His Virgin Secretary

by Cathy Williams

  ‘He seems to rather like it up here,’ Joseph said mildly, to which Katy heard herself give an uncharacteristically crazed laugh. ‘The countryside has charms of its own,’ he continued. ‘There’s no exchange for tranquillity and the inner peace that comes from being surrounded by Nature.’

  Which was why she was so deeply fond of Joseph, Katy thought to herself. How could she possibly disillusion him with her own version of the truth? Which was that there was no conceivable reason for his godson to remain here when his purpose was fast coming to an end. Joseph was getting stronger by the day. Tranquillity and inner peace were words Bruno would never consider in his vocabulary.

  She endured the remainder of the day, little knowing how life could change in a matter of a few short hours…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JOSEPH’S friend Dave Harrington was picking Joseph up at eight-thirty in the morning. He had a full morning planned, which included taking Joseph to the hospital for a routine check-up, followed by a few rounds of bridge at the rather swanky club on the outskirts of the town that offered tremendously good rates for old-age pensioners. Or, as Joseph called them, duffers with a bit of money and a lot of spare time who could be shoved into a couple of rooms that wouldn’t have been in use otherwise during the day. Then a spot of lunch, with all the old cronies there.

  ‘You can sleep in, my dear,’ were Joseph’s last words before he retired for bed the evening before. ‘You deserve it, all the hard work you’ve been putting in with Bruno as taskmaster.’

  Katy had protested dutifully but had been happy enough to give in without too much persuasion. She felt exhausted and it had nothing to do with hard work. All the activity taking place in her brain was tiring her. She was in love with Bruno and she had no idea what to do about it. Should she leave? Quit her job? If she stayed, she would inevitably continue to bump into him whenever he came to visit his godfather. She would never have the time and space for her feelings to wither away. One accidental meeting with him and everything, every longing, would flare right back into vigorous life and she would be left nursing scars only for them to re-open the minute he returned the next time.

  But then, when she thought about leaving, she imagined a wretched existence, a lifetime of missing him and wanting him, and then that option didn’t seem too good either.

  Or perhaps she should simply cave in and have an affair with him, enjoy what he was offering and put off the inevitable heartache for as long as possible. But wouldn’t that be worse? He would tire of her, ditch her and then, on top of everything else, she would have to contend with feeling like a failure.

  It had been after midnight before she had finally fallen into a restless sort of sleep, punctuated with vivid, unsatisfactory dreams.

  It took her a few minutes to realise that the knocking on her bedroom door was not a continuation of yet another unsettling dream with no particular ending.

  It was Joseph and he looked far too bright-eyed for her liking, although that too took a few seconds to appreciate as she stared at him bleary-eyed, hair hanging in a tousled mane around her face.

  ‘What time is it?’ Katy asked, blinking.

  ‘Eight!’

  ‘Is there a problem with Dave?’ Her brain began functioning a little more efficiently and she noticed that Joseph was fully dressed. ‘Do you need me to give you a ride in? I’ll just get changed. Sorry. I’m normally up so early. Give me a few minutes.’

  ‘You little devil!’

  ‘Wha..?’

  ‘Course I knew it. Sensed it. Might be old but I’m not yet a fool!’ He was beaming in a manner that sent a few shivers of alarm running down her spine.

  What on earth was he talking about?

  ‘Mind if I come in, Katy? Won’t be long. Dave’ll be here any minute if he doesn’t oversleep. You know these old people.’ He chuckled and edged his way into her room so that he could plop himself comfortably in her reading chair by the fireplace. ‘All that chat about Bruno leaving, getting me prepared. You should have come clean with me! No…I guess you were worried about how I would receive the news, but, my dear, there was no need! I can’t tell you how delighted I am! Now, I thought you were looking a little flushed yesterday. Not your usual self. Very observant I can be, at times, you have to admit it!’

  Katy had not the faintest idea what he was talking about. She slipped on her dressing gown, and perched herself on the edge of her bed.

