by Jessica Hart
Perhaps realising that they remained deeply sceptical, Grace didn’t waste much time trying to convince them all, and issued everyone instead with a gardening fork and a pair of work gloves. Perdita found herself allocated to clear a patch of ground with a monosyllabic boy called Tom who hid his face behind a fall of tousled hair and apparently communicated only in grunts.
Cleverly, Grace had also pointed out that they would always work on the same area at first so they would be able to measure their progress against the others. What effect this had on Tom was doubtful, but Perdita’s competitive spirit was immediately roused and she immediately vowed that their ground would be cleared faster and better than anyone else’s.
Since she was here, she reasoned, she might as well make a success of it.
The truth was that Perdita didn’t know any other way to tackle a job other than to do it well, and preferably to beat everyone else while she was at it.
She glanced at the boy beside her. ‘Well, we might as well start,’ she said.
Morosely, he bent to pick up a rusty can, but the effort seemed to exhaust him and he stood holding it as if he couldn’t work out how it had come to be in his hand.
‘Look, it’ll take ages if we try to pick up all this rubbish piece by piece,’ said Perdita, exasperated. The ground was littered with broken concrete, rusty metal, tattered plastic, broken bottles and discarded fast food packaging, and she eyed it with distaste. ‘Let’s use the forks to pull it into piles and then try to get rid of it.’
She didn’t care if that was her being bossy. It would be enough of a challenge for her just to get through the afternoon here, let alone try and remember to be inclusive and non-confrontational.
It was harder work than Perdita had imagined, and she thought vengefully about Ed as she struggled to make a dent in the mess. The more rubbish she scraped away, the more appeared in its place. Clearing this place was like one of those mythological labours the Greek gods were so good at thinking up, and maybe that made her a heroine-albeit one badly in need of a magic trick to help her out-but frankly she would rather be at the office, catching up on her paperwork.
How was this supposed to knock off her sharp edges? Perdita wondered bitterly. She could feel herself getting sharper by the minute. Ed Merrick was no doubt comfortably ensconced in his warm office thinking up other forms of torture for his staff. She should start a rebellion, she thought, forking darkly through the rubbish. Let him see what he thought about staff development then!
She had hardly seen Ed since their meeting, which was probably just as well as there was no way she was going to take Millie’s advice and start sucking up to him. There were already more than enough people doing that, judging by the gossip she heard in the office. They had all dreaded his arrival in case it would mean swingeing cuts and changes but so far Ed had proved remarkably popular.
Perdita’s secretary, Valerie, source of most information, raved about him until Perdita was sick of hearing about Ed this, Ed that. She wished he would stop being so inclusive and insisted that they all call him Mr Merrick instead. It would be a lot easier to dislike him if he turned out to be arrogant and ruthless or even pompous, but no! Ed appeared unable to put a foot wrong…except when dealing with his Operations Manager, clearly. As far as she could tell, Perdita herself was the only person with any reservations about him at all, and she couldn’t help feeling a little aggrieved. Why wasn’t he trying to win her over like everyone else?
They rarely coincided at work. Ed seemed happy to let her get on with her job, which she was pleased about-obviously-but he might have the decency to show a little interest in they were what doing in Operations, Perdita couldn’t help thinking. The previous Chief Executive had always been summoning her to pointless meetings, but Ed seemed to have taken things to the other extreme.
Perdita sniffed disapprovingly as she forked up a motley collection of rusty cans. Ed might like to consider a slightly more hands-on approach some time. He was supposed to be running the company after all.
She had, in fact, been asked to attend a meeting in the Board Room on Tuesday, and the expectation of seeing Ed there had produced a nauseating combination of squirming and fluttering in her stomach as she’d made her way upstairs, only to find that he had asked his deputy to chair the meeting and wasn’t even there. At which point an absurd sense of disappointment had sent her poor stomach into a nosedive, as if it didn’t have enough to contend with.
Of course, when Perdita had visited her mother she had seen the lights on next door, but she could hardly go and knock again without a very good excuse. Ed would start to think she was some kind of stalker.
