I break off to have a cup of coffee, reds, I actually normally remain at my desk and more often than not I devote my attention to paperwork while I’m having it,’ he said crushingly, and she nodded.
‘Then how do you know what’s going on in your company? You know, if you don’t get around and hear the gossip on the ground floor?’
‘Hear the gossip?’
‘Well, you did ask me whether I had any questions,’ Shannon trailed off, when he continued to stare at her as though she were crazy. ‘As far as the actual work goes, I think I can handle it. I might be a bit slow to start with, of course. Until I find my feet.’
‘I shouldn’t think it’ll take you very long,’ he said. ‘I’ve told Linda in Personnel to expect you some time before lunch.’ With a swift, graceful movement, he stood up and eyed her blandly. ‘Right now I shall be busy with meetings, so I probably won’t see you until tomorrow. Linda will fill you in on all of this, but if you’re interested, there’s an office restaurant on the ground floor. I suspect that’s where all the chat and gossip occurs.’
‘Perhaps you should eat there more often in that case,’ Shannon said with a slow grin.
‘Actually,’ he threw at her over his shoulder, as he slipped on his jacket and adjusted his tie, ‘I do. Whenever I get the chance.’
He walked towards the door, then paused before turning to look at her. ‘I think it might be a good idea if you met Eleanor. Carrie’s been staying on late to accommodate me over the past two months, but now that you’re here we can work something out so that she can get back to her social life.’
‘I thought the babysitting arrangement was more on an…occasional basis,’ Shannon faltered. ‘And what about my social life?’
‘Oh.’ He walked slowly towards her, rubbing his chin with his hand as though startled at the concept of her having a social life. ‘I thought you had come to London to nurse a broken heart. Don’t you spend all your free time pining?’
Shannon flushed at his blatant and cheerful disregard for boundaries. ‘Actually, if you read any self-help book, you’ll discover that women with broken hearts immediately rush off to cultivate new and exciting social lives,’ she replied tartly. She wondered whether dinner dates with Sandy constituted a new and exciting social life. Having come to London, she had quickly realised that the novel taste of freedom from her brothers and sisters and extended family members also carried a downside. Namely, that there was no handy cushion to protect her from her nights spent on her own. She went out with Sandy and with some of the other staff who worked at Alfredo’s and was gradually building up a social life of sorts, but it was hardly humming.
‘Well,’ Kane conceded, ‘I normally return home by eight, so your exciting social life shouldn’t suffer too much.’
‘By eight? When do you ever get to see your daughter?’
‘I usually try and keep weekends free,’ he muttered, turning away as a dark flush spread up his neck. ‘Do you know your way around London?’ He bent over and scribbled his address on a piece of paper. ‘No, forget that. I’ll get my driver to come and collect you, say, Friday evening? Around seven-thirty? Eleanor usually stays up late on a Friday as there’s no school on a Saturday.’
‘I’m sure I can find my way to your house, Mr Lindley.’ She looked at the address and wondered how far it would be from an underground station. She wasn’t averse to walking but walking at night, freezing cold and potentially without any real clue as to where she was heading, wasn’t her idea of fun.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ He smiled briefly. ‘After all, you’re the one who will be doing me the service.’
‘What is she like?’ Shannon asked curiously, folding the piece of paper and stuffing it into her bag.
‘Small, blonde hair, blue eyes.’
‘Actually, I meant her personality.’
‘Oh, Eleanor is…very quiet.’ He frowned and seemed to be thinking of some other way he could find of describing her. ‘Doesn’t give any trouble at all.’
To Shannon, that hardly sounded like a great description of an eight-year-old child. I mean, she thought, if you can’t get into a spot of trouble when you’re eight, then when on earth can you? She had spent most of her formative years getting into trouble! When she’d left school at sixteen, she could remember the headmistress telling her mother that never in the history of the school had one parent paid so many visits.
‘Right,’ Shannon said in a subdued, reflective voice.
‘Don’t forget, if you run into anything you can’t handle, and I’m not around, Sheila will help you out. She knows as much about this business as I do, probably.’ He moved towards the door and stopped to say with a gravity in his voice that was only belied by the glint in his eye, ‘And don’t forget the office canteen. It’s a hotbed of gossip and intrigue. Let me know if you hear about any insurrections I should beware of.’
She could have sworn she heard a chuckle as Kane shut the door behind him and she was left with the computer, a stack of letters to type and the prospect of dinner en famille in four days’ time with a man who was reluctantly beginning to intrigue her even more than he had when she’d been serving him his coffee and bagels.
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