silence that greeted this was deafening.
‘You’ll find my son a very interesting man to work for,’ Mrs Diaz had assured her, sitting back in her high-backed chair and folding her hands elegantly on her lap.
By interesting Tessa had assumed willing to give her responsibility. That had been one of the downsides of her last job. She’d done a lot and she’d been respected for what she’d done, but the chances to broaden her horizons hadn’t been there. She had heard the adjective interesting and been immediately captivated by the prospects it had promised.
Well, day one was proving to be very interesting indeed, if you could call walking around in a ghost office, wearing a suit, interesting.
‘Poor Curtis hasn’t had much luck with secretaries ever since Nancy quit to live in Australia with her husband.’ Mrs Diaz had shaken her head sorrowfully while Tessa had waited for her to expand. Somehow Mrs Diaz was not the sort of lady to interrupt with a barrage of questions. ‘He’s had a series of doodle heads, little glamour pusses fluttering around and batting their eyelashes. Quite, quite unsuitable for the job of working for my son.’
From the looks of it, anyone would have been quite, quite unsuitable for working for a man who shut up shop at six on a Monday morning, when his new secretary was supposed to arrive that day.
Tessa reluctantly proceeded down the corridor, glancing into the various rooms, increasingly aware that she wasn’t going to find any signs of life. It left her in the awkward position of either leaving and risking not being around if everyone in the office reappeared as mysteriously as they seemed to have vanished, or else sitting around in ghost town central twiddling her thumbs until her official going home time of five-thirty.
She was frantically trying to rack up the pros and cons afforded by going or staying when she heard it. A sound. Coming from the office at the very end of the corridor. She picked up speed and walked towards the noise, making sure to check all offices en route just in case.
The plaque on the door indicated Curtis Diaz’s office. It was slightly ajar. She pushed it open, stepped through into a smaller outside room, through which was a much bigger office, and this time the winter sun was making no headway because thick cream velvet curtains were resolutely closed across the sprawling bank of windows.
Tessa’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and she immediately saw the reason for the closed curtains.
Stretched out on a sofa against one side of the wall was a man, lying flat on his back, one arm flung behind him, the other resting contentedly on his stomach. The soft noise that had drawn her attention was simply the sound of his intermittent snoring. In the middle of her appalled inspection, the man cleared his throat and turned onto his side, scaring her witless in the process.
He was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved rugby-style shirt. Tessa tiptoed towards him and the view expanded into a swarthy face with a hint of stubble darkening his chin. Rumpled black hair completed the picture. Tessa stared, heart thumping, calming herself with the knowledge that at least she wasn’t in the building alone. She might have stepped into the twilight zone on the third floor, but all the other floors were teeming with people and good old George was only a phone call away.
She stepped briskly past the inert figure on the couch, reached for the cord by the wall and pulled.
‘Okay, buster! Who are you and what are you doing in this office?’
The man struggled awake, groaning, and then subsided back, this time with one of the cushions covering his face.
Tessa walked towards him, gazed at the rumpled sight with distaste, and yanked the cushion straight out from beneath his arm, and this time it worked. Gratified, she watched as the bum blearily hoisted himself into a semi-sitting position and focused on where she was standing with her hands pinned to her hips and her mouth narrowed into a line of uncompromising severity.
‘I don’t know how you got into this office, buddy…’ Of course she knew! Hadn’t it been wide open to whoever might choose to enter? Hadn’t she herself wondered at the utter lack of basic security? ‘But you can get right out! This isn’t a doss house for any passing vagrant who decides to come in for a quick kip!’
‘Wha…?’
‘Oh, yes, you heard me!’ Tessa could feel herself well and truly on a roll now. First, she had showed up, on time and dressed in a spanking new suit, ready to make a good impression on day one, only to find herself wandering through an empty office like a fool, and as if that wasn’t enough here she was, confronted by a supine figure snoring away merrily, probably sleeping off a hangover from whatever bottle of methylated spirits he had downed the night before outside the building.
‘Look at you!’ she snapped, leaning forward and wrinkling her nose as the apparition pushed himself into a more upright sitting position so that he could look at her in perplexed astonishment. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’
‘I should?’
‘You most certainly should! An able-bodied young man like yourself, sneaking into an unoccupied office and just going to sleep! Don’t tell me you can’t get out there and find yourself a job!’ The able-bodied young man was staring at her in a way that was beginning to make her feel very self-conscious. He was also, now that she could see him properly, an extremely good looking specimen, underneath the scruffy demeanour. His face was darkly handsome, in a tough, rugged sort of way, a compelling face that made her breath catch in her throat for a second or two. Tessa got a grip of herself and glared.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to report you,’ she said quietly, while narrowed blue eyes began to gleam with amusement. ‘And you won’t find that very funny! Have your fun and grin away, but when the police come and you’re thrown into some cell downtown, you won’t be grinning!’
‘Cell downtown?’ He couldn’t help himself. His lips twitched and he grinned with wicked amusement. ‘This isn’t New York, this is London. I think you’ve been watching too many American police shows.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and reluctantly stood up.
Disconcerted, Tessa took a couple of steps backwards. The man, who was now massaging the back of his neck with his hand and glancing round the office in an offhand way, was very tall. Very tall, with a solid muscularity that was a bit alarming.
‘Maybe I have,’ she said placatingly. She watched warily as the man ambled over to the window and peered out.
‘What time is it, anyway?’
‘A little after half past eight.’
That met with a grunt. ‘No wonder I feel like something the cat brought in,’ he muttered, swinging round to face her.
‘I’m going to have to call George…’ Tessa began. He had made her feel like a melodramatic idiot for having mentioned police and cells. George would have to deal with this. It wasn’t part of her job—secretary and makeshift security guard for premises that should have been locked in the first place.
‘Who are you, anyway?’
‘Who am I?’ Tessa regarded the man with amazement. ‘Let’s just say that I’m the person who found you comatose on a sofa, trespassing, from all accounts.’
‘Yes, but do you have a name?’ He plonked himself down on the leather swivel chair at the desk and she gaped incredulously