And anyway she didn’t want to see him, Perdita reminded herself as she disentangled a torn and rancid carrier bag from her fork with a grimace of distaste, very glad that she was wearing gloves. Hadn’t she told Millie that she didn’t even like him?
All right, that probably wasn’t strictly true, she acknowledged, dragging her fork furiously over the ground once more. She might as well be honest with herself. The truth was that she didn’t want to like Ed because she didn’t want to find him attractive, and she didn’t want to find him attractive because she was afraid of getting involved with a father again.
Loving Nick, being hurt by him, had taught her a hard lesson. Sometimes the pain of his rejection still crept up and grabbed her by the throat, shaking her until she could hardly breathe because it hurt so much, even after all this time. Then she would feel again the cruel twist of her heart, the dull ache that had been part of her for so many months. She had spent two years trying to fit in with Nick’s priorities as a father, and in the end it had almost destroyed her. She wouldn’t-couldn’t-go through that again.
Ed was a father, so she wasn’t interested.
And he wasn’t interested in her, it seemed.
Right. Funny how that didn’t make her feel better.
When they had gathered two large piles of rubbish, Perdita stopped and straightened, holding a hand to her back. She would be lucky if she could walk tomorrow.
‘Right, time for a reward,’ she said to Tom. Digging in her pocket, she found a Mars bar that she had grabbed from the vending machine on the way out in lieu of lunch.
It had been Perdita’s idea to work in strips. When they had done one each and gathered all the mess into piles they could have a treat, she had suggested. Half a Mars bar wasn’t much of a treat compared to, say, a hot bath with a glass of champagne, which was all she really wanted right then, but it was better than nothing.
And it was chocolate, after all.
‘Here,’ she said, breaking the bar in two and handing half to Tom. ‘Your reward.’
‘Thanks,’ he said as he took it. ‘I’m starving.’
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Perdita curiously. In spite of his hunched shoulders, messy hair and the ubiquitous drab teenage uniform, he was quite well-spoken when he forgot to grunt, and someone had obviously taught him some manners along the way. Nor did he seem a likely candidate for an antisocial behaviour order that had brought most of the others to the garden project.
‘I was sent,’ he said.
‘Why?’ OK, maybe she was nosy, but she was allowed to be interested in people, wasn’t she?
Tom shrugged. ‘Bad attitude.’ He glanced at Perdita from beneath his hair. ‘What about you?’
‘Same, I suppose,’ said Perdita, chewing on her Mars bar, and he was betrayed into a laugh.
‘You? Bad attitude?’
‘Apparently I’m too sharp. They sent me from work.’ She licked chocolate from her thumb. ‘My boss is an arrogant, pretentious tyrant who thinks the experience will be good for me!’
‘My dad thinks the same thing,’ confessed Tom.
Perdita snorted. ‘I notice that neither of them are actually here benefiting from the experience of clearing rubbish in the rain though, are they?’
‘No,’ he agreed, evidently warming to her. ‘We should suggest they have a go nex
t week.’
‘I don’t know about your dad, but I can’t see me getting very far if I tried that on my boss.’ She sighed as the faint drizzle grew heavier until it was unmistakably rain. ‘When does this purgatory end?’
‘Dad’s picking me up at five o’clock.’
‘That probably means that I have to stay here until then too. Oh, well.’ She rubbed her aching back. ‘We might as well start another strip…’
CHAPTER FIVE
B Y THE time they got to the end of their third strip it was raining steadily and they were both sweaty with exertion, soaking wet and liberally splattered with mud. Perdita’s hair was hanging in rats’ tails and she paused to push her fringe back from her forehead with the back of her arm, pleased to notice that they had achieved far more than anyone else. Still, the challenge of being the best was beginning to wear thin.
‘I wish your dad would turn up,’ she told Tom. ‘That would mean it’s time to go.’
‘There he is now,’ said Tom, and Perdita wiped the drips from her eyes and peered in the direction of his pointing finger.
