The Secretary's Scandalous Secret (4 page)

‘I’m beginning to get the picture.’

‘He wanted to know all about what I did, which was great, because most guys just like talking about themselves.’

‘I didn’t realise that you were that experienced…’

‘I’m not experienced…with men in London. Naturally I’ve been out with quite a few boys at home, and generally speaking they just want to talk about football or cars. Very stereotypical.’ She slid her eyes across to Luc, and as usual her mouth suddenly went dry, and she felt hot and flustered for no apparent reason. This was the first real conversation she had ever had with him, and she was enjoying herself, much as she loathed to admit it. ‘What do you talk about when you go out with a woman?’ she found herself asking curiously.

‘Strangely enough, I find that it’s the women who tend to do all the talking.’ He had little interest in holding hands
over the dinner table and sharing his thoughts with someone he planned on bedding.

‘Perhaps you make a good listener,’ Agatha suggested doubtfully. ‘Although I’m not really sure that you do. You didn’t listen to me when I told you that I could take care of myself.’

‘And evidence of your living conditions proves that I was right on that score.’

‘Maybe I should have been a little more insistent with Mr Travis,’ she conceded, giving a little ground on this one thing—because he had yet to discover, in addition to all the other problems he had listed, the temperamental fridge and its even more temperamental close relative, the oven. ‘But I’m a big girl when it comes to dealing with everything else.’

‘That’s true enough on the surface,’ Luc murmured. ‘You might look the part but I have a feeling that it only runs skin deep.’

‘Look the part?’ Was he telling her that she was fat? She might not be a stick insect, but she wasn’t fat—plump, maybe, but not fat. And, if that was what he had meant, why was she stupidly asking for confirmation? Did her capacity for masochism never end?

‘You’re a big girl, Agatha. Funny, I hadn’t really noticed until now.’ Again he tried to equate the teenager with the woman next to him, and again that weird kick that shot through his body as if he had been suddenly hot-wired.

‘You mean the dress?’ she suggested in a taut voice. The very same dress she had exhibited for him, hands outstretched, vainly hoping that he might compliment her. They had reached the restaurant, but she wasn’t quite ready to drop the conversation, so when he parked and turned towards her she garnered her very small supply of courage and stayed
put, arms folded, her full mouth flattened into a thin line. ‘I’m not ready to go in just yet.’

‘Pre-dinner nerves? Don’t worry. If he’s that good-looking, that charming and that interested in every word you have to say, I’m sure you’re in for a scintillating evening.’

‘It’s not pre-dinner nerves. It’s…it’s
you!
‘

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You haven’t said one nice thing to me all evening. I know you would never have employed me to work for your company. I know you’ve been forced to help me out because you think you owe my family a favour—which you don’t, but you could at least
try
and be nice. You’ve told me that I’m no good at what I do…’

She tabulated all her points by sticking up her fingers one by one. ‘You’ve told me that the clothes I wear to work are horrendous because I don’t wear that uniform of tight suits and high heels, even though I’m hidden away most of the time. I need to invest in a new wardrobe just in case someone important sees me and falls into a dead faint, I suppose. You’ve told me that I wouldn’t have a clue how to look after myself in a place like London, you’ve told me how awful my bedsit is, and now? Now you sit there telling me that I look
fat!’

Listing all those slights out loud hadn’t been a good idea. Taken one at a time, she could reason them away, but faced with all of them in their entirety was just too much. A wave of forlorn self-pity rushed over her; her eyes began to leak and it wasn’t long before the leak became a flood. When she found a handkerchief pressed into her hands, she accepted it gratefully and dabbed her eyes as her silly crying jag was reduced to the odd hiccup.

Embarrassment replaced self-pity. She blew her nose and stuffed the hankie into her bag.

‘Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I must be nervous; you’re right.’

‘I should be the one apologising.’ Luc had no time for weeping, wailing women, but for some reason the sight of Agatha in floods of tears had struck right to the heart of him. Hearing her neat little summary of everything he had said to her over the course of the evening had not been one of his proudest moments.