  ‘You’re delighted,’ she said, testing the water. ‘I’m delighted that you’re delighted.’ But what at? she wondered, thinking fast and coming up blank.

  ‘Of course, I shall miss you terribly. Hmm. Might have to leave this old place…can’t imagine getting a replacement for you, my dear. Wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘Replacement?’ Now she was beginning to feel as if she had been tossed onto a roller coaster, destination unknown. ‘I wasn’t thinking of leaving, Joseph.’ Well, she had been, true, but how on earth could Joseph have read her mind to that extent? Had she unwittingly said something yesterday? Out loud? She frowned, thinking back, wondering if she had let anything slip about what she was feeling.

  ‘Naturally, not yet.’ He beamed and looked at his watch. ‘Lord, look at the time! I’m going to have to go, my dear, but I just wanted you to know that you’ve made an old man very happy indeed!’

  ‘By planning to leave?’ Katy asked, deeply hurt.

  Joseph, on his feet, took both her hands in his and gave them a comforting squeeze. ‘You’re emotional, I know. It’s an emotional time. But it’s right. I have a gut feeling! You and Bruno are perfectly suited! And I’m so deeply overjoyed that you’ve decided to get married!’

  He almost bounced out of the room, leaving Katy staring at the door in dumbfounded shock.

  Marrying Bruno? Where on earth could he have got that idea from? Was this some weird complication following his heart attack? Hallucinations?

  She was fully awake now and dressed quickly, barely stopping to give her hair a brush. Ten minutes later, she was pelting down the stairs, straight into the kitchen where Bruno was sitting at the kitchen table with an assortment of newspapers in front of him, a cup of coffee and a glass of juice.

  Katy skidded to a halt and every confused thought drained out of her as she absorbed him sitting there. He had pushed himself away from the table so that he could extend his long legs out in front of him. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbows and he had his fingers loosely linked together on his lap. He was so ferociously sexy that she heard her own audible gasp.

  ‘Coffee?’ He pointed to the glass filter jug behind her on the kitchen counter. ‘I’ve just made some.’

  ‘When did you get back?’ She wondered whether Bruno had been privy to any of his godfather’s surreal ramblings. If he hadn’t, then she would just have to wait by the front door until Joseph returned, kidnap him and tell him, very gently of course, that he had got the wrong end of the stick from somewhere.

  She felt a little calmer because Bruno certainly didn’t seem to be flustered, which he would have been had he listened in to what Joseph had told her ten minutes earlier.

  ‘Very early this morning, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘And I guess you haven’t…seen your godfather? Before he left, I mean. He’s gone out with Dave Harrington.’ She turned her back and made a performance of pouring herself a mug of coffee, while she held her breath and waited for his reply.

  ‘Oh, yes, I saw him all right.’

  The silence stretched on and on until Katy finally turned around to find Bruno looking at her. ‘I think you ought to have a look at these newspapers,’ he said conversationally, and, without taking his eyes away from her face, he swivelled one of the tabloids so that it was pointing in her direction.

  Katy walked very tentatively towards the table. There were more newspapers there than she had thought at first. An unnatural amount, in fact.

  She looked at the page of the top one, read the caption and then placed her cup down o
n the table.

  ‘Oh, no. Oh, no.’ Her face drained of colour as she read the short piece. In a breezy, gossipy tone, it announced the engagement of one Katy West and one Bruno Giannella, who was glowingly described as easily the most eligible bachelor in London. With sickening, boot-licking flattery, the article sympathised with all those single females who were now to be deprived of a man lucky enough to be strikingly handsome, mouth-wateringly wealthy and too clever by half.

  ‘That’s my name,’ Katy squeaked, sitting down heavily and then rifling through the selection of newspapers to find similar announcements in most of them. The Financial Times appeared to be the only one not to carry an article on the subject and who, she wondered frantically, ever read the Financial Times anyway?

