His Virgin Secretary

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry.’

  ‘You have an unfortunate habit of apologising for everything,’ Bruno remarked in the same heavy voice that made Katy think of teachers on the edge of losing their patience in the face of some particularly dim pupil. ‘You’ll have to lose that when you start working for me. It’s annoying.’

  ‘But what about when I make mistakes?’ Katy asked worriedly.

  ‘There you go. Assuming a worst-case scenario before we’ve even begun. What am I doing? Branching out on a completely irrelevant tangent!’

  ‘But don’t you find that happens?’ Katy couldn’t help saying. Now that she thought about it, she was always doing that! Joseph would start briskly enough with his dictating and then before you knew it a thousand questions rushed to her head and inevitably they ended up wildly off course. But how else did you ever find out about people if you just stuck to asking relevant questions?

  ‘Computers? They allow me to work from pretty much anywhere. I can have my secretary email me my correspondence and I can access all the files I need at the press of a button. How do you imagine I continue running my London branch when I’m over in New York? And vice versa?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Katy told him truthfully. They had finally managed to clear the bulk of the traffic and she relaxed as the roads became a little less congested. ‘In fact, I can’t imagine what you do at all. It must be very stressful.’

  ‘I thrive under pressure.’

  ‘Oh,’ Katy murmured dubiously.

  ‘At any rate, what I’m saying is that Joseph’s office will do just fine in the short term. I’ll probably spend a day or so in London—’ he paused ‘—just in case I need to ward off any of those mysterious catastrophes you mentioned, but the rest of the week I’ll spend here. I already have my laptop with me, as a matter of fact, so it should be no problem transferring files to Joseph’s PC, and whatever clothes I have here will do for the time being.’

  With her last limp objection thoroughly demolished, Katy slumped behind the driving wheel and dejectedly contemplated life ahead for the next fortnight. He had already started his list of personality traits she would have to change so that he could put up with her, and she was in no doubt that the list would grow until something resembling his specifications had been achieved.

  She surfaced to hear him talking and realised that he was once more on the topic of light exercise and, at the mention of swimming, she glanced briefly in his direction. Just the sight of his frowning, averted profile sent a disturbing little shiver of awareness rippling through her. One more thing to contend with, she acknowledged dismally. He couldn’t help the way he looked but that bronzed, dangerously beautiful face still managed to elicit a thoroughly uncharacteristically feminine response in her, even though she disliked him. She hoped against hope that a bout of close encounters would eliminate the unwanted reaction.

  ‘Joseph doesn’t like swimming,’ she told him now. ‘He once told me that if humans were made to flap about in water, they would have been born with gills. He doesn’t find it a very soothing form of exercise.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting that he swim across the Channel,’ Bruno said. ‘But swimming is gentle exercise and you heard what the doctor said.’

  ‘Yes, but…that pool is in a state of total disrepair.’

  ‘Because it’s never used.’

  ‘I’m surprised you don’t use it when you come up to visit Joseph,’ Katy reflected, thinking that, with his superbly fit build, he would have wanted to fling himself into any kind of exercise available whenever he had the odd moment of leisure. Thinking, too, how good he would look in swimming trunks. Bronzed body, not a spare ounce of flesh… She dragged her mind away from the rapidly growing image with a little twinge of guilt.

  ‘It’s too uncomfortable in there. It’s also in dire need of renovation. It was pretty decrepit when Joseph moved in all those years ago and it’s just got worse.’ He paused. ‘It would certainly benefit from a face-lift. I mean, thinking about it, it has all the essential requirements. It’s indoors, even if you do have to exit the house to get to it, and with a bit of work it would be okay. I could get some form of heating installed, have a couple of changing rooms put in, bring someone in to repair the cracks everywhere…’

  ‘It needs more than a face-lift,’ Katy pointed out. ‘Bruno, there are weeds growing out of the cracks at the bottom! In fact, the last time Joseph looked at it he suggested that with just the addition of a bit of soil we could convert the whole thing into a greenhouse!’

