Blind Date with the Boss

by Barbara Hannay

  ‘What a pity,’ Maeve muttered out of the side of her mouth. ‘Just when we were ready to have fun.’

  ‘The boss won’t spoil the fun, will he?’ Sally hissed back.

  ‘He’s pretty cool, actually,’ Maeve admitted. ‘In a remote and godlike kind of way. A bit out of our league.’

  ‘Fill in your name-plate, please,’ Janet told Logan. ‘In case anyone here doesn’t know you.’ She chuckled as she made this small joke, and there was a smattering of polite laughter.

  Janet beamed at everyone. ‘Now, if you turn the name-plates over, you’ll find a word written under it.’

  ‘Here we go,’ muttered Maeve. ‘Party time.’ She grinned as she turned over her name-plate. ‘Oh, sweet. I’m Cinderella.’

  Sally laughed. ‘I’m Butter.’

  ‘OK,’ said Janet. ‘I want you to mingle and chat until you find a partner whose name links with yours. For example, if you were given the name Salt, you’ll need to find Pepper.’

  Maeve chuckled. ‘Ripper. I’m off to find Prince Charming.’

  Laughter and chatter filled the room as everyone wandered about, greeting people and trying to find their match.

  ‘I suppose I’m looking for Butterfly,’ Josie, the company’s solicitor, told Sally. ‘I’m Caterpillar.’

  ‘Maybe you should be looking for Leaf?’ Sally suggested.

  Hank, the gentle, bespectacled IT guy, was Wolf. ‘You wouldn’t be Red Riding Hood, would you, Sally?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She studiously avoided Logan Black, but she was constantly aware of his tall, dark-suited presence in her peripheral vision. He seemed to mix quite easily with his staff, which made her wonder about his customary indifference to her.

  Before very long, couples found each other—Apple and Orange, Merry and Christmas, Romeo and Juliet. There was no obvious pairing of males with females, but Prince Charming turned out to be a rather hunky suntanned young geologist. Maeve sent Sally a wink and looked as pleased as a cat with more than her share of the cream.

  Eventually everyone had paired up except Sally, and she found herself left in the middle of the room, feeling just a little foolish and self-conscious.

  ‘Haven’t you found a partner?’ Janet asked her.

  She shrugged and shook her head. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone here who matches with Butter.’

  A strangely tense silence fell over the group and Sally wondered if everyone else in the room knew something she didn’t.

  ‘That would be me,’ said a deep male voice from behind her.

  She spun around and pins and needles danced over her skin as she met the cool, dark eyes of Logan Black. He smiled ever so faintly as he held up his name-plate and revealed one word: Bread.

  ‘Well, there you go!’ Janet looked delighted and actually clapped her hands.

  Sally forced her face muscles to form a smile.

  ‘I want you to go off in your pairs. Move the chairs if you like. Or go next door to the canteen.

  Find somewhere private to sit where you can talk. In HR circles, we call this activity Blind Date. You have twenty minutes to get to know as much as you can about each other.’

  It was a simple request and everyone else looked happy to pair up and find a place to sit. Maeve and her young geologist were already in a far corner, grinning stupidly at each other and clearly getting on like a bushfire.

  Logan Black, however, made no attempt to approach Sally and she remained marooned in the middle of the room.

  She’d never been a wallflower at a dance, but now she knew exactly how those poor girls had felt. If the boss was going to be stuffy about this, she might hold her head high and sweep out of the room.

  ‘Come on, you two.’ Janet was like a mother hen shooing her chicks. ‘Off you go. Get cracking with the questions.’

  To Sally’s dismay, Logan Black stuck his jaw at a belligerent angle and approached Janet, dipped his head and muttered something in her ear.

  Sally could guess what the boss was saying: he didn’t want to be teamed with the newest, lowliest employee.

  But Janet dismissed him with a wave of her hand. ‘These sorts of exercises are never a waste of time. This will be good for you, Logan. You’re an introverted thinking type and Sally’s an extroverted feeling type. It’s a perfect match. Now off you go. Think of it as a blind date and be a good sport.’

