It’s just the expression you used.’
‘I have a nanny in place who takes Eleanor to school in the mornings and brings her back home. Under normal circumstances, I would have a live-in nanny but Carrie has always insisted on having the evenings to herself and I’ve been loath to replace her because she’s been there since Eleanor was a baby.’
‘What about your wife? Does she work long hours as well?’ Shannon’s voice was laced with curiosity.
‘My wife is dead.’ He glanced down and she felt a rush of compassion for him and for his child. She tried to imagine a life with no siblings, no mother, an absent father and a nanny—and failed.
‘I’m sorry.’ She paused and then asked curiously, ‘When did she die?’
‘When Eleanor was born, actually.’ There was a dead flatness in his voice which she recognised. She’d heard her mother use that tone whenever someone asked her about her husband. She’d used detachment to forestall questions she didn’t want to answer. ‘The pregnancy was fraught, although the birth was relatively simple. Three hours after Eleanor was born, my wife haemorrhaged to death.’
‘I’m so very sorry, Mr Lindley.’
‘So occasionally I might need you to act as babysitter, for want of a better word. My old secretary was very obliging in that respect but, as I said, she now lives in Dorset. Naturally, you would be paid handsomely for the inconvenience.’
Shannon cradled the cup in between her hands, rubbing the rim with her thumbs. ‘Looking after a child could never be an inconvenience,’ she said quietly.
‘So.’ He signalled for the bill and she could sense his eagerness to be off the subject of his child and back into the arena of discussing work. ‘When would you be able to report for work?’
‘Whenever you want.’
‘What about next Monday morning? Eight-thirty sharp. And, naturally, I needn’t tell you that your first month will be a probationary one.’
‘On both sides, Mr Lindley,’ Shannon told him, just in case he got it into his head that she would somehow feel obliged to work for him even if she hated the job, simply because he had offered it to her out of duty.
‘I wouldn’t—’ he graced her with such a powerful smile that her heart seemed to stop for a few seconds ‘—dream of expecting otherwise.’ He stood up and politely offered her a lift to wherever she was going. When she declined, he nodded briefly in her direction before ushering her out of the coffee-bar.
The fresh, cold air whipped around her and for a few seconds, she had the unreal sensation that it had all been a vivid dream. She had always been particularly good at dreaming up improbable scenarios. Perhaps this was just another one. But, of course, it wasn’t. She had quit one job and then Fate had smiled on her and decreed that she land another within hours of losing the first. Wasn’t that just like life? Things, she had always thought, were never quite as black as they seemed. All you ever needed to do was leap over the first sticky patch and, sure enough, things would right themselves. There was always room for healthy optimism.
The healthy optimism stayed with Shannon for the remainder of the week and right into the weekend, which was spent with Sandy who seemed agog at the turn of events. She kept referring to ‘the luck of the devil’ and the way that Irish blarney could get a girl what she wanted until Shannon was forced to point out that the man was obviously impressed by all the secretarial potential he had spotted in her while she had waited tables.
‘Ha! Perhaps he spotted other potential,’ Sandy whispered darkly over their celebratory pizza.
But even that failed to quench her optimism.
She dressed very carefully on the Monday morning, making sure that everything matched and that there were no unknowing eccentric touches which had always been permissible at the radio station and at Alfredo’s but most certainly would not be in most normal working environments. She looked regretfully at her floppy hat as she left the bedsit, and at her flat black lace-up shoes which were her faithful companions whether accompanied by skirt or trousers. Neither would do. Blue skirt, white blouse, blue and black checked jacket, which unfortunately was the only one she possessed and as a hand-me-down from one of her sisters didn’t fit quite right, and, of course, her coat, one of her more expensive purchases from her working life at the radio station.
Her hair had presented a bit of a problem. Braids didn’t seem right for a secretarial job in a normal office environment, but wearing it loose wasn’t an option because as far as she was concerned, it was just too red, too beacon-like, so she tied it into a low ponytail which she held in place with a large, tortoiseshell barrette.
Shannon decided, as she caught the underground to the address Kane Lindley had written down for her, that her mother would have loved her outfit but her brothers and sisters would have fallen over laughing. Although she wasn’t the youngest in the family, she was the last girl and so her elder sisters had mothered her. She was the only one in the family with red hair and somehow the red hair had always made her look much younger than her years. Thank heavens she had tied it back. Severely. She was about to embark on a severe career path, she decided, working for a man who would certainly not tolerate too much gaiety within the four walls of his office.
Her first taste of exactly how different her job would be compared to the last two was when she arrived at the office which turned out to be in a building all smoked glass and, as she entered, marble floors and plants in the foyer. Mr Lindley, she was told by the receptionist who was separated from the public by a large, smooth circular desk, was waiting for her and that if she took the lift to the fourth floor, she would be directed to his office.
By the time Shannon was standing outside his door, she was fast losing faith in her office skills. They had certainly done nicely in her previous two jobs, but did radio stations and restaurants really lend themselves to the sort of top-class working skills needed in a place like this? Somewhere with thick carpets and enclosed offices and people hurrying like ants from computer terminals to fax machines and photocopiers? Her carefully thought-out clothes seemed hideously informal next to the smartly dressed women she had spied, who seemed to be in a uniform of grey suits and black pumps.
She tentatively knocked at the door, which was opened by a middle-aged woman with iron grey hair and sharp eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ Shannon stammered. ‘Actually, I’m looking for Mr Lindley’s office. The girl at Reception—’
‘Should have called me to come and fetch you,’ the woman said, interrupting her nervous explanation. ‘I shall have to have a word with her. Step inside, Miss McKee. Allow me first of all to introduce myself. I’m Sheila Goddard. I don’t normally work for Mr Lindley, although it has to be said that he hasn’t found a suitable replacement for his previous secretary for…well, frankly, months, and I’ve spent quite a bit of my time covering. Most inconvenient.’ She gave Shannon a look that seemed to imply that this inconvenience was somehow her fault.
‘This will be your office. As you can see, Mr Lindley’s office is just beyond the inner door. Now, my dear, I must confess that we were all a little surprised when Mr Lindley informed us that he had found himself a permanent secretary…’
Not as surprised as I was to be offered the job, she thought. ‘I’m on one month’s probation,’ Shannon pointed out quickly, as she looked around the large outer office with its walnut desk and swivel chair and discreet company advertising pictures framed on the walls. Her optimism was fading fast in the face of
