A Professional Marriage. Jessica Steele

Philip asked.

      ‘No, thank you,’ she refused pleasantly. ‘It’s been a super evening, but…’

      ‘But you’re a working girl?’

      ‘Something like that,’ she answered with a smile, and smiled again when, having to pass Davenport’s table—curse it—Philip civilly paused to say hello.

      ‘Pomeroy,’ Joel acknowledged, getting to his feet. ‘Chesnie.’ He included her, and introduced his sultry, if terrific-looking companion. ‘Do you know Imogen?’

      Brief introductions followed, where Joel did not mention that Chesnie was his PA and that he was saving a few short and sharp words for her. After the way she slaved for him! Let him try! Then she and Philip were moving on.

      Philip came to the outer door of her apartment building with her. ‘I hope you’re going to allow me to see you again, Chesnie?’ he asked.

      She liked him, he was good company—and she had an idea it annoyed Joel Davenport that she went out with the opposition. ‘I’d like that,’ she answered. But, thinking he might have this coming Saturday in mind, added, ‘I’ll give you my phone number. Perhaps next week some time?’

      ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ he said, and when he had her phone number he leaned forward. Though, perhaps sensing her instant withdrawal, he satisfied himself to kiss her cheek, and stood back to wait while she went indoors.

      Despite the fact that her home had been cobbled together with pieces of furniture given to her by her parents, grandparents and her sisters, and the few additions she had contributed herself, Chesnie had to admit everything blended in well to give her apartment a very homely feel.

      But there was no time to make herself comfortable in it now. Time only to rinse her hands and head for that tiny second bedroom now laughingly called a study.

      She had been at work for forty-five minutes when someone rang the outer buzzer. Philip? Why would he come back? She left her work and went into her small hall to take up the telephone that was connected to the outer front door.

      ‘Who is it?’ she enquired, and felt faintly staggered at the reply she received.

      ‘Davenport,’ he informed her crisply.

      Davenport! Surely he hadn’t left the lovely Imogen to have those few short and sharp words with his PA that had been brewing? At this hour? She didn’t believe it—though he wasn’t sounding too affable.

      ‘You’d better come up!’ she replied, equally crisply, while wondering—had she done anything that could be called grounds for dismissal? She didn’t think so, and surely Joel Davenport wouldn’t call at her home to sack her! Or would he?

      She stayed in the hall to wait the minute or so it would take him to reach her door, and mentally braced herself for whatever he had called to see her about. At his first ring she had the door open. For several seconds, like warring adversaries, they stood coldly eyeing each other. He was the first to speak.

      ‘You’re still dressed!’ he stated hostilely, his glance going over her black dress, drawn for a second to the delicate contours of her cleavage, which had never before been on view.

      Feeling very much like holding her hands protectively in front of her bosom, Chesnie instead turned from him. ‘Come in,’ she invited, and led the way into her sitting room, realising that it would have been just the same to him if she had gone to bed—he would still have rung her apartment buzzer.

      In her sitting room she turned to face him. But before she could ask him why he had called, he was telling her, ‘You knew I needed that paperwork for the morning!’ Clearly he had stopped by the office from the airport and discovered that the paperwork he’d ordered wasn’t locked away in his drawer. ‘Yet you deliberately—’ He began to sort her out. But she’d had enough before he started.

      ‘I’m glad you called,’ she cut in calmly, inwardly boiling. ‘There are one or two queries I need your help with. If you’re not too tired after your busy day, I wonder if you’d help me?’ He was looking at her with narrowed eyes, as if wondering what her game was. Oh, joy; oh, bliss. ‘Have you a moment to come to my study?’ Study? Pretentious or what? ‘I’m working on your paperwork now.’

      There was a definite glint in his eyes now, she saw. He had called looking for a fight. She had disarmed him—and he didn’t like it. Tough.

      Whether he was impressed or not that she’d had no intention of letting him down, she had no idea. But he followed her to her ‘study’, where she had already printed off some of the matter she had typed.

      Swiftly he dealt with the queries which she had been going to make a note of, but from the unsmiling look of him she suspected he didn’t care at all to have his cause for righteous anger taken away from him, and was still looking for a fight.

      ‘Naturally, I intend to have everything completed and on your desk by eight in the morning.’ She nicely rubbed it in.

      A hostile look was the thanks she received for her trouble. She was almost purring as they left her workroom and she accompanied him out to the hall. He soon put an end to any lofty feelings, however.

      Joel Davenport had his hand on the door latch when he looked down on her from his superior height, paused, and then commented shortly, ‘After our discussion yesterday, I hardly expected you to be out with Pomeroy tonight!’

      What discussion was that? Her memory of it was that Joel had enlightened her to the fact that Philip Pomeroy was head of the opposition. And she felt incensed again that Davenport, for a second time, felt he had to remind her of the confidentiality of her position!

      ‘Do you honestly believe that Philip would have telephoned me at the office and told you who he was if he was after sensitive information from me?’ she flared. And, her cool image suddenly in tatters around her, ‘Do you honestly think, when I’ve worked for you for almost two months now, that I would part with any information, confidential or otherwise?’ she erupted—and came the closest yet to setting about him when, infuriatingly, he stared at her, seemed again to enjoy seeing her lose her cool front, and then had the sheer audacity—to smile!

      ‘It seems a shame that, because of pressure of work, you sent him from your first date without even a goodnight kiss,’ he commented charmingly.

      Oh, to kick his shin! Chesnie strove hard for control. ‘It rather looks as if you’re going to bed kissless too,’ she answered sweetly—and was on the receiving end of a look that very clearly stated ‘Fat chance’. Though he made no comment with regard to whether the delectable Imogen was waiting for him somewhere.

      Instead, he opened the door, and was on his way out when he bade her silkily, ‘Don’t work too late.’

      Chesnie glared at his departing back. Pig!