  ‘And Joseph…?’

  ‘I felt I had to show him so that he could be spared finding it out through one of his friends. You know most of them probably only read the obituaries and the gossip.’

  ‘Bruno, this can’t be happening!’

  ‘The evidence is in front of you.’

  ‘How can you be so calm?’ Katy shrieked with rising hysteria.

  ‘I’ve had a bit more time to get used to it than you.’ He swung round to face her and pulled his chair up towards the table. ‘Isobel phoned me last night to inform me that I might be interested in having a look at the newspapers in the morning. By then, of course, it was too late for me to do anything about it. I came up here first thing.’

  ‘My parents…’ Katy went a shade more ashen. ‘I…I have to call…tell them that it’s all been a terrible mistake…’ She looked across to the telephone and quailed at the thought of what would be involved. Her parents would demand an explanation of how such a rumour could occur in the first place. They would ask piercing questions, which she would be unable to answer. They would insist on driving up to make sure she was all right.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked feverishly. ‘You said that she wouldn’t…’

  ‘Seems she has an even more malicious streak than I imagined.’

  ‘You have to sort this out!’ Katy told him in a panicked voice. ‘This is all your fault!’

  ‘I wouldn’t quite say all mine.’

  ‘And the least you could do is look a little more concerned!’ She couldn’t sit down. She had to move around. She stood up, felt her legs want to give way and promptly sat back down. ‘You have to make an announcement,’ she continued, drawing in a big, shaky breath. ‘Get in touch with your chums at…at the newspapers. You must have dozens of friends at the newspapers! Tell them they made a mistake. Explain about Isobel…’ He was being very calm, she thought. And thank goodness for that, because two frantic people would have been even worse. She had a momentary pang of sympathy for him. He must be feeling just as frantic as she was, but, being a man of formidable self-control, he simply wasn’t showing it. Right now, he probably loathed her for having unwittingly brought this appalling mess on his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bruno,’ Katy whispered. Tears were welling up and she blindly took the handkerchief that was shoved into her hand. ‘I shouldn’t have blamed you. If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened…’ She rubbed her eyes fiercely with the hankie and then looked at him, still amazed that he could remain so controlled. But then Bruno was a highly disciplined man. He wouldn’t burst into tears at something like this. He would probably have already thought it all through and come to a solution.

  ‘I guess you’ve already thought of something…?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘It’s a bit too complicated for an easy solution,’ he said, crushing any little glimmer of hope she had been nurturing.

  ‘Too complicated? Surely you just have to tell them the truth…?’

  ‘First of all, there’s Joseph.’ His brilliant black eyes locked hers and Katy felt herself getting giddy, then she remembered where getting giddy because of those fabulous eyes had got her, and she stared down at the crumpled hankie in her hand. ‘He’s over the moon about this development. It’s put a real spring in his step. We’ve got to consider that he’s just recovering from what could have been something a whole lot more serious. If we break it to him that these articles are all a lie, well…’

  ‘You mean…he might have another heart attack?’

  ‘Who knows? Probably not, but do we take the risk? Then there’s your parents. If they haven’t already read about it, then they will have by the end of the day. I don’t know what they’re like, but the picture I’ve got from you is of two very devoted, very caring people who would be deeply wounded to think that their only daughter had been…’

  Katy, hanging onto every word leaving his lips, had no difficulty in picturing just how her poor, devoted parents would react. She swallowed back a stifled sob.

  ‘And then there’s my professional standing…’

  ‘Your professional standing?’ she parroted.

  ‘I have a reputation in the City and, believe it or not, reputations are based on a whole lot more than just an ability to make money. Were I to be seen as a philanderer who leads a woman on, proposes marriage and then tries to wriggle out of the commitment, then what sort of man would I be seen as?’

  ‘But you are a philanderer. Surely they know that already?’

