‘And if my opinion doesn’t fit in with yours?’ she asked with a careful neutrality that hid her jangling nerves.
He said nothing for a second, just looking at her with piercing eyes, and then he smiled. The first real smile she had seen. ‘I’m not looking for you to agree with me, necessarily,’ he said quietly, ‘but if you do disagree I expect your comments to be logical and well informed. I have enough sycophantic boot-lickers around already; I don’t need another one, Kim.’
It was the first time he had said her Christian name and, ridiculous though she told herself it was, it did something strange to her insides. Something she didn’t care to examine. He was too close. The thought came from nowhere and she told herself sharply she was acting like a skittish schoolgirl, not a mature woman of twenty-six.
To combat the weakness she forced herself to smile back, her tone light as she said, ‘Dare I ask if I can remind you of that in the future?’
The smile grew, turning the aggressively male face of hard angles and planes into a more mellow whole, and Kim watched, fascinated.
‘I have the feeling you will do so with or without my blessing,’ he said lazily, before levering himself off the desk in one easy movement and seating himself in the massive leather chair again. ‘Observe much, say little and keep your wits about you during the next few weeks, Kim, and you’ll do just fine. It’s nice to have you aboard.’
‘Thank you.’ It was a clear dismissal and Kim rose a trifle flusteredly, hoping her tension didn’t show. He was the most disturbing man she had ever met, but she had to find a way of coping with how she felt—and fast. This job was too fantastic an opportunity to blow.
It was that thought which enabled her to leave Lucas’s office with measured steps, her blonde head high and her face deadpan.
It would be all right, she assured herself, standing aside to let June pass into the Holy of Holies with the coffee. She had June to soften her absorption into the role of secretary to Lucas Kane and the other woman would be around for some weeks yet. After that…
Her heart began to thud and she clucked her tongue at herself, annoyed at her nervousness. After that she would be just what he wanted her to be—an efficient, cool, capable machine who ran his office like clockwork. She could do this. If nothing else, her time with Graham, not to mention the searing aftermath, had shown her she had hidden resources she had never dreamt of.
When she thought of that nightmare funeral, which had occurred the day after she had found out she was not only destitute but thousands and thousands of pounds in debt, she knew nothing could ever be as bad again.
But she had come through that, and not crawling on her belly, either—she’d carved out a reasonable life for herself and Melody and it was going to get better and better from this point on. She was in charge of her own destiny—hers and Melody’s—and the vow she had made standing in the pouring rain at the side of the newly dug grave still held good. Never again would she put her trust in any one man; she had learnt a hard lesson but she’d learnt it well. Men said one thing with their lips but their mind was thinking something else. They could be sweetness and light in company—with everyone else—but in the privacy of their own home turn into the devil incarnate.
She was autonomous now—blessedly, gloriously autonomous—and nothing, nothing, would ever persuade her to be anything else. And this job would ensure her material security in a way she had never imagined; it was her chance of a lifetime.
Secretary to Lucas Kane? Kim glanced at the closed door, beyond which she could hear the low murmur of voices. She was going to be the best secretary he’d ever had or die in the attempt!
CHAPTER THREE
OVER the next few weeks Kim worked as she had never worked before. She made copious notes of everything June told her, taking reams of paper home each night and sitting up until well past midnight, memorising anything and everything which was relevant. She acquainted herself with every file, every company, every individual who played a role in Lucas Kane’s business life until she had more facts and figures in her head than June did.
One of Melody’s schoolfriends lived directly opposite her daughter’s school and Kim came to an arrangement with the child’s mother that in return for the payment of a small fee she could drop Melody off at just gone eight every day, enabling the blue BMW to purr into Kane Electrical’s car park every morning before half-past eight.
Kim had imagined, the first day, that it would be just her and possibly the caretaker in the building, but Lucas’s sleek, champagne-coloured Aston Martin was already in residence when she had pulled up and it continued to be so every morning.
He had come to the door of his office on her early arrival and gazed quizzically at her for a moment or two, but beyond a request for one of the endless cups of coffee he consumed all day had made no comment.
Christmas had come and gone, and Kim had gulped slightly at the size of her very generous Christmas box from Lucas in the form of a cheque, and in the second week in January she and Melody had moved into the small but charming two-bedroomed cottage she had found not far from her daughter’s school.
And then the Monday of the third week was upon her, the first day June wouldn’t be there to cushion her from any minor panics, the other woman having left for Scotland the previous weekend. And Kim found she was as nervous as a child on its first day at school.
She’d gone to extra trouble with her appearance, the clothing allowance having enabled her to buy a new wardrobe consisting of several stylish, neatly tailored suits, blouses and accessories which perfectly projected the image Lucas Kane’s secretary needed to give, and Kim knew the dove-grey suit and salmon silk blouse complemented her English peaches and cream colouring.
Nevertheless, her soft brown eyes were wide and faintly anxious as she checked the coiled braid on the back of her head, her thick straight fringe just brushing the tops of her fine eyebrows.
‘Nothing has changed in the last forty-eight hours,’ she told the efficient-looking reflection softly. ‘You’ve been working for him for the last week or so with June doing little more than observing; you can handle anything now.’
Kim had to remind herself of that last comforting assurance in the next minute or two.
Over the last weeks she had slipped into the pattern of serving Lucas coffee as soon as she arrived in the office, but when, after the normal customary polite knock, Kim opened the door, it wasn’t the usual immaculately attired and perfectly groomed tycoon she had grown accustomed to who looked up from his desk.
Lucas had obviously been asleep until she had woken him, and now, as he straightened and peered at her from bleary eyes, Kim’s heartbeat went haywire.
It wasn’t the fact that he hadn’t shaved or brushed his hair, or that his dishevelled appearance bore evidence to the fact that he had slept in his clothes that had her insides turning cartwheels.
At some time during the last hours he had discarded his suit jacket along with his tie, and now his open shirt revealed a deep V of tanned flesh sprinkled with dark curling body hair and a muscled—devastatingly muscled—male chest of Olympic athlete proportions.
He worked out. He very clearly worked out. Kim was glued to the spot, the tray with the coffee and plate of biscuits wobbling dangerously in her hand. And he was… Well, he was something else, she admitted with silent shock.