  Sally knew her cheeks were bright pink, but she was not going to let the boss upset her. Lifting her chin, she smiled at him bravely. ‘I’m ready when you are, Mr Black.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said grimly and his frown deepened as he nodded to a vacant table with two chairs. ‘Over here will do, Miss—’

  With a shrewd smile, Sally turned her nameplate over.

  ‘Ah, yes. Miss Finch. Not Sparrow.’

  It was a small victory and she wished she felt more relaxed as she sat, hoping her heart and lungs would behave normally as Logan Black lowered his long frame into a chair on the other side of the small desk that separated them.

  She drew some comfort from Janet’s suggestion that the boss was an introverted thinking type. It made sense. She’d met men like him before, in the Outback. Quiet, almost reclusive men, driven by inner goals.

  Now he said, with an affectation of boredom, ‘Ladies first. Apparently, you have to tell me all about yourself.’

  ‘What would you like to know?’

  His eyebrows were black and perfectly arched and, in response to her question, the right one lifted. ‘How are you settling in to your work here?’

  ‘I think I’ve settled in rather quickly. I love working here.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  To cover the awkward silence that followed, Sally said, ‘I guess it’s my turn to ask you a question.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘What did you have for breakfast?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Logan couldn’t have looked more stunned if Sally had asked for his home telephone number.

  ‘I—I asked what you had for breakfast.’

  ‘What kind of a question is that?’

  ‘A safe one, I hope.’

  He smiled.

  Oh, my gosh. When he smiled the skin around his eyes crinkled and his face was transformed. He looked just as he had playing football with his nephews—delightfully carefree and young.

  ‘I had a cup of coffee for breakfast,’ he said.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes. It’s all I ever have.’

  Sally was sure she shouldn’t correct her boss, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘But breakfast is terribly important. My father and brothers couldn’t face a day’s work without a mountain of toast and a full cooked breakfast.’

  ‘What kinds of work do your father and brothers do?’

  ‘Is that your next question?’

  Another gorgeous smile. ‘I guess it is.’

  Emboldened by this warmth, Sally told him, ‘My father and my eldest brother, Matt, run our family’s sheep and wheat property at Tarra-Binya. Steve’s on an oil rig off Western Australia. Josh operates a big drag line in the Central Queensland coalfields and Damon’s a mustering contractor, when he’s not on the rodeo circuit.’

  The dark eyebrows rose higher while she told him this. ‘That’s quite a family. I can see why they need their big breakfasts.’

  Sally smiled. ‘And now it’s my turn to ask another question.’

  Logan Black actually chuckled. ‘I’m nervous.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ She stifled a terrible urge to ask him about the white roses. I can’t ask that. I mustn’t. Instead, she blurted, ‘What’s the most important thing I should know about you?’

  ‘I’m your boss.’

  ‘Come on, that’s cheating. It has to be something I don’t already know.’

  ‘Who said there were rules?’

  ‘We’re supposed to be getting to know each other.’ The sudden tightness in Logan’s face warned Sally that she might b
e overstepping the mark. ‘Of course, you’re right. You’re the boss and you should set the rules.’

  He accepted this as his due. ‘I’m sure we’re not supposed to get deep and meaningful. Stick to everyday, non-invasive questions. Ask me whether I’ve lived in Sydney all my life, or where I went to school. Favourite subjects at school. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Let me guess. Your favourite subject at school was mathematics.’

  A surprised little laugh escaped him. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And you went to a private boys’ school like Sydney Grammar or King’s.’

  Again, he looked amused. ‘Almost right. I started at Sydney Grammar, but—’ he dropped his gaze and released a rough sigh ‘my family fell on hard times and I couldn’t stay there.’

  ‘That’s rotten luck.’ The grim set of his mouth told Sally that this had been a huge disappointment. ‘You’ve obviously done very well in spite of the setback,’ she suggested gently.

