And—and here she inwardly berated herself for the shallowness of her thoughts—she had nothing suitable to wear for dinner with a multimillionaire, and her little bedsit was not exactly the type of home Jacques Querruel would be used to.
So, in view of all that, why could she hear herself saying ‘Thank you, Mr Querruel. I would be pleased to hear what you have to say over dinner?’
‘Excellent.’ His gaze ran over her for one more second and then he turned without another word and she was alone again.
For as long as it took for the door to Michael Roberts’s office to close, anyway. Then Margaret was standing where Jacques had just stood, her eyebrows disappearing into her hair. ‘I don’t believe what I just heard,’ she whispered, coming right into the room and standing by Holly’s desk. ‘I’ve worked for Mr Roberts for five years and I’ve seen females galore throw themselves at Mr Querruel, and he’s never even noticed. He’s a man who keeps work and play totally separate.’
‘This is work.’ Holly was embarrassed and hot. ‘He said something about a job proposition. I think he suspected that I couldn’t stay on after what happened this morning.’
‘Did you feel that?’ Margaret asked unhappily.
Holly nodded. ‘I guess so,’ she admitted. ‘It would be too awkward with me working for you and you being Mr Roberts’s secretary. You see that, don’t you, Margaret?’
Margaret stared at the lovely young face in front of her, and now her motherly instincts came to the fore as she said softly, ‘Holly, be careful, won’t you? Jacques Querruel is renowned as a love-’em-and-leave-’em type, and normally his partners are selected from women who think like him, if you know what I mean. They’re all beautiful and sophisticated and often holding high-powered jobs—real career women. They don’t want the ties of hearth and home any more than he does.’
Now it was Holly’s turn to stare at the other woman. ‘Margaret, he’s only asked me out to discuss some sort of work proposal,’ she said in astonishment. ‘I think he believed me about Jeff Roberts, although he never said so, and he’s probably feeling he owes me some sort of alternative job, that’s all.’ She could hardly believe Margaret was suggesting anything else. Jacques Querruel and a typist? It was laughable.
Margaret sniffed a very worldly-wise and maternal sniff. ‘Be that as it may,’ she said grimly. ‘You just remember what I’ve said, that’s all.’
‘He asked me in your hearing,’ Holly pointed out reasonably. ‘He wouldn’t do that if he wasn’t serious about a job, would he?’
Margaret just looked at her, her plump chin settled in her ample neck and her eyebrows raised in a way she didn’t mean to be comical but which struck Holly so.
‘I promise I’ll be careful,’ Holly said at last, biting back a smile. ‘OK? And I’ll tell you everything that transpires in the morning, although I’m sure you’re worrying unnecessarily. But thanks anyway,’ she added, reaching out a hand and patting the other woman’s arm.
She received a warm smile in return. ‘I know you think I’m a fussy old woman but, in spite of the fact we’ve only known each other a little while, I think of you as a friend,’ Margaret said earnestly. ‘And with you not having any family as such, I feel you’re a bit…’
‘Vulnerable?’ Holly proffered.
Margaret nodded unhappily.
‘Believe me, Margaret, vulnerable I’m not,’ Holly said firmly. ‘I learnt to look after myself from when I could toddle; I had to—no one else was going to. And, if nothing else, being pushed around by the establishment and having six foster homes before I was eighteen makes one resilient.’
‘You’re telling me you’re tough?’
The tone was so disbelieving Holly laughed out loud. ‘I’m not a push-over,’ she qualified. ‘And I haven’t met a man yet who could soft-soap me into doing something I didn’t want to do.’
‘Ah, but you hadn’t met Jacques Querruel before.’ Margaret gave a wise-owl nod of her head just as the telephone in her office began to ring, causing her to bustle back into the other room.
Dear Margaret. Holly sat for a moment, nipping at her lower lip with small white teeth. It was true, they had hit it off right away at the interview for the job, which Margaret herself had conducted, and she had enjoyed working with the other woman the last weeks. She’d thought she was really set up here; with Margaret backing her there had been no reason why she couldn’t have worked herself up to a prime position in a few years with a nice fat salary to boot. She wasn’t afraid of hard work—in fact, she thrived on it—and with no home commitments she could work as late as she liked when necessity commanded.
Margaret’s warning continued to whirl round in Holly’s head as she tidied her desk and turned off the word processor. She locked the filing cabinets—her last job of the day—with the spare set of keys Margaret had given her in her first week at Querruel International, before walking through into the other room.
This office was spacious, as befitted the managing director’s secretary, holding two easy chairs and a small coffee-table along with Margaret’s huge L-shaped desk. In one corner a bookcase held a selection of Querruel International brochures and magazines where their furniture had been advertised, and in another stood two filing cabinets holding material of a confidential nature. It was as different from Holly’s little cubby-hole as chalk from cheese.
Margaret was still talking on the telephone as Holly emerged, and in the same moment Jacques Querruel strode through the open doorway of the other office. ‘Ready?’ he asked abruptly, and as Holly nodded he took her arm, calling goodnight to Margaret as he whisked Holly out into the corridor, whereupon the lift doors opened immediately he touched the button.
They had never done that for her, Holly thought bemusedly. She normally had to wait for at least a minute or two before the lift graciously consented to answer her call.
Once inside the lift Holly found herself tongue-tied. She searched her mind feverishly for some light comment to relieve the tension but it was a blank. She blessed the years of harsh training when she had learnt to disguise her feelings and appear calm and collected, however she was feeling inside, as she glanced at her reflection in the mirrored wall of the lift.
It showed an averagely tall, slim young woman with cool blue eyes and a composed face; an image she had carefully cultivated and took pleasure in. It was her wall of safety, her security, and part of her distress this morning had been because first Jeff Roberts, and then Jacques Querruel—in quite a different way from the former—had broken through the deliberately constructed barrier.
‘The taxi is waiting for us.’ She had been aware of his overt inspection as the lift swiftly took them downwards, but it wasn’t until the doors opened in Reception that he spoke. She turned her head and looked at him then as he added, ‘Your apartment is in Battersea, yes?’
‘Yes.’ How did he know that? Had he asked Margaret where she lived or had he checked out her personal file? The latter; she’d bet her boots on it.
‘And our restaurant, Lemaires, is in Chelsea, so that is most convenient, is it not?’
She didn’t know about that. The thought of Jacques Querruel sitting in the tiny bedsit which was her ‘apartment’ was an absolute no-go—there wasn’t room to swing a cat—and the thought of him waiting outside with a taxi clocking up every minute she took to get ready wasn’t an option either. As they stepped out of the smart, air-conditioned building into a pleasantly warm May evening Holly took a deep hidden breath and said steadily, ‘If you would like to go on ahead to the restaurant after you’ve dropped me off that would be fine, Mr Querruel. I’ll join