  ‘Did he really say that?’

  Katy nodded, glanced at him and in the diminishing light saw him grin with genuine amusement. For a second or two, her heart seemed to literally stop beating, then she refocused on the road in sudden, tumultuous confusion. Of course he wasn’t responding to her, she told herself sternly. She evoked that icy, black-eyed impatience, but still…it was like seeing a sudden, dazzling ray of sun breaking through a bank of thunderclouds.

  Then he was back to his usual self, the one she was accustomed to. Back to the man giving orders without bothering to tack on a please at the end or even display the slightest sign of appreciation.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to do something about changing his opinion, and that can be your first job in the morning. I’ll head down to London for the day to get whatever I need from the office, so you’ll have the day completely free to contact all the people you need to get that concrete hole up and running.’

  ‘Up and running? How long do you imagine it’s going to take to do that?’

  ‘Throw enough money at them and it’ll take just as long as I want it to take,’ Bruno assured her. ‘But it’s to be finished before Joseph returns home. The last thing he needs is a series of workmen disturbing his peaceful recovery.’

  ‘I’m not sure…’

  ‘Number one lesson in the world of business is to always be sure,’ Bruno informed her. ‘Number two is to get them working to your tune. If you refuse to put up with delays and cancellations, you’ll pretty much find that people will work to the timetable you’ve instructed them to work to!’

  Katy almost repeated her heartfelt emotion that she really wasn’t sure at all, but bit back the words at the last minute. Instead she said doubtfully, ‘I’ve never really had anyone work to my tune before…’

  ‘So now you are to be provided with yet another challenge! And on the subject of the pool, I also think we ought to get some furniture for around it.’

  ‘What sort of furniture?’

  ‘Chairs. Comfortable ones. Chairs that Joseph can relax on when he’s had a little bit of his gentle exercise. I’ll leave the choice up to you. And don’t breathe a word of this to him. It’ll be a surprise.’

  ‘Do you think his heart can stand it?’

  ‘Are you being serious?’

  ‘No,’ Katy admitted. ‘But once he’s seen it, it might be an idea if we let him grow gradually into the concept of actually getting into it.’

  They were finally approaching the house, which stood a way back from the road up a long, winding drive lined with trees. In a couple of months, the budding leaves would be thick and green and would almost obscure the red-brick house sprawling at the end of the drive. For the moment, though, there was just the merest hint of summer floating in the evening air, and as always Katy’s heart revived at the sight of the old house shimmering into view. It also revived on the blessed thought that she had managed to drive into the city centre and out again, with Bruno as her passenger, without making a fool of herself. The least he could have done was to have thanked her for taking him, but naturally that would have been asking too much. He had launched into a succinct and off-putting summary of her forthcoming duties, next to which cajoling a workforce to accomplish the near impossible in his absence seemed like a bed of roses.

  He strode into the house, switching on lights and briefing her on his expectations. He would be working from the house the day after tomorrow, he announced, and she should be ready
to kick off no later than eight-thirty. He himself would be up and running by seven but, naturally, he would not expect her to conform so rigidly to his timetable. Breakfast he would see to himself and she could do her own thing for lunch, although he would expect her to eat on the run if there was a particularly heavy workload. He assumed that Maggie would see to their dinner requirements. Her working day would be expected to end by five-thirty.

  Katy almost laughed out loud when he concluded his speech and politely asked her whether she had any questions, because he didn’t look as though he was ready to sit down and actually respond to any. In fact, he was standing restlessly by the balustrade, like an engine throbbing on all cylinders and waiting to be revved into action.

  Katy shook her head numbly and he gave her a curt nod.

  ‘Good. In that case, I shall be in the office setting things up. Don’t bother to wait for me for dinner. I’ll grab something somewhere along the line, but I have a lot to think about and one or two overseas phone calls to make.’