  Shrugging her sympathy aside, as if he wanted to get away from the subject of his family’s misfortune, he said, ‘But I have lived in Sydney all my life.’ He looked up again. ‘I guess you must have spent most of your life out west.’

  She told him briefly about Tarra-Binya and even more briefly about Chloe. She said, ‘I know you like football. What’s your favourite?’

  At first he looked upset and Sally wondered if she’d broken an unspoken rule. Were they really supposed to pretend that the interlude in the park had never happened?

  After a bit, he said simply, ‘I really like Rugby League.’ And then, ‘What about you? What sports do you play?’

  ‘I’ve given most of them a go,’ she told him. ‘But I guess I was best at tennis and horse riding.’ She watched him thoughtfully. ‘So you were good at school, good at sport and you’re successful in your career. Is there anything you’re not good at?’

  He laughed and had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Oh, yes. I’m absolutely hopeless at dancing.’

  ‘Really?’ Sally gasped—not because Logan’s answer was so surprising, but because her heart began to race and a wave of fear rose through her as she remembered that horrifying night at the country dance. She saw again Kyle Francis’s handsome face, his beguiling smile as he’d coaxed her outside.

  It’s OK. I can do this. She was not going to panic simply because a man mentioned the word dancing.

  Logan was looking puzzled and he sounded defensive. ‘Most guys are hopeless at dancing, aren’t they?’

  OK…she could either dissolve into a nervous heap or she could rise above this moment. Knowing she’d rather not dissolve, Sally held her head high. ‘Where I come from, everyone goes to bush dances and Outback balls. My big brothers taught me how to dance. The waltz, the samba, the foxtrot. I love to dance!’

  Wow, she’d said it. On a wave of euphoria, she added gleefully, ‘Dancing’s not that hard.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Even I could teach someone like you.’

  Oh, cringe. Now she was getting carried away. In the awkward pause that followed, she half-expected the boss to retaliate by asking her what she was bad at, but he was obviously too polite.

  ‘Here’s an everyday, non-invasive question,’ she said, hurrying, before the silence became too much. ‘What kind of music do you like?’

  She was surprised by the evident pleasure in his face. ‘That’s easy. I like all sorts of music. My grandmother was a classical pianist and I guess I’ve inherited her love of music but, unfortunately, none of her talent.’

  This was a layer to the boss Sally hadn’t anticipated, but at least they’d stopped talking about dancing.

  ‘I don’t know much at all about classical music,’ she admitted. ‘Chloe used to take me to concerts though, and since I’ve been living in her house I’ve been listening to her CDs. They’re mostly classical or jazz and some of them are just gorgeous.’

  ‘Is there any one piece you particularly like?’

  ‘Well…’ She paused. She’d never had a serious discussion about music and she felt a tad pretentious. ‘I’ve discovered an amazing violin concerto. It’s kind of uplifting and sad and joyful all at once.’

  ‘Which composer?’ Logan was suddenly alert, leaning forward, his dark eyes keenly focused on her.

  ‘Brahms.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said softly, almost reverently, and, for no reason that she could explain, fine hairs lifted on Sally’s arms. ‘The Brahms violin concerto is one of my favourites too.’

  ‘The music’s so powerful,’ she said. ‘And there’s a passage towards the end of the first movement.’

  ‘Where the music suddenly slows down?’

  ‘Yes, it’s so beautiful. There’s such a depth of feeling.’

  Logan nodded. ‘You have to stop everything and just listen.’

  ‘And it touches you deep inside in a way that’s impossible to put into words.’

  Her boss was looking at her now with an expression of such intense fascination that Sally, without warning, felt as if she wanted to cry.

  ‘Goodness,’ she said, blinking quickly and trying to make light of the moment. ‘We almost got deep and meaningful there. And you said that’s against the rules.’

  He smiled slowly, almost sadly.

  ‘We’d better think of another question,’ she said. ‘What about travel?’

  For a moment, Sally had the distinct impression that he would have preferred to continue talking about music, but then, with a little shrug, he asked, ‘Have you travelled?’

  ‘Not outside Australia. But I’m very keen to go overseas.’