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, desperate to remove herself from his presence where seconds before she had wanted to stay and speak her mind. She tilted her face to him. ‘Do I look a mess? I bet my make-up’s everywhere. What’s he going to think?’ She gave a wobbly laugh.

‘That you’ve got amazing eyes and that you’re anything but fat,’ he said roughly.

And just like that the atmosphere altered with sudden, sizzling electricity. It was as if the world had suddenly shrunk to the small space between them. She thought she could actually hear the rush of blood through her veins but then she realised that she was just imagining it. Thinking straight, this was the man who hadn’t had a good word to say to her.

‘You don’t have to say that.’

‘No. I don’t.’ But his voice had changed imperceptibly. ‘But, just for the record, you do have amazing eyes, and when I said that you’re a big girl now I didn’t mean it in the literal sense.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘I meant you’ve grown up. That dress makes you look sexy.’

‘Sexy? Me?’

‘You. Why do you sound so shocked?’

Because you’re saying it,
she thought, while her face burnt and her pulses raced and her heart sang. ‘Let’s hope
Stewart agrees!’ Just in case those laser-sharp eyes of his could bore a hole in her head and pluck out that inappropriate thought.

‘Stewart. The hot date. Yes.’ His voice was clipped and he reached to open his car door. ‘I’ll come in with you. Hang on…’ He leaned across and carefully rubbed his finger under her eye, and then he laughed softly when she jerked back in surprise.

‘Relax. Just a bit of smudged mascara. Anyone would think you’d never been touched before, Agatha.’

‘I…I have my hankie. Well,
your
hankie. I can do that! Could you switch on the light? I need to have a look at my face. Make sure my eyes aren’t too puffy.’ She laughed shrilly, and then chattered and tutted and avoided eye contact as she inspected her face in her little hand mirror, so that by the time she had finished dabbing and rubbing she could present him with a bright, tinny smile.

‘Right, all ready! Can’t wait!’

Three and a half hours later, a driving, bitter rain greeted her outside.

‘So, when can I see you again?’

Agatha looked at Stewart who was pressed a bit closer to her than she would have liked—unavoidable because they were both sheltering under his umbrella. She had made sure that the buttons on her coat were done up to the neck. Whilst it had been flattering to be the object of his compliments, she had felt uncomfortable under his roving eye, even though she knew that this was what she should have expected. Several times she had caught him addressing her cleavage.

Also, her mind had been all over the place, analyzing and re-analysing everything Luc had said to her, then picking apart what she remembered of their conversation so that she could begin the process all over again. She had had
to ask Stewart to repeat himself several times, had failed to notice the quality of the wine, which he had brushed aside—although she knew that he had been offended from the mottled colour of his neck—and had left most of her main course because she had accidentally ordered the wrong thing from the menu, which was in Italian.

She had no idea why he wanted to see her for a second date, and it felt almost churlish to have to think about it when he had been so good to overlook her little lapses and show so much interest in everything she had to say about every aspect of her life and job, however insignificant the detail.

‘Tomorrow’s Saturday,’ he murmured. ‘I know a great little club in Chelsea. Anybody who’s anybody is a member. You wouldn’t believe the famous faces I’ve spotted there; you’d love it.’

‘Maybe we can do something next week.’

Stewart pouted with disappointment but picked himself up with remarkable ease, and as he reached out to hail a cab he pulled her close to him and, before she could wriggle away, planted a hot, laughing kiss full on her mouth.

‘Sure I can’t tempt you back to my place? I make a pretty good Irish coffee, if I say so myself.’

Agatha laughed and declined, and was guiltily relieved when he slid into the taxi, taking his umbrella with him, cheerily insouciant to the fact that she was now in the process of being drenched. And would therefore have to hail a cab, even though a taxi ride back to North London would be a ridiculous waste of money.

And, now that she did require one, there were none to be spotted. Although…

A familiar silver car pulled up to the kerb and she found the passenger door pushed open, waiting for her to oblige.

‘Get in, Agatha. Or risk pneumonia.’

‘Wow. How did you do that—show up just when I was
about to start walking to the underground? Anyway.’ she straightened ‘…I can’t have you messing up your Friday night to give me a lift home because you feel sorry for me.’ She dug her hands into her pockets and began walking towards the underground while the car trailed her, sped up and then the passenger door was flung open again and Luc was glaring out at her from the driver’s seat.