  Katy nodded again, deprived of speech, and felt tremendous sympathy for his poor secretary.

  Thank goodness Joseph would be back soon and life could get back to normal.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BRUNO watched Katy through the sprawling bay window in the sitting room, from which he could see her standing in the brick outbuilding that had been converted into an indoor swimming pool by the original owners of the house. The doors were flung open and she had her back to him, hands propped against her waist as she supervised what he assumed were the industrious workmen he had instructed her to employ. The sleeves of her shapeless jumper were pushed up to the elbows and beneath the long skirt peeped a pair of sturdy green wellingtons.

  It was after five and he’d just returned from the hospital having seen his godfather, who was making a good recovery.

  ‘Food’s terrible,’ Joseph complained. ‘Bland.’ Then he looked a little sheepishly at Bruno. ‘This work thing. You aren’t going to impose your ridiculous work schedule on Katy, are you?’

  ‘Ridiculous?’

  ‘Well, you know what a workaholic you are…’

  There was the faintest hint of disapproval in his voice that made Bruno squirm. ‘Running a successful business can’t be done if I spend all my time playing golf and going on holidays, Joseph.’ He had never played a round of golf in his life, and holidays…well, holidays were things that were snatched in between his frantically busy life. He had always liked it that way. In fact, the last time he had been persuaded to have a week off had been six months previously when he and Isobel, at her instigation, had gone to the Seychelles. After two days, he had been itching to get back into the thick of things. Did that make him a workaholic? He supposed so.

  Joseph made an unconvincing sound under his breath and then added, narrowing his eyes, ‘And you won’t bully her, will you?’

  He had made her sound like a scared rabbit, Bruno now thought, watching her as she gesticulated to someone he couldn’t see. Her curly brown hair had been pulled back into a ponytail. From where he was standing, dressed in her shapeless, dowdy clothes, she looked more like a sparrow than a rabbit.

  With a forceful stride, he walked out of the sitting room, through the kitchen and towards the outbuilding where he was surprised to hear her speaking confidently, laughing even, with the workmen, although when he coughed politely from behind her and she spun around the usual expression of wariness settled over her face like a mask.

  ‘You’re back.’

  ‘And you sound thrilled,’ Bruno drawled, taking up position next to her so that he could see what was going on. ‘As thrilled as someone who’s lost ten pounds and found five pence. You’d better fill me in on what’s going on.’ He walked restively away from her and, after a few seconds of indecisive hovering, Katy followed him and began pointing out the various areas in which progress had been made. She had not exactly obeyed his instructions about laying down laws and making demands. In fact, she had been shyly hesitant when she had visited the sprawling outdoor furniture shop in the outskirts of the city, frowning at the list of negatives that had been presented to her when she had explained the state of utter deterioration of the pool in question, tentatively explaining that money would be no object if only they could finish the job in time for when Joseph returned home.

  In fact, she had found herself spending rather too much time talking about her employer, the suddenness of his heart attack and the necessity for the pool to be up and running so that he could begin his routine of gentle exercises in it. When her eyes had filled up, the kindly middle-aged man had produced a box of tissues from under the counter, and then everything had seemed to be all right.

  Bruno would have had a fit if he had been a fly on the wall at the time. Katy breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief that he had been safely away in London.

  The five workmen, who ranged in ages from twenty something to fifty something, had stopped what they had been doing and were deferentially pointing out the technicalities of their mission. As they spoke Bruno conducted a silent survey of the area, occasionally nodding at something that was said, asking the minimum of questions but with all evidence of being an expert on the subject and therefore incapable of being taken for a ride.

  Katy could only admire it. From a distance, all that formidable self-assurance was impressive. It was only when you got close that you saw how scary it could be.

  He made his careful rounds of the pool area, ending up back at the door, and she reluctantly joined him there while he instructed the men to carry on, tacking on that he assumed they would be working flat out in view of the time constraints on the job.