  Logan had relaxed again, sitting with an elbow hooked over the back of his chair. ‘If you only had the opportunity to travel to one place overseas, where would it be?’

  She grinned at him. ‘You’re really getting into the swing of this.’

  ‘Answer the question, Miss Finch.’

  ‘And you remembered my surname.’ She looked down and saw that he’d read her nameplate. With a cunning smile, she said, ‘One place overseas? Let me see. I think that would have to be Paris. I’d love to see the Seine and the Champs-Elysées.’

  She hesitated, frowning. ‘No, wait a minute. I think, if I can only have one place, it would have to be in Italy. Florence or Venice. Yes, I think I’d definitely choose Venice.’ Chloe had so many beautiful photographs of the canals. All those gorgeous arched bridges and the gondolas and the old crumbling buildings. ‘Everything there is so full of history.’

  ‘Brahms loved Vienna.’

  ‘Well, Vienna would be good too. Oh, hang, I don’t think I could ever settle for just one place.’

  Sally grinned and Logan grinned back at her and the world seemed, suddenly, to be a brighter and more beautiful place.

  ‘Are you two still chatting?’

  They turned to find Janet Keaton bearing down on them.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? Time’s well and truly up.’

  Sally looked about her and realised that all the others were back in their places and were watching the two of them with wry amusement.

  ‘We were late starting,’ Logan muttered smoothly and then he stood and was very dignified as he returned to his seat next to Hank without a backward glance at Sally.

  Not surprisingly, Janet now wanted everyone to introduce the person they’d interviewed to the whole group, sharing what they’d discovered about that person.

  Logan hardly heard what they others said. He was too busy trying to work out why his newest employee had such a disturbing effect on him. She was pretty, certainly, but not as beautiful as many of the women he’d dated.

  Those golden curls continued to intrigue him, but it was more than that. Sally Finch radiated warmth and vitality and there was something very wide-eyed and fresh about her that stirred memories of the strangest things—the first exciting day of the long summer holidays, waking as a child on Christmas morning.

  He’d never met a woman quite like her. But he wasn
’t going to admit that here. In the end, when it was his turn to introduce Sally, he spoke simply about her family, about her country girlhood and her desire to travel. He certainly didn’t mention the moment of spine-tingling connection while they’d been talking about the Brahms. For him, it was one of those rare experiences, like the music, that remained beyond the reach of mere words.

  He wondered if Sally would mention it when she introduced him. As she got to her feet, he was on tenterhooks, fearful that this outspoken young woman might reveal too much about their conversation. But, to his surprise, Sally was extremely circumspect. His business CV was more personally revealing than her careful introduction.

  Janet Keaton caught his eye, her expression faintly bewildered. What had she expected? That Sally would spill one of his deep, dark secrets?

  Perhaps they’d both underestimated the newest employee.

  For Sally, the rest of the workshop was every bit as much fun as she’d anticipated. There were all sorts of problem-solving exercises which brought out different people’s strengths and weaknesses and showed the benefits of working in a team. She found that she was a lateral thinker, good at listening and at being empathetic, but she wasn’t so hot when it came to logic and spatial skills.

  In groups, they hunted for errors in messages, tried to find triangles inside pentagons and to draw circle-and-dot diagrams without taking their pens off the paper. There were even moments of self-disclosure where they shared fantasies.

  Sally’s fantasy was to have long, straight, dark hair. The boss surprised everyone, except Sally, by claiming that he would love to have played Rugby League for Australia.

  Logan disappeared at lunch time and missed the rather delicious smorgasbord served in the dining room.

  Maeve pounced on Sally. ‘Poor you. What was it like being grilled by the boss?’

  ‘Nerve-racking until he thawed out. Then he was close to normal.’

  ‘I must say you looked pretty into each other by the end.’

  Sally tried to make light of it. ‘We were just talking about travel. How was Prince Charming?’

  ‘Fabulous.’ Maeve’s eyes danced with excitement. ‘I’m going out with him tonight.’