‘Get in or I’ll have to get out, lift you up and chuck you in. Do you want that? Do you want that kind of scene in the middle of Knightsbridge?’

‘Have you been here the whole time waiting for me?’ she asked as soon as she was inside the car, luxuriating in the warmth and dryness.

‘Don’t be crazy, but I had to come back here for you.’

‘Why on earth would you have to do that? I know you think I’m a hopeless case, but I’ve been getting to and from work every day on public transport. I know how to use the buses and tubes! Course, it took a little time, but I got there in the end. Mum hates it. She keeps telling me that tubes are a breeding ground for muggers. And she’s only been to London a handful of times—and never on a tube! Gosh, sorry; I’m talking too much again.’ But like a bad dream all thoughts of her date had disappeared like a puff of smoke.

‘I got Antonio to call me when you were about to pay the bill.’

‘Who’s Antonio?’

‘The owner of the place. We go back a long way.’

‘What if Stewart and I had decided to move on to somewhere else—a club, or a bar? Or I could just have decided to go back to his place.’

‘Did he ask you to?’

‘As a matter of fact, he did.’

‘And you turned him down. Good girl. Wise decision.’

‘Who knows what I’ll say the next time he asks, though?’
She looked across at him. He had changed out of his work clothes into a pair of dark jeans and a thick, black jumper. His coat had been tossed to the back seat. She was ashamed to admit even to herself that if she had all the time in the world, she would never tire looking at him.

He opened his mouth as though on the verge of saying something, only to think better of it.

‘So you’ve arranged another date, have you?’

‘Not as such…’ She teased those three little words out as long as she could. ‘Who knows?’

‘Who knows indeed?’ Luc intoned in a peculiar voice.

‘What have you done this evening?’ she asked a little breathlessly.

‘Work. I’ve been working on, eh, a very interesting project, let’s just say.’

‘Do you know, it’s great that you enjoy your job so much,’ Agatha said warmly. ‘Although it’s a little sad that you want to spend your Friday nights doing it.’

‘Your honesty is beyond belief, Agatha. I would have entertained myself in the usual way, but there was something a little more important I had to do. After doing that, I realised that I needed to have a little chat with you. Let’s just say that one thing gave rise to the other.’

‘Why are you being mysterious? What do we need to chat about?’ Why did the words ‘little chat’ inspire such feelings of dread? Was he about to sack her? Had she overstepped the line with her beyond-belief honesty?

Agatha quailed at the thought of returning to Yorkshire as a failed charity case—but London, even a bedsit in London, was impossible without a pay packet at the end of the month.

‘This isn’t the right place. I am going to take you to your house, you are going to ask me in for a cup of coffee and we can have our chat then.’

‘Can’t it wait until Monday?’

‘I think it’s better to get it out of the way. Now, relax; tell me about your evening. Take me through how a guy who leaves a woman standing in the pouring rain sees fit to entertain her.’

Now out of a job, Agatha didn’t think she had anything to lose by being totally, one-hundred percent honest. People were never honest with Luc, with the exception of his mother. They tiptoed around him, bowing and scraping, ‘yes, sir’, ‘no sir’. He was one of those lethally good-looking men who were just too powerful for their own good. He was unapologetic in his arrogance and in his assumption that he could play by his own unique set of rules.

‘I don’t want to be having this conversation with you.’

‘Why not? Are you embarrassed? There’s nothing to be ashamed of because it was a flop. These things happen. You just have to shrug it off and move on.’ Furthermore, she would be glad of his sterling advice when he filled her in on a few missing jigsaw pieces. His Friday night had been ruined, but he was upbeat about it.

Without the hassle of traffic, it took them less than half an hour before he pulled up outside her house, and Agatha hadn’t said a word for the brief drive. Her evening out had been disappointing, but there was a slow resentment building inside her at the way Luc had showed up for her, like a parent collecting a child from a birthday party. And then to hear him dismiss her date as a flop, something unfortunate that she should step over and forget with a shrug, made her even more angry.