retrieval system.’
He laughed. ‘Don’t try to dress it up in fancy words. It’s a box of filing, and you know it.’
‘Plus a potential overhaul of your systems, if you show me what you already have in place. What else did you have in mind?’
Again, he thought of her body wrapped round his. Which was crazy. Apart from the fact that Sara Fleet wasn’t his type, he knew better than to mix business with pleasure. It always ended in tears.
Except for Karim and Lily. But again they were the exception that proved the rule.
And he knew he was going out on a limb here, but his hunches were usually right. ‘The kind of business I’m looking at—I could do with a female viewpoint. An honest one.’
She frowned. ‘What sort of business?’
‘A new venture, for me.’
‘Which tells me so much.’
He loved her sarcastic tone. It meant she’d speak her mind, rather than telling him what she thought he wanted to hear. And he valued honesty and straightforwardness. ‘I’m looking at buying a hotel. I have three or four options, and I want to check them out, so it means there’ll be some travelling involved. Would that be a problem?’
‘No. Justin won’t mind.’
Justin? Obviously her partner, he thought. Good. That made her very firmly off-limits. Because he only dated women who were single and who didn’t have wedding bells in their eyes. Sara was already spoken for, so he could lock away that instant attraction and simply work with her. ‘Fine. Right—systems.’ He took a swig of coffee, then talked her through the bank of filing cabinets, answering her questions as they went along. ‘That’s the paper side of things. Computer…’ He drew a chair round to his side of the desk, then tapped into the computer and flicked through the various programs. ‘Accounts, payroll, correspondence, past projects, current projects. All bog-standard stuff. I assume you can deal with spreadsheets and graphs.’
‘Yes.’ She asked a few more questions—sensible ones, and not just for the sake of it, he noticed—and then it was decision time.
He knew what he wanted. So he did what he always did and played it straight. ‘So that’s the set-up here.’ He paused. ‘Would you be prepared to sort out my office and act as my PA until I find maternity cover?’
‘Yes.’ She told him her hourly rate.
‘That’s less than the agency charges,’ he remarked.
‘Because agencies,’ she said dryly, ‘pay temps about half the rate that they bill the clients. To cover overheads and profit.’
‘True.’ And he liked the fact she was sharp enough to realise that. ‘Though you could get away with charging more than you do.’
‘I thought clients were supposed to haggle for a reduction in fees, not an increase?’
He spread his hands. ‘A fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. If you’re as good as I hear you are, you’ll be worth it.’
She inclined her head in acknowledgement of the compliment. ‘When do you want me to start?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘How about…now?’
CHAPTER TWO
LUKE was surprised at how quickly Sara settled in. By the beginning of the following week, it felt as if she’d always worked with him. He’d persuaded her to man the office and take phone messages while he was out, and Sara turned out to be brilliantly organised. If he was out of the office she emailed the messages to him so he could act on them if they were urgent. Or she dealt with queries herself and sent him an email to tell him what she’d done.
He loved the fact that she used her initiative instead of running to him with questions.
And whenever Luke reached a point in his work when he was about to stop and make himself a mug of coffee, Sara was there before him. Just as he was about to look over to her desk and ask if she wanted a coffee, too, she’d place a mug on the coaster on his desk. Rich, smooth coffee, the exact strength he liked, with no milk and one spoonful of sugar. Perfect.
‘Have you been talking to Di or something?’ he asked when he’d finished his coffee.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Because you second-guess me, the way she did. It’s almost like having her back—and she had four years to get used to the way I work.’
Sara laughed. ‘No, I haven’t talked to her. Not about you, at any rate. She called the other day to see how everything was and I told her to put her feet up with a mug of ginger tea and stop feeling guilty.’
‘Good. That’s what I told her, last time she rang.’ He paused. ‘So how did you…?’
‘Know how you work? Observation,’ she said. ‘Most people have routines.’
‘So you’re saying I’m set in my ways?’
She spread her hands. ‘Work it out for yourself, boss,’ she teased.
‘You’re just as set in your ways,’ he retorted, slightly nettled.
‘Meaning?’
If she was going to be straight with him, then he’d be straight with her. ‘You’re here on the dot of nine, you always take exactly an hour’s lunch break and you leave at the dot of five. And you never, ever work late.’
‘Because I’m good at time management.’ She returned to her own desk. ‘Besides, the longer the hours you work, the more your productivity drops. By the third day of working late, you’re actually running behind.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘Easy.’ She scribbled something on a piece of scrap paper, then walked over to his desk and put it in front of him. ‘One curve. The x axis is time, the y axis is your productivity rate. Now, would you agree that it’s higher in the morning, when you’re fresh, and lower at the end of the day, when you’re tired?’
‘Yes.’ Though he could see exactly where this was heading, and he had a nasty feeling that she’d boxed him neatly into a corner.
‘So if you’re not fresh, because you’re tired from the previous day, you’ll start further along the x axis, from a lower productivity point, as if you’ve already worked a couple of hours. And the more days you work late, the further along the x axis you start each morning.’ She folded her arms. ‘My point, I think.’
‘Hmm. And what about personal variables? Some people are best first thing in the morning, others are better later in the day.’
‘True.’
‘And some people thrive on working long hours. Point to me.’
‘Some people think they thrive on it,’ she countered. ‘I hate that culture where you have to be seen to be in early and work late. Presenteeism isn’t