  ‘Well,’ he said as they walked back into the kitchen, ‘all that seems very satisfactory.’ He divested himself of his jacket, tossing it casually onto one of the chairs by the pine table, and turned to look at her. Her hair was a bird’s nest with stray tendrils flying every which way and, having disposed of her wellingtons by the kitchen door, she had replaced these with some comfortable loafers. Thank heavens this secretarial stint would be taking place within the comfortable confines of the house because there was no way he would ever have approved a member of his own office staff turning up for work in the sort of shapeless mess that she was now wearing. In fact, that she always wore.

  ‘Thank you. I…I wasn’t sure that the job could be done in the time limits…but…’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you that it pays to be forceful?’ Bruno nodded with satisfaction.

  ‘You did,’ Katy agreed, thinking of her considerably less than forceful approach to Mr Hawkins, the owner of the building company. ‘Would you like some coffee? Tea?’ It was after six. Maybe he would want something stronger. ‘Or something else?’ she said helpfully. ‘I think there’s some alcohol stashed away on one of the shelves in the larder, and there’s some wine in the fridge. I think.’

  ‘A cup of coffee would be fine.’

  ‘Maggie’s made a pie,’ Katy volunteered, while she busied herself with the coffee. ‘Chicken. I could heat it up for you if you like. And there’s vegetables as well. She did offer to stay and dish out the supper but I told her that it was all right for her to leave. Is that okay?’ She glanced at the man, now sitting in one of the chairs, which he had turned at an angle so that he could follow her movements as she spoke to him.

  ‘I don’t normally eat at six-thirty,’ Bruno informed her with heavy sarcasm. ‘In fact, I’m usually still at work at this time.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Of course you are.’ Katy laughed nervously. ‘Joseph and I usually eat early. And before that, I used to have my supper with the children.’ She slid his mug over to him and retreated to a chair at the other side of the table. ‘My body clock doesn’t run on a very sophisticated timetable, I suppose.’

  Bruno felt torn between getting down to the business at hand, namely Joseph and what sort of routine she thought he might have when he returned from hospital, and taking her up on her throwaway remark about her eating schedule
s. With her fresh face and unruly hair and gauche mannerisms, she certainly looked more like a teenager than an adult, but, heck, the girl was nearly twenty-four! How many women of twenty-four would be content to be cooped up in a house caretaking an elderly gentleman, however charming the elderly gentleman was?

  ‘And it’s never bothered you,’ he was slightly irritated to hear himself saying.

  ‘What?’ Katy raised her head from where she had been observing the swirling surface of her coffee and looked at him, startled.

  ‘This.’ Bruno waved one hand vaguely to encompass the house. ‘Being here with Joseph. Having dinner at six-thirty. The quiet life.’ He elegantly sipped from his cup as he lounged back in the chair, his long legs extended in front of him.

  Katy blushed, hearing implicit criticism in his voice and not quite knowing what to do with it.

  ‘Why should it?’ she eventually said. She met his penetrating black eyes and shivered slightly. ‘I’m not much of a party person, although,’ she added hastily, ‘I do go out, naturally. On my day off, I meet a couple of friends I’ve made in the town. Teachers. I met them at a talk in the library a few months ago.’

  Bruno’s ears pricked up and he idly speculated on the possibility of the little sparrow looking at him having a raunchy double life. ‘Men friends?’

  Katy’s face went a deeper shade of red. ‘I don’t really think that’s any of your business,’ she mumbled, mortifyingly aware that his taut, dark features had now relaxed into an expression of amusement.

  ‘You’re right. It’s not,’ he said, without the slightest trace of apology in his voice. ‘I went to visit Joseph before I came here.’ He changed the subject even though he continued watching her, reluctantly fascinated by the utter transparency of her face. That she had led a sheltered life would have been obvious to any fool at a glance. The whole world of feminine wiles appeared to have passed her by completely. He thought of Isobel with her cool, sophisticated, glamorous beauty and wondered what the two women would have made of one another.