  Bruno’s jaw clenched and he swallowed hard. ‘I have enjoyed a bachelor life,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. ‘Which is quite different from having a fling with an innocent young girl, proposing marriage to her and then walking away.’

  ‘They don’t know that I’m young and innocent,’ she whispered.

  ‘They will, though. It won’t be long before they head up here, cameras at the ready, to take pictures of the happy couple. My social life has always been followed.’

  Katy didn’t quite know which of these appalling options she should focus on. Joseph, her parents, Bruno’s crumbling career and tarnished reputation or the press banging on the door to take pictures.

  ‘It’s awful,’ she said in a small voice. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I can only think of one thing,’ he said in a low, thoughtful voice. He reached across the table and covered one of her hands with his. ‘We’re just going to have to pretend that the engagement is for real, that we’re a happy couple…as far as the newspapers go, this is a flash in the pan. These stories have a very early sell-by date before they move on to something else.’

  ‘And what about Joseph? My parents?’

  ‘Trickier. We can’t just carry it off for a few days and then stun them with the news that it was all a terrible mistake.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Katy said, dazed.

  ‘You should call your parents. If I’m to meet them, as I undoubtedly will, I don’t want them arriving with low opinions of me. Bad enough, in their eyes, that I would have omitted to call them first and ask for your hand in marriage.’

  ‘You’re being very good about all this, Bruno. I realise you probably want to string me up from the nearest pole…’ She became aware of the pressure of his hand on hers and hurriedly eased hers out. ‘I’ll call my parents.’ It was a statement, not a question, and she knew she was rigid as a block of wood as she stumbled an explanation to her mother over the phone. Fifteen minutes later, she looked at Bruno with a forlorn expression.

  ‘She thinks it’s very romantic,’ Katy said on a sigh. ‘She said that she and Dad were engaged only a fortnight after they first met.’ She sighed again. ‘They’re coming tomorrow. I couldn’t stop them. They’re dying to meet you.’

  ‘Understandable.’

  ‘They can stay in the local hotel. It’s only half an hour’s drive away.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it and nor would Joseph. There’s plenty of room here.’

  ‘But…’ How could she explain that having her parents here would be just too much? Taking the pretence too far? A quick meeting on neutral territory, and she was thinking of tea at the hotel, and there would be no time for them to form any real bonds. A couple of hours
of polite chit-chat and then, when she announced that the engagement was over, that she and Bruno really didn’t get along after all, they would accept it more easily.

  She launched into a garbled explanation of her thinking and then waited until he shook his head slowly.

  ‘It would seem inhospitable. Joseph, I know, would be mortified. He’s nothing if not the soul of hospitality. He would enjoy nothing more than relaxing in the comfort of his own home with your parents, probably showing them his prized first editions and, of course, his orchids.’

  Which was exactly what Katy feared. She opened her mouth to explain just that, but he interrupted her before she could begin,

  ‘And besides, we shouldn’t forget that he’s still recovering from a fairly major health scare. He might seem to be forging ahead in the progress stakes, but anything could set him back and that includes an attack of nerves at having to meet your parents somewhere in town. I just think that he would be a lot happier if the meeting were to take place here.’

  ‘You must be furious with me,’ she said miserably.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Isobel?’

  ‘What would be the point? The thing is done now. We just have to work on sorting it out the best we can.’

  ‘And how long do you think…?’

  ‘Do I think what?’

  ‘Well, how long do we have to go through with this charade?’ His mouth tightened and Katy realised just how awful it would be for him. ‘And what about your work?’ Her frown eased and she nodded a little to herself. ‘Oh, I understand what you’re probably going to do. You’re going to head back to London and then maybe commute on the weekends, and that way,’ she said slowly, ‘we can always say that things didn’t work out because of your work commitments…’ That scenario had a number of benefits, the most important being that if Bruno wasn’t around, it would give her time to get her wayward heart in order.

  ‘That’s an option, indeed,’ Bruno murmured noncommittally. He sat back and observed her flushed face.