A man was heading towards them across the wasteland, hunched slightly against the rain. There was something familiar about his walk, Perdita thought. Something about the set of his shoulders and the way his presence drew the eye.
Something that set Perdita’s heart bumping in a downward spiral.
‘That’s your father?’ she asked in a hollow voice, and Tom looked at her in surprise. Her expression made him look towards his father and then back to Perdita with sudden understanding.
‘That’s your boss?’ he said and, when he grinned, Perdita could suddenly see his father in him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, ‘I won’t tell! Hi, Dad!’ he called.
Ed squinted through the rain at his son, who seemed unnaturally cheery, and he lifted a hand in greeting. His keen gaze took in Tom and then moved to Perdita, standing next to him. In contrast to her usual immaculately groomed appearance, she was looking distinctly grubby and bedraggled but there was the same unmistakable sparkiness about her. Her eyes were bright, her skin glowing and she seemed to vibrate with energy in the middle of the dreary wasteland. Even Tom looked energised by her and was unconsciously mirroring the way Perdita stood with her fork planted firmly in front of her.
‘You both look very wet!’ he said, unable to prevent a smile as he looked from one to the other.
‘Yes, and whose fault is that?’ demanded Perdita snippily.
‘Don’t try and tell me that you haven’t enjoyed yourself, Perdita,’ said Ed. ‘Grace says you and Tom have been working like dogs all afternoon. You’ve done twice as much as anyone else!’
Tom looked over to where the others were trailing back to hand in their forks, obviously realising for the first time that he had been working harder than anyone else. ‘I didn’t realise that it was a competition,’ he said, and his father grinned.
‘I’ll bet it was for Perdita! Am I right?’ he asked her.
Perdita put up her chin. She didn’t like it when he laughed at her, but she was too honest to deny it.
‘You probably would have had an easier time with another partner,’ she admitted to Tom, but he just hunched a shoulder.
‘You were cool,’ he muttered.
Ed regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Perdita works for Bell Browning as well,’ he told Tom as they turned and headed for the exit. ‘Her mother lives next door to us. She very kindly brought that bottle of wine I wouldn’t waste on you the first night we moved in.’
‘I remember,’ Tom said with a shade of sulkiness. ‘He wouldn’t even let us taste it,’ he told Perdita. ‘He said it was too good for us.’
‘Next time, I’ll bring a cheap bottle of plonk,’ she said with a laugh, and Tom brightened.
‘You’re coming again?’
‘Oh, no…I only meant…’ Perdita was deeply flustered by Tom’s question. ‘I was joking,’ she tried to explain.
‘I hope you will come again, though,’ said Ed. ‘In fact, why don’t you come to supper? What do you think, Tom?’
‘Cool,’ said Tom.
That was just what Perdita had been afraid of. After her stupid comment and Tom’s reaction, Ed obviously felt that he didn’t have much choice but to invite her, but if he had wanted her to go to supper, he could have asked her before now.
‘No, honestly,’ she said, horribly embarrassed but doing her best to laugh it off. ‘When I said next time, I really didn’t mean to invite myself! It was just a figure of speech,’ she finished lamely.
‘I know, but come anyway,’ said Ed, and smiled at her in a way that made the breath clog in her throat, and that made her heart batter in panic in case it was going to run out of oxygen. It wasn’t fair that one smile could have such an alarming effect. ‘The honest truth is that the kids are bored of being stuck with me-’
‘We are!’ Tom put in.
‘-and I could do with some adult company, so we’d all really appreciate it if you’d come,’ finished Ed, pretending to cuff his son over the head.
He was being charming about it, given that he’d been placed in such an awkward position.
Perdita hesitated. What could she say? ‘That would be lovely,’ she decided in the end. No date had been suggested, so her answer was sufficiently vague for Ed to feel no obligation to follow the invitation up.
‘What about tonight?’
‘Tonight?’ Having expected to be fobbed off with something equally vague, like a promise to be in touch or to arrange a date soon, Perdita was completely thrown by Ed’s swift comeback.
