do?’
By ten, Stella had the beginnings of a Grade A headache, not to mention a list of backed-up phone messages as long as her arm. She still hadn’t had time to cast her eyes over Jerry’s client’s file except to glance at the name on the top: Nick Cavaletto. It sounded glamorous but names could be so deceptive. She and Vicki had once laughingly argued over who got a client called Joaquin d’Silva, both instantly thinking of the handsome Spanish dancer Joaquin Cortes, only to find that their Joaquin was many continents away from his namesake in looks. Mr D’Silva had been short, over-hairy and over-friendly, a bit like a dog. Vicki had said she kept waiting for him to lift his leg on the furniture.
‘Lori, could you hold my calls for half an hour?’ Stella asked.
‘Sure.’
Five minutes later, Stella had just scanned through Mr Cavaletto’s file and was fast coming to the conclusion that Jerry’s handwriting was illegible. Scribbled notes in the margins of the file made no sense whatsoever. The whole thing actually looked quite straightforward, as Mr Cavaletto had power of attorney for his elderly mother and was intending to sell her home for her. The only difficulty appeared to be a problem involving stables which had been built and for which no planning permission had been given. Stella grimaced. She hated planning permission problems. She shut Mr Cavaletto’s file briskly. For his sake, she hoped he was on time.
He was early.
Stella’s internal line buzzed at twenty-five past ten.
‘Mr Cavaletto’s here,’ breathed Lori in a much more husky voice than usual.
‘Put him in the Gin Palace,’ Stella said. ‘And tell Melvyn he can sit in.’
‘Of course,’ said Lori, again in that husky voice.
She normally said ‘right-oh mate,’ in a breezy manner that no amount of discussion about correct behaviour for a legal office could remove. What was with the proper assistant carry on? Stella wondered. Lori must be hoping for a raise.
‘Will I order coffee?’ Lori added in her new sexy growl.
‘Er, yes,’ said Stella. Definitely a raise.
The whole place was losing its marbles today.
It was more than five minutes before she left her office to walk to the conference room.
‘Coffee’s in there,’ said Lori. Twenty-something and a vibrant brunette with a liking for va-va-voom clothes, she looked altogether overexcited for some reason. She’d even applied a fresh splash of hot pink lipgloss.
‘Thank you,’ said Stella, opening the door to the Gin Palace. ‘Sorry for keeping you, Mr Cavaletto,’ Stella added conversationally, dropping her files onto the polished mahogany. She looked up smiling, her hand extended in a professional manner. And then she realised why Lori was behaving like a cat on a hot tin roof. Mr Cavaletto lived up to the glamorous name and then some, although he was not classically handsome. A big leonine man with grey-streaked dark hair, his clever face had too many crags and hollows in it to ever be called handsome. He had a granite hewn jaw and a firm mouth that gave the impression he was used to getting his own way. But that wasn’t it. He was more than the sum of his parts. Presence, charisma, whatever it was, it drifted off him in great waves. Tara might be able to describe him, to capture what it was that made him so attractive. Stella couldn’t put it in words.
He’d been staring out the window and now crossed the room swiftly and shook her hand. ‘Nick Cavaletto. Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.’
‘No problem,’ she said, adding, ‘I’m Stella Miller.’
Heavy-lidded muddy green eyes, the colour of gleaming Mediterranean olives, locked with hers. Unlike other men, his gaze didn’t flicker up and down, quickly assessing her. What Vicki dismissively called the classic man’s ‘would I or wouldn’t I?’ glance. His eyes stayed locked with hers until Stella, feeling that this intense gazing thing had gone on for too long, sat down abruptly.
‘Please, take a seat,’ she said.
He sat down too, not beside her, thankfully, but in a chair at the top of the table, a few feet away from her.
‘Er…now I’ve been looking over your file and er…’ She opened the file but couldn’t seem to lay her hands on the cover sheet. She’d just been looking at it, where the hell was it? Clumsiness swept over her like a rash and she felt her temperature rise rapidly as she fumbled through the pages. It must be the heating. Either that, or the powers that be were pumping hallucinogens through the system, Stella decided wildly. Only that could account for the level of madness on the premises.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been thrown in at the deep end,’ Mr Cavaletto said. ‘Your receptionist said Jerry was unexpectedly called away…’
Stella glanced up to see if Lori had imparted the prawn vindaloo information, but was relieved to see that Mr Cavaletto’s craggy face held no amusement.
‘Yes, something unavoidable,’ she murmured, trying to pull herself together. Well, being glued to the bathroom was probably unavoidable in Jerry’s case.
She looked back at her papers, sensing that he was still gazing at her. She wished he’d stop it.
‘Now.’ She cleared her throat and finally found the cover sheet.
‘Shall I pour you some coffee?’ he interrupted.
She looked at him.
‘It’s just that you seem a little harassed and I feel responsible. You could do without having an extra client dropped onto your lap today, I’m sure.’ He looked so earnest, so genuinely apologetic, that Stella decided that he wasn’t trying to unnerve her. He was just being nice, after all, Stella sighed to herself. She was jumpy today and it wasn’t fair to take it out on him.
She sat back in her chair. So much for detoxing. ‘I’d love a cup. But I’ll get it,’ she added, getting up. He was the client after all.
He waved her back into her seat.
‘That doesn’t seem right,’ she said.
‘Let’s buck convention, shall we?’ he said.
‘Why not?’
He poured coffee while Stella watched him with interest.
He was tall, which she liked, and she liked the way his hair was carelessly swept back from his high forehead, as if he used an impatient hand to rake it into place far more often than a brush. He wore nice clothes, slightly casual but expensive. And he looked clever, too. Shrewd intelligence burned behind those eyes.
She idly wondered was he married? Then, shocked at herself for even thinking such a bimbo-esque thought, she sat up straighter in her chair.
‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Just milk, thanks,’ she said. Would he chance a hackneyed comment about her being sweet enough already?
He passed the test by saying nothing.
‘There’s nothing worse than one of those days when you have to take the flak for other people’s
