Don’t tell me Karen is in there with him, she thought.
Jessie took a couple of steps towards the door, grinding to a halt when the woman—who didn’t sound like Karen—said something about being