‘Isn’t Thursday one of the nights you visit your mother?’
‘Well, yes, it is…’ How did he know that?
‘You’ve been under observation,’ Ed answered her unspoken question with a grin. ‘Lauren spends a lot of time mooching in her room, which looks out over the drives, so she’s our main source of information on your movements.’
‘Dad,’ said Tom, mortified by his father’s revelation. ‘You make us sound like a bunch of weirdos spying on her!’
‘We’re not weirdos,’ Ed said. ‘It’s just that we haven’t got enough distraction at the moment and Perdita’s visits next door are the most exciting things that happen to us at the moment!’
His face was straight, but the grey eyes gleamed with amusement in a way that reminded Perdita vividly of the first time they had met.
She couldn’t help laughing. ‘Well, I’m glad to know that my life seems exciting to somebody!’ she said.
‘It does, so bring a bit of excitement into our lives and come for supper,’ Ed urged. ‘It won’t be anything fancy.’
‘You can say that again!’ said Tom with a snort. ‘Dad doesn’t do fancy.’
No, Ed wouldn’t do fancy, Perdita thought, studying him from under her lashes. He would cook the way he did everything else-capably, steadily, straightforwardly.
Would he make love that way, too?
The thought caught her unawares, grabbing her from behind and startling her so that she actually stumbled. She recovered almost immediately, but she was shaken, less by the unexpected question that had popped into her head than by her instant, instinctive conviction that no, Ed wouldn’t make love like that. You only had to look at that mouth, and those hands, to know that he would be slow and sure and sensuous and-
And that was quite enough. Perdita was horrified at herself. What was she thinking?
Sending up a prayer of thanks that neither of them appeared to be mind-readers, she forced a smile.
‘What does he do?’ she asked Tom.
‘Sausages and mash. Pasta bake. Roast chicken. Spaghetti bolognaise.’
‘Hey, I can do more than that,’ Ed objected mildly. ‘I made a casserole the other day, remember?’
‘It was gross. You’re not making that again.’
Perdita suppressed a smile. She was feeling more under control now. ‘I love spag bol.’
‘You wouldn’t if you had to eat it twice a week, every week,’ muttered Tom, but Ed overrode him.
‘Excellent, spaghetti bolognaise it is-and I’ll try and provide a bottle of wine to rival the one you brought last time.’
‘Well…’ said Perdita, weakening. She was wet through and the thought of somebody else doing the cooking for once was very appealing. What was the harm, after all? There was no question of it being a date.
‘In that case, I’d love to come,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to give my mother something to eat first, but she should be settled by eight.’
‘Great.’ Ed smiled his unfair smile again as they reached the hut where Grace was collecting the gardening forks and gloves. ‘We’ll see you then.’
The first thing Perdita did when she got home was to run a deep, hot bath and she sighed with pleasure as she slid down beneath the bubbles. This was what she had been fantasising about as she’d scraped up all that disgusting rubbish, minus the glass of champagne, of course. She didn’t want to have anything to drink before she drove.
And anyway, she didn’t need champagne. She already felt as if a magnum of the stuff was fizzing along her veins and bubbling into her heart. The shameful truth was that she was ridiculously excited about the prospect of her simple supper.
Don’t be so silly, Perdita told herself sternly. It was only a bowl of pasta, for heaven’s sake! Hardly a heavy date with three teenagers in tow. But still she found herself throwing open the doors of her wardrobe and studying the contents with a frown. What did you wear when your boss invited you to eat spaghetti bolognaise with his kids? There ought to be some kind of protocol for these things, Perdita decided.
Normally she had a sure sense of her own style, but for some reason this occasion had her in a dither. It took her four attempts at getting dressed before she settled finally on a pair of loose trousers with a silk knit top, and she was thoroughly disgusted with herself for making such a fuss by then.
In spite of her determination to treat the whole thing in a casual spirit, her heart was pattering frantically against her ribs as she drove over to her mother’s house.
