‘I need you to do me a small favour.’
‘Favour? What favour?’
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, as the lift disgorged them into the compact underground car park he led her towards his sleek, low-slung sports car, a shiny black Mercedes that was the last word in breathtaking extravagance and just the sort of car she would have imagined him driving. Not for him the big, safe cars with practical boot space and generous passenger-toting potential!
‘One of my babies,’ he said, grinning at her and sweeping a loving hand across the gleaming bonnet.
‘One of them? You mean you have a fleet of cars lurking away somewhere?’ Yes, she could imagine that too. A dozen racy little numbers tucked away somewhere, ready and waiting for when they might be put to use driving his racy female numbers to racy little nightclubs. She scowled in the darkness and wondered how such creative genius could be simultaneously shallow and superficial.
‘You snorted.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Had she?
‘You snorted just then. A very disapproving snort. What’s wrong about having a fleet of sports cars? I thought you women liked that sort of thing.’
‘Some might.’ His amusement was very irritating. She tilted her chin up and stared frostily out of the window.
‘But not you.’ He slotted a card into the machine at the side and the exit barrier went up.
‘That’s right,’ Tessa said crisply. ‘I happen to think that men who feel the need to buy small, fast cars are just subscribing to the truth of toys for boys.’
‘Toys for boys?’ Curtis chuckled. ‘I can assure you that I’m no boy! Haven’t I already proved that by the kind of coffee I drink?’
‘Yes, of course you have. Silly me. You’re all man!’ She slanted an ironic, sideways glance at him and just for a fraction of a second their eyes met and she felt a rush of unsteadiness. The glint in his eyes was wickedly, darkly teasing and for one heart-stopping moment it spiked into the very core of her, sending every pulse in her body shooting off into overdrive. ‘You might want directions to my house,’ she said in a very steady voice. ‘I live out towards Swiss Cottage. If you—’
‘I know where Swiss Cottage is.’ He paused. ‘Now to the original point of my conversation.’
Curiosity overcame apprehension at the oddly serious note in his voice and Tessa shifted to look at him. ‘Yes. The favour you wanted to ask of me. What is it? If it’s to do with working overtime, then I’m sure it won’t be a problem, just so long as you let me know in advance what days you require of me.’
‘Oh, well, some overtime might be needed but it’s to do with my baby, actually.’
‘Your car?’ Wasn’t this baby thing going a little too far? Boys with toys was bad enough but boys obsessed with toys was beyond the pale!
‘No, of course not,’ Curtis said impatiently. ‘I’m talking about Anna!’
‘Anna?’
‘My mother did tell you about Anna, didn’t she?’
Tessa thought back. She was certain she would have remembered the name. ‘No,’ she said slowly and thinking hard. ‘Who is she?’
Curtis swore softly under his breath and pulled the car over to the side of the kerb, then he turned to face her. ‘Anna is my daughter.’
‘Your daughter?’
He swore again and shook his head, scowling. ‘I take it my mother forgot to mention that little detail. Or rather chose not to.’
‘But…I don’t get any of this. You have a daughter? Are you married?’ He didn’t act like a married man. He didn’t wear a wedding ring. And did married men have strings of sexy secretaries because they decorated their offices, with practical skills not of prime importance? Would his wife approve of that? Did she even know? Maybe, Tessa thought with a sickening jolt, they had one of those modern open marriages.
In the middle of her freewheeling thoughts, he interrupted with, ‘A daughter, no wife. And I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned when my mother saw you.’ The cunning fox, he thought indulgently. Had his mother thought that bringing up the question of his daughter and the spot of coverage that might be occasionally needed would have put off the perfect candidate? One of the reasons he had succumbed to her insistence on choosing his next secretary had been the little technicality that Anna was going to be on half-term for two weeks and his mother would be out of the country on a gadabout cruise with her circle of friends. Someone would be needed to help out with coverage should it become necessary and, in his mother’s words, a flighty bit of fluff would not do.
‘Anna is going to be home for a fortnight from her boarding-school tomorrow. Next week she’s going to be coming into the office and I want you to take her under your wing. The following week should be fine. I intend to have the week off, but next week’s a bit trickier with this trip to the Far East to source potential computer bases.’
‘Boarding-school.’
‘Hence the fact that she has to come into the office. None of her friends live locally and my mother left the country a couple of days ago.’
Tessa couldn’t take her eyes off his face. She could picture him as just about anything apart from a father. He had too much personality to be a father! Then she thought what a ridiculous idea that was.
‘Are you following a word I’m saying?’
Tessa blinked. ‘I just find it a bit difficult to comprehend…how old is…Anna?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘Fourteen. But you never talk about her…have pictures…’ Was he ashamed of being a father? Was that why she was at boarding-school? Because she cramped his eligible-bachelor lifestyle?
‘I have pictures in my wallet. Care to see them just to verify that I’m telling the truth and that she looks like a normal kid, no nasty side effects from my being her father?’ He raised his eyebrows and Tessa blushed.
‘No, of course not!’
‘Can I ask you something?’
She nodded, still furiously examining the scenario that had unfolded in front of her.
‘Did my mother know that you had raised a kid sister virtually on your own?’
‘Completely on my own,’ Tessa absent-mindedly amended. ‘Yes. Why?’
“‘A most suitable woman for the job.”’ He quoted his mother with a grin. ‘Not only did you come with a sackful of references, but you were single, with a sensible head on sensible shoulders, and you had firsthand experience of communicating with a teenager. No wonder she failed to mention the little technicality of my daughter. You were so ideal for the job that she probably didn’t want to jeopardise the chances of your accepting the offer.’
‘I feel manipulated.’
‘You’ll have to mention that to my darling mother the next time you see her.’ He pulled out slowly from the kerb, leaving her to her riotous thoughts for a while.
‘But what exactly am I supposed to do with your daughter?’ Tessa eventually ventured. If she had just one drop of his volatile blood in her, then she would be more than a handful cooped up in an office when she would rather be hanging out with teenagers. Tessa shuddered at the prospect lurking ahead of her.
‘Supervise her. Give her little jobs to do. I’ll be around for most of the week. When I’m not…’
‘She can’t possibly stay with me…!’
‘Her